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THEXITERARVSTUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE:
SOME OBSERVATIONS
by
AMIN SWEENEY
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
♦In this their views are very similar to those of Scholes and Kellogg (1966:40).
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PART 1, 1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
are written' in various languages," and that "historical" pertains to "history, refe
real or presumed facts, events, persons in the past" (p.3). It is this definition of
which should surely determine the actual use to which they are put. Then, inste
"literature" or "historical" we could equally well use "x" or "y" as signifiers
wished. Yet it is here that the posit ivistic presuppositions appear to assert them
Instead of using the terms as he has defined them, Professor Teeuw feels the n
"dwell briefly on each of these two words," and considers what literature really
This seems to reflect a pre-Saussurean, substantive way of thinking. "Literature
as a Platonic form; behind the word there is some pristine meaning to be sought
even if Professor Teeuw were only attempting to achieve a consensus of Western
through the ages as to what constitutes "literature," the results would be mislead
to the tendency of societies to naturalize the ideas of the past in accordance wit
own perceptions. For example, modern scholars showed great ingenuity in t
rationalize Plato's views on "poetry" and his hostility towards it, until Havelock
demonstrated that Plato's conception of "poetry" was entirely different from tha
modern age. Thus, even if Professor Teeuw were merely seeking a consensus of
the approach he uses would provide him only with twentieth century Western pe
of what constitutes literature. More specifically, he would be dealing with the per
of a highly-literate, visually-consuming, print culture.
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
This is not to imply a rejection of the idea of the text as an autonomous whole, to
which, moreover, the New Critics by no means had sole rights. Even Trotsky, whose
Marxism was anathema to the New Critics, ascribes a high degree of autonomy to an
artistic form, while recognizing that it is the product of social "content" (Eagleton,
1976:43). But to insist on a divorce between literature and "life," "reality," or "society,"
is to deny its social function and normative effects, for literature is an instrument of
socialization, it reinforces a society's norms and values and, paradoxically, may also
question them, thus helping to bring about social change.
The New Critics' insistence on a close study of the text itself, moreover, is wholly
laudable, and again this was already a widely accepted idea, deriving from explication de
texte. But of course a work of art could not really be studied in a vacuum, and the New
Critics naturally took for granted the wealth of knowledge, not merely of the literary
context but also of the social background which they had to bring to bear on a text even
to understand it. But the problem for those who see literature as discourse is that the
New Critics tended to view a text as an object somehow independent of both author and
audience. Their concept of the reader was an "ideal" reader, and though perhaps not as
anti-intentionalistic as often stated, they concentrated on the text's intentions, in which
an author had no part, and "tended to reduce the variety of actual intentions to a few
basic qualities - unity, coherence, complexity, irony - and thus seemed to a later gene-
ration to impose a straitjacket on the reader" (Booth, 1979:370). The separation of
author and audience is rejected alike by the "New Rhetoric" and structuralism, (though
in other respects their approaches differ markedly). Barthes (1974:4), for example,
observes that "Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary
institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner
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PART 1 , 1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
and its customer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into
a kind of idleness - he is intransitive; . .
In considering the term "historical," Professor Teeuw states that "By definition,
historical, used as a qualification for a text, indicates the fact that this text refers to the
extralinguistic reality of the past" (p.5). I feel it would have been helpful if Professor
Teeuw had distinguished between "history" as the past, and "history" as the report on
the past, or perception of the past, for his use of "extralinguistic reality" seems to imply
that there is some such existing entity. History is not out there waiting to be recorded;
it is created by man, and is the product of interpretation in language. It is his perception
of the past.
Professor Teeuw has thus dispensed with his original, adequate definition of the
terms "literature" and "historical"; in their stead he has presented as the intrinsic mean-
ings of the words what are, in fact, the opinions of a certain element of a particular
society at a given point in time. Of course, the problem of referentiality causes Professor
Teeuw to see an apparent contradiction of terms, which has to be reconciled in anticipa-
tion of what he knows he will find in his "Indonesian textual materials." This causes him
to examine his terms for the third time, "somewhat more closely," which involves the
inclusion of various qualifications and reservations to what has been said before. The
liberal use of phrases such as "even if it is true, generally speaking," "it is true that in
general," "however, this does not mean ... no relation whatsoever," etc., gives the
impression of backtracking, and leads by way of a loose argument to the view that "the
distinction between literary and referential use of language is neither absolute nor water-
tight." The final distinction made this time is slightly different from before: again the
reader need not think about the relation of literature to "outside reality;" the question
for the reader is whether the story is 44rue. . .as a story." However, "a real event" may
produce "a true story," but the author transforms "reality into literature in his own
way," and this will differ (a difference of kind, not of degree) from "the report. . .by the
journalist or the historian" (pp.6-7).
One wonders why, if this is the distinction Professor Teeuw wishes to make, he did
not do so at the outset, for the distinction is only what he chooses to make it, and the
problem of apparent contradiction is self-created, resulting from his choice of model. I
believe that a rhetorical or structuralist approach (for Professor Teeuw's methodology
is not, apparently, structuralist, despite the random mention of tel quel) would have
avoided the problems of his distinction. Thus, the structuralists' concept of the sign
unites not a "thing" and its name, but a concept or signifie and its signifiant Professor
Teeuw, however, still appears to see matters in terms of words relating to "referents" in
the "real" world, and it is clear from his frequent references to "reality" that he believes
in some ordered "reality" out there, independent of human perception.
Professor Teeuw now brings his model to bear on Indonesian materials. This is a
strangely circular argument: having dubbed "historical literature" those Indonesian texts
possessing some perceived similarity to what for him is "literature" and "history," he
creates a model in which the two terminological slots have been semantically refilled with
the presuppositions of one element of a highly literate print culture, and applies it to the
writings of a radically oral society in order to see whether the Indonesian materials really
are literature and/or history. The problem is that he is unaware that they are only pre-
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
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PART 1,1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
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PART 1, 1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
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PART 1, 1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
The fact that the African artist who would attack the social system must make use
of traditional forms (p.349) does not reflect any special feature of "traditional society,"
or the fact that his art is performing art, or that the society is not open to surprises.
Rather, it is an example of what has been emphasized above concerning audience ex-
pectation: whether or not a composer intends to introduce change, he must first establish
common ground with his audience.
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PART 1, 1983 LITERARY STUDY OF MALAY-INDONESIAN LITERATURE
I feel, therefore, that Professor Teeuw's belief that the "aesthetic of opposition
is very probably found in the presentation of traditional literature again begs the q
tion. This would have become even clearer if he had distinguished between literature
oral composition, for he appears to be referring to the latter. As it is not clear how
chanting of a manuscript - as was the custom inter alia in traditional Malay society
could introduce the aesthetic of opposition, he would be forced to make a basic dist
tion between literature, which does not have such an "aesthetic," and oral compositi
which he suspects does, although evidence is not given.
I believe that this whole question of a distinction between "traditional" a
"modern" becomes a lot less problematic if we view it in the following terms: the exp
tation that convention will be violated is itself a convent^pn, which only tends to ari
a highly literate print culture, where the consumption of literature is visual.
My aim in this paper has not been to score points off Professor Teeuw, for wh
work I have the greatest respect. Rather, I have been concerned with attemptin
demonstrate how prone we all are to naturalize what is culturally alien and to perce
our own standards as universais. I am aware how easy it is to see through the presu
sitions of others, and how difficult to identify one's own assumptions. It is, howev
positive step to become aware of one's own very problematic position as observer.
' Without doubt, many of Professor Teeuw's views on literature will be found acc
able by some modern literati in Indonesia and Malaysia, and I am not by any m
suggesting that this should be a cause for concern, My point is, however, that it is
evidence of the universality of such views, but merely reflects historical developm
in particular the heritage of colonial education and the transition from being a rad
oral manuscript culture to a print culutre, The Dtuch have had no small part in the d
lopment of modern Indonesian literature and criticism. Thus, when a scholar oi Profe
Teeuw's stature and influence finds welcome confirmation of his views in the writi
of Indonesians, it is quite likely that those writings owe much, in fact, to the work
Professor Teeuw himself.
While not wishing to belittle the very significant contribution that Professor Tee
has made to this field, I do feel that it is time to exercise more caution in prescrib
rules for the writing of literature in a culture very different from one's own. The
that, for example, Indonesian literature has adopted the genre "novel" from the West
middle class should not be a reason for expecting that the Indonesian novel should m
the requirements of its Western "counterpart" any more than we expect a Malay se
to resemble a Sanskrit sloka , or a hikayat to suit the taste of the intended reader
Arabic hikayat. The norms and values of the Indonesian author and his audience are
those of the West. The questions he wishes to answer, the effects he seeks to create
reactions he requires from his audience and the methods he uses to achieve these ai
are likely to be very different from what obtains in an industralized, urbanized Wes
society.
A word of approval or disapproval for a writer in many third world countries from
a Western professor of literature often has dramatic effects on that writer's fortunes in
his own country. It would be unfortunate, therefore, if Indonesian and Malaysian authors
were to write for a postulated audience of Western professors rather than for their own
societies.
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AMIN SWEENEY JMBRAS VOL. 56
WORKS CUED
Barthes, Roland, 1970, S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974. (French original 1970
Bohannan, L., 1966, "Shakespeare in the Bush." Natural History, 75, 7.
Booth, Wayne, С., 1961, The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago.
121.
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