Java at the crossroads; Aspects of Javanese Cultural history in the 14th and 15th centuries

Abstract

The study of Javanese literature still has a long way to go. Many more texts need to be edited and translated, but this by itself will not be enough. The works that make up Javanese literature also need to be placed within a wider framework, both the framework of history and that of the achievements of Javanese culture as a whole. It is a question of perspective. The significance of the part is only fully appreciated when it is seen in the company of its fellow-parts making up the sum total. And so two basic assumptions to be found here are, firstly, that it is possible to view Javanese literature as developing and changing over a of time, and, secondly, that it is useful to see this process against the background of the culture of which, after all, literature is only one expression. The certain period chosen here is the 14th and 15th centuries, although it will be necessary to stray over the borders at either end: history can very rarely be cut into neat blocks. The significance of this is that it lies in the middle; the great classics of Old Javanese belong for the most part to an earlier time, and the literature of Modern Javanese has yet to be born. And yet, seen in another light, it is a time when both meet. This is, then, the age of Middle Javanese literature, a literature that arose in Hindu Java and was continued in Bali, a literature that used new themes and a different form, the kidung. So it is from a desire to explore the background to the rise of this literature that the present study comes.

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