German Works on Malay Culture and Literature Since the Nineteenth Century

German scholarly works on Malay literature and culture since the nineteenth century followed several clearly distinguishable periods. From the early nineteenth century until the 1950s, Malaya was mostly perceived as a place of folk literature, fairy tales, and historical legends. After the Second Wo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 2007-12, Vol.80 (2 (293)), p.51-65
Main Author: Graf, Arndt
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British literature
Fairy tales
Folktales
German literature
Literature
Modern literature
Poetry
Popular literature
Southeast Asian culture
Southeast Asian literature
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:German scholarly works on Malay literature and culture since the nineteenth century followed several clearly distinguishable periods. From the early nineteenth century until the 1950s, Malaya was mostly perceived as a place of folk literature, fairy tales, and historical legends. After the Second World War, this historical legacy was particularly revived in communist East Germany where the low genres' of 'folk tales' were given special emphasis. Also in West Germany, a number of scholars from the pre-war period continued with such a focus on traditional Malay culture. After 1969, when Malaysia entered a phase of stability and development, in West German academia, a comparatively large number of publications on Malaysian literature, both classical and contemporary, emerged. In addition, from 1981 onwards, the scholarly cooperation between Malaysia and Germany also resulted in a number of high-quality translations of literary works by Malaysian national literary laureates (Sasterawan Negara) into German. Since the 1990s, the Malaysian side took on an increasingly greater role in the field of international studies on Malay language and literature, which also influenced Malaysian-German literary relations.
ISSN:0126-7353
2180-4338