Book description
The sly wit and silky eroticism of the verse genre known as
romantic syair were staple dishes on the Southeast Asian cultural menu,
especially in the Malay, Islamic regional centres. Yet very few examples are
available in translation for the many readers interested in the genre, and
attempts by academics to account for their powers of attraction are even
rarer. This book is the author's effort to convey the seductive qualities of
the sexiest of the romantic syair, the 'Poem of Bidasari'.
Few Malay works have been loved and disseminated to the extent the Syair
Bidasari has. It was translated in other languages of the region like
Mikassarese and Maranao and adapted for the Malay theatre and cinema.
Three tasks are attempted in the book: a translation into Roman characters
of one of the surviving Malay manuscripts of the poem, a translation of that
manuscript into English, and an inquiry into the poem's virtues. The
intertexts drawn upon in the analysis reveal the author's conviction that
understanding of traditions of kesenian rakyat (popular arts) such as pantun
and the Malay theatre provides the background that allows the text to
signify most powerfully.
About the author
Julian Millie teaches in the School of Languages,
cultures and Linguistics at the Berwick campus of Monash University.
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