The Unity of Culture: A New Reading in Javanese Traditional Poetry

Abstract

. This paper argues for the existence and demonstrates the way of composing macapat in Javanese Islamic tradition. It examines several not fully explored texts in several early modern Javanese manuscripts written by pesantren agents. To examine those manuscripts which were written roughly in the range from 1700-1900, the research starts with philological study. Then, it employs the framework proposed by Davaney [1] in analyzing the dynamic process of culture. In conclusion, the paper shows that not only does macapat exist in pesantren, the Islamic traditional education body has also played an important role on the dissemination of the traditional song especially for transmission of religious teachings. The research also discovers that the agency of pesantren actors to popularize Arabic kitabs and to ease the process of study those books leads to the rendering Arabic kitabs into macapat in Javanese. Thus, this paper shows that the pesantren tradition is part of the formation of what is called “Javanese culture”.