The Serat Jatiswara : structure and change in a Javanese poem, 1600-1930

Abstract

This thesis undertakes the study of a large group of closely related Javanese texts that together comprise a single literary "corpus". The corpus is that of the poem titled Serat Jatiswara, containing some 50 extant manuscripts divisible into seven distinct "recensions", or versions of the poem. Rather than using the rich manuscript record to winnow away all variations in the pursuit of a critical text in the philological tradition, the study focuses on just those variations. The major metrical, narrative and language structures by which the poem is organized, and within which the variation occurs, are examined in great detail. Conclusions are drawn both about the nature of the structures themselves in a synchronic view of Javanese text-building, and about the ways in which these structures change over time. The result throws considerable light on the basic processual questions of composition and transmission in the Javanese textual tradition, as well as highlighting the long history of the Jatiswara poem itself.