Oleh Hat
Pujiati[1]
FIB
Universitas Jember
Jl.
Kalimantan 37 Jember- Jawa Timur
dipresentasikan di Semirata Palangkaraya 2016
Abstrak
Kurikulum
sekolah Menengah Atas menjadikan Sastra Inggris sebagai salah satu
matapelajaran penting dalam usaha menyongsong MEA. Akan tetapi, kelas sastra
Inggris di Sekolah menengah atas tersebut gagal bicara sastrakarena kurangnya
pengetahuan guru akan sastra. Kelas sastra tersebut justru bicara tata bahasa
seperti kelas Bahasa Inggris biasa menggantikan sastra yang seharusnya. Kondisi
seperti ini dilaporkan oleh beberapa guru sekolah favorit di Jember-Jawa Timur.
Berangkat dari peristiwa tersebut maka saya menulis makalah ini untuk
mendiskusikan sastra dan peluang-peluangnya di dunia nyata. Karena dunia
imjinatif yang dihadirkan dalam karya sastra, sastra kerab dipandang sebagai
subjek yang tidak penting oleh kebanyakan orang di Indonesia. Lebih jauh lagi,
sastra mendapat porsi yang sedikit dalam kurikulum sekolah, bahkan dalam Bahasa
Indonesia, pembelajaran sastra dihentikan dengan menghilangnya porsi sastra
dari buku sekolah siswa. Maka itu makalah ini akan fokus pada kegunaan
mengenali hubungan sastra dan dunia nyata, sastra dan ruang-ruangnya sebagai
ilmu pengetahuan, dan peluang sastra dalam industry kreatif sebagai penggerak
dan penghubung diversitas budaya dalam menyambut MEA. Dengan demikian sastra
dilihat sebagai politik dalam makalah ini.
Abstract
High school
curriculum puts English literature as one of the important subjects in
welcoming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Unfortunately the classes fail to
discuss English Literature because of the teachers’ lack of knowledge on
literature. They study grammar like the usual Bahasa Inggris class instead of
literature. This poor condition has been reported by school teachers in a
favorite high school in town, Jember-Jawa Timur. I write this paper to discuss
literature and its changes in real world.
Since the imaginative world presented in literary works, literature is
taken as unimportant subject by the common people in Indonesia. Moreover,
literature has insufficient portion in the school curriculum, even in Bahasa
Indonesia, studying literature is stopped, it vanishes from the school books. Therefore,
this paper focuses on the advantages of recognizing the relation of literature
and real world, literature and its space as science, and literature and its
change in creative industry as a motor and a link of the cultural diversities
in welcoming AEC. Thereby, literature is seen as a politics in this paper.
Asean Economic Community (AEC) is an issue
spread in the ASEAN society around this 2015-2016. Sectors of social life have
been planned to face the AEC, including the school’s curriculum in Indonesia. According
to the Ministry of Education and Culture Decree No 59 year 2014 about 2013 High School’s Curriculum, Subjects in Senior
High School must set in three groups: A, B, and C. Each group consist of some
subjects and concentration. For language and culture concentration, it has
literature as one of the subjects. What I want to discuss in this paper is
literature that is hardly recognized and understood by students and also common
people in Indonesia. Favorite high school in my town, Jember-East Java, also
has problems with the Ministerial Decree to open English Literature class for
the students. They have no competence teachers for the class so that they teach
grammar in English Literature class. I point the school’s lack of competence
teacher on literature not as a simple individual problem, it has happened
because Literature is commonly seen as a kind of magical or irrational subject.
Even in Elementary schools, Indonesian literature vanishes from the elements of
Bahasa Indonesia subject. Therefore, I see the main problem in this case is
underestimation on cultural science. Literature is a part of culture.
Literature records the civilization of people and it also inspiring people to
develop their civilization in the future. Narration in literary works is able
to hegemonize people, narration embodies power and it can be a tool to conquer
people. In other words, literature can be a space of politics.
Realizing the change of literature as
politics, literature must be considered as important subject to build a nation.
But how can literature be such important? How can it be a part of politics in
facing AEC? This paper discusses relations of literature and real world,
literature and its space as science, and literature and its change in creative
industry as a motor and a link of the cultural diversities in welcoming AEC.
Literature
and Real World
Literature
has many definitions, different perspectives provides different definition. The
broadest sense of literature definition relate to any written text. I agree
with it in some cases, but in this perspective, literature is not limited on
the written text. There are literary works that is not written such as
folktale. Then we need to add the definition that literature can be written and
spoken. Furthermore, literature is different from history or any report that
provides facts. Even though a literary work is inspired from a true story, a
literary work is a fiction because the facts in it are not the same facts of
the real world. Imagination has been added to the reality in literary work and
it betrays the real fact. The consequences
of this fact, literature cannot be taken as a document to proof reality
directly, but we need to bring it to the real world through a series of
analysis. Imagination that is added to the events in the literary works strengthens
the position of literature as an imaginative product. The imaginative product
has aesthetic values, this point distinguishes literature from other texts but
it also weakens its position in the perspective of people who glorify natural
science. The distance between reality (real fact) and imagination in literature
blocks those people to recognize its values since the law of certainty as the
price of rationality (as a law of science) is not provided directly in the
works of art (literature). However, the closest bridge of literature with the
reality is the language used as medium. Language as the medium used in
literature is the thing that we need to scrutinize in case to find out real facts and its distance with the real world. Language records the history of the
community who speaks it, it explains the culture of the speakers. Then, studying
literature cannot be separated from culture.
Studying literature that uses language as the
medium does not mean that it is equal with studying grammatical aspects of the
language. A text of literary work is not about what is merely stated but also
it also deals with what is not mentioned in the text. However, it does not mean
that literature is separated from linguistics. Studying literature needs
linguistics knowledge, even it needs to be done with the basic linguistics
problems. No matter what prize has given to the literary work, if the reader
does not speak the language used in the work, the work is unfathomable and it
cannot be enjoyed or commented. The literary work will be speechless if we just
highlight the grammatical constructions in the text without relate it to the
context built in it.
Juri Lotman, in his structural perspective has
stated that language used in literary work is a secondary modeling system,
which means that the language used in literary work is not a natural language
or daily language (Lotman;1977;9-11). He assumes that language has layers; there
are systems in the language. Idea-content
and artistic features are not something separated in literature. Literature does
not presents the reality, Lotman has said that idea art is a model to present “reconstruction of an image reality”
(1977;12). Hence, language in the literary work needs a special treatment to
understand it, to find out the message hidden in the work of art. That What I
mean by studying literature does not mean equal with studying grammatical rules
as in daily language. Artistic features embodies in a work of art has contribution
in constructing meaning.
Text and context of literary world are like a
coin sides. All text is built in certain context, and literature can explain
something in detail when it is related to the context. A literary text is only
connected to the real world without any barrier at the point of discourse. In simple definition, Klerer
defines discourse as “a variety of written
and oral manifestations which
share common thematic or structural features. The boundaries of these
terms are not fixed and vary depending on the context in which they appear”
(Klerer:2004; 04). What is presented in a literary work links to the reality in
discourse. Author is not the one who
determines meaning in his/her works, s/he is only an agent between the society
and the reader. All the construction in his/her work is a result of his/her
interaction within a social system, since a literary works “reflects all the
rules, system, procedures which constitute and are constituted by the ‘the will
to knowledge’ “(Young; 1981: 48). Furthermore,
Foucault has assumed that all text has authentic voice that can be revealed by
assessing the discursive practices (a conceptual terrain in which knowledge is
formed and produced). Discursive practices create virtual limitation to think
about something outside of the construction, it cages the knowledge or else
they will be excluded as abnormal, there the discursive rules link to the
exercise power (1981: 48). Foucault (in Young: 1981: 48-49) has stated that “in
every society, the production of discourse is controlled, organized,
redistributed, by a certain numbers of procedures whose role is to ward off its
powers and danger to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its
materiality”. The model that Foucault has used in assessing his genealogy of
knowledge theory is literary works. In sort, literary works record human
knowledge about the universe: about life in culture, social, economics, even
politics.
Literature
as Science and Creative Products
As
Explained in previous concept of discourse by Foucault, the relation of
Literature and reality (world) is revealed. The way literary works recording
world’s phenomena in aesthetics way shows the role of literature in
understanding the culture, social, economics, and politics to tackle recent
phenomena and also to plan future phenomena. In broad sense, the universe of literature is divided into two groups, they are creative products and scientific study. Both of the groups
are connected each other, the theories develop in the scientific group relate
to what develop in the creative group and vice versa. Literary works as creative works are material
objects of the literary studies and the result of the researches in literary
studies are also responded in the creative work. Relation of the two groups is mutual;
the following diagram shows this relation:
Diagram 1. Relation of the universe of
literature, the development of literature as science (Literary studies) and literature
as creative works supports each other (the diagram is taken from Prof.Dr.
Chamamah’s slide in a literature class).
Abrams has postulated four perspectives in
recognizing literary woks related to the real world (Abrams:1971:06). He has
introduced mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and objective perspectives. The
following diagram depicts the perspectives in literature and its relation with
the world.
When Russian Formalism developed, objective perspective
becomes the dominant rule in seeing literature and reality to against James Stallin’s
policy. However, far before the Russian Formalism, Plato had proposed mimetic
perspective to recognize literature and universe, he believed that a art is a
copy of the universe. Literature is also perceived as the expression of the
author in responding the world. While reader-oriented theories is in the sphere
of pragmatic perspective since it deals with message from the writer to the
readers.
Realizing the relation of the imaginative
world in literature with simplified reality in the concept above, I would like
to give some examples of literary researches have been done in my institution
by students of literature. American Literature lately tends to play
Neo-liberalism in the works. Ivanda Noviani in her research entitled The Representation
of Beauty in Three Fairy Tales, Little
Snow White, Cinderella,
and Rapunzel Presented
in Enchanted ,using Stuart Hall’s
theory of Representation, has found that the plural worlds
constructed in Enchanted is not a new redefinition of world construction
but innovations. The old fairytales emerge in a new fairy-tale-like-novel (Enchanted)
and present the same old ideologies of beauty: patriarchy ideology, woman
stereotypes as a weak and an emotional creature who are saved by a marriage. Completely she states as the following:
All
the fairy tales portrays marriage as the best way to solve problems in women’s
life. This condition proves that it is not a kind of deconstruction but it is
just an innovation. Both the previous fairy tales and modern ones, beauty is
constructed to entertain and attract men. This depiction is the heritage of the
journey of beauty construction from the previous fairy tales. This case
indicates that beauty concept in late modernism is quite difficult to be
removed. (2015;43)
In short, Ivanda
Noviani’s research shows that Enchanted brings the same beauty myth like
Little Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel. In other words, Enchanted
as a modern fairytale (-like novel) is only a display box of plural worlds
brought by the characters but it does not renewing the construction of beauty: but
the same content (as the old ones) with a new casing. Siti Hanifa strengthens
this assumption with her research entitled The Representation of Beauty
Discourse in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies Series. She states that:
“…Uglies
Series applies
the neo-liberalism ideology in which the society is offered the proposal of
freedom with the hidden aim to control it unconsciously. The Smokies as the
rebels create the beauty construction that frees people to look what they want
them to be. They own their freedom to decide what they want to look whether
they want to stay as they are or to fix their appearance. This freedom is kind
of deceitful as what lies behind it is the controlling intention over the
society. It shows that every construction even the beauty construction has
nothing to do with freedom as there is still unconsciously controlled.” (2016:
48).
Hanifa has found that neo-liberalism is the dominant
ideology is constructed in the novel. The freedom that is offered in the beauty
discourse (represented by Smokies and Special communities in the novel) is only
a surface display while actually both of them intend to control power behind
the choices. The ideologies beyond the discourse that are presented in the Uglies Series is match with
neo-liberalism as the recent American Economics ideology. Furthermore,
Mas’Ula in her research entitled Postmodern Strategies in Alex Flin’s A
Kiss in Time also has found similar tendency in the work. All the
diversity worlds that are presented in intertextuality with already exist
stories, like film and literary works before; A Kiss in Time is only
extending casing-display-game in neo-lib ideology. The casing-display-game
indicate the postmodern condition as what Lyotard called it as “Anything Goes”
realism; realism of money that money can buy anything, including buying power
(Malpas: 2005: 2). Flinn’s A Kiss in Time shows postmodern society who
lives hyperreality where fact and fiction collision in the worlds’
construction. Rahina Wanodya’s also has discussed Hyperreality in American’s
world through her Hyperealities in Cyberpunk novel Free to Fall by Lauren Miller. She
has found that there are four Levels of hyperrealities in Free to Fall which
indicate the society’s anxiety in the universe of technology and the society’s loss
of consciousness in the simulations.
Diagram 3. Rahina Manik
Wanodya’s finding on Hyperrealities in Free to Fall (2015:48)
The diagram shows that
Cyberpunk novel entitled Free to Fall is a kind of hyperreality since it
disrupts the distance of fact and fiction in the reader’s consciousness. The
setting that is used in the novel is Massachusetts, a city that linear to the
American geographical map. The city is identical with the sophisticated
technology because of the existence of a world best IT university.
Massachusetts in the novel is also as a center of governmental since the
society is a high tech society. One who has dominant program becomes the leader
and controls every individual through the technology. The leader simulates God and Massachusetts as
the paradise. The novel convinces the reader that America is a leading country
in technology that can create happiness as paradise does (Wanodya:2015:49).
Americanization
in every aspect of life is strengthening American identity construction,
including in fashion discourse. R.A.J Safina Adam has analyzed Genealogy of
Fashion in Devil’s Wears Prada and found the ruin of European
centrism in fashion through this work which is extended into film. Casual style
is presented as the counter discourse of the elegance and classy style in the
novel. The casual style that is
presented as the most comfortable and healthy style is set as the dominant
discourse. American perspective formulates science in the fashion style
discourse countering artistic beauty that is embodied in the European style. Casual
Style that is chosen by Andrea is based on medical healthy standard rather than
zero size that is chosen by Miranda who glorify artistic beauty in fashion.
Through the examples, we find that American literaryworks tells the world about
its level of civilization and they transform it into many other forms of cultural
product; film, fashion, and merchandise products. Americanization (and even
Disneyzation) (Setawati (2005:18) in Pujiati: 2009:10) are cultural American
politics to construct a great state-nation identity in the world. Ideological messages
that are internalized through the work of arts are taken as a change to rule
the world in economical perspective. Creative industry is a way to built nation
from the inside; to doctrine the American people with the American Dream, and
from the outside: it is assessed by the international community through their
global creative works.
American literary works tends to present
magical things and enchantments through technology while English Literature
tends to be philosophical in perceiving life. The monarch system of the Great
Britain makes the expression of the artistic ideas in philosophical modes
through myths. Let’s say Romeo and Juliet; Juliet has drunk poison that makes
her seem to be died for 24 hours. The poison is magical to kill Juliet only for
24 hours. Christmas Carol by Charles
Dickens brings Spirits to Scrooge’s dream. The
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde presents admiration to the painting
of Dorian Gray that magically changes its expression and its appearance that lead
Dorian to kill people he thinks become his obstacles to remain young and
beautiful as a person and as a picture. The Picture of Dorian Grey is a
negotiation on the rigid Victorian moral rules from through homosexuality
discourse in the text (Ariyanto: 2015). The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar
Wilde's rejection on the domination of moral value of the Victorian. Wilde as a
gay writer offers aestheticism to breakthrough homosexuality discourse that
condemned by Victorian society. In Wilde‘s perspective, beauty, love and admiration on aesthetic is
also divine things that cannot be ignored or underestimated as what the
society’s has done. While Harry Potter,
Narnia, Lord of the Ring reconstruct and create new myths. Inlink is a community that becomes the
canopy of mythopoeic school in GB.
Philosophical fights often become a chosen model in English works of art.
However, efforts to develop another school is quite successful with Fifty Shades
of Grey by E.L. James (2011), a novel comes from a American Twilight fanfiction. Vulgar ideas in
expressing sexual life remind us to D. H Lawrence naturalism fiction. Celebration
in expressing BDSM behavior brings different perspective in normal sex all this
time around. The Fifty Shade series are questioning the society’s sanity about
normal sexuality. After all, through some example I mentioned above, I conclude
that English Literature plays politics to negotiate the government’s policy and
the society in philosophical modes to construct their identity as a great
nation. The reading habit of the people is a gate to move them through literary
works as once they have stimulated Industrial revolution. Furthermore, English
literature shows the greatness of the Great Britain through the dialectical
artistic ideas in literature. Long history of England is recorded in their
literary works, through the language traces.
Politics and
Creative Industry
Learning from American and English literature,
we can see that appreciation on literature construct and strengthen the
greatness of the nation. If American literature becomes the inspiration of the
entrepreneurs to move in creative industries and English Literature become a
negotiation medium to assess the nation’s strength and inspire the world with
the philosophical and artistic ideas, what we can do with Indonesian literature
in the AEC era?
Helvy Tiana Rosa as the leader of
Forum Lingkar Pena (FLP) has started to use literature as a movement, to
inspire people to read and to write literature and transform it into films and
TV’s series in the name of Syi’ar.
FLP moves people from different social levels. Furthermore, Helvy Tiana Rosa
inspires a massive movement in changing perspective; Western culture is not the
only role-model in life, but Middle East is also a worth substitution. This
perspective is supporting Muslim wear business in Indonesia that strengthens
AEC market. A designer like Dian Pelangi who can mix and match and create universal
design based on syar’i wear is a
compatible asset for the Indonesian Global market. She can respond and read the
needs of the market and offering her products with her idealism to the world
market. The rise of her success as a designer is also influenced by the
zeitgeist: the changing perspective from Western to Middle-East in Indonesia.
Indonesia has a rich culture that
still needs to be explored to build creative industries through literature. Localpoeic
is an alternative model of discourse construction in literary works that use
locality as the modal of creation or making (Pujiati and Irana; 2016: 130).
Local culture in discourse can be a weapon to move people. Ideologies in
discourses that are constructed in literature are able to hegemonize massively.
However, critical thinking that stimulates to create creative products needs
knowledge. Knowledge is gained through reading, and reading ability is
assessable in literary works’ appreciation.
Conclusion
When literature is erased from the Indonesian
elementary school curriculum, it is a poor condition on the development of the
nation’s intellectuality. The will to a detail reading becomes a privilege for
those who can go to the universities and critical thinking in social humaniora
field is not a part of the whole nation identity. People are set to be
pragmatic and busy with the basic needs that lead them to be a market rather than a producer. And I would say that the
curriculum erasure on literature fools people which will be an open way to
genocide. If the fake vaccination that has happened in Dejabotabek out of any
political action, but individual crime for the sake of money, it means that
members of this nation almost genocide their own people because of their fool
in their effort to get money. If the
foreign workers who come in massive numbers to Indonesia nowadays is because of
the smart economic-politics of the foreign investors, I question how weak our
negotiation is since we also have migrant labors who are "slaved" in
the foreign countries.
Authors and academician needs to communicate
through their works – to negotiate, to access the industrial world – to win the
market with a reputable works in the world –to tell the world about the
greatness of the nation, to counter Anindita’s perception on Indonesian authors
as socialite authors who are not productive and proud to be a secondary writers
after the western writers in international forums (Republika; May 8, 2016). Literature
can be a political strategy in facing the AEC. Jules Verne inspire people on
earth to go to the moon, Around the World
in 80 Days leads people to invent a fast transportation to make a dream of
going around the world in days come true. Revolutions in the world are moved
and inspired by literature, then it is not a hyperbole to take changes in the
AEC market through a literary movements.
Refferences
Books
Abrams,M.H. 1971.
Mirror and The Lamp: Romantic Theory and
Critical tradition. NewYork: Oxford University press., Inc.
Malpas, Simon. 2005.The Postmodern. NewYork:
Routledge.
Pujiati, Hat, and Irana Astutiningsih. 2016. Spiritualitas sebagai Localpoeic
dari Komunitas Sastra di Daerah Tapal Kuda; Jember-Situbondo-Banyuwangi Jawa
Timur. Yogyakarta:Ladang Kata.
Young, Robert. 1987. Untying the Text: A Poststructuralist Reader.
London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Thesis
Adam,
Safina. 2016. Fashion Discourse and Power in Twenty-First Century in Lauren
Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada. Skripsi prasyarat kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra
Inggris Universitas
Jember.
Pujiati,
Hat. 2009. Novel Enchanted dalam Kajian Postmodern Brian McHale. Tesis prasyarat
kelulusan S-2 Program Studi American Studies Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Wanodya,
Rahina Manik. 2015. The hyperrealities in cyberpunk Novel Free to Fall By
Lauren Miller. Skripsi prasyarat kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra Inggris Universitas Jember.
Mas’Ula.
2016. Postmodern Strategies in Alex
Flinn’s A Kiss in Time. Skripsi prasyarat kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra Inggris Universitas Jember.
Ariyanto,
Ika Safitri. 2015. The Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian
Gray: A Genetic Structuralism AnaLYSIS. Skripsi prasyarat kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra
Inggris Universitas
Jember
Hanifa, Siti.
2016. The Repersentation of Beauty Discourse in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies
Series. Skripsi prasyarat kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra Inggris Universitas Jember.
Noviani,
Ivanda Zahro. 2016. The Representattion of Beauty Discourse in three
fairytales: Little Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel Presented in Enchanted.
Skripsi prasyarat
kelulusan S-1 Program Studi Sastra Inggris Universitas Jember
Setiawati, Beta. 2005. ““Disneyzation” of Non American Stories in Disneys’
Films: A study on Popular Cultur”. Tesis prasyarat kelulusan S-2 Program
Studi American Studies Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Newspaper
Replublika, published on May 08, 2016 linked
in Facebook account.
[1]
Hat Pujiati adalah dosen pengajar sastra di sastra Inggris FIB Universitas
Jember – Jawa Timur, melakukan penelitian-penelitian kekuatan komunitas sastra
dan gerakannya dan menekuni kajian sastra realisme magis serta sastra posmodern
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