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SYNOPSIS OF JAVANESE LITERATURE 900-1900 A.D. 00150 Introduction.

The present Synopsis of Javanese litera ture, 900—1900 A.D., does not pretend to be a History of Javanese literary activity. The data for writing a trustworthy historical survey provided with full particulars on names and dates of authors and their lives are lacking, and the chance of discovering them seems small. Most works are anony mous, and in many cases the age is a matter of conjecture. Therefore the present author has confined himself to giving characteri zations of texts, indicating their places in the frame of Javanese literature. For ease of survey the mass of Javanese writings is systematically divided into four Parts (see 00010): I Religion and Ethics, 10.000—19.240. II History and Mythology, 20.000—29.420. HI Belles-Lettres, 30.000—31.468. IV Science, Arts, Humanities, Law ; Folk lore, Customs and Miscellanea, 40.000— 49.970. Historically and geographically four Eras °f cultural development are distinguished m the present Synopsis (see 00020) : A. a pre-Islamic period of about six centu ries, about 900-1500 A.D., mainly in East Java. B. a Javanese-Balinese period of about four centuries, about 1500—1900 A.D., in Bali and Lombok.

C. a Javanese North Coast (Pasisir) period, about 1500—1700 A.D. D. a period of renaissance of classical litera ture, about 1700—1900 A.D., mainly in Central Java. Tentatively in the development of Javanese literature five literary idioms are distin guished (see 00030): 1. Old Javanese, mainly in East Java. 2. Javanese-Balinese, in Bali and Lombok. 3. North Coast (Pasisir) Javanese of East and Central Java. 4. North Coast (Pasisir) Javanese of West Java. 5. modern Javanese, Surakarta standard. In the present Synopsis codexes containing identical or closely related texts are collected under one paragraph number. In many cases introductory remarks on groups of texts are included. They have also paragraph numbers. The four Parts of the systematic classifi cation (I, II, HI an d jy-) correspond with the paragraph numbers, as mentioned above. The other distinctions, in four Eras and five idioms, are used occasionally in descriptions of codexes in volume Two (see 50.009, In troductory Remarks on the Descriptions sub II). It should be noted, however, that under a paragraph number not all codexes con taining the text may be mentioned, because