Abstract
The essay attempts to look at the scene behind the making of a hero in Malay medieval society. Such attempt is vital in order to understand not only the rise of a legendary hero, Hang Tuah, from his ordinary status in Sejarah Melayu (The Malay Annal) to his supra-human figure in the epic Hikayat Hang Tuah but also to gauge the social, political and psychological milieu behind the epic composition. The premise of the argument in this essay is that a hero is built and not born. Pushing it from there, the essay endeavours to prove the point by extensively reading on the milieu and time behind the emergence of Hikayat Hang Tuah . While exploring these, the essay also looks at the process of inventing the epic, which include identifying sources and materials borrowed, distorted, inverted and appropriated by the author to bring forth this traditional but unique literary creation. Keywords: epic, hero, heroism, heroic deeds, heroic age, ethnocentrism
Highlights
The so-called “Malay hikayat literature” had always had a bad name among Malayists in the past; myriad of comments coming from scholar or researchers stating that the Malay hikayats were just “an assemblage of tales and legends” or “a product of Malay fantasy” or perhaps merely “a confuse history without recourse to any real events in the past”
HHT is related to events, part real and part imaginary, about the heroic deeds and exploits of a probably 14th or 15th century Malacca warrior hero, named Hang Tuah
According to him, early society existed in a context of struggle and competition verbally but physically
Summary
The so-called “Malay hikayat literature” (encompassing all genres) had always had a bad name among Malayists in the past; myriad of comments coming from scholar or researchers stating that the Malay hikayats were just “an assemblage of tales and legends” or “a product of Malay fantasy” or perhaps merely “a confuse history without recourse to any real eventsMALAY LITERATURE in the past”. THE EPIC HIKAYAT HANG TUAH: ITS GENRE, STRUCTURE AND NATURE HHT is related to events, part real and part imaginary, about the heroic deeds and exploits of a probably 14th or 15th century Malacca warrior hero, named Hang Tuah.
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