Sja’ir — Dutch/Atjehnese spelling of standard Indonesian syair, from Arabic shiʿr (شعر), “poetry” — is the principal form of classical Malay poetry, a quatrain of four-line stanzas with a uniform end-rhyme (a-a-a-a) throughout each stanza. The form is named in Dr. Van Naerssen’s chapter Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) as “the almost sole form of poetry” in classical Malay literature.
Van Naerssen’s account
Van Naerssen introduces the sja’ir in his survey of the genres of Malay literature: “Of the very great variety of Malay literary genres, we can here only name a few. Very diverse prose works are denoted with the Arabic word *hikayat*. … The almost sole form of poetry is the likewise with an Arabic-Persian word named sja’ir, of which professor de Hollander among others says: ‘the simple narrative style, that natural description of places and situations, that correct and beautiful character portrayal have something Homeric. With that it is true that in every poem also many places are found that are nothing more than rhymed prose; but the fluency of the language and the songfulness of the verse construction also come here powerfully to the rescue, and are the cause that even such places can be read with some pleasure, and with even more pleasure heard. In a word, we can find Malay poetry beautiful, when we are mindful that we shall encounter characters and customs that differ from ours heaven-wide; and especially that we must wholly transpose ourselves into the spirit and ideas of the Malays’.”
Significance for Atjeh
For the Atjeh-focused reader, the sja’ir is significant as one of the two principal literary forms (alongside the prose *hikayat*) in which the rich Atjeh literary treasure was composed. The Atjeh literary tradition that Van Naerssen names in the same chapter — “as we saw above, for instance in Atjeh, of whose rich literary treasure we can only mention the several versions of the *hikayat prang sabi*, books on the holy war, one of which ends with the words: ‘How many traditions of the Prophet say it: fighting along God’s way stands high reward, great reward and high honour, for God grants on the day of battle the Paradise’” — includes works composed in both the hikayat (prose) and the sja’ir (poetry) forms. The sja’ir form, with its uniform end-rhyme and its songlike verse construction, was particularly suited to the oral recitation that was the principal mode of literary consumption in pre-modern Atjeh.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- litteratuur — literature
- Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur — Outlines of Indonesian literature
- sja’ir — Malay poetic form (quatrain with uniform end-rhyme)
- syair — Malay poetic form
- hikayat — Malay prose romance
- Sadjarah Malajoe — Malay Annals
- Hikayat prang sabi — Book of the holy war
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Hikayat
- Hikayat prang sabi
- Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Acheh
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- F. H. van Naerssen
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 182 (chapter Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur door Dr. F. H. van Naerssen, citing Dr. de Hollander).