this article

REALITY OVER IMAGINATION IN MUHAMMAD
HAJI SAllEH'S ROWINS DOWN TWO RIIIEBS
Irezou ZaliPour
([email protected]
School of language Studies and linguistics,
Facultv of Social Sciences and Humanities,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malavsia.
After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination.
- Wallace Stevens, "The Plain Sense of Things",
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954).
Abstract
One important function of imagination is to understand reality.
Imagination and reality are inherently related and poetry is one zone
where imagination and reality meet. Complementary changes in the
nature of reality, as well as cultural and ideological configurations,
especially in post-colonial writings which aim to reconstruct a sense
of nationalism and nationhood call for a re-evaluation of the concept
of creative imaginations. Having said that, this paper aims to raise
the issue of the difference between the two ideologies of poetry with
reference to the imagination and reality, and argues that the difference
is related to the concept and state of imagination in the poem. This
paper focuses on Muhammad Haji Salleh's Rowing Down Two River
(2000) to investigate the dominance of reality over imagination. The
relevant concepts that relate reality to imagination in the domain of
artistic creation will be used as the conceptual framework of this
study. The analytical procedure will consist of examining the types
of images and their associations in the selected poems in order to
explore Muhammad's mode of conveyance of the elements of reality.
The analysis demonstrates that Muhammad's overreliance on
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sensory images and idea images results in the dominance of reality
over imagination in his poetry. The significant motifs in his poems
in Rowing Down Two Rivers such as road, journey, the traveller,
home, quest, and identity are embodied in words or descriptions
denoting sensory experience which leads to familiar associations with
Malaysian reality. Imagination in poetry is considered to be a human
faculty concerned with creating autonomous aesthetic artefacts
which can represent directly or indirectly the human experience. This
study identifies that for Muhammad, this notion now been turned
into an agency that is used solely for nurturing and insulating the
intellectualism and idealism of social Malaysian identity and life.
Keywords: reality, creative imagination, idea images, Muhammad
Haji Salleh, Malaysian poetry, nationhood, identity, imagination in
poetry, post-colonial poetry.
Abstrak
Suatu fungsi penting imaginasi ialah untuk memahami realiti.
Imaginasi dan realiti berhubungan secara semula jadi dan puisi
merupakan suatu zon di mana imaginasi dan realiti berpadu.
Perubahan-perubahan saling melengkapi sebagai asas realiti,
termasuklah konfigurasi-konfigurasi budaya dan ideologi, terutama
bagi hasil tulisan pasca penjajahan yang bertujuan membina semula
kesedaran nasionalisme dan negara bangsa, menuntut penilaian
semula konsep imaginasi kreatif. Dengan kata-kata itu, makalah ini
bertujuan untuk membangkitkan isu perbezaan di antara dua ideologi
puisi yang merujuk kepada imaginasi dan realiti, dengan hujah
bahawa perbezaan tersebut berhubung kait dengan konsep dan
keadaan imaginasi di dalam puisi. Makalah ini memberi fokus kepada
"Rowing Down Two Rivers" (Mendayung di dua sungai) (2000) karya
Muhammad Haji Salleh bagi menyemak dominasi realiti ke atas
imaginasi. Konsep-konsep relevan yang mengaitkan realiti dengan
imaginasi di ruang seni kreatif akan digunakan sebagai kerangka
konsep kajian ini. Prosedur analisis pula terdiri daripada pemeriksaan
jenis-jenis imej dan pertaliannya dalam sajak-sajak terpilih agar gaya
penyampaian elemen-elemen realiti Muhammad dapat diselidiki.
Analisis menggambarkan kebergantungan Muhammad yang
berlebihan terhadap imej-imej de ria dan imej-imej idea menyebabkan
berlakunya dominasi realiti ke atas imaginasi dalam sajak-sajak beliau.
Motif-motif signifikan dalam sajak-sajak beliau lewat "Rowing Down
Two Rivers" (Mendayung di dua sungai) seperti jalan, perjalanan,
pengembara, rumah, pencarian, dan identiti, dibangunkan dalam
kata-kata atau deskripsi yang menandakan pengalaman deria yang
menjurus kepada hubungan-hubungan biasa dalam realiti Malaysia.
Imaginasi dalam puisi adalah dianggap sebagai fakulti manusia yang
menekankan penciptaan artifak estetik yang bebas dan mampu
mewakili secara langsung atau tidak langsung pengalaman manusia.
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Kajian ini mengenalpasti bahawa bagi Muhammad, pegangan ini telah
berubah sebagai agen yang digunakan hanya untuk memelihara dan
menebat identiti dan kehidupan intelektualisme dan idealisme sosial
Malaysia.
Kata kunci: realiti, imaginasi kreatif, imej-imej idea, Muhammad Haji
Sa/leh, puisi Malaysia, negara bangsa, identiti, imaginasi dalam puisi,
puisi pasca penjajahan.
Introduction
One important function of imagination is to understand reality. Imagination
and reality are inherently related and poetry is one zone where imagination
and reality meet. Complementary changes in the nature of reality,
as well as cultural and ideological configurations, especially in postcolonial writings which aim to reconstruct a sense of nationalism and
nationhood, call for are-evaluation ofthe concept of creative imagination.
Having said that, this paper aims to raise the issue of the difference
between the two ideologies of poetry, and argues that the difference is
related to the concept and state of imagination in the poem. This paper
focuses on Muhammad Haji Salleh's Rowing Down Two River (2000) to
investigate arid demonstrate the dominance of reality over imagination.
The relevant concepts that relate reality to imagination in the domain of
artistic creation will be used as the conceptual framework of this study. It
is the perception of images that determines the process of imagination.
Therefore, the analytical procedure will consist of examining the types
of images and their associations in the selected poems of Rowing Down
the Rivers (2000) to explore Muhammad's mode of conveyance of the
elements of reality. The paper is structured in three sections. First, the
two ideologies will be discussed which set the thesis for the study with
reference to Muhammad's poetry. Then, the concepts of reality and
imagination in poetry are explained to create the groundwork for the
analysis. Finally, the analysis will be carried out by examining samples
of Muhammad's poetry. The paper ends with a final statement with
regard to the main argument of the study.
Two Ideologies in Poetry
Mohd Taib Osman in his essay "Contemporary Malay Poetry" (1988)
proposes that the Malay/Malaysian poets are conscious of their art but
not for art's sake. He says the Malay/Malaysian poet is not very much
interested in experiencing his own personal emotions or problems
unless they are related to wider social or universal questions (Osman
1988:90). In his essay "A Poet Taking Position and Possession" (1980),
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Muhammad Haji Salleh defines the role and function of a poet as a
moralist and teacher who must bring his experiences to bear on the
reader (106). In his lyric, "self portrait" in Rowing Down Two Rivers
(2000:59) he speaks of a poet within him:
I am a poet
who must stand before the mirror
and receive every sign.
The use of the auxiliary "must" indicates that the poet is under an
internal obligation to fulfil a duty as "a poet". Inspired by a strong sense
of commitment in his poetry, Muhammad believes that a poem is not
born just because a poet is struck by an inspiration but born out of "a
combination of careful craftsmanship, thought and talent" (Osman 1986:
150). In the final chapter of Linking Literary Identities: Malaysian Society,
Culture, and the Other (2003), Raihanah Mohd Mydin encourages
Malaysian writers and poets to step out from the margins to the center of
social debates. The question whether Malaysian writer/poet should write
for and about issues affecting the society or for personal satisfaction,
shapes the discussion of what role a Malaysian writer/poet plays in
his community (69). Muhammad is more concerned with society than
self. The history of Malaysian literature after independence explicitly
demonstrates that the Malaysian writer/poet is more concerned with
society than self. The questions concerning the role of the Malaysian
writer/poet are definitely associated with the past slogans of 'art for
society' and 'art for art's sake'. 'Art for Society' was pronounced by the
Malaysian ASAS 50 poets. They believed that Malaysian poets should
not to be so much concerned with the technicalities of poetry as with
the kind of subjects and themes they choose to write about. In the same
vein, Muhammad reckons a mission for the Malaysian poet is to merge
into her/his society. In an interview, by referring to the ASAS 50 poets
he explains that they started writing because they wanted to help the
readers "to be aware of their colonised situation, economic problems
and hopes of independence. Modern Malaysian literature is written with
a social purpose and function" (Merican in Yahya 2003:27).
Under another ideology, the poet is not much concerned about
themes and subjects, or his/her mission in the society. Poetry is defined
as the expression of "that sudden emotion" as best propounded by
Ezra Pound (1916):
Three years ago [1911J in Paris I got out of a "metro" train at La
Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and
another, and then a beautiful child's face, and then another beautiful
woman, and I tried al/ that day to find words for what this had meant
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to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy, or
as lovely as that sudden emotion. And that evening I found, suddenly,
the expression. I do not mean that I found words, but there came an
equation . .. not in speech, but in little splotches of colour.
Pound imagines this incident in this image: 'The apparition of these
faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough" (1919). The poet
draws the inspiration by not trying to find "words" but "an equation" to
the expression in "splotches of colour". The equation refers to the image
that can evoke that sudden emotion in the reader. In this scenario,
the effect of poetry, borrowing from Coleridge, is to make us see life
anew, to remove "the film of familiarity" which sets at length on all our
thoughts and perceptions. An imaginative poem is characterised by
its "awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom and
directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us"
(1817). It rather varies from the previous ideology in which poetry is
the result of a careful craftsmanship and an intellectual effort to create
social awareness. Here the poet renders what his eyes have captured;
he is not seen as "causing" the image to come into being (Bachelard
2005: xi). The poem becomes "that which presents an intellectual and
emotional complex in an instant of time" (Pound 1913). This portrays
the genesis of a poem when an emotional instance gives birth to an
image. The emphasis is put on the precise moment when the objects
or incidents that have moved the poet dash before his eyes.
The difference in the two ideologies does not entirely lie in the
poets' inclination towards the concept of 'art for art's sake' or 'art for
society'. Neither is it about denying or confirming the existence of poetic
imagination in the poem. Poetry in both scenarios is certainly the offspring
of imagination. The two ideologies raise the issue of the concept and
state of imagination in the poem. This study argues that this issue is
related to the manifestations and applications of creative imagination
in poetry which result in the dominance of reality over imagination or
imagination over reality in the poem. It must be noted that this study
has no intention to give the impression that poetic imagination is a
power that makes up a good poem or that its absence is evidence of
bad poetry.
Muhammad's poetry in Rowing Down To Rivers (2000), while it is
lyric poetry in that it employs the first person voice to express personal
thoughts and feelings of the persona, is not solely about the poet's self
and personal life. It has a mission to fulfil in every line and every image.
Muhammad writes poetry to portray the "traditions and importance
of traditions, continuity and pride of identity" of the Malaysian nation
(Merican in Yahya, 2003:16). Critics have agreed that Muhammad's
use of the first person voice has allowed him to have "greater reader
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participation [while] simultaneously making his poetry didactic". This
also ascribes the persona with the functions of "a teacher" who tries to
create awareness in his readers of issues that are significant to them.
This, in fact, refers to "the parameter of Malay [Malaysian] society where
the poets and writers do hold greater social responsibilities" (Merican et
at. 2004:133). Having a clear incentive as a poet, Muhammad's poetry
portrays the dominance of reality over imagination. The objective of
this paper is to investigate this thesis and examine the inter-relation
between imagination and reality with reference to the selected poems
from Muhammad's last collection of poetry, Rowing Down Two Rivers
(2000). The rational for the selection of this book as the corpus of
this study is partly for the reason that the research on Muhammad's
Rowing Down Two Rivers appears to be rather limited. Therefore, this
study hopes to make a significant contribution to the appreciation and
understanding of Muhammad's poetry as one of the leading figures of
contemporary Malaysian poetry and literature.
Concepts of Reality and Imagination in Poetry
Imagination has been closely related to the notion of reality from its early
conceptualisations in poetry. Imagination is essentially and genealogically
associated with reality. Studies on the relation between imagination and
reality in poetry indicate the inherent existence of principles of reality in
the act and process of poetic imagining (Zalipour, 2009). The presence
of principles of reality in the imagining process amplifies the creativity
and poeticality of imagination in the poem. This means that "Imagination
is not, as its etymology would suggest, the faculty of forming images
of reality; it is rather the faculty of forming images which go beyond
reality, which sing reality" (Bachelard, 2005: 15). This section will discuss
the concepts that relate reality to imagination in the domain of artistic
creation. Imagination will mainly be discussed as a tool to understand
reality. This notion is closely attached to Wallace Stevens' notion of
reality. What follows mainly concentrates on the idea of the real and
the unreal and role of creative imagination to adjoin them.
Imagination becomes a tool to understand reality. In this case
imagination originates in perceived reality and then moves to the level
of creating reality. Reality is a combination of the real and the unreal,
the world as known and the world as outside knowing, the objective
and the subjective. The unreal as a part of reality consists of the
unknown, non-existent, subjective, and imaginary. In the pursuit of
truth, the poet is the most competent and capable of getting at reality.
There are two approaches for the poet: he might "discover the unreal
of what is real" and he might also "create the unreal out of what is real"
(Hardison, 1971 :56) [emphasis mine]. Particularly in the latter task,
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poetry is an importing of the unreal into the real. This is, in fact, the
act of poetic imagination. Thus, reality becomes "the objective place
which the imagination [which is subjective] grasps in order to realise
itself" (Hardison, 1971 :59). Poetry is the best dwelling place through
which imagination transposes an "objective reality" to "subjective reality"
(Sampson, 2000:71). In this process, imagination conjoins the real and
the unreal (Sampson, 2000:80). The outcome of this conjunction is a
reality which is subjective. Poetic imagination is the potent imagination
by/in which the poet can seize a more original version of reality. In this
way reality becomes an abstraction with many prospective possibilities.
The significance of poetic imagination lies in its capability to produce
so many possibilities in order to create an original new reality. The
poet becomes an "exponent of imagination" (Borroff, 1963: 117); and
reality is "the point at which the texture of experience is given a final
form by the imagination" (Borroff, 1963: 120). The possible explanation
for this is the dominance of imagination over the elements of reality in
the poem. The following quotation best expresses the relation between
imagination, reality and poetry:
The validity of the poet as a figure of the prestige to which he is
entitled, is wholly a matter of this, that he adds to life that without
which life cannot be lived, or is not worth living, or is without savor, or
in any case, would be altogether different from what it is today. Poetry
is a passion not a habit. This passion nourishes itself on reality.
Imagination has no source except in reality, and ceases to have any
value when it departs from reality. Here is a fundamental principle
about the imagination; it does not create except as it transforms. There
is nothing that exists exclusively by reason of the imagination, or that
does not exist in some form in reality. Thus reality=the imagination,
and the imagination=reality. Imagination gives, but gives in relation.
(Stevens in Altieri, 2005).
Stevens' explanation of the relation between imagination and reality
in poetry indicates the obscure connection between them. He says that
poetry is nourished by reality; this means that the source, the inspiration
and the content of poetry come from reality. Similarly the source of
imagination is also reality. The key point is the act of imagination with
regard to reality; imagination transforms reality in the artistic/poetic
creation. In other words, the poet transforms what he feels, senses, or
sees in reality into the images/words in his/her poetry. The element of
transformation assigns imagination with a fundamental characteristic of
creativity inherent in it. The creativity varies in different artistic creations
based on the level of transformation. Studying the inter-relation between
imagination and reality in poetic creation provides a unique opportunity
to examine the status of imagination in poetry. The investigation will
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demonstrate the dominance of imagination over reality or of reality over
imagination in the poems, which is the main focus of this paper.
As mentioned earlier, the first act of imagination by the poet in the
creative process is to discover the unreal out of the real. This means
that the origin of imagination is in the perceived reality - the known
reality. In the similar discussion on the relation of the imagined to the
real, the emphasis lies on the relation of the world as known to the world
as outside knowing. What is outside the work of art (poems), namely
the social order, the literary past, public life and aspects of identity and
the like, is already inside the poem, and what is inside is another form
of the outside world. Poetic imagination provides a mode of knowing
by discovering what is inside - the unreal. And what is inside is a kind
of reality posited by imagination which is another form of the outside
- the real. The interaction between imagination and reality results in
poetry that is a means of grasping reality, as the poet is aware of the
imaginative process, that is, the process by which he perceives reality.
In this case reality dominates imagination in the poem.
In addition to the act of discovering, poetic imagination is also in
the process of creating. It converts "the exterior of human existence"
into "an inward dimension" (Sampson, 2000:71). The poet releases the
unreal from the outside world and he also creates his unreal out of what
he has. What he has includes both the real world (his outside knowing),
and the discovered unreal (the inside knowing) which itself is another
form of the outside. Reality is understood through the double acts of
imagination. This is to see not only "the eyes' plain version" (StroudDrinkwater, 2002:350) - something that is conceived and evoked through
images by the mind, but to see the elements of reality, which cannot
be seen by the eyes' plain version, through imagination. Imagination
adheres to reality and becomes interdependent with it by projecting its
images onto a renewed reality. This is when the imagination dominates
reality in the poem.
Reality Over Imagination
Poets define and treat reality in various ways. For Muhammad, two main
sources define reality: is the facts and the stimuli of the senses, and the
product of intellect and thought. In his Rowing Down Two Rivers (2000),
Muhammad predominantly favours sensory images and idea images
to communicate the reality he wishes to convey. Sensory images are
details that appeal to the senses. They provide direct and expressively
charged sensations of colour, shape, smell, taste, movement and sound.
Sensory images are accessible to the senses and are easily executed.
In other words, as facsimiles of sensations they have direct relevance
to the elements of reality. Similar to sensory images, idea images also
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stem from perceived reality. However, they do not hold the pictorial
quality of sensory images. Idea images are abstract and perceptual
and appeal to what may be described as the intellect or the mind. Idea
images evoke intellectual matters, thoughts, opinions, and ideas. They
do not evoke a real picture in the mind with reference to perceived
materials or their representations. In fact, they are not mental pictures.
They create a blurred picture in the mind which can be in any shape,
form or evocation for different individuals, depending on their personal
experiences and background. These images are ideas which make the
poem sound rather prosaic since they appear directly and immediately
in the mind. Their immediacy depends on their comprehensibility and
limited imaginative and pictorial quality (Zalipour, 2010: forthcoming).
The trademark of Muhammad's poetry is the frequency of rural
images, which are mostly categorised as sensory images. In returning
for good (2000:198), Muhammad describes the persona as standing
on "the newly repaired bund". The familiarity of the visual image of a
"bund" immediately evokes mental pictures such as roads, journeys,
travellers, and travelling. This image provokes the persona's thought
of returning home with reference to the title of the poem. The title and
the first line of the poem, "now, standing on the newly repaired bund",
raises a central question of the poem: does the persona have to return
home or he can go on with his journey? The visual images of "sky",
"paddy fields", "water", and "the girls transplanting/ green seedlings"
create the rural setting of the first half of the poem. Referring to the
first act of imagination, which is to discover the unreal from the real
discussed in the previous section, Muhammad finds the unreal in the
things that arouse the senses. Muhammad's unreal is a familiar reality;
the images that immediately appear in the mind. The kinesthetic image
of the girl's muscles moving in her arms is put in parallel with the pictured
movement of "shaking the fibres of new plants". The parallelism enhances
the picture that the poet desires to evoke as part of the setting of the
poem. The surroundings, the landscape and the compatibility of what
he can remember, "blue skies are bluer than my memory of them", with
what he can see as he is standing on the newly repaired road, form the
reason for him to return home. The last line of returning home, "These
are my roots" evokes an idea image which is a fact, a part of his reality
that he cannot deny. This idea image introduces the poet's thought; it is
part of syllogism the persona conveys in this poem. Muhammad brings
this line afte·r weaving a series of sensory images: "young men teasing
the girls/they throw clumps from the field's corner,". The visual images
of "young men", "girls", "clumps" and "the field's corner" are combined
with the auditory image of "teasing" as well as the kinesthetic image of
throwing clumps. The combination depicts the lively atmosphere of the
rural people and region. The prolific use of sensory images in returning
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home makes it straightforward. The first image in the poem is closely
attached to the last image, both of which convey a clear picture of the
persona in his rural homeland, watching it while "standing on the newly
repaired bund". The distance between the persona and the home he
wants to return to is intensified in the last image of the poem: "I know
I am returning home". This idea image expresses the poet's hesitation
of returning home and his attempt to convince himself that he has good
reasons to reunite with his origins.
Reality dominates imagination in the poem when the imagery is
most vivid as it appeals directly to sensuous experience or factual
evidence. Muhammad's choice of sensory images and idea images
create an immediate imaginative response which adheres to the realist
atmosphere of the poem. In "three beserah fishermen" (2000: 129 -130),
Muhammad tells the story of three fishermen "in a frail old sampan",
sailing on the windy sea. The visual and auditory images of "the sea",
"the wind", "the waves", the men, and their daughters, sons and wives
describe his subject matter with striking particularity and sensuous
details. "Three beserah fishermen" highlights the poet's concern about
his people, their chores, pains and survival. The strength of the poem
lies in the poet's choice of images and the way he arranges them to
create the picture of the reality he knows best. There are numerous
pictures in this poem: the visual images of "the rice" and "the fish" are
combined with "the school fees" to express that education is as vital
as food to keep you alive. The frames of reference for the imagery in
Salleh's poetry are appropriate to the subject matter. The poems do
not overflow with exuberant and poetic metaphors, symbols, and other
poetic devices. The images are directly engaged with the actual world.
This is completely aligned with Muhammad's ideology that Malaysian
poetry has an intellectual and didactic mission. His poetry is an attempt
to communicate his ideas by referring to sense impressions, objects,
and situations which readers can easily and immediately reconstruct
and to which they can intellectually and emotionally respond.
For Muhammad, the products of intellect define reality. This is one
of the reasons that Muhammad's poetry is rich in idea imagery. His
attempt to find his roots, identity and tradition, as well as his reasoning
and intellectual arguments in his poems, are conveyed mostly using
idea images. Muhammad presents a set of images in how much?
(2000: 246-247) which rarely provoke any pictures. The main concern
of the poem centres on a query about the notion of humanity, and how
it can be maintained in the contemporary world. Muhammad's vogue
in employment of idea images makes the poem rather prosaic.
how much humanity,
must I give to be human,
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in a world such as this?
we must fight for values which pacify,
and by fighting,
we slip from them.
The persona's thought is expressed in a series of idea images in
these lines. The first idea image in "how much humanity/must I give to
be human" renders the persona's notion of humanity in the contemporary
world. The paradox of giving humanity in order to gain the qualities
of human enhances the quality of this idea image. The reader can
intellectually respond to the persona's thoughts by extending the idea
of humanity and human in the image. The central concern is that even
if we fight for our values as a human, we lose them for various reasons
in the course of fighting. As a characteristic of idea images, they do not
evoke clear mental pictures; they render some thoughts or intellectual
instances. The immediacy of these images lies in the extent of their
comprehensibility. The factor that reduces the element of imagination
in idea images is the sense of acute clarity that they may convey. In
such a context the reality dwarfs the imaginative elements of the poem.
In the following lines, idea images merely express the poet's opinion
on the subject matter:
what are we?
mere creatures among animals,
or men among angels,
that live with the senses.
Though images have some pictorial quality, such as references
to "animals", "men", and "angels", the central thought in these images
controls the lines. The reality here nourishes the imagination and overdominates it. The rhetorical question that Muhammad poses to the
identity of "we" classifies the persona as either some creature among
other animals, or a human being among angels. There is a slight sense
of comparison which is implied in the interpretation of these lines: that
"we", animals, and angels have something in common; we all live with
our senses. In other words, the poet put forward the thoughts that he
favours in a direct and explicit way. The poem how much? seems to be
an excerpt of thought cut off into lines. The absence of poetic devices
of imagery in general and the prevailing use of idea images understate
the pictorial quality. This is the way that reality underscores imagination
in the poem.
Imagery in Muhammad's poetry is extensive in the service of patriotic,
religious, moral, political, social, and post-colonial argumentations. In
Si T.enggang's Homecoming (2000:233 - 236), one of the controversial
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issues of Malaysian reality, identity consciousness, is depicted in the
form of an argument using a prosy style. Si Tenggang's Homecoming
has also the nature and characteristics of narrative poetry. It tells the
story of modern si tenggang who is a student interested in culture,
identities, similarities and differences. The legend of si tenggang,
which has partially been re-visioned by Muhammad in this poem,
underlies MalaylMalaysian culture's abhorrence for those who would
deny their identity for whatever reason. So the efforts to integrate with
other nations must not result in any loss of identity. The persona of the
poem is a modern si tenggang in contrast with the folkloric si tenggang.
This is the one who has learnt to question and argue based on logic
and reason the way foreigners do; he says "I've learnU the ways of the
rudel to hold reality in a new logic,! debate with hard and loud facts".
Yahya (2003) in "Si Tenggang's Homecoming: Negotiating Tradition
and Modernity", refers to the poem as "rather prosaic, non-rhetorical,
non-poetic confession", "verse that is held together not by sustained
imagery but the sustained argument of an idea" (75). The sustained
imagery mainly consists of images from senses and those which serve
the poet's interest in rendering the products of the intellect. In the
following lines, the persona explains how he thinks about his journey
in an extended idea image:
travel makes me,
a seeker who does not take,
what is given without sincerity,
or that which demands payment from beliefs.
The idea images in these lines evoke certain concepts, such as
the impact of travelling and the experience that the persona gains as
a traveller in the form of awareness and tact. He does not accept the
advantages or benefits of the foreign land if he has to go against his
principles and beliefs. The imagery in this poem shows the control of
the poet's perception over imagination in creating the images. The
power of Muhammad's poetry lies in the crafty accumulation of words
that fit with the contours of his experience and intellectual syllogism
for the purpose of didacticism. Though Muhammad employs figurative
devices such as metaphor, simile, synecdoche and figures of sound
such as alliteration and assonance, the narrative and argumentative
style of the poem undermines elements of imagination. The persona
compares his journey to a teacher in "the journey was a loyal teacher". The
metaphor in the imagery of journey and teacher sounds rather common
and recognisable. The comparison does not elicit the connotations of
the words. In the alliteration of the sound III in the words "land" and
"language" in "broadened by land and languages", Muhammad establishes
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MALAY LITERATURE
a connection between "land" and "language". He conjoins the idea
image of "language" to the sensory image of "land" to demonstrate his
discovery of a facet of the Malaysian reality. He refers to the deliberate
issues of priority of national language over English language in Malay/
Malaysian culture. He suggests gaining knowledge and experience as
well as learning the language of the foreign land; however, this does not
mean forgetting or minimising his/her own language. The synecdoche
in "I am you/ freed from the village" connotes his homeland in the
image of village. The journey is not just a physical journey; it is rather
a symbolic journey; however, Muhammad phrases the meaning of the
symbol for the reader: "the physical journey that I traverse/ is a journey
of the soul". It is a figurative image that has prompted considerable
intellectual speculation. More complex and intellectualised images will
require greater effort in recognition. This greatly affects the state of
imagination in the poem.
Conclusion
In an interview, Muhammad explains his poetry as both "communallycentred" and "self-centred" in which he writes about himself and the
community he knows best. He introduces his poetry as the result of his
experiences in various contexts in the different courses of his life, which
inevitably are directly connected to who he was, who he is and the roots
of his community (Yahya, 2003: 15). The collection of Rowing Down the
Rivers (2000) has been introduced as Muhammad's intention as a poet
to capture "the intended flavour and message of the original Malay into
English" (Merican, 2004:135). The analysis in this paper demonstrates
that Muhammad's overreliance on sensory images and idea images
results in the dominance of reality over imagination in his poetry. The
significant motifs in his poems in Rowing Down Two Rivers such as
road, journey, the traveller, home, quest, and identity are embodied
in words or descriptions denoting sensory experience that leads to
familiar associations of Malaysian reality. Muhammad experiments with
the representation of precise, clear images that are put together with
slight juxtaposition and for which he often specifies the interconnection.
This trend in Muhammad's poetry may be the result of his conscious
attempt to create social awareness and his strong belief in the direct
relevance literature can make to social life. Muhammad's poetry has
been called "intellectual" and didactic by the Malaysian recipient of the
S.E.A Writer Awards, 1997. He is considered to be a poet who sees
life "through the intellectual eyes of a seeker and thinker". The central
idea of the dominance of reality over imagination in Muhammad Haji
Salleh's Rowing Down Two Rivers portrays a poet who is a thinker/poet
rather than a poet/thinker.
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AREZOU ZALiPOUR
The Irish Poet, Seamus Heaney, winner of Noble Prize in Literature
in 1996 and the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2006, opines that "You have to be
true to your own sensibility, for the faking of feelings is a sin against the
imagination. Poetry is out of the quarrel with ourselves and the quarrel
with others is rhetoric" (1980:34). An example of the poet who is truthful
to his/her artistic sensibility is the one who sharpens his/her sensitivity
through imagination in order to create a renewed reality (Zalipour: 2007).
Imagination in poetry is considered to be a human faculty concerned with
creating autonomous aesthetic artifacts which can represent directly or
indirectly the human experience. For Muhammad, this notion has now
been turned into an agency that is used solely for nurturing and insulating
the intellectualism and idealism of social Malaysian identity and life.
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Contributors
A Johorian by birth, Ungku Maimunah Mohd Tahir obtained her PhD
degree from the Australia National University. Currently she is the
Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of the Malay
World and Civilization, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Professor
Ungku Maimunah once held the Chair of Malay Studies at Victoria
University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Siti Hajar Che Man is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Literature at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang since Mac
1990. Her broader teaching and research interests involve the Islamic
Literature, Southeast Modern Literature, African Modern Literature,
Comparative Literature and Theory and Literary Criticism mainly in
Feminist Literary Criticism. In 2004 she won Anugerah Karya Kencana
in Literature category (academic). She also has been honoured with
Hadiah Sastera Perdana in Essay and Criticism Category in 1999 and
2010.
Associate Professor Dr. Jelani Harun is a lecturer of the School of
Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang. He received his
BA from the Universiti Sains Malaysia (1986) and his MA (1993) and
PhD (1999) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
His area of expertise is classical Malay literature.
Born in Alor Setar, Kedah, Rahimah Haji A.Ham·ld obtained her PhD
degree in Comparative Literature from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)
in 2004. A former staff of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Rahimah now
lectures at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Nik Haslinda Nik Hussain obtained her PhD degree from University of
Malaya in 2004 and a senior lecturer in Department of History, School of
Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Her research areas involve
Socio-Economic History, Land, Development and Agriculture. Her work
has been published in many journals like Jurnal IImu Kemanusiaan,
Jurnal PURBA, Jurnal Kemanusiaan and she published her first book
entitled Tokoh Intelektual Melayu dan Perjuangan Kemerdekaan in
2007.
Born in Melaka in 1944, Associate Professor Arbak Othman is a lecturer
at the Faculty of Modern Language and Communication, Universiti
Putra Malaysia (UPM). After being involved for 28 years in the fields of
linguistics and language teaching, he moved to a new field of interest,
focusing mostly on the analysis of literary genres especially poetry.
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CONTRIBUTORS
Ruzy Suliza Hashim holds a SA (Hons) from the University of Otago,
New Zealand. She received her MA from the University of Essex, United
Kingdom and her PhD from the University of Otago. Currently, she is
the Chair of the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).
Noraini Md Yusof is Chair of the School of Language Studies and
Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). She is a published short story writer.
Her areas of research include Occidental Studies, popular culture and
developing portfolios of creative writing.
Arezou Zalipour (Dr.) holds a SA and an MA in English Language and
Literature from Islamic Azad University, Iran. She read for her PhD at
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). She was awarded Zama/ah
Postgraduate Scholarship by UKM and taught several literary courses
at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, UKM in the course
of doing her PhD. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at the same school
where she is doing research and supervision as well as delivering
lecture/tutorial. The areas of her expertise include poetry, theories of
creative imagination and image, and American literature.
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