VIETNAMESE LITERATURE Outline Notes CHRONOLOGY of Events 1627 French influence in VN begins when a missionary adapts VN language to Roman alphabet 1787 French military intervene in VN politics 1820 First American, a sea Captain, lands in VN 1861 French forces capture Saigon 1863 French forces influence extends into Cambodia 1887 France creat Union of Indochina 1918 The VN people have first contact with American Soldiers when the French government loans the US Army Vietnamese workers (they are recruited from colony owing to a labor shortage in France during WW1 1940 Japanese troops occupy Indochina during WW2 1940s First Indochinese arrive in the US as immigrants 1945 France seeks return of its colonies in Indochina 1946 Start of First Indoschina War (France against Vietminh seeking Independence) 1953 Cambodia and Laos gain independence 1954 VN gains independence and is partitioned into a Communist North and pro-west South US helps France evacuate 800,000 refugees from the north to the south 1957 Beginning of Communist insurgency in South Vietnam 1959 First American soldier killed in South Vn, special forces contact the Hmong and other highland groups in Laos 1962 Large-scale deployment of American military advisors in S Vietnam 1964 Naval skirmish off the coast of North Vn leads US Congress to grant Pres Johnson military power to itnervene in Southeast Asia Vietnam Literature Rich, varied expressing over the centuries Depicts hunuor, realism, and irony of the Vietnamese people Genres Anonynous Literature (Oral) • Legends • Proverbs • Songs that depicts aspects of traditional society Folk Literature (17th and 18th century) • Fables • Satirical and narrative poems • Verse Novels • Verse Novels • first verse has feet • 2nd verse has feet • 6th character of the second verse rhymes with the last character of the first verse • these novels are recited and sung from village to village • Texts indicate chinese influence, chinese characters (Tom language) and chinese conception of literary style Modern Literature • texts are evidence of realism as a repurcussion of 30+ of war • it also shows a literary dichotomy created by the partition of Vietnam in 1954 “Through literature, writers hoped to bring the spirit of reform into all spheres of Vietnamese life.” Themes Oriental Philosophy - a system that harmonizes the natural and social world that includes humanity in the center uniting with nature and society Oriental Philosophy discovered not only the three directions of time (past, present, future) but also a 4th direction - the direction of spiritual life This philosophy is also influenced by the ff: • Buddhism • Confucianism • Taoism - that is mainly a combination of folk beliefs and high regard of nature • Animism (10th Century - where strong winds, the waters, and the mountain were worshipped “Nature and society and humanity unite with one another in a harmony of beauty The link of human generations and thousands of living creatures never ends (Phuc Cu De, 1999) NONE turns HAVE - NONE means endless, boundless, immense, infinite, numberless in moving and changing movements and the developing process of everything HAVE is not simply possessive in meaning but it means the limitation of changing and the developing process ofeverything (Phuc Cu De, 1999) Other themes Loyalty Wheels of Fortune Fortune Telling Karma, Justice, Responsibility and Retribution Nature, Society, and Humanity unite with one another in a harmony of beauty Sadness of life poignancy of love relationship struggle between humanity and poverty strength in human character River is life and society the will to love reference to nature