Abstract
The literary form known as wawacan, an epic written in the Sundanese language in the dangding form of regulated poetry, appeared in West Java from the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. Formerly transcribed in manuscript and passed from hand to hand, the wawacan began to be printed, together with Sundanese prose, from about the middle of the 19th century. This paper tries to trace the position that the printed wawacan occupied in the Sundanese literary stream for nearly one hundred years since the first Sundanese story, Tjaritana Ibrahim, was printed in 1853, mainly on the basis of the collection of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde in Leiden.
Statistical observation of the wawacan and a survey of popular titles has shown this to be the distinctive literary form from the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. On the other hand, the government enterprise Landsdrukkerij in the 19th century and the government publisher Balai Poestaka in the 20th century played important roles in the printing and publishing of Sundanese books in Batavia. When observed through the wawacan, Sundanese literature can be said to have been officially produced and jinak (tamed) in this period.
