UNAIR NEWS – Nowadays, more and more people are interested in joining literary community in Indonesia. Not only as a forum for sharing, the literary community is also a place for writers to create literary works. From the literary community, new writers often born with works on par with previous writers.
UNAIR Indonesian Literature professor, Prof. Dr. Ida Bagus Putera Manuaba, M. Hum stated that the works produced by writers from the literary community play an important role shaping character of the community because the literary community was created and grew from the local wisdom of the community.
“The existence of the literary community and literary creation are interrelated. The existing communities in Indonesia need to be studied for their patterns and strategies, in order to be applied in communities that are still struggling to grow,” he explained.
Therefore, small literary communities need to learn from communities that already showed their existences. It aims to optimize the role of the literary community as a creative forum for writers in producing literary works.
The lecturer known as Prof. Putre conducted a study on literary communities in several regions in Indonesia such as in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Bali , Padang, Balikpapan, and Makassar. The eight cities were chosen because they are considered as representations of cities in Indonesia.
He suggested that the study has important meaning to answer how the literary community acts as creator of literary works.
“In a sense, how does the literary community foster the creative potential of its writers so that they are willing and able to work and produce works that are useful for the reading community,” he said.
The results showed that there is significance between the literary community and its role in character development. There are four important things related to the literary community. First, big literary communities in Indonesia tends to regenerate writers. However, this tendency does not occur in small literary communities.
Second, the big literary communities do not only produce literary works, but also produce works and other creative arts and cultural activities. Third, they tend to give birth to writers. The writers with potential to produce quality literary works full of local wisdoms.
Fourth, local wisdoms are revitalized in literary works produced by literary community writers so the literary style can be used as a medium for character development. The results of the research, continued Prof. Putre is expected to support the government’s efforts in carrying out national character building.
“Character building is needed in Indonesian society. Therefore, it is still related to the condition of Indonesian people who are experiencing mental and character problems, marked by the corrupt behavior, dishonesty, violence, and dehumanization, “he said.
Author: Zanna Afia
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
Reference
Manuaba,Ida Bagus Putera. 2019. Komunitas Sastra, Produksi Karya, dan Pembangunan Karakter (Literary Communities, Work Creation, Character Building). Mozaik Humaniora. Vol. 19 (1) 2019 : p. 37-47
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