Vietnamese Literary History
...stem [quoc ngu] was introduced into Vietnam in the 17th century by Portuguese missionaries to help them in their own learning of spoken Vietnamese. It was subsequently developed by others to more closely approximate the spoken sounds of the Vietnamese language.” (http://www.vietnamjournal.org/article.php?sid=52) A major component of Vietnamese literature is folk literature, which entails folktales, folksongs, sayings, and proverbs. This form of Vietnamese literature was overall orally transmitted through storytellers traveling from village to village, which led to alterations of stories over time. Much of the folk literature reflects on the subject of human nature, self-respect, and everyday life. The following is a folk song which speaks on “wealth as a substitute for dignity and understanding,” (Durand and Huan, 49) this work had no proclaimed author: When you are rich, people come to meet you and people see you to your door; When you are penniless, you may go out early and come home late, and nobody cares a hoot. When you can hardly stagger along for the sack of money you drag behind you, You can talk nonsense and the world will pay heed to the confused torrent of your words. (Durand and Huan, 49-50) Although one may be rich they do not have a full appreciation or understanding of life. This folk song embodies the understanding that not all things come from wealth. Another major component of Vietnamese literary history is that of poetry. “The Vietnamese like to think of themselves as having always been poets. While it may sound self-serving, this pleasant myth is probably not entirely exaggeration, because Vietnam’s rich poetic history has its roots in ancient days, long before the history of the country was recorded or the poems written down.” (Bich, Raffel and Merwin, XIV) One of the most famous poets from Vietnam, who is revered as famous as Shakespeare is in the west, is Ho Xuan Huong. She undertook the forbidden issues of her time such as sex, polygamy, and women’s rights. She was a clever woman who used metaphors to speak out about these issues. “The Jackfruit” is one of her m...