Pemikiran Arief Budiman tentang Kesusastraan, 1966-1985: dari Metode Ganzheit hingga Polemik Sastra Kontekstual

Abstract

This study discusses Arief Budiman’s thoughts on literature, 1966-1985, from the Ganzheit Method to the contextual literature polemic which mainly focused on the spread of Arief's thoughts and why his thoughts are not as popular as other Indonesian intellectuals. This research was conducted using four stages of the historical methods, namely data collection, critics, interpretation, and historical writing. In term of culture, particularly Literature, Arief refused to transmit the culture of ‘ganyang-mengganyang’ and ‘politik adalah panglima’ as in Demokrasi Terpimpin era. In Literary Criticism, Arief presents the Ganzheit Method, a comprehensive method that was used before the universal analytical method. Even though he only discussed art for art’s sake with Manifesto Kebudayaan, in 1971, Arief stated that artists were able to solve society's problems through their works. When the Universal Literature reached its edge, Arief broke the establishment of a single universal literary standard through Contextual Literature. According to Arief, all literary works must be contextual, bound by time and space, not merely talked about the aesthetics.