A Philological Approach to a Modern Sino-Indonesian Book: The Coconuts by Zheng Tufei

Abstract

Philology as a discipline in the sphere of humanities has recently lost ground in favour of other approaches, but it nevertheless has the potential of exploring literary texts in their inner structures and outer connections as well, bringing rich information to the discussion. While being traditionally used in the study of old manuscripts, philology is deemed efficient and informative in the case of modern, printed books as well. The present paper elaborates a case study of a philological approach to the prose volume The Coconuts, published by Sino-Indonesian author Zheng Tufei in 1929 in Shanghai, emphasizing analysis of formal levels as well as contextualization and intertextuality.