Longings for Manila: Projections of Imperialism and Decline in the Poems of J. Slauerhoff
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2016
Abstract
The Dutch poet Jan Jacob Slauerhoff (1898–1936) featured Manila in three poems written in the late 1920s. These poems present the city as the decaying remnant of a deceased empire. Manila appears as a memory site of Spain’s bygone world dominance, resonates with the discourse of the “decline of the West,” and bears parallels to an image of a decaying Dutch empire. The city functions as a screen against which cultural images derived from the author’s personal European context are projected: cultural pessimism and colonial decline.
Recommended Citation
van der Wall, H. (2016). Longings for Manila: Projections of imperialism and decline in the poems of J. Slauerhoff. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 64(1), 103–125. https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2016.0011
