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.Keywords: Slauerhoff • cultural pessimism • culture and imperialism • Manila literature • poetry
Recommended Citation
van der Wall, Hidde; Ateneo
(2016)
"Longings for Manila: Projections of Imperialism and Decline in the Poems of J. Slauerhoff,"
Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints: Vol. 64:
No.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://archium.ateneo.edu/phstudies/vol64/iss1/5
