INTERPLAY OF CLASSICAL AND GLOBALIZED HUMANITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF HARMONY AND IDENTITY

Abstract

Despite the rapid changes to human civilization, the one problem about identity is still dominantly found in many literary works. It seems that even the developments of literary theory have also been stuck by this myth, likely stating identity is the start of any human problems. Moreover in the era of the globalized world, covering the paradigms of postmodernism, post-colonialism, post-humanism, and also post-truth, the talk about identity is the most prominent idea to deliver. Not only is it dealing with how to build a new identity, but it is also more common on the conflict of interplay between the past and the new. The past is in accordance with the classical or traditional identity, and while the new may refer to the globalized one. Walcott’s Omeros, a Caribbean novel published at the end of the second half of twentieth century, is one model of the postcolonial literatures showing the stress between the two. Further, some Indonesian short stories, published to start the twenty first century, also deliver and discuss the similar conflict. How each civilization, Caribbean, and Indonesian, uplifts the notion of harmony is worth observing, since each has its own characteristics and strategies to bridge the classical or traditional and the globalized notions of humanity.