The Vietnamese girl never complaints about the condition and the role a Confucian society has assigned to her since the dawn of time. From her young age, being used to hearing popular poems incessantly sung by her mother or sister and continuing to grow up with the rhythm and the sound of the swinging hammock, she began to absorb unconsciously…
Nobody knows for sure the origin of Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs in terms of their inception and authors. Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs, however, are orally transmitted and incessantly edited throughout generations. By this virtue, the proverbs and folk songs become so natural and clear that they are able to describe our customs and traditions simply and truthfully. For…
From an early period a special ideographic script known as chữ nôm was also devised for transcribing spoken Vietnamese. According to annals dating from the late 13th century, the poets Nguyễn Thuyên and Nguyễn Sĩ Cố were the first to write in chữ nôm. At the turn of the century King Hồ Quý Ly (1400-1407) himself translated the Confucian classic…
Few writers of South Vietnam had gained comparatively successful achievements of literary works prior to 1945, but against a background of relative stability, prosperity and artistic freedom in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, active literary scene began to emerge in South Vietnam, initially under the influence of a circle of writers, linguists and educators who had…
During the French colonial period, the origins of modern Vietnamese literature are found. The romanised script quốc ngữ was finally popularized throughout the country of Vietnam, which allowed the modern literature to break free from the restrictions of classical literature of China. Originally devised by French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660) as a means of propagating Roman Catholicism, quốc…
