Affect is a major point of emphasis in storytelling in Java—as it is in South and Southeast Asia generally. The hard-nosed textual philology that has dominated the study of Javanese narrative, whether written or performed, has been insensitive to atmospheres, emotions, and temperaments. In this paper I consider the verbal creation of affect in texts. The focus is on the multifaceted personage of Umarmaya, a key protagonist in the famous Asian Islamic epic of Amir Hamza (uncle of the Prophet Muhammad). In Javanese drama and literature, Umarmaya appears variably as a devoted friend and follower of Hamza, his envoy and manager of his emotions, a trickster, Muslim official, dancer, ferocious warrior armed with a deadly beam of light, messianic figure, and clown-servant. I examine the affective dimensions of his portrayal across several Javanese texts, focusing on the sixteenth-century Story of Amir. Here iconography, physiognomy, tone of voice, and physical movement—the typical means of evoking affect in performance—are mostly lacking. Yet affect is key. I will show how the ultimate motivation for Amir Hamza’s adventures, as well as those of Umarmaya and all the other dramatis personae involved, is God’s displeasure. The plot is rooted in its main protagonists’ changeable feelings and steered by them. Paradoxically perhaps, the main ideology that underlies the narrative and is promoted by it is emotional stability.
