The prose-poem ‘Madraji’ by Sayudi (), which is called by the author as a ‘modern carita pantun’, occupies a special place in the history of twentieth century Sundanese literature. First published in 1980s, this parodic work demonstrates a creative undertaking in preserving the carita pantun, a kind of epic poetry in Sundanese oral tradition, by practicing a modern literary authorship. On the other hand the characterization of Madraji is apparently undertaken based on a modern (anti) hero in the work of an earlier author, for—to a certain extent—it resembles the characterization of Karnadi in the work of Juhana () of 1920s, so that Sayudi’s literary work seems to have a double purpose: revisiting a dead language and revising a living one, and these projects have proposed a remarkable feature of what it means to be modern in literary world.