Indian Literary Criticism

Contributed articles, translated from various Indic languages.

Literary criticism produced by Indian scholars from the earliest times to the present age is represented in this book. These include Bharatamuni, Tholkappiyar, Anandavardhana, Abhinavagupta, Jnaneshwara, Amir Khusrau, Mirza Ghalib, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, B.S. Mardhekar, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and A.K. Ramanujam and Sudhir Kakar among others. Their statements have been translated into English by specialists from Sanskrit, Persian and other languages.

The Anthology Makes An Evaluation Of Major Indian Critics/Theorists In English And Focuses On Vital Issues Relating To Contemporary Indian Literary Criticism. The Portion Entitled Critics, Texts Has Twelve Papers And That Entitled Issues Has Thirteen Papers. Suggests Further Research In This Exciting Area.

The Twenty-Five Critical Studies In The Book Which Cover A Wide Spectrum Of Subjects, Authors, Titles And Concepts Across Time And Space, May Be Broadly Classified Into Four Categories : Essays On (I) Critical Theory, (Ii) On Individual Authors, (Iii) In Comparative Literature And (Iv) On Language In Addition To A Culture Study Focussed On The Present Day American Scenario.The Essays Which Encompass The Vast Areas Of Knowledge From Plato To Derrida, From Bharata And Anandavardhana To Bankim, Tagore And Contemporary Indian Literary Criticism As Well As British, French, German, American And Indian Authors Are Yet Remarkable For Profundity Of Thought, Originality Of Approach And Lucidity Of Expression.These Highly Perceptive Explorations Into The Western And The Indian Intellectual Traditions Offer A Rich Aesthetic Experience, And While Scholars Will Immensely Benefit From The Book, The General Readers Will Also Find It Highly Interesting And Enjoyable.

Indian literature is not a corpus of texts or literary concepts from India, argues Preetha Mani, but a provocation that seeks to resolve the relationship between language and literature, written in as well as against English. Examining canonical Hindi and Tamil short stories from the crucial decades surrounding decolonization, Mani contends that Indian literature must be understood as indeterminate, propositional, and reflective of changing dynamics between local, regional, national, and global readerships. In The Idea of Indian Literature, she explores the paradox that a single canon can be written in multiple languages, each with their own evolving relationships to one another and to English. Hindi, representing national aspirations, and Tamil, epitomizing the secessionist propensities of the region, are conventionally viewed as poles of the multilingual continuum within Indian literature. Mani shows, however, that during the twentieth century, these literatures were coconstitutive of one another and of the idea of Indian literature itself. The writers discussed here—from short-story forefathers Premchand and Pudumaippittan to women trailblazers Mannu Bhandari and R. Chudamani—imagined a pan-Indian literature based on literary, rather than linguistic, norms, even as their aims were profoundly shaped by discussions of belonging unique to regional identity. Tracing representations of gender and the uses of genre in the shifting thematic and aesthetic practices of short vernacular prose writing, the book offers a view of the Indian literary landscape as itself a field for comparative literature.