Abstract
At a time when the relevance of English studies in India is up against a host of new challenges and questions are being raised about the approach to English studies being followed in various universities, the emergence and practice of comparative literature both as a method and a discipline in various Indian universities provide an alternative paradigm to approaching the discipline. This paper aims at tracing India’s response to the rise of comparative literature as an academic discipline in the First World countries, its genesis and development as a method and as an academic discipline in India and how comparative literature in India has transformed the approach to English studies. The study employs a comparative analysis to identify the differences and similarities between comparative literature in India on the one hand and in Europe and America on the other. Recent trends and approaches in various comparative literature departments across India with reference to their syllabi have been used as the framework for analysis in this study. The paper attempts to foreground the inclusive, dynamic and egalitarian nature of comparative literature in India and build a case for how, by propagating democratic value within the academic discipline and representing India’s cultural plurality, it makes English studies more vibrant and pertinent in the present context.
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- 1.
This was initiated by Madame de Staël who in her book De l’Allemagne provided a contrastive study of the verbal art of Germany and that of France and highlighted the universalism of French culture.
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It was a religious movement within Hinduism which started in South India in the eighth century and gradually spread to other parts of India. The guiding principle of this movement was devotion to god through self-surrender.
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Sufism is a way of life that emerged within Islam and came to India in the eighth century when Muslims entered India. Sufism is characterised by ascetism and provides a criticism of worldliness and advocates divinity. For a detailed discussion on the origin and spread of Sufism, please refer to Knysh, Alexander. (2017). Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism. Oxford. Princeton University Press.
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It is a devotional song typically about the life of Krishna. It is a call-and-response style song in which multiple singers recite a legend or a story. This is a musical form of narration that has its root in Vedic Anukirtana traditions. This form has been adapted by many religious traditions in India. For more refer to Kaivalya, Alana. (2014). Sacred Sound: Discovering the Myth and Meaning of Mantra and Kirtan. California. New World Library.
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It is a collection of songs of Vaishnava poetry in the period of the fifteenth to seventeenth century. The general theme of the collection was the love of Radha and Krishna.
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It is a collection of tales that describes the lives of many Hindu gods and goddesses.
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Tötösy in his 1999 essay ‘From Comparative Literature Today Toward Comparative Cultural Studies’ merges both comparative literature and cultural studies and designates a new approach, i.e., ‘comparative cultural studies’ where both cultural studies and comparative literature would borrow both theory and methodology from each other to study literature and culture. It is in the same essay that he talks about new ‘peripheral’ comparative literature departments, which according to him is the consequence of cultural studies and the “intellectual achievement of comparative literature” (Tötösy 1999, p. 11). For more refer to ‘de Tötösy, Z. S. (1999). From Comparative Literature Today Toward Comparative Cultural Studies. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 1(3), 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1041’
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Bharata Muni in his book Natyashastra (written between 200 BC and 200 AD) talks about eight rasas which denote various kinds of sentiments and emotions evoked in the audience during a performance. For more refer to Pollock, Sheldon ed. & trans. (2016). A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics. New York. Columbia University Press.
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The literal meaning of dhvani is sound. Anandavardhana, who is credited with propounding the dhvani theory, differentiated between “literal meaning” and “suggested meaning.” Of the two the genesis of the latter depends on the special faculty of the audience and their connection with the performers. For more refer to Seturaman, V. S. ed. (2000). Indian Aesthetics: An Introduction. Madras. Macmilan Publishers India Limited. A comprehensive discussion on the various terms and theories pertaining to Indian aesthetics can also be found in the same volume.
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The literal meaning of alamkara is ornament. It is a figure of speech used for beautification of poetry. The scholars of the alamkara school considered alamkara, which is based on sabda and artha, i.e. word and meaning, to be the most important feature of poetry.
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The theory of riti is based on creative use of language. Vamana who developed the theory of riti in Kavyalankara-sutra-vrtti is of the opinion that riti is the soul of poetry.
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The meaning of auchitya is propriety. The theory of auchitya is defined as the harmony between the whole and the part in any art. Kshemendra, the proponent of the theory of auchitya in his book Auchitya-vicharachara, considers it the soul of poetry. The harmony between the character and action is essential to have the desired impact.
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It is a mode of expression in poetry, a particular figure of speech used in poetic language for beautification. Though the genesis of this word can be traced back to Anandavardhana, the idea was developed further by the Kashmiri poet Kuntaka who found it as the source of beauty in kavya, i.e. poetry in classical style.
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Shastra is a Sanskrit word which according to the Sanskrit-English Dictionary by Monier Williams means “precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise.”
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In ‘The insights of the outsider: The legacy of translation as afterlife’, the thirteenth chapter of her book The Promise and Premise of Creativity: Why Comparative Literature Matters, Eugene Eoyang draws heavily upon Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’ and shows how translation is significant for the transmission of ideas and philosophies beyond linguistic and cultural boundaries and how translation not only helps to preserve literature from many extinct languages but also ensures the longevity of any original text by giving it an afterlife. For more refer to Eoyang Eugene. (2012). The insights of the outsider: The legacy of translation as afterlife. The Promise and Premise of Creativity: Why Comparative Literature Matters (pp. 151–160). London. Continuum.
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Walter Benjamin in his often quoted ‘The Task of the Translator’ emphasizes on the transmission of essential qualities in translation and sees it as a process of co-creation rather than a passive transmission of meaning or information of the original. For more details refer to ‘Benjamin, Walter. (1968). The Task of the Translator: An Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens (Harry Zohn, Trans.). In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, 69–82. New York: Schocken Books.
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Biswas, S. (2019). Comparative Literature as an Academic Discipline in India. In: Mahanta, B., Sharma, R. (eds) English Studies in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1525-1_6
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