Critical Discourse in Odia

Jatindra Kumar Nayak, Animesh Mohapatra

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032332390
• eBook ISBN: 9781000470468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume forms part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series, which deals with schools, movements and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of Odia literature and its critical tradition across a century. The book brings together English translation of major writings of influential figures dealing with literary criticism and theory, aesthetic and performative traditions, and re-interpretations of primary concepts and categories in Odia. It presents twenty-five key texts in literary and cultural studies from late-nineteenth century to early-twenty-first century, translated by experts for the first time into English. These seminal essays explore complex interconnections between socio-historical events in the colonial and post-Independence period in Odisha and the language movement. They discuss themes such as the evolving idea of literature and criteria of critical evaluation; revision and expansion of the literary canon; the transition from orality to print; emergence of new reading practices resulting in shifts in aesthetic sensibility; dialectics of tradition and modernity; and the formation, consolidation and political consequences of a language-based identity.

Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Odia literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Odia language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Odia-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Odisha and Eastern India and conservation of language and culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Translators
• Introduction
• 1 Odia folktales
• 2 Village songs in Odia
• 3 Colophons of palm-leaf manuscripts in Odisha
• 4 Sudramuni Sarala Das: author of the Odia Mahabharata
• 5 Reflections on Sarala Das’s Mahabharata: excerpts from Sree Bharata Darpan
• 6 Portrayal of women in Sarala Das’s Mahabharata
• 7 Representations of the conflict between people living in cities and forest dwellers in Odia literature
• 8 An essay on Dinakrushna Das’s Rasakallola
• 9 Baladeb Ratha and his experiments with poetic technique
• 10 Perso-Arabic influence on Odia literature
• 11 Michael Madhusudan Dutta and his Meghanadvadh Kavya
• 12 System of patronage and attribution of authorship in colonial Odisha: the case of Gangadhar Meher
• 13 War of words: aspects of a literary controversy
• 14 The need for a literary periodical
• 15 Two Odia books: a review
• 16 Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Mamu: a review
• 17 Literature and morality
• 18 Odia drama: a study of its social background
• 19 Accounting for literary change: a survey of modern Odia poetry
• 20 Netramani’s diary
• 21 Rabindranath Tagore and modern Odia poetry
• 22 Commercial prospects of modern Odia literature
• 23 The poetry of Sachidananda Rautray
• 24 Odia literature: a historical enquiry
• 25 Literature and philosophy
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index