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Rushdie:
Postmodernism and History -- M Madhusudhana
Rao
This
paper has two parts: the first part briefly discusses the
idea of `history' in `postmodernism'; and the second part
discusses Rushdie's idea of historicity (but not history)
in his fiction—in particular, Midnight's Children.
The concept of history originated from Aristotle's distinction
of history, philosophy and poetry, (as history being particular
and philosophy being general and poetry combining both the
general and the particular), Sidney's definition that historians
deal with a particular `truth', whereas poetry deals with
both particular and universal truths, to Hegel's concept of
history being a dialectical process of progress of `Spirit'
(GEIST), to the postmodernist concept of history being `finite'
and `hyperreal', there is a growth in the attitude to history.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
V
S Naipaul: Helical Journey of an Author and Man --
Savita Pathak
Sir
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is well-known not only among
connoisseurs of English literature world over, but also among
millions of laymen. He has always remained an enigma. He is
known to be an extrovert on most matters. Yet, there is never
a consensus among critics and reviewers over his statements
made directly or through his writings. Not only are his words
interpreted variously, but his Nobel Prize for Literature
for 2001 too was interpreted in many ways. To understand Naipaul
and his writings, it is necessary to understand his past.
Naipaul's continuing and never-ending journey in exile is
actually a desperate response to the fate that has befallen
him. Naipaul has not inherited the legacy of traditional/classical
scholarship. His ancestors were taken from a remote village
of Gorakhpur district as indentured plantation workers to
a small Caribbean island of Trinidad.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
1857:
A Literary-Historical Perspective --
Rattan Lal Hangloo
The
year 1857 is an historically eventful year not only in the
history of India but also for all those nations which have
carried on anti-colonial struggles to achieve their independence.
In India, the year 1857 marked the beginning of the first
war of Indian independence. The available material on this
phenomenon is enormous. The contemporary colonial official
documentation which constitutes the major source of information
reveals that it was purely a military rebellion limited to
a few groups of people in a couple of places. The British
government and the colonial historians have not acknowledged
the truth about 1857 because they wanted to perpetuate British
colonial rule and their governance in India. The Indian historiography
on 1857 is vast and the difference of opinion among scholars
is wide-ranging.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
Heavy-Duty
Verbs in Operation in Indian English --
Jayaprakash A Shinde
The
expression `heavy-duty verbs in operation', in fact, refers
to `heavy-duty' verbs which are also operation-words like
`make', `put', `take', `keep', `let', `give', `get', `go',
`come' and `do'. The verbs selected for study—`do', `get',
`give', `make' and `take'—are frequently used and are
some of the most complex verbs in the English language, as
they often do not have any specific meaning of their own;
generally, they derive their meaning from the nouns or adjectives
that follows them. They are widely used in phrasal and idiomatic
expressions in collocation with particles. To provide a definitive
description of Indian English collocations of these verbs,
the entire one-million word Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English
was used as source material. Instances of Indian English data
were referred first to the sense definitions given in the
corpus-based COBUILD dictionary.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
The
Tongue Untied: A
Comparative Study of Eritrean and Indian Women Poets
-- Pretti Kumar
India
has strong traditions of poetry. Poetry served as an important
nonviolent tool of nationalism during the Indian freedom movement.
The Indian women poets show how poetry can be born out of
a sincere emotional response to social reality. They react
to inhuman brutality in the personal space as well as at national
level. Their angry outburst is as much local as universal.
It could well be a scene in Bosnia. Though power changed hands,
the quality of life in Eritrea and especially that of the
women did not improve. Their future became their present.
The Eritrean struggle was evolutionary and assimilative; it
took into itself its entire people, religions and individuals.
But for the Eritrean women it was war on too many fronts;
every step was a tough test they had to get through.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
Orhan
Pamuk: An Icon of Istanbul -- T Jeevan
Kumar
Orhan
Pamuk, Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2006, stands out as
a Turkish literary Titan, whose novels project him as a builder
of a bridge between the East and the West. As a critic rightly
observes, "Pamuk's books echo the basic
polarities of Istanbul: the tension between East and West,
the pull of an Islamic past and the lure of modern European
manners and materialism". Even the Nobel Citation aptly
says, "In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native
city, Pamuk has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing
of cultures". Pamuk shot to fame with his novels that
explore the complex identity through its rich imperial past.
His first novel Darkness and Light (modified version
of Cevdet Bey and His Sons), explores with great intimacy,
a dynastic saga of a bourgeoisie family living in Nisantasi,
a town in the district of Istanbul where Pamuk grew up.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
Pragmatism
and Holism as Influences on Franklin's The Autobiography
--
José
Carlos Redondo Olmedilla
The
autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is one of the most
famous books, though the author recorded only the first part
of his long life. It reveals an extraordinary and unusual
human being—the hero, the implicit legend, the narrator
and the writer. But why different Franklins cohabit in the
work and how is this cohabitation possible? The author of
this paper thinks that the answer to this question could possibly
lie in holism and pragmatism as Franklin's key approaches
to reality. To substantiate his contention, the author first
introduces holism and pragmatism as ideologies favored by
the environment and context of colonial America. Clear examples
and manifestations of these ideologies and ideological motifs
are collected from Franklin's The Autobiography and
presented.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
Class
Struggle in Lillian Hellman's Days to Come --
T
Nagamani
The
1930s has been considered as a great period of revolution
and resurgence in the literary world. The economic depression,
the industrial explosion resulting in the growing unrest among
workers and the birth of trade unionism, the rise of nationalist
movements in colonial countries under imperialistic governments
and the exploitation of various kinds resulting in capitalistic
societies—these were some of the economic, social and
political conditions that affected the literary world bringing
about a remarkable change in the attitude of the writers towards
life and literature. It would take a strong mind and will
to create a play that could combine social statement with
entertaining drama. Lillian Hellman, acclaimed as one of America's
most distinguished playwrights, emerged as a bright star in
the cloudy horizons of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
©
2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.
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