THE DHVANI THEORY

THE DHVANI THEORY

ANANDAVARDHANACHARYA

The theory of dhvani or suggestion was first introduced by Anandavardhana in his treatise Dhvanyaloka in the ninth century. Though the germs of this doctrine manifest themselves in the speculations of earlier theoreticians, Anandavardhana is the first literary critic to give a full bodied form to the concept and to enunciate a new principle of literary evaluation absorbing the concepts propounded by the earlier theoreticians. The doctrine has since then been accepted as an important principle of criticism in Indian poetics and has been strongly recommended by Anandavardhana both for poets and critics.

Bharata, Anandavardhana's predecessor and another renowned Sanskrit scholar, propounds the principle of rasa in drama and literature with the basic implication that the poetic context is creatively organised for the communication of feeling. Feeling cannot be communicated through pro-positional statement. The feeling ultimately experienced by the reader is his own; it is the movement of his sensibility. Since the feeling cannot be aroused by naming it, the poet builds up a system of objective correlatives, essentially identical with the context of stimuli in life which can elicit the emotional reaction. Bharata uses the word nishpatti, that is, emergence or outcome, for the appearance of rasa when the prime and the ancillary stimuli, etc., are creatively organised . Anandavardhana claims that this nishpatti really means abhivyakti, that is, manifestation as the emotional reaction is ever abiding, as a latent reactivity, in the reader. Since the manifestation of rasa in the poetic context is not the communication of a pro-positional meaning but the presentation of a !! sensitively organised complex of stimuli, he affirms that stimuli and reaction , vibhavas and rasa stand in the relation of the suggester and the suggested. Poetry gets operated basically through the power of suggestion .

The doctrine of suggestion is founded on three-fold division of meaning emanating from three-fold powers of words, viz.,

§             abhidha or the power giving primary denotative meaning;

§             laksana or the power giving secondary derivative or indicated meaning;

§  and vyanjana from which the meaning obtained is vyangyartha, the tertiary or the suggested meaning. This vyangyartha is also known as dhvanyartha.

Every poem, feels Anandavardhana, has two levels of meaning: the explicit and the implicit. The explicit, as the word itself suggests, is the literal or derivative meaning set forth in many ways through figures of speech, images, etc., whereas the implicit is like the charm in ladies that "shines supreme and towers above the beauty of the striking external constituents ... " 1 The relationship between the explicit and the implicit differs from poem to poem, depending upon the purpose and intention. One or the other meaning is given prominence and it is only when after the appearance of the expressed sense, the explicit meaning completely subordinating itself gives rise to another sense, that we name it as the suggested meaning.

Defining dhvani Anandavardhana writes :

That kind of poetry, wherein the (conventional) meaning renders itself secondary or the (conventional) word renders its meaning secondary and suggests the intended implied meaning, is designated by the learned as DHVANI or 'Suggestive Poetry'.

Thus after the appearance of the explicit meaning the denoted and the indicated meanings completely subordinating themselves assign the primary position to the tertiary or the suggested meaning and such poetry is ranked as the suggestive poetry. Semantic meaning in this process does not contradict or hinder the poetic meaning. Rather, the semantic meaning is a doorway to the suggested one.

Anandavardhana says : Just as the purport of a sentence is grasped through the meaning of individual words, the knowledge of that sense is got at only through the medium of the explicit sense. "That sense" here is the suggested meaning and in a dhvanikavya it is of the highest importance. "Suggestion", writes Anandavardhana, "itself is both the quintessence of the works of all first rate poets and the most beautiful principle of poetry". In a general poetic parlance a poetry is classified inferior where the suggested meaning is less relevant than the poetic intention. Anandavardhana further declares dhvani or the symbolic content as the poetic creation and the other types of poetic endeavours are categorised in the light of the principle of supremacy of suggestion. The best specimen of poetic art does not keep itself confined within the narrow limits imposed by the expression and the expressed. It transcends the limits and hints towards the symbolic content, which proves itself as one of the inexplicable charms, and this rise is likened to resonance or echo.

§  Thus the best poetry is that in which the suggested sense predominates and supersedes the expressed sense. This is called the Dhvanikavya or the poetry of Resonance.

§  The second class is that in which the suggested sense is not predominant and this is called the Gunibhuta Vyangya or the poetry of Subordinated Suggestion.

§  The third class of poetry which is of lower kind is the one without any suggested meaning. This is called Portrait-like poetry or the Citrakavya.

The epithet of dhvani, however, is assigned not only to dhvanikavya, but even to words, their meanings or the activity of suggestive poetry. In short, in Anandavardhana's treatise it is taken in five senses, viz.:

1. The suggestive word/sound which resonates meaning, that is, vyanjaka sabda.

2. The suggestive meaning which resembles another sense, that is, vyanjaka artha.

3. The suggestive poetry, that is, vyanjaka kavya.

4. The suggested meaning , that is, vyangyartha and

5. The activity of meaning, that is, vyanjana vyapara. -

Anandavardhana elaborates his theory from the angle of what is suggested and the suggesters or what suggests. Regarding the nature of what is suggested, Anandavardhana divides it into three categories, viz.:

(a) Vastudhvani or where there is the suggestion of a matter/fact or an idea,

(b) Alahkaradhvani or where there is the suggestion of a trope, and

(c) Rasadhvani or where there is the suggestion of a mood or feeling.

The last category which has been taken as the cardinal principle by the Indian critics, has been assigned prime significance by Anandavardhana also. Elsewhere, he has categorically expressed that his subject is not merely to establish the doctrine of suggestion but also to harmonise it with the theory of aesthetic emotion. The theory of dhvani, as such, is a comprehensive principle which can cover any genre that fulfils the definition of poetry and in fact when the Indian poetics adopts the term, It includes any literary work. The activity of suggestion in literature, whether in the East or in the West , has been an age-old phenomenon. Only that its conscious usage in West both as a term and as a technique, was a later development and as Krishna Rayan suggests, it was during the nineteenth century that "in Poe's critical writings that 'suggestiveness' is first used as a technical term".

Links & courtesy:

https://sites.google.com/view/learningjoy/ma-ii-ltc/dhvani

A Critical Analysis of The Color Purple

The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a ground-breaking work in American fiction. The topic of emotional/physical abuse, especially that endured by black American women of earlier generations is not openly spoken about or documented in history books. By bringing focus to this sensitive, yet saddening, experience of black women, the novel attracted criticism, censorship and controversy. A careful analysis of the novel will reveal several themes, symbols and motifs woven-in by the author. This essay will confine itself to highlighting some of the major themes such as the representation (or lack thereof) of God, the interpretation of the color purple that is the title of the work, the symbolic value of the epistolary element in the novel, etc.

One of the prominent themes of the novel is the degree of suppression of the female African voice in early twentieth century American society. This is most evident from the events and circumstances in the life of the protagonist of the story, Celie. During her adolescent years, she was repeatedly raped and sweared at by her stepfather. She even bears his child through the whole term, after which the child is taken away and presumably killed by her stepfather. The oppression and disparaging attitude exhibited by her stepfather is obvious in the following passage:

“Well, next time you come you can look at her. She ugly. Don’t even look like she kin to Nettie. But she’ll make the better wife. She aint smart either, and I’ll just be fair, you have to watch her or she’ll give away everything you own. But she can work like a man.” (The Color Purple, Part 1, 1982)

If this was traumatic enough, the unfolding events of her adult life are equally saddening and depressing. Her tumultuous adult life is about finding peace and calm in an existence that is constantly threatened by the abusive husband Albert, while also navigating the emotional confusion cause by her sexual attraction toward Shug. Fortuitously, though, her secret relationship with Shug serves to emancipate Celie to a degree, as she learns to act boldly and assertively like Shug. But the fact remains that the extent of abuse suffered by Celie is not only shocking but also touches the limits of individual tolerance.

Another important theme/symbol in the book is that of God, to whom Celie writes letters regularly, hoping vainly for benign divine intervention in her life. In all the doom and gloom that is Celie’s life, the notion of God offers the only consolation and hope. Celie’s letters addressed to God is also an effective literary device employed by Alice Walker. Through the course of the novel’s narrative, one can see how Celie’s interpretation of God gradually evolves. At first, her view of God is that of a powerful white male. This naïve representation is a product of her personal past experiences and the structure of American society at the time. For example, she notes in one of her earlier letters:

“Yeah, I say, and he give me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won’t ever see again. Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown.” (The Color Purple, Part 4, 1982)

But the friendship with Shug helps Celie to discard this view to a more nuanced understanding of God – one who is beyond gender, race, time or space. What Alice Walker trying to show the reader is the growing maturity and emancipation of Celie through the content of her letters. In other words, her letters reveal the evolution and stirrings of liberation within. Moreover, the letters act as powerful theological symbols, drawing upon the rich tradition of Christian epistolary.

Finally, the color purple is also a thematic element in the story, for it represents the pain and suffering endured by Celie. Drawing upon the idiom ‘beaten black and blue’, purple stands for the color of clotted blood. It is also a symbol of Celie’s sexual and physical violation, as she equates her private parts to this color. But as a reflection of her inner transformation, the color purple is used to represent positive things in life. This is evident in the passage where Shug remarks to Celie in a field of purple flowers thus: “You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth”. (The Color Purple, Part 2, 1982) Eggplant, which takes a hue of purple, is referred in a similar context:

“When I see Sofia I don’t know why she still alive. They crack her skull, they crack her ribs. They tear her nose loose on one side. They blind her in one eye. She swole from head to foot. Her tongue the size of my arm, it stick out tween her teef like a piece of rubber. She can’t talk. And she just about the color of a eggplant.” (The Color Purple, Part 2, 1982)

Reference:

https://jottedlines.com/the-color-purple-by-alice-walker-a-literary-analysis/

                                                       Summary of The Color Purple

The Power of Narrative and Voice

Alice Walker emphasizes throughout the novel that the ability to express one’s thoughts and feelings is crucial to developing a sense of self. Initially, Celie is completely unable to resist those who abuse her. Remembering Alphonso’s warning that she “better not never tell nobody but God” about his abuse of her, Celie feels that the only way to persevere is to remain silent and invisible. Celie is essentially an object, an entirely passive party who has no power to assert herself through action or words. Her letters to God, in which she begins to pour out her story, become her only outlet. However, because she is so unaccustomed to articulating her experience, her narrative is initially muddled despite her best efforts at transparency.

In Shug and Sofia, Celie finds sympathetic ears and learns lessons that enable her to find her voice. In renaming Celie a “virgin,” Shug shows Celie that she can create her own narrative, a new interpretation of herself and her history that counters the interpretations forced upon her. Gradually Celie begins to flesh out more of her story by telling it to Shug. However, it is not until Celie and Shug discover Nettie’s letters that Celie finally has enough knowledge of herself to form her own powerful narrative. Celie’s forceful assertion of this newfound power, her cursing of Mr. ______ for his years of abuse, is the novel’s climax. Celie’s story dumbfounds and eventually humbles Mr. ______, causing him to reassess and change his own life.

Though Walker clearly wishes to emphasize the power of narrative and speech to assert selfhood and resist oppression, the novel acknowledges that such resistance can be risky. Sofia’s forceful outburst in response to Miss Millie’s invitation to be her maid costs her twelve years of her life. Sofia regains her freedom eventually, so she is not totally defeated, but she pays a high price for her words.

The Power of Strong Female Relationships

Throughout The Color Purple, Walker portrays female friendships as a means for women to summon the courage to tell stories. In turn, these stories allow women to resist oppression and dominance. Relationships among women form a refuge, providing reciprocal love in a world filled with male violence.

Female ties take many forms: some are motherly or sisterly, some are in the form of mentor and pupil, some are sexual, and some are simply friendships. Sofia claims that her ability to fight comes from her strong relationships with her sisters. Nettie’s relationship with Celie anchors her through years of living in the unfamiliar culture of Africa. Samuel notes that the strong relationships among Olinka women are the only thing that makes polygamy bearable for them. Most important, Celie’s ties to Shug bring about Celie’s gradual redemption and her attainment of a sense of self.

The Cyclical Nature of Racism and Sexism

Almost none of the abusers in Walker’s novel are stereotypical, one-dimensional monsters whom we can dismiss as purely evil. Those who perpetuate violence are themselves victims, often of sexism, racism, or paternalism. Harpo, for example, beats Sofia only after his father implies that Sofia’s resistance makes Harpo less of a man. Mr. ______ is violent and mistreats his family much like his own tyrantlike father treated him. Celie advises Harpo to beat Sofia because she is jealous of Sofia’s strength and assertiveness.

The characters are largely aware of the cyclical nature of harmful behavior. For instance, Sofia tells Eleanor Jane that societal influence makes it almost inevitable that her baby boy will grow up to be a racist. Only by forcefully talking back to the men who abuse them and showing them a new way of doing things do the women of the novel break these cycles of sexism and violence, causing the men who abused them to stop and reexamine their ways.

  

The Disruption of Traditional Gender Roles

Many characters in the novel break the boundaries of traditional male or female gender roles. Sofia’s strength and sass, Shug’s sexual assertiveness, and Harpo’s insecurity are major examples of such disparity between a character’s gender and the traits he or she displays. This blurring of gender traits and roles sometimes involves sexual ambiguity, as we see in the sexual relationship that develops between Celie and Shug.

Disruption of gender roles sometimes causes problems. Harpo’s insecurity about his masculinity leads to marital problems and his attempts to beat Sofia. Likewise, Shug’s confident sexuality and resistance to male domination cause her to be labeled a tramp. Throughout the novel, Walker wishes to emphasize that gender and sexuality are not as simple as we may believe. Her novel subverts and defies the traditional ways in which we understand women to be women and men to be men.

Reference:

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/purple/summary/

A Critical Analysis of J M Coetzee’s Disgrace

Introduction

“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” (Mother Teresa)

Disgrace is the first novel by J.M. Coetzee to be set in post-Apartheid Africa. Ever since this seemingly political and Booker prize winning South African novel was published in 1999, it has stirred up a lot of controversy and drawn out a response both emotional and political from many readers and critics throughout the world. Many people have out rightly condemned this deceivingly small novel as a racial text whereas some have also appreciated the author for drawing an anxious, comfortless picture of the post-apartheid South Africa.  

Coetzee has very brilliantly incorporated many themes within this 220 pages long book, but the most important one is how the people in South Africa are dealing with change in the racial hierarchy now that the apartheid is over.  Coetzee also explores the issue of sexuality, violence and the inhumane treatment of animals at the hands of the human beings.

Summary

Disgrace revolves around its main „white‟ protagonist David Lurie, a divorced fifty-two year old Professor of Communications at a university in Cape Town. Quite an interesting set of contradictions, Lurie‟s own personal life is devoid of any kind of passion even though he teaches romantic poetry. This professor of communications also ironically isn‟t quite the best in communicating with the people that are the closest to him especially his daughter. As an idolizer of the famous poet Lord Byron, Lurie sees himself as an old-fashioned Casanova who he thinks has “solved the problem of sex rather well” for his age. 

Initially in the novel, David is dependent on a prostitute named Soraya for the fulfillment of his sexual desires but this arrangement comes to an end the moment he tries to pry into her private life. Now left wanting and driven by his own egoistical image of a seducer, David forces himself upon an undergraduate student of his, Melanie Isaacs, despite knowing that for her it is

„undesirable to the core‟ but this time he is not able to get away with it as he might have been able in the past. This affair soon becomes the main reason for his disgrace and ends his career as a professor when it becomes public and charges of sexual harassment are filed against him. The main reason behind it being his stubbornness to show repentance of any kind and he even term the experience as “enriching” before the hearing committee.

After being ostracized from Cape Town in disgrace, Lurie seeks refuge in his daughter Lucy‟s countryside haven in Salem. Here‟s in comes the character of Petrus, a black neighbor of Lucy‟s, who introduces himself as the „dog-man‟ to Lurie.  Petrus who used to work for Lucy early on is now steadily climbing up the rungs of the social ladder since the apartheid has ended. Taking advantage of the reversal in the social order, Petrus is no longer a „dog-man‟ but instead owns a substantial amount of land. During his stay with his lesbian daughter, she is attacked and raped by three black Africans at her home while David is locked up in the bathroom, his head set on fire and the dogs in Lucy‟s kennel are killed. Despite all this Lucy refuses to leave Salem and doesn‟t report the rape to the police. She even goes ahead and decides to have the child after she gets pregnant as an outcome of the attack. The tension between father and daughter reaches an all-time high as David tries to confront her to report the rape to the police. Meanwhile David also starts an affair with Bev Shaw at the animal shelter as he now starts taking care of Lucy by working there but the tension between him and Lucy finally forces him to go back to Cape Town. On his way back, Lurie goes and apologizes to Melanie’s father Mr. Isaac but also finds himself attracted to Melanie’s younger daughter Desiree. He comes back to Salem after finding that his home at Cape Town has been vandalized and a new replacement has been chosen for him at the university. The novel ends with Lurie, now back in Salem, as he watches over his daughter while she is working stooped over in the fields. He sees her as a peasant; he understands that all the centuries of white rule and progress in the country have come to naught.

Transition and Racism

The novel tries to show how the people are dealing with the shift in social order in a postapartheid South Africa. The whites no longer hold any significant power but the status of the blacks is rising day by day as evident in the character of Petrus. He initially refers to himself as the “dog-man” and he indeed used to be that once upon a time – A disenfranchised black man who did nothing but work in Lucy’s garden and fed Lucy’s dogs. But now in the „new‟ South Africa he is the one who is in power – the one with majority of the lands and influence over the area. 

Despite this transition from the old to the new, The black people in South Africa seem not to have forgotten what they were victims of in the past as such remarks keep popping up in the novel. Once such instance is when one of the commission members claims Lurie‟s sexual harassment of Melanie to be racially motivated.

„We are again going round in circles, Mr Chair. Yes, he says, he is guilty; but when we try to get specificity, all of a sudden it is not abuse of a young woman he is confessing to, just an impulse he could not resist, with no mention of the pain he has caused, no mention of the long history of exploitation of which this is part.‟

Even Lurie seems to think that Lucy‟s not reporting the rape to the police is due to her “wish to humble” herself “before history”. He believes that she thinks she has to compensate for the past atrocities on the blacks all by herself and they are even allowed to take revenge from them. She just sees the rapists as „debt-collectors‟. This is indeed a very bleak picture of the „new‟ South Africa where although the apartheid has ended the oppressed has become the oppressor. This is one of the main reasons that this novel has been claimed to be racially skewed.

Despite all such claims Coetzee just refers to race only once in his whole novel. This happens in Petrus‟ party where Lurie notices that they are the only “whites” in there. This I believe is very significant as it makes us the readers to make our judgment for the whole mankind itself and not just the whites or the blacks.

Violence and Animals

Violence especially sexual violence can be seen throughout the book. Disgrace holds out little hope for the „new‟ South Africa as it first displays the rape (presumably) of non-white woman (Melanie) by a white man (Lurie) and then later on the gang rape of a white woman (Lucy) by the three black men one of whom is Petrus‟ kin. This does highlight the fact that even though the apartheid may be over, the racial problems still aren‟t. The scene when Lucy is raped is perhaps the most violent in the whole novel. 

“A blow catches [Lurie] on the crown of the head… He is aware of being dragged across the kitchen floor…He is in the lavatory, the lavatory of Lucy‟s house….The door opens; knocking him off balance…„The keys,‟ says the man…The man raises the bottle…

[Lurie] speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa…Mission work: what has it left behind…Nothing that he can see…Now the tall man appears from around the front, carrying the rifle. With practiced ease he brings a cartridge up into the breech, thrusts the muzzle into the dogs‟ cage…There is a heavy report; blood and brains splatter the cage.”

Animal suffering at the hand of the men no matter what color they are has also been shown in the book - May it be the goats that are slaughtered for Petrus‟s party or the common dog. The most growth in Lurie‟s character takes place while working at the animal shelter. At the shelter his job is to get rid of the bodies of the dogs after they have been put to sleep and this is where he finds his penance. Now “[h]e has learned…to concentrate all his attention on the animal they are killing, giving it what he no longer has difficulty calling by its proper name: love.” 

Conclusion

Disgrace is a novel about a person‟s humiliation, his punishment and the human nature and finally the redemption that he seeks in a country that has been riddled with problems of racism from a very long time. The picture which Coetzee offers seems to be very bleak. As Lucy tells

Lurie near the end „Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity … like a dog.‟ This indeed is quite disturbing. But I think the real solution would be the one that Coetzee presents much earlier in this brilliantly written novel when a white (Lurie) person and a non-white (Petrus) person are working together in a drained storage dam in the fields. There they are together shoveling out the shit as one even though they may not want to. This picture isn‟t in the least hopeless. At the end Disgrace is indeed a pitiless and straight to the point novel which I think quite efficiently exposes the basic state of humanity at the end of twentieth century though most of it might be applicable even today. 

Reference:

http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/~cs5080212/Crit.pdf

An Introduction to Edward Said Orientalism

Edward Said's signature contribution to academic life is the book Orientalism. It has been influential in about half a dozen established disciplines, especially literary studies (English, comparative literature), history, anthropology, sociology, area studies (especially middle east studies), and comparative religion. However, as big as Orientalism was to academia, Said’s thoughts on literature and art continued to evolve over time, and were encapsulated in Culture and Imperialism (1993), a book which appeared nearly 15 years after Orientalism (1978). Put highly reductively, the development of his thought can be understood as follows: Said’s early work began with a gesture of refusal and rejection, and ended with a kind of ambivalent acceptance. If Orientalism questioned a pattern of misrepresentation of the non-western world, Culture and Imperialism explored with a less confrontational tone the complex and ongoing relationships between east and west, colonizer and colonized, white and black, and metropolitan and colonial societies.

Said directly challenged what Euro-American scholars traditionally referred to as Orientalism. Orientalism is an entrenched structure of thought, a pattern of making certain generalizations about the part of the world known as the 'East'. As Said puts it:

“Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, "us") and the strange (the Orient, the East, "them").”

Just to be clear, Said didn't invent the term 'Orientalism'; it was a term used especially by middle east specialists, Arabists, as well as many who studied both East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The vastness alone of the part of the world that European and American scholars thought of as the "East" should, one imagines, have caused some one to think twice. But for the most part, that self-criticism didn’t happen, and Said argues that the failure there –- the blind spot of orientalist thinking –- is a structural one.

The stereotypes assigned to Oriental cultures and "Orientals" as individuals are pretty specific: Orientals are despotic and clannish. They are despotic when placed in positions of power, and sly and obsequious when in subservient positions. Orientals, so the stereotype goes, are impossible to trust. They are capable of sophisticated abstractions, but not of concrete, practical organization or rigorous, detail-oriented analysis. Their men are sexually incontinent, while their women are locked up behind bars. Orientals are, by definition, strange. The best summary of the Orientalist mindset would probably be: “East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet” (Rudyard Kipling).

In his book, Said asks: but where is this sly, devious, despotic, mystical Oriental? Has anyone ever met anyone who meets this description in all particulars? In fact, this idea of the Oriental is a particular kind of myth produced by European thought, especially in and after the 18th century. In some sense his book Orientalism aims to dismantle this myth, but more than that Said's goal is to identify Orientalism as a discourse.

From Myth to Discourse. The oriental is a myth or a stereotype, but Said shows that the myth had, over the course of two centuries of European thought, come to be thought of as a kind of systematic knowledge about the East. Because the myth masqueraded as fact, the results of studies into eastern cultures and literature were often self-fulfilling. It was accepted as a common fact that Asians, Arabs, and Indians were mystical religious devotees incapable of rigorous rationality. It is unsurprising, therefore that so many early European studies into, for instance, Persian poetry, discovered nothing more or less than the terms of their inquiry were able to allow: mystical religious devotion and an absence of rationality.

Political Dominance. Said showed that the myth of the Oriental was possible because of European political dominance of the Middle East and Asia. In this aspect of his thought he was strongly influenced by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The influence from Foucault is wide-ranging and thorough, but it is perhaps most pronounced when Said argues that Orientalism is a full-fledged discourse, not just a simple idea, and when he suggests that all knowledge is produced in situations of unequal relations of power. In short, a person who dominates another is the only one in a position to write a book about it, to establish it, to define it. It’s not a particular moral failing that the stereotypical failing defined as Orientalism emerged in western thinking, and not somewhere else.

Post-colonial Criticism

Orientalism was a book about a particular pattern in western thought. It was not, in and of itself, an evaluation of the importance of that thought. It was written before the peak of the academic ‘culture wars’, when key words like relativism, pluralism, and multiculturalism would be the order of the day. Said has often been lumped in with relativists and pluralists, but in fact he doesn’t belong there

Reference:

https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2004/09/introduction-to-edward-said.html

Overview of Ania Loomba’s: Colonialism/Post Colonialism

Ania Loomba received her B. A. (Hons), M. A. and M. Phil. degrees from the University of Delhi, India and her Ph. D. from the University of Sussex, U.K. Ania Loomba currently holds the Catherine Bryson Chair, Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Ania Loomba’s research focuses on Renaissance literature and history, which she examines through the lenses of gender studies and colonial and postcolonial studies. She is currently working on a book which examines real and imagined English exchanges with Turkey, the Moluccas, North Africa and India in the early modern period. These early global conversations are crucial for understanding English drama and culture as well as for rethinking the histories of race and colonialism in the present moment when empire has again become a fashionable term.

She examines the key features of the ideologies and history of colonialism, the relationship of colonial discourse to literature, the challenges to colonialism, surveying anti-colonial discourses and recent developments in post-colonial theories and histories and how sexuality is figured in the text of colonialism, and also how contemporary feminist ideas and concepts intersect with those of post-colonialist thought. Her achievement, in some senses, is the most considerable of all, because she works mainly in the most prolifically minded and competitive field within English Studies, namely Shakespeare. Loomba's achievement, in some senses, is the most considerable of all. Her book, entitled Colonialism/Postcolonialism, has been translated into Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.

Postcolonial theory deals with the reading and writing of literature written in previously or currently colonized countries, or literature written in colonizing countries which deals with colonized peoples. It focuses particularly on:

Ø  The way in which literature by the colonizing culture distorts the experience and realities, and inscribes the inferiority, of the colonized people.

Ø  On literature by colonized peoples which attempts to articulate their identity and reclaim their past in the face of that past‘s inevitable otherness.

Ø  It can also deal with the way in which literature in colonizing countries appropriates the language, images, scenes, traditions and so forth of colonized countries.

                        In Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Ania Loomba discusses the different meanings of terms such as colonialism, imperialism and postcolonialism. Here she also discusses the controversies around these concepts. She further introduces the readers to aspects of post-structuralist, Marxist, feminist and postmodern thought which have become important or controversial in relation to postcolonial studies. Ania Loomba also considers the complexities of colonial and postcolonial subjects and identities. She asks many questions with a view to opening up the larger debate on the relationship between material and economic processes and human subjectivities. She has examined the processes of decolonization and the problems of recovering the viewpoint of colonized subjects from a ‘postcolonial’ perspective. Various theories of resistance are observed for considering the crucial debates they engender about authenticity and hybridity, the nation, ethnicity and colonial identities. Theories of nationalism and pan-nationalism and how they are fractured by gender, class and ideological divides are considered. Finally she considers the place of postcolonial studies in the context of globalization. This book, for some years, has been accepted as the essential introduction to vibrant and politically charged area of literary and cultural study. With new coverage of emerging debates around globalization, this book will continue to serve as the ideal guide for advanced students and teachers in regard with colonial discourse theory, postcolonial studies or postcolonial theory.

Colonialism/Postcolonialism is a remarkably comprehensive yet accessible guide to the historical and theoretical dimensions of colonial and postcolonial discourses. It is the essential introduction to the vibrant, crucially important areas of literary and cultural study usually known as postcolonial theory, postcolonial studies and colonial discourse theory. Building on her widely acclaimed first edition, Ania Loomba examines: the key features of the ideologies and history of colonialism, the relationship of colonial discourse to literature, challenges to colonialism, including anti-colonial discourses, recent developments in postcolonial theories and histories, issues of sexuality and colonialism, and the intersection of feminist and postcolonial thought, debates about globalization and postcolonialism, and fully updated for the second edition, with an entirely new discussion of globalization. Colonialism/Postcolonialism should be on the shelf of every student of literature, culture or history.

Loomba argues that post-modernists and post-colonialists celebrate and mystify the workings of global capitalism. She adds ahead that the narratives of women, colonized people, and non-Europeans revise our understanding of colonialism, capitalism and modernity. These global narratives do not disappear but can now be read differently. Finally she expects that critics across many language communities should have a dialogue about the genuine difficulties generated by the interdisciplinary, cross-cultural nature of colonialism/postcolonialism, because in the wake of recent developments, it is clear that the issues raised by the study of colonialism remain urgent and vital today.

Reference:

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/4107/10/10_chapter%205.pdf

Brief Introduction of Bill Ashcroft Gareth Griffiths Helen Tiffin The Empire Writes Back Theory and practice in post-colonial literatures

The postcolonial era has marked its specialty in the evolution of postmodern discourses which have cross-cultural impacts on the contemporary society. The effects of imperialism and colonialism have shaped the Third World countries in the political and economic grounds. These countries experience a cultural hegemony which is better revealed in postcolonial writings. The term colonial refers to the period during colonisation and the term postcolonial according to Bill Ashcroft covers “all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day”. The unequal forms of caricaturing the previously colonised Third World countries invoke criticism from the former colonies. Postcolonial literatures oppose this inequality by deconstructing the European structures of philosophy, history, literary studies, anthropology, sociology and political science. Homi K.Bhabha is right as he asserts that, “A range of contemporary critical theories suggest that it is from those who have suffered the sentence of history – subjugation, domination, diaspora, displacement – that we learn our most enduring lessons for living and thinking”.

            Ashcroft further adds that the literatures of former colonies like African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Carribean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries and Sri Lanka contribute to postcolonial literatures. Postcolonial writers take into account the inaccuracy of the European theories to deal with the “complexities and varied cultural provenance”, and they make an attempt to reveal the “cultural traditions” that are concealed by the European theories. Ashcroft, Gareth  Griffiths and Helen Tiffin discuss the various kinds of experiences like “migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial Europe”. Postcolonial works are a response to the historical and cultural dilemma of the colonies after the departure of the empire. Using the English language which is common across the world, postcolonial writings bear with them the concern of the particular regions of the former colonies. It is ironical that the English language which has been mastered from the empire is used for literary purposes to criticise the cultural inequalities powered by the empire:

Postcolonial criticism bears witness to the equal and uneven forces of cultural representation involved in the contest for political and social authority within the modern world order. Postcolonial perspectives emerge from the colonial testimony of Third World countries and the discourses of ‘minorities’ within the geopolitical divisions of East and West, North and South.

Commonwealth literature otherwise known as the Third World literature has paved the way for the origin of postcolonial literature owing to the inadequacy in dealing with the creative writings of the Third World. Commonwealth literary studies focus on the form and style of British literature, thereby marginalising the writings of the formerly colonised nations.

Postcolonial writers, who follow the native traditions and values have contributed to its origin and thereby dismantle the hegemony of the West. The European yardstick has proved to be fatal to the cultural traditions of the Third World. The West categorises the Third World based on their race, colour, gender, culture and economy. Resistance to these subjectivities and discriminations has led to the origin of postcolonial literature which celebrates the plurality of the cultures of the previously colonised societies. Rushdie himself celebrates this new genre as he says that the writers from these societies which include the poor countries and “deprived minorities” contribute new writings to world literature. He further rejoices saying, “it’s time to admit that the centre cannot hold”.

Postcolonial writing is an international field which focuses on cultures which are alienated across borders. Indian Writing in English has earned fame across the globe through a number of literary giants like V.S.Naipaul, Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Jumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth, Vikram Chandra, Arundhati Roy, Shobha De and others. Their novels are great sociological records which reflect the cultural changes and the socio-political turmoil in the Indian society - “The global nature of post-colonial literature means that the reader needs to be aware of a variety of contexts. Because of the influence of migration and the availability of global travel, writers may not belong to or identify with one geographical region, but cross both regional and cultural boundaries through their writing”

Culture is a strategy with a broader capacity to capture the ways of life. Cultural studies have thrived as a contemporary segment of world literature in cutting across various socio-political interests. It is a location which holds on the differences between nations and races thereby estimating the plurality of cultures in a global platform. Cultural studies have been influenced by the vast cultural domain of the whole world. This genre can never be asserted into a specific area as its coverage is vast and diverse. It encompasses multiple trails and imbibes different disciplines. The mass movements and migration of people from their nations are evident historical truths of colonisation and induce tremendous changes in the Third World  societies. This further instigates cross-cultural exchanges which have happened throughout history. Colonialism has generated migrants, labourers and refugees giving rise to cross-cultural crisis. These diasporic populations substantiate their cultural flows and facilitate the changing social relations, thereby defining the complexities of home and nation.

Postcolonialism projects a challenge by writing back to the imperial centre. This postcolonial approach is crystallised in The Empire Writes Back by Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin. They plan the cultural hegemony of the colonised countries which is manifested in postcolonial writings. The socio-historic pressures of the Third World nations have made the postcolonial writings an outlet for contemporary realities. The Empire Writes Back exposes the rejection of the aged colonial rules. Their new “english” is completely different from the English of the imperial powers. These different linguistic practices assert the empowerment of the varied vernacular tongues of englishes from the Third World.

Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin focus on the intricate ways in which language has been made different in postcolonial societies. They add up their views on the differences between the English of the British and the englishes of the Third World countries. The Standard English usage is rejected by the postcolonial communities and they adorn “transformed and subverted” english to state their sense of difference. The english of the postcolonial societies has shattered the original essence of English by displacing the original value system of the language. The postcolonial writings offer new values and identities declaring their separation from the “Received Standard English” which radiates from the centre. The antiquity and rich cultural tradition of the English literary writings face serious challenge from the postcolonial world:

In practice the history of this distinction between English and english has been between the claims of a powerful ‘centre’ and a multitude of intersecting usages designated as ‘peripheries’. The language of these ‘peripheries’ was shaped by an oppressive discourse of power. Yet they have been the site of some of the most exciting and innovative literatures of the modern period and this has, at least in part, been the result of the energies uncovered by the political tension between the idea of a normative code and a variety of regional usages.

The power structures and social hierarchies set by the imperial authorities cast their influence over the Third World. A long history of colonial influence has reshaped the cultural norms of the formerly colonised societies. The major features of postcolonial studies deal with issues on diasporic displacement of the native migrants across the globe. This displacement challenges the cultural belonging of the migrants and places them in the grip of alienation and identity crisis. Issues like hybridity, transculturalism, transnationalism, mimicry, ambivalence and creolization capture the in-between status of the migrants. These issues churn the cross-cultural crisis of the migrants in alien countries. Colonisation and imperialism have forwarded the 10 displacement of natives and this generates new identities and unprecedented changes over the Third World. The new social spaces created by displacement expose the mixing of various cultures affecting the migrants’ identity.

Reference:

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/193335/6/06_chapter%201.pdf