Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism, and Culture (S U N Y Series in Hindu Studies)

318 Pages·1995·1.23 MB·English

by  Hogan

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Page i
Literary India

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Page ii
SUNY Series in Hindu Studies
Wendy Doniger, Editor

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Literary India
Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism, and Culture
Edited by
Patrick Colm Hogan
and
Lalita Pandit
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

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Page iv
Production by Ruth Fisher
Marketing by Nancy Farrell
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1995 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address the State University of New York Press,
State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hogan, Patrick Colm.
Literary India : comparative studies in aesthetics, colonialism,
and culture / edited by Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit.n
p. cm. (SUNY series in Hindu studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-2395-6 (alk. paper). ISBN 0-7914-2396-4 (alk. paper
: pbk.)
1. Literature, ComparativeIndic and English. 2. Literature,
ComparativeEnglish and Indic. 3. Indic literature (English)20th
centuryHistory and criticism. 4. CriticismIndiaHistory20th
century. I. Pandit, Lalita. II. Title. III. Series.
PK5408.H64 1995
891'.1-dc20 94-16097
CIP
10987654321

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Page v
The editors wish to dedicate this volume to their parents:
Patrick Hogan
Madonna Hogan
B. N. Pandit
Kamalavati Pandit

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Page vii
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Multicultural Comparatism xi
Part I: India and the Study of Comparative Literature
1 Beauty, Politics, and Cultural Otherness: The Bias of Literary Difference 3
Patrick Colm Hogan
Part II: Theorizing Cultural Difference and Cross-Cultural Invariance: Authors, Readers, and Literary Language
2 The Question of Authorship in Indian Literature 47
Jeffrey Ebbesen
3 The Genre Theory in Sanskrit Poetics 63
V. K. Chari
4 The Yolk in the Pea-Hen's Egg: Language as the Ultimate Reality 81
W. P. Lehmann
Part III: Interpreting Cultural Difference and Cross-Cultural Invariance: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial
5 Patriarchy and Paranoia: Imaginary Infidelity in Uttararamacarita and The Winter's Tale 103
Lalita Pandit

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Page viii
6 Ray's Devi 135
Norman N. Holland
7 The Poetics of Exile and the Politics of Home 141
Una Chaudhuri
Part IV: Hybridity and Universals: An Interlude
8 A Sense of Detail and a Sense of Order: Anita Desai 153
Interviewed by Lalita Pandit
Part V: Interpreting Literary Contact:
Translation, Influence, and Writing Back
9 Translating Indian Literary Texts into English 175
P. K. Saha
10 Nautanki and the Struggle for Independence, National Integration, and Social Change: A Brechtian Analysis 189
Darius L. Swann
11 Caste, Race, and Nation: History and Dialectic in Rabindranath Tagore's Gora 207
Lalita Pandit
Part VI: Theorizing Colonial Contact:
Hybrid Identities and the Possibility of Postcolonial Culture
12 The Postcolonial Critic: Homi Bhabha 237
Interviewed by David Bennett and Terry Collits
13 Culture, State, and the Rediscovery of Indian Politics 255
Ashis Nandy
Notes on Contributors 275
Index 277

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Page ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
"The Postcolonial Critic: Homi Bhabha Interviewed by David Bennett and Terry Collits" was previously published in
arena: a marxist journal of criticism and discussion 96 (Spring 1991): 47-63. We are grateful to professors Bhabha,
Bennett, and Collits and to the editors of the journal for permission to reprint.
Ashis Nandy's "Culture, State, and the Rediscovery of Indian Politics" was previously published in Interculture
(April 1988) and, in an earlier version, in the Economic and Political Weekly (December 8, 1984). We are grateful to
Professor Nandy for permission to reprint.
The essays in this volume, and the overall shape of the volume itself, benefited greatly from the comments of four
anonymous readers for the State University of New York Press. We are grateful for their care in reading the
manuscript and for their suggestions. We are also grateful to William Eastman for choosing such scrupulous readers
and for his more general support of the manuscript. In addition, thanks are due to Michael A. Baker for his great care
in copy-editing the manuscript, and Ruth Fisher for her work on the production of the manuscript.
This project would never have come to fruition had it not been for the patience and encouragement of Wendy
Doniger. Working with her on this project has proven almost as rewarding as reading her invaluable analyses of myth
or her lucid and beautiful translations of literary and religious texts.

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Page xi
INTRODUCTION:
MULTICULTURAL COMPARATISM
In the last decade, Indian and other non-Western literatures have begun to work their way into the mainstream of
English and American literary study. Not unrelated to this, there has been a more generalized interest in placing
works of literatureboth Western and non-Westernwithin broader cultural contexts. However, comparative studies
involving non-Western works have remained relatively narrow, focusing almost entirely on contemporary literature
in European languages. Moreover, much of the critical work in this field has concentrated exclusively on colonialism
and the attempts of Anglophone and Francophone writers to respond to European cultural hegemony through
anticolonial or postcolonial writings. Thus, with a few exceptions, mainstream comparatists have paid little attention
either to indigenous literary traditions in non-Western countries or to the range of noncolonial issues important to
contemporary non-Western literatures.
Our broad goal in assembling this collection is, then, to think more encompassingly about comparative literature, to
consider a wider range of similarities and differences, interactions and reactions, in order to understand better both
the artistic form and the social import of any literature. To this end, we have designed the volume to present an
overview of the major issuesaesthetic, political, and more inclusively culturalthat define or should define a
comparative field of study. Our more narrow goal in this collection is to advance comparative work in the specific
area of South Asian literature. Literature of the Indian subcontinent is particularly appropriate for broadly
comparative study because it includes one of the oldest literary traditions in the world and, even

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