Assignment Semester 4 : Comparative Literature and Translation Studies

 

Name : Pina Gondaliya 

Paper Name: Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. 

Topic: Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Petals of Blood 

Roll No. : 18

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210001

Submitted to:  Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Comparative Literature in India: An Overview of its History. 

By : Subha Chakraborty    

Introduction  : 

The essay gives an overview of the trajectory of Comparative Literature in India, focusing pri-marilyn on the department at Jadavpur University, where it began, and to some extent the department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies in the University of Delhi, where it later had a new beginning in its engagement with Indian literatures. The department at Jadavpur began with the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore’s speech on World Literature and with a modern poet-translator as its founder. While British legacies in the study of literature were evident in the early years, there were also subtle efforts towards a decolonizing process and an overall attempt to enhance and nurture creativity. Gradually Indian literature began to receive prominence along with literature from the Southern part of the globe. Paradigms of approaches in comparative literary studies also shifted from influence and analogy studies to cross-cultural literary relations, to the focus on reception and transformation. In the last few years Comparative Literature has taken on new perspectives, engaging with different areas of culture and knowledge, particularly those related to marginalized spaces, along with the focus on recovering new areas of non-hierarchical literary relations.

Table Content 

Key Points 

• Decolonizing process 

• Creativity 

• Cross-cultural literary relations 

• Interdisciplinary 

👉 The Beginning 

Long before the establishment of Comparative Literature as a discipline, there were texts focusing on comparative aspects of literature in India, both from the point of view of its relation with literatures from other parts of the world particularly Persian, Arabic and English and from the perspective of inter-Indian literary studies, the multilingual context facilitating a seamless journey from and between literatures written in different languages.

Buddhadeva Bose, one of the prime architects of modern Bengali poetry, did not fully subscribe to the idealist visions of Tagore, for he be-lived it was necessary to break away from Tagore to be a part of the times, of modernity, but he too directly quoted from Rabindranath’s talk on “visva sahitya” while writing about the discipline, interpreting it more in the context of establishing connections, of ‘knowing’ literatures of the world. Bose, also well-known for his translations of Baudelaire, Hoelderlin and Kalidasa, wrote in his preface to the translation of Les Fleurs du Mal that his intention in turning to French poetry was to move away from the literature of the British, the colonial masters, while in his introduction to the translation of Kalidasa’s Meghdutam.

Sudhindranath Dutta, also well-known for his translation of Mallarmé and his erudition both in the Indian and the Western context, to teach in the department of Comparative Literature. Of the first five students in the department, three became well-known poets and the fourth a fine critic of Bengali poetry. 

The first syllabus offered by the department in 1956 was quite challenging. There was a considerable section of Sanskrit literature along with Greek and Latin literature and then Bengali, its relation with Sanskrit literature and its general trajectory, and then a large section of European literature from the ancient to the modern period.

Indian Literature as a Comparative Literature 

It was actually in the seventies that new perspectives related to pedagogy began to enter the field of Comparative Literature in Jadavpur. In 1974, the department of Modern Indian Languages Started a post-MA course entitled “Comparative Indian Literature”. A national seminar on Comparative Literature was held in Delhi University organized by Nagendra, a writer-critic who taught in the Hindi department of Delhi University and a volume entitled Comparative Literature was published in 1977. However, it was only in 1994 that an MA course in Comparative Indian Literature began in the department. 

The task, comparatists realized was, as so aptly voiced by Aijaz Ahmad, to trace “the dialectic of unity and difference – through systematic periodization of multiple linguistic overlaps, and by grounding that dialectic in the history of material productions, ideological struggles, competing conceptions of class and community and gender, elite offensives and popular resistances, overlaps of cultural vocabular-ies and performative genres, and histories of orality and writing and print” (Ahmad 265). Dealing with Indian literature from a comparative perspective also meant looking at the interactions taking place with literatures in regions beyond the geo-political 

boundaries of the nation state. All this would necessarily take up a long period of time. The beginning of the process was seen in the comprehensive and integrative three-volume histories of Indian literature, where Indian literatures were studied not as discrete units but in dialogue with one another, brought out by Sisir Kumar Das, a faculty member at the department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, with support from other members of the department and the Sahitya Akademi.

Centers of Comparative Literature Studies

During the seventies and the eighties Comparative Literature was also practiced at a number of centers and departments in the South of India such as in Trivandrum, Madurai Kamaraj University, Bharathidasan University, Kottayam and Pondicherry. Although often Comparative Literature courses were held along with English literature, a full-fledged Comparative Literary Studies department was established in the School of Tamil Studies in Madurai Kamaraj University. A reputed poet, author and critic, K. Ayappa Paniker, from Kerala, must also be mentioned while talking about the south for his work in the area, particularly that related to comparisons of literary theory, and for his book on the narrative traditions of India.3In Tamil, apart from studies related to the comparison of texts from two different cultures, Classical Tamil texts were compared with texts from the Greek, Latin and Japanese counterpart traditions. Later in the eighties and the nineties other Centres were established in different parts of the country, either as independent bodies or within a single language department as in Punjabi University, Patiala, Dibrugarh University, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Sambalpur University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. In 1986 a new full-fledged department of Comparative Literature was established at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, where focus was on Indian literatures in Western India. 

Centers of Comparative Literature Studies

Comparative Literature courses were held along with English literature, and a full-fledged Comparative Literary Studies department was established in the School of Tamil Studies in Madurai Kamaraj University. A reputed poet, author and critic, K. Ayappa Paniker, from Kerala, must also be mentioned while talking about the south for his work in the area, particularly that related to comparisons of literary theory, and for his book on the narrative traditions of India. In Tamil, apart from studies related to the comparison of texts from two different cultures, Classical Tamil texts were compared with texts from the Greek, Latin and Japanese counterpart traditions. Later in the eighties and the nineties other Centres were established in different parts of the country, either as independent bodies or within a single language department as in Punjabi University, Patiala, Dibrugarh University, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Sambalpur University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. In 1986 a new full-fledged department of Comparative Literature was established at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, where focus was on Indian literatures in Western India. Also in 1999 a department of Dravidian Comparative Literature and Philosophy was established in Dravidian University, Kuppam. 

Jadavpur called Indian Comparative Literature Association and the other in Delhi named Comparative Indian Literature Association. The two merged in 1992 and the Comparative Literature Association of India was formed, which today has more than a thousand members. In the early years of the Association, a large number of creative writers participated in its conferences along with academics and researchers, each enriching the horizon of vision of the other.

Reconfiguration of areas of comparison

The eighties again saw changes and reconfigurations of areas of comparison at Jadavpur University. In the last years of the seventies, along with Indian literatures, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude became a part of the syllabus with a few other texts from Latin American Literatures and then Literatures from African countries were included. An Area Studies component to study the literature of Pakistan has also been designed. As for the other Area Studies components, the department today hosts Centers for African, Latin American and Canadian studies where some research work and annual seminars are organized. A few, like the pres-ent author, are of the opinion that given the relatively small number of faculty in the department, the Area Studies programmes led to a division of the scarce resources and also diverted attention from some of the key challenges in comparative literature studies in India, namely, the systematic amalgamation of data related to the Indian context and its analysis from comparative perspectives, and also perhaps the mapping of intercultural relations with and among India’s neighboring countries. Components from the diverse Area Studies could possibly have been included as integrated parts of the main curriculum.

Reception Studies 

Right from the beginning of the discipline in India, cross-cultural relations between Indian literature and European and American literature had been in focus. There was again a shift during this period as the term “influence” began to be questioned by several scholars and particularly so in colonized countries where there was a tendency to look for influences even when they were non-existent.  In several articles as well, one on the reception of the novel in Bengal for instance, the receiver and not the emitter was in focus. This also implied that the receiver was taking elements from another culture in accordance with her own needs or the needs of the system, while the foreign elements underwent a transformation in accordance with forms, elements and ideologies in operation in the system at any given moment. So it was not a question of a dominating culture imposing its literature on another. Reception studies also pointed to historical realities determining conditions of acceptability and hence to complex configurations between literature and history. To give an instance, it seemed that romanticism of a particular kind had an easy access into the realm of Bengali literature, but it was a romanticism that did not accept many of the European elements. Burns and Wordsworth were very popular and it was felt that their romanticism was marked by an inner strength and serenity. 

Research direction 

The Department of Assamese in Dibrugarh University received the grant and published a number of books related to translations, collections of rare texts and documentation of folk forms. The department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University also received assistance to pursue research in four major areas, East-West Literary Relations, Indian Literature, Translation Studies and Third World Literature. Incidentally, the department had in Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, an avid translator who translated texts from many so-called “third-world countries”. Conferences were held and research material published in all four areas. In the next phase support was given for publishing text-books in the area and for preparing an infrastructure for the study of Indian literature. This led to the publication of three texts on genres, themes and literary historiography in the Indian context. The department at Jadavpur University was upgraded under the programme to the status of Centre of Advanced Studies in 2005, and research in Comparative Literature took a completely new turn. The need to foreground the relevance of studying literature was becoming more and more urgent in the face of a society that was all in favor of technology and the sciences and with decision makers in the realm of funding for higher education turning away from the humanities in general. The task for departments of humanities and literature was to demonstrate that they were looking into and working with a knowledge system just as any other discipline, only literature’s ways of knowing were different. 

A project on the interface between Perso-Arabic and South Asian literatures was also planned and a number of lectures delivered in the area. Earlier, under a different grant, the tradition of Bhakti and Sufi were studied together and a volume was published. Visiting Professors were invited to give several lectures on Japanese and South Korean literature. A one-day colloquium on Kolkata’s Chinese connections was held in collaboration with the H.P. Biswas India-China Cultural Studies Centre of Jadavpur University and a seminar on framing intercultural studies between India and China was held with the Centre and the department of International Relations, Jadavpur University.

Interface with Translation Studies and Cultural Studies

Comparative Literature’s relationship with Translation Studies was not a new phenomenon for one or two departments or centers, such as the one in Hyderabad University, which was involved in doing translation studies for a considerable period. Today the university has a full-fledged Centre for Comparative Literature offering courses, and research in Translation Studies is an important area. Almost all departments or centers of Comparative Literature today have courses on Translation or Translation Studies. Both are seen as integral to the study of Comparative Literature. Translation Studies cover different areas of inter literary studies.As for Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature has always engaged with different aspects of Cultural Studies, the most prominent being literature and its relation with the different arts. Today studies in intermediality in Comparative Literature are common. But beyond such studies courses in Comparative Literature also offer modules on Comparative Cultural Studies where key texts in the global field are juxtaposed with related texts from the Indian context. The M Phil course on the subject at Jadavpur University highlights changing marginalities, ‘subcultures’ and movements in relation to contemporary nationalisms and globalization, and also sexualities, gender and the politics of identity

In some of the new centers of Comparative Literature that came up in the new universities es-tablished in the last Five Year Plan, diaspora studies were taken up as an important area of engagement. It must be mentioned though that despite tendencies towards greater interdisciplinary approaches, literature continues to occupy the central space in Comparative Literature and it is believed that intermedial studies may be integrated into the literary space.

Conclusion 

Non-hierarchical connectivity

 It is evident that Comparative Literature in the country today has multifaceted goals and visions in accordance with historical needs, both local and planetary. Several University departments today offer Comparative Literature separately at the M Phil level, while many others have courses in the discipline along with single literatures. As in the case of humanities and literary studies, the discipline too is engaged with issues that would lead to the enhancement of civilizational gestures, against forces that are divisive and that constantly reduce the potentials of human beings. In doing so it is engaged in discovering new links and lines of non-hierarchical connectivity, of what Kumkum Sangari in a recent article called “co-construction”, a process anchored in “subtle and complex histories of translation, circulation and extraction” (Sangari 50). And comparatists work with the knowledge that a lot remains to be done and that the task of the construction of literary histories, in terms of literary relations among neighboring regions, and of larger wholes, one of the primary tasks of Comparative Literature today has perhaps yet to begin. In all its endeavors, however, the primary aim of some of the early architects of the discipline to nurture and foster creativity continues as a subterranean force.

Citation 

• Ahmad, Aizaz. “Indian Literature.” Theory: Classes, Nations,       Literatures. London: Verso. 1992. 

       243-285. Print.

• Dasgupta, Subha Chakraborty. "Comparative Literature in India: An Overview of its History." Comparative Literature & World Literature Spring 2016.

• Datta, Satyendranath. “Samapti.” Satyendranath Kabyagrantha. Ed. Aloke Ray. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad. 1984. Print.

• R. Radhakrishnan. “Why compare?” New Literary History 40.3, Summer (2009): 453-71. Print.

• Sangari, Kumkum. “Aesthetics of Circulation: Thinking Between Regions.” Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature XLVX (2013-14):9-38. Print.

• Tagore, Rabindranath. “Visva Sahitya.” Rabindra-Rachanabali Vol. 10. Kolkata: WBSG 1987. 324-333. Print.

Assignment Semester 4 : African Literature

 

Assignment Semester 4

Name : Pina Gondaliya 

Paper Name: African Literature

Topic: Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Petals of Blood 

Roll No. : 18

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210001

Submitted to:  Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University 

Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Petals of Blood

Introduction

Violence to protest injustice and oppressive social order is constructive violence. Ngugi' Wa iongo's novel offers a searing condemnation of Kenyan ruling elites who exploit workers and peasants and also offers vital and inexorable disapproval of neo-colonialist institutions- Christianity, politicians, schools, business, banks, landlords and even the highways. Petals of Blood also demonstrate the importance of collective action to empower ordinary people to resist oppression. Ngugi declared that violence is justified to resist this oppressive social order, which echoes the views of Franz Fanon. According to Fanonism, violence is a constructive force. Especially the colonized countries have no other way for decolonization other than violence. Kenya has a long history of struggle as well as violence until the 'Uhuru' (independence) in 1963. Even after the independence Kenya fought with the same situation holding different slogans. The novel Petals of Blood contains the Struggle of four protagonists Munira, Abdullah, Wanja and Karega at their disillusionment about the neo-colonial world of independent Kenya.

About Author 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu pronunciation: [ᵑɡoɣe wá ðiɔŋɔ];[1] born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938)[2] is a Kenyan writer and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, is translated into 100[3] languages from around the world.[4]

Fanonism

In Wretched of the Earth, Fanon presents the vision of violence as a constructive force. He says, “National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” and “ e naked truth of decolonization evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it”. (Fanon, 1985, p. 27- 28). “e development of violence among the colonized people will be proportionate to the violence exercised by the threatened colonial regime” (p. 69) but the native's violence unifies the people. It frees the natives from inferiority complex from his despair and inaction. It works like a “cleansing force” for an individual.

Ngugi and Constructive Violence.

Violence in order to change an individual, unjust social order is not savagery; it purifies man. Violence to protect and preserve an unjust oppressive social order is criminal, and diminishes man”-Ngugi declares in a review of Majdalany's state of emergency, in 1963. It provides the point of view of Ngugi towards violence as a constructive 

force and his attitude is quite positive like Fanon. He also believes that, “Imperialism, the power of dead capital, in its neo-colonial clothes will not be able to destroy the fighting culture of African peasantry and working class for the simple reason that this culture is a product and a reflection of real life struggles going on in Africa today”. (p. xvii)

Kenyan History of Violence

The coast of Kenya has been exposed to outside influences for centuries, intruders' treasure hunting started in the early eleventh century and the conflict with the natives was the seed of further violence. e Indonesians, the Arabs, the Portuguese and Omani Arabs came to trade and halt during the next four centuries. The first Europeans entered East Africa after the sixteenth century, as explorers and traders. It was not until the late 1800s that settlers began moving inland Kenya. In Nairobi, Tigoni and Limuru the Europeans were taking the land from the indigenous Bantu peoples, Kikuyu. The struggle for land started and through the colonial years the British settlers and administrators put an administration of violence and oppression into place. e early fighting for freedom was led by Waiyaki Wa Hinga and others in the late nineteenth century. even real fight for independence began in 1950s; Dedan, Kmathi, L'Ouverture, Ole Masai, Chaka, Mathenge, Turner and other great leaders began a movement of Mau Mau. is was an armed struggle waged by Gikuyu peasantry against the British colonial forces (Maughan, 1985, p.20). Ngugi was very much influenced by Mau Mau. It was a war that touched the popular imagination and was forever to change the fate of Kenya and many other countries under British rule. For the first time the peasants, the wretched of the earth, were taking the war to a highly sophisticated country with a long military history, (p, xi). This situation continued up to 1963 when Kenya was finally independent.

Constructive Violence in Petals of Blood

In Petals of Blood, Ngugi's 1977 novel, he is searching for a political strategy to successfully end “e Whole ing”- global monopoly capitalism of which Africa is constituent part. (Dorn,1999). In this novel, the Kenya Ngugi writes about, the Kenya that nobody can take away from him, is the 'Kenya of working class of all nationalities and their heroic struggle against domination by nature and other humans over the centuries.’Here we see the face of Kenya whose face is reflected in Ilmorog, the center of action for the novel. Ngugi chooses a barren, drought stricken part of Kenya where neo-colonialism puts the interests of foreigners and abandons the people who had suffered and died for the land. Us capitalism was burying Ilmorog and putting a new Ilmorog in its place. e people reached to a point of no return and 

raised the protagonists to resist the destruction.

The Protagonists Concerning Violence

Petals of Blood is so bloody deep and detailed that by the time it ends nobody cares for the fate of the three petty preys, Krupps, Rockfellers and Delameres, or whether it was Wanja, Karega, Munira or Abdullah who has killed them. Wanja, the extraordinary struggling female character, like Kenya itself, has to fight to stay alive and for whom destruction is never too far away. Being humiliated by society and the hostility of the world, she allows herself to turn cruel like the surroundings. She described the reality of the neocolonial situation in a plain formula- “You eat somebody or you are eaten. You sit on somebody or somebody sits on you”. She questioned, has Kimeria sinned less than her, why is she the only sufferer. She stroked his head with the punga before the arson. According to Fanon this is individual freedom and it will calm and clean her burning heart.

Abdullah, the introverted Mau Mau fighter, was totally betrayed by the country he fought for. e independent Kenya failed to rehabilitate the one legged fighter who sacrificed his family and land for the country. The unsung hero had the ability to rehabilitate himself, but the same person Kimeria, who betrayed his friend during Mau Mau, was involved with the spoil of his business, his earning. By killing Kimeria he wanted to avenge the death of his friend, Ndinguri and save Wanja from his claws. He reserved his manhood by this act of violence.Karega, the man of many wanderings, devotes himself to the unity of workers and helps the trade union. He opposed Wanja's philosophy and kept searching for a lost innocence, hope and faith. He believed one could not prevent violence by being one of the violators. He was sure that there must be another way to a 'new world'.

Munira the 'man of God' was also haunted by the need to break out from the situation, the passive “spectator of life” he wanted a connection that prompted him to do something. Even taking personal revenge by dismissing Karega, was a step to prove the activity to himself. Finally inspired by a divine feeling, he too desired to establish a 'secular new world'. He wanted to save Karega from the fatal 

embrace of Wanja. He decided to burn the 'Sunshine Lodge', the place of prostitution. It was also a common place for Kimeria, Chui, Mzigo, the neocolonial agents. The act was a repetition of his early life, throwing the sin, the corruption into the fire. 

Conclusion

In this novel, Ngugi finally exposed some optimism by means of constructive violence. All the protagonists actively take part or provide silent support in the violent act of purification. After the arson, Wanja's pregnancy, Joseph's school rebellion, Karega's fate in renewed strikes and protests in Ilmorog, the future generation with the spirit of purification and courage from the parents involved in freedom fighting and social revolution, will be born to restore serenity. Constructive violence, like arson will burn down the corrupted, rotten society and there is a hope and promise for the rebirth of a new Kenya.

Citation 

1. Dorn, Paul. (1999) “Turning Toward the World: Ngugi’s Petals of Blood.” Post Colonial Literature, Taught Spring <http://www.runmuki.com/paul/writing/Html/> (Retrieved on: 5.2.15)

2. Fanon, Frantz. (1985)e Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Books: London. pp. 27-75

3. “Fanonism” (1998) Key Concept in Post-Colonial Studies, Routledge.

4.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petals_of_Blood (Retrieved on 15.2.15)

5. Isegawa, Moses. (2005). Introduction. Petals of Blood. By Ngugi wa thiong'o. Penguin: UK.

6. Maughan, Brown David. (1985). Land, Freedom and Fiction: History and Ideology in Kenya. e Barth Press: London.

7. Ressler, Lara. (1997) “Uhuru: A Study of Ngugi wa thiong'o” Eastern Mennonite University.http://www.Emu.edu/courses/eng402a/ressler/html> (Retrieved on 5.3.15) 

8. iong'o, N.W. (2005) Petals of Blood. Penguin Books: New York.

Presentation Semester 4: The new Subaltern in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

The new subaltern in arundhati roy’s 'the ministry of utmost happiness '. from Pina Gondaliya

Presentation Semester 4. Feminist studies in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood.

Feminist Studies in Buchi Emechetas's 'The Joys of Motherhood' from Pina Gondaliya

Presentation Semester 4. Comparative Literature and Translation Studies

 

Comparative literature and translation studies from Pina Gondaliya

What is Literature? How literature Shape me.

 

What is Literature?

According to Merriam Webster dictionary literature is ; 

"writings in prose or verse especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest literature stands as related to man as science stands to nature."

— J. H. Newman( Merriam Webster).

A body of written works related by subject-matter (e.g. the literature of computing), by language or place of origin (e.g. Russian literature), or by prevailing cultural standards of merit. In this last sense, ‘literature’ is taken to include oral, dramatic, and broadcast compositions that may not have been published in written form but which have been (or deserve to be) preserved. Since the 19th century, the broader sense of literature as a totality of written or printed works has given way to more exclusive definitions based on criteria of imaginative, creative, or artistic value, usually related to a work's absence of factual or practical reference (see autotelic). Even more restrictive has been the academic concentration upon poetry, drama, and fiction. Until the mid-20th century, many kinds of non-fictional writing—in philosophy, history, biography, criticism, topography, science, and politics—were counted as literature; implicit in this broader usage is a definition of literature as that body of works which—for whatever reason—deserves to be preserved as part of the current reproduction of meanings within a given culture (unlike yesterday's newspaper, which belongs in the disposable category of ephemera). (Oxford)

"Literature is mirror of society"

Many people say that literature is the mirror of society. I also said that literature is the mirror of society.  When we read literature, any book, novel, play, poem, etc., we realize that the same thing happened with us or the same things happened around us. Literature reflects everything that happens in society or in the world. 

What is my definition of literature. What is literature according to me.?

"Literature is like a Mountain"

Yes According to me literature is like a mountain. When we see mountain which things comes first in our mind is that its a very huge and it's very difficult to reach at the top of mountain right. We face many difficulties when we climb the mountain. Same thing happens in literature. Literature is very huge including drama, novels, short stories, poems, essays etc. When we connect with literature we go more and more deep into the  literature.  When you  try to reach the top of the mountain we face many difficulties like many stones that destroy our path and many times our legs slip down. 

The process of reaching the mountain is very hard. It needs a lot of focus, confidence. Same thing in literature. It's very huge. When we read literature we connect dots with what happened in the past and what is happening in the present time. When we read any books we do not read only what writers want to say to us, but we become critics when we read books. We apply many theories and we go beyond the writer's vision. Literature is very huge and it's difficult to reach the high vision to read literature. If we want to reach this high vision of reading literature we come to know about all theories and we are able to connect dots with present time. So I would like to say that "Literature is like a mountain". To reach the top of the mountain you must focus on your goal, your top priority is to only one reach the mountain and be confident. To develop high vision to read literature you must know about all theories and you have to be able to connect dots, connect literature with present time. 

How Literature Shape me?

Literature Shape myself. Literature changed my vision, my perspective to look at anything. When I'm in my B.A. I don't know how to connect dots. I just simply read text for the purpose of the exam. But when I came to the Department of English to do Master studies. I have learned lots of things. I have e developed myself. 

Literature changed my vision to read text 

Yes, Literature changed my vision to read any text. First I  read text only for the purpose of an exam. But now literature has changed my vision. When we read text we applied many theories like feminist theories,  Marxist theories, ecocriticism etc. I have to applied all this theories in the text wich I have read. So literature changed myself as well as my vision. 

Literature changed my vision to watch a film.

I watched movies only for entertainment. But when I  was came in this dept I have improved myself.  As a student of literature we must be watched a movies and connect with text. When any one asked me about how was this movie firs I  said that this hero in this movie or this heroine wearing this dress etc.. but when literature changed my vision. Now if anyone asked me how was this film and my answer is that the movie focuses on social,  political or religious issues in our society.  Hero fights against corruption. What is the education system etc.. we evaluate the whole movie that what is the concept of movie.  So literature changed my vision to watch films.

Must toughest this is willingness.  Yes we will be  always ready to face any situation. Many time we not showing our willingness to do things we gave excuses to escape any  situations. Your willingness to do things leads you towards your success. 

Thinking Activity : Unit 1

 Hello Readers 👋 

Welcome to my blog. In our syllabus of M.A. part-1 we had one paper on Contemporary literature and Translation Studies. In this paper we had a lots of articles. Dilip Barad assigned us this article in Group presentations Task as well as Thinking Activity task. 

2) Amiya Dev, "Comparative Literature in India.": Comparative Literature and Culture 

                -Amiya Dev

Abstract 

In his article, "Comparative Literature in India," Amiya Dev bases his discussion on the fact that India has many languages and literatures thus representing an a priori situation and conditions of diversity. He therefore argues that to speak of an Indian literature in the singular is problematic. Nonetheless, Dev also observes that to speak of Indian literature in the plural is equally problematic. Such a characterization, he urges, either overlooks or obscures manifest interrelations and affinities. His article compares the unity and the diversity thesis, and identifies the relationship between Indian commonality and differences as the prime site of comparative. literature in India. He surveys the current scholarly and intellectual positions on unity and diversity and looks into the post-structuralist doubt of homogenization of differences in the name of unity, Dev also examines the search for common denominators and a possible pattern of togetherness and Dev underlines location and located inter-Indian reception as an aspect of interliterariness. It is t/here Dev perceives Indian literature, that is, not as a fixed or determinate entity but as an ongoing and interliterary process: Indian language and literature ever in the re/making.

Key Points

• Comparative literature in India 
• Problem of looking Indian literature as written in single language Sanskrit. 
• Single Focus perspective  is a result of both a colonial and a post- colonial perspective. 
• Gurbhagat , singh -"Differential Multulogue".
• Problems with regard to the concept of mutuality

Analysis 

In this article, I discuss an apriori location of comparative literature with regard to aspects of diversity and unity in India, a country of immense linguistic diversity and, thus, a country of many literatures. 

Binary approach, my proposal involves a particular view of the discipline of comparative literature, because I argue that in the case of India the study of literature should involve the notion of the interliterary process and a dialectical view of literary interaction. Let me begin with a brief account of linguistic diversity: previous censuses in 1961 and 1971 recorded a total of 1,652 languages while in the last census of 1981 some 221 spoken languages were recorded excluding languages of speakers totaling less than 10,000. Many of the 221 language groups are small, of course, and it is only the eighteen listed in the Indian Constitution as major languages which comprise the bulk of the population's speakers. In addition to the eighteen languages listed in the Constitution, four more are recognized by the Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) for reasons of their significance in literature (Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, Indian English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kankani, Kashmiri, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Panjabi,

Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu). However, this total of twenty-two major languages and literatures is deceiving because secondary school and university curricula include further languages spoken in the area of the particular educational institution. 

We are all aware that the so-called major Indian literatures are ancient -- two of them (Sansjrit and Tamil) ancient in the sense of Antiquity while the rest of an average age of eight to nine hundred years -- except one recent arrival in the nineteenth century as an outcome of the colonial Western impact (Indian English).  This single-focus perspective is a result of both a colonial and a post-colonial perspective, the latter found in the motto of the Sahitya Akademi: "Indian literature is one though written in many languages" (Radhakrishnan). 

Singh accords literatures not only linguistic but also cultural singularities. With regard to the history of comparative literature as a discipline, he rejects both the French and the American schools as well as the idea of Goethe's Weltliteratur. Instead, he argues for a celebration of difference and has anticipated Charles Bernheimer's much discussed Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. For Singh, comparative literature is thus an exercise in differential multilogue. His insistence on the plurality of logoi is particularly interesting because it takes us beyond the notion of dialogue, a notion that comparative literature is still confined to. 

Jaidev's concept of oneness provides an ambience for particular concerns with regard to cultural and artistic expression such as the case of language overlaps, the bi- and multilinguality of authors and their readership, openness to different genres, the sharing of themes based in similar social and historical experiences, emphasis on the oral and performing modes of cultural and artistic transmission, and the ease of inter-translatability. 

The notion of an "English" archive of Indian literature came about two decades ago by the suggestion of V.K. Gokak and Sujit Mukherjee who were speaking of an Indo-English corpus of literature that was created out of English translations of major texts from major Indian languages (see Mukherjee). Thus, the idea of Indian literature was authenticated and not only that, a history too was proposed for it with forms and techniques varying from age to age. Further, Gokak and Mukherjee suggested the canonization of their proposal by inserting the Indo-English corpus into university curricula.

The approach Das has taken is methodologically pragmatic: He has a team of scholars working with him (at least one scholar for each language) who collect the initial data which he then processes through a number of checks resulting in a chronological history of literature. In it we have simultaneous listings of similar events from all the twenty-two recognized literatures: Authors' births and deaths, dates of text composition and publication, classification in genres, text dissemination, reception, literary reviews and their impact, literary society formations and debates, translations from both inside and outside, and so on. 

With regard to the inherently and implicitly advantageous discipline of comparative literature it is interesting that the Gujarati poet Umashankar Joshi -- a supporter of the unity approach -- was the first president of the Indian National Comparative Literature Association, while the Kannada writer U.R. Anantha Murthy is the current president of the Comparative Literature Association of India in addition to being the president of Sahitya Akademi. The discipline of comparative literature, that is, its institutional manifestation as in the national association of comparatists reflects the binary approach to the question of Indian literature as I explained above. However, the Association also reflects a move toward a dialectic. 

Conclusion 

Finally, let me assure you that, obviously, the problematics of unity and diversity are not unique to India. However, in keeping with my proposal that the situs of both theorist and theory is an important issue, I demonstrate here the application of the proposal. If I had discussed, for instance, Canadian diversity, it would have been from the outside, that is, from an Indian situs. I am not suggesting extreme relativism, but Comparative Literature has taught us not to take comparison literally and it also taught us that theory formation in literary history is not universally tenable. I am suggesting that we should first look at ourselves and try to understand our own situations as thoroughly as possible. Let us first give full shape to our own comparative literatures and then we will formulate a comparative literature of diversity in general.

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Thinking Activity Unit 2 : Comparative Literature

 Hello Readers 👋 

Welcome to my blog. In our syllabus of M.A. part-1 we had one paper on Contemporary literature and Translation Studies. In this paper we had a lots of articles. Dilip Barad assigned us this article in Group presentations Task as well as Thinking Activity task. 

What is Comparative  Literature Today ? -Susan Bassnett 

Abstract 

Sooner or later, anyone who claims to be working in comparative literature has to try and answer the inevitable question : What is it ? The simplest answer is that comparative literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that it is interdisciplinary and that it is concerned with patterns of connection in literature across  both time and space. Susan Bassnett gives a critical understanding of Comparative literature. She says that there is no particular object for studying comparative literature. Another thing is, we cannot give a definite term for comparative literature. Different authors of literature give various perspectives about comparative literature.The popular understanding of comparative literature means different cultures across the world, expressed in the history of literature.

Key Arguments 

Critics at the end of the twentieth century,in the age of postmodernism,still wrestle with the same questions that were posed more than a century ago:
“What is the object of the study in comparative literature? How can comparison be the objective of anything? If individual literatures have canon,what might a comparative canon be? How can be comparatist select what to compare ?Is comparative literature a discipline? Or is it simply a field of study ?” Susan Bassnett argues that there are different terms used by different scholars for comparative literature studies. Therefore, we cannot put in a single compartment for comparative literature.
The second thing she argues is that the west students of 1960 claimed that comparative literature could be put in single boundaries for comparative literature study, but she says that there is no particular method used for claiming.

Key Points 

• The methodology of comparative literature
• Dynamic shifts in comparative literature
• Crisis of comparative literature in the postmodern literature field

Analysis 

The comparative literature has been developed through the progress of the world and through various cultures of different continents. A different cultures of the continents have played a vital role in comparative literature studies, be it European, African, American and Eastern so on.

Matthew Arnold in his Inaugural lecture at Oxford in 1857 when he said :“Everywhere there is connection, everywhere there is illustration. No single event,no single literature is adequately comprehend except  in relation to other events,to other literature.”Goethe termed Weltliteratur.Goethe noted that he liked to “keep informed about foreign productions’ and advised anyone else to do the same.It is becoming more and more obvious to me,”he remarked, “that poetry is the common property of all mankind.”Benedetto Croce argued that comparative literature was a non-subject,contemptuously dismissing the suggestion that it might be seen as separate discipline.Wellek and Warren in their Theory of Literature, a book that was enormously significant in comparative literature when it first appeared in 1949,suggest that :“Comparative Literature …will make high demands on the linguistic proficiencies of our scholars.It asks for a widening of perspectives a suppression of local and provincial sentiments,not easy to achieve.”

Conclusion 

The comparative literature could not be brought under one umbrella unless it becomes a particular branch of the discipline of literature. There are a lot of efforts are being taken to study comparative literature through a common language that is done in translation, which is understood by all people.

Comparative Literature has traditionally claimed translation as a sub-category,but this assumption in now being questioned.The work of scholars such as Toury,Lefevere,Hermans,Lembert and many others has shown that translation is especially at moments of great cultural changes.

Evan Zohar argued that extensive translation activity takes place when a culture is in a period of translation :when it is expanding,when it needs renewal,when it isin a pre-revolutionary phase,then translation plays a vital part.  Comparative Literature have always claimed that translation as a sub-category,but as translation studies establishes itself firmly as a subject based in inter-cultural study and offering a methodology of some rigour, both in terms of theoretical and descriptive work, so comparative literature appears less like a discipline and more like a branch of something else.

Seenin this way, the problem of the crisis could then be put into perspective,and the long,unresolved debate on whether comparative literature is or is not a discipline i  its own right could finally and definitely be shelved.

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Thinking Activity: The Joys of Motherhood

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Welcome to my blog.  We had task assigned by Yesha ma'am. We have to write about The Joys of Motherhood. The topic given by ma'am we have to write any one topic. So I have written about the Motherhood – game of power and control. 

 BUCHI EMECHETA

A Nigerian-born author who has resided in England since 1962, Emecheta is best known for her novels that address the difficulties facing modern African women forced into traditional and subservient roles. Emecheta's heroines often challenge the restrictive customs imposed on them and aspire to economic and social independence. Although some critics have categorized Emecheta's works as feminist in nature, Emecheta rejects the label, stating, "I have not committed myself to the cause of African women only. I write about Africa as a whole."

The Joys of Motherhood 

Nwokocha Agbadi is a wealthy and proud local chief. He is enamored with Ona, the daughter of another chief. Although Chief Agbadi has many wives he is determined to have Ona. Ona is a proud and headstrong woman and she refuses to marry Agbadi because she must produce an heir to continue her father's lineage.

Chief Agbadi and his friends go elephant hunting in the monsoons. The chief gets seriously injured during his expedition. He is wounded severely and taken for dead by his friends. Many days later he regains consciousness and wakes up to see Ona by his side. They spend a number of days together and eventually Ona becomes pregnant with Agbadi's child.

Ona gives birth to a baby girl and she names her Nnu Ego, which means twenty bags of cowrie shells. Ona soon dies in labour with her next child who also fails to survive her. Nnu Ego grows up to be a smart and beautiful young woman. She is Chief Agbadi's favorite daughter and he marries her off to a wealthy and influential family. However, her marriage soon grows stale because Nnu Ego is barren and cannot give her husband, Amatokwu, any children. Amatokwu marries another woman who before long produces his heirs.

Nnu Ego is unhappy and dispirited, she becomes frail and morose and so she goes back to her father's house. Chief Agbadi arranges her second marriage to a man from Lagos called Nnaife. Nnu Ego travels from her village to the city to meet him. Nnaife is not her ideal man but she decides that if she can have a child with him then she could perhaps grow to love him. Nnu Ego becomes pregnant but her son dies almost immediately after he is born. This devastates her and she tries to throw herself off a bridge but a villager finds her and manages to dissuade her.

Nnaife loses his job and the two struggle to survive, he eventually gets a job on ship which requires him to be gone for months at a time. Nnaife returns from the ship after many long months to the news of his brothers death and his consequent inheritance of all his brother's wives and children. The youngest wife, Adaku moves to Lagos with her children to Nnu Ego's house, fostering a bitter rivalry in the process.

Over the years Nnu Ego's has given birth to four children and she works hard to put them through school and provide for them. After a rather cruel disagreement with the family Adaku leaves and becomes a prostitute to support herself. Nnaife goes to Idubo to assert his rights and settle his brother's inheritance with his brother's eldest wife but he instead comes home with another wife, Okpo.

Nnu Ego has a difficult time supporting her children along with the children that Nnaife keeps fathering. However, one day Nnaife offers to pay for his and Nnu Ego's son, Oshia's, expensive education. Everybody expects Oshia to complete his education, procure a good job and help raise his younger brothers and sisters. Oshia has other plans for himself which distresses and causes great grief for his family. He wants to study in America and he eventually leaves.

Kehinde, Nnu Ego's third child runs away from home with a Yoruba man. Nnaife is enraged and assaults the Yoruba man's father for which he is sent to prison. Adim, their second son emigrates to Canada. Nnu Ego returns to her father's home alone with both her sons abroad and both her daughters married. She eventually dies a lonely death in the village with nobody by her side.

After Nnu Ego's death all her children come down to Ibuza and hold an elaborate funeral for their mother. The four children set up a shrine for her, so women who want children can pray to her. It is said, however, that Nnu Ego never answers the prayers of the women who pray to her for children.

Motherhood – game of power and control

Many African authors have been dealt with the notion of motherhood. Catherine Obianuju Acholunu has coined the term ‘Mothers’ as an alternative to Western feminism. Buchi Emecheta’s The Joy of Motherhood (1979)discuss motherhood in the Ibo society as a power game of desire and control. Nnu Ego tries to become an ideal mother. But found no life outside the preview of motherhood. (Kapgate)

The Joy of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta is one of the most sophisticated Bildungsroman books produced in colonial Nigeria between the early and mid-twentieth centuries, describing the protagonist's twenty-five-year journey. The protagonist, Nnu Ego, has progressed from a powerful tradition-bound character to a feminist, as the author has highlighted. Her efforts to prove the validity of motherhood are thwarted at every point, regrettably, by a tangle of inconsistencies that she finds herself unable of resolving.

The novel is devoted to all mothers, beginning with "The Mother" in the first chapter and ending with "The Canonized Mother" in the last chapter. It provides a caustic examination of patriarchal, colonial restraints encountered by women like Nnu Ego, whose societal worth is predicated on two factors: first, her ability to produce children, and second, her readiness to meet male-oriented Ibo culture's demand and serviceability. As a passionate author in finding the difficulties encountered by Nigerian women, she stated in a talk  with Adeola James that  

“in Joys of Motherhood…I created a woman who had eight children and died by the wayside”( Adeola )

Traditions played an important part in the development of the concept of motherhood. They assumed that motherhood would deliver a fulfilled and distinguished life to the protagonist. Emecheta uses the technique of mother's introspection in which the protagonist realizes that she has not brought fulfillment to the family. Nnu Ego, who is a doubly colonized mother, describes her sorrows and sacrifices in a statement released shortly after the birth of her twin daughters. She had one of these epiphanic moments when stuck in the web of delivery and a difficult position. The following remark expresses the psychological temperament and sadness of a mother, and it represents the Nigerian women's response to the prevalent problem. (Kapgate)

The Joy of Motherhood, the tale of a mother, Nnu Ego, is written with subtlety, power, and abundant compassion. (New York Times)

Nnu Ego feels empty without motherhood and has fought hard to be a mother. Emecheta wishes to convey the message that having more than five or six children does not guarantee that a mother would be rich in her later years. She looks at the institution of motherhood, the horrible experiences that come with it, and the impact it has on the brains of Nigerian women.

According to Katherine Frank, "The complete futility of motherhood that we find in The Joys of Motherhood is the most heretical and radical aspect of Emecheta's vision of the African Women".

The author has given the novel's final chapter the satirical title of "The Canonized Mother." Throughout her life, Nnu Ego was subjected to patriarchal enslavement and died alone. In the patriarchal and traditionally strong Ibo society, all three moms, Ona, Akadu, and Nnu Ego, have been mistreated. However, Emecheta's Nnu Ego defies the conventional wisdom that having a large family will provide a woman with a lot of ecstasies.

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