Colonizing the Realm of Words : The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India
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Overview
Details the transformation of Tamil literary culture that came with colonialism and the encounter with Western modernity.
A true tour de force, this book documents the transformation of one Indian literature, Tamil, under the impact of colonialism and Western modernity. While Tamil is a living language, it is also India's second oldest classical language next to Sanskrit, and has a literary history that goes back over two thousand years. On the basis of extensive archival research, Sascha Ebeling tackles a host of issues pertinent to Tamil elite literary production and consumption during the nineteenth century. These include the functioning and decline of traditional systems in which poet-scholars were patronized by religious institutions, landowners, and local kings; the anatomy of changes in textual practices, genres, styles, poetics, themes, tastes, and audiences; and the role of literature in the politics of social reform, gender, and incipient nationalism. The work concludes with a discussion of the most striking literary development of the time-the emergence of the Tamil novel.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781438432007
- ISBN-10: 1438432003
- Publisher: State University of New York Press
- Publish Date: July 2011
- Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.15 pounds
- Page Count: 379
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