ABSTRACT

The Word in the World is a collection of essays and lectures by H S Shivaprakash, a well-known poet, playwright, and translator. Edited by Kamalakar Bhat, this book brings together Prof Shivaprakash’s interventions in the realm of issues that are entwined with the continuities and discontinuities in the cultural negotiations of India. Distinctively, these are essays on subjects ranging from the nature and significance of medieval works of literature in India to issues arising out of developments in Indian aesthetics. The unfeigned magnitude of this work must be found among students and scholars, who will gain from it a perspective significantly different from the ones available in the prevailing academic discourses, thus indicating a way beyond poststructuralist/postmodernist frameworks.

This is a book that will interest a wide variety of readers with its engaging insights and breadth of reference especially because it is written in a comprehensible style.

Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

part I|100 pages

The Bhakti World

chapter 3|6 pages

Transformations of the Hero in Medieval Indian Literatures

There can be no poetry without history. But all poetry is basically ahistorical.

chapter 4|17 pages

The Poetics and Aesthetics of Labour

chapter 6|7 pages

Dasimaiah - The Divine Weaver

chapter 7|10 pages

Journeying to Kalyana

chapter 9|8 pages

What Were You Before I Knew Myself?

Notes on De-creation and Recreation of Virashaiva Myths in Cultures of Karnataka

part III|58 pages

The World of Drama

part IV|64 pages

The World of Indian Cultures and Literatures

chapter 27|3 pages

Indian Culture beyond India

chapter 28|6 pages

Contemporary Indian Literatures

chapter 29|6 pages

Dreaming Indian Literatures Anew

chapter 32|4 pages

The Outcaste at the City Gate

chapter 33|4 pages

Some Problems and Politics of Translation

chapter 34|9 pages

Translating the Tehsildar

chapter 35|4 pages

Loss of Home: Notes on Diasporic Writings