ABSTRACT
The Introduction focuses on some important trends in the critical discourse in Telugu. One is the comparative approach that was used as an analytical tool to generate a discourse in literary circles. The second is the role played by the movements, especially the identity movements that brought tremendous change in the critical and literary discourse. Connected to these two is the influence of other literatures from Indian languages as well as the Russian and English literatures that becomes a major point of discussion in the critical literary circles. All these three points also reveal the ongoing dialogue between writers, critics and readers. This chapter argues that the critical discourse in Telugu has flourished through literature and has reached out to people through writing. It analyses the influence of early modernity, English education, journals and magazines, language debates on critical discourse in Telugu and traces the major influences on critical discourse in Telugu in the 20th and 21st centuries such as movements and ideologies, redefinitions and revisions, social identities and regional assertions, etc.
