ABSTRACT
Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy, in Foreword to the book A History of Telugu Literature by P. Chenchaiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao Bahadur published under the heritage of India series, traces the history of Telugu literature in its outline. Interestingly, he acknowledges the influence of Bengali literature which, according to him, is helping Telugu literature find its soul. This is an important turn in modernist Telugu criticism where it acknowledges and examines not only the influence of classical Sanskrit literature and the colonial English literature but also the contemporary Indian literatures which were in high circulation among the Indian readers, in translation, and were also emerging as the Indian literature. He argues that simplicity of expression, sincerity of emotion and natural figures of speech were again becoming the prevalent literary mode, and that Telugu literature has emerged from the unnaturalisms and idiosyncrasies of the Prabandha period, which is the period, generally speaking, of decadence. Cattamanchi refers to finding the soul which could be the attempt of the Telugu literature to free itself from the classical and colonial influences and emerge as a reflection of contemporary relevance in people’s language. The essay analyses the influence of various literatures, from ancient times, on Telugu literature and analyses not only the religious overtones but also political and linguistic motives. Cattamanchi observes that one of the merits of the current work was the historical background presented and the suggestive manner in which literature was linked up with the general social and political history of the Andhra Desa. He states that literature is life, either in its growth or in its decadence; and unless it is correlated with life, it cannot be properly appreciated. He firmly articulates that literature is, not infrequently, propaganda.
