ABSTRACT
This chapter considers normative modes of writing Punjabi literary history, which emphasize a chronological and progressive rendering of literary production and locate the advent of Punjabi literary modernity in Bhai Vir Singh's 1898 novel, Sundari. The first part of this chapter examines Punjabi modes of literary history prior to modern, normative modes to ask what was displaced when the emphasis on chronology and a progressive rendering prevailed. The second part of this chapter examines an important moment of change in Punjabi literary history: the advent of modern literature. It argues that changes in sensibility—rather than genre, alone—are important indicators of change and newness within the Punjabi literary tradition. It traces such shifts in sensibility through an analysis of the qissa (epic-romance), a popular genre of literary production and print culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recognizing such aspects of literary change in the long nineteenth century allows for a wider array of protagonists in the story of Punjabi modern literature and to move beyond the centrality of canonical figures such as Bhai Vir Singh.
