ABSTRACT
This Introduction presents the broad contours of modern Odia critical discourse as it developed over nearly a century and a half. It maps the transition of Odia literature from the scribal production of texts to the arrival of the printed book. The application of a new technology and an emerging market created a public sphere where the evaluation and interpretation of literature took on new dimensions in the second half of the nineteenth century. The colonial education system brought about a shift in aesthetic sensibility and battle lines, however faint, were drawn between continuity and change. This fueled a major literary controversy in the 1890s. Interventions by colonial administrators who came to regard literature as a source of useful information led to an expansion of the literary canon. The rise of literary magazines contributed to the shaping of an informed and responsive reading public which sought to assert linguistic identity through literature. The magazines also introduced new literary forms, ushered in new modes of interpretation and helped forge a new critical idiom. Towards the second half of the twentieth century, Odia literary criticism underwent a process of academization, and research and specialization became its defining characteristics. However, Odia critical discourse continues to be enriched by brilliant non-academic critics.
