Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India
Ebeling, Sascha
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PRODUCT DETAILS
Book ID : 40831
ISBN-10 : 93-81406-13-8 / 9381406138
ISBN-13 : 978-93-81406-13-7 / 9789381406137
Place
of Publication :
Delhi
Year
of Publication :
2013
Edition : (First Indian Edition)
Language : English
379p., App., Gloss., Index, 23 cm.
CONTENTS
DESCRIPTION
A true tour de force, this book documents the transformation of one Indian literature, Tamil, under the impact of colonialism and Western modernity. While Tamil is a living language, it is also India’s second oldest classical language next to Sanskrit, and has a literary history that goes back over two thousand years. On the basis of extensive archival research, Sascha Ebeling tackles a host of issues pertinent to Tamil elite literary production and consumption during the nineteenth century. These include the functioning and decline of traditional systems in which poet-scholars were patronized by religious institutions, landowners, and local kings; the anatomy of changes in textual practices, genres, styles, poetics, themes, tastes, and audiences; and the role of literature in the politics of social reform, gender, and incipient nationalism. The work concludes with a discussion of the most striking literary development of the time—the emergence of the Tamil novel.
