Civilized/Barbaric? Changed Connotations in Indian Dalit Poetry Cover Image

Civilized/Barbaric? Changed Connotations in Indian Dalit Poetry
Civilized/Barbaric? Changed Connotations in Indian Dalit Poetry

Author(s): Meenakshi Bharat
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Poetry, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: comparative literature; “civilization” and “barbarism;” Indian Dalit poetry; Rabindranath Tagore; Anu; Namdeo Dhasal; Sri Aurobindo; Hira Bansode; L.S. Rokade

Summary/Abstract: When, in 1922, British Orientalist, Sir John Woodroffe, published a book brazenly entitled, Is India Civilized? he enunciated the on-going palpable cultural tension between the “civilized” notions of culture with which the colonizer was associated, and the facile, dismissive identification of the native with the “barbaric.” But these received notions of civilization and barbarism are at odds with the indigenous ideas of the terms. With one of the oldest literate cultures in the world, the location of India in the contemporary world becomes very enigmatic. In this paper, I attempt a contemporary understanding of the terms in the context of poetry from India, both in English and the indigenous languages while trying to see the evolving connotations of the terms through time.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 159-172
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: English