Civilized/Barbaric? Changed Connotations in Indian Dalit Poetry

• Authors: Meenakshi Bharat
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

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.

Keywords

EN

comparative literature, “civilization” and “barbarism”, Indian Dalit poetry, Rabind-ranath Tagore, Anu, Namdeo Dhasal, Sri Aurobindo, Hira Bansode, L.S. Rokade

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Szczeciński. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
• Journal: Rocznik Komparatystyczny
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 4
• Pages: p. 159-174

Contributors

author

Meenakshi Bharat

• University of Delhi