Saturday 24 October 2015
Nationalism in a Kanthapura by Raja Rao
Name: Trivedi Hezal K.
Roll No:
39
PG Reg. No. PG15101040
M.A. – English Regular, Semester-1
Year: 2015
Course No. 4-A: Indian Writing in English – Pre Independence:
Unit-3 - Kanthapura
– Raja Rao (1938)
Assignments
opic-
Nationalism in a Kanthapura by Raja Rao
Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
(Gujarat – India)
Kanthapura is the first
major Indian novel in English by Raja Rao. Raja Rao, the famous Indian English
writer, was born on 8th November 1908 in Hassan, Karnataka. Nationalism was a theme of many of his novels. His
novel Kanthapura is an account of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings. It is the story
of national struggle through the view point of a
villager in Karnataka.
Nationalism:
Nationalism is the desire for political independence of
people who feel they are historically or culturally a separate group within
country.
Nationalism
in Kanthapura:
Raja Rao's novel
Kanthapura (1938) is the first major Indian novel in English. It is a fictional
but realistic account of how the great majority of people in India lived their
lives under British rule and how they responded to the ideas and ideals of Indian Nationalism.
The
problematising potential of the novel extends to anti-colonial nationalism too. The novel’s role in enabling the
notion of nation-state to take shape is an important one. The novels written in
19th century and even beyond in India may be used to support this
claim.
In Kanthapura, religion an integral part of culture
has been used for a secular and political purpose such as attaining
Independence. Here religion has got a very significant role to play in
defining the identity of people and also of the nation. Raja Rao exquisitely
appropriates the Indian religious tradition of Harikatha to promote
the cause of nation and also to accord this cause a sacred dimension. In
fact the novel makes use of two kinds of appropriates
1) It appropriates the religious
tradition of the country, such as Harikatha to
further the contemporary issues such as Swaraj and
Nation.
2) It also
appropriates the contemporary history such as Indian National Movement and brings it to the fold of the
religious tradition of India.
In this novel Raja Rao also talks about the freedom struggle
experiments. He strongly displays deep & firmly roofed passion nationalistic zeal and spiritual concerns begin with
his first novel Kanthapura. It is believed as an epic and the creative
construction of a work of fiction through nationalism
and spirituality.
The grand events that form
the focal points of the novel take place in response to events elsewhere –
Lahore, Bengal, Gujarat, etc. The village community moves from an insulated
identity towards a national identity. In one sense, Kanthapura chronicles the formation of a
national identity within a remote village. This thematic is also supported by
the manner in which the village becomes a kind of a microcosm of the nation.
The narrative tends towards mythicizing. For example Moorthy’s fast,
Ramakrishnayya’s death, the receding of the flood, and nationalist
struggle itself are mythicized. The narrative takes recourse to Vedantic
texts and Puranas and inserts nationalist struggle
into them. For example, in a harikatha, Jayaramachar brings in an allegory
between Siva, Parvati and the nation. The three eyed Siva stands for Swaraj.
Later Rangamma standing in as the commentator of Vedanta after the death of her
father reads the Puranas allegorically, interpreting hell as the foreign rule,
soul as India and so on.
A nation is a community of
people who have a common language etc. Thus in Kanthapura, Congressmen
including Moorthy follow the same model of the nation-state. Sankaru epitomises
this: his insistence on speaking Hindi even to his mother instead of the local language; his fanatic resistance to the use of English and so on. Thus, the very
conception of ‘Nation’, which is conceived after
the European model of the nation-state, undermines the ‘Swadeshi’
spirit of nationalism. Any pure form of nationhood
untouched by colonialism is seriously questioned.
The novel highlights with
no subtlety the collusion between colonialism and Brahmanism. The manner in
which Moorthy becomes an outcaste in the Brahmin quarters with his campaign
against untouchability indicates the tension between Brahmanism and nationalism. For Brahmanism, the colonial ruler is not
the enemy but Gandhi’s anti-untouchable movement is. The collusion between
Brahmanism and colonialism is suggested through the alliance between Bhatta,
Bade Khan the policeman and the Sahib of the Estate. Swami, who is waging a war
against ‘caste pollution’ due to this pariah business, sees British rulers as
protectors of the ancient ways of Dharma. Swami receives a large amount from
the govt as Rajadakshina and is promised that he would receive moral and
material support in his war against caste pollution.
Moorthy’s politics in the
village mobilises people of all castes for the struggle against colonisers. In
so doing Moorthy radicalises his sociality by visiting the untouchable
quarters, and even having milk offered by one of them. Interestingly after this
he is troubled by his action and takes a bath. Though he does not change his
sacred thread as then he would have to do it daily, he does take a little Ganga
water and we are promised that he would do that every time he visits the
pariahs. His politics aims at assimilating the lower castes into the nationalist movement. This may also operate as a move
towards containment. For example, the discourse of nationalism
meets the discourse of religion at different levels in the novel. While Bhatta,
Swami and their followers (who have often material motives such as Venkamma)
resist Gandhism in the name of religion, in Kanthapura,
the nationalists increasingly employ the religious discourse and customs and
symbols for nationalist purposes. Religious
resources are mobilised for the politicisation of the people. But the customs,
rituals and symbols that become tools of nationalist mobilisation are primarily
Brahminic: aarthi, puja, conches, bells, Vedanta, bhajan etc. They do not
include the cultural practices of the lower castes though their participation
is prominent.
The
remote village is caught in the maelstrom of the freedom struggle of the 1930s
and is transformed into living symbol of Gandhism in regard of nationalism and spirituality.
Kanthapura & Nationalism Video Part-I
Kanthapura & Nationalism Video Part-II
Conclusion:
In short, Kanthapura is
great work of art by Raja Rao and the novel is that it is an immensely clever
novel that very ably reflects much of the nationalistic
themes including the patronising attitude towards the lower caste society.
================================
Wordsworth’s Definition of Poet and Poetry
Name: Trivedi Hezal K.
Roll No:
39
PG Reg. No. PG15101040
M.A. – English Regular, Semester-1
Year: 2015
Course No. 3: Literary Theory & Criticism: Western – 1:
Unit-3: Preface:
Wordsworth
Assignments
Topic - Wordsworth’s Definition
of Poet and Poetry
Submitted to:
S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University
(Gujarat – India)
Introduction
William Wordsworth was born
on 7, April, 1770 in cokermouth, a town on the edge of the Cumberland into a
lawyer's family. He studied at Cambridge and completed his graduation there. He
was a leader of the Romantic Movement in England. Wordsworth was a major English
romantic poet but not a critic. However his views on poetry are extremely
important and can be found in the preface to the lyrical ballad 1802. He is the most representative poet of English literature.
Wordsworth has written a series of poem collaboration of Coleridge entitled
"Lyrical Ballad". He gave definition of 'poet' and 'poetry' in his
"Lyrical Ballad". His first
two collection of poetry would be published in 1793, five years after his first
published poem. By the time of his death in 1850 he had produced some of English poetry's greatest work and
influenced by future generation of poets.
Wordsworth’s
Definition of Poet and Poetry as Expressed in his Preface Lyrical Ballads
‘Lyrical
Ballads’ is a collection of poems generally considered to have marked the
beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The Preface to
Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. The
Lyrical Ballads was a manifesto for a radically new approach to the writing of
poetry. Wordsworth declared that the most important thing in poetry was the
poet's ability to record his spontaneous feelings. Poetry, he said, was
"emotion recollected in tranquility".
Definition of poetry:
All good poetry
is the "spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling" and thought
this be true, poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on
any variety of subject but by a man who being
possessed of more than usual organic sensibility ,but also thought long
and deeply.
As 'Poetry' is the
"spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, it takes its origins from
emotion recollected in tranquillity". In this definition of poetry there
are two apparent contradictions. The “spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings” and “emotion reflected in tranquillity” on the other side are
apparently two contradictory statements.
Wordsworth uses his poetry
to look at the relationship between nature and human life. For him poetry is
the talk of man to man and it should be in simple language. His experience and
attitude are reflected not only in his poetry, but also in letters and prose
work.
Wordsworth’s poetry remained consistent throughout. Even the language and
imagery he used to embody those themes remained remarkably consistent. They
remained consistent to the canons Wordsworth had set out the Preface to Lyrical
Ballads.
Function of poetry:
According to Wordsworth,
'poetry' 'is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned
expression that is in the countenance of all science'. Poetry seeks to ennoble
and edify. It is like morning star which throws its radiance through the gloom
and darkness of life.
'Poetry' is the instrument
for the propagation of moral thoughts.
‘Poetry sheds no tears,
such as angels weep, but natural and human tears’.
Definition of poet:
According to
Wordsworth, "A poet is a man speaking to men, endowed with more lively
sensibility" and he also say that the poet is such a human being who is
overall in degree a far better human being than ordinary human being.
In other words..
• He has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive
soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind.
• He is a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who
rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting
to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the going-on of
the universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find
them.
• Man
speaking to men.
•
More lively sensibility.
•
Greater imagination. (―affected by absent things as if they were present‖)
•
Greater zest for life.
•
Greater power of expression and communication
Poetry and Poet: a tiny video
Foremost Poems by Wordsworth:
“I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” Also known as “Daffodils"
“The
Rainbow”
Conclusion:
We can say that he was a poet of simplicity of both human life as
well as nature and his poetry has too simplicity of nature and human life and
it often puzzle to reader. And though his language and subject are simple but
they are deeply philosophical. Thus Wordsworth elaborately describes the
function of poetry and of the poet in his critical essay preface to lyrical
ballads. In both the cases he avoids classical tendencies and adopts romantic
and nature loving attitude.
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