A Political History of Literature

Vidyapati and the Fifteenth Century

Dr Pankaj Jha (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

272 Seiten

2019
OUP India (Verlag)
978-0-19-948955-8 (ISBN)

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This book studies the fifteenth-century north India through an intimate exploration of three compositions of the poet-scholar, Vidyapati: a Sanskrit treatise on writing, a celebratory biography in Apabhramsa, and a collection of mytho-historical tales in Sanskrit. An intimate linguistic, literary, and historical study of these texts reveals a world that is marked by a range of ideas, expertise, literary tropes, ethical regimes and historical consciousness drawn eclectically from sources that we are used to thinking of as belonging to 'diverse' politico-cultural traditions. Vidyapati laced these ideas with contemporary flavour, classicizing impulse and useable forms. He was not alone in doing so. As the book shows, many of the ideals extolled in fifteenth-century literary cultures appear to be those more appropriate for ambitious and expansive political formations associated with an imperial state. That such a state was to emerge only a century later is probably a testimony to the fact that ideas incubate and get actualized in realpolitik only in the long duration.

Pankaj Jha teaches history in Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi. The primary area of his research interest is literary cultures of the middle ages. The languages he has worked with include Persian, Sanskrit, Maithili, and Apabhramsa. His research articles, in Hindi as well as in English, in peer-reviewed journals have been widely acclaimed in scholarly circles. He is also on the Editorial Board of the international journal Indian Economic and Social History Review.

List of Images
List of Tables
Notes on Transliteration
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Contexts
1. Vidyapati and Mithila
2. The Literary and the Political in the Fifteenth Century
Part II: Texts
3. Writing State and Order
4. Political Ethics or the Art of Being a Man
5. Entangled Vines of Glory: Kirttilata and Its Many Worlds
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Erscheinungsdatum	07.03.2019
Zusatzinfo	6 b&w
Verlagsort	New Delhi
Sprache	englisch
Maße	151 x 222 mm
Gewicht	456 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-19-948955-6 / 0199489556
ISBN-13	978-0-19-948955-8 / 9780199489558
Zustand	Neuware