When Mirrors Are Windows: A View of A.K. Ramanujan's Poetics

by Guillermo Rodriguez

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In an ocean where myriads of rivers converge, can one sole river lend the ocean its distinct flavour? For someone who is at home with several languages, literary traditions, and disciplines, is it possible for one form to criss-cross the landscape of another? In a poet's world of mirrors, where stream and earth are sky, one may 'sometimes count every orange on a tree', but can one count 'all the trees in a single orange'?

In this volume, Guillermo Rodriguez explores these possibilities by analysing the works of one of Indias finest poets, translators, essayists, and scholars of the twentieth century, A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993).

A spectrum of published and unpublished sources-including some of Ramanujans hitherto unknown private diaries, notes, poetry drafts, and scholarly writings sourced from the A.K. Ramanujan Papers archived at the University of Chicago-are studied to illuminate the influence of classical Tamil, medieval bhakti, and oral folk aesthetics and literature on his work. This vastly informative and critical work makes us aware of his attention to the various aesthetic and poetic contexts in his life and
work, and shows how these are reflected in his writings as a way of thinking and nurturing force behind his creative self.
  • ISBN10 0199463603
  • ISBN13 9780199463602
  • Publish Date December 2016 (first published 30 August 2016)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country IN
  • Imprint OUP India
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 570
  • Language English