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  Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -4 ( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-208

Paper Code:-22415

Paper Name:- Comparative Literature & Translation Studies

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- Comparative Literature in India: An Overview of its History.

Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta

Abstract:-

The essay provides an overview of Comparative Literature in India, focusing primarily on the department at Jadavpur University, where it began, and to a lesser extent the department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies at the University of Delhi, where it later had a new start in its engagement with Indian literatures. The department at Jadavpur was founded on the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore's World Literature address and by a modern poet-translator. While there were early attempts to decolonize and an overall desire to enhance and foster creativity, there were also subtle efforts to decolonize and an overall attempt to promote and nurture creativity. Indian literature, as well as literature from the South, began to gain significance over time.

In comparative literary studies, paradigms of techniques evolved from impact and analogue studies to cross-cultural literary interactions, with a focus on reception and transformation. In recent years, Comparative Literature has taken on new directions, focusing on recovering new regions of non-hierarchical literary interactions and connecting with many sectors of culture and knowledge, particularly those relating to excluded spaces.

Keywords: Decolonizing process, creativity, cross-cultural literary relations, interdisciplinarity.

The Beginnings:-

Rabindranath Tagore coined the phrase 'VishvaSahitya,' and with it, the field of comparative literature was born. Buddhadev Bose, one of the most important figures in modern Bengali poetry, did not entirely subscribe to Tagore's ideal. Baudelaire was translated by Buddhadev. Sudhindranath Dutta, recognised for his Mallarmé translations and erudition in both the Indian and Western contexts, will teach at the Comparative Literature department. Three of the department's initial five students went on to become well-known poets, and the fourth became an excellent critic of Bengali poetry. Naresh Guha, a poet, succeeded Buddhadeva Bose as Chairperson of the Department, where he remained for the next two decades.VishvaSahitya,' and with it, the field of comparative literature was born. Buddhadev Bose, one of the most important figures in modern Bengali poetry, did not entirely subscribe to Tagore's ideal. Baudelaire was translated by Buddhadev. Sudhindranath Dutta, recognised for his Mallarmé translations and erudition in both the Indian and Western contexts, will teach at the Comparative Literature department.

 Three of the department's initial five students went on to become well-known poets, and the fourth became an excellent critic of Bengali poetry. Naresh Guha, a poet, succeeded Buddhadeva Bose as Chairperson of the Department, where he remained for the next two decades.In an interview given to us in his last years, he emphasized the role of the department in fostering an intensely creative environment. This part of the article is about the beginning od comparative literature in India. 

Indian Literature as Comparative Literature:-

Comparatists working on Indian literature had to consider the interaction between the mainstream and the popular, the elite and the marginalised, and to some extent foreground intermedial perspectives as different forms coexisted in a composite manner, especially during earlier periods when textual and performative traditions coexisted. 

The department is continuing to develop teaching materials on various aspects of Indian literature from a comparative perspective, beginning with language origins, manuscript cultures, performative traditions, painting, sculpture, and architecture, the history of print culture, and modernity questions. The teaching used in the department stressed the fact that Comparative Literature studies had to be interdisciplinary by necessity.

Several researchers in the department looked for continuities and interventions in the tradition that would lead to pluralist epistemologies in the study of Indian literature and culture after T.S. Satyanath developed the theory of a script-centric, body-centric, and phonocentric study of texts in the mediaeval period.

Centres of Comparative Literature Studies:-

In 1986, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University in Surat launched a new full-fledged Comparative Literature department, with an emphasis on Indian literature in Western India. Dravidian University, Kuppam, established a department of Dravidian Comparative Literature and Philosophy in 1999. 

The Visvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics in Orissa has taken comparative poetics, a core field of comparative literature studies and dissertations, particularly in the South, as a central area of research.

During this time, two national Comparative Literature associations were formed, one in Jadavpur called the Indian Comparative Literature Association and the other in Delhi called the Comparative Indian Literature Association.

In 1992, the two organisations combined, forming the Comparative Literature Association of India, which now has over a thousand members. In the early years of the Association, a great number of creative authors, as well as academics and researchers, attended its conferences, each expanding the other's field of vision.

Reconfiguration of areas of comparison:-

Along with Indian literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude was included in the syllabus, along with a few other Latin American classics, before African literatures were added.

In terms of the other Area Studies components, the department now has Centres for African, Latin American, and Canadian Studies, which do research and present annual seminars.

Some, including the present author, believe that the Area Studies programmes resulted in a division of scarce resources and diverted attention away from some of the key challenges in comparative literature studies in India, such as the systematic amalgamation of data related to the Indian context and its analysis from comparative perspectives, and possibly the mapping of intercultural relations with other cultures.

Burns and Wordsworth were well-liked, and their romanticism was thought to be characterised by inner strength and tranquillity. The romantic poet's much-discussed 'angst' was perceived unfavourably. The love of 'health' and ' serenity' dates back to the classical period and appears to be a significant value in the tradition.

While Shelley and Byron were criticised for introducing softness and emotion to Bengali poetry, they were also praised for standing up for human rights and liberty in contrast to Kipling's imperialist poetry. The paradoxical tensions commonly found in the reception of romanticism in Bengal were explained by the connection between contemporary political requirements and literary values.It's worth noting that as the independence movement gained traction, Shelley, the rebel poet, began to receive a warm reception. 

In another context, the question of whether Shakespeare was imposed on Indian literature rose to prominence, and comparatists demonstrated, as did Sisir Kumar Das, that there were different Shakespeares. Shakespeare's texts may have been imposed in the classroom, but the playwright's reception at the theatre was rich and varied.

From reception studies, the focus shifted to cross-cultural reception, where reciprocity and cross-cultural exchange were investigated. One attempt, for example, was to examine the Romantic Movement from a broader perspective, attempting to untangle its multiple layers as it moved between countries, particularly between Europe and India. The birth of the Romantic movement was aided by the translation of some Sanskrit texts into German, and Romanticism returned to India in various forms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The next major area of study was reception studies, both vertically and horizontally - one looked at components of ancient and mediaeval literature in modern writings, as well as inter and intraliterary relationships, emphasising impact and responses. While studying Vedic, Upanishadic, Buddhist, and Jaina elements in modern texts, one also looked at clusters of Buddha, Mahavira, and Nanak sermons, qissas and katha ballads across the country, early novels in various Indian literatures, and the impact of Eastern literature and thought on Western literature and vice versa.

With the introduction of the semester system, the division was abandoned in favour of more general courses such as Cross-cultural Literary Transactions, in which Rudyard Kipling's Kim and Rabindranath Tagore's Gora were studied, or Literary Transactions, in which the tradition of Reason and Rationalism in European and Indian literatures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was studied more closely.

The department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Saurashtra University in Rajkot took up the theme of the Indian Renaissance and translated several Indian authors into English, studied early travelogues from Western India to England, and in general published collections of nineteenth-century theoretical discourse.

The department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Saurashtra University in Rajkot took up the theme of the Indian Renaissance and translated several Indian authors into English, studied early travelogues from Western India to England, and in general published collections of nineteenth-century theoretical discourse.

The grant went to Dibrugarh University's Department of Assamese, which released a variety of volumes on translations, collections of rare texts, and documentation of folk forms.

Jadavpur University's Comparative Literature department also obtained funding to conduct study in four areas: East-West Literary Relations, Indian Literature, Translation Studies, and Third World Literature. In Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, the department had an ardent translator who translated works from numerous so-called "third-world countries."

Oral traditions across the country had their own knowledge systems that could provide valuable and sustainable alternatives to contemporary urban modes of life and living, as well as reveal certain cultural dynamics and value systems that were constantly replenishing mainstream expressive traditions. The Centre for Advanced Studies' second priority was the connection between Indian and neighbouring countries' literatures.

The first preliminary research in this area revealed connections that suggested a continuous series of interactions between and among Asian cultures and communities since ancient times, as well as the urgent need for more work in this area in order to engage in meaningful dialogue with one another in the Asian context and to uncover different pathways of creative communications. Efforts in this direction resulted in an International Conference on South-South Dialogues, which drew a large number of Asian and European attendees. An anthology of critical essays on the socio-cultural and literary exchanges between India and Southeast Asia has been released.

One of the projects in the inter-Asian series was a study of travelogues from Bengal to Asian countries, which resulted in the publication of an annotated bibliography that may serve as a starting point for the study of inter-literary linkages. The picture of Burma in Bengali and Oriya literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the subject of a second study. Travel journals and diaries were compiled, as well as newspaper articles from historic publications, literary excerpts, and photos of Burmese people in the Indian press.

Conclusion:-

It's worth noting at this point that in the twenty-first century, Comparative Literature in the United States collaborated with two other related fields of study: Translation Studies and Cultural Studies. Different topics of interliterary studies are covered by translation studies. Translation histories can be used to identify literary relationships, while examination of translation actions can reveal key characteristics of both the source and target literary and cultural systems. In terms of Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature has always been interested in several facets of the subject, the most prominent of which being literature and its relationship to various arts. Cultural Studies may also play a role in a variety of multidisciplinary courses offered by the discipline.

For example, a course at Delhi University looks at representations of human habitat systems and ecology in literature, looks for concepts and terms for such settlements, and looks at archaeological evidence and accounts of travellers from Greece, China, Persia, and Portugal to show the differences that exist at different levels of perception and ideological positions.

It is clear that Comparative Literature in the country now has a variety of goals and visions that are aligned with local and global historical demands. The discipline, like the humanities and literary studies, is concerned with concerns that would contribute to the enhancement of civilizational gestures, as well as factors that are divisive and constantly limit the number of people who participate in them.

It is doing so by identifying new non-hierarchical links and lines of connectedness, a process Kumkum Sangari referred to as "co-construction" in a recent paper, a process rooted in "subtle and complicated histories of translation, circulation, and extraction." And comparatists operate with the understanding that much work remains to be done, and that one of the key tasks of Comparative Literature today, the development of literary histories, in terms of literary relations among neighbouring regions and bigger wholes, has yet to begin. However, the core goal of some of the discipline's early builders, to cultivate and develop creativity, remains a subterranean force in all of its endeavours.

Work Cited :-

Dasgupta, Subha Chakraborty. "Comparative Literature in India: 

An Overview of its History." Comparative Literature & World Literature Spring 2016.

Words:-2087