Kenyon Collegian - April 13, 1995

https://digital.kenyon.edu/collegian/1479/thumbnail.jp

The "Santānagopāla" as a narrative opening up intimate spaces : Lakṣmī Tampurāṭṭi and her poem

During my fieldwork in Kerala in 2014 and 2015, made possible by the financial support of the National Science Centre in Poland, I was able to collect several manuscripts by women authors as well as some very rare printed editions of their works. From the collected sources I have decided to choose a poem based on the Santānagopāla theme, a story about a pious Brahmin and his wife losing one child after another. It recurs in the oeuvre of at least three women writers living at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. We know very little about the lives of the authoresses but the selection of such a theme perhaps was not fortuitous and we will be able to notice their womanly sensitivity in its treatment or scenes from their own lives and gather more information about the authors themselves. In the present paper I will concentrate on the Santānagopāla poem written by Lakṣmī Tampurāṭṭi (1845-1909)

The Poetry of Dialogue: Kanshi, Haiku and Media in Meiji Japan, 1870-1900

This dissertation examines the influence of `poetic sociality' during Japan's Meiji period (1867-1912). `Poetic sociality' denotes a range of practices within poetic composition that depend upon social interaction among individuals, most importantly the tendency to practice poetry as a group activity, pedagogical practices such as mutual critique and the master-disciple relationship, and the exchange among individual poets of textually linked forms of verse. Under the influence of modern European notions of literature, during the late Meiji period both prose fiction and the idea of literature as originating in the subjectivity of the individual assumed hegemonic status. Although often noted as a major characteristic of pre-modern poetry, poetic sociality continued to be enormously influential in the literary and social activities of 19th century Japanese intellectuals despite the rise of prose fiction during late Meiji, and was fundamental to the way in which poetry was written, discussed and circulated. One reason for this was the growth of a mass-circulation print media from early Meiji onward, which provided new venues for the publication of poetry and enabled the expression of poetic sociality across distance and outside of face-to-face gatherings. With poetic exchange increasingly taking place through newspapers and literary journals, poetic sociality acquired a new and openly political aspect. Poetic exchanges among journalists and readers served in many cases as vehicles for discussion of political topics such as governmental corruption, international relations and environmental disasters, an aspect of Meiji-era poetry that has received comparatively little attention

Analyzing the Georgian Opinion of the Soviet Annexation of Georgia

In this thesis, I have examined the Sovietization of Georgia in the 1920s and analyzed how Georgians perceived Sovietization. Specifically, this thesis explores different opinions on Sovietization through the lens of Georgian nationalists, Georgian cultural literary icons, and the average Georgian. Further, this thesis addresses the interplay of time and Georgian nationalism in understanding Sovietization. The thesis examines how different groups of Georgians related their understanding of Georgian identity to the Soviet understanding of Georgian culture and demonstrates how the disconnect between Soviet and Georgian identity manifests as disapproval of Sovietization and the Soviet Union as a whole as time progresses. Chapter 1 examines how General Kvinitadze and a commission from the Presduma of the Georgian SSR viewed Sovietization, arguing that both opposed Sovietization because they believed that it violated Georgia’s cultural and legal rights. Chapter 2 explores how Georgian cultural literary icons, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Galaktion Tabidze, responded to Sovietization, arguing that both initially saw Sovietization as a positive change for Georgia because it allowed Georgia to have more autonomy. As time progressed, Tabidze started to believe the Sovietization interfered with Georgia’s identity as he directly experienced the Great Terror and saw that the Soviet Union repressed non-Soviet ideas. Chapter 3 examines how proletarian poets viewed Sovietization, in an attempt to gauge how the average Georgian perceived Sovietization. This chapter argues that these poets saw Sovietization as a positive change for Georgia because Sovietization would create a better future and it would allow Georgians to continue to have pride in their country