Who Is the Indian Shakespeare?
Who Is the Indian Shakespeare? 1
Who Is the Indian Shakespeare? Appropriation of Authority in a Sanskrit A Midsummer Night’s Dream
David V. Mason University of Wisconsin-Madison Published in New Literary History 34:2 (Fall, 2003)
David Mason 814C Eagle Heights Madison, WI 53705 (608) 238-1342 dvmason@facstaff.wisc.edu
Who Is the Indian Shakespeare? 2
“Do you know who is the Indian Shakespeare?” Late in 1994, I was on my way from Rishikesh to Mussoorie. In India studying Sanskrit, I thought I would visit the nearby hill station over a weekend, and when the man across the aisle saw my Sanskrit textbook , he began a conversation which moved very quickly from Sanskrit to English literature. He was himself a student, completing a B.A. in English, and he was curious to have my thoughts on such things as the best living novelist in English. He was much my superior on this subject, and at a lull in the conversation, perhaps perceiving that I was at a loss to name the author of “The Windhover,” he asked if I knew the Indian Shakespeare. Considering the extent to which Shakespeare settled in India from colonial performances in the very early days of the Raj to dominating the Parsi stage early in the nineteenth century to becoming the ensign for mandatory English education after 1835, I thought the Indian Shakespeare might as well be Shakespeare. “Kalidasa,” he said. Since I had demonstrated a profound incompetency in English literature, I think it unlikely that my bus-mate was merely trying to supply a common frame of reference on the way to a new topic of conversation. “Who is the Indian Shakespeare?” is an expression of the lingering identity crisis of the literature of postcolonial India, an insecurity which both defers to authority by privileging Shakespeare as the alluring plenitude of the West and challenges authority through its vain answer: a figure who, it is implied, not only corresponds to Shakespeare in the South Asian context, but, perhaps, bests
Who Is the Indian Shakespeare? Appropriation of Authority in a Sanskrit A Midsummer Night’s Dream
David V. Mason University of Wisconsin-Madison Published in New Literary History 34:2 (Fall, 2003)
David Mason 814C Eagle Heights Madison, WI 53705 (608) 238-1342 dvmason@facstaff.wisc.edu
Who Is the Indian Shakespeare? 2
“Do you know who is the Indian Shakespeare?” Late in 1994, I was on my way from Rishikesh to Mussoorie. In India studying Sanskrit, I thought I would visit the nearby hill station over a weekend, and when the man across the aisle saw my Sanskrit textbook , he began a conversation which moved very quickly from Sanskrit to English literature. He was himself a student, completing a B.A. in English, and he was curious to have my thoughts on such things as the best living novelist in English. He was much my superior on this subject, and at a lull in the conversation, perhaps perceiving that I was at a loss to name the author of “The Windhover,” he asked if I knew the Indian Shakespeare. Considering the extent to which Shakespeare settled in India from colonial performances in the very early days of the Raj to dominating the Parsi stage early in the nineteenth century to becoming the ensign for mandatory English education after 1835, I thought the Indian Shakespeare might as well be Shakespeare. “Kalidasa,” he said. Since I had demonstrated a profound incompetency in English literature, I think it unlikely that my bus-mate was merely trying to supply a common frame of reference on the way to a new topic of conversation. “Who is the Indian Shakespeare?” is an expression of the lingering identity crisis of the literature of postcolonial India, an insecurity which both defers to authority by privileging Shakespeare as the alluring plenitude of the West and challenges authority through its vain answer: a figure who, it is implied, not only corresponds to Shakespeare in the South Asian context, but, perhaps, bests