Indian Literature in English denotes the works by writers in India who write in English language and whose native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is defined as literature written originally in English by the writers who are Indian by birth, ancestry, and nationality. Indian Literature in English is now being developed and gaining impetus as literature in true sense of the term. The English language came to India with arrival of the British. The British came to India with motive of trade.
In the mature period Chaucer is not only to create his own unique style works, but also to use this unique style to open the Elizabethan period of literary peak. The greatest influence of Chaucer's works was the famous drama writer, Shakespeare. Shakespeare's work was the product of his deep study of Chaucer's work. Although in the same period of literary writers, Chaucer's work is a collection of many cultures of the works, but he also created a unique style of their own. Therefore, his works are very British characteristics, praised as the father of British poetry is
Between 1858 and 1947, India was under the British rule (Kallie). During this period different social aspects benefited from the British colonial rule. The investigation will try to answer the question ‘To what extent was the British colonization of India socially beneficial?’ by focusing on the assistance of the British colonial rule in the development of infrastructure and education. Additionally, it will examine the British modality, the survey modality and how they both worked as key factors in the formation of the Indian culture (Cohn). Another area to be examined for further analysis is the end of arbitrary rule by despotic rulers and the formation of the Indian languages.
Anything fashionable today is considered as modern. The major language writers are adhered to the ‘modern’ and ‘post modern’ idiom of writing. Famous writers from different language use their native language in writing and it become modern. For example Mulk Raj Anand used Hindi and Punjabi words in his novels like ‘Saalam buryoor’, ‘Shabash Shabash’. Arundhati Roy used malayam words in her novel.
The Indian English Novel, moreover, has now been widely much-admired all over the world, as it has been successful in carving its own position not only in the world of commonwealth literature but also in the ‘World literature’. Though the origin of Indian literature in English as a whole is necessarily the English education and the introduction of British literature, the Indian English Novel emerged as a necessary product of its own story telling tradition and the tradition of English novel. So, it is considered that one of the most noteworthy gifts of English education to India is prose fiction for though India was probably a fountain head of story-telling, the novel as we know today was an importation from the
The Indian novelists in English, by using various linguistic and stylistic devices, have succeeded in infusing the rhythm of Indian languages into English and in assigning the Indian sensibility. Their language items form Indian thought and imagery and acquire a distinctive identity and elasticity. In the words of Prof. Gokak, Indian English Literature represents the evolution of a distinct standard, the body of which is English but whose soul is Indian in color, thought and imagery. There are different opinions regarding this experimentation in the style. Meenakshi Mukherjee states that the style is not integral to the author’s point of view but something added to the material like ‘icing on the cake or embroidery on a sari’.
Hence, the English writer ‘George Orwell’ declared that language doesn’t merely reflect culture, it itself is culture. English is often described as a window to the outside world and as the language of the world civilization serving as the gateway to the twenty first century thought and culture. Universally popular by its richness, flexibility, elegance and dignity, it is the
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali poet of India. His name is written as Rabindranath Thakur in Indian languages. He was also a philosopher and an artist. He wrote many stories, novels, poems and dramas, as well as composing music and many songs. His writings greatly influenced Bengali culture during the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Beside this English language is also useful for the communication purpose among the people throughout the world. The beginning of English literature in India is traced to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century ,by which time English education was more or less firmly established in the three major centers of British power in India-Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. In late 17th century only printing press was used in India but only for the publication of printing Bible or Government Decrees. Then came newspaper which was the first English Newspaper in India, published in 1779 named as Hickey’s Bengal
India and is still serving as a dynamic instrument of social change radio and TV and an ever growing number of books, periodicals and newspapers. We in India have gained immensely by partaking of this great heritage through the English language. In India English was introduced two centuries ago by the East India Company first for trade and commerce. Later the language shaped the political, administrative and educational life of the country in several far reaching ways unforeseen by the reformers themselves. Lord Macaulay in his famous Minutes of 1835 proposed to produce through the medium of English education, a class of persons “Indian in blood and colour but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect”.