1st Edition

The Politics and Reception of Rabindranath Tagore's Drama The Bard on the Stage

    This is the first volume to focus specifically on Rabindranath Tagore’s dramatic literature, visiting translations and adaptations of Tagore’s drama, and cross-cultural encounters in his works. As Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, Tagore’s highly original plays occupy a central position in the Indian theatrescape. Tagore experimented with dance, music, dance drama, and plays, exploring concepts of environment, education, gender and women, postcolonial encounters, romantic idealism, and universality. Tagore’s drama plays a generous host to experimentations with new performance modes, like the writing and staging of an all-women play on stage for the first time, or the use of cross-cultural styles such as Manipuri dance, Thai craft in stage design, or the Baul singing styles. This book is an exciting re-exploration of Tagore’s plays, visiting issues such as his contribution to Indian drama, drama and environment, feminist readings, postcolonial engagements, cross-cultural encounters, drama as performance, translational and adaptation modes, the non-translated or the non-translatable Tagore drama, Tagore drama in the 21st century, and Indian film. The volume serves as a wide-ranging and up-to-date resource on the criticism of Tagore drama, and will appeal to a range of Theatre and Performance scholars as well as those interested in Indian theatre, literature, and film.

    Introduction Part I: The Politics of Rabindranath Tagore’s Drama 1.The Paradox of Knowledge and the Problem of the Self: The Critique of Enlightenment Epistemology in Rabindranath Tagore’s Play The Ascetic Arnab Bhattacharya 2. Exploring Modernities in Rabindranath Tagore’s Plays Tutun Mukherjee 3. A World-Oriented Disposition: Rabindranath Tagore’s Political Imaginary in the Play Raktakarabi (Red Oleanders) Sayan Bhattacharyya 4. Love in the Time of the Birth of a Celibate India: A Study of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chirakumar Sabha (An Association for Lifelong Celibates) Dipankar Roy 5. The ‘King’ in Rabindranath Tagore’s Drama: Political Power Reinscribed in Raja (The King of the Dark Chamber) Chandrava Chakravarty 6. Old Text, New Theory: Reading Tagore's Red Oleanders through Ecofeminist Lenses Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri 7. Valmiki Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki): A Study in Genius Rumpa Das 8. That Sudden Flash of Light: Nandini of Rabindranath Tagore’s Raktakarabi (Red Oleanders) Sutapa Chaudhuri 9. The Parting Curse: A Study of Debjani and Rabindranath Tagore’s Voice in Bidaay Abhishaap (The Parting Curse) Paramita Dutta 10. Critique of Disciplinary Sovereign in Rabindranath Tagore's Raktakarabi (Red Oleanders) Suvadip Sinha 11. The Dalit Vision in Rabindranath Tagore’s Rather Roshi (The Rope of the Chariot): A Study Tapu Biswas Part II: The Reception of Rabindranath Tagore’s Drama 12. Drama as Pedagogy: Rabindranath Tagore’s The Post Office Mala Renganathan 13. Rabindranath Tagore’s Very Own Theatre Idiom Pradip Lahiri 14. Extension of the Poetic Landscape: Rabindranath Tagore’s Contribution to Drama H S Shiva Prakash 15. Tracing Shyāmā’s Line of Flight: The Minoritarian Theatrescape of Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata Syed Jamil Ahmed 16. Perceiving the Theatrical Space through the Metaphorical: A Cognito-Proxemic Reading of Rabindranath Tagore’s Play Sacrifice Arnab Bhattacharya 17. The Quest Continues for the New Woman: Rabindranath Tagore’s Dance Dramas and the Politics of Reception Sutapa Chaudhuri 18. Dramas Sans Dance: A Re-reading of Chitrangada and Chandalika Sharmila Majumdar 19.Non - action as Action: A Comparison of Selected Plays of Rabindranath Tagore and T S Eliot K CHELLAPPAN 20. Reconstructing Tagore’s Dakghar (The Post Office): A Cross Cultural Myth Usham Rojio

    Biography

    Arnab Bhattacharya is an internationally published critic, translator and a creative writer. His previous publications include Ghosts and Other Perils (2013), an English translation of hilarious stories by 19th century Bengali author, Troilokyonath Mukhopadhyay and Writing the Body: Studies in the Self-images of Women in Indian English Poetry (2014), an edited volume on the discourse of the body in Indian English poetry by women.

    Mala Renganathan is Professor of English at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong (Meghalaya), India. She is the author of Understanding Maria Irene Fornes’ Theatre (2011) and a contributor to Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives (ed. Tutun Mukherjee, 2006), South Asian Literature: An Encyclopedia (ed. Jaina C. Sangha, 2004), and Who's Who in Contemporary World Theatre (ed. Daniel Meyer Dinkgrafe, Routledge, 2000).