Full Description
This companion is the first comprehensive study of courier poetry—in which someone, usually a lonely lover, sends an unlikely messenger (a cloud, a bee, a goose, a bat, a language, the wind, a poem, and so on) to the beloved or to a close friend or patron. The volume explores works in a variety of languages, including Sanskrit, Malayalam, Tamil, Old Javanese, Hindi, Telugu, Sinhala, Marathi, Tibetan, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa. The chapters follow the historical evolution of this massive corpus, from Kalidasa's classic text to modernity. They also offer culture-specific maps, not only of South Asia but of the world beyond, from the shores of Java and Bali to the Mississippi.
A unique contribution, this volume will be indispensable for students, academicians, and researchers in literature, comparative literature, literary theory, poetry studies, and Asian studies.
Contents
Getting the Message: An Introduction to Courier Poetry 1. Reading a Cloud 2. Unbearable Levity: Desire's Headwinds in Dhoyi's Breeze Messenger (Pavanadūta) 3. Messaging Affect in Jinasena's Ascent of Parshva 4. Profitable Poetry: Panegyric Messenger Poetry and Patronage 5. Abudl Rahman's Pretexts 6. "Our Endless and Proper Work": Notes on Reading Sinhala Messenger Poems 7. Tamil Tūtu and a Rāyalasīma Diversion 8. A History of Sandeśa on Stage (and its Aftermath): Sanskrit Padams from Eighteenth-century Thanjavur 9. Happily Ever After? Love, Realism, and Parody in The Partridge Messenger 10. Clouds over Mountains, Streams under Ice: The Messenger is Received in Tibet 11. A Journey through Poetry: Rethinking Tanakung's Wṛttasañcaya 12. The Bat Messenger: The Poetics of Despair in Gurram Jashuva's The Bat 13. Movement, Space, and Protest: Two Hindi Responses to the Meghadūta 14. Mudgara the Messenger Epilogue: A New Translation of Kalidasa's Meghadūta
