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Teaching New Literatures in English: An Indian Response to International

History and Culture

Conference Paper · September 2012

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Mahesh Kumar Dey

Veer Narmad South Gujarat University
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 Teaching New Literatures in English: An Indian
Response to International History and Culture
Abstract:

This research paper deals with the introduction and teaching of a paper titled “New Literatures
in English/English Translation” in several Indian universities. This paper has been prescribed as an
optional paper in the syllabus of MA English course. Earlier days, this paper was named as
“Commonwealth Literatures” and more recently some people name it as “Postcolonial Writings in
English”. Unlike other core papers which include the literatures of Britain, America and India, this paper
includes some representative works produced from Australia, Canada, Africa and the Caribbean Islands
which were the former colonies of the British Imperialism. Some professors have been adventurous
enough to include the English translations of European works in this paper in some universities. A few
years back, I was assigned to teach this optional paper to my MA students, because I have done my
research on “Native Canadian Novels in English”. I heartily accepted the proposal as I found some
mainstream Australian and Canadian poets prescribed in this paper. Based on my teaching and research
experience, I have prepared this paper for presentation in this conference. I have used some poems as
illustrative samples to support my arguments. I think that the main purpose of teaching this paper in
India is to acquaint our students with the geography of the foreign country, the social-historical-political
conditions of the Nations, the diverse people and their respective cultures. As students of literature, we
pay more attention to stylistic features and aesthetic values found in literary works and less attention to
socio-political-historical and cultural aspects. This particular paper enables us all to concentrate on these
unknown aspects deliberately, because we do not have the prior knowledge about the respective
countries and their historical as well as socio-cultural elements. This paper develops in us a critical and
comparative approach to appreciate all literary works produced in different countries.

DR. MAHESH KUMAR DEY

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN ENGLISH

VEER NARMAD SOUTH GUJARAT UNIVERSITY

SURAT-395007, GUJARAT (INDIA)

E-MAIL: maheshdey@yahoo.com
Text:

Stuart Hall in a book titled Negotiating Caribbean Identity states: “Identity is the
narrative, the stories which cultures tell themselves about who they are and where they
came from”. He further adds that identity is “stories which change with historical
circumstances” and that identity “shifts with the way in which we think them, hear them
and experience them” (Hall 8).

The background of English studies in India is well-known to all of us. After two hundred years of
English teaching in India, we continue the same practice of mostly teaching British literature and
American literature as our core components of BA and MA courses. Then we added Indian Writings in
English, earlier known as Anglo-Indian/Indo-Anglican Literature”, as one of the special papers along with
Linguistics and ELT. The list also included other European literatures translated into English and available
to us in India. Some Indian professors of English got scholarships and fellowships to visit foreign
countries and do research on their literatures. When they returned back to their institutions, they
introduced these papers in order to give continuous teaching on these new literatures. The respective
countries or their universities also signed MOUs with our central government or universities in order to
encourage and promote their literatures as a part of the bilateral agreement with each other. Thus we
see a great change in the syllabus of MA English course in Indian universities with the introduction of
optional papers such as Translation Studies, Diaspora Literatures, Film Studies, Postcolonial Writings,
Feminist Writings and Cultural Theory, etc.

In the last few decades, there has been a trend of introducing “New Writings/Literatures in
English” originating from different non-British/non-American countries. Earlier, we used to know them
as “Commonwealth Literatures” and in recent years we also identify them as “Postcolonial Writings” or
“Diaspora Writings”. We wish our students should study the creative writings and award-winning works
produced in English from other parts of the globe excluding the UK and the USA. We do not include the
Indian Writing in English or English Translation as a part of this paper, because we separately deal with
the literatures of our own country. Under “New Literatures in English”, we include the writings from the
non-British countries such as Australia, Canada, the Caribbean Islands and other parts of Africa, America
and Europe. I have been teaching this optional paper for the last few years in my university and I try to
discuss some issues related to the teaching of this paper based on my own personal teaching
experience. We have to take special interest in the respective countries, their history, socio-political
situations, landscapes and culture. While teaching Australian and Canadian poetry, I have tried to
incorporate these elements in my lecture outlines. This new paper has been introduced to acquaint our
students with the various literary traditions of various parts of the globe. The main objective is to
introduce them the major literary works of countries like Nigeria, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada in relation to their historical and political contexts. The students are
also encouraged to develop a comparative approach to appreciate the literary works of these countries
while knowing about different cultural traditions though produced in creative writings and in English.
 Nature and human beings have an intimate and spiritual relationship since the origin of this
universe and civilization. Human beings have always wanted to have food, water and air for their very
existence and the Nature has been readily available with all these elements to fulfill their needs and
demands. Then they have wanted to have homes and families in order to prove themselves as “civilized”
and “cultured” social beings. They could see in Nature the presence of Divine spirits who can help them
at the time of need. They have applied their conscience and wisdom to worship different Nature spirits
and get their demands fulfilled. Natural resources have been utilized to the maximum and in an effective
manner for harvesting crops, grow vegetables and fruits, flowers and other herbs for basic
requirements. They are surprised to see the magnificence of Nature-its beauty and colourful shades in
animals and birds, flowers and plants, fruits and vegetables, rain and rainbow, hills and rocks, rivers and
seas, the Sun and the Moon, the planets and the stars in the Galaxy, etc. As care-takers, the human
beings have always felt that it is their responsibility to look after the Nature and in return it will provide
them with their maintenance. It will entertain as well as instruct, if needed, as a friend, philosopher and
guide.

Whether we read the British or the American poetry, the Indian or the Canadian poetry, we will
find this spiritual union between the human beings and the Nature. As a lover of Nature and human life,
no poet can keep himself away from this subject matter. There is always seen a deep sense of
“belongingness” in the poetry of all nations. The Almighty God as Creator is not visible physically to
human eyes, but realized through the Nature and its various elements. Artists and authors are the first
ones to feel this close relationship between the Nature and the human beings. For ages, they have
worshipped Nature as its devotees. The Natural landscapes surrounding the artists inspire them and
shape their creative personae. They are fed mentally and spiritually, as a result of which they are able to
create magic using their respective tools-the painter using brush and colours on the canvas, the writers
using pen and ink on papers and the musician using instruments.

I am going to illustrate one of the Australian poets to discuss my point further. Alec Derwent
Hope or A. D. Hope is one of the twentieth century Australian poets who has composed a poem titled
“Australia” which is “a nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey” and the immigrants see this nation
as a “young” one, but this land has been the mother-land of Aboriginal people for generations before
the European invasion of this land and settlement. These original settlers have not only lived here but
also survived against many challenges including natural as well as man-made calamities. The poet
writes:

“She is the last of lands, the emptiest,

A woman beyond her change of life, a breast

Still tender but within the womb is dry;

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Without songs, architecture, history

 The emotions and superstitions of younger lands.”

(Hope, cited in Narasimhaiah 1990:74)

The inhabitants were Aboriginal people belonging to different nations spreading “from Cairns of Perth”
and the dying earth was not at all that uninhabitable for them in the beginning despite several
challenges raised by it. Europeans arrived as traders and immigrants before being permanent settlers
and owners of the land in a foreign country. The poet addresses them as “second-hand Europeans” who
arrived on the edge of alien shores and pushed the people who were original residents/settlers to the
border/periphery, building their own civilizations and modern cities.

In another poem titled “Moschus Moshiferous”, Hope mentions about the Kastura deer of
Assam, the north-eastern state of India, and Tibet which is another neighbouring country, where the
deer is seen in large numbers. Now they are extinct for greedy human-beings who brutally kill them for
their own selfish interest. He writes:

“In the high jungle where Assam meets Tibet

The small Kastura, most archaic of deer,

Were driven in herds to cram the hunters’ net

And slaughtered for the musk-pods which they bear” (78)

Gradually, these deers are reducing in number due to hunters’ evil passion and materialistic interest.
The poet states:

“Cause and effect are very simply linked:

Rich scents demand the musk, and so the deer,

Its source, must soon, they say, become extinct.”

Finally, he dedicates this composition to “Divine Cecilia” and praises the power of music ironically. Prof.
C. D. Narasimhaiah as the pioneering Indian critic states that Hope has given us “the tears of things” and
“spared us his own tears, a Virgilian canon” (65). This Australian poem deals with the universal issue of
animal preservation and environment protection based on the Kastura, the Indian variety of deer.

A. D. Hope’s poems have been published in several literary magazines including The Pauline,
Australian National Review, Hermes, The Bulletin and Arts Journal. His various collections are entitled
The Wandering Islands (1955), Collected Poems: 1930-65 (1966), The Age of Reason (1985) and Orpheus
(1991), etc. During his life-time of ninety three years, Hope has seen and experienced numerous events
that happened all over the world. An Australian by birth, he represents the humanity of the entire globe
in modern times. His poems embody the greatness and frailty of the human spirit. He began to see
poetry as an engagement in a philosophical view of the world and humanity. He saw the Great
Depression in Australia and was jobless for many years being a graduate of Oxford University. However,
he did not lose interest in human worth and succeeded to hold the Professor’s post in the Australian
National University. He was the first English professor to introduce Australian literature as a major
subject of higher study with the support of his colleague Thomas Inglis Moore. Till then, it was taught in
a fragmented manner as a part of the general course on literature, including some selected award-
winning works by mainstream Australian authors.

I also taught Canadian poetry to my students as a part of this paper. The poets prescribed
include Margaret Atwood, A. J. M. Smith, P. K. Page and Robert Finch. Dean Irvine in his essay “Editing
Canadian Modernism” states: “Modernist poetry in English Canada would not have a history without its
editors. The history of modernism in Canada has largely been that of editors who were also poets and
poets who were also editors” (Irvine 2007: 53). This is a common practice in the British and American
literary traditions and we know that many poets edit poetry anthologies of their own times. Most of
Canadian modernist poets have published edited volumes of poetry including poems of their colleagues
along with their own. Such poets include Dorothy Livesay, F.R.Scott, Duncan Campbell Scott,
A.J.M.Smith, A.M.Klein and P.K.Page. In 1932, F.R.Scott published an anthology of eighteen poems
under the title of “An Anthology of Up-to-Date Canadian Poetry” in a literary magazine titled Canadian
Forum and later on edited another volume titled “New Provinces”. Then a large number of collections
such as “An Anthology of Canadian Poetry” edited by Ralph Gustafson, Ronald Hambleton’s “Unit of
Five”, John Sutherland’s “Other Canadians” and A.J.M.Smith’s “The Book of Canadian Poetry” were
edited by major Canadian poets of the twentieth century. Such anthologies shaped Canadian modernist
poetry into a new pattern which was to be appreciated and recognized internationally.

All Canadian poets are influenced by the British and American poets of the previous eras.
William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, W.B.Yeats, T.S.Eliot, William Blake and Robert
Frost have influenced the modern Canadian poets to a great extent. A.J.M.Smith who is a scholar of
W.B.Yeats’ s poetry dedicated his poetry to this great Irish poet and wrote many poems in his honour.
Some of his titles include “Ode on the Death of William Butler Yeats” and “Like an Old Proud King in a
Parable” which echo Yeats’s use of Irish myth and legend in “Leda and the Swan” and other poems
including “Byzantium”.

Margaret Atwood is one of the leading Canadian poets and novelists of the contemporary
period. She has been largely influenced by the Canadian landscapes and we find the glimpses of
Canadian prairies, hills and forests in her poems. She has written a poem titled “Journey to the Interior”
that echoes the “journey” theme as found in the poems of Robert Frost entitled “Stopping by Wood on a
Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken”. In her poem, the narrator states:

“… that this is a poor country;

That a cliff is not known

As rough except by hand, and is

Therefore inaccessible…”
Travelling in the unknown worlds or strange regions of Canada is not safe always. No map or chart, no
sunrise or sunset, no road direction and compass will help a tourist return safely to his destination at the
end of the trip to the interior. There will be a number of “distractions” on the way. She further writes:

“Many have been here, but only

Some have returned safely.

A Compass is useless; also

Trying to directions

From the movement of the Sun,

Which are erratic;

And words here are as pointless

As calling in a vacant wilderness”

Thus the narrator’s journey into the interior is dangerous and there is a chance of losing the way or right
path. The author cautions “to keep my head” in order and to have a safe return back to the destination.

Robert Finch who is another modern Canadian poet has written a short lyric entitled “Peacock
and Nightingale” which draws a comparison between external beauty of the Peacock and the inner
vision of the Nightingale. The Peacock is proud to a have beautiful tail covered with colourful feathers
that appear like “eyes” and it can dance gracefully in the rain which attracts the viewers’ eyes. Its
feathers are considered to be the sign of prosperity and progress, of goodness and joy in our eastern
mythology as it is worn by Lord Krishna on his hair-lock. The bird proudly states:

“Who would not fall in ecstasy

Before the gemmed enamelry

Of ruby-topaz-sapphire me?...”

To the Nightingale, it says: “When my proud tail parades its fan, /you little bird, are merely an /
Anachronism in its vain”. The ugly bird that can sing sweetly simply and briefly replies: “Let me advise
you be wise,/ Avoid the vision of my eyes”. The Peacock lacks the “vision” to see the inner beauty and is
blinded by the external beauty only. The ugly bird can sing where as the beautiful bird can dance
according to the law of the Nature and Creator. The inner vision is more important in life than the
physical beauty that is transitory and subjected to ruin and death sooner or later. We as human beings
must not forget this moral lesson that we are born on the Earth for a higher and nobler purpose than to
take care of our body and self-interest.

Another poet namely P.K.Page has mentioned about the racial discrimination seen in the
Canadian nation among the Whites and the Natives. In her poem entitled “First Neighbours”, the
narrator as a white immigrant faces many challenges from the original settlers, the First Nations people.
The small child who is the narrator and the European immigrant says in the beginning:

“The people I live among, unforgivingly

Previous to me, grudging

The way I breathe their

Property, the air,

Speaking a twisted dialect…”

Both the narrator and her neighbor speak two different dialects incomprehensible to each other. The
Whites are said to have an elite culture and according to them, the Natives do not have any civilization
or culture at all before they came in contact with the Whites and knew how to read and write using the
script. Here the subject-narrator tries her best to adopt the new land, the strange inhabitants and their
strange customs and rituals. Her “Neighbour” however is not ready to accept her presence in their
midst. She states:

“Go back where you came from;

I tightened my lips; knew that England

Was now unreachable, had sunk down into the sea…”

Being an invalid minor and accepting her reality of life, she endures what she cannot cure without any
surprise. She is always “tricked” by the surrounding environment, the forests, the birds and the non-
living entities too. She comes to the conclusion that her inadequate learning of the Native dialect as a
foreigner in this new country is going to make her life miserable. She states that “prediction is forever
impossible”. This last line of the poem makes it clear that Canada being a “multicultural” nation in this
age of democracy which believes in equality and justice is not free from “discrimination” and
exploitation. The racial conflict between the European settlers and the First Nations people is going to
be a permanent social issue of the modern nation.

John W. Garvin as the editor of an anthology titled Canadian Poets (1916) states: “Poetry, at its
height, implies beauty and the driving force of passion. It implies also the austerity and emotional
restraint which means spiritual strength, and it is, primarily, to the inherent strength of this Art which
faces and pictures the truth in Nature and human nature, that the people have turned in times past and
will turn in times to come” (Garvin 1916: 6). This statement has universal relevance over the ages
spreading from the Classical to the Modern. Not only poetry, it is also true in case of novel, drama and
prose. As a part of this paper, our students also read texts like Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey,
Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Ice-Candy Man, Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests, J.M.Coetzee’s Disgrace,
Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners and Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and so on.
 The purpose of this paper is to let our students know about other literatures produced in
different countries, though available in English. They will also have knowledge about peoples of diverse
ethnic groups, their social-religious beliefs and cultural practices through their writings. This new
optional paper including five or six selected titles from different genres and cultures will be inadequate
to have a proper understanding of the respective cultures, but the students can at least have a
comparative perspective initially to carry forward further research in these areas. Such an optional
paper is definitely useful and relevant for the students of MA English course. They can better
understand their own social-political-cultural issues comparing with other nations and their issues as
shown in the selected works. Writers, whatever nations they belong to, are said to be the prophets who
not only see the reality of their times but also make predictions about the future of their societies based
on their knowledge and experience of reading great masters of ancient times that all do not find time to
do. Their universal message given through their creative writings are always meant for the well-being of
the entire universe. Nowadays there has been a trend of digitizing literatures of different nations
because it is seen as a dynamic reform movement adopted by the modern publishers, writers and
editors. All are increasingly moving toward the production of digital or e-version of their writings and
anthologies to be available on the Net/WWW free to readers worldwide for downloading and private
educational use. This has made the works from Australia, Africa, America, Asia and Europe available to
us free if we have a personal computer or laptop and internet access. W e can easily download the
freely-available e-texts and e-poetry anthologies and save them for our future reading and research
activities as common as well as academically critical readers. It is definitely a positive development in
the field of education due to IT revolution and its application in all spheres including literature.

References:

Hall, Stuart. “Negotiating Caribbean Identity” in New Left Review, Vol. 209, Jan- Feb (1995), 3-14.

Irvine, Dean. “Editing Canadian Modernism” in ESC, VOL. 31.1-2 (Mar/June 2007): 53-84.

Narasimhaiah, C. D, Ed. An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Madras: Macmillan India, 1990.

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