A Literary Overview and Summary of Poem:

“ A River ”
by Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan
Subject: Post-colonial Literature (Semester: Spring 2022)
Facilitator / Teacher: Ms. Anum Hussain

Prince Abdul Majeed

Roll No: 60177 | MA - IV

National University of Modern Languages

Islamabad
Contents
• Poet’s Profile: Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan

• Features of Ramanujan’s Poetry

• A River – A Poem which makes a departure from conventional

aestheticism

• The Poem at Glance

• Symbols and Themes

 A K Ramanujan – The Anti-Romantic Poet
• Poet, translator, folklorist, and
philologist A.K. Ramanujan was born in
Mysore, India.
• He lived between 1929 and 1993.
• He earned degrees at the University of
Mysore and Deccan College in Pune and
a PhD from Indiana University.
• Ramanujan wrote in both English and
Kannada, and his poetry is known for its
thematic and formal engagement with
modernist transnationalism.
A K Ramanujan – The Anti-Romantic Poet
• Issues such as hybridity and transculturation figure prominently in
such collections as Second Sight (1986), Selected Poems (1976), and
The Striders (1966). The Collected Poems of A.K. Ramanujan (1995)
received a Sahitya Akademi Award after the author’s death.
• As a scholar, Ramanujan contributed to a range of disciplines,
including linguistics and cultural studies.
• For much of his career, Ramanujan taught at the University of
Chicago, where he helped develop the South Asian studies program.
• In 1976, the Indian government honored him with the title Padma Shri,
the fourth-highest civilian award in the country. Ramanujan also
received a MacArthur Fellowship.
 Features of Ramanujan’s Poetry
• Inscape and inner meaning is the
hallmark of Ramanujan’s poetry
• Follows the tradition of interior
landscape and exterior landscape
• Influenced by Tamil poetics
• Compact Poems
• Anti-Romantic
• Association of Thought
 A River – An Introduction
• It’s about the reality of the river

• It’s written in protest against poets who

praise for river

• This poem establishes itseld as a

powerful critique of the poets who only
praised the glory of the river

• An insightful depiction about the

condition of River in Summer
Stanza 1 –
A River
Stanza 2 – A River
Summary and Critical Analysis – A River
Summary and Critical Analysis – A River
Summary and Critical Analysis – A River
Thank You