OPTIONAL COURSE: 3

BLOCK I

UNIT 1 (a)

Postcolonial Poetry

What does postcolonialism signify? Is it a kind of aesthetic and theoretical response that opposes
and counters the discourse inherent in colonialism? Or is it a completely new discourse whose
root is extremely grounded in the assertive ideology of Colonialism? The simply answer to all
these questions is difficult to address without a proper understanding of the concept of
colonialism. Like janus faced statue both the discourses and praxis of colonialism and
postcolonialism are inextricably mingled with one another. Therefore I think it is important to
grasp the concept of colonialism very well before beginning any further discussion on
Postcolonialism. As a theory colonialism implies the discourse of the colonizer. The politics of
expansion of colonies power structure and an unquenchable thirst for expanding the domination
over other races or ethic identities can be generally called the quintessence of colonial discourse.
The concept of power and the concept of “docile subject” both are integral part of the colonialist
discourse. The concept of “docile subject” is being propounded by Michael Foucault. Foucault is
a French theorist. By the term “docile subject” he implies the subject who is very submissive,
meek, docile to the rules of the colonizers. It is the psychology of the colonizer to rule his
kingdom where all his subjects are docile. Docility appears to be the key element of a colonized
subject. In fact, docility turns out to be the integral part of power structure in the colony. As a
counter discourse of the power the docility is needed to continue the reign of the colonial master.
Postcolonial responses emerge with the intention of re writing the ideological moorings of the
colonial master. The colonial master imagines himself as the embodiment of civility. He takes
upon himself “the white man’s burden” to educate and civilize the barbaric natives. According to
the perspective of the colonizer before the arrival of them in the native land history was non
existent. It is stereotypical colonial assumption to perceive the pre-colonial era in a native land as
a time devoid of history. Postcolonial response generates when the colonized subjects after long
years silence re-writes back to the empire their stories of suffering, victimization, struggle and
survival. Postcolonialism celebrates the individual identity and the struggle of each and every
indigenous people who suffered much during the reigning time of the colonial master. As a
theoretical practice, colonialism operates on several binaries. One of the remarkable binaries is
master slave binary. The colonial master is powerful authority and his subjects, that is, the
colonized subjects are slaves. There is a gendered reading nascent in postcolonial and colonial
discourse. In colonial discourse, the colonizer is the masculine subject who asserts his authority
and influence and all these shape and affect the lives of the colonized subjects to a large extent.
The colonized subjects are being viewed from this gendered lens as feminine subjects. They need
to be docile and submissive to each and every whim of the colonizer. The postcolonial writing
appears as a kind of counter discourse of colonialism. It reinforces the potentials, possibilities
and the power that are nascent in the postcolonial discourse. It is a vindication of rights on part
of the victimized subjects who remain under the colonial power for a long time. In this module
we are going to read five poems from Indian poets’ perception of postcoloniality. There before
any further discussion about the poems specific reference should be mentioned about the features
of postcolonial writing in general for a better understanding of the poems in your syllabus.

UNIT 1 (b)

Features of Postcolonial Poetry

Postcolonial poetry that you have in your syllabus gives you the essence of postcolonial response
which comes from two notable poets from India. They are R. Parthasarathi and Jayanta
Mahapatra. Both of them are postcolonial poets whose writings give expression and voice to the
repressed thoughts on behalf of the postcolonial subjects. Their poetry talks about nostalgia. The
postcolonial subjects are nostalgic when they reminisce back their days of the pre colonial era.
When the diasporic consciousness comes in the consciousness of the postcolonial subjects it
becomes a prominent feature. They are nostalgic about their homeland. In the diasporic
consciousness a sense of abjection works continuously. Eminent French Feminist Julia Kriesteva
uses the “Theory of abjection” where one self abjects another self. It is really complicated to
decide who abjects whom. May be it is the homeland who abjects the diasporic subjects or it can
be the diaspotic subject who abjects the homeland. In postcolonial poetry the aspect of identity is
one of the important features. The concept of postcolonialism is based on the quest for identity. It
is the search on part of the colonized subjects to find their identities which have been denied to
them during the reigning period of the colonial masters. In fact the very practice of postcolonial
writing itself is an act of asserting one’s own identity. In postcolonial writing language is amajor
concern. The writers try to muster the language of the ruler and the very act of mustering the
ruler’s language makes him “A mimic man” according to the terminology of Homi. K. Bhabha.
In fact mimicry is one of the means by which the colonized subjects claim the position similar to
that of the master. Mimicry itself turns out to be a form of resistance on part of the colonized
subjects. The quest for language and the art of mustering the ruler’s language both of these can
be viewed as the essential part of identity formation on part of the postcolonial subjects. The
concept of empowerment and a sense of agency are nascent within postcolonial discourse.

UNIT 2 (a)

Jayanta Mahapatra

Jayanta Mahapatra is one of the eminent poets who continuously strive to voice out the muted
stories of suffering agonies and victimization in the Indian soil since time immemorial. He was
born on 22 october 1928 in Cuttack. He is the first Indian poet who own Sahitya academy award
for writing poetry in English. He started writing in the late sixties. His poetry talks about the
continuous search of the diasporic subjects for an identity. His poetic endeavour deals with the
postcolonial aspects of nostalgia, suffering and a sense of assertion . In your syllabus you need to
read three poems by Jayanta Mahapatra: “Myth” “Deaths in Orissa” and “Traveller”. All these
three poems in your syllabus stick to their nativist ideology where the poetic voice is going to
trace back the lost traditions of the indigenous people. The three poems are tined by the
postcolonial ethos from the perspective of an Indian poet.

UNIT 3 (a)

MYTH

Text of the Poem:

Years drift sluggishly through the air,

is a chanting, the long years, an incense.
Face upon face returns to the barbed horizons
of the foggy temple; here lies
a crumpled leaf, a filthy scarlet flower
out of placeless pasts, on the motionless stairs.
Old brassy bells
moulded by memories, dark, unfulfilled,
 to make the year come back again
a recurring prayer.
The stairs seem endless,
lifelong,
and those peaks too, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri;
uncertain, impressive as gods.
I dare not go
into the dark, dank sanctum
where the myth shifts
swiftly from hand to hand, eye to eye.
The dried, sacrificed
flowers smile at me. I have become;
a diamond in my eye.
Vague grieving years pit against the distant peaks
like a dying butterfly
as a bearded, saffron-robed
man asks me, firmly:
Are you a Hindoo?

Analysis of the poem: The poem is preoccupied with the aspect of identity. The poetic persona
goes on visiting a shrine where thousand years old histories reside. The peaks like Annapurna,
Dhaulagiri all remain same. With the passage of time the only difference can be perceived by
comprehending its ancient tradition. The term “Tradition” itself is a sacred word which
immediately links up the grey past, the present and the future. The word tradition gives a sense
of ancientness. It implies a desire to remain obedient to the age-old customs of a clan or a nation.
When the postcolonial consciousness tries to redefine his history there is always an attempt to go
back to the lost past. The colonial master always perceives the pre-colonial era of a nation as a
historical void. According to them the history begins at the nation with the arrival of the masters.
The inability of the postcolonial subjects to document their history in written form is always
being viewed from a colonial lens as a symbol of their intellectual inferiority. The title of the
poem “Myth” is very symbolic. The myth does exist in the cultures which are very ancient. They
give fond remembrance of the ancient glory of a clan. The quest for myth in an oblique way
implies the quest for self-exploration. It means the quest for self identification. In postcolonial
praxis the motif of self-knowledge and self-exploration turn out to be the two most major
features. The colonial masters have wiped out the history and mythology from the colony with
the intention of redefining history as something which has been created in the hands of the
foreign rulers. In this context it is important to remember history is a confluence of divergent
temporal spans. To be placed in the history gives a firm basis on the identity of the subjects. In
postcolonial discourse the subjects are denied to create their own historical discourse.
Automatically their roles as active participants in the process of history had been denied. On part
of the poet the quest for myth in the poem becomes a necessity as he is trying to raise his muted
voice in order to tell the saga of human suffering, deprivation, and victimization in his own land.
The trope of memory plays a major role in the poem. The poet nostalgically recollects the
withered a scarlet flower, a crumpled leaf, and a silence brood over the temple for a long time.
There still remain motionless stair who witnesses all these stories and remain muted. The
memory of the stairs is just like that of a postcolonial subject. They remember the details of
suffering and deprivation yet they remain silent. There is a similarity between feminism and
postcolonialism. Silence is a way of expression according to the theories of French Feminists
like Julia Kristeva. Silence is a counter discourse of the feminine subjects. In postcolonialism the
colonized subjects are being viewed as feminine characters whose language has been snatched
away by the colonizer. As a result they speak in “Forked Tongue”. I allude to the terminology
“The forked tongue” from Gloria Anzaldua’s book Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
As a postcolonial subject speaks in forked tongue his language is sometimes incoherent. It lacks
the good command over the language. Therefore the quest for language is a major area of critical
concern in postcolonialism. Even the unsaid stories of human suffering give birth to trauma. The
traumatic experiences remain beyond the scope of verbal expression. The words fail to capture
the sense of trauma as a result the postcolonial subjects remain silent. The silence is replete with
agony and sense of angst.

UNIT 3 (b)

Traveller

Text of the Poem:

Every evening
the bells of the temple close by
rest their easy weight on the bones;
it’s time again to wonder
what I’ll do with what I learn.
A warm vapor rises
from the darkening earth like a hope.
 Somewhere, inside a room,
a girl is dying in her mother’s arms.
Elsewhere, someone
revenges himself for his broken life.
I look at people. At my little misery.
Beyond, at a jasmine’s sad sweet smile.
Movement here has purpose:
It is not cold and tired.
The deer chasing the new growth of grass.
The drum thumping against the sky.
The woman with her knees drawn to her chest.
And the wind that deceives itself
it has tellingly carried the scream of the girl
who is dying in her mother’s arms.
My knowledge and my time
fail to quiet to night
unlike the flutter of birds.
I try to wear this weight lightly.
But the weight of the unknown buries me.
Analysis of the Poem: The poem “Traveller” gives an essence of travelling in the past with the
zeal of discovering the histories that remain hidden beneath the memoryscape for a long time.
The title of the poem is symbolic of the psychic movement in the mind of a subject having
postcolonial consciousness. A postcolonial subject is a traveler who travels in the past in order
to find the lost memories. His travel intends to link the lost past and the present with an intention
to redefine the future.

“A warm vapor rises from the darkening earth like a hope” this particular line articulates the
dilemma of choice on part of the postcolonial subjects to move back psychologically to their
grey past. The aspiration to trace the buried past remains within themselves yet the hope is
sometimes remain muffled with a fear of encountering the ghosts of the past whom the
colonizers have buried so carefully. The poet like an objective bystander views the sufferings of
his fellow beings even in the present. In his observation he comes across a girl who is dying in
her mother’s arm. He comes across a man who goes on lamenting about his ruined life. The
motifs of death disease sickness and melancholia loom large in the poem. Each one of these
tropes gives the readers a haunting reminder of the life that is remaining as a leftover after the
departure of the colonizers. The life that that colonized subjects are living it is a life of regret and
suffering. Yet they do aspire to live a life someday where life’s movement would be like the
gentle blooming of the jasmine flower which is full of beauty and promise. The simile “The
jasmine’s sad smile” overtly implies the entity of a postcolonial subject whose life remains
unfulfilled and transient in the passage of time yet he aspires to smile knowing fully well about
his short span and his own grace. The spaces in the colony after the departure of the colonizers
reserve a kind of sadness and weight. It is the weight of the memory that every colonized subject
is carrying carefully within their bruised hearts. The space is filled with a sad reminder of life’s
lost sublimity yet they still grope for a full life for themselves. The concluding two lines of the
poem is extremely connotative. It points out the responsibility of the subject having postcolonial
consciousness. They need to delve deep in the buried past. In their act of delving deep they may
be sad, may be nostalgic,
yet they need to perform the ritual of remembrance. It is a sacred rite that they have to perform in
order to pay respect to their ancient tradition and their lost ways of life which have been perished
by the foreign rulers. The act of reminiscence becomes a mode of redefining their lost past and it
creates a resistance against the forces of the colonial master’s trick to drag their consciousness
into collective amnesia by locating the history of the colony with the arrival of the colonizers.

UNIT 3( C)

Deaths in Orissa

Text of the Poem:

Faces of tree-bark and grief

hang against God's hand in the world
that cannot lift itself up to help.
In the corners of women's eyes
the rainbow breaks against the sunrise.

Nothing but the paddy's twisted throat

exposed on the crippled bleak earth,
nothing but impotence in lowered eyes,
nothing but the tightening of the muscles
in Bhagyabati's neck which her outcaste mother
would herself have liked to throttle to death,
nothing but the cries of shriveled women
cracking against the bloodied altar of Man,
nothing but the moment of fear
when they need a God who can do them some good.

Oh I am a poet who barks like a dog.

 Open the window, I say, so I can breathe.
Let not my memory be like a tiger in ambush.
But there is this dangerously alive body
and only a baton or knife can tear it apart.

Analysis of the poem: The poem “Deaths in Orissa” is extremely preoccupied with the aspect of
memory and its haunting reminder. The wretched conditions of the colonized subjects and the
sense of loss hover over the entire narrative. The poet articulates the sense of absence, loss, and
sadness in his narrative. The sense of void is getting reflected in each line of the poem. It is the
sense of emptiness that defines the predicament of the colonized subjects. Their visions have
been ruined; their hopes have been snatched away. The rulers from the foreign land have
imposed on them their rules. Eminent postcolonial critic Franz Fanon n his seminal work
Wretched of the Earth focuses on the wretched condition of the colonized subjects. Dirt, filth,
sickness, and disease are the constant companions in the spaces inhibited by the colonized
subjects. Therefore the colonized subjects occupy a space which becomes a centre of enervation.
They stuck in the limbo kind of existence after the invasion of the foreign rulers in their lands. In
the poem “nothingness” becomes a recurrent motif. It gives the sense of futility and
meaninglessness in the endeavours of the subjects having postcolonial consciousness after the
foreign invasion. Yet the poem does change its vision towards the concluding section. The poet
here becomes aware of his responsibilities as a poet who needs to voice the unsaid words of his
fellow beings. As a poet he takes the responsibility of expressing the deep seated anger
melancholia and utter depression which dwell within the hearts of his countrymen as an offshoot
of their colonized position for a long time. The poetic voice gives expression to the silent agonies
and gestures. Therefore the venture of writing poetry itself here can be treated as a potential
medium of replacing the history which was written by the colonial masters in the past. The
replacement of the masters’ version of history has been completed when the postcolonial voice
speaks for itself.

UNIT 4 (a)

Rajagopal Parthasarathy

Rajagopal Parthasarathy is very popularly known as R. Parthasarathy. His is another powerful

postcolonial voice. He asserts the identity in his poetry as a postcolonial subject who gropes
continuously for self-identification after the trauma of surviving in the reigning period of the
colonizers. He was born on 20 August, 1934 at Tirupparaiturai, near Tiruchchirappalli, Tamil
Nadu. He is a famous critic, translator and poet. He was lecturer of English literature in Mumbai
almost ten years. Later he joined as Associate Professor of English and Asian Studies at
Skidmore college in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. His famous work is Rough
Passage which was published in 1977. His poetry is tinged with postcolonial ethos.

Exile

Text of the Poem:

As a man approaches thirty he may

take stock of himself.

Not that anything important happens.

At thirty the mud will have settled:

you see yourself in a mirror.

Perhaps, refuse the image as yours.

Makes no difference, unless

you overtake yourself. Pause for breath.

Time gave you distance: you see little else.

You stir, and the mirror dissolves.

Experience doesn’t always make for knowledge:

 you make the same mistakes.

Do the same things over again.

The woman you may have loved

you never married. These many years

you warmed yourself at her hands.

The luminous pebbles of her body

stayed your feet, else you had overflowed

the banks, never reached shore.

The sides of the river swell

with the least pressure of her toes.

All night your hand has rested

on her left breast.

In the morning when she is gone

you will be alone like the stone benches

in the park, and would have forgotten

 her whispers in the noises of the city.

Analysis of the Poem: The poem “Exile” breathes the air of indolent romanticism, yet it adheres
to the postcolonial ethos very firmly. The trope of memory here serves the postcolonial ethos
very faithfully. The memory itself is a part of history. To possess historical consciousness is also
another marker of power and awareness. As a postcolonial subject the poet remembers his days
when he arrives at the age of thirty. He remembers his lover whom he loved yet he did not build
his home with her. The lost melodies and traces of the days with her all he treasure in his
memory. The poet uses the mirror as a trope in the poem. He sees his own reflection when he is
past thirty. The aged face of his gives him another haunting reminder of his age. He is conscious
about the ageing and the temporal flux in which he has been placed. From the very beginning the
poem talks about history and a sense of historical awareness go on in this narrative. To trace the
lost time and the quest for identity both are typically postcolonial features. The poet talks about
mutability, transformation and new identity –all these point out his desire to redefine himself in
his life when he crossed the age thirty. There is an awareness of alteration. Time here plays the
major role. It does change tons of things around the poet’s life yet it does not change the
memory. The trope of memory acts here as a mode of resistance against the temporal flux. The
memory creates a narrative within the mind of the postcolonial subject as a result it turns out to
them another mode of empowerment. The ability to create a narrative is always being viewed as
a source of power. Therefore, it becomes another mode of empowerment to the postcolonial
subject. Another important trope emerges out of the poem which is the nature of memory.
Memory is never ever static. It is a fluid concept. Even every recollections of the same memory
does affect the memory and as a result each person has a different recollection of the same
memory. The politics of memory and the proper negotiation with the memory define the
personality of the self from a postcolonial lens. The sense of loss, lost love, nostalgia, and
melancholia all these become very important aspects to form a postcolonial response.

UNIT 4 (b)

Homecoming

Text of the Poem:

 I am no longer myself as I watch
the evening blur the traffic
to a pair of obese headlights.

I return home, tried,

my face pressed against the window
of expectation . I climb the steps

to my f lat, only to trip over the mat

Outside the door. The key
goes to sleep in my palm.

I fear I have bungled again.

That last refinement of speech
terrifies me. The balloon.

Of poetry has grown red in the face

with repeated blowing. For scriptures
I, therefore, recommend

the humble newspaper: I find

My prayers occasionally answered there.
I shall, perhaps, go on.

Like this, unmindful of day

melting into the night.
My heart I have turned inside out.

Hereafter, I should be content,

I think, to go through life
with the small change of uncertainties.

Analysis of the Poem: The poem “Homecoming” articulates the essence of Diasporic
consciousness. The concept of homecoming itself is a postcolonial aspect. Precisely,
homecoming is Diasporic awareness. In this context, it is important to remember who is a
Diasporic subject? Or what is Diaspora? Diaspora is the act of leaving one’s own homeland and
the decision to dwell on in a foreign land. The person who leaves his homeland and resides at
some other foreign land the person is called a Diasporic subject. The concept of home is a very
intriguing concept in Diasporic consciousness. Home is a fluid concept to them. The fond
recollections, dear faces and the homely things where the sense of comfort lies the Diasporic
subject calls it as their home. The concept of home and the uncertainty both are related to the
poem. Once a Diasporic subject leaves his home the geographical space home does change. Even
psychologically home does change. They rebuild home amidst the alien people in a new land.
The poem “homecoming” evokes the sense of monotony and boredom after homecoming. To a
Diasporic subject homecoming is an event. It brings back the nostalgia, the sadness and the
longing because, once they belong to the space. The event of homecoming always ends with a
sad note. The long absence of the Diasporic subject from their homeland caused a change in the
home. Therefore, after their arrival the same home undergoes through radical alteration.
Therefore, such homecoming never gives birth to the utmost happiness that a Diasporic subject
can expect. The changing nature of the home, and the memories associated with the home all are
potential markers of the Postcolonial ethos in the poem. The title “Homecoming” has been used
with an ironic intention. The departure of the Diasporic subject from home makes the home an
“unheimlich” place. “Unheimlich” is a term used by Sigmund Freud. Freud uses the term in
psychoanalysis to mean “unhomely” or “undfamiliar”. Therefore, over time the home becomes
an uncomfortable space to the Diasporic subject. Therefore, such a homecoming always caused a
sense of dissatisfaction, unhappiness and unease.

Assignments

1. Comment on the postcolonial ethos in the poems which are in your syllabus.

2. What do you mean by “Postcolonialism”?

3. Critically comment on the language and style of R. Parthasarathy with specific reference to the
poems in your syllabus.

4. Critically evaluate Jayanta Mahapatra as a postcolonial poet.

5. Write an essay on the trope of memory as an important aspect in Postcolonial poetry with
particular reference to the poems in your syllabus.

6. What is “unheimlich”?

References
Hart, Jonathan; Goldie, Terrie (1993). "Post-colonial theory". In Makaryk, Irene Rima; Hutcheon,
Linda; Perron, Paul (eds.). Encyclopedia of contemporary literary theory: approaches, scholars,
terms. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-5914-7. Retrieved 14
November 2011.

Clarke, George Elliott. Directions Home: Approaches to African-Canadian Literature. University

of Toronto Press, 2012.

De Gasperi, Giulia & Joseph Pivato. Eds. Comparative Literature for the New Century. McGill-
Queen's U. P., 2018.

Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier, eds. Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry

Olivier, Gerrit (1995). "Afrikaans and South African Literature". Journal of Literary
Studies. 11 (2): 38–48. doi:10.1080/02564719508530106. ISSN 0256-4718.

Tobias Döring, Postcolonial Literatures in English: An Introduction, 2008.

Prem Poddar and David Johnson, A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literature in English,
2005.

Alamgir Hashmi, The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World, 1988.

John Thieme, The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English

Chelsea 46: World Literature in English (1987)

Poetry International 7/8 (2003–2004)

Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds.), Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English,

1994, 2005.

John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, second edition (MUP, 2010).

Alamgir Hashmi, Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a

Popular/Counter Culture, 1983.

Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors

Britta Olinde, A Sense of Place: Essays in Post-Colonial Literatures

Peter Thompson, Littérature moderne du monde francophone. Chicago: NTC (McGraw-Hill),

1997

Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge 1994, ISBN 0-415-05406-0

Jaydeep Sarangi, "Indian Novels in English: Texts, Contexts and Language",Authorspress,New

Delhi, 2018
Postcolonial Theory and the Arab–Israeli Conflict edited by Philip Carl Salzman and Donna
Robinson Divine, Routledge (2008)

2001: Bijay Kumar Das, The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: 3rd revised and enlarged edition;
New Delhi: Atlantic, ISBN 81-7156-968-4

2006: Jaydeep Sarangi and Gauri Shankar Jha (eds), The Indian Imagination of Jayanta
Mahapatra, New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2006, ISBN 81-7625-622-6, a compilation of critical
articles.

Jaydeep Sarangi, Jayanta Mahapatra Joy of Living and Loving in His Poetry, Aavishkar
Publishers' Distributors, 2012, ISBN 8179103749. Printed INR: 600.00, hardcover, 162 pp.

Zinia Mitra, "Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra Imagery and Experiential Identity",

Authorspress,2012,ISBN 978-81-7273-655-2 Hardcover, INR:500,172pp

The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Themes & Imagery by Vivekanand Jha, New Delhi:
Authorspress,2013 ISBN 978-8172736736

Shiba Shankar Nath,"The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: A Study in Imagery",

Delhi:Authorspress,2014,ISBN 978-81-7273-897-6.Printed INR: 700.00, hardcover,173 pp.

Rock Pebbles, Vol. XV No.1, January–June 2011(a special issue on Jayanta

Mahapatra) ISSN 0975-0509