Mixed Attachments in Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana (1971)
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Anna M. Horatschek
Abstract
In India, Girish Karnad is famous as a playwright, actor, poet, director, critic, and translator; in the West, he is considered a ‘postcolonial author.’ But his most famous play Hayavadana contests this normative definition of Euro-American provenance through the choice of genre, formal traits inspired by theatrical traditions from East and West, and intertextual references to Thomas Mannʼs - originally Hindu - story “The Transposed Heads” (Die vertauschten Köpfe) and to the German Indologist Heinrich Zimmer. At the same time, by adapting the conventions of classical Sanskrit as well as oral Kannada Yakshagana folk theatre, the drama resists the concept of a homogeneous ‘national theatre’ in India, suggesting a transnational perspective. The concept of a nation is further undermined by the character constellation and the structure of the drama, staging intra-national struggles about highly politicised claims to interpretative authority between a classical Sanskrit and oral Bhasha traditions of culturally and politically marginalised tribes and lower castes, and along gender lines, with the only female character on stage being consistently suppressed in all respects. However, this reading contradicts the majority of interpretations from Indian academia, thus illustrating fundamental issues of ‘transnational hermeneutics,’ which are addressed at the end of this chapter.
Abstract
In India, Girish Karnad is famous as a playwright, actor, poet, director, critic, and translator; in the West, he is considered a ‘postcolonial author.’ But his most famous play Hayavadana contests this normative definition of Euro-American provenance through the choice of genre, formal traits inspired by theatrical traditions from East and West, and intertextual references to Thomas Mannʼs - originally Hindu - story “The Transposed Heads” (Die vertauschten Köpfe) and to the German Indologist Heinrich Zimmer. At the same time, by adapting the conventions of classical Sanskrit as well as oral Kannada Yakshagana folk theatre, the drama resists the concept of a homogeneous ‘national theatre’ in India, suggesting a transnational perspective. The concept of a nation is further undermined by the character constellation and the structure of the drama, staging intra-national struggles about highly politicised claims to interpretative authority between a classical Sanskrit and oral Bhasha traditions of culturally and politically marginalised tribes and lower castes, and along gender lines, with the only female character on stage being consistently suppressed in all respects. However, this reading contradicts the majority of interpretations from Indian academia, thus illustrating fundamental issues of ‘transnational hermeneutics,’ which are addressed at the end of this chapter.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction: The Concept of the Transnational in Literary Studies 1
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1 The Transnational amongst Related Concepts in Theory and Marketing
- Mixed Attachments in Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana (1971) 21
- Transnational Challenges for World Literatures: Publishing Caribbean Writers 44
- “Transnational Decolonial Aesthetics”: The “Hottentot Venus” Re-Configured 56
- Precariously Transnational: Teju Cole’s Every Day Is for the Thief 76
- The Discursive Construction of Transnational Fiction on Penguin Random House Group Websites 89
-
2 Transnational Literary Histories
- Utopia, Limited: Transnational Utopianism and Intercultural Imaginaries of the Ideal 107
- Travel Literature and/as Transnational Theatre History – Beyond National Theatre Cultures 124
- Transnationally Forged Nationality: Le Brésil littéraire and the Writing of Literary History in the Nineteenth Century 142
-
3 Poetics and Politics of Transnational Genres
- Historical Horizons: The Historical Novel and Transnational Memory 169
- Re-centring European Geopolitics: Transnational Identities in the Twenty-First- Century Hungarian-Language Novel from Slovakia 189
- Transnational Migrant Fiction as World Literature: Identity, Translatability, and the Global Book Market 206
- Translinguistic Theatre for a Globalised Stage? 226
- Works Cited 239
- Notes on Contributors 259
- Index 263
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction: The Concept of the Transnational in Literary Studies 1
-
1 The Transnational amongst Related Concepts in Theory and Marketing
- Mixed Attachments in Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana (1971) 21
- Transnational Challenges for World Literatures: Publishing Caribbean Writers 44
- “Transnational Decolonial Aesthetics”: The “Hottentot Venus” Re-Configured 56
- Precariously Transnational: Teju Cole’s Every Day Is for the Thief 76
- The Discursive Construction of Transnational Fiction on Penguin Random House Group Websites 89
-
2 Transnational Literary Histories
- Utopia, Limited: Transnational Utopianism and Intercultural Imaginaries of the Ideal 107
- Travel Literature and/as Transnational Theatre History – Beyond National Theatre Cultures 124
- Transnationally Forged Nationality: Le Brésil littéraire and the Writing of Literary History in the Nineteenth Century 142
-
3 Poetics and Politics of Transnational Genres
- Historical Horizons: The Historical Novel and Transnational Memory 169
- Re-centring European Geopolitics: Transnational Identities in the Twenty-First- Century Hungarian-Language Novel from Slovakia 189
- Transnational Migrant Fiction as World Literature: Identity, Translatability, and the Global Book Market 206
- Translinguistic Theatre for a Globalised Stage? 226
- Works Cited 239
- Notes on Contributors 259
- Index 263
