Abstract
This article presents an interpretation of the Śṛṅgāratilakabhāṇa of Rāmabhadradīkṣita, a poet active in the vicinity of Thanjavur at the turn of the eighteenth century. The bhāṇa is an erotic-comic monologue, which in Rāmabhadra's hands is used, in our reading, to ironic and self-subverting ends. While the play concludes with the sort of happy ending conventional to its genre, it contains potent unresolved tensions, which we understand as deliberate elements of Rāmabhadra's authorial project. At the center of our interpretation are questions about the representation of sexual consent and coercion, and the ways in which the monological techniques of the genre make possible Rāmabhadra's innovative explorations of time, perspective, and self-reflexivity.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 47-71 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | Journal of South Asian Intellectual History |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2021 |
Keywords
- SEXUAL consent
- EIGHTEENTH century
- MONOLOGUE
- bhāṇa
- consent
- erotic poetry
- Late South Indian Sanskrit poetry
- subversion