Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments

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Synopsis: The Ramayana, one of the two pre-eminent Hindu epics, has played a foundational role in many aspects of India's arts and social norms. For centuries, people learned this narrative by watching, listening, and participating in enactments of it. Although the Ramayana's first extant telling in Sanskrit dates back to ancient times, the story has continued to be retold and rethought through the centuries in many of India's regional languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. The narrative has provided the basis for enactments of its episodes in recitation, musical renditions, dance, and avant-garde performances. This volume introduces non-specialists to the Ramayana's major themes and complexities, as well as to the highly nuanced terms in Indian languages used to represent theater and performance. Two introductions orient readers to the history of Ramayana texts by Tulsidas, Valmiki, Kamban, Sankaradeva, and others, as well as to the dramaturgy and aesthetics of their enactments. The contributed essays provide context-specific analyses of diverse Ramayana performance traditions and the narratives from which they draw. The essays are clustered around the shared themes of the politics of caste and gender; the representation of the anti-hero; contemporary re-interpretations of traditional narratives; and the presence of Ramayana discourse in daily life.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9780197552520
Related ISBNs:: 9780197552513, 9780197552537, 9780197552506
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Date of Addition:: 12/19/22
Copyrighted By:: N/A
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Religion and Spirituality, Drama, Plays and Theater, Language Arts
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.
Edited by:: Paula Richman
Edited by:: Rustom Bharucha