Indian Response to Select British Literary Masterpieces through the Lens of Text Dynamics of World Literature

Abstract

The paper attempts to present the Indian response to select masterpieces of English literature in the light of the perspectives on the dynamics of world literature. These include selections from the literary genres of drama, poetry, novel, and prose, such as select plays by William Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw; select poems by A.L. Tennyson, T.S. Eliot, and W.B. Yeats; well-known novels by E.M. Forster and George Orwell; and the essays by Francis Bacon and Bertrand Russel. According to David Damrosch, "world literature" refers to literary works that are accepted outside their culture of origin, making meaning through translation and becoming a dynamic exchange between the source and receiving cultures, essentially "refracting" national literatures through a process of reinterpretation and engagement with different cultural perspectives. Following the features of world literature, it aims at examining the major components of the above-mentioned literary authors, like universality, cultural exchange, comparative analysis, translation, elliptical refraction, transnational themes, diverse perspectives, and the ability to transcend national boundaries, essentially allowing the study of literary works from different cultures to engage with shared human experiences across diverse contexts. The plays of both Shakespeare and Shaw bear witness to a philosophy of life, seen from both tragic and comic perspectives. Like Kalidasa, they have befittingly portrayed the higher forms of rasa, morality, and truth with greater dramatic craft. The poetry of Tennyson, Eliot, and Yeats is no doubt inspiring. It explores the potential of human beings, with some intertextual echoes of Indian Upanishadic wisdom. In contrast, the novels of both Forster and Orwell speak to social realities that align with the understandings of contemporary Indian socio-political contexts in contemporary Indian fiction. In addition, the essays of Bacon and Russel have universal pragmatic and practical approaches at par with the Indian classics such as Chanakya and S. Radhakrishnan.