Spatio-temporal Paradigm: An Indian Approach to American Poetry (original) (raw)

The Phenomenology of Time in Classical Tamil Poetry

This essay explores the ways in which the human experience of time is articulated in the akam or love genre of caṅkam or classical Tamil poetry (ca. 100 BCE-450 CE). In particular, it focuses on the use of images from five landscapes (tiṇai) of the Tamil countryside to convey the impact emotion has on the phenomenological experience of time. I argue that the images used in the poems of this highly conventionalized genre express an experience of time that is either protracted, compressed, or somewhere in between depending on the emotional wellbeing of the heroine. The translations and discussion of six poems posit the notion that akam poetry is as much about the experience of time as it is about the experience of emotion, as they are not entirely distinct.

The Mechanics of Time in Confrontation with the Poet and the Physicist in Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poetry

International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, 2016

A physicist in a ceaseless confrontation with the mysterious cycles of time beyond the life's mortal periphery, Jayanta Mahapatra, as also a poet, experiments with their mechanics which are influenced by both his profession and his Christian-Hindu faith. He gleans his fragmented self that is clustered in the painful absence beyond, behind him. Collecting the self from memories in a clockwise introspection in terms of circular motion of time and trying to understand it well in terms of Alexander Pope's view,-know then thyself presume not God to scan‖ [1] (Griffin 1978: 152), Jayanta Mahapatra searches for a meaning in human existence with the consciousness of Einstein's words-A spirit is manifest in the laws of universe.‖ [2] (Schneider 2013: 9). A major contemporary experimental voice in Indian English Literature, Mahapatra represents India on the international threshold with a native fragrance in the portrayal of every fragment of his indigenous landscape and language. The dual personality in him examines its self through the linear and circular motions of time. In the ubiquitous vacillation in his poetry between the two standpoints, of time the two disciplinesscience and poetryrelentlessly collide and leave behind a trajectory of hypnagogic images towards a search for a new metaphor to widen the scope and dimension of the post modern poetry. The bleakness of future on the other hand observed through the linear movement of time magnifies the recurring uncertainty which strongly establishes that man is but a speck in the unfathomably large universe evoking Stephen Hawking's words,-God ……plays dice with the universe‖ [3] (Larsen 2005: 42)-a counter to those of Albert Einstein's,-God does not play dice with the universe‖ [4] (Mills 2006: 100) on the theory of Quantum Mechanics. So his poetry opens a dialogue with science which is a kind of holistic approach towards life.

Indian English Poetry Transformation in Outlook -Steadiness in Thought Patterns

P C K PREM

Most of the poets are worried about the terrible crisis of identity, existence, faith and cultural uprooting even at a minor scale, and potential migration of ethical system of humankind to uncertain regions of possible distortion and altered meaning to suit contemporary needs. Now, system needs a new definition because computer-generated visuals, informative delights and scientific invasions if excite, these also defy proper analysis and therefore, life is awesome in contemporary times where relations live in 'face-book' and 'twitter' etc. sans substance but in immense publicity glare and fake smiles. It is mounting of 'likes' you click with a mouse and feel you are important. It is in truth estimation of smallness within that many carry with a swelled head and self-generated figures. The poets invariably struggle in enormous anarchic and unbearable situational crisis and find inner strength and faith slowly ebbing away. It is interesting to notice a similar line of thoughts emerging in many poets when the irritating yoke of life's obligations imagined or otherwise strengthens lyrical faculties. Faced with strenuous and aching certainties of material life, they try to go beyond into the unknown regions of the metaphysical and the spiritual where nature provides metaphors of sustainability and so, they seek refuge and here, the poetic regime suffers, for guided susceptibilities hurt meaning, lyrical objective and beauty. Here an attempt is made to examine the thought-currents of poetry of Keki N. Daruwalla, K. N. Sharma, Kailash Ahluwalia, Amerander Kumar, Dom Moraes and Ashok K Khanna to observe and scrutinize the extent of transformation in thoughts, feelings and social anxieties of poets.

The Vicinity of Poetry and Thought

In: Time and Form: Essays on Philosophy, Logic, Art, and Politics, eds. Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback and Luiz Carlos Pereira (Axl Books, 2014)

RELATIONAL APPROACHES TO TIME, SPACE AND CORPOREALITY IN INDIAN THOUGHT

Analele Universitatii Bucuresti. Limbi si Literaturi Straine, 2021

Even if absolutist approaches of time and space, which see these as selfexisting substances, are more agreed by the archaic cosmologies, at times, we can encounter the more philosophical alternative, of considering them in a relativist way. The article deals with two such approaches. At first, it analyzes the relational time of Buddhism, considered not as a substance but as the serial order of the so-called "moments" (ksana). It also deals with the more complex approach of a realistic school of Brahmanism, Vaiśesika, which includes, among the "substances" (dravya), a relational time (kāla) and a relational space (diś), apart from an absolute space, labelled as "ether" (ākāśa). The ether would be the receptacle where things are located, altogether, while the "space" (diś) or, better said, the directions, account for the spatial order of the objects. Moreover, the school approaches dimension or corporeality in a relativist way, considering them as a numerical issue, as the result of gathering together of the so-called "atoms" (paramānu).

Embodied Rhythm in Space and Time: A Poem and a Sculpture

Style, 2017

In this article, we outline the concept of aesthetic rhythm as an embodied lived experience. We investigate the temporal rhythms of a poem by Seamus Heaney and the spatial rhythms of a sculpture by Lena Hopsch, discussing similarities and differences between the two modalities. Previous research on aesthetic rhythm has mostly focused on meter, but here we use a broader concept of rhythm as we refer to pre-metered forms from classical antiquity. Aesthetic rhythm in an artwork is described as a play with proportions in time and space. Rhythm continuously stages bodily experiences of balance and direction. We develop the embodiment perspective of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as well as Mark Johnson's concept of image schema. The schemas are shown to be premodal as rhythms function the same in temporal and spatial artworks. We also demonstrate a model for interpretation, developed out of the rhythms of the artifact.

Poetry, landscape, affect

 Paper derives from larger project to reconceive the notion of "senses of place" in contemporary poetry: