Endangerd Self

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction : I. In Peril : studies in the endangered self/Saumitra Chakravarty. 2. Religion and ethics through literature/Saumitra Chakravarty. 3. The theme of the supremacy of the self in English poetry/S. Ramaswamy. 4. Hamlet-a Vedantic view/S. Ramaswamy. 5. To thine own self be true : a comparative study of Hamlet and Arjuna from the existential point of view/Saumitra Chakravarty. 6. Now, Gods stand up for bastards : a study of the question of birth and inheritance of King Lear and the Mahabharata/Saumitra Chakravarty. 7. Passage to oneself : R. Parthasarathy's Rough passage/S. Ramaswamy. 8. India : passage or escape/Saumitra Chakravarty. 9. The self in New Zealand poetry : an Advaitic approach/S. Ramaswamy. 10. The impact of Indian philosophy of Aldous Huxley's Island : a comment/S. Ramaswamy. 11. The theme of self in modern writing in English in the light of Adi Shankaracharya's Hastamalakiyam/S. Ramaswamy. 12. Islands and continents A study of alienation and identity with particular reference to the novels of Toni Morrison/Saumitra Chakravarty. 13. Construction of feminist self : Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place/S. Ramaswamy. 14. Ethno-centric self in black American poetry/S. Ramaswamy. 15. The theme of self-enquiry in the Californian novels of Christopher Isherwood/S. Ramaswamy. 16. Emerson : the Ambivalence of his self-reliance/S. Ramaswamy. 17. Alienation and identity in adolescence : a study of two adolescent characters in the novels of Bengali writer Mahashweta Devi/Saumitra Chakravarty. 18. Self and society in Raja Rao's The Serpent and the Rope/S. Ramaswamy. 19. Self-knowledge in the poetry of Karol Wojtyla/S. Ramaswamy. 20. Afterword : existence and identity approaches to the self : the Ramana way/Sarada. This collection of twenty essays dealing with a wide variety of authors and texts concentrates on the concept of self. The Indian philosophical concept of self is applied to Western as well as Indian literatures. Thus, British writers like Shakespeare, Aldons Huxley, Christopher Isherwood and American writers like Emerson, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor are discussed in this context. The works of Indian writers in English like Raja Rao and R. Parthasarathy and the Bengali writer Mahashweta Devi are analyzed. There are studies of all genres of literature like drama, poetry, fiction and non fiction. Contemporary critical concepts like existential and feminist approaches have been made to texts. Linking King Lear with Mahabharata. Hamlet with Arjuna, New Zealand poetry with Advaita Vedanta in a bilingual English-Sanskrit context has been attempted, thus making it an authentic Indian response. The supremacy of the Indian concept of self with 'S' capital establishes the Indian philosophical tradition from Adi Shankaracharya bringing it upto date with Ramana Maharshi. (jacke 247 pp.…