LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 18:1 January 2018
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Treatment of Myths, Folklore and History
in the Plays of Girish Karnad

D. J. Naganatha Durai
Dr. A. Soundrarajan


Abstract

Karnad takes refuge in Indian myths, legends, and folklore, and makes them a vehicle of new Vision. Karnad’s creative genius lies in taking up fragments of historical and legendary experience to fuse them into a forceful statement. His childhood exposure to street plays in Karnataka villages and his familiarity with western plays staged in Mumbai influenced him in retelling the legends of India to suit the modern context.

Western playwrights that he had read during his college days opened up for him ‘a new world of magical possibilities’ (Dhawan 15). When suddenly flashed on the Kannada stage in the early sixties, he had no established theatrical tradition to begin with. Indian English drama up to the 1960’s had an apologetic existence. The rich heritage of Indian classical drama and the vibrant folk tradition seldom attracted the Indian English dramatists of the earlier phase, whose models were Shakespeare, Ibsen and Shaw.

The Indian English dramatists also failed miserably in drawing judiciously from the rich reservoir of myth and complex historical heritage.

Karnad was aware of the problems and challenges that Indian playwrights had to face after independence. Karnad says in his ‘Introduction’ to Three Plays, “ They had to face, a situation in which tensions implicit until then had come out in the open and demanded to be resolved without apologia or self-justification; tensions between the cultural past of the thought and our own traditions and finally between the various visions of the future that opened up once the common cause of political freedom was achieved. This is the historical context that gave rise to my plays.”

Keywords: Girish Karnad, Contemporary Consciousness, Primitive imagination, Inexhaustible Lore, Pragmatic Character.

Introduction

Girish Karnad is one of the brightest shining stars of Indian English Literature. Born in May 19, 1938, in Matheran, Maharastra, he earned international praise as a playwright, poet, actor, director, critic, and translator. With his best loved play, Tudhlaq, Karnad had established himself as one of the most prominent playwrights in the country.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

D. J. Naganatha Durai
Associate Professor and Vice-Principal, Research Scholar
Mary Matha College of Arts and Science,
N.K. Patty
Periyakulam 625601
Theni District
Tamilnadu
India
jkmmceng@gmail.com

Dr. A. Soundrarajan
Professor
Research and Development Centre
Bharathiar University
Coimbatore 641046
Tamilnadu
India
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