: P.V. Laxmiprasad
: The Poetry of T.V. Reddy A Critical Study of Humanistic Concerns
: Modern History Press
: 9781615993734
: 1
: CHF 7.10
:
: Belletristik
: English
: 236
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

Join us on a poetic journey to the soul of India.
The Poetry of T.V. Reddy is grounded in human struggles and unrest, social as well as psychological and depicts the varied shades of restlessness that is the order of modern times. He protests against the social ills and evils in a gripping way in his absorbing poetry. He paints his experiences in a characteristic choice diction and the different images that he has carved out of human life and nature make a deep impression on the minds of the readers and linger there. The poet takes the readers into the soul of India, the villages and rural life which are the backbone of the country--that speaks volumes of his commitment to rural element and makes people come alive in his poetry. Natural rhyme and rhythm of the poems creates the pleasing melody. Clarity of thought and lucidity of expression, splendid imagery and marvelous melody are the hallmarks of his poetry.
-- Dr. P.V. Laxmiprasad, Editor
T.V. Reddy is not only a poet of highly perceptive temperament but also an accomplished critic and novelist. His awesome ingenious insight into the purpose and meaning of life in a perceptive and intuitive way leads the reader to the invisible force meticulously driving the point that the spiritual region lying within a man offers solace, harmony and consolation par excellence. For Reddy often finds strong affinity in Indian soil and here, rural backdrop inspires him to cultivate niceties of life where rural-oriented background turns out religious for him.
-- P.C.K. Prem, Authoritative critic on Indian English Poetry from Himachal Paradesh, India
T.V. Reddy's poems have the earthly smear of sweat and blood. Images crystallized, come alive in subtle but strong words gaining a permanent place in the hearts of the readers. His pen moves carving lasting images in a simple and straight form without any pompous gimmicks in the name of modern craft. His art of highlighting even tiny specks into gigantic monuments and the quality of lyrical writing gives a sense of exhilaration bringing the varied themes alive before our eyes elevating the soul to a higher consciousness. T.V. Reddy is a poet in the true sense, who gives us the best of the poetry in Indian English.
-- D.H. Kabadi, from his review of Melting Melodies inPoetcrit
T.V. Reddy is a skilled poet who handles thoughts that compel recognition. He deals with wide ranging themes that are sensitively sketched. While many poems capture common human tendencies and susceptibilities, vanities and vagaries with a sharp realist eye, there are some that move on to the dramatization of a grander perspective of eternity intruding into time to seek to redeem it of its ravages.
-- Prof. C.R.Visveswar Rao, Former Vice Chancellor, Vikrama Simhapuri University, Nellore, A.P., India; and currently the Chairman, Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies (ISCS) , New Delhi
From Modern History Press

Preface

Poetry is the expression of overall life on the vast canvas of universe. In fact, it is an established art practiced by poets all over the world. India has had a long history of poetry in Sanskrit down the ages. Later, colonialism in India gave a new language, English for the expression of sentiments, sensibilities and reaction of Indians. Poetry in the ancient India was considered to be the language of Gods and Goddesses. Indian English Poetry made its debut in the last one and a half decades and has continued to impress the readers throughout the world. It has been generally divided into three phases - (i) the imitative, (ii) the assimilative and (iii) the experimental.

The period from 1850 to 1900 is the imitative phase when the Indian poets were purely romantic poets whose main inspiration came from the British Romantic poets: Wordsworth, Scott, Shelley, Keats and Byron.The period from 1900 to 1947 is the assimilative period when the Indian poets tried to assimilate the romanticism of the early nineteenth century British poets and ‘the new’ romantics of the decadent period for expressing the consciousness of the Indian renaissance between fervent nationalism and rapid political changes which ultimately paved the way for freedom from the British in 1947.

The first phase of Indian poetry marked the period of literary renaissance in India. Romantic spirit attracted the poets like Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, Manmohan Ghose, Kasiprasad Ghosh. Toru Dutt alone emphasized on India and her heritage by putting into verse a large number of Indian legends. The poets of the second phase, still romantic in spirit were Sarojini Naidu, Tagore, Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya. The poetic output of these poets was prolific. Nationality, spirituality and mysticism were different from English romanticism. Aurobindo with his search for the Divine in man and Tagore with his quest for the Beautiful in man and Nature turned out to be Philosopher-poets. Sarojini Naidu was noted for verbal melody as she was under the influence of the English poetry as well as the Persian and Urdu poetry. As a lyricist, she is best remembered as “the nightingale of India”. The appeal of emotions embedded in nationalistic, philosophical, spiritual or mystical elements reached a wide readership in the country. The poetry of Toru Dutt, Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, and Sarojini Naidu represented the best voice of the contemporary Indian time-spirit.

The ethos of Post-independence phase of Indo-English literature is radically different from the first two phases. Modern age in Indian English Literature began virtually in 1947 with the partition of India, the tensions and emotions of Indian psyche. Thus, the post-independence era of hope and aspiration was soon replaced by an era of questioning. The national identity gave Indian writers a new confidence and spirit to work on the present and the past and of themselves. It can be accessed from the works that while the pre-1947 poets borrowed from the romantics, Victorians and ‘new’ romantics of the decadent period, the post-1947 poets borrowed from the modernist poets like W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and W.H. Auden.

The later phase of Indian English Poetry (IEP) is of two phases: i) Modern ii) Post-modern. The modern poetry is the result of experimentation or the process of modernization which includes urbanization, industrialization, independence, social change and revolution in system, and a mass educational awareness. Modern poetry deals with concrete experiences in free verse. The major post- independence Indian English poets are Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, AK Ramanujam, P. Lal, R. Parthasarathy, Gieve patel, Arvind Mehrotra, Pritish Nandy, Kamala Das, K.N. Daruwalla, Shiv K Kumar, Jayanta Mahapatra, Dilip Chitre, Eunice De Souza, Meena Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali and Vikram Seth. Contemporary Indian Poets in English are, without doubt, D.H. Kabadi, I.K. Sharma, I.H. Rizvi, T.V. Reddy, DC Chambial, PCK Prem, R.K. Bhushan, R.K. Singh, Manas Bakshi, K.V. Raghupathi, Nalini Sharma, and others.

Two important pre-conditions had to be met before Indians attempted to write poetry in English. First, the English language had to be indianised to express the reality of Indian situation. Secondly, Indians had to be sufficiently Anglicised to use the English language to express themselves. IEP has historical significance from another dimension. In 1835, Viceroy Macaulay laid the foundations of modern educational system to promote European science and literatures among the Indians through the medium of English language. The result was that English as a language settled in India, as later in other British colonies and a privilege of passport and visa to take IEP beyond Indian boundaries. Still, the tension between the alienating language and the Indian sensibility has been as old as Indian Poetry in English itself.

Among the contemporary Indian English Poets, T.Vasudeva Reddy (better known as T.V. Reddy in literary circles) is a prominent poet in English with a large bulk of poetry to his credit. Basically, he is a poet of social criticism besides being a predominantly rural poet. As one who hails from rural area near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, India, T.V. Reddy has depicted the rural scenes besides the c