The Poetics of Devotion: The Gujarati Lyrics of Dayaram

by Rachel Dwyer

This book introduces a major poet scarcely known to scholars outside Gujarat in Kavi Dayarambhai (1777-1852), one of the greatest writers in the Gujarati language. His death brought to an end not only the age of the great bhakta (devotional) poets, but also that of Gujarati medieval literature as a whole. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of literature, Rachel Dwyer analyses the poet's place in the history of Indian literature, and his role in the intellectual changes that occurred in western India during the nineteenth century. She assesses the form and language of his lyrics, and the critical reception afforded his work at the time, as part of the creation of a canon of medieval poetry. The book provides a selection of Dayaram's work in Roman transliteration, accompanied by literal translations into English.

379 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2000

About the author

Rachel Dwyer is Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London. She took her BA in Sanskrit at SOAS, followed by an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in cinema and supervises PhD research on Indian cinema.