Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Literature in History
- 2 Interrogating ‘Rediscovery’ and an Enquiry into the Transmission of Sangam Literature during the Pre-modern Period
- 3 Patrons and Networks of Patronage in the Publication of Tamil Classics
- 4 From Reproduction to Reception: The Writing of Literary Histories
- 5 Orientalism, Tamil Classics and the Organisational Politics
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix I
- Appendix II
- Select Bibliography
- Index
3 - Patrons and Networks of Patronage in the Publication of Tamil Classics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Literature in History
- 2 Interrogating ‘Rediscovery’ and an Enquiry into the Transmission of Sangam Literature during the Pre-modern Period
- 3 Patrons and Networks of Patronage in the Publication of Tamil Classics
- 4 From Reproduction to Reception: The Writing of Literary Histories
- 5 Orientalism, Tamil Classics and the Organisational Politics
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix I
- Appendix II
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Works are produced within a specific order that has its own rules, conventions, and hierarchies, but they escape all these and take on a certain destiny in their peregrinations – which can be in a very long time span – about the social world … Thought of (and thinking of himself or herself) as a demiurge, the writer none the less creates in a state of dependence. Dependence upon the rules (of patronage, subsidy, and the market) that define the writer's condition. Dependence (on an even deeper level) on the unconscious determinations that inhabit the work and that make it conceivable, communicable and decipherable.
– Roger ChartierIn the scholarly writings on the reconstitution of the Tamil literary canon in nineteenth-century colonial Tamil society, a predominant emphasis has been placed on the life and activity of a Tamil scholar named Uthamathanapuram Venkatasubbaiyar Swaminatha Iyer, known widely as the grandfather of the Tamil language – Tamil thatha. His autobiography, En Charitram (The Story of My Life), written between 1940 and 1942, continues to remain a standard source for historians to understand the processes of the reproduction of classical Tamil literary works from manuscript form to print medium during the nineteenth century. Scholars also mention the role of Arumuga Navalar and Damodaram Pillai when it comes to what is called the ‘rediscovery’ of Sangam literature during nineteenth-century colonial Tamil Nadu.
Information
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- Manuscripts, Memory and HistoryClassical Tamil Literature in Colonial India, pp. 83 - 149Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2014
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