Oral and Literary Continuities in Modern Tibetan Literature: The Inescapable Nation (Studies in Modern Tibetan Culture)

This is the first book-length study to appear in English on the literary, cultural and political roots of modern Tibetan literature. While existing scholarship on modern Tibetan writing takes the 1980s as its point of “birth” and presents this period as marking a “rupture” with traditional forms of literature, this book goes beyond such an interpretation by foregrounding instead the persistence of Tibet’s artistic past and oral traditions in the literary creativity of the present. While acknowledging the innovative features of modern Tibetan literary creation, it draws attention to the hitherto neglected aspects of continuity within the new. This study explores the endurance of genres, styles, concepts, techniques, symbolisms, and idioms derived from Tibet’s rich and diverse oral art forms and textual traditions. It reveals how Tibetan kāvya poetics, the mgur genre, life-writing, the Gesar epic and other modes of oral and literary compositions are referenced and adapted in novel ways within modern Tibetan poetry and fiction. It also brings to prominence the complex and fertile interplay between orality and the Tibetan literary text. Embracing a multidisciplinary approach drawing on theoretical insights in western literary theory and criticism, political studies, sociology, and anthropology, this research shows that, alongside literary and oral continuities, the Tibetan nation proves to be an inevitable attribute of modern Tibetan literature. Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1IntroductionThe Persistence of the Past in Modern Tibetan Literature Chapter 2Singing the NationModern Tibetan Music and National Identity Chapter 3The Tibetan Tradition of Social Criticism and Modern Tibetan Literature Chapter 4Narration of Cultural Traumas in Modern Tibetan Poetry and Fiction Chapter 5The Third Generation of Tibetan Poets and the Inescapable Nation Chapter 6How Novel is Contemporary Tibetan Erotic Poetry? Chapter 7ConclusionWhirlpools of Continuity and Creativity Bibliography Index About the Author "This book reveals that the roots of modern Tibetan literature grow in the rich and fertile soil of Tibet's oral and literary traditions, rather than in the 1980s as current scholarship presents. Embracing a multidisciplinary approach drawing on theoretical insights in Western literary theory and criticism, political studies, sociology, and anthropology, this book shows that the Tibetan nation's development is inextricably linked to modern Tibetan literature" -- Provided by publisher