Abstract
In this work of impressive scholarship, Sheldon Pollock explores the
remarkable rise and fall of Sanskrit, India's ancient language, as
a vehicle of poetry and polity. He traces the two great moments of
its transformation: the first around the beginning of the Common
Era, when Sanskrit, long a sacred language, was reinvented as a code
for literary and political expression, the start of an amazing career
that saw Sanskrit literary culture spread from Afghanistan to Java.
The second moment occurred around the beginning of the second millennium,
when local speech forms challenged and eventually replaced Sanskrit
in both the literary and political arenas. Drawing striking parallels,
chronologically as well as structurally, with the rise of Latin literature
and the Roman empire, and with the new vernacular literatures and
nation-states of late-medieval Europe, <i>The Language of the Gods
in the World of Men</i> asks whether these very different histories
challenge current theories of culture and power and suggest new possibilities
for practice.
Description
Wujastyk's main bibtex file, April 30, 2010
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