In the Shade of the Golden Palace: Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan

Description

In the Shade of the Golden Palace explores the work of the prolific Bengali poet Alaol (fl. 1651-71), who translated five narrative poems and one versified treatise from medieval Hindi and Persian into Bengali. The book maps the genres, structures, and themes of Alaol's works, paying special attention to his discourse on poetics and his literary genealogy, which included Sanskrit, Avadhi, Maithili, Persian, and Bengali authors. D'Hubert focuses on courtly speech in Alaol's poetry, his revisiting of classical categories in a vernacular context, and the prominent role of performing arts in his conceptualization of the poetics of the written word. The foregrounding of this audacious theory of meaning in Alaol's poetry is a crucial contribution of the book, both in terms of general conceptual analysis and for its significance in the history of Bengali poetry. This book shows how multilingual literacy fostered a variety of literary experiments in the remote kingdom of Arakan, which lay between present-day southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar, in the mid-17th century. D'Hubert also presents a detailed analysis of Middle Bengali narrative poems, as well as translations of Old Maithili, Brajabuli, and Middle Bengali lyric poems that illustrate the major poetic styles in the regional courts of eastern South Asia. In the Shade of the Golden Palace therefore fulfills three functions: it is a unique guide for readers of Middle Bengali poetry, a detailed study of the cultural history of the frontier region of Arakan, and an original contribution to the poetics of South Asian literatures. Cover Half title Series In the Shade of the Golden Palace Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Transliteration Charts Map of Arakan and Eastern South Asia in the Seventeenth Century Introduction: Poetics in the Margins Ālāol’s life and works at a glance Studying Middle Bengali literature Overview of the contents of the book 1. The Formation of Bengali Literature in Arakan (ca. 1430–​1638) Setting a frame for a unified understanding of a composite tradition The Bengal–​Arakan continuum and the Bay of Bengal network system The formation of an Arakanese Islamicate political idiom circa 1430–​1630 Bengali Muslim literature in Chittagong and the Dhaññavatī area Literary cultures in Bhulua Mardān’s (fl. 1622–​1638) Sādhur vacan [The Merchant’s Promise] Summary 2. Literary Urbanity in Mrauk U Urban Bengali Muslim literature in Arakan Locating Bengali Muslims in the social landscape of Mrauk U The royal dignitary as patron and host The secondary courts of Mrauk U The economy of the sabhā The functions of speech in the sabhā: The story of Bhāratīcatur Summary 3. New Beginnings: Ālāol’s Early Career in Mrauk U Beyond the trope of the aging poet, a context-​sensitive poetics An Indo-​Afghan childhood: Ālāol in Fatihabad Joining the royal household: Māgan Ṭhākur and his milieu Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl: Cosmopolitanism in Mrauk U’s sabhās Satī Maẏnā and the first signs of the patrons’ withdrawal to the edge of the royal household Summary 4. Ālāol’s Poetry and Mrauk U’s Political Turmoil 1661: A political and poetical crisis The dissolution of the Arakanese courtly milieu Epilogue: The provincial afterlife of the Mrauk U literary tradition Summary 5. Ālāol’s Poetics: When Locality Rhymes with Originality Ālāol’s poetics in the perspective of Bengali literary history Extending the paradigm of Bengali literary performance Reconstructing Ālāol’s poetics Speech, cosmology, and distinction Defining kavitva The sciences of kavitva Prosody [chanda] Sentiments and emotions [bhāva-​rasa] The nine rasas and the prema-​rasa The eight kinds of heroine [aṣṭa-​nāẏikā-​bheda] Poetic ornaments [alaṅkāras] The arrangement of all meanings [sarva-​artha-​gā̃thani] Cleverness of speech/​citation [ukti] Analogical and suggestive speech: upamā and iṅgita Translation as the recording of a reading experience Ālāol on translation Summary 6. Indo-​Afghan Historical Imaginaries and the Romance Genre A retrospective gaze through the lens of Ālāol’s oeuvre The classicization of vernacular literature The Indo-​Afghan historical imaginaries The ideological background of Indo-​Afghan multilingualism Literary multilingualism in Quṭban’s Mirigāvatī (1503) The Avadhi romance: A new template for love poetry Indo-​Afghan literary culture in the Deccan Summary 7. Lyric Poetry and Deśī Aesthetics in Eastern South Asia Deśī courtly culture, saṅgīta, and multilingualism Vidyāpati and the deprofessionalization of literacy Singing love after Vidyāpati: Vernacular lyrics in eastern South Asia Locana’s (ca. 1680) Rāgataraṅgiṇī: Fashioning a grammar of eastern vernacular lyrics Śubhaṅkara’s Saṅgītadāmodara and the making of deśī connoisseurship Summary Conclusion: Middle Bengali Poetics and the Multilingual Literary History of Bengal Appendix 1: Summaries of Ālāol’s Padmāvatī and the Story of the Goldsmith’s Wife a. Summary of Ālāol’s Padmāvatī (1651) b. The story of the Goldsmith’s wife in Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl (ca. 1656) Appendix 2: Analytical Tables of Ālāol’s Songs Appendix 3: Original Texts of the Middle Bengali and Old Maithili Songs Appendix 4: A Persian Appraisal of Ālāol’s Life and Works Bibliography Index