Poetics & Culture: Three Plays of Girish Karnad. New Delhi: Prestige, 2005

Poetics & Culture: Three Plays of Girish Karnad. New Delhi: Prestige, 2005

This book critically examines Girish Karnad's concern with Indian drama as a sustained and cumulative tradition– that has since ages invoked the intellectual, religious, spiritual, sexual, political and democratic aspects of Indian civilization. A Repertory of diverse art forms, histories and myths lend revolutionary energy to his portrayal of contemporary experiential realities. The introductory discussion and a close reading of the three plays, Hayavadana, Tale-Danda and The Fire and the Rain, testify to the playwrights’ growth from being a radical exponent of the post-colonial drama to a consummate theorist. The book contains following Chapters:       

1. Hayavadana: Towards Forging an Indian Theatre
2. Padmini and Multilayered Social Messages in Hayavadana
3. Play of Meaning in Hayavadana
4. Rasa Pratiti (Experience)in Karnad’s Plays
5. Tale-Danda: A Thesis Play on the Evils of
6. Varnashram (Caste System)
7. Tale-Danda: The Saint, the Protégé and the King’s Men
8. Matrix of Gender Identity: History in Tale-Danda
9. The Fire and the Rain: Myth, Aesthetics of Drama and the Contemporary World
10. The Fire and the Rain: A Complete Theatre Experience
11. The Fire and the Rain: A Tragedy of Desires