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The Principle of Dhvani in Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka

Dhara Chotai

M. Phil. Term Paper

Introduction:

Indian civilization is one of the most ancient of all in the world that still

survives. The stream of this ever flowing ceaseless civilization is nurtured by

perennial inexhaustible fountains of knowledge pertaining to different domains of life.

Indian thinkers in its long tradition meditated seriously on the issues pertaining to

physical and metaphysical aspects (i.e., this world and the other world). Hence

different systems of knowledge emerged and proposed on this land. They were

concerned with the metaphysical aspects and resulted in the composition of the texts

of thought like Vedās and Upnishadās in particular, leading to the foundation of

different schools of Darshan (philosophy). These schools were concerned with this

world and it led to the composition of sociological texts like Smrities and Shāstras.

Between the two worlds lies the third world that is the world of imagination and the

discourse is pertaining to that. This was the world of Kāvya that cohabits both the

worlds and yet transcends them. The questions pertaining to the appreciation,

understanding and interpreting this new world followed as the natural consequence.

And a new body of discourse, built on literary discourse, emerged that is critical

discourse or poetics.

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Poetics (literary theory/science of literary theorization) in its general and widely

understood sense designates any internal theory of literature. It defines and explains

categories that enable us to recognize at the same time both the unity and the variety

of literary works. It proposes models of description which when applied to different

literary works have in common and in what ways they differ from one another. The

object of poetics thus is not any particular work but the general principles that enable

us to explain and analyze the work. And as a theoretical discipline, its main task is to

show how literary discourse differs from other rational discourses and to make

available instruments for the description of literary texts. Such descriptive frameworks

are made of categories for

1. levels and kinds of meaning

2. units that constitute or communicate them, and

3. the relationship or forms in which the units participate.

Thus different literary theories have set up categories to examine the work

1. in itself,

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2. in relation to the world,

3. in relation to the writer, and

4. in relation to the reader.

Literary theory has greater antiquity in India. A ninth century BC text of

interpretation (Yāska’s Nirukta) is concerned with the problems of meaning in vedic

hymns (poetry), its symbolism and examines in one of its sections the structure of two

major figures of speech –simile and metaphor. Pānini’s Astādhyāyi (seventh century

BC) refers to ‘literature’ as the fourth category of discourse in fivefold classification

and talks of the underlying principle of Sādrsyatā, similarity, in similes and metaphors.

Bharat’s Nātyaśāstra (second century AD) is of course the source text for literary

theory. In fact, Nātyaśāstra is a text of semiotics as it deals with how meaning is

variously coded and communicated. A long tradition of thinkers and texts follows –

Bhāmaha, Vāmana, Dandin, Rudrata, Ānandavardhana, Mahimabhatta, Kuntak, Bhoj,

Abhinavagupta, Viswanātha and Pt. Jagannatha –and spans almost two thousand

years. Besides the primary texts by the thinkers enumerated above, there is at least one

samgraha text, pedagogical text, that puts together and elucidates the major theories –

Mammata’s Kāvya Prakāsh (eleventh century AD) –and at least one theoretical survey

of issues in literary theory –Rajashekher’s Kāvyamīmāmsā (ninth century AD). Indian

literary theories as expounded by a long line of thinkers are also essentially linguistic

and constitutive, and address themselves to a number of questions that have been

debated in the western tradition as well, viz.,

1. the definition of literature,

2. the concept of ‘poet’,

3. sources of creativity,

4. the creative process,

5. literary language –its specificity,

6. literary meaning –its kinds/levels and forms,

7. types of genres,

8. status and role of ‘reader’,

9. literature as a discourse of knowledge, and

10. literature as a verbal discourse.

Literary theories are classified on the basis of what aspect of literary

composition is central to them. Accordingly we have theory of:

Language, namely, alamkāra (principle of figurativeness) and vakrokti

(principle of deviation).

Style and compositional value, namely, gunā/dosā (excellence, faults), riti

(mode of expression), and auchitya (propriety).

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Verbal symbolism, namely, dhvani.

Aesthetic experience, namely, rasa.

Narrative, namely, mahākāvya, as inferable from Bhoj’s Srngārparakāśa and

categories of Pānini’s grammar.

Discourse analysis, namely, Yuktis. For example –Kautilya’s thirty-two units

of composition in Arthaśāstra. It is an analysis of the thought structure of a

composition, constitution of a text in terms of the nature of propositions.

Comprehensive analysis (as constructed in Kāvyamīmāmsā). Rajshekhara has

proposed a composite model based on the insights of different theories.

Interpretation (as adapted from the commentary tradition).

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Rājānaka Ānandavardhan was a reputed Kashmirian poet, rhetorician and

philosopher. He was patronized by King Avantivarman of Kashmir (AD 885-84). As

regards his date there is very little room for controversy. Kalhana, the celebrated

author of the Rajatarangini, the most authoritative chronicle of Kashmir, mentions him

in one of the ornaments adorning the court of King Avantivarman. Thus, on the

evidence of the Rajatarangini, Ānandavardhan attained fame during the reign of

Avantivarman (in 9th centuary AD).

Ānandavardhana was the author of several works, both literary and

philosophical. He is the author of Devī-śataka; celebrated and epoch-making

Dhvanyāloka; the Prakrit poem Vishamabāna-lilā and the Sanskrit poem Arjunacharita.

He also wrote a commentary, Dharmottama, on Dharamakirti’s Pramna-vinischaya. His

work Tattvāloka discusses the relation between Sastranaya and Kavyanaya. But it is in

Dhvanayāloka that Ānandavardhana, for the first time, succeeded in establishing

Dhvani or suggested sense as the soul of poetry.

Genesis of the Theory of Dhvani:

Ānandavardhana’s theory of Dhvani (suggestiveness in poetry) occupies a

significant position in the tradition of theories as it has changed prevalent notions of

the essentials of poetry, its language and meaning. It is in the Dhvanyāloka, ‘Light on

Sound’, of Ānandavardhana that we find for the first time a clear organic synthesis

of the theories of the aesthetic experience, rasa and of figurative speech, of the

ideas; of dramaturgy and those of poetics. Ānandavardhana, like his predecessors,

seeks for a fundamental principle on which to build a theory of Kāvya.

Ānandavardhana‘s theory throws a new light on the concepts like vācya (conventional

language), abhidhā (the conventional meaning), Vyanjakā (the suggestive language),

Vyanjanā (suggested meaning) and Sahardaya (the perceptive reader).

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Ānandavardhana brought his basic tools from the Sanskrit grammar. The word

Dhvani literary means ‘sound’ and even suggests the sense of echo. In language sound

carries the meaning. A word in its basic grammatical sense is a combination of letters.

The Sanskrit grammarians argued that the letters are not the ultimate cause of

meaning. They asserted that a simple arrangement of words couldn’t lead to a sense

for various reasons, which they put forth. Firstly, they held that meaning is signified

by the word as a whole and not by individual letters. Secondly, mere combination of

letters would be failing to produce meaning. The reason being, letters are not uttered

simultaneously. And any way, letters are known to disappear as soon as they are

uttered. Nullifying the belief that letters in their combination signify the meaning of a

word, the Sanskrit grammarians discovered a distinct entity called Sphota, the word

import. They argued that meaning is indeed signified by the sound, which becomes

the meaning of the word. Now, Sphota is not suggested by all letters, but by the last

one in the sequence, however, determined by the ordered mental impressions of all

the earlier letters.

Sphota can’t be likened to the word-combination for another reason. Letters are

by their very nature momentary, bound by time sequence and incapable of signifying

meaning themselves. Sphota is eternal, one whole and by itself suggestive of

meaning. Though every letter has a role in the production of Sphota, it is never

realized and remains blurred until the utterance of the last word makes the

meaning clear and significant. The sound of the last letter along with the returning

resonance of all previous letters came to be noted by a group of grammarians as

Dhvani, and the meaning that gets suggested or produced as Sphota. However, another school of grammarians termed the meaning suggested or produced as Dhvani and they called Sphota, the process by which Dhvani gets suggested or produced.

Authorship of the theory of Dhvani:

The Dhvanyāloka, as is usually the case with most of the ancient Indian

philosophical texts (Śāstras), is divided into two distinct parts –viz. the Kārikā and the

Vrtti, In most cases these two parts are the work of the same author, but the critics like

Abhinavagupta, Dr. Buhler, Dr. Kane and others consider Kārikākāra (whose exact

period and the antiquity is shrouded in mystery) different from Vrttikāra. This has led

to a supposition that it is the Kārikākāra, who first formulated the dhvani theory by

systematizing it, in short mnemonic verses, and latter on Ānandavardhana gave a

detailed explanation to them. A heated controversy has raged round the question of

authorship of these two texts. It goes on unabated even to this day, and it shows no

sign of being set at rest till some definite and unassailable testimony is available.

However, Ānandavardhana does not consider his own self as being the formulator of

the theory of Dhvani. He himself frequently states in Vrtti that the element of dhvani

was already recognized as the only essential factor in a poetic composition in the circle

of true literary connoisseurs (Sahardayas). According to him, theory of Dhvani as

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quintessence of literary art must have been long anticipated by the teachers much

older in date than Kārikākāra himself. But whatever might have been transmitted as

an oral tradition by the thinkers prior to Dhvanikāra, was probably never written

down and therefore not available to the critics. As a result, Dhvanikāra and later on

Ānandavardhana are given the credit of putting the ideas in a systematic shape and

form.

The Dhvanyaloka or ‘Light of suggestion’ consists of four chapters called

Uddyots or Flashes. The first chapter takes into account all the objections, assumed as

well as real –that may possibly be brought against the validity of the theory of Dhvani.

These charges are all shown to be baseless. Then follows the enunciation of a

definition of Dhvani and a clear explanation of the various terms involved in the

definition. A brief indication of the major verities of Dhvani is also given. The second

chapter proceeds to enumerate the subdivisions of Dhvani with striking examples.

Then the province of each of the several concepts –Guna, Riti and Alamkara- is

precisely defined. And Dhvani is shown to rule unrivalled in a realm of its own.

Formulation /Principle of Dhvani in Dhvanyāloka :

In all most all schools of Indian philosophy, attempts were made to arrive at a

satisfactory explanation of the problem of meaning. Though in point minor detail, they

differed from one another, it was commonly held by all that words denote primarily a

conventional meaning and secondarily an implied one. The former gives the direct

meaning and is called Abhidhā, while the latter gives implied meaning and is called

Lakshanā.

Ānandavardhana endeavours to prove that the suggested sense in poetry

cannot be brought under any of these recognized senses and hence a third function of

words should be postulated for its explanation. He holds that literature is appreciated

not for its direct meaning or the information that it carries but for its beauty and grace

which is endowed through its suggestive expression. It is only when the suggestive

expression supersedes the ordinary meaning that a Kāvya becomes a Dhvani Kāvya.

But there have been some who held that there is no necessity of admitting Dhvani and

that the purpose of Dhvani could be served by the extention of the primary sense as in

the case of lakshanā. There are others again who hold that apart from words, their

meanings and alamkāras, there is nothing else that raises the beauty of literature, or

that whatever heightens the beauty of literature must have been regarded either as

gunā or alamkāra, that words and their meanings form the core of Kāvya and that none

of them could be regarded as Dhvani. It is for refuting the views of such people that

Dhavanikāra undertook his work.

The theory of Dhvani proceeds with three fundamental postulates. In the first

place, it assumes that Dhvani exists apart from primary sense. Secondly, it

presupposes that Dhvani is most intrinsic to poetry. And thirdly, it believes that

Dhvani cannot be explained in terms of either Denotation or Indication and hence a

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new function of words, namely suggestion should be admitted. Ānandavardhana’s

defines his concept of Dhvani in following words:

Yatrārtho Vāchyaviśeśāha Vāchakviśeśaha Śabdo vā Tamartham

Vyanktataha, Sā Kāvyaviśeśo Dhvaniriti

Anen Vāchyavāchakachārutvahetubhya Upmādibhyo anuprāsādibhyashcha

Vibhakta Ava Dhvanerviśya Iti Darśitam.

(‚A species of poetry wherein a word suggests a meaning by making its primary

meaning subordinate to the former, or the primary meaning subordinates itself to the

meaning suggested by it, has been called Dhvani by scholars.‛)

Dhvani is a type of poetry wherein words and senses lose their primary signification

in order to suggest other things. These suggested ideas at their best, e.g. Rasas etc., do

not admit of being directly expressed at all; and even at their worst they look much

better when suggested than when they are directly stated. The surface meaning of the

poem as a whole may subordinate itself to the suggested sense; the primary meanings

of only particular words in the poem may allow themselves to be eclipsed by

suggested significations. In either case, the predominance of suggestion is

unquestioned and hence such poetry as provides ample scope for the play of

suggestion comes to be termed Dhvani.

Ānandavardhana uses the term Dhvani to designate the universe of suggestion

(the soul of Kāvya is dhvani, he says). In Dhvanyāloka, Ānandavardhana has presented

a structural analysis of indirect meaning. He has classified different kinds of

suggestion and defined them by identifying the nature of suggestion in each. In

Todorov’s view, Ānandavardhana ‚was perhaps the greatest of all theorists of textual

symbolism‛. As we have seen, though suggestiveness is an independent function of

words on a par with Denotation (Abhidhā) and Indication (Lakshanā), it is also

dependent upon them. That is, Dhvani can never function without the assistance of

either Abhidhā or Lakshanā. It derives initial support from either of them and yet

outshines them ultimately. Based on this fact, we have the most fundamental division

of Dhvani into:

1. Avivkshitvācya, i.e., where the primary meaning or the vāchya has not the

intended sense, it is only the suggested sense that is intended.

2. Vivkshitvācya, i.e., where the suggestive sense is only more graceful and

beautiful than the ordinary sense, though the ordinary sense is also conveyed. (In the

first of these verities, Dhvani is based upon Lakshanā, the primary sense being

insignificant. In the second, there is no part played by Lakshanā. Dhvani proceeds

directly on the basis of the primary sense.)

Accordingly, Avivakshitavāchya is divided into two parts:

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1.a Arthāntara-samkramita-vāchya, i.e., where the implication modifies the

primary sense (literal meaning is set aside), and

1.b Atyānta-tiraskrtavāchya, i.e., where the implied sense entirely reverses the primary

sense (literal meaning is shifted).

For example, in speaking to one’s mortal enemy one says: ‚What immeasurable

benefits have thou conferred on me; what debts of magnanimity do I owe to thee.

Behaving in the same manner, oh my friend, may you live a hundred years more‛.

Here the implied suggestion is that for all the ill treatments he had received from the

enemy he curses the latter. Here the implied sense completely reverses the primary

sense.

The Vivkshitvāchya is again of two kinds:

2.a Asamlaksayakrama-dhvani, i.e., where the process of suggestion is so quick that it

cannot be apprehended. It is only in the case of the implication of the rasa that this

Dhvani occurs.

2.b Samlaksayakrama-dhvani, i.e., where the process of the implied suggestion can be

recognized.

The Samlaksayakrama-dhvani (pratiyamān or expression transcending the meaning) is of

three kinds:

2.b.1. Vastu-dhvani , i.e., where the fact/truth is suggested.

2.b.2. Alamkāra-dhvani, i.e., where the sense is suggested through figures of speech.

2.b.3. Rasa-dhvani, i.e., where the emotions are communicated.

The Alamkara-dhvani is again subdivided into three parts:

1. Sabdaśakti, i.e., where words create suggestion.

2. Arthaśaktimulā, i.e., where contextual factors and cultural factors are responsible

for suggestion.

3. Ubhayaśaktimulā, i.e., where both of the above factors are responsible for the

suggestion.

Ānandavardhana uses the term Dhvani in a new sense to mean that which

carries those excellences of good Kāvya which carry all the meanings including, the

figurative and indirect, the aesthetic experience rasa, figures of speech, style and

modes vrttis, as well as the subject matter or story.

Conclusion:

Ānandavardhana’s magnum opus, Dhvanyāloka carved a new direction in the

field of Indian poetics. ‚The current of literary criticism, says Dr. Sushil Kumar De,

was in ebb till Ānandavardhana with his novel doctrine appeared in the field and

rejuvenated once more the dying stream‛. It endowed Sanskrit poetics with a novel

approach and better understanding of Kāvya, its constituent parts, their effect on the

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Sahardaya (relisher) and above all the process that channelizes the reader’s perception

of the essence of Kāvya. There can be no better and more fitting encomium of praise

bestowed on Ānandavardhana than this beautiful verse of Rajsekhara:

Dhvaninātigabhirena Kāvyatatvaniveśinā

Ānandavardhanaha Kasya Nāsidanandvardhanaha.

REFERENCES

Bhattacharya, Bishnupada. Ed. Dhvanyāloka of Ānandavardhana. Culcutta: Firsma KLM

Private Ltd., 1980.

Gupta, Shyamala. Ed. Art Beauty and Creativity Indian and Western Aesthetics,

NewDelhi: D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd., 1999.

Kapoor, Kapil. Literary Theory Indian Conceptual Framework, New Delhi: East West

Press Private Limited, 1998.

Krishnamoorthy, K. The Dhvanyāloka and Its Critics, Maysore: Kavyalaya Publishers,

1968.

Shah, G. S. Trans. Shri Ānandavardhanacharitaha Dhvanyāloka, Ahmedabad: Parshwa

Publication, 1996.

Warder, K. Ed. Indian Kāvya Literature (Vol.1), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1989.

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New Historicism, as a contextual approach to literary criticism and literary theory, arose in the 1990s. Scholars of Renaissance literature particularly associate it with the work of Stephen Greenblatt; another group of New Historicist critics write about Romanticism.

The study

New Historicist scholars begin their analysis of literary texts by attempting to look at what other texts -- both literary and non-literary -- a public could access at the time of writing, and what the author of the original text might have read. They also, however, attempt to relate texts to the political and socio-economic circumstances in which they originated. For example, a well-known New Historicist reading examines the travellers' tales and geographical works available to William Shakespeare about the discovery of the 'New World' and relates them to his play The Tempest. Therefore, this reading argues, we should interpret Shakespeare's play less as a 'timeless' literary creation and more as a product of the context in which it appeared (see contextualism, thick description), and should see it as contributing to contemporary debates about colonialism.

Comparision with Marxism

Clearly, in its historicism and in its political interpretations, New Historicism owes something to Marxism. But whereas Marxism (at least in its cruder forms) tended to see literature as part of a 'superstructure' in which the economic 'base' (i.e. material relations of production) manifested itself, New Historicist thinkers tend to take a more nuanced view of power, seeing it not exclusively as class-related but extending throughout society. This view derives primarily from Michel Foucault. In its tendency to see society as consisting of texts relating to other texts, with no 'fixed' literary value above and beyond the way specific societies read them in specific situations, New Historicism also owes something to post-modernism. However, New Historicists tend to exhibit less skepticism than post-modernists, and show more willingness to perform the 'traditional' tasks of literary criticism: i.e. explaining the text in its context, and trying to show what it 'meant' to its first readers. In the example of The Tempest above, New Historicist writers sometimes touch on themes also dealt with by critics in the school of Edward Said.

Ideology

New Historicist critics also place much emphasis on power and power struggles. The rationale is that the lowest common denominator for all human actions is power, so the New Historicist seeks to find examples of power and its disbursment in text. Power is a means through which the marginalized are controlled, and the thing that the marginalized (or, other) seek to gain. This relates back to the idea that because literature is written by those who have the most power, there must be details in it that show the views of the common people. New Historicists seek to find "sites of struggle" to identify just who is the group or entity with the most power.

Relating to power in New Historicism is also contains the idea resurrected by Foucault of the panopticon, a theoretical prison system developed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham stated that the perfect prison/surveillance system would be a cylindrical shaped room that held prison cells on the outside walls. In the middle of this spherical room would be a large guard tower with a light that would shine in all the cells. The prisoners thus would never know for certain whether or not they were being watched, so they would effectively police themselves, and be as actors on a stage, giving the appearance of submission, although they are probably not being watched.

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Foucault included this in his ideas about power to illustrate the idea of lateral surveillance, or self-policing, that occours in the text when those who are not in power are made to believe that they are being watched by those who are. His purpose was to show that power would often change the behavior of the subordinate class, and they would often fall into line whether there was a true need to do so or not.

Insofar as Greenblatt has been explicit in expressing a theoretical orientation, he has identified the enthnography and theoretical anthropology of Clifford Geertz as highly influential.

Cultural studies combines sociology, literary theory, film/video studies, and cultural anthropology to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. Cultural studies researchers often concentrate on how a particular phenomenon relates to matters of ideology, race, social class, and/or gender.

Cultural studies concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life. Cultural practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. Particular meanings attach to the ways people in particular cultures do things.

In his book Introducing Cultural Studies, Ziauddin Sardar lists the following five main characteristics of cultural studies:

Cultural studies aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power.

It has the objective of understanding culture in all its complex forms and of analysing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself.

It is both the object of study and the location of political criticism and action. It attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge, to overcome the split

between tacit (cultural knowledge) and objective (universal) forms of knowledge. It has a commitment to a moral evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of

political action.

Scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States developed somewhat different versions of cultural studies after the field's inception in the late 1970s. The British version of cultural studies, as developed under the influence of Richard Hoggart, included overtly political, leftist views, and criticisms of popular culture as 'capitalist' mass culture; it absorbed some of the ideas of the Frankfurt School critique of the "culture industry" (i.e. mass culture). This emerges in the writings of early British cultural-studies scholars and their influences: see the work of (for example) Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy.

In contrast, the American version of cultural studies initially concerned itself more with understanding the subjective and appropriative side of audience reactions to, and uses of, mass culture; American cultural-studies advocates wrote about the liberatory aspects of fandom. See the writings of critics such as John Guillory. The distinction between American and British strands, however, has faded.

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Some scholars, especially in early British cultural studies, apply a Marxist model to the field. The main focus of an orthodox Marxist approach concentrates on the production of meaning. This model assumes a mass production of culture and identifies power as residing with those producing cultural artifacts. In a Marxist view, those who control the means of production (the economic base) essentially control a culture.

Other approaches to cultural studies, such as feminist cultural studies and later American developments of the field, distance themselves from this rigidly deterministic view. They criticise the Marxist assumption of a single, dominant meaning, shared by all, for any cultural product. The non-Marxist approaches suggest that different ways of consuming cultural artifacts affect the meaning of the product.

Another major point of criticism involved the traditional view assuming a passive consumer. Other views challenge this, particularly by underlining the different ways people read, receive, and interpret cultural texts. On this view, a consumer can appropriate, actively reject, or challenge the meaning of a product. These different approaches have shifted the focus away from the production of items. Instead, they argue that consumption plays an equally important role, since the way consumers consume a product gives meaning to an item. Some closely link the act of consuming with identity. Stuart Hall has become influential in these developments. Some commentators have described the shift towards meaning as the cultural turn.

In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a text not only includes written language, but also films, photographs, fashion or hairstyles: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture. Similarly, the discipline widens the concept of "culture". "Culture" for a cultural studies researcher not only includes the traditional high arts and popular arts, but also everyday meanings and practices. The last two, in fact, have become the main focus of cultural studies.

Compare: culture, cultural history, cultural identity, culture theory, cultural critic.

See also: postmodernism, queer theory, popular culture, popular culture studies, gender studies, orientalism, critical theory, feminism, semiotics, social constructionalism, new musicology, Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

In a loosely related but separate usage, the phrase cultural studies sometimes serves as a rough synonym for area studies, as a general term referring to the academic study of particular cultures in departments and programs such as Islamic studies, Asian studies, African American studies, African studies, et al..

Edw ard Said

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On this page:

Edward Said

Works Works by Edward W. Said (1935-2003)

1978 Orientalism. Said, a Jerusalem-born professor of comparative literature at Columbia, examines European and American views of the Middle East, arguing that their negative stereotypes have been used to justify economic and political domination of the region. Despite objections to his conclusions by Islamic and Arabic specialists, the book becomes a standard text in courses on literary theory and cultural studies, praised by critic Scott Sherman as "among the most influential works of critical theory in the postwar period."

1983 The World, the Text, and the Critic. Said's essay collection wins the René Wellek Award in literary criticism. The volume outlines Said's conception of "antithetical thinking," arguing that literary criticism should take oppositional stands to established views and be an investigative activity.

1999 Out of Place: A Memoir. The brilliant and controversial literary critic and political commentator explores his first twenty-seven years, beginning with his birth in Jerusalem to middle-class Palestinian-Lebanese Christian parents, through his childhood during the political upheavals in the Middle East, to 1962, when he is near to completing his doctorate at Harvard. Critics take issue with many of Said's views and for fictionalizing his own life but also praise his Proust-like memories of childhood, youth, and early manhood.

Leftist books Current affairs & political titles for liberal readers Indigocafe.com

Edward Said Research Edward Said at the world's largest online library. www.questia.com

Wikipedia Edward Said

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Edward Wadie Said (إدوارد سعيد) (November 1, 1935 – September 24, 2003) was a well-known literary theorist, critic and outspoken Palestinian activist. According to Columbia News (Columbia University), he was "one of the most influential scholars in the world," and "was undoubtedly one of the greatest minds of the 20th century."

Life

Said was born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine) and raised in both Jerusalem and Cairo, Egypt. Until age 12, he lived between Cairo and West Jerusalem where he attended the Anglican St. Georges Academy in 1947.

His family became refugees in 1948 just prior to the capture of West Jerusalem by Israeli forces.

At age 14, Said entered Victoria College in Cairo, and then Mount Hermon School in the United States. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1963 and served as professor of English and Comparative Literature for several decades.

Said also taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale universities. He spoke English and French fluently, excellent colloquial and very good standard Arabic, and was literate in Spanish, German, Italian and Latin.

Said was bestowed numerous honorary doctorates from universities around the world and twice received Columbia's Trilling Award and the Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association.

Edward Said died at the age of 67 in New York after a long battle with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Orientalism

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Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism"; what he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East.

In Orientalism (1978), Said decried the "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture". [1] (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/17/jan99/said.htm) He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for Europe's and America's colonial and imperial ambitions.

Critiquing Said, Christopher Hitchens, who writes for Vanity Fair, wrote that he denied any possibility "that direct Western engagement in the region is legitimate" and that Said's analysis cast "every instance of European curiosity about the East [as] part of a grand design to exploit and remake what Westerners saw as a passive, rich, but ultimately contemptible 'Oriental' sphere". [2] (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/09/hitchens.htm)

The British historian Bernard Lewis was perhaps Said's bête noire. The two authors exchanged a famous polemic in the pages of the New York Review of Books following the publication of Orientalism. Lewis' article, "The question of orientalism" was followed in the next issue by "Orientalism: an exchange".

Activism

A young Edward Said in traditional Palestinian dress standing beside his sister in 1946

As a Palestinian activist, Said defended what he believed to be the rights of Palestinians in Israel and what the international community calls the occupied territories (West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem).

Writing in 1980, Said anticipated an eventual policy of military aggression by the United States toward the Middle East, a prediction some observers find evident in the actions of the United States after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks:

"So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the

15

awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression." [3] (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19800426&s=19800426said)

For many years, Said was a member of the Palestinian National Council, but he broke with Yasser Arafat, saying that he believed that the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel. He also opposed the Oslo formula of creating a Palestinian entity out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, arguing for the creation of one state in the entirety of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and pre-1967 Israel, in which Arabs and Jews would have equal rights (often known as the binational solution).

"I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial." [4] (http://www.counterpunch.org/said08052003.html)

His relationship with the Palestinian Authority was so bad that PA leaders once called for the banning of his books.

In June 2002, Said, along with Haidar Abdel-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakak, and Mustafa Barghouti, helped establish the Palestinian National Initiative, or Al-Mubadara, an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to both the established Palestinian Authority and to Islamist militant groups such as Hamas.

Said's books on the issue of Israel and Palestine include The Question of Palestine (1979), The Politics of Dispossession (1994) and The End Of The Peace Process (2000).

Said was also a prolific journalist and his writing regularly appeared in the Nation, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, Le Monde Diplomatique, Counterpunch, Al Ahram, and the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

A skilled pianist, Said also contributed music criticism to The Nation for many years. In 1999, he jointly founded the West-East Divan Orchestra with the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim.

Books

After the Last Sky (1986) Beginnings (1975) Blaming the Victims (1988) CIA et Jihad, 1950-2001: Contre l'URSS, une disastreuse alliance (2002), with John K.

Cooley Covering Islam (1981) Criticism in Society Culture and Imperialism (1993) The End Of The Peace Process (2000) Edward Said: A Critical Reader Jewish Religion, Jewish History (Introduction) Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966)

16

Literature and Society (1980) Musical Elaborations (1991) Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature Orientalism (1978) Orientalisme (1980) Out of Place (1999) (a memoir) Parallels and Paradoxes (with Daniel Barenboim) The Pen and the Sword (1994) The Politics of Dispossession (1994) The Question of Palestine (1979) Reflections on Exile (2000) Representations of the Intellectual (1994) The World, the Text and the Critic (1983)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about: Edward Said

Columbia News mourns passing of Edward Said (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/09/edwardSaid_2.html)

The Edward Said Archive (http://www.edwardsaid.org/), unofficial site Edward Said dossier (http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/dossiers/edwardsaid/) (Le

Monde diplomatique) Bibliography or reviews (http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/said/bindex.html,) South End Press (http://www.southendpress.org/books/author/said.shtml), Said's

South End Press titles and a brief bio Islam Through Western

Eyes (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19800426&s=19800426said), article by Said explaining the essential thesis of Orientalism

Remembering Edward Said (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1974.shtml), obituary

Zmag.org/Middle East Watch (http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/edward_said.htm), several remembrances

A Mighty and Passionate Heart (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09252003.html), obituary by Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch

Edward (http://www.amin.org/eng/hanan_ashrawi/2003/sept26.html), a remembrance by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi

Al-Ahram (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/657/edsaid.htm), obituary and links to all of Said's columns in that newspaper

More Links by R. Lichtensteiger (http://www.lichtensteiger.de/edward_said.html) Tribute and archive of Democracy Now!

appearances (http://www.democracynow.org/static/said.shtml) "Writing to the

moment" (http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1311404,00.html) Review of Said's work, at the occasion of the anniversary of his death (The Guardian)

17

"Edward W. Said, 1935 - 2003" (http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2004/09/edward_w_said_1.html) Remembrance of Said on 1st anniversary of his death at 3 Quarks Daily

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

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Mentioned In Edward Said is mentioned in the following topics:

W. J. T. Mitchell West-Eastern Divan

List of critical theorists Virgil Moorefield

King Edward VIII (Royalty) American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Critical Inquiry David Barsamian

London Review of Books Michael Sprinker

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Copyrights:

Works information about Edward Said The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. More from Works

Wikipedia information about Edward Said This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Edward Said". More from Wikipedia

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