This compilation of critical essays is an outcome of various national seminars and conferences held in recent times by the English Departments of Universities and Colleges. Sometimes, journals and periodicals also made demands of research papers. Only those critical essays and research papers have been included here which have a direct bearing on the subject of this book—Contemporary English Criticism: Theory and Practice. A rigorous process of selection or rejection of essays and papers has been adopted, keeping in mind what is ‘contemporary’ in English criticism and also what is ‘theory in practice’ and what is ‘practice in theory’.
There are twelve essays and papers in this anthology, dealing with different topics. The topics covered in this compilation are:
1. Voice of the Voiceless: Subaltern Writings in English
2. Diasporic Writings in English
3. New English Literatures of the Colonized
4. T.S. Eliot and the Great Romantics: A Comparative View
5. Native Modernity in Indian English Fiction
6. Postmodernism in Indian English Fiction: Issues and Challenges
7. Magic Realism in Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence
8. Myth, History, Tradition, and Modernity in Indian English Drama
9. Contemporary Indian English Poetry: A Study in Culture and Identity
10. Changing Paradigms of Culture and Literature
11. Nation, Culture and Identity: Theory and Texts in the 21st Century
12. Reading Globalization
Besides, Suggestions for Further Reading and Index will add to the charms of this book.
Amar Nath Dwivedi is a Senior Professor of English who retired from the University of Allahabad, Allahabad (India), a few years ago. After his retirement, he joined the U.P. Rajarshi Tandon Open University at Allahabad as a Senior Consultant in English and then proceeded to the Republic of Yemen on an official assignment as a Professor and Chairman, Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Education, Taiz University at AlTurba, Taiz. On his return to India in 2010, he taught English Literature at the University of Allahabad as a Guest Faculty till February 2016. Now, Dr. Dwivedi is engaged in his multiple writing projects.
Dr. Dwivedi is a well-known critic and poet of today. He has written about two dozen books on English, American, and Indian English Literature; and more than 100 research papers for various Indian and foreign journals. He has also published five books on English poetry so long, which have been put together as Collected Poems (New Delhi: Authorpress, 2018). In 1916, Dr. Dwivedi acted as a jury on the panel of selectors for the annual Sahitya Akademi award in English.
Dr. Dwivedi edits The Journal of Contemporary Literature (Allahabad; a peer-reviewed international journal; U.G.C. approved). He is listed in the International Who’s Who (in “Men of Achievement” and “Register of Intellectuals”) of Cambridge, U.K.; Book of Honor, A.B.I. Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.A.; and in the International Who’s Who of Contemporary Achievement of Cambridgeshire, England. He also appears in the biographical Directories of Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. In 2011, the International Poets’ Academy, Chennai (T.N.), honoured him with Lifetime Achievement Award.
