In the following essay, Blackwell contrasts the use of the Krishna motif in four poems by the Indian poets Kamala Das and Sarojini Naidu.
Traditional imagery in modern poetry in English
Let us ...
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In the following essay, Manohar traces Das's depiction of the male-female dynamic in her verse.
In the life of a woman or a man there are happy as well as sorrowful events. Neither the sorro...
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In the following essay, George reads My Story as a “queer” text.
… When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the Bedroom and clos...
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In the following essay, Raphael contends that Das's autobiography, My Story, is flawed but provides insight into the author's personality and work.
David McCutchion says that Kamala D...
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In the following excerpt, Kurup offers a thematic and stylistic examination of the poems in The Descendants.
In the second volume of the poet—The Descendants—the same existential desp...
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In the following essay, Lim discusses My Story as a provocative and transformative work of women's autobiography.
A popular approach to Western women's writings is to categorize the b...
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In the following essay, Chavan identifies the unifying aspect of Das's poetry, asserting that “the extraordinarily subjective nature of her vision establishes a vital link between her po...
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In the following essay, Raveendran examines the role of history in the Anamalai Poems.
The Anamalai Poems are a series of short poems that Kamala Das wrote during and after her sojourn at the hills...
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In the following essay, Uma investigates the genre of My Story.
“My Story is my autobiography which I began writing during my first serious bout with heart disease” (Das 1991:v). The ...
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In the following essay, Harish underscores the novelty and appeal of My Story.
This book has cost me many things that I held dear, but I do not for a moment regret having written it. I have written...
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In the following essay, Kaur explores Das's attitude toward gender roles and views My Story as a protest against the sexual discrimination of women.
Sexual colonialism refers to the relation...
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In the following essay, Kohli argues that Das's confessional poetry, with its unusual metaphors and original tone, represents a distinctly Indian voice that bows neither to the English modernis...
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In the following essay, Mishra situates Das's poetry in the confessional genre and discusses her attempts to mythologize her personal experiences.
Kamala Das, a recognized feminist poet, wri...
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In the following essay, Nair addresses the significance of the poet's ancestral home, Nalapat House, to several of her important poems.
Kamala Das is at her best as a poet of private sensibi...
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In the following essay, Raveendran examines how Das's later, more political poems, embody tension between the timelessness of the landscape and the minutiae of human history.
Anamalai Poems ...
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In the following excerpt, Nabar provides extensive stylistic and thematic interpretations of Das's later poetry.
Kamala Das's third volume of verse, The Old Playhouse and Other Poems,...
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In the following interview, Das discusses her writings and her life.
Kamala Das was born in 1934. Her collections of poetry include Summer in Calcutta (Delhi: Rajinder Paul, 1965), The Descendants ...
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Critical Essay by Fritz Blackwell
