Literature

Reading and Relishing the TLS

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TLS tree

I subscribed to the TLS (The Times Literary Supplement) in November last year. Subscribing to this premier international weekly of literary and cultural debate was a dream come true. It was a long cherished dream. I have been looking forward to this moment since more than last ten years. I first came to know about the TLS when I was reading for my MA in English. I was studying T.S. Eliot’s ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ and came to know that this essay was first published in the Times Literary Supplement in 1919. After a curious Google search, I found out the TLS website. TLS then gave free sample copies. I requested one. Fortunately it turned out to be the centenary issue of the TLS.

I was highly impressed with the journal’s quality of print and content. The range of subjects was indeed extremely diverse and wide. I fell in love with this journal- with its provocative reviews, the animated letters to the editors, the Commentary section and even with the advertisements of books, journals and literary and other intellectual events that it carried.

Ever since then I had been dreaming of subscribing to the TLS. I resolved to do so when I would start earning enough and the day came in November last year when a special subscription offer made it possible for me to subscribe to the TLS at a considerable discount. It is not otherwise easy for a middle class Indian to subscribe to periodicals like TLS as they are expensive. Understandably, I was overjoyed when I got in my hands, my first issue of the TLS. It represents for me, a vibrant intellectual culture and true scholarship. I have always relished reading the TLS. Undoubtedly, the pleasure will only grow in future.

I am now waiting for the book ‘Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement’ (which I recently ordered). It is a history of the TLS written by Derwent May in 2002. I am curious to go through the hundred year journey of this wonderful weekly which has gone through all the thick and thin and not only sustained, but constantly improved its quality- both externally and internally. I first saw the advertisement of this book in the centenary issue of the TLS and wanted to read it. I am quite sure that I will relish this book too. Will write about it in this blog after reading it.

The Theory and the Practice: A Notion of Criticism for Our Age

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[I had written this article sometime ago to plead for a more accessible and simpler approach to literary criticism. ]

The role of imaginative literature in the process of human existence, the relationship between literature and society, and the utility of literary and cultural criticism to the society and to literature itself have been topics of hot and provoking debates since Plato and Aristotle, to the present day. These topics have always been discussed evaluated and re-evaluated with utmost zeal and energy by critical thinkers and litterateurs of high caliber, repeatedly over the ages and yet they have remained questions of immortal significance- every age re-evaluating these topics to formulate its own notions of creation and criticism for its own good.

The study of literature as well as the practice of literary criticism today, has become too much academic and jargon-ridden and the need to formulate proper notions of the study and criticism of literature is greater today than it ever was. This obviously calls, for a serious rethinking of the function and purpose of literary criticism, proper and fit for our age – the age of visual media and digital culture. Continue reading →