Life in a Dead Language: Modern Sanskrit as an Ultraminor Literature

Matthew Nelson

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Life in a Dead Language: Modern Sanskrit as an Ultraminor Literature

In: Ultraminor World Literatures

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Matthew Nelson

Matthew Nelson
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 114–134

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004522206_008

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Abstract

Literature written in Sanskrit after the onset of British colonialism is sorely neglected. Modern Sanskrit, as it is often called, suffers from the bad image of being written in a dead language. Many of its writers would disagree with that image, but they would know that they are disagreeing. That defensiveness has come to shape their writing, a fact which I argue arises in response to the status of their work as an ultraminor literature, a status which was born with the formation of the “world literature” field and its elevation/absorption of classical Sanskrit at the expense of the latter’s perceived potential for contemporaneity.

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Ultraminor World Literatures

Series: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, Volume: 99

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004522206

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 15 Sep 2022

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Life in a Dead Language: Modern Sanskrit as an Ultraminor Literature

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Ultraminor World Literatures

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