Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir

McCrea, Lawrence J.:
The Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir / by Lawrence J. McCrea. - Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2009. - 470 S. - (Harvard Oriental Series ; 71)
ISBN 978-0-674-03273-6 / 0-674-03273-X
US$ 60,00 / £ 44,95 / EUR 54,00
Hochschulschrift. Teilw. zugl.: Chicago, Univ., Diss., 1998

Beschreibung
This book examines the revolution in Sanskrit poetics initiated by the ninth-century Kashmiri Ānandavardhana. Ānandavardhana replaced the formalist aesthetic of earlier poeticians with one stressing the unifunctionality of literary texts, arguing that all components of a work should subserve a single purpose—the communication of a single emotional mood (rasa). Attention was redirected from formal elements toward specific poems, viewed as aesthetically integrated wholes, thereby creating new literary critical possibilities.
   Ānandavardhana’s model of textual coherence, along with many key analytic concepts, are rooted in the hermeneutic theory of the Mīmāṃsakas (Vedic Exegetes). Like Ānandavardhana, the Mīmāṃsakas made the unifunctionality of texts their most basic interpretive principle.
   While Ānandavardhana’s teleological approach to textual analysis gained rapid acceptance among the Kashmiri poeticians, another aspect of his theory became controversial. He argued that rasa, and certain other poetic meanings, cannot be conveyed by recognized semantic processes, and therefore postulated a new semantic function, dhvani (“suggestion”) to account for them. The controversy over this “suggestion” rapidly became the central topic in poetics, to the exclusion of teleologically based criticism. While dhvani ultimately gained universal acceptance among Sanskrit poeticians, the conflict over its existence, ironically, marginalized Ānandavardhana’s preferred approach to poetic analysis. [Harvard University Press]

Inhalt
I. Introduction. 1
II. Early Alaṃkāraśāstra and the problem of rasa. 30
III. Mīmāṃsa and the teleology of language. 55
IV. Ānandavardhana's Dhvanyāloka and the teleology of poetic language. 99
V. Ānandavardhana's poetics and the philosophy of language. 165
VI. Theory and criticism in the Dhvanyāloka. 220
VII. Mukulabhaṭṭa and Pariharendurāja. 260
VIII. Kuntaka's Vakroktijīvita. 331
IX. Abhinavagupta. 363
X. Mahimabhaṭṭa's Vyaktiviveka. 398
Epilogue. 441
Bibliography. 449
Index. 463

Autor
Lawrence J. McCrea is Assistant Professor of Sanskrit Studies at Cornell University. Profile page.

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