Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T11:14:47.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 29 - Indian Ibsens

from Part V - Afterlives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2021

Narve Fulsås
Affiliation:
University of Tromso, Norway
Tore Rem
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo
Get access

Summary

‘Indian Ibsens’ demonstrates how Ibsen’s oeuvre inflected the Indian stage as it moved from its traditional corpus of mythological, historical and musical drama to a theatre of social realism and revolutionary individualism that challenged the entrenched orthodoxies of an ancient civilization. Tracing the evolution of the reception of Ibsen separately for southern, western and eastern Indian theatre from the 1920s onwards, this chapter reveals some significant trajectories: first, that the dominance of the realistic plays of Ibsen’s middle period gave way from the 1970s to interest in the complex symbolism of his later work; and secondly, that the adaptations move through three distinct phases: translation (with Indian names and locales), transculturation in terms of local imperatives, and finally, radical transcreation where Ibsen is transported to the tropics by way of indigenous performance protocols of dance, music, mime and myth. In addition, the chapter briefly chronicles Ibsen’s impact on Indian fiction and film, in the Indian university system through literature and gender studies courses, and among Indian NGOs vying for the prestigious Ibsen Award using an Ibsen play for grassroots social empowerment. India is presented as the repository of one on the richest Ibsen archives available today.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ibsen in Context , pp. 256 - 263
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×