2023-03-29 18:09:26 by ambuda-bot
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PREFACE
It has been possible to compile the present work only by imposing strin-
gent limitations on method and subject matter. We have been concerned
with the figures as form and have treated them comparatively, as formula-
tions of the manifold poetic idea. The comparative emphasis is inevitable
if the figures are to be understood as a poetic. We have omitted a great
deal that could be said about the figures: we have not considered their
historical development, the vagaries of their individual formulation, or
the biases and peculiarities of the authors who discussed them. Such
questions have been exhaustively treated elsewhere, and they are only a
prolegomena to the study of the figures as a poetic. The method we have
used implies a system of figures, varieties of the poetic dicendum. We have
tried in the Introduction to distinguish this approach from others which
have been suggested.
We have studied systematically only the first third of the figurative
tradition: the pre-dhvani or early alamkārika period. We justify this
limitation on the ground that it is precisely in this period that the figures
were studied as form. We thus emphasize the distinctiveness of the early
or formative period as a school of poetic criticism and attempt to establish
its presuppositions and achievements not merely in terms of what it
anticipated (the dhvani) but in terms of what it was: a serious study of the
kävya, a poetic genre which was realized in classical India and which
remains the single most impressive monument of Indian literature.
The eight works used as a basis for this collection of figures of speech
are, in rough chronological order:
Bharata, Nāṭyaśāstra: part of the sixteenth adhyāya (16.40-84);
Bhāmaha, Kävyālamkāra: second and third paricchedas of six;
Dandin, Kävyädarśa: part of the first (52-68), all of the second, and
part of the third (1-124) paricchedas;
Vāmana, Kāvyālamıkäravṛtti: the entire fourth adhikaraṇa;
It has been possible to compile the present work only by imposing strin-
gent limitations on method and subject matter. We have been concerned
with the figures as form and have treated them comparatively, as formula-
tions of the manifold poetic idea. The comparative emphasis is inevitable
if the figures are to be understood as a poetic. We have omitted a great
deal that could be said about the figures: we have not considered their
historical development, the vagaries of their individual formulation, or
the biases and peculiarities of the authors who discussed them. Such
questions have been exhaustively treated elsewhere, and they are only a
prolegomena to the study of the figures as a poetic. The method we have
used implies a system of figures, varieties of the poetic dicendum. We have
tried in the Introduction to distinguish this approach from others which
have been suggested.
We have studied systematically only the first third of the figurative
tradition: the pre-dhvani or early alamkārika period. We justify this
limitation on the ground that it is precisely in this period that the figures
were studied as form. We thus emphasize the distinctiveness of the early
or formative period as a school of poetic criticism and attempt to establish
its presuppositions and achievements not merely in terms of what it
anticipated (the dhvani) but in terms of what it was: a serious study of the
kävya, a poetic genre which was realized in classical India and which
remains the single most impressive monument of Indian literature.
The eight works used as a basis for this collection of figures of speech
are, in rough chronological order:
Bharata, Nāṭyaśāstra: part of the sixteenth adhyāya (16.40-84);
Bhāmaha, Kävyālamkāra: second and third paricchedas of six;
Dandin, Kävyädarśa: part of the first (52-68), all of the second, and
part of the third (1-124) paricchedas;
Vāmana, Kāvyālamıkäravṛtti: the entire fourth adhikaraṇa;