Alternative Literary Canon

Its Need and Functions in the Present Times

Abstract

The theoretical prepositions developed in the postcolonial era often view the European concepts as the masked stratagem of intellectual colonialism. This has significantly led to rise of ‘alternative/s’ in all the fields where the European conceptions have dominated for a long time. In literary studies as well, there is a marked tendency of forming alternatives to deconstruct the colonial perceptions on the literary issues. This paper is an attempt on this path. In India, it has been observed that the western notion of literary canon still determines the canonicity of Indian texts. In fact, the canonicity of any literary text depends on race, milieu and moment of the nation where the text has originated. This clearly implies that the western conception of canonicity must be altered as per the need of Indian literary scene. The paper hints at the need of the alternative literary canon and imparts some functions to it. It views the post-1980s Indian English fiction as an alternative literary canon and claims for its different position. The present literary scene in India marks two contradictory orientations of literary appreciations: western and eastern. Some advocate the study of Indian English literature from the western perspective, whereas the others demand the traditional Indian poetics as criterion for the assessment of Indian English literature. To resolve this debate, the present paper proposes a ‘middle-way approach’ based on the FICTION formula which might prove significant in advocating alternative reading practices.