An Epic with a Difference
A Narrative Study of the Tamil Epic Cilappatikaram
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6449539 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ishita Verma (0000-0001-6669-0559, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 2025 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 3-18 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Revista de etnografie și folclor / Journal of Ethnography and Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-8198 |
| Publisher | Editura Academiei Romane (PUBLISHER • RO) |
| DOI | 10.59277/jef.2025.1-2.01 |
| OpenAlex | W4407896246 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
The medieval period in Indian literature was a time when a number of languages developed and so did the literatures in these languages. There was a break from the ancient epic tradition of Sanskrit as several new forms evolved. This break from Sanskritisation can be observed in the literature from the South including Tamil literature. One such piece of literature to break away from the epic tradition was Cilappatikaram or The Tale of an Anklet by Ilanko Atikal. Composed in the fifth century c.e. this long narrative poem consists the use of multiple genres using both prose and poetry to convey the story of Kovalan and Kannaki. The text explores the journey of Kannaki who is the text’s protagonist from the time she is married to Kovalan at the age of twelve to the point when she is apotheosised as Goddess Pattini in the end. The narrative poem not only subverts the great epic tradition of India by portraying a female protagonist but also contains a number of elements that place it closer to a novel. The paper uses the theories of novelisation propounded by Mikhail Bakhtin in his book The Dialogic Imagination and other modern theorists to bring out the novelistic elements in the text
Art · EPIC · Literature · Narrative · Tamil · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Highly cited | No |
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