A Postmodernist Analysis of A.K.

Ramanujan’s Poems
Postmodernists have privileged the socially constructed nature of identity that underpins
postmodern theory to challenge modernist concepts of identity based on notions of fixed cultural
essences. They have also deployed hybridity (outcome of mixture of types or species) and
bricolage/collage (recombined disparately appropriated elements) as key strategies against
ethnocentrism (Kapchan & Strong, 1999; Young, 1995). While these arguments have done
much to undermine centrist biases that privilege cultural hegemony on the basis of abstract or
“false universals” (Fox, 1987, p. 1), subtle forms of ethnocentrism persists in art and cultural
Postmodernists have privileged the socially constructed nature of identity that underpins
postmodern theory to challenge modernist concepts of identity based on notions of fixed cultural
essences. They have also deployed hybridity (outcome of mixture of types or species) and
bricolage/collage (recombined disparately appropriated elements) as key strategies against
ethnocentrism (Kapchan & Strong, 1999; Young, 1995). While these arguments have done
much to undermine centrist biases that privilege cultural hegemony on the basis of abstract or
“false universals” (Fox, 1987, p. 1), subtle forms of ethnocentrism persist in art and cultural
discourse, indicating an unresolved anxiety about the integrity and instability of identity. Several
scholars (Gilroy, 1993; Chakrabarty, 2002; Mitter, 2008; Shin, 2010 among them) have drawn
attention to the asymmetries and inequalities that such centrism continues to underwrite.
discourse, indicating an unresolved anxiety about the integrity and instability of identity. Several
scholars (Gilroy, 1993; Chakrabarty, 2002; Mitter, 2008; Shin, 2010 among them) have drawn
attention to the asymmetries and inequalities that such centrism continues to underwrite. (Gall 2)

Postmodernism emerged after the movement termed as ‘modernism’ and has become
current since the 1980s. ‘Modernism’ was the movement which dominated the arts and culture of
the first half of the twentieth century. It was characterized by its rejection and opposition to the
pre-twentieth-century practices in architecture, music, literature and paintings. Postmodernism
cannot be understood without gaining some insight into what ‘modernism’ was (Barry 81).
 All sorts of art which were touched by modernism underwent changes and the
fundamental elements of practice were challenged and rejected. Melody and harmony were set
aside in music, in paintings abstractness was favoured while in architecture traditional forms and
material were abandoned for geometric and plain forms. Whereas in literature traditional realism
was rejected e.g. chronological plots, closed endings, continuous narratives conveyed by an
omnipotent narrator etc. in favour of experimental forms of various kinds (Barry 81).

Modern philosophy’s roots are in the formative figures of Francis Bacon and Rene
Descartes, for their influence on epistemology and more comprehensively in John Locke, for his
influence in all aspects of philosophy. They are modern for their philosophical naturalism, their
confidence in reason and especially in the case of Locke, for their individualism. Modern
thinkers start from nature instead of the supernatural which was characteristic of pre-modern
times i.e. Medieval philosophy. Modern thinkers stress that perception and reason are the means
of knowing nature- in contrast to the reliance on faith, tradition and mysticism in pre-modern
times. They also emphasize on human autonomy and the human capacity of forming one’s own
character as compared to the pre-modern stress on dependence and original sin. Modern thinkers
stress on the individual, seeing that the individual is the unit of reality, holding that the mind of
the individual is sovereign- in contrast to the pre-modernist feudal subordination of the
individual to higher political, social or religious realities and authorities. Modernism got maturity
during the Enlightenment period. The Enlightenment philosophes were radical. “The Medieval
and the Enlightenment worldview were coherent, comprehensive- and entirely opposed-
accounts of reality and human beings within it”. (Hicks 7)

Postmodernism is against the entire Enlightenment project. Postmodernism rejects the

Enlightenment project by attacking its philosophical themes. It denies the reason and the
individualism the entire Enlightenment depended upon and ends up attacking capitalism, liberal
forms of government, science and technology which were the consequences of Enlightenment.
The elements of postmodernism are the exact opposite of modernisms. Anti-realism was
preferred over natural-reality. Individual identity and autonomy were replaced by various race,
sex and class group-isms. In modernism human interests were considered as harmonious and
tended towards mutually-beneficial interaction whereas in postmodernism conflict and
oppression took over. Individualism was not valued in values, markets and politics rather
postmodernism called for communalism, solidarity and egalitarian restraints. There was hostility
towards science and technology in contrast to how it was prized in modernism (Hicks 14)

Postmodern poetics is primarily poetry that strives to achieve more than modernist
poetry, its literary ambitions are wider and more all-encompassing though not necessarily deeper
than modernist poetry which is variously accused of being patriarchal as well as feministic,
colonial as well as European, artificial as well as real, neurotic, insular, imagist, symbolic and
open-ended. Postmodern poetry however is all this and more, not necessarily a branch or
offshoot of modernism, postmodernism is more of a derivative of Modernism. As Dunn
elaborates ―by defining itself against modernism, postmodernism has achieved a nebulous
meaning. It remains unclear whether this development represents a decisive break with
modernism or is merely a continuation, extension or conclusion of it‖161 (Dunn). But however,
one views it, it is obvious that Postmodernism has come into its own. The characteristics of Post-
Modern Poetry include many modernist themes and many modernist themes taken to new
levels‖162(Hamilton). The Norton anthology of American Literature characterises and delineates
it further explaining that the largest indicator of Post-modern poetry is the ―absence of a single
dominant style‖ (Norton 2649). Other characteristics include, ―Mix of image with narrative, mix
of image with discursive, precise observation, philosophical reflection, open-ended juxtaposition,
multiple stories, alterations in Point of View, digressions, no coherence or closure, and
unexpected jumps & disjunctive thinking‖ (Norton 2647) with ―an apprehension of the invisible
world, fragmentation‖ (Norton 2646), and a style that appears to be a ―poetic diary or
journal‖163 (Norton 2646). Postmodern poetry provides a more active role for the reader and is
not bound by rules of form or content which leads us to another greatly debated concept of
Postmodernism which is Relativism. (Thomson 160).

Postmodern literature refers to some of the defining characteristics of World War II

literature which relied heavily on fragmentation, questionable narratives, paradox etc. and a
reaction against the Enlightenment ideas implied in modernist literature.Some key elements of
postmodernism are: Irony, absurdity, playfulness & black humour, distrust of theories and
ideologies; Techno culture and hyper-reality, Maximalism, Minimalism, Historiographic
metafiction, Temporal distortion, Magic realism, and Intertextuality. A.K. Ramanujan is a
postcolonial poet but uses some characteristics of postmodernism as well. His poems “Anxiety”
and “The Striders” can be analysed from a postmodernist perspective by looking at some of the
postmodern techniques he has used in them.

Both poems “Anxiety” and “The Striders” employ the characteristic of fragmentation.
With fragmentation the poems don’t have a proper structure. There are no proper stanzas while
lines are uneven as it is evident in Anxiety:

of hope, it has loose ends

with a knot at the top
that’s me.

And in “The Striders”:

And drowns eye-
deep
into its tiny strip
of sky.

Fragmentation was a characteristic of romantic and modern age which was also
transferred to the postmodern age. However, the notion about fragmentation in romanticism and
modernism is completely different from the one in postmodern. fragmentation in the postmodern
does not depend on the possibility of an original ‘unity’ which has been lost while romantics and
modernists tend to figure fragmentation in terms of the loss of an original wholeness. Another
way of thinking about postmodern fragmentation is in terms of dissemination. Dissemination
involves a sense of scattering, of origins and ends, of identity, centre and presence. Postmodern
fragmentation is without origins, it is dissemination without any assurance of a centre or
destination. (Bennett and Royl 250)

Irony is also a characteristic of the postmodern fiction. The use of irony in literature did
not start with postmodernists as modernist were also ironic and playful, but it did become a
central feature in many postmodern works (Sharma and Chaudhary 193). This can be seen in
“The Striders” in which the poet uses the example of Jesus and the insect to show how the world
perceives things. Walking on water is associated with Jesus Christ as he was the prophet who
could walk on water and he is a significant figure in Christianity whereas the water strider can do
the same thing, but it doesn’t get the same amount of attention as the prophet does.
Ramanujan’s pungent irony is powerfully operative from the very opening sentence of the poem.
Madurai, the poet observes, is a city of temples and poets and the poets here always sing of
“cities and temples”. The obvious ironic suggestion is that the poets are indifferent to the human
beings and their sufferings. The poem after the initial ironic dig, presents the river pictorially
during summer. The poet graphically describes how in every summer the river is reduced to a
narrow stream and how its water cannot pass through the Watergates because of the piles of the
straw and woman’s hair that obstruct its flow. The impression of the stones in the river has been
successfully conveyed to us by precise images:

the wet stones glistening like sleepy crocodiles,

the dry ones shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun (13-15)

The tinge of irony is unmistakable when Ramanujan refers to the visitor’s regret:

the river has water enough to be poetic about only once a year (36-38)

The man perhaps be happier if the river flooded its banks frequently. Such callousness and
inhumanity are undesirable and unacceptable to the genre of poetry and to the mankind.

Postmodern literature is known for the use of intertextuality which is the relationship
between one text and another “within the interwoven fabric of literary history”. Intertextuality in
postmodern literature can be a reference to another literary work, an extended discussion of a
work, or the adoption of a style (Sharma and Chaudhary 194). In “The Striders” the poet uses the
allusion of Jesus from Christianity to make his point that prophets are not the only ones that can
walk on water; the water striders have been able to do this for a long time yet we ignore them
and give importance to the deity.

No, not only prophets

walk on water.This bug sits
on a landslide of lights

Derrida gave the concept of deconstruction which is a tactic of decentering, a way of

reading, which first reminds us of the centrality of the central term. Then it attempts to subvert
the central term so that the marginalized term can become central (Powell 104). In other words, it
first focuses on the binary opposition present in a text. Next it shows how they are related, how
one is central and privileged and the other is ignored. It then decenters the hierarchy to make the
text mean the opposite of what it actually means and lastly, both oppositions are deconstructed
(Powell 106). This is the case in “The Striders” where he mentions the two binaries of Jesus and
insect in which one is superior and other is not. Through this he has made the deity and the insect
equal in status. He deconstructs the binaries that give superiority to religion, religious figures and
human beings as compared to nature and other small and seemingly insignificant animals.

A characteristic of postmodern literature is that language is seen as unable to convey

thoughts and ideas clearly. Language is unable to express anything concrete and substantial. This
is found to be the case in “Anxiety” in which the poet, at the end says that no matter what kinds
of words he uses, he is unable to express the feeling of anxiety that he is feeling. He tries to use
different metaphors to explain the feeling but is unsuccessful in fully explaining it.

But anxiety
can find no metaphor to end it.

Ramanujan’s poetry is remarkable in understanding the poet’s realistic attitude

and approaches that come closer to his later views expressed in his famous essay “Is There an
Indian way of Thinking?” Though he never gives a definite answer whether a particular Indian
way of thinking exists or not, he tells rather that a single Indian way of thinking never exists as
an Indian way of thinking is always shaped by the diversities and differences it celebrates. The
notion of India is never unidirectional as it is perceived at different stages by different people and
from different perspectives. Like a typical Indian poem “A River” enjoys and celebrates the
multiplicity associated with the river instead of the blind adherence to the traditional river-
poetry. Here the river is identified with the poet and endowed with a consciousness that can feel
for the suffering human beings. The poet’s concern in the poem is utterly humane that binds
other multiple perspectives together and thereby presenting successfully a whole picture of the
poetic essence of a river and of the human beings dwelling in its proximity.

Aiman Rehman
8 th B Roll no. 557
 Works Cited

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Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002.

Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory.
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Chaudhary, Preety and Sharma, Ramen. “Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern
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Gall, A, David. Fragments of what? Postmodernism, Hybridity and Collage. 2014

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Thomson, Veronica Forrest. “Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry.”