Classical Telugu Poetry: An Anthology

✍ Scribed by David Shulman (editor); Velcheru Narayana Rao (editor)

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 326
• Series: Voices from Asia; 13
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This groundbreaking anthology opens a window on a thousand years of classical poetry in Telugu, the mellifluous language of Andhra Pradesh in southern India. The classical tradition in Telugu is one of the richest yet least explored of all South Asian literatures. This authoritative volume, the first anthology of classical Telugu poetry in English, gives an overview of one of the world's most creative poetic traditions. Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman have brought together mythological, religious, and secular texts by twenty major poets who wrote between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries. The beautifully translated selections are often dramatic and unexpected in tone and effect, and sometimes highly personal. The authors have provided an informative, engaging introduction, fleshing out the history of Telugu literature, situating its poets in relation to significant literary themes and historical developments, and discussing the relationship between Telugu and the classical literature and poetry of Sanskrit.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Pronunciation
Introduction
1. Nannaya. Early to middle eleventh century
2. Nannĕcoḍa. Twelfth century?
3. Pālkuriki Somanātha. Thirteenth century
4. Tikkana. Thirteenth century
5. Maňcana. Late twelfth to early thirteenth centuries?
6. Ĕṟṟāpragaḍa. Fourteenth century
7. Nācana Somanātha. Fourteenth century
8. Śrīnātha. Late fourteenth to early fifteenth centuries
9. Bammĕra Potana. First half of fifteenth century
10. Annamayya. 1424–1503
11. Allasāni Pĕddana. Ealry sixteenth century
12. Kṛṣṇadevarā. 1509–1529
13. Nandi Timmana. Early sixteenth century
14. Dhūrjaṭi. Sixteenth century
15. Tĕnāli Rāmakṛṣṇa. Mid–sixteenth century
16. Nūtana-kavi Sūranna. Fifteenth–sixteenth century?
17. Piṅgaḷi Sūrana. Second half of the sixteenth century?
18. Appakavi. Mid–seventeenth century
19. Kṣetrayya. Seventeenth century
20. Śatakas
21. Cāṭu Verses
22. Śāhāji. 1684–1712
23. Samukhamu Veṅkaṭakṛṣṇappa Nāyaka. Late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries
24. Muddupaḷani. Mid–eighteenth century
25. Tyāgarāja. 1767–1847
Bibliography
Index