In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges and a later meta agreement to have topic challenges lasting for two months and overlapping by one month, it is (past) time to announce the September–October 2023 topic challenge. Unfortunately, due to factors not just contained to Literature.SE, the August–September topic challenge was skipped, and so we're heading directly to September–October.
Based on the number of votes (+4/-0), the next topic challenge of the year 2023 will be:
Sarojini Naidu
What's a topic challenge?
See the meta posts linked above, and also this main meta post. In short, during September and October 2023 you are invited to try to read at least one Sarojini Naidu story and ask questions about it.
Participation is not obligatory in any sense, and questions on other works are more than welcome during September and October too; they just won't count as part of this topic challenge.
How can I take part?
By getting hold of some works of Sarojini Naidu and asking (or answering!) good questions about them. Questions about these works should be tagged with sarojini-naidu and poetry. We'll keep a list of all such questions in an answer to this meta post.
Below is Rand al'Thor's presentation:
Sarojini Naidu
I just learned about this person today, but she seems to have been an important figure in Indian history as well as an outstanding poet. Quoting from Wikipedia:
Naidu's literary work as a poet earned her the nickname the "Nightingale of India" by Gandhi because of the colour, imagery and lyrical quality of her poetry. Her oeuvre includes both children's poems and others written on more serious themes including patriotism and tragedy. Published in 1912, "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad" remains one of her most popular poems. [...] Naidu's poetry was written in english [sic], and usually took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism, which she was sometimes challenged to reconcile with her Indian nationalist politics. She was known for her vivid use of rich sensory images in her writing, and for her lush depictions of India. She was well-regarded as a poet, considered the "Indian Yeats".
Beginning in 1904, Naidu became an increasingly popular orator, promoting Indian independence and women's rights, especially women's education. Her oratory often framed arguments following the five-part rhetorical structures of Nyaya reasoning. [...] Naidu is known as "one of India's feminist luminaries". Naidu's birthday, 13 February, is celebrated as Women's Day to recognise powerful voices of women in India's history.
Her poetry will be interesting to read and analyse in its own right, and it may also be interesting to examine the relationship between her artistic writing and her political views (e.g. what does it mean that she "sometimes challenged" the "tradition of British Romanticism" in her poetry? there, I've already come up with a question for this potential topic challenge!)
Several of Naidu's works can be found on Wikisource.
What's next?
- Vote for the next topic challenge (October–November), or propose your own topic!
