The Self and the Sonnet
Author: Rajan Barrett
Date Of Publication: Dec 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2514-6
Isbn: 1-4438-2514-X
The Self and the Sonnet is an interdisciplinary study which considers the sonnet, a near eight hundred year old form, and looks at the historical meanderings and the popularity of the form among cultures that are far removed from the location of its origin in Italy. The book tracks the notion of the self from its Platonic beginnings to the Postmodern, using insights from Charles Taylor, Brian Morris and Calvin O. Schrag so as to work out a model of the self. Jan Patočka’s phenomenological notions of the self and Chaos Theory are important cohesive elements in the composition of this model.

A limit point in Mathematics is a point that is not in the set around which all the points cluster. The book looks at the self from the limit points of the body, mind, world and language. It analyzes sonnets which predominantly show a tendency to one of these limit points. However, it keeps in mind the other limit points as possibilities of a comprehensive analysis.

The motivation for this body of research comes primarily from the notion of the sonnet being a form that initially exists along with the epic as canonical writers of literary epics also write sonnets. The historic and narrative moment of self in sonnet form calls for a questioning of both the self and the sonnet. The book tries to address the questions: ‘What changes in the notion of self prompt the origin and persistence of the sonnet across cultures?’ and ‘Why and how is this form compatible with a self that is postmodern and global?’ The Anglo-American sonnet, for the most, is addressed but cultures and their attendant forms are also addressed when considering the sonnet. The Arabic zajal, the Persian ghazal, the Chinese sonnet and the Korean Sijo-sonnet are forms that are touched upon along with the Indian postcolonial versions like the forms of the sonnet in Modern Indian Languages such as Bangla, Gujarati and Marathi.

The author Rajan Joseph Barrett works in the Department of English, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat (India) and has taught at various institutions in different parts of India. He graduated in Mathematics from Nowrosjee Wadia College, Pune, and later pursued his post graduate studies in English from the Department of English, University of Pune. He has published articles on Shakespeare, Keats, Pedagogy of the English Language and Literature, written book reviews on History, Poetry, Short Stories and Fiction.

“The quest for the human self is an odyssey dating back to the hoary past and spanning a diversity of nations and cultures, both oriental and western. In this compelling and erudite work Dr Rajan Barrett explores from an oriental standpoint the self as revealed in sonnet form. Adopting ideas of Jan Patočka he probes the western notions of the human subject as revealed in the sonnet, and using English sonnets covering a period of five hundred years, he demonstrates the fact that sonneteers, in experimenting with the form and ideas of the self, have both adopted and disputed notions of the self and the sonnet. His work reveals fresh insights into the concept of the sonnet and the self, insights bound to be of value to researchers.”

—Dr. Cyril Veliath S.J., Professor of Indian Philosophy, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan

“Poetry is a literary form with a long generic memory, unlike the novel and drama which tend to reinvent themselves constantly. The sonnet form is a case in point where change and continuity have been constantly negotiated without deviating from its native rigour. The sonnet articulates the interface between the inner and the outer, the word and the world, the self and the other, the break between the octave and the sestet often providing a crack through which the intangible and the subliminal is apprehended in a moment of epiphany. Rajan Barrett’s book maps the evolution of the form through its historical trajectory from the medieval to the modern and demonstrates the resilience of the form in assimilating new thematic contours away from its time and place of origin. He admirably demonstrates how the dynamics of the sonnet can embody the changing paradigms of the self through the epoch-making transitions of the world during the last five centuries. I will strongly recommend this book to those in humanities and social sciences who have an interest in the social and psychological dimensions of literature as well as the larger points of intersections between tradition and modernity, time and space, the physical and the spiritual/mental.”

—E.V. Ramakrishnan, Professor and Dean, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, India

“In his quite remarkable book, The Self and the Sonnet, Rajan Barrett has succeeded in coupling the history of the search for the structure and dynamics of the human subject with a hermeneutics of the literary form of the sonnet. Carefully researched across the disciplines of philosophical and literary inquiry, the work is at once a display of meticulous scholarship and imaginative interpretation. Although the topics and themes addressed throughout the book are technically complex, the author's style is distinguished by its clarity making the contents accessible for the general lay reader.”

—Calvin O. Schrag, George Ade Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana USA

Price Uk Gbp: 49.99
Price Us Usd: 74.99

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