My Writings

The present book “Mallikarjun Patil’s Lectures” appears to be interesting. It is an experiment both in language and literature for our folks. We can write any form of literature, not necessarily novels and short stories. The book contains fifteen lectures delivered at different places and times in India ranging from a little theory about language, literature, culture, travel, translation and creative writing to that about immortal writers. There is a lecture on philosophy too. People can try to understand about Shakespeare, the Romantic poets and the Modernists. They can understand something about the use of English as much as the Indian English fiction. I did a course at Oxford and there is a lecture about it. I am a creative writer and the last lecture speaks of my humble experience. Let the readers enjoy the lectures and that is a kind of fulfillment to me. That is a prize to me.

The present monograph “Saint Poet Kanakadasa” has as many as six chapters.  Dr. Mallikarjun Patil, its scholarly author, happens to be a bilingual creative writer.  His English works are of great merit.  This monograph embodies his perceptive study of Kanakadasa.  The book speaks of Kanakadasa’s ideas and ideals.  This work is likely to help the English readers for an understanding of Kanakadasa’s vision of life.

The present monograph Mystic Poets and Kanakadasa has as many as eleven chapters.  Dr. Mallikarjun Patil, its scholarly author, happens to be a bilingual creative writer and critic.  His English works are of great merit.  This monograph embodies his perceptive study of Kanakadasa and other mystic poets of India.  The book speaks of Kanakadasa in comparision with the Bhakti movements.  This work is likely to help the non-Kannada readers for an understanding of Kanakadasa with other mystic poets

The present monograph “Rabindranath Tagore: The Sage” has four chapters. The first chapter is about how Tagore grew up. The second chapter is about his early writings almost in all literary genres. The third chapter is about his seminal work Gitanjali which fetched him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tagore wrote many more books of poetry, fiction and drama, and a study of it is made in the fourth chapter. Tagore’s too many visits abroad are recorded.

Studies in American Literature is like an anthology on seminal works in American literature. This is the fruit of my study in the area for the last ten years. Here one can find articles on American writers from the beginning to the present. Most of the great writers are represented. For example, one can find articles on Franklin’s Autobiography, Emerson’s Essays, Thoreau’s treatise Walden, and the novels of Hawthorne, Stowe, Melville, Twain, James, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Bellow, Amy Tan and Morrison. There are articles on the poetry of Whitman, Dickenson, Frost, Stevens, Cummings, Hughes, Ginsberg and Plath. Papers on African-American writings as well. I have enjoyed reading great writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Hemingway and others. The study is quite fruitful.

Studies in British Literature covers the representative writers right from Geoffrey Chaucer to Julian Barnes. All the great works of the great writers are represented here. In fact, I have many papers on many works of a writer like Shakespeare and Hardy, but I cannot include them here due to paucity of space. Care is taken to represent all the important writers. So one can find articles on writers like Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Donne, Jonson, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Dryden, Fielding, Johnson, Blake, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Bronte, Ruskin, George Eliot, Dickens, Hardy, Conrad, Hopkins, Shaw, Kipling, Yeats, Synge, T. S. Eliot, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, Beckett and Barnes (However, one should not think that the un-represented ones are the un-important). All this is an interesting and useful endeavor. The articles are critical, comprehensive and updated. They are the fruits of my study for 15 years.

Studies in World Classics is like an anthology on seminal works in world literature. This is the fruit of my study in the area for the last ten years. Here one can find articles on classical works in Asia, Africa, Europe, American and Latin America. Most of the great writers are represented.

Studies in Indian English Literature is like an anthology on seminal works in Indian English literature. This is the fruit of my study in the area for the last twenty years. Here one can find articles on Indian English poets like Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Kamala Das, Ramanujan and others, on Indian English prose writers like Nirad Chaudhari and Armando Menezes, on Indian English playwrights like Mahesh Dattani and Asif Currimbhoy and on Indian Englsih novelists like Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, G. V. Desani, Manohar Malgonkar, Arun Joshi, Bhabani Bhyattacharya, Kushwant Singh, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and Basavaraj Naikar. There are serious articles on women novelists like Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Anita Desai, Nargis Dalal, Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy, Sunita Namjoshi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai and Anita Nair.

Thomas Hardy is a great English writer. He is a fine Victorian novelist, short story writer, modern poet and author of The Dynasts, which deals with Napoleonic wars in Europe. Hardy is a fine atheist-thinker too. The present monograph aims at introducing Thomas Hardy to all English literature students, particularly in India. This is a reference work.

The present study of Poe has six chapters on Poe’s Life, Poetry, Short Story and his novel Pym, and his Criticism. A chapter about Poe and world literature is rather much useful for an appreciation of Poe. This book is a fine reference work for the students of English literature.

Karnataka Companion to Indian English Literature deals with Karnataka writers’ contribution to Indian English literature.

Studies in African American Literature is like an anthology on seminal writers, works and trends in African American literature. This is the fruit of my study in the area for the last ten years. Here one can find articles on African American writers from the beginning to the present. Most of the great writers Douglass, Hughes, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Hansberry and Morrison are represented. For example, one can find articles on Wheatley’s autobiographical poetry, Douglass’s slave narrative, the novels of Dunbar, Hurston, Toomer, Baldwin, Wright, Morrison, Walker, Dove and others. The plays of Hansberry, Wilson and Baraka are analyzed. The thinkers Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, Locke, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X are also there. There are chapters on African American English and their folklore.