This paper will focus on the elaboration of “genre” in the Hungry
Generation, a Bengali avant-garde movement that challenged Calcutta
literary establishment by means of an obscene and grotesque aesthetics
that spanned from poetry to manifesto writing.
Basing on few examples of Hungry literature (i.e. poetry, manifesto and excerpts from Hungry Little Magazines), I argue that the movement subverted traditional notions of genre through unconventional practices of writing and distributing literary material, such as using an obscene language and visuality in poetry, making fun of traditional tropes of Bengali literature and presenting an innovative lay-out of the texts that were circulated. These practices resulted in the formulation of an overall aesthetics of obscenity that encompassed language, form and materials of Hungry literary production. Therefore, the selected pieces of writing will be analyzed as examples of “subverted genres”.
In the context of my ongoing research on this topic, the Hungry Generation tried to negotiate its place in the Indian literary sphere by mediating between the idiom of Calcutta middle-class and the daring language of the international avant-garde. The outcomes of this paper will thus contribute to framing Hungryalism as a move of emancipation from the Bengali high literary sphere, seen as irreducibly urban, “bourgeois” and still imbued with colonial influences.
Basing on few examples of Hungry literature (i.e. poetry, manifesto and excerpts from Hungry Little Magazines), I argue that the movement subverted traditional notions of genre through unconventional practices of writing and distributing literary material, such as using an obscene language and visuality in poetry, making fun of traditional tropes of Bengali literature and presenting an innovative lay-out of the texts that were circulated. These practices resulted in the formulation of an overall aesthetics of obscenity that encompassed language, form and materials of Hungry literary production. Therefore, the selected pieces of writing will be analyzed as examples of “subverted genres”.
In the context of my ongoing research on this topic, the Hungry Generation tried to negotiate its place in the Indian literary sphere by mediating between the idiom of Calcutta middle-class and the daring language of the international avant-garde. The outcomes of this paper will thus contribute to framing Hungryalism as a move of emancipation from the Bengali high literary sphere, seen as irreducibly urban, “bourgeois” and still imbued with colonial influences.
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