In the Shade of the Golden Palace Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan

In the Shade of the Golden Palace explores the work of the prolific Bengali poet Alaol (fl. 1651-71), who translated five narrative poems and one versified treatise from medieval Hindi and Persian into Bengali. The book maps the genres, structures, and themes of Alaol's works, paying special attention to his discourse on poetics and his literary genealogy, which included Sanskrit, Avadhi, Maithili, Persian, and Bengali authors. D'Hubert focuses on courtly speech in Alaol's poetry, his revisiting of classical categories in a vernacular context, and the prominent role of performing arts in his conceptualization of the poetics of the written word. The foregrounding of this audacious theory of meaning in Alaol's poetry is a crucial contribution of the book, both in terms of general conceptual analysis and for its significance in the history of Bengali poetry.

This book shows how multilingual literacy fostered a variety of literary experiments in the remote kingdom of Arakan, which lay between present-day southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar, in the mid-17th century. D'Hubert also presents a detailed analysis of Middle Bengali narrative poems, as well as translations of Old Maithili, Brajabuli, and Middle Bengali lyric poems that illustrate the major poetic styles in the regional courts of eastern South Asia. In the Shade of the Golden Palace therefore fulfills three functions: it is a unique guide for readers of Middle Bengali poetry, a detailed study of the cultural history of the frontier region of Arakan, and an original contribution to the poetics of South Asian literatures.

Thibaut d'Hubert is an assistant professor of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Acknowledgements
Map of Arakan and eastern South Asia in the seventeenth century

Introduction: Poetics in the margins
Chapter 1: The formation of Bengali literature in Arakan (ca. 1430-1638)
Chapter 2: Literary urbanity in Mrauk U
Chapter 3: New beginnings: Alaol's early career in Mrauk U
Chapter 4 Alaol's poetry and Mrauk U's political turmoil
Chapter 5: Alaol's poetics: when locality rhymes with originality
Chapter 6: Indo-Afghan historical imaginaries and the romance genre
Chapter 7: Lyric poetry and desi aesthetics in eastern South Asia
Conclusion: Middle Bengali poetics and the multilingual literary history of Bengal
Bibliography
Appendix 1: Summaries of Alaol's Padmavati and the story of the goldsmith's wife
a. Summary of Alaol's Padmavati
b. The story of the goldsmith's wife in Sayphulmuluk Badiujjamal
Appendix 2: Analytical tables of Alaol's songs
Appendix 3: Original texts of the Middle Bengali and Old Maithili songs
Appendix 4: A Persian appraisal of Alaol's life and works

Index