Subaltern Consciousness in Devkota's Selected Poems from The Lunatic and Other Poems

Abstract

The research establishes that Laxmi Prasad Devkota possesses subaltern consciousness that is evident in his selected poems from The Lunatic and Other Poems. While some of the poems speak for the subaltern subjects, the others celebrate the work- worship of subaltern peoples. Gayatri Spivak's essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" fails to answer the inherent question of the essay positively but generalises 'sati' as a subaltern subject and. At the backdrop of this, this research attempts to outline the evolution of Subaltern Studies and to contextualize this in Devkota's writing. As a writer, Devkota possesses the knowledge and awareness of the situation of the subaltern subjects of his time. Therefore, he lends the voice to them and tries to establish that a sensitive writer can render objectively the knowledge and understanding. However, some of the poems from The Lunatic and Other Poems are more relevant and contextual in the research as they serve to meet the objective of the research: to find out the subaltern consciousness in Devkota and his appeal for a progressive change. Divided in four major chapters, the research establishes how the Subaltern Studies is growing as one of the major domains in literary and other fields of enquiries. The second chapter brings the Subaltern Studies at home and contextualizes it in relation to the time when Devkota lived and wrote. The penultimate chapter quickly scans the selected poems from The Lunatic and Other Poems and skims about how the subaltern subjects and issues are treated. The last chapter decodes all the information in a summarized form. In a nutshell, the research has become successful to explore Devkota's subaltern consciousness in his selected poems from The Lunatic and Other Poems.