A critic’s pivotal contributions

Has anyone heard of a professor who turned down the offer of a vice chancellorship at two universities, solely to complete his work in furthering Kannada literature and literary criticism? G S Amur, professor, writer and literary critic, did just this — he rejected offers at the Mysore University and Gulbarga University. Amur had explained that he had many commitments to fulfill, all self-imposed. This included adding to the body of Kannada literary criticism. That was at the age of 60.

Gururaja Shyamachar Amur retired as a professor of English from Aurangabad University, after teaching in various places for 35 years. Born on May 8, 1925, in Bommanahalli, Dharwad district, Amur obtained an MA in English Literature from the University of Mumbai. He also had a PhD from Karnatak University, Dharwad. His doctoral thesis was titled Concept of Comedy. 

Amur, who had been writing in English and Kannada earlier, began to focus on critical analysis of Kannada literature. This became his forte. He felt that he lived in a time of re-evaluation, which made literary criticism important. 

Various authors, genres

When he came out with Bhuvanada Bhagya, a treatise on the celebrated poet Bendre, it fetched him a Sahitya Academy award. The Kannada literary world started to look at him with awe. He earned kudos from Gopalakrishna Adiga, the leading poet of the Navya tradition. Adiga opined that this book could pave the way for a more detailed discussion of the poetry of Bendre.

In a way, Amur was like F R Leavis, bringing out a re-evaluation of noted writers in the Kannada literary tradition. Many years later, Amur came out with another book on Bendre, titled Ommukha, in which he studied Bendre's poetry in the light of ‘Bharatiya vimarsha prasthan’ (Indian critical discourse). He also wrote on Kuvempu, provided a detailed analysis of the ideological stance in his literature and referred to him as ‘Yugada Kavi’, the poet of the age. 

With his academic discipline and talent for creating new critical frameworks, Amur expanded the scope of Kannada literary criticism.

When Amur wrote on Anakru, the popular Kannada novelist, and made a detailed analysis of his contributions, many writers felt that it was an exercise in futility. But, Amur stuck to his perspective that Anakru should be recognised in the history of Kannada fiction.

He wrote on the works of Devanur Mahadeva, Mogalli Ganesh,  Besagarahalli Ramanna, Kum Vee and other writers, in the light of Dalit perspectives. Amur also wrote on the short stories of women writers of Kannada (which had been sidelined earlier). He did so with a feminist approach.

Unique perspective

Amur always chose the less-trodden path in the choice of subjects that he dealt with in his critical endeavours. Viratpurusha was on the works of the noted playwright Sri Ranga, (who wrote under the pen name of Adya Rangacharya), a 20th-century dramatist from the school of progressive writers. His plays were successful on the stage, but they were not discussed by the critics. Amur made a comprehensive study of Sri Ranga's plays and critical works.

As S Diwakar, who made a study of Amur's literary talent, has observed, "Amur's criticism is a meaningful interpretation of the progress of modern Kannada literature. In discussing the literatures of Kailasam, Sri Ranga, Anakru, Kuvempu, Bendre, Ananthamurthy, and others, Amur highlighted the talent, discipline and discourse in their writing."

Amur used his critical acumen to write about Indian English writers like R K Narayan, Manohar Malgaonkar and Salman Rushdie. 

Amur was thus a versatile writer, with nearly 60 works in Kannada and 20 works in English. He even translated Shanthinath Desai's novel Om Namo and selected poetry by Bendre into English. Amur also translated Raghavendra Patil's Kannada novel, Theru, into English.  

The birth centenary celebrations of G S Amur were marked last year in Dharwad. This year, a seminar was organised by the Sahitya Academy in Bengaluru, reminiscing on the poet’s life and work. 

U R Ananthamurthy once remarked that Amur demonstrated that Kannada literature could please us even more than English literature. This, in itself, is a reflection of the vitality of Amur's writings.