Academic Satire Indian English Campus Novels in Context

Abstract

newline The genre of campus novel focuses on wayward academics and academic newlinelife in a university setting where the main action is set in and around the newlinecampus of a university or a college. These novels present us with a newlinecomprehensive and often paradoxical portrait of academia. The objectives newlineof these novels range from complete mockery of the academic world to newlinethe social and political critique or critical scrutiny of the role of academia. newlineSignificantly enough, the authors of the campus novels write not only for newlinethe academic readers but also for the non-academics, wishing to be newlinecomprehensible to the general public as well. These novels are therefore newlinehighly readable, full of mirth and humanity. newlineThe campus fiction vacillates between realism and experiment. newlineThat is why it is concerned with the conscientious pragmatism, on the one newlinehand, and the comic mode of fiction encompassing elements of parody newlineand farce, on the other. Several styles and narrative modes like absurdist, newlineromanticized, meta-fictional, self-reflective as well as satirical devices newlinelike wit, epigram, sarcasm and repartee help to bring out satire in the newlinecampus novels. According to Aristotle, one of the first literary critics, the newlinebasic devices that engage the reader are conflict, peripeteia and a string of newlinecause and effect. That is why the pattern of binary opposition forms the newlineii newlineprincipal structure of these novels. It also functions as the specific or newlineidiosyncratic device which the authors use to entertain and surprise the newlinereaders. The entertaining and at the same time intellectual reading of the newlinecampus novels has made this genre immensely popular world-wide.