![]() VVT themes also resonate with contemporary Sanskrit bhāṇa dramatic monologues portraying the liaisons of brahmans with courtesans. While the VVT authors certainly draw on the Kuṭṭanīmata and Samayamātṛkā, early medieval Sanskrit classical satires on the lives of courtesans –most likely via resonances in the literature of the Vijayanagara empire–– there are significant differences. This thesis is illustrated here through translations of passages drawn mainly from Kūḷappa Nāyakkaṉ Viṟaliviṭutūtu, a celebrated work by Cupratīpa Kavirāyar (early 18th century), focusing on the characterization of the viṟali singer, the courtesan and her mother, and their brahman client as virtuosos in various arts, ranging from dance and music, to techniques of deception, to feats of memory and learning. In contrast to scholars who have examined the VVT genre from the perspectives of royal courts and literary culture, in a longer essay in progress I argue that, by means of its focus on the courtesan’s and brahman’s lifestyles the VVT offers a parodic yet celebratory window on the world beyond the court, as well as on the complex relationships between elite courtly culture and provincial society and heterogeneous publics in early modern Tamilnadu. Its central theme is the swindling and humiliation of an educated brahman by a beautiful courtesan and her mother-bawd, presented through vivid descriptions and speeches, couched in colloquial language and brimming with humor. The VVT is one of the pirapantam poetic genres that flourished in Tamil literature of the 17th to 19th centuries under the patronage of rulers and officials in South Indian principalities. Indira V.Peterson March 2016 Abstract for a forthcoming Festschrift paper (2016)*, “The Courtesan’s Arts in the Tamil viṟaliviṭutūtu Poetic Genre:Translations from Kūlappanāyakkaṉ viṟaliviṭutūtu” In this paper I present selected translations from Tamil poems in the viṟaliviṭutūtu (VVT, Message borne by the viṟali singer) genre. ![]()
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