Dr. Ayyappa Panicker(1930-2006) was one of those rare breed of people you would call vocational intellectuals, the ones that you are aware of their appearances in magazines, award committees and the stellar academic achievements but never identified with their work or persona like say some one like O.V.Viajayan or a Borker or Khandekar.
Though regarded a prominent poet attributed with architecting modern Malayalam poetry, he is a ubiquitous man of letters who was active in a lot of movements from behind. He completed B.A Honors from University college, Trivandrum, received Ph.D from Indiana University, for his dissertation on Robert Lowell's poetry. In 1980, he was appointed Professor in the Institute of English and Head of the Department and continued to hold the post till his retirement. The University Grants Commission made him National Lecturer in 1984-85 and he gave lectures in the universities of Gorakhpur, Kolhapur, Karnataka and Bangalore. He was a visiting Professor at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.
"In 1981-82 he did Postdoctoral Research in Yale University (five months) and Harvard University (four months). During this time he visited around 25 Universities in the U.S and became acquainted with internationally renowned poets like James Dickey, John Hollander, Czeslaw Milosz and Allen Ginsberg as well as scholars like Cleanth Brooks, Harold Bloom, Charles Feidelson,Jr., Frederic Jameson and others. "
I quoted this from his website and apparently he was an insider and was regarded as the point man for Indian culture and specifically malayalam literature and art with international reputation. Inevitably he traveled all over the world and attended countless seminars and represnted Indian Literature and Culture. He was also a major endorser of writers and specialised in writing "forwards" for many established writers and sometimes beginners too. No wonder he used to remind us a lot of Harold Bloom.
His contributions in criticism are regarded higly in the fields of comparative literature, especially for poetry in malayalam with English and other Indian languages such as Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali. He was also a lifelong celebrity as an English and Linguistics teacher. He effortlessly went along with the essentially leftist intelligentsia in Delhi and Kerala. In short he lived a worthy life that deserved a lot of official obituaries and a little bit of personal ones too from an obscure outsider like me :) May his soul rest in peace and glory.
His website
Some of his poems
Though regarded a prominent poet attributed with architecting modern Malayalam poetry, he is a ubiquitous man of letters who was active in a lot of movements from behind. He completed B.A Honors from University college, Trivandrum, received Ph.D from Indiana University, for his dissertation on Robert Lowell's poetry. In 1980, he was appointed Professor in the Institute of English and Head of the Department and continued to hold the post till his retirement. The University Grants Commission made him National Lecturer in 1984-85 and he gave lectures in the universities of Gorakhpur, Kolhapur, Karnataka and Bangalore. He was a visiting Professor at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.
"In 1981-82 he did Postdoctoral Research in Yale University (five months) and Harvard University (four months). During this time he visited around 25 Universities in the U.S and became acquainted with internationally renowned poets like James Dickey, John Hollander, Czeslaw Milosz and Allen Ginsberg as well as scholars like Cleanth Brooks, Harold Bloom, Charles Feidelson,Jr., Frederic Jameson and others. "
I quoted this from his website and apparently he was an insider and was regarded as the point man for Indian culture and specifically malayalam literature and art with international reputation. Inevitably he traveled all over the world and attended countless seminars and represnted Indian Literature and Culture. He was also a major endorser of writers and specialised in writing "forwards" for many established writers and sometimes beginners too. No wonder he used to remind us a lot of Harold Bloom.
His contributions in criticism are regarded higly in the fields of comparative literature, especially for poetry in malayalam with English and other Indian languages such as Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali. He was also a lifelong celebrity as an English and Linguistics teacher. He effortlessly went along with the essentially leftist intelligentsia in Delhi and Kerala. In short he lived a worthy life that deserved a lot of official obituaries and a little bit of personal ones too from an obscure outsider like me :) May his soul rest in peace and glory.
His website
Some of his poems
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