This volume forms part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series, which deals with schools, movements, and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of Marathi literature and its critical tradition across a several centuries. The book presents one of a kind historiography of Marathi literature and of its critical discourse. It brings together English translations of major writings of influential figures dealing with the question of caste, gender and aesthetic in the novel, poetry, myth, folk-culture, philosophical discourse, bilingual literary practice and literary form. It also studies the role of Marathi criticism in the context of the social history of Maharashtra.
 
Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Marathi literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Marathi language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies, and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Marathi-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Maharashtra and Western India and conservation of the language and their culture.