Abstract

Any study on radicalism evokes the question of acting radically during a moment of crisis, and against reading and locating radicalism, in events and documents produced from an experience of continual crisis. While the first notion is concerned with taking part in an activity, involving engagement and choice making for a cause; the second idea relates to reflection, musing, and analysis of a certain radical moment that leaves a decisive mark on an existing social system. Radicalism calls our attention to certain pre-existing aspects of our life that need thorough reform and demand ardent participation in it. Yet, the aftermath of a moment of radicalism is equally important to the scholar of literature since it gives him/her an insight into the history of human urge for freedom and betterment; s/he thus, muses on the possibilities of “becoming” that are inherent within a revolutionary moment as human reaction to such moments of upheaval. In short, the area of focus in this study is quite specific. It concerns the moment of radicalism that retains a widespread appeal in our popular imagination: and this, in turn, creates an entire literary legacy of its own.