Manuscript Title:

FOLK SONGS AS SOCIO-POLITICAL CULTURAL RESISTANCE IN SHAKESPEARE’S THE TEMPEST AND ABU ISHAQUE’S SURYA- DIGHAL BARI (THE OMINOUS HOUSE): REIMAGINING ROOTS

Author:

MOHAMMAD JASHIM UDDIN, Dr. K AHMED ALAM, Dr. MD. ZAKIR HOSSAIN TALUKDER

DOI Number:

DOI:10.5281/zenodo.21862676

Published : 2026-08-10

About the author(s)

1. MOHAMMAD JASHIM UDDIN - Associate Professor, Department of English, Northern University Bangladesh & PhD Fellow on Folklore Studies, School of Education, Bangladesh Open University. 2. Dr. K AHMED ALAM - Professor, Department of English, & Dean, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Bangladesh University of Business and Technology, Dhaka. 3. Dr. MD. ZAKIR HOSSAIN TALUKDER - Associate Professor of English, School of Social Science, Humanities & Language (SSHL), Bangladesh Open University.

Full Text : PDF

Abstract

Using a textual and contextual close reading of representative folk songs from William Shakespeare The Tempest and Abu Ishaque’s Surya-Dighal Bari (The Ominous House), this study explore the consideration of folk song as instruments of socio-political cultural resistance; highlights that oral textual traditions do not merely reflect the hegemonic discourses, but actually challenge and resist them, giving voice to those peripheral communities who otherwise would have been marginalized even further by dominant power structures. This project concerns the socio-political dimensions of folk traditions on both works, as they mirror colonialism and post-colonial history. Moreover, the study presents a comparative perspective on how both of the authors reinterpret their cultural heritage via folk motifs; ultimately affirming the idea that folk culture has universal significance as an identity-retaining source, serving anti-colonial functions well beyond specific traditions or literary and geographical focuses. Through these elements, the research study brings out an understanding of folk traditions in literature as providing resistant narrative strategies to hegemonic discourse.


Keywords

Folk Songs, Cultural Resistance, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, and Identity Preservation.