We will begin with the most accessible genres, the literary prabandha and the musical padam of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—thus combining from the start the two domains of poetic composition and music/musicology.

Texts: 

• Telugu prabandhas, Pārijātāpaharaṇamu and Āmukta-mālyada
• Kannada prabandhas of Cāmarasa, Nañjakavi and Govinda Vaidya
• Tamil prabandhas: Cīkāḷattippurāṇam and Pirapu-liṅka-līlai

Malayalam campū-prabandhas:

• Padams in Sanskrit, Telugu, and Tamil, together with the Telugu grammar of padam composition, Saṅkīrtana-lakṣaṇamu
• Poetics: Sanskrit and Telugu works of theory
• Musicological texts of the sixteenth-century Tanjavur court

Leading questions: 

What is the logic of these forms? How and why did they emerge? What audiences did they serve? What are the specifics of their regional inflections? What are the underlying cultural messages and conflicts? What theories of language sustain poetic production at this level? What major intertexts are present? What is the nature of authorship implicit in such works?