Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

(In English Translation)

ON ART AND LITERATURE

World-Literature

(I)

‘REAL poetry, the acme of poetical art,’ says Victor Hugo, ‘is characterised by immensity alone.’ That is why Aeschylus, Lucretius, Shakespeare and Corneille had conquered his heart. Had he been acquainted with Sanskrit literature he would have included Valmiki and the Vedic seers. As a matter of fact, what we want to derive from poetry or any other artistic creation is a glimpse of the Infinite and the Eternal. When the heart opens wide, it soars aloft to clasp the whole universe with its outspread wings. In the absence of the spirit of universality any work of art, however fascinating, exq1Jisite, subtle or deep, is incomplete; it betrays an imperfection. And where this element of immensity is present, we get something superior even if it contains nothing else; whether it is charged with a grand significance or not, we get something that surpasses all other virtues and we see our heart full to the brim. Whatever be the matter, the, subject, the thought, the emotion or anything else, that does not touch the core of poetry. Through all these or reaching beyond them what is required is a glimpse of the vast, the waves of delight pervading the universe.

When we read these lines of Shakespeare,

. . . and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge—

or these from Hugo himself,

Le pâtre promontoire au chapeau des nuées

S' accoude et rêve au bruit de tous les infinis, –

we are borne on the bosom of a shoreless Deep. The same immensity pervades those verses of Valmiki, which may be rendered:

Know us as Kshatriyas carrying on their duties while roving

in the forest.

We desire to know you, who are roaming in the Dandakas –

and that phrase from the Vedic seer Shunahshepa,

These constellations set high above, that are seen at night,

Where were they during the day?

The works of Varuna move unhindered,

The Moon comes nightly revealing them.

When we hear these sacred words, do we not feel that all the bondages of our being break to pieces as it happened to Shunahshepa? It seems Lord Varuna has lifted from over our head a veil of cloud, a strong current released from some unknown quarter flows on inundating both the banks of our heart. In fact, this water-god Varuna himself is the fount of the seer's vision and the poet's creative genius. In the Vedic hymns we always come across three gods together; these three in unison, with combined power, guide man and the world to a continuous progression and the ultimate success. This Trinity is Varuna, Mitra, Aryama. Varuna is the vast, the immense, the eternal, the infinite, and absolute, beyond all limitation. Mitra is union, harmony, beauty, bliss. Aryama signifies strength, power, dynamis.

In poetic genius too these three gods are at once present. Varuna forms the basis on which stand Mitra and Aryama – in the vast expanse of freedom, in the wide unbarred progress of the spiritual vision heaves up in surges the gracefully rhythmic dance of the forces.

Therefore the first principle of poetry is freedom from all narrowness: The poet will adore the universal ideas and expressions that can be appreciated and welcomed by all without any distinction of race, caste or creed. No doubt, the poet also is a man and every man is endowed with individual as well as collective traits. Life and conduct, social laws and customs, culture and education, that is to say, the materials from which literary themes are derived differ in different climes and times. Every language has its own characteristic and special genius. The poet has to make use of all these things. In this world we do not find any class of people known as cosmopolitans who do not belong to a particular nationality. There is no one language known as the world-language. But it is a matter of no consequence. The poet's genius consists in his ability to show the universal in the particular: that is to say, how a thing limited in time and space can be used as the symbol of the Eternal and the Infinite; how a glimpse of the Infinite can be made to manifest itself in the finite. Just as a poet has not to view a temporary truth confined to a small area to be the absolute truth so also he must not have a bias for the abstract philosophical truth which does not come into contact with a particular time, space and the individual. In fact, the formless universality that does not or cannot bear the touch of the physical world is particularly a matter of philosophy. The philosophical truth always likes to shun the local colour, for its purpose is not to exaggerate or make a display of the truth. But the poet seeks for a living image of the truth. An image must exist and must have a contour, yet the poet has to bring in the universal in the image itself, the Infinite has to be made living and visible – that is the exclusive art of

his genius. For example, take the famous line from Virgil

Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem

(Such huge labour was needed to found the Roman race.)

Here we find the pride of a particular nation displayed – the dangers and difficulties that had to be faced and the endeavours undergone to build the city of Rome. Here there is nothing expressly universal. But the poet has made use of these words in such a way that he does not seem to speak either about the city of Rome or obstacles and difficulties met with in building that city. This we forget in toto. There is a world-encompassing, stupendous and prodigious effort standing erect before our vision, before the eyes of the world. The city of Rome and the goddess Juno and the hero Aeneas are mere symbols and excuses to express a great universal truth.

In a parallel manner, the epics of Dante and Milton have specifically dealt with the Christian ideas. To us, modern intellectuals and adorers of materia1 science most of the ideas of these two poets may seem not only grotesque but also superstitious – at least they will appear unfamiliar and strange. But once we cross the barrier of words and enter the realm of the spirit, leaving behind the outward theme, we are in contact with the inner soul and we come across something altogether different which is vast and intensely near and intimate to our own heart. Thus,

Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned

Between the Cherubim

is kindred to our own Vedic

Dawn or the head of the sacrificial fire.

However foreign and unfamiliar the words and images used by the poets; however skillfully they may conceal themselves under mystic symbols, still we can hear and feel the secret of their heart that lies beyond names and forms:

...Above the Olympian hill I soar,

Above the flight of Pegasean wing!

The meaning, not the name I call –

A poet is not bound by any clime and time. That does not mean he neglects them. He utilises the elements supplied by time and space to create a world-literature which is eternally infinite, true for ever and everywhere. On the other hand, the kind of literature which is solely confined to time and space, the suggestiveness of which has been exhausted in a particular form and name, in which the universal spirit fails to move about freely, may at best be called a rural parochial literature and can never claim to be world-literature.

(2)

Two classes, two trends are to be discerned in the literature of every country. As human life has two aspects – the natural and the spiritual – even so every literature has a popular and a classical style. The natural or the physical life is the foundation, and it supplies all necessary elements. But man's duty and .his fulfilment consist in building up the spiritual life on this basis, and to mould the natural elements into the spiritual and to impart a spiritual meaning to them. Likewise the basic popular is to be re-shaped into the classical and raised to a higher and nobler status.

Now, what is meant by popular – "plebeian" – literature? It is the literature of the people, the common man, the literature that has grown up around the ordinary life

of the ordinary run. When man is in his early childhood, when he has just dissociated himself from his mere animality and has begun to know and feel his own self, when he has learnt first to lisp, the delight which he then derives from expressing his feelings and perceptions through articulate words marks the origin of the first poet of nature. At this stage we find a spontaneous exuberance of kindly experiences. The poet's vision is utterly physical here. His eyes turn exclusively to the external world confined within his limited ken. The poet portrays through word and rhythm his normal daily experiences acquired in his own private chamber or while roving in the open fields around homely hamlets. His imagination is also circumscribed. by such or similar environments. The language is soft, fluid and partly expressive – it is molten and gliding. His themes stem from the happiness and sorrow of the common life, ready at hand; nothing complex is to be found there.

Literary creation starts with proverbs and fairy tales. Another stage sets in when men do not relish merely the simple narration but want to narrate in a lucid and artistic manner. Not only that, they do not want to indulge in any ordinary subject but want to speak of something momentous and significant. And here is the foundation of true literature. But still there is the admixture of popular, plebeian manners, modes of rustic consciousness. The touch of spirituality, i.e. Soulfulness, the savour of a bliss found elsewhere in seclusion and isolation and the wide universal experiences of a true seer have not yet penetrated there. The great poet exceeds not only his surroundings – his own people and land; he is able to acquaint us with other climes and times, and he succeeds even in expressing .the thoughts of humanity at large; but in the parochial poet who may speak of such things there is still a reflection of narrowness, similar to tall talk In the mouths of children. Here there is not much selection, no restraint, no constructiveness, no high seriousness – there is instead an abundance, a prolixity, almost a

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confusion and an irresponsibility, as it were, and as in the ordinary life there is a pull towards the physical, the external and the small. The Ballads of the English and the Romantic Songs of the French fall under this category. Likewise, however deep in spiritual significance may be our kirtans or the songs of the religious wanderers of our country, they can, without injustice, be classed with those Ballads and Romances of the West.

But since the advent of Chaucer in English literature, the day we heard him say about his dearest Italian poet Petrarch "Whose rethorike swete"

Enlumynd all Ytaille of Poetrie,

what a new life and novel tune has appeared in English poetry, what a unique resplendence has illumined its firmament! Chaucer elevated English literature as from a mundane to the spiritual level. He is the father of ‘Great Poetry’. He freed the language from the unrefined touch and flavour of narrow rusticity and entered as it were the realm of a higher, nobler, more luminous and wider perception and brought it down into his poetic creation. In French poetry also this parochial influence pervades all its Romances, the Chansons de Gestes, and even the Chanson de Roland. Real poetry, which is noble and of permanent value, was first introduced by Ronsard.

Even there poetry did not reach its deeper, its superior nature. It has had to rise one step higher: it crossed this third level and entered the fourth where poetry is in its very character vaster and wider and deeper – to be sure, Victor Hugo holds this touch of immensity. It is here that the poetic spirit has achieved a divine energising inspiration that wants to have a direct vision of the Truth and express it in words and rhythms in a noble manner. Victor Hugo may not have achieved, but he has touched the new bourne. Here the poet aims at infusing whatever is easy, simple, common and fluid

with a new spirit. Nothing unnecessary, irrelevant, profuse and diffuse has any place in his creation. Ordinary everyday experiences are to be raised to the level of a vivid, luminous expression of something rare. 'Great Poetry' blossoms then and there, in this fourth stage. However fine Chaucer's first outburst,

Enlumynd all Ytaille of Poetrie,

it is now surpassed in poetic valency by Marlowe's

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

The 'bruit de tous les infinis' in Marlowe reminds us of the unique oceanic swell of Milton's verse and the Vedic mantra of infinite liberation ascribed to Varuna. Hence in France Malherbe had to appear on the scene after Ronsard. It was Malherbe who was the father of classical French literature, and it is he who paved the way for that prince of classics, Pierre Corneille.

The natural march of literature towards the classical style shows also the very raison d'être of literature. The literary genius of a particular nation does not seem to attain its full strength unless and until it can discard as far as possible all that is environmental, common, ordinary and parochial in outlook. For the ultimate aim of literature is neither to reflect nor to ape the all-too-familiar daily life in its theme and in its way of expression. The object of true literature is to scan the details of a greater life in a far-off, inner and higher world. But to that end literature has to accept and adopt this world too. It has to manifest that world in this world, but as a refuge, a repository and means. True, the classicism with which we are so familiar cannot be regarded as the highest revelation in literature, for the genuine and the counterfeit are not the same. The works of Milton and

Pope, of Corneille and Delille, are not classics of the same type. For us Pope and Delille do not appear as true classics, at the best they are perhaps classical. Pope and Delille followed the same technique that had been introduced by Milton and Corneille in the literary art, but they went to an excess. .We shall deal with the drawback attending this excessiveness and deformation later on. Nevertheless, do they not point to the real secret character of the literary virtue?

In our Bengali literature Vidyapati and Chandidas are the pioneer poets who made an attempt at creating genuine poetry surpassing all plebeian poetry. They had infused the popular literature with a new spirit, and thus formed a basis for real poetic utterance. The joy we derive from the songs of Vidyapati and Chandidas can be called the real poetic pleasure. For example,

Hearken, O Madhava, Radha is at large.

(Vidyapati)

or,

I shall store up my Beloved in my soul.

To none shall I disclose

The perfect union of two hearts.

(Chandidas)

It is said that Valmiki is the pioneer poet in Sanskrit literature. In our Bengali literature it is Vidyapati, nay, to be more precise and accurate, it is Chandidas who is the father of poetry. He raised the natural vital experiences to the level of the psychic. He has transformed even colloquial expressions into a deeper rhythm and flow. But even theirs was only the initial stage that required a long time to develop fullness and maturity. In truth, this is the third stage we have already referred to. Throughout the era of the Vaishnava

poets, coming down to the time of Bharat Chandra the same line of sadhana, of spiritual practice, continued. The Bengali poets who flourished after Chandidas have hardly made any new contribution, they have not unveiled another layer of the soul of the poetic genius of Bengali literature. What they have done amounts to an external refinement and orderliness. The literature of this age has tried to transcend the ordinary thoughts, i.e., the manner of ordinary thinking, and has considerably succeeded too; still the presence of imperfection, the signs of a lower flight loom large there. We do not find there – in the words of Matthew Arnold – 'a humanity variously and fully developed' or a multifarious free scope of the universal life such as we have already mentioned.

This very achievement of breaking down the limited movements within a narrow compass and spreading it out into the vast has been won by Madhusudan, Bankim and Rabindranath in Bengali literature during the current period of English influence. The day Bankim produced his artistic beauty, 'Kapalkundala', and Madhusudan penned –

In a battle face to face,

When Birbahu,¹ the hero sovereign,

Kissed the dust and departed to the land of Death –

the day Rabindranath could declare –

Not mother, not daughter, not bride art thou, O Beauty

incarnate, O Urvasi, denizen of Paradise!–

was a momentous day for Bengali literature to proclaim the message of the universal muse and not exclusively its own parochial note. The genius of Bengal secured a place in the wide world overpassing the length and breadth of Bengal.

¹ The son of Ravana.

And Bengali poetry reached that fourth stage or the highest status.

Nevertheless, it may be asked if there has been the acme of literary creation that exceeds even the best creations of Madhusudan, Bankim and Rabindranath, I mean, the "truly classic literature" (littérature vraiment classique) of Sainte Beuve which will literally shine in letters of fire in the hearts of all men in all climes and times? Is there in Bengali any literature that consists of words of purest revelation? If so, to what extent? According to us, there is not perhaps an absolute absence of such a literature. No doubt, it is there, but it is very rare, rather exceptional. Bengali literature in its great achievement has not been able to make that its normal stand: the supreme classic heights are still an aspiration, they are yet to be attained and possessed.

(3)

We shall now try to probe to the bottom the question why the literature which we call plebeian or popular cannot form the best literature. The reason we have indicated is that such literature is exclusively confined to a particular time and clime; the free air of the world, the myriad waves of the vast cosmic life have no play there, it does not see man and creation in the perspective of the universe as a whole. That is not the sole reason of the matter, but we should clearly understand the deeper implication of this thing. For universal feeling does not necessarily mean cosmopolitanism. It is not true that a literature must be beautiful and sublime simply because it has connection and acquaintance with all the ages and countries and that it will be parochial precisely because it lacks these things. Cosmopolitanism is a thing especially of the modern age. In the days of yore there was not that close association and exchange of culture among different countries as we now find. It was not possible for our forefathers to know and assimilate the gifts of other civilisations

as we can do now. But who would merely on this ground dare to say that the literature of the ancient peoples was unrefined or insignificant? A Turgeniev, an Amiel, a Leconte de Lisle or a Pierre Loti can take birth only. in the present age. Dante, Homer, Valmiki or the most ancient Vedic sages – none of them, like Turgeniev, Amiel, Leconte de Lisle or Pierre Loti, sought for the tales of various other ages and countries, and yet have these modern poets and litterateurs been able to create anything similar to that standard world-literature?

The sense of universality means transcending the limitations of time and clime. Now, the main reason why man remains confined to a particular time and clime is this that he clings to a particular avocation or religion or institution – his very nature is to live within the confines of time and space. External life (life of the outside world) – that is to say, mixing with men of various countries, acquaintance and intimacy with the experiences and realisations of the different countries and epochs – can and do break and melt the narrowness to a considerable degree but cannot remove it altogether. For what is required is to cast a look at ourselves, to change something of our inner nature. One who has not been able to change this inner attitude will not get any genuine universality or all-pervading sovereignty even if he travels over the whole world. So what is required is to discover the universal soul in the heart and not outside. And, for that, three boundaries have to be crossed, three walls overleaped and this also in our inner being, in our inner chamber. The Vedic sage Shunahshepa says that the God Varuna has three knots and they have to be cut away: then and then alone man will ascend to the infinite wideness of Varuna and will get the limitless and unfathomable ocean of delight of Eternal Life. And what are these three knots? They are the knots of the Body, the Vital and the Mind. For the poets and litterateurs too there are three similar knots. First, the knot of the body, that is to say, the physical

sight, mere perception of the senses – to accept that which is external as absolute truth and to draw a picture of the outer form visible to the eyes and palpable by the senses. In literature it has been termed 'realism'. A thing must be shown exactly as it is seen with the physical eyes: this means that art is a photograph of nature, and it is the principle of 'realism'. We can express in one word the objections that have been or may be raised against 'realism': it has neither given nor can give birth to true or universal literature. For where do we find the universe, the whole? That is not in the external, not in the body. What is exclusively external, what is merely a body is only a narrow field of differences and divisions and strifes. True, there is some concrete union or harmony of the universe. But so long as we remain bound to the body we cannot get a gleam of that thing. This is as much the case with the aspirant soul as with the artist. The artist who is engrossed with the exterior is compelled to be confined to a particular time and space. He is only archaeological in his outlook. He is likely to collect some materials for art but he himself cannot create anything of his own. The paintings of Ravi Varma can never be placed in the comity of the world, for we find there only the outer sheath, devoid of life. No doubt that sheath may awaken some curiosity for its grotesqueness but never can it touch the heart. If Zola or Goncourt deserves a place in the assembly of nations, then I believe it is not for 'realism' but for something else, although 'realism' is in abundance there.

Therefore the idealist has put up a brave fight against the realist. The place of union of the universe is not in the body, but in the emotion of the vital being and the heart. Likewise vitalism stands over against materialism, and idealism or romanticism over against realism and naturalism. Bergson contra Haeckel, Paul Verlaine contra Guy de Maupassant and Théophile Gautier. But it does not mean that we shall arrive at the true universal literature if we solely cling to idealism, the vital being or emotion. True, the vital being is

above the body, and the creation has been extended and liberated to a great extent in it, but the universal is not met even here. The vital being is the second bondage of man. The poetry that has been created or based exclusively on the vital or the emotional stuff is clumsy and disorderly. There we find too much of the personality, the idiosyncrasy and fancy of the particular individual. Naturally it cannot bear the message of the vast universal life-force. The poet who is a slave of his emotional impulse must perforce live in the imaginative circle of his own temporary experience – his ego, the knot of his heart – and consider the narrow compass of his surrounding and time as vast and gigantic. The universe, the universal does not get a chance to be reflected in him. He can at best be a poet of a particular sect, of a group or limited collectivity.

So we find in literature another ideal which seeks to remove all the mist, the narrow horizon of the heart and emotions and stand supported by the mind and intelligence. And this ideal aims at a quiet and steady purity and wideness of thought. It is not possible for lawlessness, impurity, strife and narrowness to exist in the domain of thought in the same measure as it is possible in that of the vital being and the emotions. When we ascend to this domain we find a natural indifference or aloofness; we find a poise in a wider and freer world overriding the boundaries of an ignorant ego and a bounded personality. In the ancient literatures – such as Greek, Latin and Sanskrit – there is no such emotionalism as indulged, for example, by the romantics, noting of that indiscriminate and uncontrolled, that dark and confused passion born of rajasic inspiration. The main theme of those ancient literatures is objectivisation and generalisation, and so, wideness, vastness and universality are natural to them. In other words, a vitalistic literature is not classical literature; classicism and the classics bring in higher terms of literary creation. But is that the highest?

We say, "No." Intellect may anoint the body of literature

with a kind of sattwic quality, poise and grace; it may even make it rich with a diversity of manner and theme, yet this sattwic quality, this largeness and elevation, often lack what may be called depth and substance. Here we may get something of the rich smiling surface of the ocean, but not the real vastness, the infinity of the cosmic creation, its immeasurability. The literature which is formed with the help of thought and mental discernment, brain-power and intellectual skill may be, as we have already said, classical, it is not classic – it is not world-literature; it cannot focus and show the universal Muse, the figure of the cosmic beauty. It may at best give the frame-work of world-literature and never the inner élan vital, the secret soul of world literature. For the sole function of intellect is to place a thing in a systematic form and not to discover or reveal anything. Intellect and intelligence play with the materials touched by the senses and concretely felt by the heart. So, in the action of intellect, there is always a sense of division, want and deficiency – elements that are inherent in the gross senses and emotions upon which the intellect is based after all. In fact, the very function of the intellect is to see things divided and separated. It sees and understands the universe by analysing it, dissecting it. It fails to see the whole thing all at once, that is to say, simultaneously. It can never grasp the whole in a vast unity. Discerning intellect is, as the Upanishad says, a golden cover on the face of Truth, it cannot reveal the Truth in its reality, what it shows is a mere similitude or semblance of the Truth, its external grandeur, a remote expression of the Truth, and its divided and scattered rays. We can, of course, with the aid of intelligence form a workable acquaintance with the world. But that is not a true union. Based upon that ground alone classicism may easily become a store-house of lucid and decorative words and moral lessons, but it would find it extremely difficult to bring out the secret of things, the profound oneness with the universe. It is a very superficial judgment to say that the

influence of the intellectual faculty, the power of quiet intelligence, is what made the Greek, Latin, Sanskrit literatures classics. A deeper light and power dwelling behind this intellectual faculty is the source of the glory of the ancient classics; the intellectual faculty is only an outer robe of that inner spirit.

The Body, the Life and the Mind are only eternals. What is exclusively physical, vital or mental is mainly a field of difference, for it is a field of the finite. The Soul alone is the inner reality. And nothing but the Soul is the centre of the universe. The diversity and manifold particularities in the creation have their oneness and a vast and concrete harmony in the Soul. And if we realise this Soul we can easily and without fail embrace the universe. When That is known everything is known. In other words, not the gross perception of the senses, nor the impulse of emotions nor even the dexterity of thought but a divine vision or revelation is needed to create world-literature. This literature is neither realistic nor romantic nor even classical; it is revelatory. A particular thing when seen through revelation or divine vision no longer remains partial; it becomes integral, no more particular but universal. Time, place and subject become then embodiments of the Law of the Infinite, of the Rhythm of the all-encompassing Self, for it is only revelation, direct vision that can give the quintessence of all truths, the profoundest beauty of all the beauties.

Even in the body, in the perception of the gross physical senses, there is a profound truth, a supernal Beauty, a universal Form. There is a universality also in the vital being and the emotions. A higher grandeur, a greater dimension of the universe is reflected in the powers of the mind and intellect. But that universal revelation of which we speak is not the proper characteristic of mind, vitality and body; there is only an approach, a shadow, often a deformation of the Self in these fields. It is not that these lesser instruments are to be neglected in the creation of world-literature.

But they are to be seen from a higher, a transcendent plane. It is for this reason Kalidasa, a poet of physical joy and sensual pleasure, Valmiki, a poet of vital feeling and enchantment of the heart, and Vyasa, a poet of intellect and thinking power, are poets of all ages and countries.

We were dealing with the natural and the genuine in literature. That alone is real literature which sees a thing whatever it may be – in the great words of Spinoza, sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure of Eternity. This is the fundamental principle, the bedrock of real literature or of world-literature. Sub specie aeiernitatis – even a little of this saving factor saves us from a great peril. In the stark realism of a Balzac or in the winging romanticism of a Victor Hugo, or in the poised classicism of a Leconte de Lisle we get a glimpse of this very thing. That is why with all the defects we feel that the sleeping Brahman is, as it were, astir in them; that a cosmic life-force, a generous universal breath sways by in their creation, and we do not hesitate to hail them as poets of the world.

The same thing holds good with regard to the literature of a particular nation. It is not true that poetry sweet and enthralling, the magic of the ballads, is not known to the Maoris or the Santals or the Bhils. If we leave aside the case of these uncivilised aboriginals, we come everywhere across a decent class of literature among the cultured and civilised peoples. But it is to be questioned whether that literature can be called a world-literature or, even if it be so, then to what extent? Further, it has to be seen whether the poet there has been able to go beyond the reality of physical facts, the grandeurs of emotions or the dexterities of thought and has seen the thing – his time and space and subject – sub specie aeternitatis, with the lofty vision of the Soul of the divine poet, of the god Varuna, that surpasses the immediate and the superficial, whether he has been able to raise the natural object to its supra-natural prototype.

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