... a right-about turn. It was Bankim and Madhusudan who have placed Bengali literature on the macadamized road of modernism. Still, while walking on that road, somehow we were not able to shake off completely the touch of clay under the feet and the smell of swampy lands around. It was Tagore's mastercraft that enabled Bengali literature to drive in coachand-four through the highways. Not only so, in addition... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 Rabindranath and Modernism (I) BENGALI literature has reached the stage of modernism and even ultra-modernism. This achievement is, we may say point-blank, the contribution of Rabindranath. Not that the movement was totally absent before the advent of Rabindranath. But it is from him that the current... moderns like polyphonic movements, conglomerations of many heterogeneous sounds. From this standpoint it will be no exaggeration to say that Rabindranath Tagore has modernised the Bengalis and Bengali literature and the Bengali heart. Madhusudan brought in Blank Verse. But by creating and introducing the metre of stresses Tagore brought about a speciality in modernism. In words, rhythms and concepts ...
... 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... 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... 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 ...
... royal intellect. But his ten master-pieces Page 108 of fiction are enough. They would serve to immortalise ten reputations. HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE To assign Bankim's place in Bengali literature is sufficiently easy: there is no prose-writer, and only one poet who can compete with him. More difficulties enter into any comparison of him with the best English novelists; yet I think he... terseness, strength and sweetness is too high a task for a pen like mine. I will remark this only that what marks Bankim above all, is his unfailing sense of beauty. This is indeed the note of Bengali literature and the one high thing it has gained from a close acquaintance with European models. The hideous grotesques of old Hindu Art, the monkey-rabble of Ram and the ten heads of Ravan, are henceforth ...
... Bengali ladies. The sneer is a little out of date, but a few years ago it would not have been so utterly beside the mark. All honour then to the women of Bengal, whose cultured appreciation kept Bengali literature alive! And all honour to the noble few who with only the women of Bengal and a small class of cultured men to appreciate their efforts, adhered to the language our forefathers spoke, and did... of which your legal wisdom takes little cognizance, by noble thoughts, by high deeds, by immortal writings. Bankim and Madhu Sudan have given the world three noble things. They have given it Bengali literature, a literature whose princelier creations can bear comparison with the proudest classics of modern Europe. They have given it the Bengali language. The dialect of Bengal is no longer a dialect ...
... from this book. This book is much superior than those books which are generally published now-a-days in Bengali literature and receive praises. This is no doubt a wonderful piece of literature.´ "He (Sarat Chandra) has no doubt that this book will get a special place in modern Bengali literature. On the whole the book is a masterly creation." This is no formal praise as you can see. So can't help ...
... song in place of the mind-made article. What she is writing seems to me exceedingly striking. We don't meet any such original ideas and expressions in Bengali literature. Of course not—she was not inspired this time by Bengali literature, but by the Faery International. It is a great mystery to me. Comparing her original turn, expressions, speed, with her past work—what a miraculously rapid ...
... to the Mother: 9.1.1967 Divine Mother, In order to familiarize students with Bengali literature and deepen their knowledge of it, we wish to create a Dramatic section. This section would present to the lovers of Bengali literature the poetic works and stories of Bengali writers and poets. Sri Nolinikanto Gupta, Sri Nolinikanto Sarkar, Kavi Nishikanto, Sri ...
... which will be not European but Indian. The impulse is already working in Bengali art and literature. The need of self-expression for the national spirit in politics suddenly brought back Bengali literature to its essential and eternal self and it was in our recent national songs that this self-realisation came. The lyric and the lyrical spirit, the spirit of simple, direct and poignant expression ...
... written so much why not put another question? Yesterday Annada Sankar Roy 12 (I.C.S. whom you know who has now turned spiritual and has described my Bengali poems in his P.E.N, book on Bengali literature as “poems of a flame-like purity “, etc.) wrote to me not to write English verses. His argument is the old one: you can’t create first-class stuff in a learned language. And then where Tagore ...
... this feat been possible? A fellow who has never written any bit of poetry produces, just after one or two pieces, a remarkable poem and a long one at that, which will have an abiding place in Bengali literature! How could he have produced it? It has really puzzled me a lot. What a "hower" you are! You are puzzled because you are always demanding a rational process familiar to the ordinary physical ...
... Vedic and Upanishadic lore and in the classical languages of the West has given him a literary acumen which he has brilliantly employed in some of his most outstanding studies in modern and early Bengali literature. As a critic of Tagore's works, he is recognised as an authority. His originality of thought and literary talents were recognised and commended by Rabindranath Tagore himself four ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 Tagore the Unique IT is no hyperbole to say that Tagore is to Bengali literature what Shakespeare is to English, Goethe to German, Tolstoy to Russian, or Dante to Italian and, to go into the remoter past, what Virgil was to Latin and Homer to Greek or, in our country, what Kalidasa was to ancient Sanskrit. ...
... to spend some money whenever there is any necessity. You may want to know what I do with the money. Well, I don't mind telling you. I am very fond of reading books - history, English and Bengali literature, descriptions of historic sites, forts and temples, etc. I have set up a small library of my own. I spend some amount on getting these books. On Sundays or holidays I go for long rides on ...
... spite of Moliere and Corneille and Hugo, stands as the most representative French poet, the embodiment of French resthesis par excellence. Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali literature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan: still one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature belonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and fosterer ...
... Vedic and Upanishadic lore and in the classical languages of the West has given him a literary acumen which he has brilliantly employed in some of his most outstanding studies in modern and early Bengali literature. As a critic of Tagore's works, he is recognised as an authority. His originality of thought and literary talents were recognised and commended by Rabindranath Tagore himself. His monograph ...
... well. He was thus able by and by to read and appreciate the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the masterpieces of Kalidasa, the shatakas of Bhartrihari, not to mention the classics of modem Bengali literature. Sri Aurobindo was in this manner happily restored to his great cultural heritage, and never again would he be induced to lose it! He was thrilled by the poetry of Madhusudan, he was deeply ...
... relationship. -Sarat Chandra Chatterjee (1876-1938), was an artist with words. The themes in his novels dealt with the social conditions of his times. He shone like the full moon in the sky of Bengali literature. Rabindranath Tagore Page 44 In fact a galaxy of writers graced Bengal's literary firmament. But outshining them all, like the midday sun, was: ...
... help. The Divine wants the full flowering of a being. It was during those three months' virtual incarceration, with practically nothing to do, that the idea came to Moni to woo the Muse of Bengali literature. Moni and Bejoy, specially the former, did some studies. Moni, I happen to know, was well versed in Bengali and English and French. He may have learnt Tamil also. But Sri Aurobindo was not ...
... which many new developments were brought to light or tested and in the second corrected by the experience of a greater field of warfare and more normal conditions. The book is a new departure in Bengali literature and one which shows the new trend of the national mind. In the old days of a narrow life and confined aspirations, we were satisfied with the production of romantic poetry and novels varied by ...
... school in New Delhi. She was a writer of short stories in Hindi and took part in radio programs and was interested in fine arts — dance, music, classical films, etc. She also had a great love for Bengali literature. The larger setting of our family was one of great reverence for spiritual personalities in general, who were always guests at our house. I was very conscious of this atmosphere. From an early ...
... metre? That I suppose was the position before. Originally, indeed there was only one stream recognised,—that I remember very well for it was the time when I was learning and assiduously reading Bengali literature; at that time what you now call svara vrtta 2 was regarded as mere popular verse or an old irregular verse form. Afterwards with the advent and development of Tagore's poetry, one began to ...
... Letter follows. ____________________ 1. Sarat Chandra Chatterji (15 September 1876 - 16 January 1938), a top Bengali novelist and short story writer. He is ranked just after Rabindranath in Bengali literature. Some of his books are based on his own adventures of which he had plenty. He had also joined several Political movements, and written articles on politics which are scattered in various periodicals ...
... elsewhere. 16 January 1937 A Language Grows and Is Not Made Will it be a narrowness on the part of the Calcutta University if it does not include foreign words for the enrichment of Bengali literature? It is a matter of opinion and tastes differ. But I don't see how a University can change the language. A language grows and is not made, except in so far as it is the great poets and prose ...
... metre? That I suppose was the position before. Originally, indeed, there was only one stream recognised,—that I remember very well, for it was the time when I was learning and assiduously reading Bengali literature; at that time what you now call svara-vṛtta was regarded as mere popular verse or an old irregular verse-form. Afterwards with the advent and development of Tagore's poetry, one began to hear ...
... are quite a few genuinely humorous people who themselves seldom laugh although their humorous words or writings may make others laugh a lot. In the recent past there has been a great writer in Bengali literature of the name of Rajshekhar Basu. He was a scientist by profession, also at the same time an erudite scholar and a reputed lexicographer. In his personal life and social dealings he was a person ...
... in his prose the logic of intelligence may not be evident but there is a logic of feeling which is still, cogent and convincing, yet more living and dynamic. As regards the third creator of Bengali literature, I mean Saratchandra, we may notice here the difference between him, and Tagore. The language of Saratchandra is as straight, translucent and simple as that of Bankim; but Bankim was not always ...
... Kumar Dutt, Keshav Chandra Sen, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, poet Madhusudan Dutt, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, the inspired seer of the National Anthem, Bande Mataram, and the greatest novelist in Bengali literature. Dr. Rajendra Lal Mitra, Sri Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, Yogi Vijay Krishna Goswami, the world-poet Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, the gifted pioneer of the new school ...
... As already stated, Sri Aurobindo had commenced learning Bengali while at Cambridge, and he read many authors during his stay at Baroda. He wanted to make himself familiar with the growth of Bengali literature, to understand the idiom of the spoken language and to learn to speak it. Dinendra Roy tried to learn French and German from Sri Aurobindo. The study that Sri Aurobindo did with Roy was not of ...
... the river Hooghly (otherwise known as the Bhagirathi), it is about eleven miles to the north of Calcutta. Konnagar is apparently a place of considerable antiquity, for it is mentioned in old Bengali literature. The Mitras and the Ghoses of Konnagar have carved out creditable names for themselves in the political and cultural history of Bengal. Among the many outstanding men who have sprung up from ...
... seems to have worked out a synthesis in his own spiritual life between the three dominant world-cultures that have come face to face in modern India." 1 He was an acknowledged leader in Bengali literature. Poems, essays, articles flowed freely from his pen. And he gave lectures. His words —from his pen or his tongue — always stirred up a hornet's nest, however innocent the subject might be. Complained ...
... he could understand nothing. "Yes, of course!" exclaimed the good doctor, and from then on he always spoke in Bengali. A cultured man, Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose was profoundly interested in Bengali literature. Bankim's youngest brother, Purna Chandra Chatterjee, gives a personal account of Dr. Ghose. "Every evening," he wrote in Narayan, a Bengali magazine edited by C. R. Das, "we would meet at ...
... Dinendra Kumar Roy. 1. Pandit Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar (1820-91), was an eminent educationist and social reformer. His Bengali prose works earned for him the title of father of Bengali prose literature. An orthodox Hindu, he refused to attend Government functions where his garb of dhoti, chaddar and slippers was banned, even though he was the Principal of the Government College, Calcutta... with spoken Bengali and its idiomatic usage. Thus Sri Aurobindo had "mastered Greek and Latin, English and French and had also acquired some familiarity with continental languages like German and Italian," and a little Spanish; among the Indian languages were Sanskrit and Bengali, Gujarati and Hindi, some Tamil, and Marathi which "he spoke better than Bengali," remarked his Bengali teacher Dinendra... He asked me, 'Dutt, aren't you a Bengali?' 'Yes, but why do you want to know?' I asked. 'During my days at Cambridge there was an extraordinary Indian student, with a profound knowledge in Greek and Latin, named Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose. I was acquainted with him, a very fine man; I got a lot of help from him for my studies. Do you know him? He was perhaps a Bengali.'" At the time Dutt had not met Sri ...
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