Download Romantic revival in nineteenth century England was

CH APTER V I
C O N C L U S IO N
Romantic revival in nineteenth century England was
the reaction against a reason-dominated period. The sense of
revolt:
involved
in
this
react.! on had
endowed
the
English
mind with a new inquisitiveness with which it had learnt
explore
the unknown
Plasticity
of
possibilities
Romanticism
of the human
is
a
to
intellect-.
fruit
of
this
inquisitiveness. But, Romanticism in Assamese literature was
the
conscious
established
adaptation
itself
in
of
an
ideal
Chat
the world of thought:,
had
and
already
as
such,
emergence of Romanticism here did not. demand the exertion of
mental
faculties
Romanticists
the
in
the
same way
as
in England.
in Assam had to face Che
intellect:
in harmonizing
Yet',
the
arduous exertion of
two different:
traditions
and
also in harmonizing the past with the present:.
"The late entry of Assam into the fold of British
rule and the slow pace of English education in the province
prevent.ed a sudden exposure of the Assamese to Western ideas
which could otherwise have taken the traditional society
of
l
Assam by storm".
Che
Renaissance
traditional
And this is the reason that the wave of
Chat: had
basis
swept: over
unshaken.
But
this
Assam,
had
exerted
a
left
the
negative
1. TiloCCama Misra : Literature and Society in Assam, Omsons
Publications, New Delhi, 1987, p. 185.
272
influence as well. The Indian mind is conditioned by a sense
of permanence and t:hus wants, to some extent,
of
translating
the human
potentialities
in the power
int o act:ion which
the Western mind had acquired through endless struggle with
uncertainty.
aspirations
The
of
faiths
man
of
and
all
beliefs,
time
had
and
struggles
found
their
reflect:
only
and
place
in
English Romantic poetry.
...Indian
Renaissance
suppressed
hopes
middle
class
dreams
of
could
and
that
aspirations
could
boundless
characterised
the
never
of
colonial
aspire
individual
English
a
t:o
the
freedom
Renaissance.
late entry into the colonial
the
that:
Assam's
fold and her doubly
subordinated position as a hinterland of Calcutta,
made the limitations of the
movement
which
has
literary
been
cal led
2
Renaissance, even more pronounced .
and social
the
Assam
Thus Assamese poetry found its fountain partially blocked in
spite of an equally wide purview
matter.
It also could not
English Romantic
the
poets'
constant
under
the
poetry
commitment
caution
inimical
in the choice of subject-
achieve
and
to
acquired by Bengal
preserve
accompanied
attitude
the fluidity natural
by
of
2. Ibid., pp. 239-240.
because of
identity
a
feeling
of
the
British
rule.
positive aspects of the traditional
over1ooked.
their
stability
to
with
insecurity
must
But
the
not. be
273
, . .the
st;rong
bonds
of
tradition
that
were
cherished by iI:s prominent: representatives gave it
a distinctly nationalist: charact:er. It: was because
of this character that the Renaissance which took
place in Assam during the
the
early
certain
decades
of
distinctly
pan-Indian
hues
nineteenth
the
local
despite
twentieth
as
the
well
fact
synthetic
has
already
phenomenon.
There
process
of
synthesi zing
occurred
in
the
century
literature
commonness.
product
of
late
said
is
two
or
Assamese
humanistic
more
and
It
that,
been said,
was
is
a
peculiar
about
t.he
cultures
that:
had
early
to have
literature
is
that:
twentieth
a universal
a
composite
flowed
along with the British rule and the spiritual
down to us from generation
it:
3
the
seems
tradition
broader
that: Romanticism
nothing
nineteenth
of Assam.
"Modern
the
been
and
acquired
as
originally inspired by Western ideas.
It
century
to
India
values, handed
to generati o n " .^ As has
already
some of the prominent: characteristics of English
Romanticism
were
present:
in
profusion
in
the
ancient:
Sanskrit literature the perception of which generated a deep
veneration
immediate
and
love
adaptation.
for
our
Moral
pioneers of the new ideal
own
past.
The
commitment- would
to accept: or reject
present:
not
urged
allow the
any of
them.
Hence a whole hearted endeavour was made to create something
3. Ibid., p. 241.
4.
Trailokyanath Goswami
: 'Lakshminath Bezbaroa and the
Assamese Literature in the Fourth Decade of the
Twentieth Century* in Lakshminath Bezbaroa, the
Sahityarathi of Assam, e d . Maheswar Neog, Gauhati
University, 1972, p. 93.
274
new
which
Whatever
naturally
the
acquired
positive
or
the
the
synthetic
negative
character.
qualities
of
the
Renaissance may be, the Assamese Romantic poets could work
out a perfect synthesis of all. Though the overwhelming bias
of the Renaissance towards secularism is a well-established
fact, most of the Assamese poets could maintain a uniformity
between
the
old
and
the
new tradition;
and
Lakshminath
Bezbaroa had accomplished a marvel in this respect.
Each
poet
has
his
own
concept
general; a careful study of the whole gamut
works
reveals
particular
it.
period
The
views
determine
common
the
in
of
in
of his creative
the
prominent,
poetry
poets
of
a
characteristics
and also the nature of that particular trend though it: is
really a difficult task to answer the question
as to what
poetry is or what: it: should be. Though the Romantic
poets
are very often accused of sentimentalism, indolence, and, at
times,
obscurity
caused by excessive
imagination,
each
of
the English Romantic poets had, in fact, a very clear vision
of
the
nature
and purpose
of
poetry.
The
principle of poetry is that: of Wordsworth—
is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful
mostly
accepted
"all good poetry
feelings".
5
It
is
also "the first and last of all knowledge"^ Shelley defined
5.
William Wordsworth :
English Critical
Edmund EC Jones',
London, 1965, p.
6. Ibid., p. 16.
'Poetry and Poetic Diction' in
Essays (Nineteenth Century) e d . ,
(1916) , Oxford Universit y Press,
5.
275
it:
as the "expression of the
7
im a g in a tio n " .
For him "A poem
8
is t:he very image of life expressed in its eternal
truth".
Byron,
in
passion.
Keats
shared
his
Don Juan,
identified
Wordsworth's
imagination and
view
poe!:ry
in
spontaneity when he
with
his
says
emphasis
that: "If
on
poetry
comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree it had better not:
q
come at all".
Arnold emphasized "poetic truth" and "poetic
beauty". In spite of the apparent differences of their views,
the Romantic
poets
were
bound
by
some
common
norms
attributed to poetry like exercise of imagination,
beauty
and
emotion,
truth,
spontaneity of expression,
simplicity,
and the like;
they
love of
intensity
of
and these they observed
in their creations. The magnitude of views and their equally
extended applications
expected in Assamese
already
discussed.
in English Romantic poetry cannot
in equal
Yet:
term due to its
Assamese
founded on vague abstraction and,
Romantic
limitations
poetry
in truth,
be
was
not:
the poets had
to be more alert: because of their pronounced commitment:.
Lakshminath Bezbaroa expressed his view of poetry
clearly in
his
discussion
of
Assamese
language
and
literature. He believed that, poetry should possess subtlety
7. P.B. Shelley : 'A Defence of Poetry' in Engli sh Cri ti ca 1
Essays (Nineteenth Century), ed. Edmund D. Jones
(1916), Oxford University Press, London, 1965, p.
1 0 2 .
8. Ibid., p . 109.
9.
Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations (Third Edi ti o n )(1941 ) ,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989, p. 293.
276
of thought, freedom of expression and spontaneity.
He also
held that, poetry should have universal appeal and it should
be able to reflect the limitless infinite within the bounds
of the finite. ^
Like the English Romantic poets, he could
follow his theory in his own poems very aptly. His
'Kavifa'
is a beautiful expression of his idea of what poetry is and
this is quite in conformity with the views of the English
Romantic poets. Ratnakanta Barkakati
in saying
that
true
literature
shared Bezbaroa's view
should
always
be
also advocated the subjective nature and universal
poetry.
12
views
of
Other
Assamese
poets
though
their
poetry
also
have
poems;
free.
appeal of
expressed
(vide
He
their
'Kavita'
by
Durgeswar Sarma ) and as can be expected, they are similar in
nature, as the ideal itself was a conscious adoption. In its
growth
Romanticism
individual
exertion
The Assamese poets
establish
in
strong
Assamese
poetry
to the extent
followed
individual
had
of English
set ideals
conviction
above
involved
Romanticism.
and thus
norms in the manner of the English Romantics.
their competence in giving local
not:
could not:
the
common
They
showed
colour to borrowed traits
and their poetry never gave any idea of incongrui t:y.
10. Lakshminath Bezbaroa : Lakshminath Bezbaroa Granthavali
(Part II), ed. Atulchandra Hazarika (1970 )> Sahitya
Prakash, Guwahati, 1988, pp.1864-65.
11. Ibid., p . 1863.
12.
Ratnakanta
Barkakati
: Ratnakanta Barkakatir Gadya
Sambhar, ed. Jogendranarayan Bhuyan, Lawyer's Book
Stall, Guwahati, 1977, pp. 258-259.
277
Lakshminath
Hemchandra
Goswami,
Bezbaroa,
the
Chandrakumar
three
persons
Agarwal a
ushering
and
in
the
Romantic ideal into Assamese poetry had imported quite a few
prominent characteristics of English Romanticism. A love for
the
glories
Chandrakumar
opened
of
our
past
in
Agarwala
and
love
a new horizon
for
the
Bezbaroa,
in
humanism
in
Goswami
had
Hemchandra
incipient
Assamese
Romantic
poetry.
One salient feature of English Romanticism is the
extraordinary exercise of imagination and it: sanctioned such
an all
inclusive
range to the mental faculty that it even
included reality itself into its realm.
believed
in an ulterior
"The Romantic poets
reality and based their poetry on
it, they found it in different ways and made different use
of it".
13
Thus the Romantics dreamt: of a better and happier
world to come on which to build "Utopias" of the future. Butmost;
of
the
Assamese
Romantic
poets,
as
inheritors
of
traditional Indian philosophy conceived of this happiness in
a
world
beyond
this
world.
Most;
of
pantheistic belief of Indian philosophy.
soul,
belief
in
rebirth,
desire in a world beyond—
and
and
Ratnakanta
evinced
fulfilment
of
unfulfilled
Nalinibala Devi,
Barkakati.
These
a
Immortality of the
these form the burden of
poems of Chandrakumar Agarwala,
Sarma
them
poets
many
Durgeswar
along
with
13. Mourice Bowra : The Romantic Imagination (1950), Oxford
University Press, London, 1976, p. 13.
278
Ambikagiri
Roychoudhury proved
spiritualists
mysticism
though
of
Agarwala's
Chandrakumar
intense
love
density of thought,
and
also
longing
there
his
is
of
English Romantic
and
beauty,
that
of
combined
other
In this
poets
poems.
His
the
to
others.
nature
of
yearned
respect, he is more
in comparison
the
with his innate
object
mystics
and
between
lent a mystic touch to his
whereas
realization of God.
mystics
difference
Agarwala
transcendental
is beauty
themselves
the
poems
mystic
for
the
akin to the
other
Assamese
poets. Shelley was also a mystic of beauty.
Though
Supreme
Power
is
the
realization
the
object,
than Chandrakumar Agarwala,
they
did
not:
show
the! r absorption
of
of
the
and
union
Assamese
they
rejected
based
indifference
to
terrestrial
in the object: of devotion.
their
their
of this terrestrial
While
submission,
is
fundamentally
ennobling
14.
S.N.
of
illusion
Nalinibala
not
on
the
that
an
of
Devi's
beauty
in
Even in a state
to
f:his world.
U p a n i s h a d s , they
negates
poems
R o y c h o u d h u r y 's
an active,
principle
other
the
worth
world.
Ambikagiri
"mysticism
philosophy
doctrine
mystics
the
like their English c o u n t e r p a r t s ,
of elevation they did not want, in attachment
While
with
poems
intellectual
formative,
life"
profess
establish
theory;
creative,
Roychoudhury
Dasgupta
:
Hindu Mysticism
Banarsidass, New Delhi, 1987, p.
humble
it
elevating
could
(1927),
IX.
that:
is
and
extend
Mot i Ia 1
279
his vitality to any field of human though!:. He could even
endow his frustration with a new prospect. He found himself
and Jatindranath Dowerah
lost himself
"If Nalini
teaches
instils
Devi's
courage
poetry
into
us".
If
us
in frustrated
faith,
unity
is
love.
Roychoudhury's
the
essence
of
Nalinibala Devi, diversity is the essence of Roychoudhury.
The English Romantic poets glorified both the soul
and
the
senses.
Browning
seems
to
be
vindictive
in
establishing the love of this world and life, but is equally
earnest about the great ness of the soul
•
How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit: to employ
All the heart: and the soul and the senses, for ever in joy!
'Saul '
The
represented
extreme
by
verges
Nalinibala
of
Devi
soul
and
and
sense,
Devakanta
as
Barua
respectively, seem to meet: in Ambikagiri Roychoudhury.
Romantic poetry is based on love— love
of man, love
of nature, love of beauty, love of life and this world, and
also the
love
of the world beyond,
love of the
past: and
also of the present, and love of freedom. And this is true of
Assamese poetry as well. Love of man had reached its culmina­
tion
in
Chandrakumar
Agarwala.
Yet: exact
counterparts
of
Simon Lee or the Leech Gatherer of Wordsworth are nowhere t:o
15.
Hem Barua : Assamese Literature, National
New DelhT^ 1965, p^ 1 6 4 .
Book
Trust,
280
be found in Assamese poetry.
Nostalgia, another Romantic feature, is present' in
i-he poems of most: of the Assamese poets with the exclusion
of
Ambikagiri
with the past;
Roychoudhury. Roychoudhury
he is,
as is usual
is
not
occupied
of a man of action and
energy, a man of the present. On the other hand,
forms
the
Rajkhowa.
is
essence
of
Raghunath
Like in English poems,
evident
in
conspicuous
Assamese
poems
Choudhary
and
nostalgia
Shailadhar
reminiscence of childhood
of
the
time
and
is
most
in Raghunath Choudhary.
Raghunath Choudhary, in his treatment: and love of
nature,
almost
attained
the
perfection
of
Wordsworth
and
Keats. The jovial mood and effusive nature of his poetry are
indicative of the simplicity and spontaneity characteristic
of Romantic poetry. Concept: of nature in Assamese poetry is
generally
Wordsworthian
expressed
in
the
poems
revelation of Nature
Wordswor !:hi an
poetry.
and
sense,
of
not:
of
the
Tennyson
critical
and
as the "living essence"
has
not:
been
achieved
type
Arnold.
Yet;
in the exact
in
Assamese
In no Assamese poet's work nature performs any role
in creating any complex psychological
situation or mood as
it did in Browning's poems.
The
English
Romantic
poets,
particul ar 1y
Words­
worth, were keen in delineating the critical analysis of the
281
mental
processes.
This
is
not: present:
in Assamese
poetry
though there are very minute observations of the different:
moods of the human mind
changes
in
Raghunath
the
and its
external
Choudhary
world.
could
reactions
to
In
the
manner
transform
the
acute
the natural
of
Keats,
feeling
of
agony into thrills of joy in the bosom of nature.
In Wordsworth's poetry, "more perhaps than in that:
of any other man, we frequently find images and sentiments,
which
we
have
seen
and
felt
particularly reflecting on them,
by him,
a
thousand
and which,
times,
without:
when presented
flash upon us with all the delight and surprise of
novelty".^
This
applies,
very
aptly,
to
the
poems
of
Raghunath Choudhary.
For Byron, poetry is identical with passion :
Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought:
Dash into poetry, which is but: passion.
'Don Juan'
Due
to
the
1imitations
already
discussed,
Assamese
poets could not glorify human passion in the same way that
the English poets did. Yet Ambikagiri Roychoudhury's poems,
both mystical and patriotic, almost overcame this limitation
It was because of their attachment to tradition that
poets
16. James Montgomery : Romantic Bards and British Reviewers
ed. John 0. Hayden, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London, 1971, p. 30.
282
like Byron and even Keats
could nor: become
favourite with
t:he Assamese poets, though the influence of the -latter, on
most of them, is more than manifest. It was in the poems of
the
last
Romantic
poet
Devakanta
Barua
only
that
human
passion, in its real intensity, flashed brilliantly. Yet the
Assamese poets more than made up this weakness with emotion
heightened
by
tradition.
equal
intensive
nature
of
the
national
They often expressed contradictory emof'i ons wi t:h
intensity.
Choudhary.
both
the
This
is
most
evident.
in
His poems are equally impressive
the
moods
of
joviality
and
Raghunath
in delineating
melancholy.
feelings are present: in Jatindranath Dowerah
Contradictory
also.
implorations to forget: the past, and remember the
Both his
same evoke
equal sympathy in the mind of the reader.
Whether
simplicity
and
Shelley's
their
philosophy
familiarity,
'Love's
Romantic
for
poets
the
for
Wordsworth's
philosophy'
from
or
had
early
'Lucy'
enchanted
period
to
the
the
decline. Lakshminath Bezbaroa, Durgeswar Sarma,
Bhuyan
and
Atulchandra
Hazarika
were
their
and
Assamese
period
of
Suryyakumar
fascinated
by
the
'Lucy' poems, particularly the second and the fourth in the
series
for
'Love's
which
they
Philosophy'
Assamese
poets.
had
had
rendered
also
equal
Lakshminath
Sinhadatta
Deva
contributed
to
Adhikari
Assamese
them
poetry
with
Assamese.
attraction
Bezbaroa,
and
into
for
Durgeswar
Ratnakanta
translations
the
Sarma,
Barkakati
of
this
283
beautiful
poem.
Daffodils'
In
!:he
inspired
Chandrakumar
same
one
Agarwala,
manner
exquisite
Dimbeswar
Wordsworth’s
poem
Neog
by
and
'The
each
of
Kamaleswar
Chaliha- as it: has been already pointed out:.
It has
already
been
mentioned
that: the
transla­
tions by the Assamese poets were from their heart in such a
manner that they had achieved the status of the original. It
was because the import of the Romantic ideal
into Assamese
was based in the form of real influence mostly and hardly in
the form of imitation. Imitation is an uninspired mechanical
work.
Both
Socrates
and
Aristotle
defined
poetry
as
imitation. But: the term "imitation" carried a significance,
in
their dialogues,
modern context.
different
Their
from
theory was
and wider
supported
than
by Locke
on. As has been mentioned in the first, chapter,
ticists
rejected
Locke's
that
reflects
the
mind
is
lamp,
the
contribution
adoption
of
to
the
analogy of the
external
"a
the
objects.
radiant
objects
Romantic
ideal
mind
Their
projector
it
later
the Roman­
as
a mirror
analogy for the
which
perceives".^'7
from
in the
English
the
makes
In
a
their
Assamese
Romantic poets proved themselves true followers of the same
in this light as well.
Another analogy of the thinking mind used by the
English Romantics is the Aeolian lyre.
17.
M.H.
Both Wordsworth and
Abrams : Preface to The Mirror and the Lamp :
Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953),
Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
284
Shelly used t:his analogy
perception
as
composition".
well
1 ft
"as
a construct:
as
for
the
for the
poetic
The Assamese poets had used
the
mind
in
mind
in
'Bin'
for
this image, very effective use of which is evident in the
two poems under the same title,
'Bin-Boragi', by Lakshminath
Bezbaroa and by Chandrakumar Agarwala.
One
of
Assamese poets'
and
the
new
who
Classical
poets
to
factors
that
had
worked
behind
the
wonderful accomplishment in uniting the old
is
Choudhary
shape
the
freedom
had
retained
like
modern
of
lyric
expression.
the
Kalidas
with
and
his
It
was
Raghunath
influence
of
yet. had
given
consciousness
the
great
a unique
of
the
new
Blake
and
conceived
the
tradition formed by the English influence.
Most
of
the
English
Romantic
Shelley being the prominent: two
role
of
the
poet,
as
a
prophet
poets,
among them,
or
a
seer.
Chandrakumar
Agarwala evinced profound faith in such a role of the poet-.
Lakshminath Bezbaroa, Hemchandra Goswami, Hiteswar Barbarua,
Ambikagiri Roychoudhury and even Nalinibala Devi shared such
belief.
Jatindranath
Dowerah,
Nalinibala
Devi
and
Ratnakanta Barkakati wi t:h their self-absorption and love of
isolation, represented the intensely
personal note that had
begun to resound in Assamese poetry in the second phase of
18. Ibid., p . 61.
285
the
post-Jonaki
solitary
man
inherent,
in
era.
all
The
germination
through
English
fact,
in
its
two
of
the
image
Romantic
more
of
poetry
precisely
a
was
defined
features, individualism and subjectivism. Idea of the poet's
estrangement is most: prominent in Pater and W.B. Yeats. For
Pater "the estranged morality of artists is the only genuine
kind".
19
W.B. Yeats conceived the poet as the antithesis of
the man of
action
20
and Jatindranath Dowerah
responded to
this Yeatsian formula best.
As
political
has
been
mentioned
and
social
in
set-up,
the
fourth
during
the
chapt e r , the
time
of
the
emergence of Romanticism in, or rather migration of if: into
Assam, did not encourage the pursuit of pure aestheticism.
Thus
Romanticism
in
Assam
could
not.
evolve
into
any
complicated form like aesthetic Romanticism in English poetry.
Though
the
chief
inspiration
behind
Assamese
Romantic poetry was nature in her wide expanse in the vastly
rural and agricultural Assam, it was humanism with which it
had
marked
its
life-span;
Chandrakumar
Agarwala,
poetry
ended
and
with
it
the
achieved
greatest
Devakanta
its
perfection
humanist:
Barua,
in
in
Assamese
another
great:
humanist. With the publication of the magazine Jayant i under
the
19.
editorship
of
Chakreswar
Bhattacharyya
Frank Kermode : Romantic Image, Routledge
Paul, London, 1957, p. 22.
20. Ibid., p. 25.
and
and
Kamal
Kegan
286
Narayan
Dev
1iterature
from
was
the
year
heralded;
1943,
and
a
with
new
that
age
in
Assamese
Romanticism
in
Assamese poetry came ho be regarded as a mode of poetry of
the past.
21.
21
Goblnda Prasad Sarnia : 'The
Progressive Movement in
Assamese Literature' in Contribution of Writers to
Indian Freedom Movement:, e d . N.V. Krishna Warrior,
Indian Writers Union, Arunapuram, Kerala, 1985.