BLiterature-Apratim

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Michael’s epic has a prehistoric base. It is dated back to the ancient past
while the Aryan invaders were involved in a centuries-long clash with the native
Dravidians. In Hindu mythology, the Aryans are honored as gods and the native non-
Aryans are defamed as Rakshashas (i.e. demons). Rama and Ravana represent the
Aryan and the Dravidian races respectively. In Michael’s epic, the myth of Ramayana
has found a new significance. Ravana stands for the Indian soul while Rama’s army
is an implicit reflection of the British invaders. Thus Meghnadbadh appears to be an
epic of Indian nationalism.
It has also references to the poet’s own life. As he had forsaken his own
community and had been thrown aside by his conservative family and expelled from
Hindu college for conversion to Christianity, and because he had neglected his duty
towards his parents, he later expressed his ‘remorse’ through his depiction of
Meghnada, a patriot and obedient son, Ravana, a defender of his country and
Bivishana, a betrayer to his own countrymen. Besides, in this epic, he portrayed the
helplessness of man at the hands of fate. Its musical blank verse, its
characterization, its inherence of national contemporariness and above all, the tragic
presentation, rank it among the greatest epics of world literature.
Michael also wrote sonnets which are important for discovering the dark
corners of his life-history but which are, to my own judgment, quite archaic in
structure and in subject-matters and do not reveal his real poetic merit to us. An
exception is “Kapotaksha Nad” (“River Kapotaksha”) where he expresses patriotism
through his deep love for a river.
He even wrote dramatic monologues in Birangana (The Heroines) which are
more accurate in blank verse than his recognized masterpiece and exposes his
progressive outlook and respect for the fair sex.
But his dramatic works, though hailed by critics and spectators in his life-time,
are quite poor in artistic charisma. The only play that can be ranked in the first
category is a farce entitled Ekei Ki Boley Sabhayata? (Is It Called Civilization?) in
which he attacked the Bengali youth of his time for their blind imitation of western
life-style. It was later superseded by Dinabandhu Mitra’s Sadhabar Ekadashi (The
Fasting of Wives).
Sayeed Abubakar (b. 1972) has done a great job by translating Michael’s
English works into the typical Bangla diction that the master poet created.
Abubakar’s translations have been added to Michael’s works and thereby have
enriched Bangla literature.
Michael is an Augustan poet; with his sole attempt, he filled the want of Virgil,
Horace and Ovid; and also of Homer, Milton and Petrarch. He is in fact the greatest
poet of Renaissance whose works perfectly reveal the spirits of individualism,
liberalism and humanism.
Many poets of his time (e.g. Hemchandra and Nabinchandra) tried to
compose epic poems, but none of them achieved his equal position. Michael’s
Meghnadbadh has never been subsided by any other epic work in our language.