BLiterature-Apratim

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lovers. And at the end of the novel, he glorifies sacrifice for religiosity and piety on
the question of love and sexuality.
Rajani, another fictional work by him, is a dramatic presentation (comprised of
monologues) of different characters who are inflicted with psychological dilemma.
The characters uphold their own speech and thus the exposition of the writer’s own
mind seems objective.
And Krishnakanter Will (The Will of Krishnakanta) is a social novel having
deep psychological revelation. A babu (i.e. Bengali Hindu gentleman), who loved his
wife sincerely, leaves her for a widow who has extraordinary physical beauty. Later
that woman betrays with him and he kills her mercilessly. His first wife also dies, and
he becomes a vagabond hermit forsaking social life. Bankim, in this outstanding
novel, depicts man’s sexual hunger, thirst for beauty and false lovers’ immorality. He
champions pure and loyal love, a love based on religiosity, a love beyond mere
physical attraction and false moments’ momentary impulse.
His Kamalakanter Daptar (Kamalakanta’s Office) is a memorable satire,
perhaps the best in this genre. The behavioral incongruities of a Bengali gentleman
are drawn and ridiculed in this writing; his words are mostly philosophical and
sometimes poetic. Lokrahashya (Mysteries of Men) and Muchiram Goorer
Jibancharit (A Life-sketch of Muchiram Goor) are his other satires.
Philosophically Bankim was a Positivist – a follower of August Comte. He took
Comte’s religion of human welfare and finally reshaped it into the service of
motherland.
Bankim was also a ruthless moralist. His humanism is overshadowed by his
religious thoughts. And he always vilified the idea of ‘love’ which is to him, a mere
thirst for beauty.
Nevertheless, through his works of huge range and complexities, Bankim
shows us his gigantic might in visualizing the dark deep ocean of human mind. His
discovery of human psyche largely reminds us of the great Shakespeare. Such
attempt makes Bankim a visionary and prophet; he truly passed this tough trial.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Tagore is the Angel of Romantic literature. His artistic achievement can be
compared to no one else. So much subtlety, depth of contemplation and diversity are
found in very few writers of the world. He worked in approximately five genres of
literature – poetry, novel, short story, drama and essay. Besides, he was a class
musician, painter, actor, dance-director and architect.
He is definitely not aligned with the 19 th -century English Romantics because
he was not an escapist like Keats or Coleridge. But like Goethe, he is a Romantic in
the sense that he based his artistic work strongly on an optimistic aestheticism.
Tagore’s entire poetic works possess an elemental philosophy. It is that the
world is not eternal but perishable – it is bound to a cycle of life and death; the earth
and other planets, the stars, the solar system, the cosmos, life, love and reasonably