BLiterature-Apratim

9
slowly merging. Even after the Battle of Plassey and Bengal’s subjection by the
British East India Company (1757), the practice of Persian was still widening.
Faced before the collision of two different foreign races, social stability and
peace were much disturbed. Aesthetic joy and pleasure were fading and emotion
and simplicity took their place. Appreciation of sublime poetry perished and linear
literature and simple outlook replaced it.
Artificial, sentimental and erotically perverse works were written throughout
the period. One of the patrons was Raja Krishnachandra Ray (1710-’82) of Nadiya.
His court-poet Bharatchandra Ray (1712?-’60) wrote the pornographic work Bidya-
Sundar that has ornamental perfection but morally and philosophically is of little
worth.
Ali Raja was a Sufi poet. He expressed his religious ideas in his poems.
Ramprasad Sen (1720?-’81) and Kamalakanta Vattacharya wrote Sakta
Padas (devotional songs addressed to Goddess Kali) that have superfluous
simplicity and emotional outburst.
Rameswar Vattacharya composed Shiv-Mangal and Ghanaram Chakraborty
wrote Dharma-Mangal. Their works too are not free of artificiality.
Even vulgar folk tales were made around a person (historical or imaginary?)
named Gopal Bhar. And Kavi and obscene Kheur songs too were written in many
areas.
Those poetasters actually brought an end to medieval Bengali culture, which
was waiting to revive in a new era of an entirely different environment.
The Scholastic Age (1801-’58)
The British occupied Bengal in 1757. Gradually the entire India became their
colony. As the Turkic invasion of the 13 th century had introduced a new age, the
British occupation brought an amazing change on the life, culture, economy, art and
literature of the nation. Western thoughts and culture began to enter the nation’s
mind; the biggest impact was on its literature. Thus the cultural and cognitive
movement called Bengal Renaissance occurred around the 19 th century. A new age
started for Bengal and marked the beginning of modern Bangla literature.
Our modern literature began its journey in the early 19 th century.
Rediscovering and reshaping were two principal ideologies of the early modern era.
It was the age of the Christian missionaries, the British orientalists, the Brahmo
Samaj, the Young Bengal – the age of Jones, Carey, Rammohun, Derozio,
Vidyasagar and other reformers. The orientalist scholars of the Asiatic Society [e.g.
William Jones (1746-’94)] first sowed the seed of Renaissance by rediscovering
history and literature of the pre-Islamic era. Rammohun introduced the monotheistic
Brahmo movement. Then Derozio advanced the trend of progression further toward
enlightenment based on reason.
It was primarily an age of prose, and of academic books; most of the writers
wrote for scholastic purpose. Bangla prose came into being through translations of
foreign literary works by some scholars, most of whom were associated with the Fort