Literature-Critique

45
Is free of weariness
And that is why
Flat out on the table in the morgue
Defeated, he will lie.”
(Translated by Fakrul Alam)
But despite all filthiness of life and the world, he himself wishes to survive and to
engage himself to temporal existence. “Adim Devatara” (“The Primitive Gods”) is
another poem that tells us the worthlessness and repetitiousness of prevailing
subject-matters of art like beauty and love.
Sathti Tarar Timir (The Darkness of Seven Stars) is Jibanananda’s most
complex poetical work. In “Akashleena” (“The Sky-Suffused One”), the very first
poem of the collection, he sees how love has turned to a matter of mere
consummation in the modern world. But here the deceived narrator’s love for the
beloved is also merged with his love for the whole planet. Another poem titled
“Godhulisandhir Nritya” (“The Dance of Twilight”) shows the transition period of warinflicted
civilization.
Bela Abela Kalbela (Time: Good, Bad and Awesome) is his last unique
collection of poems in lifetime, which is also tinged with philosophical thoughts.
The great poet’s masterpiece is but Rupashi Bangla (The Beautiful Bengal)
that was published posthumously. Here he longs for a gorgeous Bengal that has in
course of time, faded and fallen in an awesome crisis due to turmoil and dissection.
Some of his good poems were published in an anthology titled Shrestha
Kabita (Best Poems). Especially memorable is “1946-47” where Jibanananda
expresses his deep anguish at the communal riots between Hindus and Muslims and
the partition of our motherland. Here he utters some words of hope –
“And yet man continues to move on even now,
From blinding despair to pleasing darkness,
From total darkness to festivities marking the founding of new cities and villages,
Surmounting the sources of errors and sins in his soul,
Staying within the orbit of consciousness seemingly on his own merit.”
(Translated by Fakrul Alam)
Jibanananda’s poems possess an innate consciousness about women, which
had a precursor in Sarat’s novels. His poems tell us of the catastrophe of love in the
modern world.
If Tagore is called a modern Romanticist, Jibanananda must be called a
romantic Modernist.
His poems bear the mark of townsmen’s nostalgia for country-life and nature
from what they’ve been alienated.
There is a sham accusation against him; it is that he just copied many of his
poems from English and other Western literatures which, I sternly say, is an insulting
infamy. I have matched his poems with those of the western poets who are called his
‘preceptors’ and have found that he just assimilated those. Now if assimilation is a
sin in the world of art, then all literary artists including Shakespeare must face
posthumous penalty.
In merit, Jibanananda stands next to Tagore in modern Bangla poetry. His
accidental death did not let him achieve the supremacy in poetry. A critic (Abdul