Aman Ullah :
Literature is a form of human expression. And the purest literary form is the lyric poem. And next comes elegiac, epics, dramatic, narrative and expository verse that unfolds meaning of an idea. In poetry, the aesthetic problems of literature are presented in their simplest and purest form. Poetry that fails as literature is not called at all but verse.
There can be no life without poetry. He who is anti poetic is anti-humane, some poets think and many others agree.
Poetry can do many things: it can teach and delight, explain and entertain, move men to tears and action. Poetry can do anything that language can do. One of the things that poetry does best is to tell a story.
Poetry is part of literature that creates a specific emotional response through its meaning sound and rhythm – melody of language – the flowing sound of language together as distinguished from their meaning. Rhythm may be gentle and subdued or harsh and heavy, or merry and carefree. Poetry formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create that specific emotional response through its meaning, sound and rhythm.
Composition of poetry is a conscious creative process of conceptions in a poet’s mind with clearness, though not with full sequence. Poetry has to have inner poetic dream that is transformed into a sound of music and melody that emotion begets.
The idea behind a poetry goes quietly along with the poet through life and for him it is a matter of infinite joy.
“Poetry is usually the spontaneous work of active nature of a poet. So it is difficult to create through conscious effort.” Some poems may be termed as ‘Serious fantasies,’ but there are others that unfold the mysteries of life and some are devotional in nature. There are some poems that speak of human pain and agony.
It is probable that poetry, regarded as the highest form of literary expression in most literate cultures, orginated in the magical spells and the ritual incantations.
Poetry is an ancient mode of expression. Even before the development of writing, primitive societies seemed to have achieved poetic renderings of their religious, historical and cultural awareness.
There is distinction between poetry and prose litertaure in terms of their form especially by linguistic compression of poetry. It is through a variety of techniques that the characteristic emotional content of poetry finds expression. One of those techniques is direct description to highly personalised sysmbolism. The use of metaphor and simile is one of the most ancient and universal techniques. The imaginative apprehension of the reader is expanded through comparison – explicit or implicit.
Poetry gains significance when all the resources of sensibility, intelligence and spirit are employed in experiencing it or in understanding it. Poetry interprets life around through the medium of verse. And the poet comes to understand essential unity of spirit that animates good work.
Poetry is primarily an art and it is most revealing when it is most itself. What it tells us about society is something we have to catch as an overtone from what it tells us about an individual. It expresses the perspective value of humility and good sense.
It was all silence and tranquility; it was darkness before the creation of the universe. When Divine voice said, “Let there be light.” Light appeared out of the veil of darkness and darkness vanished. Life emerged and there was end of silence of darkness. There followed the noise of life and again it was followed by silence. After life there is death or end of life, and again there is silence and that silence is of the grave and a silence that is deafening and unending and goes into eternity.
Towards the end of life man comes to realise that finally death is his destiny, his ultimate fate, heaven or hell his final resting place. His desires burning hot in his life becomes mellowed down like rays of a setting sun dim and consumed by actions in life that was restless and noisy. Now in the twilight of life man faces a time of cool silence. The din and bustle of mundane life is fading away and soon it will be no more. Man is now on his path to the grave into eternity in quest of his Creator. At the end of short span of mundane life man is now in the pursuit of sublime Truth, the Truth of Divinity.
This quest for Infinite Divinity in man’s limited concept of finite life is aptly expressed in Tagore’s poem when the poet says we look for Infinite Divinity in our finite mundane life.
The music played by Infinite Divinity in man’s finite being, so it sounds so nectarine.
Human longing for life is expressed in Tagore’s poem in a simple but effective manner when he writes that he does not like to die but desires to live in this land of beauty among mankind. This desire of man to live is in his early life when the mundane world and all its beauties and bounties, charms and attractions fascinate him. But when life becomes old, tired and exhausted by the worries and anxieties, pains and agonies, sadness and sufferings, he desires death for his salvation and considers death as nectar of Divinity.
This unique feeling and realisation of man finds excellent expression in Tagore’s poem on death when he says, “Oh Death, to me you are like Shyama (Lord Krishna).” The poetic talent and genius of Tagore give expression to both aspects of human life – one of attachment and the other of detachment or abnegation, and finally man’s destiny. Man’s worldly life is tossed between his desire and his destiny or his unavoidable fate. A look into the anthology of English poetry offers a wide variety of poems dealing with various aspects of human life – its beginning and ending. English poets like those in Bengali and other languages in their poetic excellence have dissected human life as a physician does with a human body. Only difference is that poets look more into the emotion and philosophical aspects of human life and express human feelings which the general people are unable to express.
Man’s thoughts and emotions find their language in those of the poets. Besides the poets can find the language to give expression to the thoughts and action of birds and other creatures, who don’t have any language intelligible to humans.
So it is the poets who through their imaginative power give expression to the action and feeling’ of other creatures.
Tagore could understand the language of Balaka and Nazrul could talk to his favourite Bulbuli. Shelley and Keats could give expression to Skylarks flight to heaven and while one released his bird ‘the blithe spirit’ to the infinite heaven, the bird of the other flies into the sky only to come back to earth. So the poets give expression to man’s aspects of life that begins with desire, ends with destiny.
Courtesy: Kabitapatra
Literature is a form of human expression. And the purest literary form is the lyric poem. And next comes elegiac, epics, dramatic, narrative and expository verse that unfolds meaning of an idea. In poetry, the aesthetic problems of literature are presented in their simplest and purest form. Poetry that fails as literature is not called at all but verse.
There can be no life without poetry. He who is anti poetic is anti-humane, some poets think and many others agree.
Poetry can do many things: it can teach and delight, explain and entertain, move men to tears and action. Poetry can do anything that language can do. One of the things that poetry does best is to tell a story.
Poetry is part of literature that creates a specific emotional response through its meaning sound and rhythm – melody of language – the flowing sound of language together as distinguished from their meaning. Rhythm may be gentle and subdued or harsh and heavy, or merry and carefree. Poetry formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create that specific emotional response through its meaning, sound and rhythm.
Composition of poetry is a conscious creative process of conceptions in a poet’s mind with clearness, though not with full sequence. Poetry has to have inner poetic dream that is transformed into a sound of music and melody that emotion begets.
The idea behind a poetry goes quietly along with the poet through life and for him it is a matter of infinite joy.
“Poetry is usually the spontaneous work of active nature of a poet. So it is difficult to create through conscious effort.” Some poems may be termed as ‘Serious fantasies,’ but there are others that unfold the mysteries of life and some are devotional in nature. There are some poems that speak of human pain and agony.
It is probable that poetry, regarded as the highest form of literary expression in most literate cultures, orginated in the magical spells and the ritual incantations.
Poetry is an ancient mode of expression. Even before the development of writing, primitive societies seemed to have achieved poetic renderings of their religious, historical and cultural awareness.
There is distinction between poetry and prose litertaure in terms of their form especially by linguistic compression of poetry. It is through a variety of techniques that the characteristic emotional content of poetry finds expression. One of those techniques is direct description to highly personalised sysmbolism. The use of metaphor and simile is one of the most ancient and universal techniques. The imaginative apprehension of the reader is expanded through comparison – explicit or implicit.
Poetry gains significance when all the resources of sensibility, intelligence and spirit are employed in experiencing it or in understanding it. Poetry interprets life around through the medium of verse. And the poet comes to understand essential unity of spirit that animates good work.
Poetry is primarily an art and it is most revealing when it is most itself. What it tells us about society is something we have to catch as an overtone from what it tells us about an individual. It expresses the perspective value of humility and good sense.
It was all silence and tranquility; it was darkness before the creation of the universe. When Divine voice said, “Let there be light.” Light appeared out of the veil of darkness and darkness vanished. Life emerged and there was end of silence of darkness. There followed the noise of life and again it was followed by silence. After life there is death or end of life, and again there is silence and that silence is of the grave and a silence that is deafening and unending and goes into eternity.
Towards the end of life man comes to realise that finally death is his destiny, his ultimate fate, heaven or hell his final resting place. His desires burning hot in his life becomes mellowed down like rays of a setting sun dim and consumed by actions in life that was restless and noisy. Now in the twilight of life man faces a time of cool silence. The din and bustle of mundane life is fading away and soon it will be no more. Man is now on his path to the grave into eternity in quest of his Creator. At the end of short span of mundane life man is now in the pursuit of sublime Truth, the Truth of Divinity.
This quest for Infinite Divinity in man’s limited concept of finite life is aptly expressed in Tagore’s poem when the poet says we look for Infinite Divinity in our finite mundane life.
The music played by Infinite Divinity in man’s finite being, so it sounds so nectarine.
Human longing for life is expressed in Tagore’s poem in a simple but effective manner when he writes that he does not like to die but desires to live in this land of beauty among mankind. This desire of man to live is in his early life when the mundane world and all its beauties and bounties, charms and attractions fascinate him. But when life becomes old, tired and exhausted by the worries and anxieties, pains and agonies, sadness and sufferings, he desires death for his salvation and considers death as nectar of Divinity.
This unique feeling and realisation of man finds excellent expression in Tagore’s poem on death when he says, “Oh Death, to me you are like Shyama (Lord Krishna).” The poetic talent and genius of Tagore give expression to both aspects of human life – one of attachment and the other of detachment or abnegation, and finally man’s destiny. Man’s worldly life is tossed between his desire and his destiny or his unavoidable fate. A look into the anthology of English poetry offers a wide variety of poems dealing with various aspects of human life – its beginning and ending. English poets like those in Bengali and other languages in their poetic excellence have dissected human life as a physician does with a human body. Only difference is that poets look more into the emotion and philosophical aspects of human life and express human feelings which the general people are unable to express.
Man’s thoughts and emotions find their language in those of the poets. Besides the poets can find the language to give expression to the thoughts and action of birds and other creatures, who don’t have any language intelligible to humans.
So it is the poets who through their imaginative power give expression to the action and feeling’ of other creatures.
Tagore could understand the language of Balaka and Nazrul could talk to his favourite Bulbuli. Shelley and Keats could give expression to Skylarks flight to heaven and while one released his bird ‘the blithe spirit’ to the infinite heaven, the bird of the other flies into the sky only to come back to earth. So the poets give expression to man’s aspects of life that begins with desire, ends with destiny.
Courtesy: Kabitapatra
