Shifting Centers and Emerging Margins: Translation and Shaping or Modernist Poetic Discourse in Indian PoetryE.V. Ramakrishnan
[Reading and comprehending original articles by scholars can be a daunting task, and I found it especially challenging while preparing for my exam. To alleviate this stress, I have simplified the article based on my understanding and with the assistance of ChatGPT. I have attempted to present the information in simple and easy-to-understand language. This blog is geared toward exam preparation and aims to provide a clear understanding of the article's core ideas and concepts. However, it's important to note that if you want to gain a deep understanding of the topic, reading the original article is highly recommended. CLICK HERE FOR BLOG I (it has quotes in the language of the original article)]
Introduction
This chapter explores how translations of modern Western poets such as Baudelaire, Rilke, Eliot, and Yeats contributed to the development of modernist poetry in India between 1950 and 1970. These translations allowed Indian poets to break away from prevailing literary norms and modes and to experiment with new styles and ways of thinking. Many major Indian poets, such as Buddhadeb Bose, Agyeya, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Dilip Chitre, and Ayyappa Paniker, were also translators who used 'foreignizing' translations to disrupt cultural codes and legitimize experimental writing styles. Little magazines played a critical role in disseminating these translations and opening up the poetic discourse. As the contradictions within the "high" modernist mode deepened in the politically turbulent 1960s, translations of African and Latin American poetry provided a critique of its elitism and complicity with nationalist discourses. Translation acted as a critical, creative, and performative act in the evolution of a new poetic during the modernist phase of Indian poetry.
Translation played a crucial role in the development of modernism in Indian languages. It helped to introduce new poetic forms to Indian readers while also challenging existing aesthetic norms. The emergence of Indian modernist poetry was a response to the socio-political changes occurring in the country, including the communal riots and killings following Partition, the perceived failure of the Nehruvian project of modernity, and the erosion of idealism that had previously inspired writers committed to socialist realism and Romantic nationalism. These seismic forces shaped the dynamics of Indian culture and demanded change. Translation allowed Indian poets to bridge the gap between the new poetic forms and the expectations of the native reader, making modernism more accessible and relevant to Indian audiences.
The term 'translation' in this chapter refers to a range of cultural practices, from critical commentary to intertextual creation. André Lefevere's concept of translation as refraction/rewriting is used to argue that 'refractions' found in less obvious forms of criticism, commentary, historiography, teaching, anthologies, and plays are also instances of translation. For example, an essay on T. S. Eliot in Bengali or a critique in Malayalam on the poetic practices of Vallathol Narayana Menon can be described as 'translational' writings as they carry across modes and models from an alien Western tradition to interrogate the self-sufficiency of an entrenched poetic. Modernism in India differed from that in the West but fulfilled a function in the socio-cultural contexts of Indian languages by transforming the relations between the text and the reader, and the modes of writing and reading. Modernist writers selectively assimilated an alien poetic that could be regressive or subversive depending on the context and the content. Conservative and radical dissident poets alike belonged to the larger modernist tradition, accommodating diverse political ideologies and innovative experimental styles.
PART I
In India, the term 'modernity' refers to a period of significant changes brought about by colonialism, capitalism, industrialization, and Western models of education. This period also saw the emergence of institutions that formed a normative subjectivity with cosmopolitan and individualist worldviews. This new form of modernity had a major impact on Indian society and culture, leading to a separation between what was considered 'modern' and 'pre-modern'. However, this view can be contested, but it's clear that the 'modern' period redefined the way literature was expressed and cultural ideas were transmitted.
The idea of modernity in India was influenced by colonialism and imperialism. It shaped literary and cultural movements from the 19th-century reformist movement to the mid-20th-century modernist movement. The modernist movement in India was a response to the disruptions caused by colonial modernity. The breach of established traditions resulted in a crisis that needed creative solutions by borrowing from foreign traditions. Modernist writers sought to create texts that were self-referential and self-validating, which is rooted in an aesthetic ideology that supported colonialism. However, the modernist sensibility in Indian languages was essentially oppositional, challenging the prevailing ideology of nationalism, which had become the ideology of the newly formed nation-state. Experimental writings during the modernist period ranged from anarchist/avant-garde to formalist/conventional styles.
PART II
The term 'modernism' refers to a literary/artistic movement characterized by experimentation and rejection of traditional styles. In Europe, it was an elitist movement that excluded local and national claims, but modernism in India was different. Due to India's postcolonial location, Indian modernism rejected imperial aspirations and instead embraced regional cosmopolitan traditions. It was oppositional in content and questioned the colonial legacies of nationalism. While Indian modernism was also elitist and formalistic, it was distrustful of popular culture.
The modernist movement in India, which began in the mid-twentieth century, is not often recognized as part of the global modernist movement that originated in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, some critics argue that non-Western modernisms are not just a derivative version of European modernism and that we should look at the modernist movements that emerged in non-Western societies to better understand the nature of modernism. This will require careful consideration of the different socio-political contexts and ideological differences between Western modernism and Indian modernism. Critics such as Simon Gikandi, Susan Friedman, Laura Doyle, Laura Winkiel, and Rebecca L. Walkonwitz have all criticized Eurocentric accounts of modernism and argued for a more dialogic approach that takes into account the circulation of ideas, indigenous contexts of reception, and strategies of contestation and articulation that shaped Indian modernism.
PART III
In India, the reception of Western modernist ideas was influenced by the social and political changes happening in the country during its transition to a nation-state. Each regional language had its own unique history and internal configuration, so it's difficult to make broad statements about modernism in India. The way modernism was expressed in Bengali literature, for example, was different from how it was expressed in Kannada literature. In Bengali, modernism was a way to move away from the influence of Rabindranath Tagore, while in Kannada, it was a response to the Brahminical and non-Brahminical social dynamic. Caste, ethnicity, progress, freedom, individualism, region, and nation were all important themes in Indian modernist literature. Unlike in Bengali literature, there was no father figure like Tagore in Kannada or Malayalam modernism.
PART IV
Translation plays an important role in understanding the complex artistic and ideological aspects that shaped modernism in Indian literature. To explore this, we will examine the works of three modernist authors from three different Indian literary traditions - Sudhindranath Dutta (Bengali), B. S. Mardhekar (Marathi), and Ayyappa Paniker (Malayalam). These authors help us understand the chronological progression of modernism across Indian literature. The modernist movement in Bengali started in the 1930s and continued into the 1940s and 1950s. In Marathi, it emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Malayalam's literary sensibility transformed into modernism in the 1960s, with its influence gradually declining by the late 1970s. However, by that time, it had redefined the relationship between content and form in all literary forms.
Translation played a vital role in the development of modernist poetry in Indian literature. Sudhindranath Dutta, B.S. Mardhekar, and Ayyappa Paniker were three modernist authors who wrote essays in English as well as their native languages, explaining their new poetic style and preparing readers for it. Sudhindranath Dutta translated the works of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry into Bengali, while Buddhadeb Bose translated Charles Baudelaire and other poets. Ayyappa Paniker translated European poets into Malayalam, and B.S. Mardhekar's Arts and the Man was a treatise that legitimized modernist practice. These authors had a deep understanding of Western philosophy and literary traditions and wrote critical studies that validated the emergence of new poetry. It's important to note that their discursive prose on poetry form needs to be seen as part of an attempt to translate modernism into Indian terms.
PART V
Sudhindranath Dutta wrote essays about the importance of poetry and the power of words. He believed that poetry is essential to all societies and that even unsophisticated and primitive people appreciate it. He discussed the ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Voltaire, Byron, Mallarmé, and Yeats, showing his understanding of Western thought. Although he considered himself a pragmatist, Dutta thought that only those with a poetic mind could make connections that reason cannot.
Dutta argued that poetry should have a greater role in life than reason alone, rejecting the Enlightenment idea that reason is the most important aspect of modern society. He believed that writers have a progressive role in society and emphasized the role played by the masses in creating a literary tradition. In one essay, he agreed with Virginia Woolf that creative artists must sometimes seek refuge in the "Ivory Tower," which means that writers must have a place to create without being judged too harshly. Dutta did not believe in a hermetic aesthetic or formalism, however. Instead, he believed that writers must pass the pragmatic test of the people to create meaningful and lasting works. He wrote, "Not the introspecting intellectuals, but the enduring masses are the guardians of tradition and directors of progress; and whatever be the caliber of the experimenter unless he passes the pragmatic test of his people, the facts he would establish are febrile dreams, and the truths he would loudly proclaim are a maniac's fancies."
Sudhindranath Dutta was critical of the Anglicists, who he believed failed to emancipate the Indian people from the illusions created by colonialism. He praised artist Jamini Roy for creating a universal style of representation by incorporating elements of traditional Indian art. Dutta recognized the complexities faced by Indian modernists in their pursuit of cosmopolitan and universal values without completely rejecting tradition.
In his radio talk on T.S. Eliot, Dutta highlighted Eliot's commitment to tradition, which he believed was revolutionary. He also stated that Eliot's ideal must be widely accepted if civilization is to survive the threat of atomic war. However, Dutta's endorsement of Eliot's worldview must be seen in relation to his critique of contemporary Indian society.
Dutta believed that modernism in India was part of a larger decolonizing project, which did not blindly celebrate Western values or the European avant-garde.
Sudhindranath Dutta wrote a famous poem called "The Camel-Bird" which shows his critical spirit and desire to reinvent tradition from a cosmopolitan perspective. The poem is about the crisis of perception and how it can only be remedied by completely reinventing oneself.
In the poem, the bird is presented as vulnerable and unable to defend itself against the hunter. This vulnerability represents the crisis of perception that Dutta is trying to address. The poem suggests that in order to overcome this crisis, one must be willing to completely reinvent oneself.
In Sudhindranath Dutta's poem "The Camel-Bird," the poet and the bird find themselves in a landscape of ruins where they have no access to the traditions of the past. The poet is alienated in the present and feels disconnected from the past, leading him to retreat into his wounded self and devise his own strategies for survival. The poem speaks to the larger condition of inertia that a colonized community is condemned to, embodying the quest for humanity in a brutalized world and the recovery of a sense of community in a world of isolated individuals.
While the poem's voice of anguish is personal and intimate, it bears testimony to a larger burden of the quest for meaning and identity in a world haunted by violence and servility. Dutta's modernist approach moves beyond the personal to address the condition of the community as a whole.
PART VI
B.S. Mardhekar was a Marathi poet who transformed the direction of Marathi poetry by introducing new ideas and styles. He was aware of the Marathi poetic tradition from its beginnings and wrote a treatise on aesthetics called "Arts and the Man" in London in 1937, and "Two Lectures on the Aesthetic of Literature" in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1944. He argued for a modernist aesthetic in Marathi poetry. Another modernist Marathi poet, P.S. Rege, was also influenced by modernist poets like Eliot during his time in London in the 1930s. Mardhekar and Rege both looked back to the roots of Marathi poetic traditions, such as the saint poets Tukaram and Ramdas, to reinvent them for a modern audience. This movement has parallels to what Eliot and Pound did with the reinterpretation of Provencal poets, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante, and the Metaphysical poets in their time, but the comparison can only be taken so far.
B. S. Mardhekar was a Marathi poet who transformed Marathi poetry through his vision, form, and content. He was deeply aware of the Marathi poetic tradition from its beginnings and published a treatise on aesthetics called Arts and the Man in London in 1937. Mardhekar reinvented the saint poets like Tukaram and Ramdas for a modern audience, which was also done by P. S. Rege, another major modernist Marathi poet. Both Mardhekar and Rege were influenced by modernist poets like Eliot. Mardhekar's creative reclamation of tradition was a response to the disruption of moral order in his culture, and he had to invent a language to articulate this fragmentation. His poetry was deliberately obscure and his devastating irony was a means of negotiating the contradictions that threatened to rip apart his sense of himself as a social being. Mardhekar's poetic line carried echoes of saint poets like Tukaram, creating a self-reflexive idiom. This enabled him to embody the moral squalor of contemporary society even as he invoked an order of the sacred rooted in tradition. Mardhekar's modernity had indigenous roots because he lived in a society that had an internal discourse of modernity, beginning with Jyotiba Phule in the nineteenth century and extending to Bhimrao Ambedkar in the twentieth.
Mardhekar used irony and self-reflexivity in his poetry to create a new kind of reader who would approach the world with a critical eye. His poetry was a response to the fragmentation of moral order in his culture, and he had to invent a new language to express it. In his most famous poem, 'Mice in the Wet Barrel Died', he uses language to convey a sense of anguish that is reminiscent of the suffering of saint poets. The poem begins with lines that describe the miserable existence of the mice:
In Mardhekar's poem 'Mice in the Wet Barrel Died', the metaphor of mice is used to represent the morbid and malevolent aspects of modern life. The poem describes the blind struggle for survival in a hostile world and the existential horror of urban life. It contains physical details of decrepitude and degeneration, with the rats dying and hiccupping in the barrel. The poem was initially met with disapproval and even parodies when it was first published in Marathi, but it later became an iconic modernist poem in Marathi literature. The line "sadness has poisonous eyes made of glass" captures the haunting malignancy of modern existence and is particularly striking due to the dislocation of the word order in the original. Irony and self-reflexivity are employed by Mardhekar to constitute a new reader by freeing them from their habits of viewing the world and promoting a self-critical attitude towards the material content of art and life.
Mardhekar was a subversive poet who used irony and self-reflexivity to challenge the reader's perceptions. He often used language in unconventional ways to create new meanings and explore the moral decay of modern society. In his famous poem 'Mice in the Wet Barrel Died', he uses the metaphor of mice to represent the wretched and malevolent nature of modern life. The poem was initially met with disapproval but is now recognized as an iconic modernist work in Marathi literature.
Mardhekar also used the archaic and formal diction of the saint poets of the medieval period and juxtaposed it with everyday English words to create a collage of images. In his poem 'Although the Lights', he uses words like 'punctured', 'pumps', 'rubber', and 'pumps' in unusual collocations to suggest a process of dissolution. Mardhekar's irreverent address to God and his use of two separate words for 'tongue' in Marathi suggest his subversive nature. His poetry is a response to the disruption of moral order in his culture and addresses the existential angst, psychological disorientation, and political disillusionment he experienced in the urban turbulence of Bombay.
In this poem, Mardhekar portrays the dehumanized urban landscape through stark and vivid metaphors. He uses a modernist technique of relying on "governing images" to create a non-discursive and non-narrative structure. The poem's central image of darkness and despair is developed through metaphors of rubber tires and dogs, which evolve according to their own imaginative logic. This poem is an example of how Mardhekar brings modernist techniques to Marathi literature.
PART VII
Ayyappa Paniker was a poet, critic, and translator who wrote in Malayalam. He started as a Romantic poet but later became a Modernist poet. He wrote a long poetic sequence called Kurukshetram in 1960. He introduced world poetry to Malayalam readers through translations published in his little magazine Kerala Kavita. He encouraged Malayalam poets to reject prosody in favor of rhythmic free verse, which he believed was more important than form and prosody. In his critical interventions, Paniker attacked the lack of intellectual rigor, dubious political attitudes, and adherence to worn-out idioms and stale diction of canonical figure Vallathol Narayana Menon. He argued that a writer needs to integrate their personal and public selves into an emotional apprehension of the totality of relative truths about the world. Paniker believed that the ideology of the poet is embodied in the syntactic structure of the poem. Modernist poets have to reject the allegorical and the didactic and articulate their complex awareness of the relation between form and content. The experimental poetry of the modernists used imagist, suggestive free verse that affirmed that each poem has its authentic form that cannot be approximated to a meter, which functions independently of content. M. Govindan was a poet-critic closely associated with the modernist movement in Malayalam from its beginning. He patronized young writers such as Paniker through his avant-garde journal Sameeksha. Govindan advocated a return to the Dravidian sources of Malayalam poetry, which he believed could rejuvenate its syntax and rhythm through a robust earthliness that had been curbed by the scholastic Sanskritic tradition.
Kurukshetram is a poem written by Ayyappa Paniker consisting of five sections and 294 lines. The poem begins with an epigraph from the Bhagavad Gita, which sets the tone for a high moral and critical stance toward contemporary society. The opening lines of the poem express a decline in moral values and the disruption of the organic rhythms of society, similar to Eliot's The Waste Land.
The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient Hindu scripture that teaches the importance of fulfilling one's duties in life. Eliot's The Waste Land is a modernist poem that explores the spiritual and cultural decay of Western civilization after World War I. Paniker's Kurukshetram is influenced by both the Bhagavad Gita and The Waste Land. The poem uses the epic story of the Mahabharata as a metaphor for contemporary society's moral and cultural decline. The poem explores the themes of individualism, societal decay, and the struggle for human values. The poem is written in free verse and is considered one of the most significant works in modern Malayalam poetry.
The title of Ayyappa Paniker's poem, 'Kurukshetram', refers to the place where the epic battle of the Mahabharata took place. The poem explores contemporary life through broken images and redemptive memories that recur through the metaphor of a dream. The poem uses evocative rhythms to create a sense of disquiet that cannot be easily defined. The self is seen as a site of struggle and conflict, but modern men and women are denied the tragic dignity of epic heroes. The triviality of everyday life drowns out their yearnings for transcendence. Paniker uses a metaphor of devotees tearing out their eyes to fix them with spectacles of faith to describe the overwhelming pain of dreams, desire, and despair. The entangled wisdom of 'philosophies' seems unreal against the labyrinth of daily life. The poet describes contemporary society as a marketplace where people come to bargain, buy, and sell. The poem explores themes of individualism, societal decay, and the struggle for human values. The poem is written in free verse and is considered one of the most significant works in modern Malayalam poetry.
The second section of Kurukshetram is a more personal and introspective part of the poem, moving away from the public images of the first section. It expresses an internal conflict that cannot be simply defined as moral or ethical. The structure of the poem defies conventional representation and speaks to deeper parts of the mind. The poet recalls memories of a harmonious community, but this vision is fleeting and gives way to a more negative outlook. The poem addresses the struggles of the self and the futility of existence in the face of dreams, desires, and despair.
The third section of Kurukshetram goes back to the world of public conflicts. In this section, the poet invokes mythical characters like Sugriva, Vibhishana, Vashistha, Lord Ram, Arjuna, and Oedipus. However, modern men and women have lost the ability to access the wisdom that is contained in these myths and are now fragmented and dehumanized figures. The self, being in a violated space, is unable to fully understand itself.
The fourth section of the poem criticizes the false promises of faith and politics and encourages individuals to turn to their inner resources to confront the void and reaffirm their sense of self. However, this resolve is short-lived as mindless violence dominates the final section of the poem, with the failed prophet Gandhi at its center. Despite this, the poet also turns to their dream as a beacon of life, using the image of Brahma, the creator of life, to represent the desire to be reborn and reimagine the world. The poem does not offer a clear vision, but rather a desire to use imagination to create a new world.
PART VIII
Conclusion
It's important to understand that the writers discussed in this context - Salman Rushdie, Kamala Das, and K. Ayyappa Paniker - have roots in indigenous traditions and routes of modernity. They come from postcolonial societies that have already critiqued Western modernity and developed alternative traditions of modernity. This enables them to selectively incorporate Western modernity on their own terms. They translate modernity and modernism through the lens of postcolonial modernities, which involves an internal dialectic and external dialogic.
It's important to understand how the three writers discussed above, who belong to postcolonial societies, have indigenous roots/routes of modernity and modernism. They have access to intellectual resources of alternative traditions of modernity that are bred in their native context, allowing them to selectively assimilate resources of Western modernity on their own terms. They have a dialogic relationship with Western modernism, negotiating its modes of representation without surrendering to its ideological baggage. They are critical outsiders to their own culture, critical of its provincial nature while relating to its cosmopolitan worldviews. They value the internal critique of Western modernity but distrust the grand narratives bred by the same powers of resistance. Translation answers something deep within their ambivalent existence, allowing them to be 'within' their speech community and 'without' it at the same time, as it embodies their complex relationship with a fragmented society. Their bilingual sensibility demands a mode of expression that can transition between native and alien traditions.
In India, the modernist subject was fragmented and fractured due to the impact of colonial modernity. This created a new social imagination and a desire within individuals. Modernist poetry reflected this inner world of desire and was expressed through a language filled with disquiet and angst. The translation was a way for the displaced self of modernity to locate itself in a language that was both private and public. For modernists, language became the only reality they could relate to, and self-knowledge was achieved through epiphanies. Western modernism allowed for a moment of self-reflection that was postcolonial in essence. This self-reflection was possible because of an interior mode of being that questioned the limits of freedom.
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