Jibanananda Das (17 February
1899 - 22 October 1954) is the most popular
Bengali poet after Rabindranath Tagore and
Kazi Nazrul Islam. He is considered one
of the precursors who introduced modernist
poetry to Bengali Literature, at a period
when it was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's
Romantic poetry.
Jibanananda and Bengali poetry
During the later half of the twentieth century,
Jibanananda Das emerged as the most popular
poet of modern Bengali literature. Popularity
apart, Jibanananda Das had distinguished
himself as an extraordinary poet presenting
a paradigm hitherto unknown. It is a fact
that his unfamiliar poetic diction, choice
of words and thematic preferences took time
to reach the heart of the readers. Nevertheless,
today it can be said without exaggeration
that the poetry of Jibanananda has become
the defining essence of modernism in twentieth
century Bengali poetry.
As of 2007, Bengali is the mother tongue
of more than 300 million people living mainly
in Bangladesh and India. Bengali poetry
of the modern age flourished on the elaborate
foundation laid by Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(1824-1873) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).
Tagore, a literary giant, without a parallel
during his time, ruled over the domain of
Bengali poetry and literature for more than
half a century bestowing inescapable influence
on contemporary poets. Bengali literature
caught attention of the international literary
world when Tagore was awarded the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1913, for Gitanjali,
an anthology of poems rendered into English
by the poet himself with the title Song
Offering. Since then Bengali poetry has
traveled a long way. It has evolved around
its own tradition; it has responded to the
poetry movements around the world; it has
assumed various dimensions in different
tones, colours and essence.
In Bengal, efforts to come out of the Tagorian
worldview and stylistics started in the
early days of twentieth century. Poet Kazi
Nazrul Islam [1899-1976] popularized himself
on a wide scale with patriotic theme and
musical tone and tenor. However, a number
of new generation poets consciously attempted
to align Bengali poetry with the essence
of modernism emerging around the world,
starting towards the end of the nineteenth
century. Much of these can be attributed
to the trends in contemporary Europe and
America. Five poets who are particularly
acclaimed for their contribution in creating
a post-Tagorian poetic paradigm and infusing
modernism in Bengali poetry are Sudhindranath
Dutta [1901-1960], Buddhadeb Bose [1908-1974],
Amiya Chakravarty [1901-1986], Jibanananda
Das [1899-1954] and Bishnu Dey [1909-1982].
The contour of modernism in twentieth century
Bengali poetry was drawn by these five pioneers
and some of their contemporaries.
However, not all of them have survived the
test of time. Of them, poet Jibanananda
Das was little understood during his lifetime.
In fact, he received scanty attention and
was considered incomprehensible. Readers
including his contemporary literary critics
also alleged about his style and diction.
On occasions, he faced merciless criticism
from leading literary personalities of his
time. Even Rabindranath Tagore passed unkind
remarks on his diction although he praised
his poetic capability. Nevertheless, destiny
reserved a crown for him.
Surely, his early poems bear the influence
of Kazi Nazrul Islam and some other poets
like Satyendranath Dutta. However, before
long, he thoroughly overcame all influences
and created a new poetic diction. Buddhadeb
Bose was among the few who first recognized
his extraordinary style and thematic novelty.
However, as his style and diction matured,
his message appeared to be obscured. Readers
including critics started to complain about
legibility and question sensibility.
It is only after his unfortunate and accidental
death in 1954 that a readership started
to emerge who not only was comfortable with
Jibanananda's style and diction but also
enjoyed his poetry. Questions about the
obscurity of his poetic message were no
longer more raised. By the time his birth
centenary was celebrated in 1999, Jibanananda
Das was certainly the most popular and the
most well-read poet of Bengali literature.
Even when the last quarter of the twentieth
century ushered in the post-modern era,
Jibanananda Das continued to be relevant
to the new taste and fervour. This has been
possible because his poetry underwent many
cycles of change, and later poems contain
elements that precisely respond to post-modern
characteristics.
Poetics
Born in 1899, Jibanananda Das started writing
and publishing in the 1920s. During his
lifetime he published only 269 poems in
different journals and magazines of which
162 were collected in 7 anthologies, from
Jhara Palak to Bela Obela Kalbela. However,
since his expiry in 1954, many of his unpublished
poems have been discovered and published,
thanks to the dedicated efforts of his brother
Asokananda Das, his nephew Dr. Bhumendra
Guha, and two researchers, namely, Abdul
Mannan Syed from Bangladesh and Deviprasad
Bandopadhya from West Bengal of India. By
2007, the total number of published and
unpubsliehdd poems stood at more than 640.
In addition, a huge number of novels and
short-stories were discovered and published
about the same time.
Jibanananda scholar Clinton B. Seely has
termed Jibanananda Das (JD) "Bengal's
most cherished poet since Rabindranath".On
the other hand, to many, reading the poetry
of JD is like stumbling upon a labyrinth
of mind similar to the kind one imagines
Camus's 'absurd' man toils through. Indeed
JD's poetry is sometimes an outcome of very
profound feeling that is painted with imagery
of a type not readily understandable. Sometimes,
the connection between the sequential lines
is not obvious. In fact, JD broke the traditional
circular structure of poetry (intro-middle-end)
and the pattern of logical sequence of words,
lines and stanzas. Consequently, the thematic
connotation is often hidden under a rhythmic
narrative that requires careful reading
between the lines. The following excerpt
will bear the point out :
Lepers open the hydrant and lap some water.
Or may be that hydrant was already broken.
Now at midnight they descend upon the city
in droves.
Scattering sloshing petrol. Though ever
careful,
Someone seems to have taken a serious spill
in the water.
Three rickshaws trot off, fading into the
last gaslight,
I turn off, leave Phear Lane, defiantly
Walk for miles, stop beside a wall
On Bentinck Street, at Territti Bazar,
There in the air dry as roasted peanuts.
(Night - a poem on night in Calcutta city,
translated by Clinton B. Seely)
Variously branded at different times, and
popularly known as a modernist of the Yeatsian-Poundian-Eliotesque
school, JD has been termed the truest poet
by Annadashankar Roy. As a true poet, JD
conceived a poem and moulded it up in the
most natural way. When a theme occurred
to him, he shaped it up with such words,
metaphors and imagery that distinguished
him from all others. JD's poetry is to be
felt rather than merely read or heard. Writing
about JD's poetry Joe Winter remarked :
It is a natural process, though perhaps
the rarest one. Jibanananda's style reminds
us of this, seeming to come unbidden. It
is full of sentences that scarcely pause
for breath ; of word-combinations that seem
altogether unlikely but work ; of switches
in register, from sophisticated usage to
a village-dialect word, that jar and in
the same instant settle in the mind. Full
of friction, in short, that almost becomes
a part of the consciousness ticking.
A few lines are quoted below in support
of Winter's remarks:
Nevertheless, the owl stays wide awake
;
The rotten still frog begs two more moments
in the hope of another dawn in conceivable
warmth.
We feel in the deep tracelessness of flocking
darkness
the unforgiving enmity of the mosquito-net
all around ;
The mosquito loves the stream of life
awake in its monastery of darkness.
[One day eight years ago, translated by
Faizul Latif Chowdhury]
Or elsewhere :
... how the wheel of justice is set in
motion
by a smidgen of wind -
or if someone dies and someone else gives
him a bottle
of medicine, free - then who has the profit?
-
over all of this the four have a mighty
word-battle.
For the land they will go to now is called
the soaring river
where a wretched bone-picker and his bone
come and discover
their faces in water - till looking at
faces is over.
(Idle Moment translated by Joe Winter)
It should be pointed out that Jibanananda
successfully integrated Bengali poetry
with the slightly older Euro-centric international
modernist movement of early twentieth
century. In this regard he possibly owes
as much to his exotic exposure as to his
innate poetic talent. Although hardly
appreciated during his life time, his
modernism, evoking almost all the suggested
elements of the phenomenon, remains untranscended
till date, despite the emergence of many
notable poets during the last fifty years.
His success as a modern Bengali poet may
be attributed to the facts that JD in
his poetry not only discovered the tract
of the slowly evolving twentieth century
modern mind, sensitive and reactive, full
of anxiety and tension, he invented his
own diction, rhythm and vocabulary with
unmistakably indigenous rooting, and he
maintained a self-styled lyricism and
imagism mixed with an extra-ordinary existentialist
sensuousness, perfectly suited to the
modern temperament in the Indian context,
whereby he also averted fatal dehumanization
that could alienate him from the people.
He was at once a classicist and a romantic
and created an appealing world hitherto
unknown :
For thousands of years I roamed the paths
of this earth,
From waters round Ceylon in dead of night
to Malayan seas.
Much have I wandered. I was there
in the gray world of Asoka
And Bimbisara, pressed on through darkness
to the city of Vidarbha.
I am a weary heart surrounded by life's
frothy ocean.
To me she gave a moment's peace -
Banalata Sen from Natore.
(Banalata Sen)
While reading JD, one often encounters
references to olden time and places, events
and personalities. Sense of time and history
is an unmistakable element that has shaped
JD's poetic world to a great extent. However,
he lost sight of nothing surrounding him.
Unlike many of his peers who blindly imitated
the renowned western poets in a bid to
create a new poetic domain and generated
spurious poetry, JD remained anchored
in his own soil and time and successfully
assimilated all experiences, real and
virtual, and produced hundreds of unforgettable
lines. His intellectual vision was thoroughly
embedded in Bengal's nature and beauty
:
Amidst a vast meadow the last time when
I met her
I said: 'Come again a time like this
if one day you so wish
twenty five years later.'
This been said, I came back home.
After that, many a time, the moon and
the stars,
from field to field have died, the owls
and the rats
searching grains in paddy fields on a
moonlit night
fluttered and crept! - shut eyed
many times left and right
have slept
several souls! - awake kept I
all alone - the stars on the sky
travel fast
faster still, time speeds by.
Yet it seems
Twenty-five years will forever last.
(After Twenty-five Years translated by
Luna Rushdi)
Thematically, in sum, JD is amazed by
the continued existence of humankind in
the backdrop of eternal flux of time,
wherein individual presence is insignificant
and meteoric albeit inescapable. He feels
: we are closed in, fouled by the numbness
of this concentration cell (Meditations).
To him the world is weird and olden, and
as a race, the mankind has been a persistent
"wanderer of this world" (Banalata
Sen) who, according to him, has existed
too long to know anything more (Before
death, Walking alone), or experience anything
fresh. The justification of further mechanical
existence like Mahin's horses (The Horses)
is apparently absent. So (he) had slept
by the Dhanshiri river on a cold December
night, and had never thought of waking
again (Darkness). As an individual, tired
of life and yearning for sleep (One day
eight years ago), JD is certain that peace
can be found nowhere and it is useless
to move to a distant land since there
is no way of freedom from sorrows fixed
by life (Land, Time and Offspring). Nevertheless,
he suggests: "O sailor, you press
on, keep pace with the sun!" (Sailor).
Why did Jibanananda task himself to forge
a new poetic speech while others in his
time preferred to tread the usual path?
The answer is simple. In his endeavours
to shape a world of his own, he was gradual
and steady. He was an inward looking person
and was not in a hurry.
I do not want to go anywhere so fast.
Whatever my life wants I have time to
reach
there walking [Of 1934 - a poem on Motor
Car, translated by Golam Mustafa].
Notwithstanding indigenous anchorage and
very own world-view, stylistics and diction,
Jibanananda Das will appeal to poetry
lovers and modern men of intellect and
emotion all around the world of today
and of tomorrow.
A huge volume of literary evaluation of
the poetry of Jibanananda Das has been
produced since his untimely death in 1954.
However, English language readers will
immensely benefit from the 10-page Introduction
of "Naked Lonely Hand", an anthology
of poet's fifty poems into English, written
by Joe Winter. Winter has been able to
successfully catch the essence of the
poet who appeared to be subtle, mysterious
and bizarre even to native readers and
critics of his time.
Biographical Account
Early life
Jibanananda Das (JD) was born in 1899
in the small district town of Barisal,
located in the south of Bangladesh, a
part of East Bengal of the undivided India
at that time. . His ancestors came from
the Bikrampur region of Dhaka district,
from a now-extinct village called Gaupara
on the banks of the river Padma. Jibanananda's
grandfather Sarbananda Dasgupta was the
first to settle permanently in Barisal.
He was an early exponent of the reformist
Brahmo Samaj movement in Barisal, and
was highly regarded in town for his philanthropy.
He erased the -gupta suffix from the family
name as a symbol of Vedic Brahmin excess,
thus rendering the surname to Das.Jibanananda's
father Satyananda Das (1863-1942) was
a schoolmaster, essayist, magazine publisher,
and founder-editor of Brôhmobadi,
a journal of the Brahmo Samaj dedicated
to the exploration of various social issues.
Jibanananda's mother Kusumkumari Das was
a poet and the writer of a famous poem
called Adôrsho Chhele (The Ideal
Boy) whose refrain is well-known to Bengalis
to this day: Amader deshey hobey shei
chhele kobey / Kothae na boro hoye kajey
boro hobey. (The child who achieves not
in words but in deeds, when will this
land know such a one?)
Jibanananda was the eldest son of his
parents, and was called by the nickname
Milu. A younger brother Ashokananda Das
was born in 1908 and a sister called Shuchorita
in 1915. Milu fell violently ill in his
childhood, and his parents feared for
his life. Kusumkumari took her ailing
child and travelled to health resorts
all over India - in Lucknow, Agra and
Giridih. They were accompanied on these
journeys by their uncle Chandranath.
In January 1908, Milu, by now eight years
old, was admitted to the fifth grade in
Brojomohon School. The delay was due to
his father's opposition to admitting children
into school at too early an age. Milu's
childhood education was therefore sustained
mostly at home, under his mother's tutelage.
His school life passed by relatively uneventfully.
In 1915, he successfully completed his
Matriculation examination from Brojomohon,
obtaining a first division in the process.
He repeated the feat two years later when
he passed the Intermediate exams from
Brajamohan College. Evidently an accomplished
student, he now left his rural Barisal
to go to university in Calcutta, the teeming
city at the heart of the British Raj.
Life in Calcutta : First phase
Jibanananda enrolled in Presidency College,
Kolkata, then as now one of the most prestigious
seats of learning in India. He studied
English Literature and graduated with
a BA (Honours) degree in 1919. That same
year, his first poem appeared in print
in the Boishakh issue of Brahmobadi journal.
Fittingly, the poem was called Borsho-abahon
(Arrival of the New Year). This poem was
published anonymously, with only the honorific
Sri in the byline. However, the annual
index in the year-end issue of the magazine
revealed his full name: "Sri Jibanananda
Das Gupta, BA".
In 1921, he completed the MA degree in
English from Calcutta University, obtaining
a second class. He was also studying law.
At this time, he lived in the Hardinge
student quarters next to the university.
Just before his exams, he fell ill with
bacillary dysentery that affected his
preparation for the examinaiton.
The following year, he started his teaching
career. He joined the English department
of Calcutta's City College as a tutor.
By this time, he had left Hardinge and
moved to boardings in Harrison Road. He
gave up his law studies. It is thought
that he also lived in a house in Bechu
Chatterjee Street for some time with his
brother Ashokanananda who had come up
from Barisal for his MSc studies.
Travels and travails
His literary career was starting to take
off. When Deshbondhu Chittaranjan Das
died in June 1925, Jibanananda wrote a
poem called Deshbandhu'r Prayan'e (On
the Death of the Friend of the Nation)
which was published in Bangabani magazine.
This poem would later take its place in
the collection called Jhara Palok (1927).
On reading it, the poet Kalidas Roy said
that he had thought the poem the work
of a mature, accomplished poet hiding
behind a pseudonym. Jibanananda's earliest
printed prose work was also published
in 1925. This was an obituary entitled
Kalimohan Das'er Sraddha-bashorey, which
appeared in serialized form in Brahmobadi
magazine. His poetry began to be widely
published in various literary journals
and little magazines in Calcutta, Dhaka
and elsewhere. These included Kallol,
perhaps the most famous literary magazine
of the era, Kalikalam (Pen and Ink), Progoti
(Progress) (co-edited by Buddhadeb Bose)
and others. At this time, he occasionally
used the surname Dasgupta as opposed to
Das.
In 1927, Jhara Palok (Fallen Feathers),
his first collection of poems, came out.
A few months later, Jibanananda managed
to get himself fired from his job at City
College. The college had been struck by
student unrest surrounding a religious
festival, and enrolment had suffered as
a result. Still in his late 20s, Jibanananda
was the youngest member of the faculty
and therefore the most dispensable . In
the literary circle of Calcutta, he also
came under serial attack the critic Sajanikanta
Das began to write aggressive critiques
of his poetry in the review pages of Shanibarer
Chithi (The Saturday Letter) magazine.
With nothing to keep him in Calcutta,
Jibanananda left for the small town of
Bagerhat in the far south, there to continue
his teaching career at Prafulla Chandra
College. But he only lasted there for
about three months and quickly returned
to the big city. He was now in dire financial
straits. In order to make ends meet, he
gave private tuition to students, and
kept applying for full-time positions
in academia. In December 1929, he moved
to Delhi to take up a teaching post at
Ramjosh College. But again this lasted
no more than a few months. Back in Barisal,
his family had been making arrangements
for his marriage. Once Jibanananda got
to Barisal, he failed to go back to Delhi
and consequently lost the job.
In May 1930, he married Labanya, a girl
whose ancestors came from Khulna. At the
subsequent reception in Dhaka's Ram Mohan
Library, leading literary lights of the
day such as Ajit Kumar Dutta and Buddhadeb
Bose were assembled. A daughter called
Manjusree was born to the couple in February
of the following year.
Around this time, he wrote one of his
most controversial poems. Camp'e (At the
Camp) was printed in Sudhindranath Dutta's
Parichay magazine and immediately caused
a firestorm in literary circles. The poem's
ostensible subject is a deer hunt by moonlight.
Many accused Jibanananda of promoting
indecency and incest through this poem.[citation
needed] More and more, he turned now,
in secrecy, to the short story format.
In 1934, he wrote the series of poems
that would form the basis of the collection
called Rupasi Bangla. These poems were
not discovered during his lifetime and
Rupasi Bangla was only published in 1957,
three years after his death.
Back in Barisal
In 1935, Jibanananda, by now familiar
with professional disappointment and poverty,
returned to his alma mater Brajamohan
College. He joined as a lecturer in the
English department. In Calcutta, Buddhadeb
Bose, Premendra Mitra and Samar Sen were
starting a brand new poetry magazine called
Kobita. Jibanananda's work featured in
the very first issue of the magazine,
a poem called Mrittu'r Aagey (Before Death).
Upon reading the magazine, Tagore wrote
a lengthy letter to Bose and especially
commended the Das poem: Jibanananda Das'
vivid, colourful poem has given me great
pleasure. It was in the second issue of
Kobita (Poush 1342 issue, Dec 1934/Jan
1935) that Jibanananda published his now-legendary
Banalata Sen. Today, this 18-line poem
is among the most famous poems in the
language.
The following year, his second volume
of poetry Dhusar Pandulipi was published.
Jibanananda was by now well settled in
Barisal. A son Samarananda was born in
November 1936. His impact in the world
of Bengali literature continued to increase.
In 1938, Tagore compiled a poetry anthology
entitled Bangla Kabya Parichay (Introduction
to Bengali Poetry) and included an abridged
version of Mrityu'r Aagey, the same poem
that had moved him three years ago. Another
important anthology came out in 1939,
edited by Abu Sayeed Ayub and Hirendranath
Mukhopadhyay; Jibanananda was represented
with four poems: Pakhira, Shakun, Banalata
Sen, and Nagna Nirjan Haat.
In 1942, the same year that his father
died, his third volume of poetry Banalata
Sen was published under the aegis of Kobita
Bhavan and Buddhadeb Bose. A ground-breaking
modernist poet in his own right, Bose
was a steadfast champion of Jibanananda's
poetry, providing him with numerous platforms
for publication. 1944 saw the publication
of Maha Prithibi. The Second World War
had a profound impact on Jibanananda's
poetic vision. The following year, Jibanananda
provided his own translations of several
of his poems for an English anthology
to be published under the title Modern
Bengali Poems. Oddly enough, the editor
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya considered these
translations to be sub-standard, and instead
commissioned Martin Kirkman to translate
four of Jibanananda's poems for the book.
Life in Calcutta : Final phase
The aftermath of the war saw heightened
demands for Indian independence. Muslim
politicians led by Jinnah wanted an independent
homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
Bengal was uniquely vulnerable to partition:
its western half was majority-Hindu, its
eastern half majority-Muslim. Yet adherents
of both religions spoke the same language,
came from the same ethnic stock, and lived
in close proximity to each other in town
and village. Jibanananda had emphasized
the need for communal harmony at an early
stage. In his very first book Jhora Palok,
he had included a poem called Hindu Musalman.
In it he proclaimed:
However, events in real life belied his
beliefs. In the summer of 1946, he travelled
to Calcutta from Barisal on three months'
paid leave. He stayed at his brother Ashokananda's
place through the bloody riots that swept
the city. Just before partition in August
1947, Jibanananda quit his job at Brajamohan
College and said goodbye to his beloved
Barisal. He and his family were among
the X million refugees who took part in
the largest cross-border exchange of peoples
in history. For a while he worked for
a magazine called Swaraj as its Sunday
editor. But he left the job after a few
months.
In 1948, he completed two of his novels,
Mallyaban and Shutirtho, neither of which
were discovered during his life. Shaat'ti
Tarar Timir was published in December
1948. The same month, his mother Kusumkumari
Das passed away in Calcutta.
By now, he was well-established in the
Calcutta literary world. He was appointed
to the editorial board of yet another
new literary magazine Dondo (Conflict).
However, in a reprise of his early career,
he was sacked from his job at Kharagpur
College in February of 1951. In 1952,
Signet Press published Banalata Sen. The
book received widespread acclaim and won
the Book of the Year award from the All-Bengal
Tagore Literary Conference. Later that
year, the poet found another job at Borisha
College (today known as Borisha Bibekanondo
College). This job too he lost within
a few months. He applied afresh to Diamond
Harbour Fakirchand College, but eventually
declined it, owing to travel difficulties.
Instead he was obliged to take up a post
at Howrah Girl's College (now known as
Vijaykrishna College). As the head of
the English department, he was entitled
to a 50-taka monthly bonus on top of his
salary.
By the last year of his life, Jibanananda
was acclaimed as one of the best poets
of the post-Tagore era. He was constantly
in demand at literary conferences, poetry
readings, radio recitals etc. In May 1954,
he published a volume titled 'Best Poems'
(Sreshttho Kobita}. His Best Poems won
the Indian Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955.
Death
On October 14, 1954, he was unmindfully
crossing a road near Calcutta's Deshapriya
Park when he was hit by a tram. Jibanananda
was returning home after his routine evening
walk. At that time, he used to reside
in a rented apartment on the Lansdowne
Road.Seriously injured, he was taken to
Shambhunath Pundit Hospital. Poet-writer
Sajanikanta Das who had been one of his
fiercest critics was tireless in his efforts
to secure the best treatment for the poet.
He even persuaded Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy
(then chief minister of West Bengal) to
visit him in hospital. Nonetheless, the
injury was too fatal to redress. Jibanananda
died in hospital on October 22, 1954 after
eight days of struggle with death, close
to midnight. He was then 55 and left behind
his wife, Labanyaprabha Das, a son and
a daughter, and the ever-growing band
of readers.
His body was cremated the following day
at Keoratola crematorium. Following popular
belief, it has been alleged in some biographical
accounts that his accident was actually
an attempt at suicide. However, none of
the Jibanananda biographers have indicated
as such.
The literary circle deeply mourned his
death. Almost all the newspapers published
obituary which contained sincere appreciation
of the poetry of Jibanananda. On 1 November
1954, The Times of India wrote :
The premature death after an accident
of Mr. Jibanananda Das removes from the
field of Bengali literature a poet, who,
though never in the limelight of publicity
and prosperity, made a significant contribution
to modern Bengali poetry by his prose-poems
and free-verse. ... A poet of nature with
a serious awareness of the life around
him Jibanananda Das was known not so much
for the social content of his poetry as
for his bold imagination and the concreteness
of his image. To a literary world dazzled
by Tagore's glory, Das showed how to remain
true to the poet's vocation without basking
in its reflection."
In his obituary in the Shanibarer Chithi,
Sajanikanta Das quoted from the poet :
When one day I'll leave this body once
for all -
Shall I never return to this world any
more?
Let me come back
On a winter night
To the bedside of any dying acquaintance
With a cold pale lump of orange in hand.
Everyday Jibanananda returns to thousand
of his readers and touches them with his
unforgettable lines.
Prose Style
During his life time Jibanananda remained
solely a poet who occasionally wrote literary
articles, mostly on solicitation. It is
after his death that a huge number of
novels and short-stories have been discovered.
Thematically, Jibanananda's storylines
are largely autobiographical. His own
time is constitutes the perspective. While
in poetry he subdued his own life, he
allowed it to be ushered into his ficiton.
Structurally they are based more on dialogues
than description by the author. However,
his prose shows a unique style of compound
sentences, use of non-colloquial words
and atypical pattern of punctuation. His
essays evidence a heavy prose style, which
although complex, is capable of expressing
complicated analytical statements. As
a result his prose was very compact, containing
profound message in a relatively short
space.
Major works
Poetry
" Jhôra Palok (Fallen Feathers),
1927.
" Dhushor Pandulipi (Grey Manuscript),
1936.
" Bônolôta Sen, 1942
" Môhaprithibi (Great Universe),
1944 :
" Shaat-ti Tarar Timir, (Darkness
of Seven Stars), 1948.
" Shreshtho Kobita, (Best Poems),1954
: Navana, Calcutta, .
" Rupôshi Bangla (Bengal, the
Beautiful), written in 1934, published
posthumously in 1957.
" Bela Obela Kalbela (Times, Bad
Times, End Times), 1961, published posthumously
but the manuscript was prepared during
life time.
" Sudorshona(The beautiful), published
posthumously in 1973: Sahitya Sadan, Calcutta.
" Alo Prithibi (The World of Light),
published posthumously in 1981 :Granthalaya
Private Ltd., Calcutta.
" Manobihangam (The Bird that is
my Heart), published posthumously in 1979
: Bengal Publishers Pivate Ltd. Calcutta.
" Oprkashitô Ekanno (Unpublished
Fifty-one), Published posthumously
in 1999, Mawla Brothers, Dhaka.
Fiction Novels
" Malyabaan (novel), New Script,
Calcutta, 1973 (posthumuously published).
" Purnima
" Kalyani
" Chaarjon
" Bibhav
" Mrinal
" Nirupam Yatra
" Karu-Bashona
" Jiban-Pronali
" Biraaj
" Pretinir Kotha
" Jalpaihati
" Sutirtha
" Bashmatir Upakhyan
Non-ficiton
" Kobitaar Kôtha (tr. On Poetry),
Signet Press, Calcutta, 1362 (Bngali year).
[edit] Major Collected Texts
" Bandopdhaya, Deviprasad : Kabya
Songroho - Jibanananda Das (tr. Collection
of Poetry of Jibanananda Das), 1993, Bharbi,
13/1 Bankim Chatujje Street, Kolkata-73.
" Bandopdhaya, Deviprasad : Kabya
Songroho - Jibanananda Das (tr. Collection
of Poetry of Jibanananda Das), 1999, Gatidhara,
38/2-KA Bangla Bazaar, Dhaka-1100, Bangladesh.
" Bandopdhaya, Deviprasad : Jibanananda
Das Uttorparba (1954 - 1965), 2000, Pustak
Bipani, Calcutta.
" Chowdhury, Faizul Latif (editor)
(1990), Jibanananda Das'er Prôbôndha
Sômôgrô, (tr: Complete
non-ficitonal prose works of Jibanananda
Das), First edition : Desh Prokashon,
Dhaka.
" Chowdhury, Faizul Latif (editor)
(1995), Jibanananda Das'er Prôbôndha
Sômôgrô, (tr: Complete
non-ficitonal prose works of Jibanananda
Das), Second edition : Mawla Brothers,
Dhaka.
" Chowdhury, F. L. (ed) : Oprokashito
51 (tr. Unpublished fifty one poems of
Jibanananda Das), 1999, Mawla Brothers,
Dhaka.
" Shahriar, Abu Hasan : Jibanananda
Das-er Gronthito-Ogronthito Kabita Samagra,
2004, Agaami Prokashoni, Dhaka.
Jibanananda in English Translation
Translating Jibanananda Das (JD) poses
a real challenge to any translator. It
not only requires translation of words
and phrases, it demands 'translation'
of colour and music, of imagination and
images. Translations are a works of interpretation
and reconstruction. When it comes to JD,
both are quite difficult.
However people have shown enormous enthusiasm
in translating JD. Translation of JD commenced
as the poet himself rendered some of his
poetry into English at the request of
poet Buddhadeb Bose for the Kavita. That
was 1952. His translations include [[Banalata
Sen]], Meditations, Darkness, Cat and
Sailor among others, many of which are
now lost. Since then many JD lovers have
taken interest in translating JD's poetry
into English. These have been published,
home and abroad, in different anthologies
and magazines.
Obviously different translators have approached
their task from different perspectives.
Some intended to merely transliterate
the poem while others wanted to maintain
the characteristic tone of Jibanananda
as much as possible. As indicated above,
the latter is not an easy task. In this
connection, it is interesting to quote
Chidananda Dasgupta who informed of his
experience in translating JD :
Effort has of course been made to see
that the original's obliqueness or deliberate
suppression of logical and syntactical
links are not removed altogether. Sometimes
Jibanananda's very complicated and apparently
arbitrary syntax has been smoothed out
to a clear flow. On occasion, a word or
even a line has been dropped, and its
intention incorporated somewhere just
before or after. Names of trees, plants,
places or other elements incomprehensible
in English have often been reduced or
eliminated for fear that they should become
an unpleasant burden on the poem when
read in translation.<ref?* Dashgupta,
Chidananda : 'Selected Poems - Jibanananda
Das', 2006, Penguin Books, New Delhi.
Small wonder that Chidananda Dasgupta
took quite a bit of liberty in his project
of translating JD.
Major books containing poems of Jibanananda
in English translation, as of 2008, are
given below:
" Ahmed, Mushtaque : 'Gleanings from
Jibanananda Das', 2002, Cox's Bazaar Shaitya
Academy, Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh.
" Alam, Fakrul : 'Jibanananda Das
- Selected poems with an Introduction,
Chronology, and Glossary', 1999, University
Press Limited, Dhaka.
" Banerji, Anupam : 'Poems : Bengal
the Beautiful and Banalata Sen by Jivanananda
Das', (Translated and Illustrated by Anupam
Banerji), 1999, North Waterloo Academic
Press, 482 Lexington Crescent, Waterloo,
Ontario, N2K 2J8, 519-742-2247.
" Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed): 'A Certain
Sense - Poems by Jibanananda Das', Translated
by Various Hands, 1998, Sahitya Akademi,
Kolkatta.
" Chowdhury, F. L. (ed) : 'I have
seen the Bengal's face - Poems from Jibanananda
Das' (An anthology of poems from Jibanananda
Das translated in English), 1995, Creative
Workshop, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
" Chowdhury, F. L. and G. Mustafa
(ed) : 'Beyond Land and Time' (An anthology
of one hundred selected poems of Jibanananda
Das, translated into English), 2008, Somoy
Prokashan, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
" Dashgupta, Chidananda : 'Selected
Poems - Jibanananda Das', 2006, Penguin
Books, New Delhi.
" Gangopadhyay, Satya : Poems of
Jibanananda Das, 1999, Chhatagali, Chinsurah,
West Bengal, India.
" Seely, Clinton B. : 'A Poet Apart'
(A comprehensive literary biography of
Jibanananda Das), 1990, Associated University
Press Ltd, USA.
" Seely, Clinton B. : 'Scent of Sun'
(An anthology of poems of Jibanananda
Das in English translation), 2008, - upcoming.
" Winter, Joe : 'Jibanananda Das
- Naked Lonely Hand' (Selected poems :
translated from Bengali), 2003, Anvil
Press Poetry Ltd., London, UK.
" Winter, Joe : 'Bengal the Beautiful',
2006, Anvil Press Poetry Ltd., Neptune
House, 70 Royal Hill, London SE10 8RF,
UK.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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