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A SEARCH for the Cpncept of the POET: an EVALUATION of the RELEVANT THEORIES of POETRY from VEDIC to the POSTMODERN PERIOD

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A SEARCH for the Cpncept of the POET: an EVALUATION of the RELEVANT THEORIES of POETRY from VEDIC to the POSTMODERN PERIOD A SEARCH FOR THE CpNCEPT OF THE POET: AN EVALUATION OF THE RELEVANT THEORIES OF POETRY FROM VEDIC TO THE POSTMODERN PERIOD RANJAN GHOSH THESIS SUBMITTED FOR Ph.D. DEGREE UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF Dr. G.N. ROY AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH BENGAL 2001 1 * MAR ^^'^ CONTENTS Preface i Acknowledgement iii Chapter I Introduction \ Chapter n Towards a Concept of the Poet in the Vedic Aesthetics 18 Chapter ni The Poet as Hero and Maker: A Reading in Early Greek Poetry 36 Chapter FV The Banishment mui Restoration of the Poet: A Reading in the 49 Platonian and Aristotelian Aesthetics Chapter V The Concept of the Poet in the Psalms 66 Chapter VI Towards a Concept of the Poet: Thomas Aquinas & St. Augustine 79 Chapter VII The Concept of the Poet in the aesthetics of Philip Sidney and Ben 90 Jonson Chapter VHI The Concept of the Poet in the Aesthetics of Eighteenth Century 106 Chapter DC Imagination, Genius & 'Aesthetic Ideas': Apropos Kant 125 Chapter X The Concept of the Poet in the Romantic theory of poetry 138 Chapter XI Contrasting Identities of the Poet: Matthew Arnold and 170 Thomas Carlyle Chapter XII The Concept of the Poet in the aesthetics of Sri Aurohindb 189 Chapter XIH The Concept of the Poet in the Aesthetics ofRabindranaih Tagore 204 Chapter XIV The Concept of the Poet in the aesthetics ofT.S. Eliot 219 Chapter XV Recentering of the Poet: The Postmodern Perspective 240 Bibliography 252 Appendix 266 PREFACE The present thesis is intended as an essay on the history of an idea or a concept namely the poet. Ifistory of ideas has become by now, since Lovejoy till Isaaih Berlin, an exacting and respectable discipline which cannot be explained away in favour of analysis and deconstruction. Concepts have their reality and a life of their own. They are subsistent entities as distinguished from existent ones, a la CD. Broad. In the Republic, in connection with developing his theory of ideas, Plato remarked that whenever we ascribe the same term to more than one object we conceive an idea or a concept to subsist. By the same token, the poet is a legitimate notion and is to be inevitably encountered in every culture and civilisation known to mankind. Language, be it simply spoken or scripted, has such wielders of the medium who have enlarged the expressive power and potency of language. Deliberating on the method of philosophy, A.N. Whitehead, (co-author of the Principia Mathematica) has remarked m. Adventures of Ideas that the moment of breakdown of language occasions the enunciation of a profound metaphysical truth. The point for Whitehead is that the very purpose of philosophy is to delve below the apparent clarity of common speech. The creative wielder of language, whom we call the poet, does that in his own manner. Language, to Whitehead, delivers its evidence in a threefold manner — one on the meaning of words, another on the meaning enshrined in grammatical form, and the third on the meaning beyond individual words and grammatical forms, meanings miraculously revealed in poetry. It may be of special interest to note that these things have been said by no less a person than one who is one of the founders of mathematical logic and who taught mathematics to another great thinker of all times, Bertrand Russell-We may, therefore, accord further attention to yet another statement from Whitehead - 'all men enjoy flashes of insight beyond meanings already stabilized in etymology and grammar' (1961: 228). This explains our fascination for poetry and the poet. The poet is the person who in his various ways is 'engaged in finding linguistic expressions for meanings as yet unexpressed' (ibid) As an example. Whitehead invites us to consider a line and a half of poetry from Euripides's the Trojan Women (886-7) which suggests a philosophical problem to which Europe had no answer till today. "Zeus, whether thou art Compulsion of Nature or Intelligence of Mankind, to thee I prayed", (ibid) Whitehead comments that these lines have survived the ages with a modem appeal. The poet in Euripides carries us away from the constriction in foundation for epistemology. The importance of the concept of the poet may now be well appreciated. We may enlarge upon Whitehead's contention in respect of the poet. It is possible to say that poetry is a fragment of language with the mark on it of a finite creative effort so that it stands alone in its individuality as a 'being' detailed from the vague inanity of its background. Thus the art of poetry heightens the sense of humanity. To return to Plato, by saying that there is a concept of the poet, is to imply the thesis that the concept may be formulated as a creative spirit and instantiated with reference to the literature of the world be it Sanskrit or English. These two languages are culturally and geographically apart and yet we come across the highest common factor of designation and understanding of the role jmd the office of the poet. This prepares us for the 'connectedness' of the theme of the creative self in and through the chapters of the present dissertation. We are not concerned with the poet as such but with the idea of the poet as has been spoken of or thought by various thinkers over the years. In this respect our study is a second order activity in the logical sense of the term. Sometimes it will be seen that the poets have themselves spoken about their office. All that I would like to bring home in the thesis is that since there is axiomatically a concept of the poet, the evidence of which is available in all known literatures of the world, it follows that the nuances and formulation of the concept deserve a study with the support of the data known to me. -11- ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My supervisor. Dr. G.N. Roy has allowed me to prosper under his individualistic principles of supervision which mete out a liberty and discipline that are necessary to the development of a researcher's critical ability. More than the formality of his strident scholarship, it was the informality of ray relationship with him that contributed to my critical perspective. It is he, who with a near neoclassical directness, inspired me to explore the critical undulation of the postmodem-poststructural pastures of critical theory. I owe Dr. Ashish Sengupta, Department of English, University of North Bengal, an amusing debt that started with his question in my seminar address: "Where is the poet in the postmodern poststructural theory?" This question has triggered my life long quest to figure out the zone of uneasy calm amidst the maelstrom of theories and counter theories. More than the question he has always been a ready answer to ray moments that have been bruised by a feeling little less than inimicality and experiences that have been cankered with immaturity. In this connection, I thank all the other members of the Department of English, University of North Bengal, for their cooperation. To say that I owe an immense gratitude to Dr. P. K. Roy, Department of Philosophy, University of North Bengal, would certainly demonstrate the impoverishment of the metaphor. It is he who has institutionalised my interest in classics and coaxed an efflorescence of strong interest in philosophy, both Eastern and Western, that culminated in Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. It is he who has watered my Tree, manured it with the eclectic grains of thought and infused the spirit that sustains and adds without manifesting any inclination to share the fruit. My heart reaches out to Prof Niranjan Mohanty, Department of English and Modem European Languages, Visva Bharati, who taught me the ethics of true scholarship which is a much coveted and yet often elusive combination of affection and erudition. His suggestions have been incisive, observations have been analytic to say the least, and fi-iendship has been engraved in faith and 'becalming' smile. Dr. George Patteri and Dr. Sabujkali Mitra of the Department of Philosophy, Visva Bharati, deserve my heartfelt thanks for their assistance. Dr. Patteri, whom I fondly call 111 Georgeda, is instrumental in supplying me with a substantial amount of resources for my work on Old Testament poetry. Several discussions with him and many others with whom he introduced me for critical parleys helped me to navigate through the deceptively simple waters of Old Testament poetry. Here I tender my heartfelt thanks to Prof R.K. Dasgupta for writing an erudite letter, as he is so wont in accomplishing, to me which provided an immensely helpful bibliography. I am immensely grateful to the members of the Central Library, Visva Bharati, for their support and assistance. I thank the members of British Coimcil Library, Calcutta, National Library, Calcutta, USIS, Calcutta and the staff of the Central Library, University of North Bengal. Here I would be failing in my duty if I do not mention my perennial gratitude to Tanaya Gupta and Tapan Gupta, (Library, University of North Bengal) for all the things that they have done for me. I cherish the 'debt' with pleasant enthusiasm. Also, I express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dilip Sinha, Vice Chancellor, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, for his kind words of encouragement. A brilliant intellectual himself, he has always been a source of inspiration to budding scholars. I can never forget the affection and moral support that Prof. Sudhendu Mondol, Visva Bharati, has given me right from the inception of my project. Finally, I choose to remain silent about my parents and Sumana for I owe them all that silence can speak.
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