Modernist Quest in Devkota's Poetry

International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences Vol-6, Issue-3; May-Jun, 2021 Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/ Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels Peer-Reviewed Journal Modernist Quest in Devkota’s Poetry Dr. Sushil Kumar Shahi Mid-Western University, Karnali Province, Nepal Received: 20 Nov 2020; Received in revised form: 21 Jan 2021; Accepted: 15 May 2021; Available online: 26 Jun 2021 ©2021 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Abstract— Devkota has been celebrated as the great poet. He is examined as the leading Nepali romantic writer. There is something rather strange about this, because what is so extraordinary about his greatness is not methodologically presented. He is a central poet of modern tradition and versatile genius who breaks with tradition, establishes his own tradition of modern Nepali literature and lives up to his own definition of the poets and poetry. His writing is not merely an expression of emotions and feelings. Instead, it examines human life and reflects philosophy of inclusion. This paper examines poetry of Devkota to answer where and how he breaks with tradition to establish tradition of modern Nepali literature. Bhikhari and Laxmi Kabitasangraha have been selected and studied with great care to interpret the poet and his thoughts at his best and relate him with issues of philosophy and culture. My aim has been not so much to narrate Devkota's poetry as to explain it, so as to bring it within the focus of western and eastern thought. Though is not fully based on any informed theory, it depends upon an interdisciplinary approach to analyze Devkota's tradition of modern poetry. Keywords— Devkota’s Poetry, Nepali literature, modern poetry. I. BACKGROUND transform the material of the materialist (J. K. Watson 22). The most striking fact in modern Nepali literature is the Certainly Devkota’s extraordinary talent allows him to be revolution in poetic taste and practice which resulted in the aware of his position in the world, of cultural heritage that rejection of the views of poetry represented by exclusive provides him the knowledge of collective memory, of the literary trend. It is Devkota’s quest for novelty that rejects geography which inspires him to creativity and of his duty stabilities with a genuine move towards the recognition of to mankind. greater diversity, developing inclusive poetic expression In Eliot’s opinion, poetic talent is "a continual self-sacrifice, and encouraging the spirit of resistance against monolithic a continual extinction of personality" (Adams 762). As social systems. Devkota breaks up with the convention in Devkota draws on realities of the time, he escapes terms of thought, style, tone and linguistic variation by narcissism and transforms his individual feeling and giving expression to the continuation of the past in the experience into a novel voice that gives expression to the present and a link with the future. In the broad sense, poetic deepest feelings and problems of ordinary masses in the novelty in Devkota’s writing refers to the poet’s creative act light of history and myth with hope for the future. Such of providing an organic image of an individual experience ability in Devkota to see things around him in the context of in relation to the society, politics, economics, culture and his experience and people’s suffering in the world provides omnipresent concept of nature. As a result, Devkota’s evidence that Devkota possesses what Immanuel Kant novelty is the artistic talent which resembles S.T. called intuitive sensibility. In Kant’s views, a creative mind Coleridge’s notion of imagination as a unifying principle. synthesizes and unifies experiences in time and space According to Coleridge, imagination struggles to idealize (Samuel Enoch Stumpf 287). In the process of writing, and unify. It is a special power of the mind, which can Devkota is capable of synthesizing and unifying great IJELS-2021, 6(3), (ISSN: 2456-7620) https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.63.52 375 Sushil Kumar Shahi Modernist Quest in Devkota’s Poetry public events, minor individual emotions, problems of the Medieval Time from 1904 up to 1913 and Modern from society and future visions with in-depth understanding of 1913 onwards. shared history and geography. For instance, Bhikhari in Yet it is essential to see where Devkota stands as a great which Devkota demonstrates his originality and freedom as poet in the history of Nepali literature and how the a poet with a new sense and spirit. interpretive community has described him as a romantic poet. In Nepali Kabita.VII. Basudev Tripathi who has II. METHODOLOGY: AN produced criticism on Nepali art argues that Devkota is a INTERDISCIPLINARY READING nature poet. He writes that Devkota emerged after Paudel as a poet of free imagination that displaced the old tradition Since the interpretive community of Nepali literature lacks and put the poet’s self-ego at the centre of poetry (93). objective criticism on analysis of Devkota’s works, it is Lekhanath Paudel begins modern attitude in Nepali really difficult to trace the poet’s relation with the national literature with focus on classicism. Then Nepali poetry psyche. Throughout his intellectual journey, he constantly begins to celebrate emotion, feeling, yearning and contributes to the founding of Nepalese cultural mind set. imagination. He points out that Devkota started writing But the legacy of the existing interpretive history of Nepali under the influence of British romantic poets such as literature seems blind to creative and intellectual writings of William Wordsworth, St.Coleridge, John Keats, P.B. Shelly Devkota to show the poet’s actual position in the history of and others. So, for Tripathi, Devkota leads romanticism that Nepali literature and his contributions to the Nepali socio- comes as a second literary movement after classicism. The political, economic and cultural development. In Sahityako third phase of modern Nepali literature is progressive Itihasa, Dhayaram Shrestha rightly argues that the history romanticism that flourished under Devkota. After of Nepali literature should be redrawn by evaluating and progressive romanticism, experimentalism led by Mohan analyzing characteristics of the literary art for developing Koirala dominated the development of Nepali literature. impartial and more objective approach to literature to see After this, a broad phase of common literary trends came each writer’s response and contribution to the growth of into the scene. The above scholarly interpretation made by Nepali literature (111-112). This shows and exemplifies that Tripathi tends to limit Devkota to the rank of a nature poet there is a lack of comparative approach to the artist’s who imports romanticism from the west to give a new turn creation in order to present honest and objective criticism of to ongoing Nepali literary modernity. Even Devkota Nepalese poets for the sake of developing impartial critical scholars such as Krishna Gautam, Chudamani Bandu, tradition. Kumarbahadur Joshi and Mahadev Abasthi have said that In the domain of Nepali scholarship, Devkota is considered Devkota is a romantic poet who studied British romantic a romantic poet. Critics such as Basudev Tripathi, Chumani writers and produced works under the influence and Bandu, Mahadev Avasthi and Kumarbahadur Joshi argue inspiration of British romantic priests. These scholars also that Devkota is a nature poet who imports British emphasize Devkota’s originality, but what they mean by romanticism to add something new to ongoing Nepali Devkota’s originality is not clear. This tradition of modernity initiated by Lekhnath Paudel. Yet it is essential interpretation remains less critical and static to the wider to look at the modern period of Nepalese literature. range of Devkota’s writing in Nepali, English, Hindi and a The Modern Period, according to Tripathy, started from variety of dialects. Therefore, a close reading and 1918 onwards with Paudel’s rejection of tradition. For observation of Devkota’s bulk of writing could easily Tripathi modern Nepali literature consists of different question and refute Tripathi’s scholarly tradition that lacks modes: Classical, Romantic, Progressive Romantic, a close observation of Devkota’s tradition, talent and Experimental and Common Literary Trends. But there achievements. It is also equally surprising thatTripathi and exists a tense debate on the issue of literary period. Different other Devkota scholars should discourage themselves from critics have expressed different views and presented various looking into and seeing Devkota from the ground of his facts about the development of Nepali literary world. The writing on issues of nature, culture, politics, myth, history act of interpreting Nepali literature began by Babu Ram and economics. Acharya when he published Purana kabi andkabita in 1946. Once an interpretive community moves beyond the With the publication of Role of Nepali Literature in 1960, established critical lens to relocate Devkota in relation to Yagya Raj Satyal developed more concrete ideas on the modern Nepali literature, scholars will easily be able to growth of literature. He explicitly divided literary times into grasp the poet’s inclusive literary tradition which is a three periods: Old, Medieval and Modern. In his opinion, product of the poet’s intertextual knowledge and talent. It is the Old Period is the beginning of the nineteenth century, explicit that Devkota brings words and ideas from the sea of eastern and western culture and recontextualizes these in his IJELS-2021, 6(3), (ISSN: 2456-7620) https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.63.52 376 Sushil Kumar Shahi Modernist Quest in Devkota’s Poetry own original way. The poet’s talent lies in recontextualizing impact upon Nepali society. Hence his position is not just words and ideas borrowed from the cultural history of his that of a romantic poet.

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