Laughter and subjectivity: The self-ironical tradition in Bengali literature

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 379-406

  Kaviraj, Sudipta ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 10844231133     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00003334     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, 'Anukaran', Vividha Prabandha, Bankim Rachanavali (Sahitya Samsad, Calcutta, 1968) (hereafter, BR), ii, 200-1.
2. For illuminating analysis of the connection between modernity and identity, Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992), and in a different, more sociological direction, Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Polity, Cambridge, 1992).
3. For illuminating analysis of the connection between modernity and identity, Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992), and in a different, more sociological direction, Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Polity, Cambridge, 1992).
4. have dealt with some aspects of this problem, as it affects marxist thinking in 'Marxism and the Darkness of History', in Jan Nederveen Pieterse (ed.), Emancipations: Modern and Postmodern (Sage, London, 1992).
5. In my Unhappy Consciousness (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995).
6. For excellent discussion on the historical course of such self reflection, see Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1986).
7. There is clear evidence of a search for a collective self, which would qualify to be called by the English word 'nation' in the works of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay; but the fashioning of a language for the interiority of the individual self had to wait till the maturer works of Rabindranath Tagore. I have tried to analyse the shaping of this language in'Tagore in The Poetry of Interiority', paper for conference on Identity in South Asian History, University of Calcutta, Department of History, 28-30 March 1994.
8. It is thus not surprising that Tagore returned repeatedly to write poems on 'Ami' (I/Me), and his late poetry is full of reflection on the ambiguity, unconcludedness and, unboundability of his personal self. Many of his celebrated novels and stories do of course explore the nature of the individual self and the mysteries of self-consciousness: eg, Gora, Ghare Baire,Jogajog, Strir Patra.
9. have stated this argument more fully in 'Signs of madness', Journal of Arts and Ideas, Special Number on Representations, 1990, and in Unhappy Consciousness, chapter 2.
10. have stated this argument more fully in 'Signs of madness', Journal of Arts and Ideas, Special Number on Representations, 1990, and in Unhappy Consciousness, chapter 2.
11. Apart from literary writing, and probably before that, this corrosive banter against the pretensions of the babu, a political and cultural creature of colonial rule, appeared in popular songs.
12. A term denoting the middle-class educated elite of colonial Bengal.
13. Varnaparichay (Vidyasagar's primer for children) contrasts particularly with the artistically imaginative treatment in Tagore's Sahaj Path (Tagore's primer, which was based on an entirely different pedagogic theory, and emphasized the fact that children must learn to read the world both literally and artistically), though of late this has offended the anachronistic sensibility of the leftist cultural commissars.
14. Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Bhrantivilas (1869).
15. 'Bangala Sahitye Pyarichand Mitra', BR, ii, 862-3.
16. A good example of this idea of exalted canons is the topic of Bankimchandra's famous essay in literary criticism, 'Shakuntala, Miranada evam Desdemona'. BR, ii, 204-9.
17. Madhusudan Dutta's Meghnadbadh Kavya (1861) is an excellent example of how creatively writers could exploit the possibilities opened up by the conjunction of these two high canons. The narrative is taken from the Ramayana, but is read through an inverting interpretation which owed much to Paradise Lost.
18. Kaliprasanna Sinha, Hutom Penchar Naksha, introduction.
19. For an interesting discussion on Bankimchandra's view of the West, Tapan Raychaudhuri, Europe Reconsidered (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1990). Partha Chatterjee analyses Bankim from a different angle, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.
20. For an interesting discussion on Bankimchandra's view of the West, Tapan Raychaudhuri, Europe Reconsidered (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1990). Partha Chatterjee analyses Bankim from a different angle, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.
21. For example Gandhi.
22. A good example of poetry which is closely imitative of Sukumar Ray, and marked by both technical similarity and utter philosophic difference, is the enjoyable, but altogether less beguiling poetry of Sunirmal Basu.
23. Most generally, an alankara can be termed a literary or stylistic embellishment. But the term also generally means a combination of rhetoric and poetics.
24. Vyajastuti is the technical form of an alankara which consists in wordplay producing counterfeit praise, or praise-abuse.
25. In his Annadamangal, there are some famous stanzas in which Daksha, Sati's father, denounces Shiva in the presence of his guests. This part is prefaced explicitly by the poet by the lines: Bharat Shiver ninda kemane barnibe/ nindachchale stuti kari Shankar bujhibe - How can Bharat write abuse of Shiva? I shall praise in the disguise of abuse: Shankara will understand.
26. For an excellently well judged criticism of Ishwarchadra Gupta's poetic works, see Bankim's 'Ishwar Gupter Jivancharit o Kavitva', BR, ii, 835-60.
27. Literally, under the Banyan tree; but standing for a genre of disreputable, salacious publications.
28. Natyashastra, ed. K. S. Ramaswamy Shastri (Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1956), cha. VI, pp. 312-17.
29. The best example of this is of course the poetry of Kalidasa.
30. Kamalakanter Daplar (1875) was enlarged in 1885 as Kamalakanta.
31. Kamalakanter Daplar (1875) was enlarged in 1885 as Kamalakanta.
32. have discussed the function of this double irony in The Unhappy Consciousness, ch. 2.
33. Shlesha is an alankara that comes closest to irony in the classical Sanskrit repertoire.
34. BR, ii, 9-10.
35. Bankim wrote an immortal satire on this process of the rise of a Bengali to eminence in the colonial world in his Muchiram Guder Jibancharit. (1880),BR, ii, 113-28.
36. Babu BR, ii, 10-12.
37. Rabindranath Thakur, Manasi (Visvabharati, Calcutta, 1967), 126-30.
38. Gurumara literally means murdering the teacher; tike is a commentary. Gurumara is standardly used to describe a student, gurumara chela. Here this clearly means commentaries which exceed/ destroy the texts. 'Bangavi', Manasi, 140-5.
39. Hing Ting Chhat. Sonar Tari, Sanchayita (Visvabharati, Calcutta, 1972), 118.
40. The phrase literally means a pupil of foreign scholars who has destroyed (i.e. surpassed) his instructors.
41. It is impossible to convey the combination of lucidity and nonsensicality of the combination of phrases the gaudiya scholar uses in his elucidation. Most of the individual concepts are meaningful terms used in Indian philosophy or theology. It is also true that sometimes explanations of phenomena in terms of traditional theological or astrological scholarship would sound very similar to this to lay ears, although they might be perfectly legitimate according to their internal systems of references and conceptual coherence. But this particular amalgam is of course wholly nonsensical. What should be noted is the mixing of concepts from traditional thought, like tryamvaka, trinayana, trikala, prapancha etc. with modern scientific terminology, akarshan, vikarshan etc.
42. Hing Ting Chhat, 118-19.
43. This pointedly satirises trends in contemporary Bengalis which sought to defend traditional metaphysical ideas by illegitimate and specious uses of modern science. For an interesting and detailed analysis of such trends see, Gyan Prakash, 'Science between the Lines' (unpublished paper) 1993.
44. Literally, a resident of Madras.
45. Pejorative form for Oriya.
46. Bangal was used to refer pejoratively to residents of east Bengal; but this insult was heartily returned. West Bengal people were similarly called ghati.
47. Again, in a perfectly traditional style. Religious texts were not content with describing the extraordinary events of their divine and mortal protagonists. Usually, they recited the this and otherwordly benefits to be gained by hearing the narratives - an entirely understandable move in a culture with such a teeming and competitive market for ennobling stories. Tagore's poem accordingly spoofs this declaration at the end of Hing Ting Chhat, 120.
48. Though that does not mean that he abandoned the project of criticizing the pretensions of middle class Bengali culture. His novel, Gora, for instance, is a complex extension of this critique; but the literary,formal, mode had changed: he would make much less use of ironical banter.
49. Aboltabol was translated twice, once by Satyajit Ray, and more recently by Sukanta Choudhury, cf 'The Blighty Cow', Selected Nonsense of Sukumar Ray (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1987), 41.
50. Babu, in Sukumar Ray, Khai Khai. Sukumar Rachanavali (Patra's Publication, Calcutta, 1985), 33.
51. Bidal, BR, ii, 85-8.
52. The best example of this is the essay Amar Durgotsav, BR, ii, 79-81.
53. In Unhappy Consciousness.
54. Duranta Asha.
55. Rabindranath Thakur, Jivansmriti (Visva Bharati, Calcutta, 1968) pp. 78-9.
56. The last stage reached in more recent novels imitative of European existentialist literature.
57. Sukanta Bhattacharyya, 'He Mahajivan', Chhadpatra (Saraswat Library, Calcutta, 1382 Bengali) p. 87.
58. Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, ch. 2.