Academic literature on the topic 'Jibananand'

Abstract This paper presents a series of observations arising from the experience of translating Jibanananda Das's Bengali poetry into English. Though the emphasis is on the practice of translation the observations in question are foregrounded against the perspective of theories of translation studies. The first part of the paper demarcates the scope of the paper in theoretical terms. Several possible approaches to translations of Jibanananda Das (in terms of process, end product, and sociological connotation) are considered with a view to focusing on practical observations. In the course of this process of theoretical delimitation some sense of the linguistic and literary context within which Jibanananda worked, and which the translator must appreciate, is conveyed. The second part is guided to a large extent by Roman Jakobson's notion that the activity of translating is influenced more by what languages must convey rather than by what they can convey. Consequently, this part identifies those features of the source and target languages which pose the greatest difficulties for the translator. It is assumed throughout that the practice of literary translation is largely a decision-making process: examples from the poetry of Jibanananda Das are cited and the range of decisions facing the translator are clarified where ever necessary. Four features of the Bengali language as compared to the English language are examined at some length: neutral pronouns of Bengali as opposed to gender-specific pronouns of English; culture-specific words; sadhu and calit used in Bengali (and analogously formal and informal modes of address); and symbolic forms (or echo-type onomatopoeic words or expressives) in Bengali and English. In the third part a translator's practice with regard to the specifically poetic features, over and above the inevitable linguistic features, of texts like Jibanananda's is considered briefly. Résumé Le présent article contient une série d'observations formulées à partir de la traduction en anglais de la poésie de Jibanananda Das. Bien que l'auteur mette l'accent sur la pratique de la traduction, ces observations s'inscrivent dans la perspective des théories relatives aux études de la traduction. Dans une première partie, l'auteur définit le cadre théorique de l'article. Les traductions de la poésie de Jibanananda Das sont approchées sous différents angles (processus traductionnel, produit final et connotations sociologiques) de manière à pouvoir se concentrer sur les aspects pratiques. La délimitation d'un cadre théorique doit permettre la découverte du contexte linguistique et théorique dans lequel s'inscrivent les oeuvres de Jibanananda et qui doit être apprécié à sa juste valeur par le traducteur. La seconde partie de l'article est dominée par un principe de Roman Jakobson, à savoir que l'activité traductionnelle est davantage influencée par ce que les langues doivent faire passer plutôt que par ce qu'elles sont capables de faire passer. Par conséquent, dans cette seconde partie, l'auteur désigne les aspects qui, dans la langue d'origine et dans la langue d'arrivée, posent le plus de difficultés au traducteur. L'auteur considère que la pratique de la traduction littéraire est en grande partie un processus décisionnel. A ce propos, il cite des exemples empruntés à la poésie de Jibanananda Das et explicite, chaque fois qu'elles s'avèrent nécessaires, les décisions auxquelles est confronté le traducteur. Quatre caractéristiques de la langue bengali sont comparées à l'anglais et examinées en détails: les pronoms neutres en bengali par opposition aux pronoms de genre en anglais; termes typiques de la culture; usage de sadhu et de calit en bengali (et, par analogie, formes de politesse ou tutoiement); et formes symboliques (ou expressions ou onomatopées de type écho) en bengali et en anglais. Dans la troisième partie, l'auteur aborde brièvement la pratique de la traduction, plus spécifiquement en ce qui concerne les aspects poétiques, par-dessus et au-delà des caractéristiques linguistiques inévitables, de textes tels que ceux de Jibanananda.

In his Bengali treatise on poetry named Kobitar Kotha/Why I Write there is evidence of vernacular poet Jibanananda (1899-1954). Jibanananda was familiar with the poetic cannons of European poetry. He emphasizes, in his treatise on poetry, on “experience” along with “imagination” as intrinsic to the creative process of poetry. The affinity of English Romantic poet William Wordsworth’s (deliberation on nature of Poetry and the definition of a Poet in Preface to The Lyrical Ballads and Jibanananda’s two articles on the same subject-Kobitar Kotha/The Story of Poetry and Keno Likhi/Why I Write is remarkable. This paper seeks to identify some areas of commonality in this sphere.

Jibanananda Das is arguably the greatest modern poet and one of the leading poets of Bangla literature. His oeuvre of poetry ranges from documenting the diminishing nature to decadence and alienation emanating from modernist practices adopted from Europe. Despite being one of the greatest poets of Bangla literature he is not so well known in the academia as well as to the international arena as is supposed to be. His “Aat Bochor Ager Ekdin”, a representative poem, narrates the story of a man having no dearth and deficiency in life, still, he chooses to commit suicide. Following reportage style, the poet relates the story alternatively by inserting the voice of a reporter and converging his personality with that of the protagonist. This paper demonstrates how Jibanananda Das through reportage has portrayed a modern man and unveiled his personality making the poem an attempt at autobiographical exploration. The present paper is also intended to reveal his extraordinary contribution to Bangla literature in the international arena. Hopefully, through this paper, the academicians, especially those from a literature background, will be interested to know about his life and literary works.

Surrealism expresses the working of the subconscious, as manifested in dreams and uncontrolled by reason and characterized by the incongruous and startling arrangement and presentation of subject matter. The theme of Jibanananda's poem ‗Banalata Sen' is straightforward. However, because of the style of presentation, it appeared to be subtle, mysterious and bizarre even to the native readers and critics of his time. The poet's wizardry of image and metaphor makes an ordinary Banalata Sen beyond touch as she transcends to a higher space, surpassing all worldly affairs. The poet presents her beauty in entirely different imagery infrequent in our literature before his utterance. Throughout the poem, he creates a sense of wonder and dreamlike progression from the flow of time expressed by ancient civilizations and illusory natural beauty to the contemplation of the end of earthly affairs. With a view to establishing Jibanananda's ‗Banalata Sen' as a surrealist poem, this article aims at exploring the images and metaphors that has unfolded his subliminal working of the mind.IIUC Studies Vol.13 December 2016: 83-92

This study aims to establish a link between the concept of “Weltliteratur” or World Literature, in terms of the free movement of literary themes and ideas between nations in original form or translation, and the Bengali poets of the thirties and forties who actively translated French and German poets. It identifies Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's (1749-1832) concept of World Literature as a vehicle for the Kallol Jug poets. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe introduced the concept of “Weltliteratur” in a few of his essays in the first half of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, including works of non-Western origin. My emphasis will be on Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) arguably the most celebrated poet in Bengali literature who was well versed in the contemporary Western Canons of Poetry. Jibanananda’s defamiliarization of the rural Bengal Landscape, his use of exotic foreign images owe a debt to contemporary European poets. Interestingly, Jibanananda had reviewed an English translation of German author Thomas Mann’s novel “Dr Faustus’ for a Bengali magazine “Chaturanga”. In the Bengali review he states that despite prevalent misconceptions (some critics considering the novel to be superior to the original Faust epic by Goethe) Goethe’s Faust was the first text to capture the hope, despair and crisis in the modern world and articulate it in such a manner that “true” literature of the age was created in its new light. In Jibanananda’s estimation, Thomas Mann deserves credit for treating the Faust legend in a unique and creative way.

Indian English literature generally refers to that body of writing, which is produced in the English language by the litterateurs of an Indian origin. It is however, understandable that creative translations should also be located into the corpus of Indian English literature. Historically speaking, what gave the first solid footing to Indian English poetry was Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, and this came in the form of creative translation. After Rabindranath we find another accomplished poet of twentieth century Bengal to practice creative translation of his Bengali poetry into English. This poet is Jibanananda Das, whose English- language poetry in the form of creative translation is yet to receive a broader audience. The present paper seeks to study three of these creative translations titled Meditations (Manosarani in Bengali), Darkness (Andhakar in Bengali) and Sailor (Nabik in Bengali), which seem to form a complex sequel in respect of Jibanananda’s deep concern for the socio-cultural unrest that characterized the general fabrics of life in Bengal after the Partition of 1947. Moreover, these poems appear equally contemporary in the twenty first century, when the disruptive forces of corruption, falsehood, debauchery, political coercion and cultural denigration are more severely at work to corrode and annihilate the cultural roots of Bengal. So, the purpose of the present study is two-fold: first, to show how the creative translations of Jibanananda continue to strike the note of a universal humanity in the present times, and second, to voice for their inclusion in forthcoming anthologies of Indian English poetry. For, these poems composed by one of the greatest poets of modern Bengal would make room for readers from all over India to savour the taste of a fine artistry that transcends the limits of every ideological bias.

This article examines the topological psychodynamics of spatiality vis-à-vis the myriad and complex configurations of subjectivity underpinned by the unconscious dynamics of psychosexuality operative and observable amongst the protagonists in the great modern Bengali poet and author Jibanananda Das’s short story ‘Tale of City and Village’ who find themselves in an impossibly triangulated situation attendant upon the trope of the a visit(ation) of/from the past. It concisely and closely examines the unconscious dynamics of fantasy, desire and drive mapped onto the daseinal displacement from the country to the city which answer to the existential void or originary lack in being deploying the theoretico-critical framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis, semiotics, narratology, Russian Formalism, Bakhtinian dialogism, and continental philosophy. Keywords: Being, subjectivity, fantasy, desire, drive, jouissance, displacement, anxiety, pastoral, sublime.

Abstract Modernist poetry has always wrestled with the impossibility of articulation and the limits of language. In reading a selection of poems by two Bengali poets of the 20th century—Jibanananda Das and Binoy Majumdar—this chapter suggests that Bengali avant-garde modernist poetry attempts a sleight of poetic hand that elides this dilemma by transforming desire into poetry, rather than by attempting to express desire in poetry. No human gratification of passion remains relevant then; nor is the poem simply its approximation or representation in language. Instead, the poem becomes a material embodiment of human desire: fulfilled, failed, needy. This chapter asks if this metamorphosis can be seen as a queer praxis of poetry-making, because in its production of a desire—a poem—that distills gratification and its embedded failure at once, it becomes anti-normative. Politically, it uses the textured body of the poem on a page to both assert desire and predict its loss, vulnerability, and death.