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Tagore the Unique
IT is no hyperbole to say that Tagore is to Bengali literature what Shakespeare is to English, Goethe to German, Tolstoy to Russian, or Dante to Italian and, to go into the remoter past, what Virgil was to Latin and Homer to Greek or, in our country, what Kalidasa was to ancient Sanskrit. Each of these stars of the first magnitude is a king, a paramount ruler in his own language and literature, and that for two reasons. First, whatever formerly was immature, undeveloped, has become after them mature, whatever was provincial or plebian has become universal and refined; whatever was too personal has come to be universal. The first miracle performed by these great figures was to turn a parochial language and a parochial literature into a world language and a world literature. The second was to unfold the inner strength and the deeper genius of the language to reveal and establish the nature and uniqueness of a nation's creative spirit as well as the basic principle of its evolution and culture. These two ways, one tending to expansion, the other to profundity, are in many cases mutually dependent and are often the result of a sudden or rapid outburst. Ballad
and folklore are the infant or immature form of a language and literature.
Polished and powerful language and literature develop out of that and only
subsequently attain their full blossoming. In this respect Dante's marvel is
almost without parallel. The language he used in clothing his poetry was a
popular dialect; one among various other popular dialects – this he turned into
the language of Page – 175 as a whole, the Italian language as it stood before the eyes of the world. A music and rhythm of a great and lofty consciousness infused itself into the elements that had lain neglected in the dust. The voice confined within the four corners of the household and the village underwent a miraculous change in the mouth of a magician; it became a voice of the universe. And, in a language and a literature that are not so immature but have already attained development and elegance, a creative vibhuti has brought about a second type of-transformation. Virgil, Shakespeare, Goethe and Kalidasa did a work of this category. It cannot be said that English was undeveloped or quite rustic before Shakespeare, although the image of the grandly real, something truly familiar and intimate that Shakespeare evokes in the heart of foreigners is not given by Spencer, Chaucer or even Marlowe. Shakespeare has revealed something of the universal in the very special style he created – here was a diversity, a plasticity, a suggestiveness, a magic all its own. There
is some difference between the history of French literature and that of any
other. First, the French language and literature have grown and matured not
through a sudden change or a revolutionary transmutation – their growth and
development are the result of a slow and steady process of evolution. In
English, on the other hand, the sense of growth seems to consist of a rapid
change. In the political field, however, the English and the French have
pursued quite reversed policies. The battle for liberty by the English continued
from precedent to precedent – the French had always to win freedom through
revolutions. But the other speciality of the French literary spirit is the fact
that there was no single person who had a kind of all-in-all authority, – although
in politics, in old Page – 176
by the magic touch of his own genius or made
them fully mature and self-sufficient. The French are a very social race – they
are proud to be called republican, so it is by the combined effort of many, the
contribution of more than one genius, that their language and literature have
been formed and enriched. Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine (or up the
stream to Rabelais) – they are a goodly company; among these whom to exclude
and whom to include? And yet here too, perhaps only one can be taken as These
thoughts about the genius of French occurred to me because it seemed to me that
there was a marked analogy in this respect between French and Bengali.
Certainly it would not be quite' correct to say that the evolution of the Bengali
language was slow and steady like that of French. At least one upheaval, a
revolution, has taken place on its coming into contact with Page – 177 with
them. But just as Shakespeare may be said to have led the English language
across the border or as Tolstoy made the Russian language join hands with the
wide world or as Virgil and Goethe imparted a fresh life and bloom, a fuller
awakening of the soul of poetry, to Latin and to German, so too is Tagore the
paramount and versatile poetic genius of Bengal who made the Bengali language
transcend its parochial character. I think that Tagore has in many ways the
title and position of a Page – 178
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