Jibonananda Das (Bangla: জীবনানন্দ দাশ) (February 17, 1899 - October 22, 1954) is the most popular Bengali poet after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. He is considered one of the innovators who introduced modernist poetry to Bengali Literature, at a period when it was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's Romantic poetry[1]. Born in a literary family, with a schoolmaster father and a poet mother, he was raised and educated as a writer. After completing his MA degree in English at Calcutta University in 1921, he began an intermittent teaching career, frequently interrupted by political unrest and personal circumstances. He published his first poem in 1919, and continued to publish poems, collections and novels throughout his life.
In the early days of the twentieth century, Jibonananda was at the forefront of efforts to come out from under the dominating influence of the romantic poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. Jibanananda Das received little attention during his lifetime, and many considered his poetry incomprehensible. Readers, including his contemporary literary commentators, criticized his style and diction. Jibanananda broke the traditional circular structure of poetry (intro-middle-end), and the pattern of logical sequence of words, lines and stanzas. The thematic connotation was often hidden under a rhythmic narrative that requires careful reading between the lines. It is only after his death in 1954, that a competent readership started to emerge who not only was comfortable with Jibanananda's style and diction but also enjoyed his poetry with great pleasure. By the time his centenary was celebrated in 1999, Jibonananda Das was the most popular and the most well-read poet of Bengali literature.
No comments:
Post a Comment