Hemchandra Goswami’s Beloved’s Letter and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Hemchandra Goswami (1872-1928), representing a vibrant voice- being one amongst the Romantic-trio of Jonaki Era of Assamese literary world establishing a new spirit and William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest dramatist and poet of the Elizabethan Age of British literary world predicate ample scope to investigate exploring various literary aspects though belonging to diverse world spatially and temporally. So, here in this research paper it is endeavoured to make a comparative analysis of the two poets considering chiefly the dominant thematic aspect of love along with stylistic aspects characterizing the poetic world of both the poets like style and form with reference to the two specific poems Hemchandra Goswami’s Priyotomar chithi translated as The Beloved’s Letter and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. The passion of love emanates from human heart as spontaneous expression and therefore its literary manifestation is very obvious in any genre of literature-whether it is poetry, novel, drama, short story or any other. The theme of love has a universal appeal- from temporal point of view, this theme is found in the creations of any age as well as its prominence in the creations of all literary manifestations irrespective of space such as in British, American, Indian, Assamese etc. Moreover, Hemchandra Goswami’s The Beloved’s Letter is regarded as the first Assamese sonnet and Shakespeare’s sonnets have always been widely acclaimed and acknowledged as the classic creation. So, understanding of the two sonnets belonging to diverse space and time would be an impelling force to negotiate the ideas impartially and scientifically which may have a substantial bearing on the existing knowledge. Thus, this paper is an attempt to make a comparative analysis of these two literary stalwarts exploring the literary realm of Hemchandra Goswami and William Shakespeare particularly taking into account The Beloved’s Letter by Hemchandra Goswami and Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare.