The poetic mind

Abstract

Jagadish Bhattacharya’s text on the poet’s mental world is directly related to certain emerging questions such as the relation between the poet’s life and his poetry, the notion of ‘genius’, the link between the people and the individual poet, and, in general, the image of the poet in contemporary times. The author draws upon Sanskrit aesthetics in a few cases, although his questions betray the different literary atmosphere in which he participates. He invokes the phrase ‘apūrvavastunirmāṇakṣamāprajñā’ (one who has the wisdom to build a marvellous object) to grasp the identity of the poet. His gloss on the phrase refers to the relation between wisdom or prajna and pratibha or genius, pointing out that in the laukika or common circle of wisdom, there are five components: memory; dispensation; and intellect related to the past, future, and the present. Prajna or wisdom extends through the three worlds and is premised on certainty; hence Bhattacharya asserts that it is linked with philosophy or science. Pratibha or genius, on the other hand, is creative. The author then looks into the question of the poet’s biography and the text of the poetic life, moving through Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and Madhusudan Dutt. He states that Madhusudan Dutt was the first to foreground imagination ranging through time and space. Then Bhattacharya studies three early essays by Tagore on literature where he elaborates on themes of wonder, love, and imagination or empathy as constituting poetic genius. Bhattacharya also addresses the role of knowledge and practice along with genius in the shaping of the poetic mind. His poem at the end of the essay can be taken to be an iconic representation of the contemporary notion of the poet with a combination of tropes from classical, sectarian, and folk traditions.