ISSN: 0970-2830

Vol. 33, No. 1 January - June 2020

“Abstracated and Indexed in EBSCO Host” USA

Articles: 1-101
1. Poetry of John Donne in Light of Indian Aesthetics 1-8
by Vandana Rajoria

POETCRIT l
2. Dialogue from a Dump Yard by Manas Bakshi Revisited 9-12
by R. C. Mukhopadhyaya
3. Khetarpal’s Voice of Poetry Defends Indian Culture and Its Glory 13-22
by Sujaat Hussain
4. Treatment of Love in the Poetry of John Donne and Walt Whitman 23-27
by Jaideep Chauhan

POETCRIT
5. The Concept of Time in Larkin: An Indian Perspective 28-33
by K. Rajamouly

VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY - JUNE 2020

6. Anguish of a Progressive Humanist: Manas Bakshi 34-46
by VVB Rama Rao
7. T. V. Reddy’s Farewell Ring & Other Stories: … 47-58 Vol. 33 No. 1 January - June, 2020
by K. Rajni
8. Social Issues Portrayed in the Plays of G. B. Shaw 59-63
by S. K. Mishra
9. Aurobindo’s Sadhana at Alipore Jail 64-70
by Aju Mukhopadhyay
10. Prabhulinga’s Poetry 71-75
by S. Padmapriya
Review Articles
11. The History of Indian English Poetry, 2 Vols 76-82
by PK Padhy
12. TV Reddy Stories 83-88
by R. Venkata Ramana
13. Wreathing a Flowery Band 89-96
by B. C. Dwibedy
A Literary Essay
14. Poets, Poetry and ‘the Self’ Another Perspective: 97-101
by PCK Prem

Prints Publications Pvt Ltd

New Delhi
POEMS for January, 2020 102-179
Foreign:
Cameron Hindrum, Kurt F. Svatek, Rob Harle, Ruth Wildes Schuler,
Suparna Ghosh, [5 poets]
India: Aju Mukhopadhyay, Alexander Raju, BC Dwibedy, Byomkesh,
Dalip Khetarpal, HS Bhatia, H Tulsi, Hemanta Pramanik, Jaydeep Sarangi,
Khirod Malik, K Rajamouly, KV Raghupathi, ManasBakshi, Naresh
Mandal, OP Arora, Parthajit Ghosh, R.K Singh, Rajiv Khandelwal, RV
Ramana, Roopa Rani GS, SA Hamid, Sienna Chambial, SM Gupta,
Shashikant Kurodi, S. Padmapriya, SC Pande, SK Mishra, SL Peeran, T.
Vasudeva Reddy, U AtreyaSarma, VVB Rama Rao, Y Bkambar [32 poets]
Poems in Translation:
Birbhadra Karkidholi, C Narayana Reddy, Suman Shekhar [3 poets]

REVIEWS for January, 2020 180-239

Basavaraj Naikar's The Sport of Allama and Other Plays; PCK Prem's
History of Indian English Poetry: An Appraisal, 2 vols; DC Chambial's
Songs of Sonority and Hope; Suman Shekhar's Roti; AK Chaudhury's
Majuli, OP Arora's The River Flows Eternally, KV Dominic's Sanchit
Karma and Other Tales; Prabhulinga Shastri's The Being; PCK Prem's and
the time chases; VVB Rama Rao's Poets Renowned and Poets Flourishing;
SM Gupta's The Songs of India and the World; Aju Mukhopadhyay's The
Secret; Ishika Bansal's My Diary and Other Poems.

Reviewers for January, 2020

Dr. Chandrasekharaiah, Dr. KV Dominic, Prof. Satish Kumar, Prof. Nandini
Sahu, Suparna Ghosh, Dr. K. Rajani, Anshulika Paul, Dr. Suman Sachar,
Dr. Arti Chandel, Dr. Sulakshna Sharma, DC Chambial.

Responses to January, 2020 Issue 240

 Dr. Vandana Rajoriya

From ŒÃôgÀra to ŒÀnta: Poetry of John Donne in

Light of Indian Aesthetics
Man has not found eternal joy or transcendental bliss and fulfilment even after
acquiring all his knowledge, wealth, advancement in the field of science and
technology, progress in the field of medicine and art and the like. In spite of all
this progress and development, the idea of true and unwavering happiness is still
alien to him. He still is aspiring to attain a glimpse of that eternal or perpetual
bliss, ecstatic joy, love and fulfilment which is unbound by the intricacies of
human existence; in fact, this is the very driving force which makes human beings
do everything which they do on earth; be it acquiring all wealth and means of
comforts, or running in the mad pursuit of knowledge and so on. Indeed, desire
for true, pure, virtuous, divine and fulfilling Love is an all-pervading desire deeply
instilled into the consciousness of all of us and we cannot live or survive without
striving for such love. But almost always we look for it at wrong places or in
wrong people or things. This urge can be very well located and found in the
poetry of John Donne; one of the greatest British metaphysical poet. His poetry,
in different ways, shows us that true fulfilment lies not in pursuing the ordinary,
worldly or human but the ultimate, the transcendental, the eternal, and therefore,
his love poems attain a kind of universality which enables a kind of physico-
spiritual experience of love where perception of beauty ultimately leads to the
creation of infinity. The analysis of Donne’s poetry from Rasa1 Perspective reveals
a significant potential in his poetry to move oneself from the music of ŒÃôgÀra2 to
the ŒÀnta3 by the way of movement and transformation of the earthly love into the
divine; a love which is above all suffering even death. In this paper, I will try to
establish how the poems of Donne when seen from the Rasa perspective reveal
the potential of taking us from the ordinary gratification to the state of highest
happiness and eternal bliss.
When we consider poetry of John Donne a significant fact that we notice is
that his poems although chiefly about his personal experiences in love revealed in
different moods or tones make the worldly love eternal. In his poems we find a
movement from the ordinary love towards the extraordinary love, from worldly love
towards the divine love. In his best poems, he mixes the discourses of the corporeal
Dr. Vandana Rajoriya: Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English and Other
European Languages, School of Languages, Dr Hari Singh Gour Vishwavidyalaya, (A Central
University) Sagar (M.P.) She has two reference books, two volumes of poems, eleven Chapters
in books and anthologies and fourteen research papers in refereed Journals published till date. She
has also presented papers in many National and International Seminars and conferences and
delivered invited talks in many Seminars, Workshops and Training Programmes.
Contact: C-64, University Campus, Dr. HS Gaur University, SAGAR (MP) – 470 003.
Email: vandanarajoriya@gmail.com; Mobile: 9755940147, 9826017827.

Poetcrit 33.1 (January - June 2020) : 1

 Dr. Vandana Rajoriya

as well as the sacred love in order to arrive at an understanding of the idea of true
love. For example, let us consider John Donne’s ‘The Relique’ where Donne’s
genius temperament and learning give unique power and fascination to this love
poem. Here it is worth our while to understand how the whole artistic situation
presents a conceived model of synthesis through division and union both at the
same time:
When my grave is broke up againe
Some second ghest to entertaine,
(For graves have learn’d that woman-head
To be to more then one a Bed)
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright haire about the bone,
Will he not let’us alone,
And thinke that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their soules, at the last busie day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
[Donne John (1572-1631) P. 1633]
The artistic situation identifies both the object and the subject as creators of
an experience that is mounted on a feeling of goodness, completeness and totality.
The speaker is situationally disposed to bring about the possibilities of change in
the whole situation and therefore he proceeds to opt for a choice and hence exercises
the choice in as much as he desires a union with the beloved even at the instance of
death. It would mean that the experience is sustained as an object of transformation
in such a way that reality and infinity both become one and the all. The poet
maintains the point that the quest for beauty and perception of the beauty have an
orientation towards the creation of infinity, for that matter observation, realisation,
and perception of beauty tends to be very eternal in nature and therefore the
speaker in this poem is willing to move from fullness to fullness and even at the
thought of the death there isn’t much that is to be lost and hence the assertion that
even in the grave there is a possibility to find a bracelet, a bright hair about the
bone. In other words, the position of both the object and the subject is continuously
compounded by the fact of addition and for that matter the grave turns out to be an
object of beauty and in turn becomes fulfillment and fulfillment in the last place
what mortal man, on this earth, could think of.
By all standard the whole idea is contained in ŒÃôgÀra in which perfect,
composite and ideal feeling of goodness about oneself and also about the other
self has been distinctly conceived and in this the Vibhâva obtained in woman is

Poetcrit 33.1 (January - June 2020) : 2

 From ŒÃôgÀra to ŒÀnta: Poetry of John Donne in Light...

fairly sustained through Anubhâvas in bracelet, bright hair and the bone.
Simultaneously the poet intends an association through consistently changing
states of experience; for example inside the grave the poet thinks of something that
is really very beautiful and intends a union and from union he proceeds to the
perfection that alone can understand the effect of SañcÀrÁbhÀvas in as much as the
death as a state of being in the grave is turned into a pleasure principle through the
hypothetical presence of the woman.
It appears as if commitment towards ŒÃôgÀra has an equal and perfect division
into independent yet composite situations in the form of VibhÀva, AnubhÀva and
SañcÀrÁbhÀva and for each we have the ideal value equivalents.
The whole scheme could be presented through a term of description that
would obtain the following graphical design:
Rasa
(ŒÃôgÀra)
Perception of Beauty annihilation through the mortal events

Fig 1.1 ŒÃôgÀra Rasa in John Donne’s ‘The Relique’

To further elaborate the point let us consider the following poetic utterances
by Donne from his poem “The Sun Rising”, where he gives us a revealing glimpse
into the emotional roller coaster that can be said to be the true love:
BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Poetcrit 33.1 (January - June 2020) : 3

 Dr. Vandana Rajoriya

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. [Donne, John, p 7-8 ]
The Poem begins with an extraordinary vismaya and the wonder of the poet
is un unfazed at the sight of the sun peeping into the window and distracting him
from the meditation of excellence that he is having on the happiness, goodness and
the like. Secondly, the conscious and careful exercise of intellection in finding
suitable object of expression of this meditation created through window, curtain,
school boys, court kings, ants and the like only tend to concretize the idea that
meditation on perfection for a reward of eternity is the ambition of life and it is only
the poet who could complete this and who could attain this and hence windowes,
curtains call, motions lovers, seasons, schoole boys, court-huntsmen, king with
their rather temporary preoccupation and immature preoccupations will never come
to terms with the poet. From this Vismaya the evolution of the poet into one who
procures the benefits of meditation through Sama or ŒÀnta is obvious or well-
understood through the concluding stanza:
She’s all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.4
[Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I., p 7-8 ]
The whole passage has been in the manner of an equation in which there are
factors and there are variables which can be shown in the following ways:

Poetcrit 33.1 (January - June 2020) : 4

 Dr. Vandana Rajoriya

and excitants), Anubhâva (Emotional reactions or Consequents) Sañcârî bhâva (Transitory

Emotions), Ήbda (word), Pada (Quarter Verse) and Vakya (Sentence).
Bharatmuni, the propounder of the Rasa Theory, states quiet convincingly:
“VibhavÀnubhÀva-vyabhicÀri-saÚyogÀt Rasa-niÈpattiÍ”.[NâÇyaœâstra, Ch. VI.]
Thus it is the combination of Vibhâva (Stimulus provided by characters and excitants),
Anubhâva (Ensuants or emotional reactions) and Sañcârîbhâvas (Transitory Emotions)
that gives rise to a definite mode of taste or flavor of the experience in the art and this
experience in turn becomes Rasa itself and brings about an ideal situation or occasion for
the reader to relish, taste or feel the effects on sensibility. In Rasa any ideal formation in
artistry shall have to begin with the presentation of Bhâva(emotion) or universal disposition
and for this Bhâva (emotion) we will have the creation of VibhÀva (Stimulus provided by
characters and excitants), AnubhÀva (Ensuants or emotional reactions) and SaðcÀrîbhÀvas
(Transitory Emotions) simultaneously and separately leading to Rasa realization by way
of the synthesis.
2. The ŒÃôgÀra (Erotic) indeed is the sweetest and the most delectable of all sentiments or
emotions for that matter and the poetry which is full of ŒÃôgÀra is abounded securely or,
to say so is full of the quality of sweetness. According to Bharatmuni whatever in the
ordinary world is bright, pure (medhya) shining or beautiful is associated with Love. Rati
(love) is the sthÀyibhÀva of ŒÃôgÀra. Dhanaõjaya in DaœarÂpa defines rati as:
jE;ns’kdykdkyos”kHkksxkfnlsouS% AA
çeksnkRek jfr% lSo ;wuksjU;ksU;jä;ks% A
çâ/;ek.kko/Xjks e/kqjk/XfopsfCrS% AA 48AA
[The Daúarûpaka, p. 334]
Thus rati (love) is delight manifested in fondness for lovely places, arts, occasions,
garments, pleasures and the like and the feeling on the part of two young Persons
mutually enamored, so that, it is gladsome and is manifested by tender gestures constitutes
the ŒÃôgÀra
[The Daœarûpa, p.130]
3. ŒÀnta Rasa implies a state of calm or of equilibrium; a state of tranquility or of repose.
But this tranquility, equilibrium, calm or repose cannot be achieved effortlessly, it comes
only after a lot of struggle and therefore in the presentation of the ŒÀnta Rasa all other
Rasas are contributory factors. Point noteworthy here is that it is possible to move to
ŒÀnta Rasa from all other emotional states or Sthayibhâvas like Rati, Hâsa, Œoka,
Krodha, Utsâha, Bhaya, Jugupsâ and Vismaya.
4. John Donne (1572-1631) P. 1633, http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/john_donne/
the_extasie1.html
5. Donne, John. Poems of John Donne, Vol II, E.K.chambers, ed, London: Lawrence and
Bullien,1896,p.7-8.
6. Donne John, Elegies and The Songs and Sonnets, ed. Helen Gardner, Oxford University
Press, 2000, ISBN019811835X, 9780198118350, p.64. Print.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.32381/POET.2020.33.01.1

Poetcrit 33.1 (January - June 2020) : 8