Poetics, East and West

Even before Jagannatha,kuntaka in his "vakrokti jeevita" said of poetry"sabdaarthou sahitou vakra kavivyaapaara saalini". The word that everybody uses is ‘vakrokti’(the skilled word),That is why he said "Mahaakavi prabandhaanaam sarveshaam asti vkrataa’ What is this vakrataa(his skill)’prasiddhaabhidadhaana vyathirekini vichitraivaabhidhaa’,he explained. The same words well known in the common parlance joined in a certain skillful combination to produce a certain surprising strangeness about them, become vakrokti. After this skilled conbination, the same words behave contrary to the principles of their normal conduct, which they show in the course of the day-to-day usage. This is ‘Vaichitri’ or ‘chamatkaar’.Archibald Macleish observes in the same context, "words as sounds are malleable and may be made to multiply their meaning by the management of their shapes and movements in the ear." When Vamana said"visishtaa padarachanaa rithihi’,I believe,he meant the same thing’ In the ordinary parlance, as there is neither the chamatkaar of Jagannatha nor the management of "shapes and movements" of Macleish nor "visistha padarachana’ of Vamana,it is not poetry.

Though poetry is above the ordinary words and meanings (i.e. the common language),it should be noted that word forms its basis, Therefore Jagannatha said "Ramaneeyartha pratipaadaka shabdaha kaavyam"(That word which unfolds beautiful meaning is poetry)and then he proceeded to establish it with formidable logic. "sabdaarthayugalam na kaavya sabda vaachayam..sabda viseshasya eva kaavya padaartharthavam",(it is not both the words and meanings: but it is only the special word that can be called poetry.).Graham Hough said the same: ‘the medium of literature is verbal. Literature is made of words’. Look at the word of the French poet Mallarme, the high-priest of modern poetry," poetry is not made with words-as-expressions-of-ideas, but with words themselves’.

When it is concluded that the ‘sabda visesha’i. e. The special word, is the basis of poetry, then a Himalayan weight of delving deep into the powers of the word descends on the shoulders of the poet (and the critic). It is here in his "Symbolism" that Graham says ‘Literature exploits other properties of words besides their referential ones; e.g, their capability of being organized into rhythmical groups, their auditory and muscular suggestions, their fortuitous kinships with other words. Latent and undeveloped in ordinary language, these qualities become decisive in literature’. From ancient days in our country all the scientists of poetry without exception have been investigating and meditating about the four forms of "Vaak"(speech) called para,pasyanti,madhyamaa,vaikhari and the three powers of the sound(shabda)namely abhidha,lakshana,and vyanjana. This is an invariable chapter generally in every work of poetics.

It is above all these levels, nevertheless, that lies the origin of poetry, ninety nine per cent of which is the look with which the poet sees objects or rather the vision of the poet. " The perfect rose is only a running flame emerging and flowing off and never in any sense at rest static, finished." A mind which could clothe in a handful words, the eternal fire of life burning in creation, can not be a mere scrap of paper. D.H.Lawrence has adorned the horizons of the 20 Th century with a new sun. What is noteworthy is that the red rose did not appear to him as a flower; he saw only the running flame. We think that the running flame falls from the branch; but where does it go? It appears in the branch; it is another flower to one who is not a seer; but to the seer, it is the same old flower reappearing. The Japanese poet of the 15th century, Arkikida Moritake had a similar vision; "The fallen flower- I see returning to its branch! O! A butterfly…" here the emphasis is not on the buttefly; it is on " the fallen flower returning to its branch’.