Listening to language and the experience of poetry -5

Towards the end of my last column, I pointed out the importance of locating language within history. The need to situate language within history and culture is increasingly recognized as an important strategy despite the countervailing pressures unleashed by some, though not all, theorists of a post-modernist persuasion. In literary texts, the materiality of language is important; words function in, and derive their power from, specific historical and cultural conjunctures.

The view disseminated by some philosophers of language maintains that language is fundamentally autonomous, and history comes into being through the mediation of language. This has the effect of converting history into a language game. That language plays a crucial role in historical representation is a point with which few would want to disagree. However, to reduce all history into a language game may be a case of crossing the line. It is indeed possible, in literary analysis, to respect the supreme power of language while finding useful ways of connecting it to history. This is important because the view of language I am proposing aims to do justice to both these imperatives.

In the past four columns, I have sought to raise a number of ideas related to the uniqueness of language, phonetic features and the experience of poetry. In this concluding column, what I plan to do is to tie these ideas together in relation to Sinhala poetry. It seems to me that our discussion so far has resulted in the emergence of eight points that I consider are vital to a proper understanding of the topic under consideration. First, I tried to focus on the uniqueness of language. Citing various authorities, I underlined the need to appreciate the uniqueness of each language - in this case that of Sinhala. The phonetic, lexical, syntactic features associated with Sinhala gives its distinctiveness.

Second, if we are to understand the true identity of Sinhala as a language, we need to study carefully its phonetic make-up. An understanding of this is crucial to appreciate poetry written in Sinhala. Third, when we discuss the phonetic make-up of Sinhala, we have to focus on the intricate ways in which metere, rhythm, alliteration, rhyme and so on function and how they are inseparably linked with meaning. Fourth, we saw very clearly that language is paramount in literary production and therefore the utmost care should be given to the being of language. This was a point made repeatedly by such thinkers as Heidegger and Blanchot. Fifth, in examining the nature and the significance of the poetic experience, we should always keep in mind the complex unity projected by form and meaning; to consider them separately is to rob both of their vitality.

Sixth, while recognizing the supremacy of language, it is important to locate it in historical and cultural conjunctures with which it has a functional relationship. This has also the advantage of allowing us to understand the evolution of Sinhala poetic forms and how they are connected to tradition. Seventh, listening to language is a capability that critics of poetry should assiduously develop. Without that capability, the plenitude of poetic power cannot be appreciated. Eight, if Sinhala poetic criticism is to reach higher levels of hermeneutic sophistication, we need to broaden our approaches to include the complex intersection of the uniqueness of Sinhala, the acoustic maps of the language and the ways in which Sinhala poems are constructed.

In my very first column on this subject, I alluded to the very important critical work by Gunadasa Aarasekera titled 'Sinhala Kavya Sampradaya. In it, he raises a number of issues that are central to our current discussion. Unfortunately, this work did not receive the kind of widespread academic and scholarly attention that it deserved. On the basis of my discussion, and in relation to some of the significant issues he has raised in the book, I wish to focus on three problem areas that invite closer analysis.

The first is the relationship between the uniqueness of Sinhala as a language and certain poetic forms that have found favor among our poets throughout the centuries. Among these poetic forms, I would like to highlight the eighteen -syllable samudraghosha meter, the nine-syllable maha piyum meter and the decasyllabic Sahali metre. Sinhala poets have repeatedly used these metrical forms with great distinction. The important question is why these and a few such popular forms and not the other metres were selected for poetic communication. Some of these metres were adapted from original Sanskrit models while others were clearly indigenous creations. It is here that the uniqueness of Sinhal as a language that I have been stressing throughout these columns invites more focused analysis.

We know for a fact that since the sixteenth century, English poets and dramatists have frequently deployed the iambic pentametre with astonishing success. In fact, since the sixteenth century, the iambic pentametre came to be regarded as the dominant form of English verse. Shakespeare very often used this form with great ductility and intensity. One reason why the iambic pentametre became so popular was that it captured the normal English speech rhythms, the power of the speaking voice, and syntactical movements, with remarkable adroitness. Gifted poets, then, were able to make use of this form to secure subtle effects. Let us consider the following passage from Milton's 'On His Blindness.

And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and prevent
My true account….

Here there is a very interesting interconnection between the meter, rhythm and the rhyme scheme. The power of the syntax takes the reader along with it across the rhyme scheme. English poets, then, have used this iambic pentametre with deceptive ease and obtained a variety of subtle effects. Analogously, we can argue that in the case with such meters as Maha Piyum, and Samudraghosha and Sahali, they enable the poet to capture the power of the speaking voice naturally and with intensity. This also raises the question as to why certain other meters did not enjoy this kind of popularity. Hence, one area in which productive research can be undertaken is the interconnections between the uniqueness of Sinhala, the genius of the language and certain poetic forms that came o be popularly used.

A second area for investigation should be the way poets have succeeded in playing off the meter, which is the understructure of the poem, against the rhythmic movement. Rhythmic movement is not an ancillary appendage ; it is vitally linked to meaning and syntax. Certain poets displayed a fascinating ability to play off meter against the rhythmic movement. Two classical Sinhala poets who excelled in this area are the authors of the 'Selalihini Sandeshaya' and the 'Guttila Kavya' respectively. If one were to undertake a careful study of the way that the author of Selalihin Sandeshya deployed the Samudraghosha meter but effected variations within it through deft use of speech rhythms, and the author of 'Guttila Kavya' with the Mahapiyum meter, one would realize the veracity of this statement.

Prof, Editiweera Sarachchandra, with his deep understanding of music and great ability to listen sensitively to the Sinhala language, has demonstrated in his book 'Sahitya Vidayava', how Sinhala poets succeeded in effecting variations within a single meter. He pointed out insightfully how variations in clusters of sound patterns served to bring about this effect. I believe we can go even beyond the structural analysis of sound patterns to exploring the syntactical movement within the given meter. This, then, is the second area that I find compellingly inviting.

Thirdly, the way that Sinhala poetic forms have evolved over the centuries presents an interesting terrain for inquiry. The conventional wisdom among Sinhala literary historians is that until the Kotte period the Sahali meter predominated, during the Kotte period the Samudraghosha meter ascended and captured the imagination, and that during the Matara period the Silo metre displaced the Samudraghosha metre.

This is true so far as it goes; however, in reality, the picture is a little more complex than that. As Gunadasa Amarsekera has pointed out, there have been continuities; the Gi meter did not totally disappear during the Kotte period, and the Silo meter that attained great popularity during the Matara period actually had its origins in the Kotte period. Moreover, there was an incessant and mutually nurturing interaction between the classical and folk traditions of poetry. When we study the evolution of English metrical forms it becomes clear that the role of changing social, cultural, political contexts and their impact on the texture of the language becomes an important topic of investigation. The need to study poetic forms and the way they interact with language and the changing social circumstances becomes apparent.

An investigation into these three areas of inquiry should have the salutary effect of enriching our critical approaches to the study of poetry. Sinhala prosody, which is hardly studied today, and which is unfortunately seen as a forgettable left-over from a remote past, should be given due recognition. We need to study prosody in the light of contemporary cultural theory so that the interplay between form and meaning could be better understood.

In these columns dealing with the phenomenon of listening to language and experiencing poetry I have focused on the importance of phonetic factors. This is, of course, not to suggest that poetry is monolithic and there aren't other forms of poetry (such as concrete poetry and visual poetry which aim to secure their effects largely through graphlogical innovations rather than phonological ones in) in existence.

However, it is evident that the bulk of poetry written throughout the world seeks to secure its effects and meaning, among others, through the deft manipulation of sound patterns.