The Bronze Horseman, a masterpiece

[Part 2]

The poem contains three stanzas, and one observes a clear progression of thought and feeling in these stanzas. The idea of time, the nature of time, and the power of time is pivotal to the meaning of the poem. And this progression of time is related to the idea of ripeness – ripeness discernible in the natural world and in also detectable in the life of the poet.

These themes are brought out in a rich and sensuous language that displays a remarkable evocative power. Let us, for example, consider the first stanza;

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how t load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage- trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the ground, and plump the hazel shells,

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells.

The richness of imagery that underlines fullness and roundness and plenitude is a distinctive feature of the verbal texture of this poem.

There are certain similarities and differences between Pushkin’s and Keats’ two remarkable poems on autumn.

The rich and sensuous language, the economy of organisation, the verbal music, the interplay of movement and stasis, the way the two poets step back from the immediate physical context to reach an ideational world, ( in Pushkin’s case to focus on the art of making poetry and in the case of Keats to call attention to the intricate and mutual constitution of life and death) it seems to me, are among the more pronounced similarities.

John Keats’ To Autumn, like Pushkin’s Autumn, is an intricately crafted poetic text. John Walsh was right when he said that, ‘the complete maturity so earnestly laboured at in Keats’ life, so lucidly and persuasively theorised about in his letters, is wholly realised in Keats’ art in the Ode to Autumn. In this poem we see genius having at its disposal a perfect sensibility.’ He goes on to claim that Keats’ reflections on maturity, his desire to dramatise it, here issues in a disciplined poetic act. These same observations, I contend, are applicable to Pushkin’s poem as well. This is, of course, not to suggest that there are no differences between them; there are clear disparities. And they grow out of, by and large, from the poetic traditions they were working in and working on.

One of the most sensitive and perceptive readers of Keats’ odes that I know is Prof. Helen Vendler of Harvard University. In her book titled, The Odes of John Keats. She examines in detail, with uncommon penetrating insight the content and art of the six well-known odes by Keats. Speaking of the inner movement in To Autumn she makes the following important comment.’

Orchestration

The orchestration of these five large effects – the successive seasonal blooming and harvesting of time, the spatial expansion from cottage to horizon, the sequence of the single prototypical day, the change infield of imagery, and the disappearance of the personified figure of the season – is itself accomplished with remarkably little strain and with no announcement.’ As I alluded to earlier, this inner movement within the poetic text is a feature that marks Pushkin’s Autumn as well.

The second poem – or more accurately the chapter of poetry – that I wish to focus on is Kalidasa’s the Ritusamhara. Kalidasa is generally regarded as the greatest Sanskrit poet and playwright. He was referred to as the supreme teacher of poetry (kavi kula guru). The exact dates of his life are not fully settled; however, the generality of opinion seems to favour the view that he lived in the Gupta period (A.D 300-650). Kalidasa, in his poetry, displayed a remarkable ability to capture the beauties and sublimities of nature. His Ritusamhra ( The Cycle of Seasons) represents the distinctiveness of each of the six seasons in India in his own unique way.

What stands out in his poetic descriptions is the way in which human beings and nature interact in an eroticized discursive space. In this regard, he is different from Pushkin and Keats. Let us, for example, consider his descriptions of autumn.. (The translations are by John T. Roberts).

Grass reeds her dress, her face a lotus, is lovely, wide-eyed
Sweet anklet-sounds are just the songs that lovesick swans cried.
Ripe stalks of rice are like bending and modest sweet girl-
Thus comes the fall; she’s in the form of a lovely new bride
Bright silver fish become their shimmering belts of pure light;
White birds in rows along their banks serve as garlands, pearl-bright;
Broad sandy banks on either side form their hips in round swirls-
Slow flow the steams today like wanton and love-sick young girls

Verbal exuberance

As these passages indicate, there is a verbal exuberance that marks them (this comes across powerfully in the original Sanskrit) and the descriptions glow with a pervasive eroticism. The way nature impinges on human life, human behavior, human emotions, is captured through distinctively erotic imagery. This is indeed very different from the tack adopted by Keats and Pushkin. Another difference between Kalidasa and the other two poets is that Kalidasa emerges as a poet of trans-personality as opposed to Pushkin and Keats who are, for the most part, poets of personality. What this means is that Kalidasa has opted to observe the interaction between man and nature not from within that interplay but from outside. In other words, he has sought to adopt a supra-mundane angle of vision. Kalidasa’s poem gestures towards a transcendental dignity. This is indeed in keeping with his adoration of Siva. It needs to be pointed out that Kalidasa’s nature poetry bears the unmistakable stamp of his reverence for Siva. Kalidasa perceives the omnipresence of Shiva in the phenomenal world. He does not conceive of nature as an object to be seen or against which human beings choose to lead their lives. According to him, nature is imbued with a different order of significance, manifesting as it does a cosmic unity that is the hallmark of Shiva.

As Chandra Rajan who has translated Kalidasa admirably into English has said, ‘the word Samharam (gathering in or collection) in the title of the poem has a specific metaphysical meaning, of universal destruction when all creation is drawn in at the end of time into Shiva, its ground and source. The mystery of Shiva and his presence is never far from any of Kalidasa’s work.’

These three poems on autumn by Pushkin, Keats, and Kalidasa, which are all outstanding works of verbal art, as they enter our consciousness catches flame; they in their distinctive ways, also tell us of the three literary and intellectual traditions out of which they arose. The differences between them in terms of poetic texture, poetic sensibility and poetic vision are in large measure attributable to this poetic birth. And in each case, the content of the poem is unerringly incarnated in its style.

(To be continued)