CHAPTER-2:KALAPI AND THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETS:
2.1
BACKGROUND:
Umashankar Joshi, an eminent poet, critic and scholar of Gujarati Literature, once
made a very apt observation regarding the influence of Western literature on Indian
literature:
“અવાચીન ભારતીય સાહય તે પિDમનાં સંપક ની પેદાશ છે . એથી અQયથા
િવચાર કરવો Wુક લ છે . સાહયના િવિવધ -વqપો તરત જ અપનાવવામાં
આIયાં. સમયની જqરયાતોને પહŠચી વળવા ગp ઝડપભેર િવક-ુ.”
ં
(Desai, 1975:265)
(Modern Indian literature is the product of Western contact. It is difficult
to think otherwise. Different literary forms were immediately adopted
into our literature. To meet the demands of the contemporary period,
prose developed very rapidly.)(Translation:Mine)
This observation assumes greater importance with respect to the influence of
Western literature on Gujarati literature; as the contact of Gujarati literature with the
Western literature in general and English literature in particular considerably
renewed and instilled new hopes and aspirations with a fresh way of looking at
objects during the second half of the 18th century in the history of Indian literature. It
was during the period that many new literary forms like lyric, essay, novel, etc. were
introduced into Gujarati literature which were not there prior to that. With the British
occupying the state to a large extent and with the spread of English education, the
period also proved to be a great inspiration for the numerous young Indians who got
an opportunity to study English literature. Many also started reading histories of
some European countries like England, Greece, Rome, etc. and the great romantic
56
masters like Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, J S Mills, William Blake and William
Wordsworth among the others with great aspirations and new hopes for new
perceptions and inspiration. The reading of these poets impregnated their minds with
newer insights. This is the usual outcome of any contact of two civilizations or
literatures. They make lasting impressions upon each other – positive or negative. It
took place during the great period of English Renaissance in the 16th century which
was inspired and influenced by the classical Greek and Roman literatures. The great
literary figure of all times William Shakespeare borrowed freely from the classical
Greek and Roman literatures. His works have directly or indirectly influenced most
other writers of the times to come.
In the second half of the 19th century in Gujarat, some outstanding literary figures
like Narmad, Narsinhrao, Nanalal and the others came under the influence of the
great English romantic poets like William Blake, William Wordsworth, P B Shelly,
Lord Byron, John Keats, Thomas Moore, among the others. Narsinhrao, for instance,
wrote under the influence of English Romantic poets and is also highly appreciative
of the Western influence upon his poetry. Similarly, Nanalal was influenced and
received inspiration from Wordsworth and Tennyson and created a beautiful world
of poetry. This is not to take the credit away from these great Gujarati poets of
astounding capabilities in making a statement that they were influenced by the
English romantic poets and not denying their claim as outstanding poets of original
ideas and imagination. In fact the endeavour here is to try and make a sincere
attempt and accord them their due recognition that they rightfully deserve. They
have indeed created an amazing world of poetry by the sheer touch of their
individual brilliance. Besides writing original poems, Narsinhrao and Nanalal have
also translated some of the poems of Wordsworth and Shelly.
57
2.2
NATURE IN THE POETRY OF KALAPI AND WORDSWORTH:
Sursinhji Takhtasinhji Gohil used to write poetry under the pseudonym of Kalpai
which means a peacock in Gujarati. He was the king or Thakor of the erstwhile state
of Lathi situated near Amreli city in the then Kathiawad region or the then
Saurashtra province of Gujarat. He showed signs of becoming a poet at a very early
age but he actually started writing poetry at the age of 16 and continued till he died
at a pre-matured age of only 26. But during an active poetic career that spanned over
a period of approximately a decade, he had created in great quantity in literature
which is highly expressive and subjective. A constant flow of literary production,
exploration of almost all the literary genres prevalent during the period, he tried his
hands even at translations from English to Gujarati. To quote Navalram J Trivedi
from his book Kalapi:
“કકારવમાં ક ટલાક કાIયો *+ેT ઉપરથી લખાયા છે એમ નŠધqપે નીચે કાંતે
આlુ ં છે ... કલાપીનાં પFોમાંથી બીE થોડાંક કાIયોનાં W ૂળ મળે છે તે જ
બતાવે છે ક કલાપીએ કદ પણ પોતાના કાIયો અ5ુવાદ હોય તો તે
‹પાવવાનો 6યાસ નથી કયŒ.” (N J Trivedi, 1944:103)
(Kant has written in the footnote that some of the poems of Kekarav
have been based upon English poems... there are traces of some other
poems to its sources from the letters of Kalapi that show that Kalapi has
never tried to hide his poems as translations.)(Translation:Mine)
But he is at his very best in the field of lyric poetry which was his forte. Lyricism
suited his temperament the most and it came to him quite naturally and that is why
his best creations comprise of some finest lyrics of Gujarati poetry.
His skills as a poet improved greatly with age and time. To quote Sundaram from his
book Arvachin Kavita:
58
“Tવનનાં છે Cલાં Fણેક વરસમાં, ખાસ કરને શોભના સાથેના લ\ન પછનાં
ગાળામાં એ5ુ ં 6ગટL ંુ કાIય એ ગહનતાનો અયંત સાચો -પશ આપે છે .”
(Sundaram, 2004:168)
(During the last three years of his life, the poems inspired especially
after his marriage with Shobhana show true (philosophical) insight into
his poems.)(Translation:Mine)
But his initial poems were very coarse in style and in diction.
“તે પહલા5ુ ં એ5ુ ં કાIય તેના Tવનનાં િવકાસ સાથે આછપાતળ રતે વા
કર છે .” (એજન)
(Poems written before that keep streaming thinly with the progress of his
life.)(Ibid)(Translation:Mine)
The same reference can be had from the book titled Kalapi by Navalram J Trivedi in
his book titled Kalapi:
“બીજો 6Ž એ થાય તેમ છે ક કલાપીના શqઆતના કિવતા લખવાના 6યાસો
આવાં નબળાં હતાં, તો થોડા જ સમયમાં તે સારા કાIયો કવી રતે લખી
શ|ા?” (N J Trivedi, 1944:41)
(Another question that comes to the mind is that if the initial attempts of
Kalapi at writing poetry was such weak, then how come he could
compose so beautiful poems within a very short period of
time?)(Translation:Mine)
The same observation is also made by Indravadan K Dave in his book Kalapi-Ek
Adhyayan about this wherein he writes:
“^ુરિસ=હની 6ારં 9ભક ગpની ? ુલનામાં તેમની 6ારં 9ભક પpરચના અણઘડ
અને ઘણી કચાશવાળ છે . એની પ]યભાષા એક સરખી નથી. મનનો ભાવ
પ]યમાં ઉતારવામાં ઘણો Yમ એળે Eય છે .” (Dave, 1980:28)
(The initial poetic composition of Sursinh is coarse and weak. The
diction is not uniform and all the efforts to express his feelings go in
vain.)(Translation:Mine)
Nevertheless his poems showed great signs of a true genius. To quote Anantray M
Raval from his book Kalapino Kaavyakalap:
59
“એમના આવાં વાચન-પરશીલને એમના મનમાં સાહય5ુ ં gું ધોરણ
ક આlુ ં અને એમના લખાણમાં 9ચ=તન5ુ ં તવ આ‘ુ ં એમ કહ શકાય.”
(Raval, 1954:7)
(His (such) reading-contemplation set in him high standards for literature
and
brought
in
his
writings
the
element
of
contemplation.)(Translation:Mine)
But what is most noticeable right from his early age is his very strong inclination for
Nature and her elements. He heard the stories about Kashmir and other places from
his teacher Narhar Joshi through the recitation of some Sanskrit stanzas taken from
the poem Meghdoot and other dramas of Kalidas, the greatest of Sanskrit dramatists,
and he was simply mesmerized by the description about the places mentioned
therein and made up his mind to visit Kashmir at least once in his lifetime. The
descriptions had created kind of a charm of the place around him. Even as a child he
used to visit various beautiful nearby places like ponds, temple on a hillock, etc.
which were abundant in natural beauty around Rajkot with his teacher. During such
visits, the teacher would quote and recite from the poems of Kalidas and other
Sanskrit dramatists, and such incidents were instrumental in creating a great love for
nature in Kalapi. (Raval, 1954:6-8)
In one of his letters addressed to his wife Rajba, he says,
“માર પહલાથી જ આ દ શ (કામીર) પર 6ીિત તો હતી જ અને હવે વધાર
(જોવાથી) ગાંઠ બંધાતી Eય છે .” (Shukal, Kalapi Patrasamput, 1998:396)
(I have from the beginning, had great love for this region (Kashmir),
which is now only increased (after visiting it) and is becoming a bond.)
(Translation:Mine)
Incidents like those mentioned above indicate Kalapi’s deep love for nature which
only grew with the passage of time and it is very well reflected all throughout his
poetry in different ways. It is absolutely justifiable to compare his poetry with that of
60
William Wordsworth which will only yield fresh outlook and new findings.
Therefore, Nature plays a very important role in the poetry of Kalapi. We can see his
imagination running very freely in his poetry stirred up by thought and study, and
one can only read them and wonder at the melody produced and also at the vague
suggestions which they conjure up in the minds of the readers. His poetry contains a
note of human sympathy which is at many occasions more tender and profound than
one can find it in the poetry of Wordsworth or indeed, in any other of the great
English romantic poets. Even in the few of his later poems, there is something of the
marvellous imaginative power that makes his work equal to the best of any other
great romantic poet and we still find a soul tender, glorious and quiet in the
tranquillity of a great peace.
In the latter half of the 19th century, Narmadashankar and Dalpatram were among the
most popular Gujarati poets whom anybody would try to imitate. To quote from the
book Gujarati Sahityano Itihas:
“એ સમયમાં સૌથી વ…ુ લોકિ6ય કિવઓ દલપતરામ અને નમદાશંકર હતાં.
કલાપીએ તેમનાં આરં ભના કાIયોમાં ઉભયની સારમાઠ અસરો દ ખાડ છે ...
છતાં B ૂબીની વાત એ છે ક આ સવ કરતાં તેણે ઘhું િવ-? ૃત કાIયપોત
બતાIુ ં છે .” (Joshi,
Itihas,1978:555)
Raval
and
Shukal,
Gujarati
Sahityano
(Dalpatram and Narmadashankar were the most popular poets of the
period. Kalapi showed good and bad influences of both the poets
initially.... but what is peculiar is that he has created hugely of them
all.)(Translation:Mine)
Any budding poet would try to write poetry in the style of these great poets. To
quote Anantray M Raval from his book Kalapino Kavyakalap:
61
“આરં ભકાળમાં કોઈ પણ લેખક
રુ ોગામીઓની થોડ ઝાઝી અસર બતાવે.
ચાર બાjુ થી શીખવા-મેળવવા તપર ‘કલાપી’ પણ એ બતાવે છે .” (Raval,
1954:22)
(Any writer in the beginning would show signs of his predecessors.
Kalapi, being eager to learn from everyone, also showed the
same.)(Translation:Mine)
Kalapi attempted a poem in the style of Dalpatram at the age of 16 in 1890. In this
initial attempt, his creative originality and insight was evident from the poem. A
reflection of the style of Narmadashankar, Balashankar, Narsinhrao and Harilal
Dhruv can well be traced back to his initial poetry. Similarly, Kalapi at times has not
only imitated the styles of the the English Romantic poets like Alfred Tennyson,
Thomas Moore, John Keats, William Wordsworth, P B Shelley and the likes but has
also borrowed their ideas qute freely. As an emerging poet, Kalapi even translated a
few poems of Wordsworth. His translations include Lines Written in Early Spring in
Gujarati as Kudrat ane Manushya, Affliction of Margaret as Vriddhamata and
Goody Black and Harry Gill as Grammata; whereas the poem Pushpa is inspired by
Shelley’s To a Skylark and Pahadi Sadhu is the Indianized translation of the famous
poem of Goldsmith, The Hermit.
Such translations actually helped him develop as a poet. He not only translated those
poems, but also thoroughly renewed them with his own perception in a language
which was still in a developing state. He transcreated the poems, giving them a touch
of his brilliance and through the pages floated an energizing freshness of expression
and insight that described special moods of the poet which the world aroused in an
attentive mind. Such translations in fact developed Kalapi’s poetic vocation and art
gradually, and at the same time enriching his insight of the world. Anantray M.
Raval, an eminent critic of Gujarati literature, observed in this regard:
62
“આવા વાચને 6થમ એમનામાં સાહયસં-કાર ને સાહય6ેમ 6ગટાIયાં
અને પછ એમના ભાષા પરચય અને શXદભંડોળને સહાય કરવા સાથે
સાહયનાં ચા ધોરણો એમને શીખવાડGા.” (Raval, 1954:15)
“Such readings first inculcated in him a love for literature and then
enriched his vocabulary and taught him high standards of literature.”
(Translation:Mine)
One more critic, in a book titled Aapanu Kaavyasahitya – Prakruti ane Pravah
published by Aadarsh Prakashan says the following words:
“‘કલાપીનો ક કારવ’(૧૯૦૩) નામ5ુ ં કિવ કલાપી5ુ ં મરણો,ર 6કાશન એમને
‘6ેમ અને ^ુના કિવ’ તરક અને ‘ુવાનોનાં કિવ’ તરક -થાપે છે .”
(Editor, 2010:32)
(The posthumous publication of Kalapi’s poems establishes him as ‘the
poet of love and tears’ and ‘the poet of youth’.)(Translation:Mine)
Another eminent scholar of Gujarati literature, R. V. Desai made a very significant
observation in this regard:
“Borrowed fantasies and ideas are transformed in the hands of Kalapi
and are turned into wonderful poetry.” (Translation:Mine)(Cf. Dave,
1969:169)
Thus, the highly imaginative mind of Kalapi transforms the familiar realities as the
object of his creation and lauds it through the strength of his zealous emotional
response and his mind which is as responsive as the radar or an antenna imparts a
strong touch of genius to whatever it touches. It is in such treatment of the subject
that the strength of Kalapi originally lies.
In his description of nature along with all her objects, Kalapi is simply amazing. He
elevates man and other objects of life by presenting them against the background of
nature. There are hardly any natural occurrences that are ordinary or ugly in his
63
creatively imaginative world and which he has not touched upon. His poems take us
into a state of sensitive receptivity before the simple incidents of life. His use of the
subtle artistic elements of nature that otherwise remain hidden from the ordinary
eyes are very imaginatively and skilfully used by his very artistic genius for the most
touching creative effects in his poems. To quote Sundaram from his book Arvachin
Kavita in this regard:
“6;ૃિતના કાIયોના W ૂળમાં... પણ પોતાની શૈલીના બધાં ુણ Eળવી રાખી
તેણે નરિસ=હરાવ કરતાં વધાર 6ાસાદક qપ આlુ ં છે . ;ુદરત અને માનવના
સંબધ
ં ની ભાવના... કલાપીએ વધાર 6ાસાદકતાથી અને કળામકતાથી
િનKુપી છે . એ િસવાયનાં પોતાની કCપનાથી ઉ“ભવેલા -વતંF કાIયોમાં
કલાપીએ B ૂબ અpતન ^ુરખતા સાધી છે .”(Sundaram, 2004:172)
(By retaining all his characteristics in his nature poems, Kalapi has
endowed it more lucid form than Narsinhrao in his poems. He portrays
the relationship between man and nature more artistically and lucidly
than Narsinhrao. In the other poems inspired by his own imagination,
Kalapi has attained absolutely modern proportions.)(Translation:Mine)
Wordsworth brought
“the charm of novelty to things of every day..... by awakening the mind’s
attention from the lethargy of custom and directing it to the loveliness
and the wonders of the world before us.”(Long, 2003:376)
He in fact “uttered nothing base” in the words of Tennyson. (Cf. Long, 2003:377)
His poetry was very serene and noble in spirit. He reflects the mental photographs
that he has taken of the things around him, which we feel, are very much like our
own. So easily he takes us down to our own memory lane which is always
interesting! He shares his own childhood experiences in one of his famous poem The
Prelude with us and awakens in us similar memories in the following lines:
Oh, when I have hung
Above the raven’s nest, by knots of grass
64
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill-sustained...
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my ear! The sky seemed not a sky
Of earth, - and with what motion moved the clouds! (Gutenberg.org)
While reading these lines, we recollect our own experiences and impressions of
childhood and feel nostalgic. We even go back to our own infancy and boyhood
again. We just want to relive our own past and therein lies his power! It is in this
sense that he is as
“sensitive as barometer to every subtle change in the world around
him.”(Long, 2003:382)
At some other place, in the poem The Education of Nature, Wordsworth shows deep
faith in the education of nature and imagines that Lucy would be a far better human
in the company of nature as she would be taught and educated by her:
Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own...
...And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell. (Palgrave, 1928:180)
65
One of his earlier poems, A Lesson, depicts his interest in the celandine. This is the
earliest indication of the English poetry of a very close and detailed observation of
nature and her elements. That again was the earliest indication of deep sympathy and
tenderness and also identification of kinship with nature. Wordsworth was the first
poet to observe it with sustained interest; and his poem illustrates both the closeness
and accuracy of his study of it – his facts have the precision of science – and his
belief that the meanest flower can give
“Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” (Palgrave, 1928:108)
There is a flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks like many more from cold and rain,
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ‘tis out again! (Palgrave, 1928:222)
In the above lines, the poet simply observes the characteristics of the celandine
casually and describes its beauty in simple words. Yet he seems to be stating the
flower’s virtue by saying that it comes out again with the sun shining again and
thereby symbolically suggesting the indomitable spirit of human nature.
“The lesser celandine is the earliest flower to appear in profusion, and is
therefore gathered in handfuls by untaught children attracted by its bright
yellow. But it has not the glory of the buttercup-gold nor the drooping
grace and fragrance of the cowslip; and so by cursory observer it is
passed by like the dandelion.” (Palgrave, 1928:109)
But Wordsworth showed great and genuine interest in it as it is seen in the poem and
his observation is absolutely genuine and minute and close. Similarly, in The Lost
Love, the poet compares men with the elements of nature and thereby uses the
elements of nature as the background of the poem. He compares the maid with the
paths that had never been used before:
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
66
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love: (Palgrave, 1928:179)
Elsewhere, the poet feels great joy of his desires among the mountains and Mother
Nature. The poem I travell’d among unknown men, describes the poet’s joy and
feelings for Mother Nature:
Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherish’d turn’d her wheel
Beside an English fire. (Palgrave, 1928:180)
In the same way, Kalapi has portrayed nature very simply yet effectively in his
poems. He too has described nature with very minute details, bearing clear mental
impressions that he received from around him. Even in his translations wherein he
has actually created a totally new world, he has shown the sparks of his individual
genius. In his ‘Kudrat ane Manushya’ which is not an exact translation of
Wordsworth’s ‘Lines written in Early Spring’ but a transcreation, he has reflected
over the relationship between man and nature:
અને આ આમાને ;ુદરત +હ લે િનજ કર ,
ઉડાડ દ ચો, પકડ વળ ચાંપે િનજ દલે;.....
અર ! એ માતા છે ભ9ગની Wુજ ક શાંિત ^ુખ છે ,
નવાં કાયŒ 6ેર Wુજ ”દયમાં અc\ન ‹પવે!
િનહાળ િવચાર Wુજ દલ બની ભ-મ સળગી,
અર ર! રિત જન 6િત ચલાવે જન અહ•!(Gohil, 2000:38)
(And Nature holds the soul into her own hands, lets it fly high, once
again catches hold of it and pushes it close to her bosom,.....Is she a
67
mother, my sister or peace and bliss (incarnate)? (She) By inspiring new
works, soothes my anguish hidden within! Alas! Seeing this, my heart
burns to ashes, (by) the way people treat their fellowman
thus!)(Translation:Mine)
Kalapi’s use of the elements of the nature is also commanding. In one of his poems
Shikarine, he describes his deep and heartfelt thoughts over the elements of nature.
He has used various elements of nature to convey his deep feelings for the Mother
Nature. His sympathetic approach towards Nature is reflected here in this poem.
રહવા દ ! રહવા દ આ સંહાર, ુવાન! ?;ું
ઘટ નાં –રતા આવી: િવ— આYમ સંત5ુ...
ં
...તીરથી પામવા પdી, Iયથ આ –રતા મથે;
તીરથી પdી તો નાં, નાં કQ? ુ -˜ ૂલ મળ શક.
પdીને પામવાને તો છાનો ? ું ^ુણ ગીતને;
પdી તેના 6fુ સાથે હ™યામાં મળશે તને. (Gohil, 2000:417)
(O young man! Stop this carnage. Don’t be so cruel. The world is a place
of the saints... by shooting a bird with an arrow, you can get it physically
only. But to really get close to it, listen its songs and you will get the bird
with its creator.)(Translation:Mine)
To quote Kamlesh Rabari from a book titled Kalapina Kaavyona Aaswad:
“અહ• કિવનો 6;ૃિતના તવો 6યેનો સહા5ુf ૂિતનો ભાવ 6ગટ થયો છે .
6;ૃિતના તવોને હાની પહŠચાડવી કિવને ઈશને હાની પહŠચાડવા tુ ં લાગે
છે . આ UVNટએ આપણા કિવ 6;ૃિતના કિવ લાગે છે . તે 6;ૃિતના તવોમાં
ઈ—રના દશન કર છે .” (Rabari, 2012:70-71)
(Here, the poet’s sympathetic feeling towards nature is reflected. He
believes harming the elements of nature is like harming God. In this
regard, our poet is the poet of the Nature. He finds the almighty in the
elements of Nature.)(Translation:Mine)
In another poem Saarsi, the poet opens the poem with a beautiful picture of forest
and uses the elements of nature as a means to convey his philosophy. The cuckoo is
68
singing a melodious song; cool and gentle breeze passing from the bamboo trees
plays wonderfully melodious and mystical notes; parrots are flying here and there; a
rivulet is flowing nearby and a squirrel is busy jumping and playing around. The
atmosphere is filled with freshness, zeal and charm.
મીઠાં દઘ ]વની વતી વન બ…ું હષy ભર કોકલા,
ઝીણી વાંસળ શા -વરો ^ુખભયા ચંડોળ આલાપતાં;
9ખસકોલી તKુના મહાન િવટપે šક રહ યાં ;ુદ,
ને રં ગીન ›ુકો ઘણા મ…ુરવા આકાશ ઊડ રહ! (Gohil, 2000:43)
(The cuckoo fills the forest with its sweet song; the lark sings sweet and
gentle, flute like melodies; a squirrel is playing around here and there
and parrots are flying in the sky!)(Translation:Mine)
Jignesh Thakkar, a scholar and a critic, says in this regard:
“ખંડકાIયનો ઉઘાડ કિવ વનના મનોહર વણનથી કર છે . કોયલ તેના મીઠાં
]વિનથી વનને હષથી ભર દ છે . વાંસમાંથી પસાર થતો પવન મ…ુર -વરો
ર લાવી રો છે . 9ખસકોલી તેની kયાકલાપોમાં મશ ૂલ છે . પોપટ આકાશમાં
ઊડ રા છે .” (Thakkar, 2012:77)
(The poet begins the Khandkaavya with a fascinating depiction of a
forest. The cuckoo is singing pleasantly, mild breeze is passing through
bamboo trees creating mellow notes, a squirrel is busy playing and
parrots are flying in the sky.)(Translation:Mine)
The diction above is absolutely simple and yet very effective. With a beautiful
description of the elements of nature, the poet very skilfully conveys his thoughts
about the nature of love and conveys that today man does not realize and understand
the value of true love and without even appreciating the niceties of love, he keeps of
changing the partner or his/her love every now and then.
Wordsworth believes in absolute simplicity of diction. He uses very common words
in his sentences. But sometimes they are so very pregnant with some serious
69
meaning that, unless brought to us in this way, would have missed our notice. He
creates something beautiful out of something very common and simple.
“He set himself to the task of freeing poetry from all its ‘conceits’, of
speaking the language of simple truth, and portraying man and nature as
they are.”(Long, 2003:382)
His style is simple to such an extent that sometimes it even escapes our attention.
The Lucy poems are the best examples of his simple yet lucid and sweet style. The
following lines are taken from The Lost Love which very aptly describes his style.
The diction too is quite simple yet pregnant with very deep meaning suggesting
many things.
A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky. (Palgrave, 1928:179)
In the above lines, Wordsworth has very beautifully described the beauty of a violet
flower, in the simplest yet effective words, which becomes even more strikingly
effective when compared with a lone star! Similarly, Kalapi too created such
wonderful word-pictures in very simple language like Wordsworth. In the following
lines taken from his poem Gramyamata, he created a very beautiful word-picture of
village life in morning:
ઉગે છે ^ુરખી ભર રિવ W ૃ>ુ હમત
ં નો
ૂવમાં,
f ૂKંુ છે નભ -વœછ -વœછ, દસતી એક નથી વાદળ;
ઠંડો હમભયŒ વહ અનીલ શો ઉસાહ 6ેરતો,
ઉસાહ ભર દસે ›ુક ઉડ ગાતાં મીઠાં ગીતડાં!(Gohil, 2000:49)
70
(The red gentle sun rises in the east, the blue sky is absolutely clear, cold
breeze is blowing inspiring enthusiasm; birds are flying singing sweet
melodious songs!)(Translation:Mine)
He has created a beautiful and live picture of a countryside common of any Indian
village. It is in creating such wonderful word-pictures that he seems to be the closest
to Wordsworth. A very clear impression is created into the minds of his readers,
because one can easily recall such an impression in one’s mind as it is not an
uncommon situation. Kalapi awakens rather than creates into the minds of his
readers such beautiful impressions. Like Wordsworth, he stirs our memory so deeply
that we once again reminisce into our memory of visiting countryside. To quote Prof
Rajesh Vankar from his book titled Kalapina Kaavyona Aaswad:
“કલાપીનો 6;ૃિત 6ેમ ભલે નયŒ Wુbત હોય પરં ? ુ કલાપીએ 6;ૃિતના તવોને
એના વા-તવદશનથી માંડને 6િતક ક કCપનની અવ-થા ^ુધી પહŠચાડGા
છે . નદના કાIયમાં 6વાહતા, t ૃd-વાુ ક પંખીના Uયોમાં અવાજો5ુ ં
િનqપણ વગેર તેમનાં કાIયોની િવશેષતાઓ છે . ઉપરાંત -વરો5ુ ં સંયોજન
અને -વરોના આવતનો કાIયોને વધાર 6ગાઢ બનાવે છે .” (Vankar,
2012:17)
(Kalapi’s love for nature is absolutely free and he has symbolically and
imaginatively portrayed the elements of nature. The uniqueness of his
poems is that the style of those describing rivers are very smooth and
free, similarly portrayal of those poems that describe trees-wind or birds
are also full of sound and the like. Besides, the arrangement of sound
and frequencies make the effect more deep.)(Translation:Mine)
The following lines are taken from his poem Gramya Mata wherein he creates a
beautiful word-picture of an old woman against the backdrop of a typical Indian
countryside:
ધીમે ઉઠ િશિથલ કરને નેFની પાસ રાખી,
t ૃvા માતા નયન નબળાં ફરવીને jુએ છે ;
ને તેનો એ િ6ય પિત હjુ શાQત બેસી રહને,
71
જોતાં ગાતો શગડ પરનો દ વતા ફરવે છે ! (Gohil, 2000:50)
(Rising slowly and bringing the weak hand above her eyes, the old
woman looks with her feeble eyes, and her beloved husband, sitting
quietly, watching and turning the coals on the stove and
sings.)(Translation:Mine)
The selection of words that Kalapi employs to describe the old man and woman is
very simple yet powerful and he has been able to create a stunning word-picture of
them. By rising slowly, the old woman tries to look at the horse rider by bringing her
feeble hand close to her weak eyes – this word-picture is simply amazing for the
simplicity of diction and yet wonderfully picturesque effect of the typical Indian
country scene. The old woman tries to identify the newcomer and the old man is still
very care freely looks at him without paying much attention. To quote Varsha Rohit
from Kalapina Kaavyona Aaswad:
“ધીમેથી ઊઠ િશિથલ કર5ુ ં છjુ કર t ૃvા માતા નબળ ખે ુવાનને jુ એ
ૂ િનલyપતાથી બેસીને સગડનો દ વતા ફરવી રો છે .
છે એ સમયે t ૃv ખે‡ત
ૂ ની
આ 9ચFમાં ીની આગં? ુક િવશે Eણવાની આ? ુરતા અને ખે‡ત
બેપરવાઈ kમશઃ ી અને Kુ ુ ષ સહજ -વભાવ બતાવે છે .” (Rohit, 2012:97)
(The old mother looks at the coming horse rider by bringing her feeble
hand close to her weak eyes by slowly rising and at the same time the
old peasant is sitting quietly and turns the coal over. In this picture, the
woman’s curiosity to know the newcomer and the peasant’s carefree
attitude is very characteristic of the typical man-woman
nature.)(Translation:Mine)
To quote Chinu Modi in this regard from his book Khandkaavya:Swaroop Ane
Vikas:
“કંઇક *શે ચમકારક છતાં અયંત 6તીિતજQય રતે કથાવ-? ુ5ુ ં માં
આયોજન થુ ં છે એtું W ૂળે ‘શેલડ’ શીષકવાŸં, પણ *તે ‘+ા યમાતા’ 5ુ ં
શીષક ધર? ું આ કાIય કલાપીની કાIય6િતભાની ક ટલીક ^ુઘડ, સારા
પરણામજQય રચનાઓમાં5 ુ ં એક છે .....કાQતની મ…ુર યાદ અપાવે એવા
72
આરં ભના લોકનો Uઢ પદબંધ, ઝીણવટભયા ^ુ¡મ ગિતશીલ -વાભાિવક
^ુરખ 9ચFો.....તેમ જ કલાપીમાં |ાર ય ન સચવાયેલા લાઘવની અચરજકર
Eળવણી આદને લીધે ‘+ા યમાતા’ આપણાં સારા ખં¢કાIયોમાં5 ુ ં એક બને
છે .” (Modi, 1973:272)
(The storyline is somewhat miraculous yet convincingly organized, the
present poem, originally titled Sheladi but later on renamed as
Gramyamata, is one of the well-organized compositions of Kalapi
bearing good impression with nice effect. Reminding the sweet
memories of the poet Kant, the opening stanza of the poet is very strong,
picturization is also very natural, lucid and clear and above all, the
brevity throughout the poem which is hardly maintained in Kalapi is
surprisingly commanding making the poem one of the best
khandkaavyas of our literature.”)(Translation:Mine)
See again in the following lines taken from his poem Nadine Sindhunu Nimantran:
† ૂ† ૂ† ૂ† ૂ 9ગર ઉપરથી † ૂઘવી આવતી’તી,
હાર માટ ”દય Uવ? ું ભેટવા લાવતી’તી;
સપા કાર વહતી વનમાં ગીત ગાતી હતી ?,ું
હાર છાયા સમT નભને ઉરમાં ધારતી ?!ું (Gohil, 2000:128)
(You were flowing down roaring from the hill, to embrace me with heart
full of pity; flowing zigzag and singing in the forest, reflecting the sky in
your waters!)(Translation:Mine)
To quote Sushila Vaghmashi from Kalapina Kaavyona Aaswad in this regard:
“તેમની કિવતાનો બીજો મહવનો િવષય છે 6;ૃિત. અને Eણે કલાપીએ
‘નદને િસQ…ુ5ુ ં િનમંFણ’ કિવતામાં 6;ૃિત, 6ણય અને 9ચ=તન આ Fણેયનો
સમQવય કયŒ છે .” (Vaghamashi, 2012:173)
(Another important subject of his poetry is nature. In his poem titled
Nadine Sindhunu Nimantran, he has combined all the three aspects of
nature, love and reflection.)(Translation:Mine)
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It would be very interesting to quote other critics of repute and see what they think
about the poet on his love for nature and her elements. To quote one of the eminent
critics of his times Anantray M Raval from his book Kalapi:
“કલાપીની કિવતાના WુZય િવષય છે 6;ૃિત, 6ણય અને 6fુ સમકાલીન
ુજરાતી કિવતાના WુZય કવનિવષય હતાં.....6;ૃિત માટનો રસ સૌQદયદશR
કિવઆમામાં હોય જ.....6;ૃિતકાIયોમાં 6;ૃિતUયોના ^ુદર
ં
શXદ9ચFો તે
કૌશલથી આલેખે છે .....ખંડકાIયોમાં તથા ‘હમીરT ગોહલ’ વા મહાકાIયમાં
પDાદf ૂ તરક 6;ૃિતનો કવો નŠધપાF ઉપયોગ તેમણે કયŒ છે .....‘આકાશને’
વા કાIયોમાં 6;ૃિતને 9ચ=તન5ુ ં ઉ“પન-અવલંબન પણ એમને કવી રતે
બનાવેલા છે , એ સ”દયો પોતાની મેળે જ જોઈ શકશે.” (Raval, 1954:24-25)
(The main themes of the poetry of Kalapi was nature, love and God
which was the theme of the contemporary poetry.....There is always
interest for nature in the poets.....he portrays beautiful word pictures of
nature in his nature poems..... he has very ably used nature as
background in his khandkaavyas and Hamirji Gohil epic. In his poems
like Aakashne, how he has effectively used nature as stimulating power
to reflection that like-minded people can very easily
observe.)(Translation:Mine)
Kalapi also describes the elements of nature to express his moods. He is interested in
nature not only because he likes her very much, but also because he is leaning to
express the boredom of human nature. He uses nature to describe his emotions and
also his state of mind. To quote Ramnaraya V Pathak from his book Arvachin
Kaavya-Sahityana Vaheno:
“6;ૃિતના દશનમાં 6;ૃિતના સૌQદય5 ુ ં આકષણ હોય એ તો -વાભાિવક છે
પણ તે ઉપરાંત અયાર એક t ૃિ, હોય છે તે માનવIયવહારના કંટાળાની! આ
t ૃિ, બીE કિવઓમાં પણ છે : કલાપી કહ છે :
ઘડ છોડ દ ને ઘડમથલ તારા જગતની,
જરા E આ તો િનરજન મહા જગલ
ં
મહ•.
74
.....આ ;ુદરતમાં જવાની t ૃિ, નીચે એકાંતમાં રહવાની ઈœછા પણ છે .
(Pathak, 1962,120)
(In the description of nature, it is the natural inclination for the beauty of
nature but there is one more element and that is the boredom of human
nature! This is also found in other poets. Kalapi says to abandon the
efforts of the world and to go to a dense forest for peace..... There is a
desire to go to nature with a desire to live alone.)(Translation:Mine)
It is in creating such amazing word-pictures that he resembles Wordsworth the most.
Wordsworth, likewise, believes in absolute simplicity of diction. He uses very
simple words to bring about striking effects into his lines. The following excerpt is
taken from his Advertisement of Preface to the Lyrical Ballads.
“The majority of the following poems are to be considered as
experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far
the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society
is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the
gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist
in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to
struggle with feelings of strangeness and aukwardness: they will look
round for poetry, and will be induced to enquire by what species of
courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title.”
(Gutenberg.org)
Similarly, the following lines are taken from one of his very famous poem Upon
Westminster Bridge, wherein he sings of the beauty of the fine morning:
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty: (Palgrave, 1928:00)
Even an ordinary reader of poetry would very easily understand such simple yet
powerful description of the morning as described in the above lines.
Similarly, Kalapi also creates numerous word-pictures such as the one mentioned
above to describe an event or an object that otherwise might miss the readers’
attention. The following lines taken from one of his famous poems Gram Mata aptly
75
justifies this view. The picture created by Kalapi is very ordinary and the ordinary
readers would not even realize the artistic qualities that lie in it. But for the minute
observation and vividness of details of description, the picture is simply amazing.
મ…ુર સમય તેવે ખેતર શેલડના,
રમત ;ૃિષવલોનાં બાલ Qહાના કર છે ;
કમલવત ગણીને બાલના ગાલ રાતા,
રિવ િનજ કર તેની ઉપર ફરવે છે ! (Gohil, 2000:50)
(At such a pleasant time, the children of peasants are playing gleefully in
the sugarcane field, and the sun considers the reddened cheeks of the
children a lotus and fondly extends its rays on them.)(Translation:Mine)
The above lines again depict a common countryside picture; but it is the treatment of
the common countryside scene that makes it very live and interesting. The depiction
of the scene is done so meticulously that it awakens in the minds of his readers
similar impressions. He uses nature quite effectively and cleverly weaves her
elements to present men against the setting of nature. He shows mastery in
visualizing something very beautiful and uncommon in the common chores of life
and shows renewing power of great devotion. The intuitive quality of his inner life is
stimulated by the revival of imaginative emotions. He takes familiar reality as his
object and then lauds it through the strength of a deep sensibility that very few poets
of Gujarati literature has so far been able to match.
The following lines are taken from one of his poems, Hriday Triputi that depicts a
great picture against the backdrop of nature but here it also suggests some hidden
meaning and the elements of nature are used to intensify the effect:
અહો! ક વાં Nુ પો £મર પર 6ેમે šક રહ,
76
અને કવાં gુ બે c-મત અધરથી સૌ £મરને!
અહા! ક વો ુT
ં ¤લ ¤લ પર fગ
ંૃ ભમતો,
અને કવો ચŠટ કળ કળ મહ•થી રસ પીતો. (Gohil, 2000:98)
(Ai! How the flowers lovingly stoop over the wasp and how they kiss it
smiling! Oh! How the wasp moves from one flower to another flower
humming, and how beautifully sucks honey from each
bud!)(Translattion:Mine)
There are numerous lines that can be quoted. Here, in the above lines, Kalapi has
very skilfully woven the objects of nature to symbolize a state of affairs, human
sufferings and human sentiments. But, this is just to illustrate that nature and the
objects of nature attain immense power to appeal to our sentiments and our feelings.
His depictions are in fact intensely drawn pictures of feelings, of human
relationships which are set against the background of nature. There is hardly any
natural phenomenon that he has not glorified in his poetry.
Kalapi was deeply aware of nature’s influence upon man and therefore Nature and
various objects of Nature find numerous ways of expression and he quite
successfully describes various moods of nature in his poetry. One can even find from
its brief and serious pictures of nature a kind of teaching of all the indefinable
lessons and all the living creatures convey a sensibility which is very honest and yet
sound enough to always guide someone. Thus, his poems place us in a state of
discerning ease as far as the simple incidents of rural life are concerned.
For Wordsworth, the vision of nature is that there is
“a presence….. a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all
objects of all thoughts and rolls through all things.” (Long, 1998:90)
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Wordsworth being a strong follower of the Church of England, his philosophy and
strong faith in God is very clearly reflected in the poem Written in Early Spring. The
poem clearly portrays his deep rooted faith that Mother Nature has a separate
existence along with a spiritual existence apart from God. Therefore he firmly
believed that he can easily establish a strong spiritual connection with both God and
Nature according to the Christian belief. Kalapi also feels absolute bliss in the
company of nature. But his philosophy is based upon the Indian thought of
Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam as he tells in one of his poems, “િવ— આYમ સંત5ુ”ં
meaning the world is the dwelling place of the saints. He finds some unified
presence of the almighty in the elements of nature. To quote Prasad Brahmabhatt
from his book Kalapijivankatha:
“6;ૃિતકિવતા કલાપીની કાIય^ ૃVNટનો એક મોટો ખંડ રોક છે . 6;ૃિત માટનો
રસ સૌQદયદશR કિવઆમામાં હોય એ -વાભાિવક છે .....6;ૃતીકાIયોમાં
6;ૃિતUયોના ^ુદર
ં શXદ9ચFો કલાપી કૌશલથી આલેખે છે .....કલાપી જયાર
જયાર 6;ૃિતસૌQદય નીરખે છે યાર તેમનાં તનમન 6સ: થઇ જય છે , કારણ
ક તેમાં તેમને િવ—-એઈ|5ુ ં દશન થાય છે .....િવ—માં Iયાપેલી એકતાની
સાથે માનવTવનની સંવાદતા સધાય તો જ િવ—રચના5ુ ં સાથ| િસv થાય
એમ કિવ માને છે .” (Brahmabhatt, 1999:191)
(Nature poems occupy a large share of the poetry of Kalapi. It is natural
that beauty-seeking poets are interested in nature and her elements.....
Kalapi very ably portrays beautiful word-pictures of natural scenes and
beauty of nature in his poems. Whenever the poet comes across natural
beauty he feels very delighted, because he finds unity of the world in
her.....He believes that if mankind lives in harmony with nature, then
only the existence of the world is justified.)(Translation:Mine)
The poetry of Kalapi reflects the true philosophy of Nature and poetry. On the other
hand, the diction that Wordsworth employs in the poem is that of the ordinary
78
speech and therefore quite simple and still powerful enough to convey his vision
very clearly. Besides, Wordsworth has also made use of the words and phrases of the
ordinary speech in the poem which also rhymes very well with the words and
expressions of common and day to day use which also please both the eyes and the
ears equally well. The lines are from the poem Written in Early Spring.
To her fair work did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.......
.......If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man? (Palgrave, 1928:282)
For Kalapi, nature is a source of peace, harmony and eternal joy. While Wordsworth
portrays nature with zest, Kalapi describes nature sensuously and imaginatively in
the poems of his earlier attempts. Nature has a very serene and soothing effect upon
him. He is always in search of the Supreme Power and finds great solace in the
presence of Nature. He weaves various incidents and descriptions of nature to bring
about the idea of transience and perpetuity; ecstasy and grief all the way through his
poems. He has even used all the material objects of nature to mean much more than
its mere literary meaning; in his later poems, he even tries to find some mystical,
divine communion with the supreme power.
All throughout his poems, he is
explicitly searching for some special connection between mankind and nature. For
him, nature is a unique power that dwells in all men. He finds Nature to be God
Himself and pours his heart out in the following lines which are taken from one of
his more popular poems, Manushya ane Kudarat.
79
9ચદામાની સં¥ા ;ુદરત 6fુની 6િત;ૃિત,
અરસો તેનો આ જન”દયની લાગણી વળ,
6િત ^ ૃVNટલીલા કશી જનc-થિતનો 6િત]વની,
મ5ુNયોની સાથે ;ુદરત બની +ંિથત નક. (Gohil, 2000:197)
(Nature, the sign of the Supreme Spirit is the replica of God and feelings
of the people are its mirror; creation of the anti-world is an echo of
human state, Nature has also been composed along with
man.)(Translation:Mine)
In the same poem the poet also describes his concept of universality portrayed in
almost every poem he writes. To quote Prasad Brahmabhatt from his book Kalapina
Ketlak Kaavyo:
“તેમની ઉ,રાધની કિવતામાં ડહોળાયેલા નીર c-થર થયેલા જણાય છે ,
કCપનાને વેગ મળે લો જોઈ શકાય છે . એ કિવતામાં ઊિમ‰5 ુ ં ¦ડાણ, આઘાત6યાઘાતોની તરં ગલીલા, 6;ૃિતસ§દયની રમણીય લીલા અને 9ચ=તન િવશેષ
કલામકતાથી
ઉપ-યા
છે .....આ
કાIયમાં
કલાપીની
6;ૃિત
અને
મ5ુNયTવનનાં *તગત સંબધ
ં ની િવચારણા Iયbત થઇ છે . 6;ૃિતના સૌ
સવો-તવો એકબીEને ^ુખ આપે છે અને >ુઃખમાં ભાગીદાર બને છે જયાર
માણસ અQય માણસ 6િત –રતા 6દિશ‰ત કર છે .” (Brahmabhatt, 2003:1415)
(In his later poems, the disturbed, murky water seems to have settled
down and imagination is heightened. There is artistic portrayal of depth
of emotions, fanciful depiction of action-reaction and beautiful word
pictures of nature with deep reflection. In the above poem, the poet
presents his thoughts on the correlation between nature and human life.
The elements of nature give happiness to each other and acts as partners
in sorrow whereas man shows cruelty to other man.(Translation:Mine)
Wordsworth is basically a contemplative poet, whereas Kalapi is a poet of emotions
who expresses such emotions through a sudden gush of feelings in a casual way. He
describes concentrated moods which the world rouses in an attentive mind, but does
not care to write them watchfully. Unlike Wordsworth, writing of poetry had a
80
cathartic effect upon him. It was a means of discharging his fetid emotions. The
following lines are taken from his poem Ek Gha which very aptly describes his
sensitivity for the pain inflicted upon the others. With a rare delicacy of feeling, the
poet sings of the pains that he felt after doing the deed:
તે પંખીની ઉપર પથરો ફ¨કતા ફ¨ક દધો,
©ટªો તે ને અરરર! પડ ફાળ હ™યા મહ• તો!
ર ર ! લા\યો દલ પર અને —ાસ qંધાઈ Eતાં
નીચે આIું તKુ ઉપરથી પાંખ ઢલી થતાંમાં. (Gohil, 2000:68)
[(I) threw a stone on that bird and oh! The pain in my heart! Oh! It struck
on the heart, breath chocked, the wings became heavier and the bird fell
down.](Translation:Mine)
This simple description of a sudden feeling of an incident has been described in a
quite melodiously way. The last letters in both the stanzas rhyme very well. The
poem describes the cruelty of men towards the objects of Nature and points to the
treatment that they inflict upon them which fill their life with love and beauty. The
present stanza depicts a very simple yet insightful description of the poet’s emotions
on the occasion of throwing a stone to the birds that fly away spotting the poet
around out of fear. The poet’s heart bleeds to see such incident and laments that
people are so much indifferent today to Nature and that they are even turning selfish
and cruel to her. Being highly sensitive, he becomes emotional by such an ordinary
incident.
Similarly, Kalapi also uses nature as the background to convey certain situations and
express hidden emotions through various symbols. To quote Prasad Brahmabhatt
from his book titled Kalapijivankatha:
81
“કલાપી પોતાની કિવતામાં માનવીભાવ માટ 6;ૃિતનો પDા“f ૂિમકા તરક
ુ ’, ‘હમીરT
ઔ9ચય ૂણ િવનીયોગ કર છે . ‘9બCવ-મંગલ’, ‘”દયિF ટ
ગોહલ’ વા કાIયોમાં 6;ૃિતનો પDા“f ૂ તરક કવો સાથક િવિનયોગ થયો છે
એનો અoયાસ કરતાં આ બાબત -પNટ થશે.” (Brahmabhatt, 1999:192)
(Kalapi very ably and considerately portrays the elements of nature in
his poems to depict human nature and emotions. It would become
evident on studying the poems like ‘Bilva-Mangal’, ‘Hridaytriputi’,
‘Hamirji Gohil’ and the others that how efficiently and quite successfully
he has used nature as an appropriate background in the
poems.)(Translation:Mine)
He even very cleverly uses nature as a suggestion to express feelings and emotions
symbolically through various signs and symbols. Nadine Sindhunu Nimantran is one
of the finest examples where he uses the elements of nature to imply his own hidden
feelings. The poem is symbolic representation of the poet himself and his beloved
Shobhana who he imagines is angry with the poet. He tries to persuade her and
accept him once again through various symbols all through the poem. To quote from
the poem:
દઠા મારા અવર નદથી હ-તને ખેલતા ›ુ?ં
ઊઠ માર ચડતી પડતી 6ેમમાં તે અર ›ુ?ં
દઠ છાપો દલ પર પડ સવ fસાઈ
ંૂ
Eતી?
›ું દ¬ુ ં ક યT દઈ મને ર તમાં ? ું સમાઈ?(Gohil, 2000:128)
(Have you seen me playing in the river? Have you been witness to my
ups and downs in love? Have you observed all the impressions being
wiped away fromthe heart? What have you seen that you deserted me
and disappeared in sand?)(Translation:Mine)
All the symbols are employed to express the love of the poet. All the signs imply the
poet’s deep love for his beloved. What is signified by the sea and the river is very
well understood for the poet’s heart as well. Thus, the poet also uses the elements of
82
nature to convey hidden meaning and situations at various stages of his life. To
quote Sushila Vaghmashi from the book titled Kalapina Kaavyona Aaswad:
“અહ• કિવએ ચાર પંcbતમાં વા|5ુ ં 6Žાથ -વqપ Eળવી રાZુ ં છે માં Fણ
પંcbતઓ એ સWુU માટ નદના 6ેમમાં આવેલ ઓટનાં કારણો છે ; તો *િતમ
પંcbતમાં સWુU નદને 6Ž કર છે ક આમાંથી તે ›ુ ં જોુ ં ક ? ું મને યT ર તમાં
Lુlત થઇ ગઈ?.....ભરતી-ઓટ, છાપો પડવી-f ૂસવીએ માF સWુUને જ લાુ
પડ? ું નથી પરં ? ુ મ5ુNય ”દયને પણ એટLું જ લાુ પાડ શકાય છે .”
(Vaghamashi, 2012:171-174)
(The poet has maintained the interrogative format in all the four lines
where the first three lines are the causes for the ebb in love by the sea for
the river; whereas the last line is a question that why did she desert him
and disappeared into sand?.....tide-ebb, impressions-wipe out do not
merely apply to the sea only, it is also implied to the human heart as
well.)(Translation:Mine)
It is interesting to note the following observation in this regard: “To Kalapi, poem
was like a sigh. It would flow out as it is born; and hence there was no scope for
art….. Kalapi had not allowed his sentiments to settle down and then write and
rewrite them. The aim was not to create; but to release the sentiments.” (Cf. Dave,
1969:00) To quote Sundaram from his book titled Arvachin Kavita in this regard:
“તેણે કાIયકળાનો ઠકઠક અoયાસ કયŒ છે . કળા િવશે તેનામાં ડ
EગKુકતા છે , સં-;ૃત તથા *+ેT કિવતા5ુ ં તે5 ુ ં પરશીલન 6શ-ય છે , તેનો
ભાષાભંડોળ પણ સW ૃv છે અને ભાવનાઓની તથા લાગણીઓની તો તે પોતે
જ ખાણ છે ; પરં ? ુ તેનામાં કલા5ુ ં સંયિમત એtું પરમ સામ­ય થો‡ું છે .....એમ
છતાં એની નીરયાસ િન—ાસ qપે વહતી કિવતામાં પણ કલાના લોકો,ર -પશŒ
નથી જ આIયાં એમ નથી.” (Sundaram, 2004:169)
(He has studied poetics well, is conscious of the poetic art, his reading of
English and Sanskrit is good, his vocabulary is also rich and is himself
the source of emotions and feelings; but he has in less degree the
disciplined ability of art….. this does not mean that there are no fluently
flowing artistic touches in his poetry.) (Translation:Mine)
83
The basic philosophy that drives both of these poets to write poetry is simply poles
apart. Portrayal of Nature in Wordsworth is done with extreme sensitivity and
honesty of depiction. He finds a wealth of beauty in life and the objects of nature
around him, and experiences a clear reflection of the living, divine spirit, the living
God in all the natural objects that he portrays and adds an element of mysticism in
his poetry.
Kalapi, on the other hands, writes straight from his heart. There is always a very
strong flow of intense feelings that transports the readers into the artistically created
imaginative world of the poet. His intense lyricism is simply unparallel in Gujarati
lyrical poetry. Wordsworth on the other hand, very often lacks this very flow of
emotions. In order to express everything in very simple language, he many a times
misses the excitement and intensity of the moment.
“Wordsworth is…..only occasionally
graceful.” (Long, 2003:382)
inspired…..and
is
seldom
For Wordsworth, nature stands supreme to all the other things; he is a great
worshipper of nature who also holds very deep faith in her like a religion. He is a
true devotee or high-priest of nature. He holds a distinct view for nature with a deeprooted belief that there is an all encompassing divine power in all the substance of
Nature. This spiritual Pantheism is of the highest order which was echoed in the
Tintern Abbey and in The Prelude Book II. His love of Nature is very genuine and
very sincere than that of any other English poets. Nature always enjoys a central
status in almost all of his poems she is never treated in just a careless or momentary
manner as by some of the other poets before him. He had complete faith with a great
philosophy that the company of nature offers the greatest joy to the human heart
which is a very unique experience. He had a firm faith in the healing power of nature
84
and believed that it cured the distressed hearts and provided solace and peace. It was
he who spiritualized nature by deifying her. For him, she was not only a mother and
a guardian but also a great moral teacher as well. It was his conviction that the
company of Nature has a great exalting influence upon men and that there exists
between man and Nature a collective consciousness and a very pious communion.
Those who grow up within the orbit of Nature are accomplished in every respect to
other humans. Wordsworth is far less concerned with the splendid manifestations
than with the spiritual associations of the same that he finds underlying those
manifestations. The primrose and the daffodil are but merely the vehicles of Nature
to communicate her special messages for Wordsworth. Similarly, a sunrise is not an
exhibition of colour for him but it is an illustration of spiritual benediction. He
constantly strove for a perfect balance between his poetic expression of Nature and
his spiritual enchantment and astuteness.
These beauteous forms
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations! sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration (gutrenberg.org)
Wordsworth always prefers to write in the simplest possible words; Kalapi likes to
use figurative language but he is equally at ease with the use of simple language of
the people as well. He even employs various figures of speech to intensify the poetic
effect. He uses the objects of nature to effectively convey his finer sentiments and
tender feelings more effectively.
85
Wordsworth quietly describes the objects of nature and allows them to speak their
tongue. This, to some extent, harms his poetry in general on many occasions and that
is why his poetry is not always melodious.
“Wordsworth is not always melodious… he is absolutely without
humour, and so often fails to see the small steps that separates the
sublime from the ridiculous.” (Long, 2003:382)
Kalapi on the other hand is very melodious and many of his poems are superb poetry
sung very affectionately even today by his readers. Wordsworth did not like the wild
and the stormy and the irregular aspects of Nature to depict in his poems and even
did not portray her sensuous. The only aspects of Nature that attracted his attention
was to concern himself with whatsoever were the bizarre and isolated sides of the
earth and sky. He simply loved to portray the commonplace, recognizable and
everyday moods of nature that unite man with her spiritually. All throughout his life,
he constantly strove to emphasize the ethical influence of Nature and the need of
man’s spiritual communication with her emphasizing upon the singleness of man
with Nature. His continuously endeavoured to project how man and Nature are
excellently united in identifying the self. In My Heart Leaps Up, he speaks of such
feelings and describes the effect of Mother Nature upon his soul very beautifully in
the following lines.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old;
Or let me die!
The Child is the father of the Man. (Palgrave, 1928:195)
Wordsworth is the champion of Nature who advocated his philosophy of the
indwelling God in her very passionately.
86
“To Wordsworth, Nature appears as a formative influence superior to
any other, the educator of senses and mind alike, the sower in our hearts
of the deep-laden seeds of our feelings and beliefs. It speaks to the child
in the fleeting emotions of early years, and stirs the young poet to an
ecstasy, the glow of which illuminates all his work and dies of his life.”
(Legouis and Cazamian, 1995:1010)
Kalapi, on the other hand, used various objects of Nature as the background of his
poems and also to suggest many more things. His use of Nature and her objects as
the metaphor in his poetry is much more effective and its implications are more
powerful than direct descriptions of such ideas. To quote from the book titled
Gujarati Saahityano Itihas:
“કલાપી 6;ૃિતના કોમળ સૌQદય તરફ Wુ\ધતાથી જોતાં અને તેની િવધિવધ
છટાઓ, પરc-થિતઓ અને રં ગો કાIયમાં િનqપતા. ;ુદરતના અ5ુભવ Aારા
તેમને Tવન5ુ ં 9ચ=તન -¤ર છે .મ સૌQદયના ઉપાદાન લેખે તેમણે 6;ૃિતનો
આYય લીધો છે તેમ 6ેમ, શાંિત અને આ]યાuમક ^ુખના 6ેરણાધામ તરક
;ુદરતનો અ5ુભવ તેમણે કયŒ છે . ;ુદરતના અ5ુ;ૃિત કાIયોમાં પણ કલાપી
તેમનાં ુKુ નરિસ=હરાવ અને હરલાલ ®ુવને ટપી Eય છે અને મ5ુNય તથા
;ુદરતના સંબધ
ં ની ભાવના કલામકતાથી તે આલેખે છે .” (Joshi, Raval,
Shukal, 1978:561)
(Kalapi looked at nature with an amazed mind and depicted various
shades and situations of her with very tender heart. He finds universality,
sympathy and non-violence in nature. Nature inspires him in unravelling
the secrets of life. In the poems of imitating nature, he is far more
superior to Narsinhrao and Harilal Dhruv in depicting nature and
portrays
the
man-nature
relationship
far
more
artistically.)(Translation:Mine)
In one of his poems Madhukarni Vignapti, he uses Nature to indicate something
more than the mere literary meaning very significantly; it also symbolizes his
discontented love with the proverbial representation of a flower and a bee. Similarly,
Vruddha Teliyo is an Indianized version of Wordsworth’s The Old Cumberland
Beggar. In Kashmirnu Swapna, the poet is overjoyed and becomes ecstatic by the
87
splendorous beauty of the Himalayan region and even imagines a few trees without
leaves as sages.
વહ છે જોસ ભર નદ અહ તહ•, નાળા પડGા િવખર,
;ુંજોમાં ઝરણાં વહ ખળકતાં, છોળો ઉડ પાણીની.
Hયાં છે એવી નદ ઘણી, બરફનાં ઝાઝા Hયહાં ‡ુંગરા,
એવો કામીર દ શ છોડ દઈને E¦ હવે „ું |હાં?(Gohil, 2000:06)
(There the river flows in full force, brooks are seen here and there,
Rivulets are also flowing through the bower splashing water, Where
there are many such rivers and mountains of snow, Where shall I go
leaving such a country?)
The poet is attracted so much by the beauty of the region that he expresses a strong
desire to stay for the rest of his life in Kashmir and settle down there only. In Sarasi,
Kalapi describes the fate of the lovers having great conviction in the eternal nature
of love grasping the concept that nature renders the pain in human life. Age and
experience have given him new consciousness that allows him to see the suffering of
human society as reflected in nature:
ગંભીર નાદ કરતી સરતા વહ છે ,
િસ=ચી જલે 9ુ લન શીતલ એ કર છે ;
યાં દન સારસી ઉભી જલ રુ નેF,ે
^ુની, અર ! િશર નમાવી રહ રડ એ!
અહોહો! પાંખ 6ીિતની તેની ? ૂટ ગઈ દસે,
આtુ ં આ પdી, તેને એ આવી પીડા ખર! અર ! (Gohil, 2000:44)
88
(A river is flowing making sombre sound splashing the river bank cool;
there the poor Sarasi stands with her eyes full of tears, all by herself,
crying with the head cast down. Her bond of love seems broken; such a
bird, she too has to bear such a pain! Oh!) (Translation:Mine)
Kudarat ane Manushya is one of the finest poems describing Nature and its beauty.
It demonstrates the extraordinary association that the Mother Nature shares with the
humans. The great mastery over the diction and the ease with which Kalapi writes
the poem is simply stupendous. Even in the description of the elements of Nature,
Kalapi is simply marvellous. The following stanza is the testimony to this!
પહŠચે નાં કણમાં કલકલ ]વની આ જગતના,
વહ ધીમાં ધીમાં ખળખળ અહ• શાQત ઝરણા,
વહ ધોધો ગાT મ…ુર Hયમ માતંગ ગર,
qડાં બœચાં Qહાના ચપલ હરણોના ;ુદ રહ! (Gohil, 2000:34)
(Where no roars of the world can reach, where the rivulets flow quietly,
where the waterfalls cascade roaring like the elephant and beautiful,
sprightly babies of deer are playing around!)
For Wordsworth, nature always played a very comforting role. He looked at her as
an eternal source of joy and instruction; it was a kind of sublime and soothing entity
for him that always provided him great tranquillity, love and reassurance. For
Wordsworth, all the elements of Mother Nature are complementary to man and he
portrays them so rather than placing man and nature in opposition to each other. For
him, Nature is not an extraterrestrial existence but a loving and soothing entity of
which we all are part of. Being a stern believer in God and in the Church of England,
Wordsworth, he was able to look at nature and see the benevolence of God behind it.
For Wordsworth, the world could be a place of sorrow, but it was not cruel. Though
suffering surely occurred, Wordsworth comforted himself with the belief that all
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things happened by the hand of God, manifesting Himself in the ultimately just and
divine order of nature. Wordsworth believed that we can learn more of man and of
moral evil and good from Nature than from all the philosophies. Nature is a teacher
who can teach and impart wisdom to man without which any human life is vain and
incomplete. He believed in the education of man by Nature. This inter-relation of
Nature and man is very important in considering Wordsworth’s view of Nature.
These feelings are reverberated in the following lines which are taken from his
famous poem Lines Written a Few Lines Above Tintern Abbey:
I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. (Gutenberg.org)
In short, it is improper to say that Kalapi was influenced by the great Romantic poet
Wordsworth. Whatever shadows that can be traced back to his poetic genius have
only strengthened him as a poet and widened as well as enriched his vision. He is
indebted to all those who helped him develop as a poet. But such traces are all
shadows and not Kalapi himself. They have not been able to efface his genius. The
personality of Kalapi overshadows them all and emerges as a promising, talented
young poet. Influences of different poets of the earlier ages and that of
contemporaries have only kindled the lamp of brilliance that is always burning
within, the glow of which illuminates all his works and the rest of his life.
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2.3-LYRICISM IN THE POETRY OF KALAPI AND SHELLEY:
2.3.1
SHELLEY AND HIS TIMES:
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the lyrical geniuses of England, belongs to an
age rich in literary and poetic achievement. He is the greatest singer after William
Blake among all the romanticists of the English literature. To quote Legouis and
Cazamian this regard from the book titled History of English Literature:
“He remains, above all, a lyric poet, the greatest that England or perhaps
modern Europe has produced.” (Legouis and Cazamian, 1995:1058)
In the history of English literature, this age is known as the Romantic Age or the age
of the French Revolution. The literature of the age fully reflects the spirit of the age,
the spirit of the French Revolution, the spirit that breaks away from the artificial
restraints of the eighteenth century pseudo classicism. It becomes free both in
thought and expression and becomes truly romantic for the essence of Romance lies
in the free utterance of the spirit.
The age is the second highest creative period in the history of English literature only
after the Elizabethan age. This was because of the wonderful quickening of the
emotional and imaginative sensibilities which took place in the last two-three
decades of the eighteenth century English literature. Besides, the whole of the
Europe came to be under the charm of the new ideals, writers of the period came
under the influence of the French Revolution and perceived Nature and Man with a
new charm. The attention of the poets was not only confined to the city or the town
and court life but they found new interest in almost everything. Their imagination
was allowed to move freely wherever it wanted to go that made life wonderfully
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fascinating for them. The stereotyped heroic couplet gave place to the blank verse
and the polish, the correctness and the monotony of the eighteenth century were
replaced by a finer poetic expression that clearly marked distinction in its form,
freedom, naturalness, variety and music. To quote F T Palgrave from his anthology
titled Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics would not be out of place:
“They (the romanticists) carried to further perfection the later tendencies
of the century preceding, in simplicity of narrative, reverence for human
Passion and Character in every sphere, and impassioned love of Nature –
that, whilst maintaining on the whole the advances in art made since the
Restoration, they renewed the half-forgotten melody and depth of tone
which marked the best Elizabethan writers – that, lastly, to what was
thus inherited they added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a
force and fire in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, and insight
into the finer passages of the Soul and the inner meanings of the
landscape, a larger and wiser Humanity – hitherto hardly attained, and
perhaps unattainable even by predecessors of not inferior individual
genius.” (1928:528)
The times in which Shelley lived and wrote were times of great stress for the whole
of Europe. The Great French Revolution was running its full course in all European
countries and was evoking either strong support from those who expected it to result
in much good to mankind, or it was evoking equally strong opposition from those
who thought it would bring about only chaos and disorder in society. Shelley’s
poetic predecessors, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, were all young men at the
beginning of the Revolution. In its early days they had welcomed it as a time of
great hope that was dawning for oppressed humanity. But as the revolution
progressed in its mad career of destruction, often just and necessary, but almost as
often foolish and unnecessary, they had become alarmed, and had renounced their
hopes and dreams and taken shelter in a wise conservatism. A new generation of
poets had now come on the scene to whom both the attitudes, that of early
enthusiasm and that of subsequent fault-finding were unacceptable. They looked at
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the Revolution from a new point of view altogether. They were shocked by the
excesses of the French Revolution; but they were even more shocked by the
reaction, by the determined opposition of the vested interests to recognise what was
good and just in the revolutionary ideal; and as the reaction gained in strength and
blindness and fury, they became sad and dejected, lost all hope in any immediate
change for the better, and concentrated their efforts in keeping up the flame of the
new idea, so that it should pass on as a torch of light for the new generations to
guide themselves by.
The time when Shelley began his poetic career was full of sadness. England had
been at war with revolutionary France for nearly eighteen years, and still the end of
the struggle was not in sight. Of course, Napoleon’s dream of the invasion of
England had come to nothing at Trafalgar in 1805. But after Trafalgar he had
changed his tactics, and conquering ally after ally of England, had considerably
enlarged his power and made himself unconquerable, so far as appearances went at
least.
War had brought in its wake much economic hardship; food was dear and
insufficient, and the landed classes made huge profits while the poor people starved.
Then, there was repression in Ireland as well as in England. So long as the nation
was at war, it became a good excuse to stifle all discussion of parliamentary reform,
and many real grievances of the people went unredressed for years.
Then, there was the Industrial Revolution. With the growth of the United States of
America, and on account of the application of scientific ideas to the problems of
production, manufacturing industries of the capitalistic type had rapidly come into
existence, and wealth had phenomenally increased. But this new and sudden wealth
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had not brought to men any contentment. Thir desire to become rich quick seemed
only to be whetted by what they had got, and the nation was feeling the adverse
moral effects of this new acquisitiveness in the loss of the old kind of neighbourly
virtues of simplicity and hospitality. As Wordsworth aptly said, England had
become a fen of stagnant waters, and a Miltonic voice was needed to awaken it to its
sense of duty and power.
The times were also eventful for yet another reason. As the old world despotisms of
the 18th century had been found wanting in any desire to do any good to their
subjects, the subjects themselves were turning away from the town to find new
hopes and new sources of usefulness and joy in nature. Peace and happiness were no
longer to be expected in palaces or the haunts of the rich and the wealthy, but in the
simple cottages of the poor and the rustic surroundings of the countryside. At the
same time, life in the countryside was not without its material gains also. It had
brought with it a new understanding of the ways of nature, a new scientific
knowledge which could be put to much practical use for the production of wealth
and the increase of human welfare. Men had so far used the earth’s fields for their
battles and their hunts; but the same fields could also be used for growing more food
and material to supply the other needs of men. In short, the need of a more scientific
study of nature had begun to be felt, and accordingly science was becoming a
fashionable pastime with many leisured people.
2.3.2
SHELLEY’S WORKS AND HIS LYRICISM:
Shelley as a lyric poet is simply without any equals. He is the greatest lyrical poet of
not only England, but of the whole of Europe. He is the greatest lyrical poet of the
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nineteenth century. Poetry simply gushes out from his heart and that he does not
have to try to write poetry. With his keen ardour of passion, eager sensitiveness, his
sense of personal sorrow, and his mystical and prophetic urge, Shelley was destined
to be a great lyrical poet. His lyric-cry is so intense and moving that it immediately
creates a special attachment with his readers. Moreover, his lyrics contain keen
feelings, miraculous gift of melody and abundance of imagery which is nowhere to
be found.
His lyricism is inimitable in countless ways. Legous and Cazamian, in their book
titled History of English Literature, Part II-Book V, observes in this regard:
“Shelley’s lyricism is incomparable. In no other do we find the perfect
sureness, the triumphant rapidity of this upward flight, this soaring
height, the superterrestrial quality as well as the poignant intensity of the
sounds which fall from these aerial regions. Truly, never was the soul of
a poet so spontaneously lyrical – in the modern sense in which the word
no longer implies a concentrated purpose of learned, harmonious, and
noble exaltation, but the immediate and complete vibration of a naturally
vocal sensibility in contact with the world.” (Legouis and Cazamian,
1995:1055)
The following lines taken from one of his poems titled To Night very well illustrates
this fact:
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o’er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand –
Come, long-sought! (Kelkar, 1932:118)
In the above lines the poet here invokes the Spirit of the Night to come soon. It is
associated both with joy and fear. The poet would like the Spirit to come in a starry
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mantle, enveloping the whole world in a magic darkness. The lines beautifully
express the poet’s feelings and emotions with marvellous similes. To quote T M
Advani from his book Some Selections from Shelley:
“It is one of the most musical and melancholy lyrics in the English
language, illustrating the myth-making gift of Shelley. The detailed
personification of Night is rightly considered Spenserian in quality and
the rhythm is dactylic varied by the trochaic.” (1934:126)
But he never likes formal aspects in poetry and never preferred his poems to be
didactic though most of his poems convey some or the other message. To quote
Herbert Read from his book The True Voice of Feeling:
“As early as 1813, when engaged on his first considerable poem,
Queen Mab, we find him taking up an attitude which implies a certain
contempt for the formal aspects of poetry. At the same time, from the
very beginning, what we might in our modern fashion call an
indifference to pure poetry is combined with what we would least
expect – an avoidance of didactic poetry.” (1947:218)
Right from his early days it seems he was against any message – whatever – in his
poetry but somehow all of his poems represent his thoughts very strongly and
clearly. But still, his lyricism is essentially intellectual lyricism as he possessed a
very scientific temperament. His devotion to intellect clearly marks his stamp in
almost all of his poems and is also reflected through the doctrine he advocates. His
lyric-cry rises straight from his heart and is so piercing that it goes straight to the
heart of the readers. His lyrics contain keen feelings, miraculous gift of melody and
profusion of imagery which are nowhere to be found. His lyrical power is equal to
the highest to be found in any language. It is now recognized to be one of the
supreme gifts in literature, like the dramatic genius of Shakespeare. This gift is very
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well reflected in the poem Prometheus Unbound when it expresses the highest
emotional ecstasy. It is a sign of his great genius that, in spite of the passion that
pervades his lyrics, he is seldom shrill and tuneless. He can also express a mood of
blessed cheerfulness, a sane and delectable joy. In his lyric To the Spirit of Delight,
he says:
I love Love, though he as wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee.
Thou art love and life! O come,
Make once more my heart thy home. (poetryfoundation.org)
He was truly a winged poet, who is always in rapture, and even his talks were also
winged. He was always on a continuous flight especially when he poured forth his
woes and aspirations. His words always vibrated with intense feelings and emotions,
full of invalid visions. The ecstasy that quickens his greatest songs is not joy, but the
ecstasy of sorrow and longing. As a lyric poet, Shelley is one of the supreme
geniuses of English literature. Nature, on many occasions, has chosen him to be the
greatest instrument of melody and it is during such spells of inspirations that he is
simply unrivalled in English literature. He is absolutely possessed on such occasions
and being a great fighter raises the voice of revolt against the established institutions
and even tries to overthrow them nevertheless in vain. He could not accept them in
their present form and hence began to tear them down. He simply could not
sympathize with them against his own figment of the imagination and dreams. This
can be traced back to his childhood days, when he used to live in a world of fancy
and imagination which is very well echoed in the following lines taken from his
famous lyric, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.
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While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. (Kelkar, 1932, 31)
The poet says that he was very much fond of visiting charmed houses and graves,
caves and chambers, in the hope of being able to come across the Spirit of Beauty in
his childhood days. And then, all of a sudden, he would have a brief glimpse of it.
The excerpt depicts the imaginative power of the poet very well as he accepts most
ardently the existence of spiritual elements in life. He is not a materialist as might be
concluded from his essay on Atheism. But in truth, he is more liked for the creative
and imaginative spells wherein he presents some beautiful vision however sad and
unsatisfied it might be. The following lines, taken from one of his finest poems To a
Skylark, he compares the skylark with a contemplative poet. The lines are exquisite
for its lyrical exuberance:
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. (Kelkar, 1932, 82)
David Murdoch is all praise for Shelley and his lyrical ecstasy in the above poem
when he says that it is probably the best lyrical poem by Shelley. To quote him from
his book The Siren’s Song:
“This is one of Shelley’s finest lyrics. It was inspired by the song of a
real skylark heard by Shelley and his wife near Leghorn in Italy in 1820.
The soaring flight of the skylark also symbolises the poet’s
imagination.” (1971:92)
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In Prometheus Unbound, Shelley’s ground-breaking passion best found its
expression wherein he is also extremely melodious.
No change, no pause, no hope! – Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven – the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The sea, in storm or calm
Heaven’s ever-changing Shadow, spread below –
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me, alas, pain, pain ever, forever! (Kelkar,1932:35)
To quote Shelley himself in this regard from his preface to the poem would be
appropriate at this point:
“But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perception of
moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest
motives to the best of the noblest ends.” (Reiman and Fraistat,
2002:206)
Right from his school days, he took great interest in science and scientific
experiments and therefore his poetry clearly bore the impression of his intellectual
temperament. He treated intellectual ideals inspired by the French Revolution in
many of his poems. Prometheus Unbound is a beautiful example of his lyricism. But
apart from that his ideas are transmuted into stunning poetry; they are in many ways
useless and highly impractical to be put into practice.
Another aspect of Shelley’s lyricism is that his lyrics portray aerial images. His
ideals are very abstract and vague and hence they only blur the visions instead of
giving them any concrete shape. He is the poet of useless, impracticable dreams and
hence many a times his description are absolutely ethereal. Whether he sings of
liberty and injustice or love or even nature, there is always a sense of detachment
from human life and common human sentiments. In Prometheus Unbound, Hellas,
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Ode to Liberty and others he glorifies liberty and injustice as abstract principles and
not in intimate relation with human life. His poem To A Skylark also depicts the
same aspect wherein he compares the bird with that of an aerial spirit:
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thou full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. (Palgrave, 1928:243)
Again in the following lines, he draws a picture of a woman. The lines are great for
its musical qualities but do not make the image worldly. On the contrary the picture
assumes more impersonal note as that of some fairy tale and that of an ethereal
image. The poet visualizes a person of extreme beauty but surely not a woman of
concreteness but ‘of some bright Eternity.’ Such lack of human interest mars the
overall effect of many of his poetry:
See where she stands! a mortal shape imbued
With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change but cannot die;
An image of some bright Eternity;.....
.....A metaphor of Spring and Youth an Morning;
A vision like incarnate April, warning,
With smiles and tears, Frost and Anatomy
Into his summer grave. (Kelkar, 1932:101)
His images are so obscure and lack human touch that there is always a sense of
indifference in his lyrics. In his excitement of poetic outburst, he draws images after
images to express his emotion of feelings of the moment that inspires him. As a
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reason the reader gets confused by a constant flow of images and as a result the
effect is not clear but abstract.
In one of his lesser known poems, he summarizes the ideals of the romantic spirit in
a nutshell and those lines probably are the most significant lines that can be applied
to almost all of the romantic poetry in general. To quote the lines from Palgrave’s
Golden Treasury:
I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not, –
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow? (Palgrave, 1928:202)
To quote Palgrave in this regard:
“The last four lines crystallize the feelings and beliefs of the Romantic
Revival about the meaning of love, religion, romance, art and poetry.
This is indeed one of the most significant stanzas, not in Shelley’s works
only, but in all English literature.” (Palgrave, 1928:100)
Shelley’s lyricism is that of intense feelings and vision also. He was an idealist, a
dreamer who sees visions of his dream world. Queene Mab is nothing but a simple
vision in verse wherein he describes his world. He was highly influenced by William
Godwin and his philosophy and tried to put that philosophy into practice. He was
kind at heart an all that he proposed to change or to replace was to be changed by
argument or by persuasion or by suffering and by the use of patience alone. In the
last two cantos – No VIII and IX of this poem, he describes the world of his dream;
his ideal world wherein the earth becomes a paradise, pleasant and fertile in its
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totality. Animals lose their savagery and man is freed from all forms of tyranny
whether political, religious or social and even time ceases to exist:
No longer now the winged habitats,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feather on the hands
Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play.
All things are void of terror: man has lost
His terrible prerogative, and stands
An equal amidst equals: happiness
And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;
Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,
Reason and passion cease to combat there;
Whilst each unfettered o’er the earth extend
Their all-subduing energies, and wield
The sceptre of a vast dominion there;
Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends
Its force to the omnipotence of mind,
Which from its dark mine drags the gem of truth
To decorate its paradise of peace. (Reiman and Fraistat, 2002:66)
Another aspect of Shelley’s lyricism is that of revolt, of rebellion. The root of his
rebellious nature lies deep within his temperament. Right from his school days, his
experiences of the world around him were not very good. His free intense nature
could not adjust itself to the rough and ready discipline of a public school and that
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made him rebellious. To quote William J Long in this regard from his book titled
English Literature:
“He is the violent reformer, seeking to overthrow our present institutions
and to hurry the millennium out of its slow walk into a gallop.”
(2003:411)
Imbued with a strong feeling of intolerance for injustice or oppression in any form
his spirit rose in revolt against the harshness of the schoolmasters and the tyranny of
the senior boys and he organised a rebellion against the system of flagging. The
following lines taken from his poem Laon and Cynthna (later, The Revolt of Islam)
clearly describe his feelings:
Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
The cloud which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirit’s sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I know not why; until there rose
From the near school room, voices, that alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes –
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes
And then I clasped my hands and looked around –
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground – (Reiman and
Fraistat, 2002:102)
He rebelliously threw out the age-old customs and traditions forced upon by the
existing institutions like the church and the likes under the ideals proposed by the
French Revolution. To quote William J Long:
“Shelley’s philosophy was a curious aftergrowth of the French
Revolution, namely, that it is only the existing tyranny of State, Church
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and society which keeps man from growth into perfect happiness.”
(Long, 2003:415)
Prometheus Unbound is full of such idealism wherein he puts forth all his resources
of poetry, intellect and imagination to present his most dearly held beliefs and ideals.
It depicts the century old strife between the good and the evil. It is a play which
welcomes the victory of good over evil, of love over hate and of freedom over
slavery. He never believed in the institutions of kings, churches, etc. which is
reflected here in the poem thereby showing his rebellious nature:
There are two woes:
To speak and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature’s sacred watchwords – they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry.
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud
As with one voice, “Truth, liberty and love!”
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from Heaven
Among them – there was strife, deceit and fear;
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw. (Reiman and Fraistat, 2002:230)
Shelley’s lyricism was full of prophetic idealism. To quote William Goodman from
his book titled A History of English Literature Vol-II:
“Shelley was not only a reformer and humanitarian, but he was also a
prophet and an idealist. Shelley, the prophet and the idealist, sang of
universal woe and sorrow. He was so tired of tyranny, injustice, darkness
and high headedness that he expressed himself with all intensity and
vigour.” (Goodman, 2006:114)
His lyric-cry, as sang in one of his lesser known poem Hellas for the ideal world
was:
Another Athens shalt arise,
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And to remoter time
Bequeath like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime. (poetryfoundation.org)
The poet here very forcefully expresses his ideas about the new world that would be
ideal without dominating commands of the social institutions. In the above lines, he
expresses the ultimate hopes of regeneration of mankind in simple yet authoritative
words.
This is also very well illustrated in one of his finest poems Ode to the West Wind
which describes his visionary ideas very beautifully. The poem is also arguably the
best in the effect of its musical melody. The poet, it seems, is in search of some
divine beauty and looks everywhere for her. The poem is also noteworthy for its
symbolic imageries which prophesize two contradictory functions that of destruction
and creation. And his trademark last line – “if Winter comes, can Spring be far
behind?” – is the highest optimistic prophesy in any language so meticulously
expressed and also
is one of the best lines quoted frequently truly reflecting
Shelley’s out and out romantic spirit:
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be thorough my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of prophecy! O wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? (Palgrave, 1928:297)
The prophet in Shelley is always in high spirits and hopes for the bright future. He is
highly optimistic though he had always had to fight for his ideals. Liberty, Equality
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and Fraternity – the three principles of the French Revolution – were his favourite
ideals that he presents in his poetry with a prophetic note. He believed the world to
have become an outdated place without any charm that needed great reforms and
assured the mankind that if winter approaches, spring will definitely follow soon and
asks to keep their peace of mind. Shelley’s characters are so optimistic that they see
hope and help beyond their suffering and times.
Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind is one of his finest creations wherein he sings of the
different cores of life in perfect harmony using different strains of thought and
feelings. In the following lines, inspired by the west wind, the poet hopes to pour
forth the sweet sadness of his heart in mighty harmonies and to attain prophetic
powers, with the help of which he will work a regeneration in the universe and bring
to it a clear message of hope and cheer:
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! (Reiman and Fraistat, 2002:300)
Srikumar Banerjee and Amulyadhan Mukherji have rightly stated the same in this
regard in their book titled Leaves from English Poetry. To quote them:
“This is the most perfect of the poems of Shelley in which convincing
harmony is achieved by the perfect fusion of different strains of thought
and feeling in the poet, in which a compelling unity of impression is
evolved by the recapitulation of an identical idea and image in different
contexts..... the poem epitomises all that Shelley stood for in his life and
poetry; it is a magnificent illustration of how the poet’s ideal backed up
by great imaginative power can mould an outward scene of Nature into
symbolic harmony with its own inner rhythm and purpose.” (Banerjee
and Mukherji, 1963:124)
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Desmond King-Hele also opines the same in this regard in the following words in
his book titled Shelley: His Thought and Work:
“The last few words of first line establish the wind as the agent of
seasonal change, and bring in a human metaphor to account for its
presence.....both are the remains of living organisms.....the winged seeds
are charioted by the wind.....the winged seeds bring us to the central
theme of the first stanza, death and rebirth in vegetation.” (King-Hele,
1964:16)
The poet tries to bring harmony in nature by a satisfying balance of this theme
making itself felt throughout in the first stanza. Thus, the poet here also tries to bring
out harmonies and to achieve visionary controls, and he also intends to work with
them to bring about a rebirth in the universe and thereby giving a clear message of
hope and cheer to the whole world. The same views have also been expressed by
Sharad Rajimwale in his book titled A History of English Literature in the following
words:
“Shelley’s lyrics encompass a wide range and variety of topics both
personal and impersonal type. They are, nevertheless, dominated by the
central hope for regeneration of mankind and life in the future.”
(2004:273)
Another aspect of Shelley’s lyricism is that it is also full of a sense of cruelty and
injustice. He has dealt with these issues in more than once in his poems; poems like
Queene Mab, Prometheus Unbound, The Revolt of Islam, Hellas, The Witch of
Atlas and others are the best examples of his philosophy of life wherein he has
spoken against the established institutions of society like religion, marriage,
kingcraft, priestcraft among the other social institutions. The lines taken from the
poem The Revolt of Islam indicate the sense of injustice and he raises questions:
O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness
Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest!
Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness
107
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest
Thy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet. (Reiman and
Fraistat, 2002:105)
All throughout his life, Shelley hated those social institutions and remained hostile
to them. His voice is heard in more or less degree in almost all his poems as he was
by nature rebellious. He even used metaphorical and allegorical language in his
poetry. To quote Deryn Chatwin from his book titled Shelley’s Poetry in this regard:
“The majority of Shelley’s poetry display a style and content which
requires a good deal of concentration and intellectual effort to grasp. The
poet himself expected his poetry, for the most part, to be appreciated
only by a few. He was, however, capable of writing verse that could
speak directly to ordinary people.” (1981:58)
But with the passage of time, he grew more mature and started understanding that it
was his mistake to see faults in those institutions. With such awareness came grief
and sorrow. Thus his rebellious spirit got somewhat softened and a note of lament
entered into his later poetry. The following poem O World! O Life! O Time! very
aptly describes his changed sentiments and mood:
O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last step I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more – Oh, never more!
Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
108
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more – Oh, never more! (Palgrave, 1928:308)
Lament in the poems of Shelley lives like a soul that never dies completely. He is a
man of unsatisfied desires and hence this note of melancholy is always there as he is
a poet of unfulfilled longings. Even in one of his best poems Ode to the West Wind,
he is seen crying because of some unattainable dream:
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need
Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! (Reiman and Fraistat, 2002:300)
The poet here has used beautiful imagery that very aptly conveys the poet’s state of
mind and his feelings. But this melancholy note is the outcome of not only his
personal miseries but of something else as well. Human sufferings also played vital
role in his melancholy state of mind along with the ideals of French Revolution. He
felt general sorrow for the fate of the mankind. Even in one of his best poems To a
Skylark which is highly optimistic and dreamlike in descriptions and use of
imageries, the poet reveals his sadness in the following lines:
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. (Palgrave,
1928:245)
It is his desire to create an ideal world that fills him with an intense sense of longing
and loss and due to that he so much suffers. His shattered hopes give him frustration
and make him even sadder. The same thing is also mentioned using different words
109
in the book titled A Concise History of English Literature by Chowdhary and
Mundra in the following words:
“Whereas Byron was the great interpreter of revolutionary iconoclasm,
Shelley was a revolutionary idealist, a great prophet of faith and hope in
the world which for the moment had lost both. He wanted to annihilate
the old order and was hopeful tht one day beauty, freedom and love
would reign in the world. He believed in the regeneration of mankind.
He had a passion for reforming the world and this passion blazes out
again and again in the poetry.” (Mundra and Chowdhary, 1997:341)
Shelley is the greatest lyric poet that is only because of this lament of human
aspirations and melancholy note. Had this note would not have been there, he would
not have been having this surpassing power. To quote A C Bradley in this regard:
“Where a full-toned slow-moving rhythm is wanted, Keats surpasses
Shelley and Keats at his best does so also, as Milton and Wordsworth
certainly do in feeling for the moment of a sonnet. But to attempt, in
general, to put Keats besides him as a lyric poet appears to me an error
almost grotesque, and to put Milton or Wordsworth beside him is still an
error.” (Cf. Mundra and Mundra, 1992:390)
The same thing has also been told by H J C Grierson in his book titled Lyrical
Poetry from Blake to Hardy in the following words:
“For the greatest singer after Blake among the Romantics is Shelley. He
never knew or sang the ecstasy of joy and innocence as
Blake.....Shelley’s song is more piercing, and to the end his art is ever
growing finer. The ecstasy that quickens his greatest songs is not joy, but
the ecstasy of sorrow and longing. His song is sweetest when, like the
nightingale, he leans his breast against a thorn and pours forth his woes
and aspirations.” (1928:46)
His intense sensitivity gives him an edge over his contemporary in lyrical outbursts
same as Kalapi’s incredible sensitivity gives him an edge over his contemporaries in
Gujarati literature. In fact, this melancholy of pure vehemence and intensity actually
result in a kind of delicious sadness that pleases the readers. He very ably merges the
words containing intense feelings with that of wounded sensibility and creates
exquisite poetry. There is everywhere the note of sadness which generally pervades
110
his poetry. The following excerpt taken from his poem The Flight of Love expresses
his moaning thoughts. He sounds absolutely spontaneous, very natural here. When
the lamp is broken, its light vanishes; similarly when the cloud is spread out, the
glory of the rainbow disappears. And when the pipe that gave out fine melodious
notes is broken, the sweet music can no longer be produced. His lyricism is also
highly subjective as he depicts his own feelings and his high, lofty ideals in his
poetry:
When the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead,
When the cloud is scattered, the rainbow’s glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not. (Gutenberg.org)
To quote from the book titled History of English Literature about his spontaneity:
“Shelley’s lyrics are marked with a note of spontaneity. They seem to
come direct from the poet’s heart. There is absolute effortlessness in
them. There is no laboured artistry and studied deliberation in his lyrics.
(Cf. Mundra and Mundra, 1992:391)
Shelley’s lyricism also bears a clear mark of mystical intuitions. He was a great
wanderer who was constantly in search of ideal beauty which was ever unsatisfied.
So, he finds earthly things and objects as that belonging to the heavenly world. In his
poem To A Skylark, he thought that the skylark was not an ordinary bird and that it
belonged to the world beyond the humdrum world:
Hail to thee blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. (Palgrave, 1928:243)
111
Probably, like the skylark, the abode of Shelley and his poetry was somewhere near
heaven from the height, it poured out his heart in his splendid songs. There is perfect
spontaneity in his song as if driven by some intuition drawing from some other
world. The whole poem is intensely inspired and charged with animation. His
intuition soars higher and higher from the earth and sometimes even becomes quite
unintelligible to us. In the following lines taken from his poem The Recollection, the
poet feels some divine presence around in the woods:
How calm it was! – the silence there
By such a chain was bound,...
...To the soft flower beneath our feet
A magic circle traced, –
A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life,...
...And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that fill’d with love
The lifelesws atmosphere. (Palgrave, 1928:271)
At times when Shelley is at his best, he unconsciously produces some of his best
poetry wherein he created dream scenery by an intense burst of inspired fancy. It is
in such inspired state of mind that he sees something divine in everything and
fancies some celestial entity, other worldly presence. It is due to this ethereal grace
and other worldly quality, that he inspires the people. In all of his poetic expressions,
his mind, imagination, words and the emotional self are all working together at the
highest pitch of sensibility that produces kind of unified effect that yields the highest
result. He looks upon love as the solution of the mystery of life and as a link
112
between God and Man as he believes in the universal soul in which all things are
animate.
Kalapi, on the other hand, is one of the best lyrical poets Gujarati literature has ever
produced. To quote from the book titled Gujarati Saahityano Itihaas in this regard:
“કલાપી5ુ ં YેNઠ સaન તેના ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં છે . પંડતુગના સૌથી વ…ુ
તી¯તાવાળા ઊિમ‰કિવ કાQત અને કલાપી. ઊિમ‰ની સœચાઈ, તે5 ુ ં તી¯તાભુ°
િનખાલસ િનqપણ, તેનો એકરાગીલો પણ ±ુલદ
ં લલકાર કલાપીની
ઊિમ‰કિવતામાં મળે છે .” (Joshi, Raval, Shukal; 1978:558)
(The finest creation of Kalapi is his lyrics. The most intense lyrical poets
of the Pandit Era are Kalapi and Kant. We find truthfulness of emotions,
its intense and frank portrayal, and description of single yet exalted
sentiments in the poetry of Kalapi.)(Translation:Mine)
He possesses unmatched lyrical power and is a lyrical genius. To quote Jayant
Pathak from his book Aadhunik Kavitapravah:
“કલાપીએ આમલdી ઊિમ‰કિવતા5ુ ં સaન કુ° છે . તેને આકષણ છે 6;ૃિતની
દIય રહ-યમયતા5ુ ં ને કંઇક *શે -વીડનબોગR િવચારધારા5ુ.”
ં (J Pathak,
2007:29)
(Kalapi has created subjective lyrics. He is attracted in the mysticism of
nature and thoughts of Swedenborg.)(Translation:Mine)
Most of his lyrics are subjective wherein he describes one or the other incident of his
personal life. Many are kind of a direct unfolding of the account of his life and
others are beautifully described indirectly using various poetic techniques. But they
account for his personal life. His lyrics are regarded as the perfect lyrics in Gujarati
poetry as far as the form is concerned. They are absolutely stunning in its
workmanship and in the sincerity of their emotions and feelings and sentiments.
Composing poetry with all the emotions on fire, he is the master craftsman. To quote
Indravadan K Dave in this regard from his book titled Kalapi – Ek Adhyayan:
113
“કલાપી5ુ ં YેNઠ સaન તેમનાં ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં છે . કલાપી ુજરાતી સાહયનો
સૌથી સW ૃv ઊિમ‰કિવ છે . એમનાં ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં અવા ચીન ઊિમ‰કાIયની
રિતના કટલાક આદશ UNટાંતો મળે છે .” (1980:353)
(Kalapi’s best creation is in his lyrics. He is the wealthiest (successful)
lyric poet of Gujarati literature. We find in his lyrics some of the finest
examples of modern lyrics in Gujarati lyrical poetry.)(Translation:Mine)
Though not very good at metrical compositions in the beginning of his poetic career,
they are still so very harmonious in producing wonderful effect; they are exquisitely
written lyrics and possess a sweet bewitching charm and sweetness about them and
are capable of setting the readers’ pulses a throbbing with divine vibrations.
Majority of his poems are lyrical poetry. To quote Prasad Brahmabhatt from his
book Kalapina Ketlak Kaavyo in this regard:
“કાIય-વqપોની UVNટએ િવચારએ તો કલાપીએ WુZયવે ઊિમ‰કિવતામાં કા¬ું
કાઢ²ુ ં છે . થોડાંક ખંડકાIયોને બાદ કરતાં કલાપી5ુ ં અધઝાઝેKંુ કાIયસaન
ઊિમ‰કિવતા
qપે
થુ ં છે .....આ
6કારના
ઉ,મ
કાIયોમાં
કિવના
તરTવનનાં, ભાવનાિવકાસના અને સંવેદનસરણીનાં આલેખ સાંપડ છે .
કિવએ *ગત ઉમRઓને કાIયો9ચત તાટ-­ય સાથે આદશRકરણ કરને
અ9ભIયbત કર છે .” (Bhahmabhatt, 2003:26)
(If we evaluate Kalapi in respect to the forms of poetry, he has shined
brilliantly in his lyrics. Barring few khandkaavyas, majority of his
creations are in the form of lyrics. In these poems, we get and index of
his personal life, development of his emotional life and the progress of
his sensibility. The poet has idealized his personal feelings and described
them with poetic detachment.)(Translation:Mine)
Being extremely sensitive at heart, Kalapi pours his heart out into his poetry. It is
through his sensitive heart that he explores the vast world of lyrical poetry. It is his
heart, his responsiveness in pouring his heart through finest of words, his intense
emotional experiences with mood swings of deep attachment and detachment and
his thirst for the divine that drive him to produce one of the best lyrical treasures of
Gujarati literature. To quote Navalram J Trivedi from his book titled Kalapi:
114
“‘કકારાવ’ની લોકિ6યતા5ુ ં 6થમ કારણ તેમાં રહL ું ”દય5ુ ં ‡ું દદ છે .
તેમનાં ”દયમાં ઊિમ‰ઓ એવી ઊછળ રહતી હતી ક તેમનાથી લZયા િવના
રહ શકા? ું જ નહ અને લેખકના ”દયનાં ડાણમાંથી આવ? ું હોવાથી જ આ
ગાન વાચકોના ”દયમાં પણ સહલાઈથી ઊતર Eય છે .” (N J Trivedi,
1944:94)
(The first reason for the popularity of ‘Kekarav’ is the deep sorrow of
the (poet’s) heart. There was always such an upsurge of emotions in
his heart that he could not hold himself back to express them through
poetry and since it came from the deepest corners of the heart, the
readers liked it very much.)(Translation:Mine)
His poetic creation was at its pinnacle during the two years of 1896 and 1897 when
he wrote abundantly. Lyricism is in fact his motor force behind all his creations. To
quote Anantray Raval in this regard from his book titled Kalapino Kaavyakalap:
“એવા આપણાં કિવની કિવતા5ુ ં સૌથી મો³ું લdણ તે એ5ુ ં ઊિમ‰બળ. ઊિમ‰લ
કહ શકાય એવી 6;ૃિતનાં આ કિવની કિવ તરકની ચાલક W ૂડ છે એમ5ુ ં
Tવનનાં સવ નાનામોટા અ5ુભવો Tલ? ું અને તેના 6યાઘાત દ ખાડ? ું
c-ન\ધ સંવેદનશીલ ”દય.” (Raval, 1984:31)
(The greatest characteristic of the poet is his lyricism. The motor force
behind all his experiences however small or big and giving reactions to
them is his very tender, highly sensitive and sensible to the extent of
becoming sentimental is his heart.)(Translation:Mine)
Even to quote Kalapi himself in one of his letters would make his philosophy of
composing poems absolutely clear:
“ રસ5ુ ં કાIય હોય તે રસમય ”દય હોય તો ચોવીસ લીટ પાંચ િમિનટ5ુ ં
કામ છે . અને તેવા ”દયનાં વેગ િવના „ું કિવતા કરતો જ નથી.” (Shukal,
1998:179)
(If your heart is full of the rasa (emotion) that you want to compose a
poem in, composing a poem of 24 lines is a matter of five minutes. And I
don’t compose a poem without such spur of emotion/s of
heart.)(Translation:Mine)
At some other place in another letter, he says his concept of a poem that very well
applies to lyric:
115
“‘લાગણી’ િવના5ુ ં ‘કાIય’ એ બને જ નહ. ‘લાગણી’ માં નહ, તે કાIય
નહ.....”દયની કોમળતા એ જ કાIયની ઉપિત છે .” (Shukal, 1998:186)
(There cannot be a ‘poem’ without ‘feelings.’ Where there is no
‘feelings’, there is no poem.....tenderness of heart is the origin of (all)
poetry.)(Translation:Mine)
And such true feelings of heart are his real power of writing great and inspired
lyrics. To quote Ramesh Shukal from his book titled Kalapina Shreshth Kaavyo:
“કલાપી5ુ ં કિવવ તેના ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં િવશેષ સફળ થુ ં છે . સંવેદનની
તી¯તા, ડાણ, સœચાઈ અને અ-ખ9લતતા તેમનાં ઊિમ‰કાIયોના 6ાણ છે .
6;ૃિત પણ તેમની ઊિમ‰ની અ9ભIયcbત5ુ ં એક રમણીય મા]યમ રહ છે .”
(Shukal, 2013:34)
(The poetical genius of Kalapi has been more successful in his lyrics.
Intensity of sensibility, depth, truthfulness, and spontaneity are the soul
of his lyrics. Nature has also been one of the beautiful mediums of his
lyrics.)(Translation:Mine)
His lyricism is multidimensional in this respect as during the spells of charged
sentiments, he has produced so many wonderful poems. He has very ably expressed
his gushing emotions through most appropriate and inspiring words in his poems.
And that too at such a time when language was not still very well developed.
Feelings-emotions are at the centre of his creation. In fact, the modern concept of
lyric or any kind of poetry is also the same. His feelings are very true and rising
straight from the deepest corners of his heart. And therefore they appeal the most to
the readers.
The following lines taken from his poem Maranshil Premi very well depict this pure
lyricism with intense feelings:
હ તો કદ હા-ય થાય િ6યથી, વા હ-તમેળા બને:
Eણી ના રિત કોઈના ”દયની યાં W ૃુ આવી મળે !
116
Iહાલા! >ુલભ હષ છે અિત અહ•; તો W ૂCય મŠ†ુ નક:
તેને આદરભાવથી ”દયમાં રાખો Tવો યાં ^ુધી! (Gohil, 2000:18)
(Here (we) exchange smiles with loved ones or enter nuptial bond. Death
shortens one’s life even before one’s true love is felt. Love, delight is
very rare here; and hence precious. Retain it in the heart till the last
breath of life.)(Translation:Mine)
Kalapi never curbed his intense feelings and allowed them to flow freely and
therefore lyrics are direct and in its appeal as they came straight from the deepest
corners of heart with a steady energy. He has the intensity of sentiments in his
poetry. He does not poetry mere for the sake of writing poems. His feelings are very
true and intense. To quote from the book titled Kalapi Darshan in this regard:
“એમાં ”દયની સંવેદનાની ઉકટતા છે તે કિવતા ખાતર ભાવને શોધતા
અને અપનાવતા કિવની નથી, પણ સાચા 6ેમીની છે , અને આ રોમેVQટક
કિવએ એમાં એક 6કાર સંયમ પણ EળIયો છે .” (Shah and Barvalia,
1975:16)
(The intensity of emotions described therein is not that of the one who
looks for emotions to compose a poem, but that of a true lover and this
romantic poet has also maintained respect therein as
well.)(Translation:Mine)
They treat many subjects touching different emotions and many moods very ably
and are full of lyricism of the highest order. His flow of emotions or intense feelings
is not interrupted by the intellect but pours out with a constant force of feelings.
They are the best specimen – ઉ,મ UNટાંતો – of the highest Gujarati lyrical poetry
according to Sundaram. He never stopped his powerful feelings and instead allowed
them to flow very smoothly through words. Whatever came to his sensitive and
sympathetic heart would simply flow very freely through some beautiful poem and
very unconsciously his personal feelings would find an appropriate expression in
some of his poems. To quote Sundaram from his book titled Arvachin Kavita:
117
“કલાપી આ કાIયોમાંની િનખાલસ ઊમRઓમાં નમદને બ„ુ મળતો આવે છે .
નમદ પછ એટલા 6બળ અને BુCલા આવેગવાળો પહલો કિવ કલાપી છે .”
(Sundaram, 2004:171)
(Kalapi very much resembles in respect to his lyricism in these poems.
after Narmad, he is the first poet who has such strong, intense and
powerful passion.)(Translation:Mine)
There are many poems that are probably the finest examples of modern Gujarati
lyrical poetry wherein he has portrayed his deep emotions very artistically using fine
diction. The source to such poems is indeed personal experiences and incidents. To
quote Sundaram:
“ગઝલો િસવાયનાં બીE આમલ¡મી કાIયોમાં અવા ચીન ઊિમ‰કાIયની
રિતના ક ટલાક ઉ,મ UNટાંતો મળે છે . એ કાIયના W ૂળ કલાપીના *ગત
Tવનમાં હોવા છતાં તે5 ુ ં qપ *ગત Tવનની નŠધ tુ ં નથી.” (Sundaram,
2004:171)
(We find in his subjective poems other than ghazals some of the best
examples of modern Gujarati lyrical poetry. Though the source of these
poems is Kalapi’s personal life, the form of the poems is not like that of
subjective poetry.)(Translation:Mine)
The following lines taken from one of his finest poems Saarasi are a beautiful
example of his intense feelings expressed at the death of a male saras bird. With this
poem, Kalapi seriously and consciously attempts a type of Gujarati poem called
khandkaavya. He is very good at writing this type of poems in the whole of Gujarati
poetry and is second only after the poet Kant. To quote Indravadan K Dave in this
regard from the preamble written to the book titled Kalapino Kekarav:
“રસિનqપણની શcbત, 6;ૃિતવણનની 9ચFામક કળા અને વ-? ુઆલેખનની
છટાને લીધે કલાપીના ખંડકાIયો કાQતથી બી નંબર આવી શક તેમ છે .”
(Gohil, 2004:36)
(Kalapi’s khandkaavyo stand second only to Kant due to its power to
describe emotions, the art of picturesque description of nature and the
style of portrayal of matter.)(Translaiton:Mine)
118
The lines are especially noteworthy for his sentimental description of the incident
wherein he mildly depicts the distressing state of life by presenting intense incidents:
અહોહો! પાંખ 6ીિતની તેની ? ૂટ ગઈ દસે,
આtુ ં આ પdી, તેને એ આવી પીડા ખર! અર !
ર ર તેનો િ6યતમ તહ• પાદ પાસે પડGો છે ,
lહોળ પાંખો િશિથલ બની છે W ૃુનો હ-ત લા\યે;
પારધીએ ”દય પર હા! તીર માયŒ દસે છે ,
Bœયો
ંૂ
છે યાં Kુિધર વા? ું બંધ હાવાં થુ ં છે .
Tવtું Tવ લેઈને હ એવી દસે રિત!
કોઈને >ુઃખ દ વાથી ? ૃ´lત ક મ હશે થતી? (Gohil, 2000:44)
(Alas! His wings of love seem to have been broken; it is a pity that such
a bird has also to undergo such pain. O! Her beloved is lying by his legs,
dead; with his wings lay stretched, the hunter seems to have killed him
with an arrow, and where it strike blood stopped flowing. One liver here
by killing others; why do people revel in inflicting pain to
others?)(Translation:Mine)
In the above lines, Kalapi expresses his deep and intense feelings on the death of a
saras – crane/s – bird that was killed by a hunter’s arrow. He takes pity and his
emotions swing so intensely with great sincerity that the reader is also moved on
reading the poem. It is one of the finest examples of modern Gujarati lyrical poetry
wherein he has beautifully expressed his deep feelings using fine diction.
Kalapi’s lyricism is that of a love-struck poet who revels in expressing his pure but
perturbed feelings of love. The description of love that is sensuous initially in the
beginning of his poetic career turns philosophical with the growing of the power of
his pen as a poet and with growing maturity. Love is indeed a very vital relation that
he shows with wife Ramaba and forms an important part of his lyrics. Whereas
119
Shelley’s lyrics treating love show his rebellious temperament, Kalapi’s lyrics
describe his sensuous love. But unlike in Shelley, his treatment of love does not lack
in the description of human aspect and does not merely become a metaphysical
poem. Even before his realising, he very easily and naturally passes from the
personal experiences to universal experiences. It would be interesting to quote
Harshada Shah from her paper titled Virtual Realitynu Kaavya ‘Jya Tu Tya Hun’:
“તેની કિવતા, િશષક મ જણાવે છે તેમ, એક વgુઅ
લ રઆલીટની કિવતા
છે . 6ણયની સœચાઈ, ઉકટ રાગાવેગ અને તેની અ9ભIયcbતથી આ કાIય
”દય-પશR બQું છે . આવેગો સમ+ કાIયમાં જોસભેર વહ છે .” (H J Shah,
2012:202)
(His poem titled Jya Tu Tya Hun, is a poem of virtual reality as even the
title suggests. The poem is especially interesting to note for its intense
but truthful feeling of love, mad and passionate affection for the poet’s
beloved and its expression. The emotions flow very forcefully all
through the poem.) (Translation:Mine)
To quote from the poem:
“^ુના પડદા વતી નયન તો થયા મારા ધળા!
L ૂછªા નાં પણ ઉNણ —ાસ દલને અµ ુ ^ુકાવી દધા!.....
.....કt ું ચંU6કાશથી ચળક? ું આકાશ આ ઉ¶જવŸં!
હા હા! આ સમયે િ6યે! ”દયથી કાં નાં લપેટ મને? (Gohil, 2000:32)
(My eyes have become blind by a screen of tears; not wiped but dried by
the hot sighs from my heart! The sky is shining brilliantly by the
moonlight; at such a time, why don’t you give me a
hug?)(Translation:Mine)
Love in Kalapi is the chief note of almost all of his lyrical poetry not only for
mankind, but for the whole world. His delicate feelings for birds and other animals
are also expressed beautifully in his poems. He was the first ever Gujarati poet to
have praised his love for birds and other animals in his poems. Even Sundaram
120
praises Kalapi on this account in the following words in his book titled Arvachin
Kavita. To quote him:
“6ાણીમાF તરફ અયંત સમભાવથી ભર L ું તે5 ુ ં ”દય 6યેક વ-? ુને મીઠ
કોમળ લાગણીથી -પશy છે . ુજરાતી કિવતામાં પdી તરફના 6ેમના કાIયો
કલાપીમાં જ પહલાં જોવા મળે છે . આ કોમળ લાગણી તેના કાIયને એકદમ
”દયની િનકટ લઇ Eય છે .” (Sundaram, 2004:173-174)
(His heart filled with equality for all the animals treats them with sweet,
tender feelings. It is in the poetry of Kalapi that Gujarati poetry has
found the poems of love for birds for the first time. And this tender
feeling takes his poetry very close to heart.)(Translation:Mine)
One of the best examples of this love for all the living beings is well depicted in the
following lines taken from his poem Mane Joine Udi Jata Pakshione:
ર પંખીડા ^ુખથી ચણજો, ગીત વા કાંઈ ગાજો,
શાને આવાં Wુજથી ડરને ખેલ છોડને ઉડો છો?.....
.....નાં પાડ છે તમ તરફ ક™ ફ¨કવા માળને મ·,
BુCLું હાKંુ ઉપવન સદા પંખીડા સવન;ે
ર ર હોયે ;ુદરતી મળ ટવ VXહવા જનોથી,
છો VXહતા તો Wુજથી પણ સૌ dેમ તેમાં જ માની. (Gohil, 2000:169)
(O birds! Pray sing and eat happily, why are you afraid of me? I have
instructed the gardener not to throw stones at you, my garden is always
open for all the birds; but alas! You are naturally afraid of men and
therefore I don’t mind your being afraid of me either as that is best for
us.)(Translation:Mine)
The above lines speak laurels for the poet’s extremely tender and soft, sensitive and
delicate heart. His heart pangs so much even at the very site of the birds flying away
from him frightened, and try to pacify them not to be afraid of his presence. Almost
all the poetical elements – style, rhyme, diction, and others create a unified effect
121
that moves the readers. While Shelley tried to realize heavenly beauty, Kalapi kept
his feet grounded to the earthly beauty.
The temperament of the poet changes with the passage of time and as he grows in
maturity, he becomes somewhat philosophical seeking the highest pleasure bliss and
falls in love with the almighty. May be he foresaw his premature death and hence
became more faithful religiously. The following lines are taken from one of his
lyrics titled Aapani Yaadi – it is in fact a different form called Ghazal – that shows
this change in the perspective of life. The poet quite effortlessly and naturally turns
from mere transient-earthly love to the intransient love. The poem is one of the
finest examples of his lyrical exuberance:
Hયાં Hયાં નઝર હાર ઠર યાદ ભર યાં આપની;
^ુ મહ એ ખથી યાદ ઝર છે આપની!.....
.....દ ખી ±ુરાઈ નાં ડKંુ „,ુ ં શી ફકર છે પાપની?
ધોવા ± ૂરાઈને બધે ગંગા વહ છે આપની! (Gohil, 2000:463)
(Wherever I look, I am reminded of you; even during my wails, you are
reminded. I am not afraid of wickedness and not worried of sins (now),
as to wash away all sins, there flows the Ganga!)(Translation:Mine)
The chief among the other emotions of Kalapi’s lyricism is his laments. To quote
Prasad Brahmabhatt from his book titled Kalapijivankatha:
“કલાપીના અિધકાંશ ઊિમ‰કાIયો એમના 6ણયા5ુભવનાં આલાપ સમાન છે .
કિવએ પોતાની 6ણયપરાયણતા માF પોતાના આમલdી ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં જ
બતાવી છે એtું નથી.” (Brahmabhatt, 1999:194)
(Majority of Kalapi’s poems are his cry for love. It is not so that he has
showed his fidelity in love only in his lyrics alone.)(Translation:Mine)
122
He has undergone extreme mental conflict. That evidently is very much reflected in
his poetry. Most of his poetry is the direct outcome of his deep agony and mental
struggle of life as a king. Political intrigues and treachery gave deep blows to his
mental state and broke all his peace and calm of mind and resulted in great anguish
that flew out as superb poetry. To quote K M Munshi from his book Gujarata and
Its Literature in this regard:
“He felt he was ruthlessly pursued by his little world and decided to give
up his gadi when sudden death ended his life.....he uttered melodious
notes quivering with high-strung emotion as no one else in the language
could. He was sentimental. Incessantly in quest of beauty and visionary
by nature, he has a live sense of wonder and delight.” (Munshi,
1935:276)
And that is why his lyricism is so very intense and powerful in almost all the forms
of poetry. His emotions flow out gushing through powerful words taking everyone
with the force. Even one eminent critic of Gujarati literature also holds the same
view regarding the intensity of emotions. To quote Chinu Modi from his book titled
Aapana Khandkaavyo:
“કાQતનાં કરતા કલાપીના કાIયોમાં ઊિમ‰ની ઉકટતા િવશેષ છે .....પાF,
6સંગ અને ત“Qતગત ભાવ5ુ ં કોમળ, મ…ુર અને િવષદ 9ચF આલેખીને તેઓ
ધાર અસર ઉપEવે છે .” (Modi, 1970:16-17)
(Kalapi’s poems are intensely lyrical as compared to Kant. He creates a
desired effect by creating a happy as well as sad picture according to the
character, incident and emotions.)(Translaiton:Mine)
He was fed up by all such intrigues and once even decided to give up everything and
leave the world. Poetry had a cathartic effect upon him. He discharged all his
emotions as they came to him through his poems. To qote Dhirubhai Thakar from
his book titled Arvachin Gujarati Saahityani Vikasrekha:
123
“6ણય5ુ ં 6યેક સંવેદન એક એક કાIયqપે 6ગટ થ? ું Eય છે . વ-? ુતઃ એ
રતે હ™યાના ઊિમ‰ભાર5ુ ં િવસaન કરતો કરતો કિવ Tવી રો છે .” (Thakar,
1978:132)
(Every sentiment of love is transformed into a poem. Actually, the poet
is living by discharging the lyrical outbursts of his heart (through
poems).)(Translation:Mine)
His mental conflict and psychological struggle for his love for Shobhana his beloved
is also very well reflected in his poetry. Hence his poetic world presents a highly
realistic vision of weariness and worries, sadness and sorrows. Being highly
sensitive and receptive at heart he could obviously not keep himself detached from
all the political and personal incidents and they naturally became his subjects and
found expression in almost all of his poetry. The following lines are taken from one
of his very often quoted and best lines from the poem Panth Pankhidu:
હા, „ુ ં એ ઘસડાઈ એક વખત Iહાલા! ગયો યાં હતો,
Iહાલાનો િવરહ બની ”દયને ચીર રડGો યાં હતો;
ુ રhું જ શો9ણત સWું તે કાIયમાં છે ભુ,°
તે અµઝ
-વેœછાએ ભર ચંg ુ લાલ Wુખથી પી ભલે ^ુ‡ુ!ં (Gohil, 2000:39-40)
(For once on a time, my dear – Ah yes – I was drawn to go there myself
and too wept with heart’s desire for dear ones far away; and the song
was filled with trickle tears like drops of blood – so filling thy beak with
longing, thine own red mouth shall drink thy tears.)(Translation:A
Coomaraswamy and P Vaishya)
The above lines can well be applied to almost all of Kalapi’s poems, to the whole
range of it. That is why he is also called the poet of love and tears. He expresses his
deep feelings so very beautifully in the lines. The following lines taken from one of
his better known poems portray his compassioned heart very subtly and beautifully.
The poet very beautifully expresses his joy over the recovery of an injured bird in
the lines where the tender feelings of his heart are rightly reflected:
124
આહા! કQ? ુ કળ ઊતર ને ખ તો ઉઘડ એ,
W ૃુ થાશે? Tવ ઉગરશે? કોણ Eણી શક એ?
TIુ,ં આહા! મ…ુર ગમતાં ગીત ગાવા ફરને,
આ વાડમાં મ…ુર ફળને ચાખવાને ફરને. (Gohil, 2000:000)
(Oh! After recovery the bird opened its eyes, will it die, will it be saved,
who knows? Saved hurray! To sing more lovely songs and to taste sweet
fruit of this farm again!)(Translation:Mine)
The above lines very effectively express the poet’s loving and soft heart that is
compassionate to all the animals on the earth. The diction that the poet employs here
is quite simple and yet very effectively conveys poet’s feelings. The poet’s doubts
about complete recovery and consequent satisfaction on the bird’s opening of the
eyes are very well expressed.
Attempts to attain true love, his mental agony, and resistance from his wife Ramaba
and others before marriage etc. constitute the highest creative poetic period of his
career. After all the troubles in his life, finally when everything is settled and he
even marries to Shobhana, he came to believe that human life is full of sufferings,
pathos and sorrow and that nothing else constitute human life. This temperament is
reflected in his poetry of lament as he came to believe that man’s desires are never
fulfilled and that it is never satiated all throughout one’s life. Death is the only
solution to this agony and all human troubles. His poem, Hamara Raah, one of his
better known ghazals, describes this mood very aptly:
હવાઈ મહલના વાસી હમો એકાંત>ુઃખવાદ!
હમોને શોખ મારવાનો! હમારો રાહ છે Qયારો!
Bુમારમાં જ મ-તી છે ! તમે નાં -વાદ ચાZયો એ:
125
હમોને તો જગત ખાq થઇ g ૂ~ુ,ં થઇ g ૂ~ુ!ં (Gohil, 2000:36)
(We are the dwellers of (our) dreamy world. We are fond of killing. Our
path is unique! There is pride in arrogance and you did not like it. For us,
the world is now bitter, very bitter!)(Translation:Mine)
The world now tastes very bitter, very sour, and that is the cry of the poet in the
above quoted lines. And obviously there is no wonder given the strife and the mental
agony he undergoes in his life. But there is no escape from destiny. Everybody has
to accept whatever is written in one’s destiny and hence he was helpless. Even the
highest industrious and sincere efforts of man go in vain against the path decided by
the almighty. And this results in the poet’s despondency, pessimism; resulting from
his very personal experiences he laments and wails which constitute majority of his
lyrical poetry.
And hence obviously his lyrical poetry is out and out subjective which form very
important aspect of his lyricism. He is basically a poet of intense sensitivity and the
incidents spring directly from his own life. His poetic genius is developed by
expression of his own, very personal, intense feelings close to heart and emotions of
love and political intrigues of the state. His responses and reactions make up most of
his poetic world. The common subjects of his poems are nobody else but himself,
and his wife Ramaba and his beloved Shobhana along with other real life characters.
The protagonist Ram in the poem Hridaytriputi is but Kalapi himself and again the
bird saarasi in the poem Saarasi is none other but his beloved Shobhana. These
autobiographical or subjective elements are very important aspect of Kalapi’s
lyricism unlike Shelley who was consciously a didactic poet. Kalapi is not a didactic
poet, who loved to express his pure feelings and emotions with utmost sincerity. To
quote Indravadan K Dave in this regard:
126
“કલાપી5ુ ં YેNઠ સaન તેમનાં ઉમRકાIયોમાં છે . કલાપી ુજરાતી સાહયનો
સૌથી વ…ુ સW ૃv ઊિમ‰કિવ છે . તેના ઊિમ‰કાIયોમાં અવાચીન ઊિમ‰કાIયની
રિતના કટલાંક આદશ UNટાંતો મળે છે .” (Dave, 1980:353)
(We find the best creation of Kalapi in his lyrics. He is the richest lyric
poet of Gujarati literature. We find in his lyrics some of the most ideal
specimen
of
modern
lyric
poetry
(in
Gujarati
literature).)(Translation:Mine)
He does not have to preach as he believed in simply expressing. On the other hand,
with his feet firmly footed on the ground, contemplates wisely upon the worldly
matters with occasional tinge of sadness. He is the most quoted Gujarati lyric poets
of the state. Shelley loves the vague, undefined and transient; Kalapi loves
everything that is concrete and intransient in life. Though tired of the treachery of
his relatives for power and other political intrigues, his mental torture for love, and
other such incidents of the mundane world, he entertains notions of giving up
everything and escaping into the woods.
In short, both the poets were disturbed in their personal life and therefore miserable
which found beautiful expression in their poetry. In their disturbed state, one turns
rebellious, starts preaching and dreaming big; whereas the other starts lamenting and
pities as he was tender at heart. As far as dreaminess is concerned, Shelley is superb
and most of his poetry is aerial like his bird Skylark; whereas that of Kalapi is
absolutely down-to-earth even after many catastrophes in his life. Kalapi’s lyricism
is very forceful, gushing and flowing yet calm and soothing whereas that of Shelley
is rebellious and delusive; his dreams are unreal and futile. He was a man of
impracticable, surreal dreams and therefore unattainable.
But, one thing is common in both of them. Both the poets possessed a natural gift of
exquisite lyricism that is highly original and intense. Both had a highly sensitive
127
nature that reacted to even the slightest of the movements of their heart. But there
can be no doubt that both the poets received highest fame and international
recognition and that they both died at a premature age. No other poet in the past has
been greeted with so much of love and affection as Kalapi by the readers of Gujarat.
128
2.4-SENSUOUSNESS IN THE POETRY IF KALAPI AND KEATS:
2.4.1.
BACKGROUND:
Keats was one of the most wonderful and the last of the better known romantic poets
of the period. An avid lover of beauty, he adored it like a true disciple. Born into the
family of a hostler and stable keeper, he was destined to live a very short life still to
be the most promising figures of not only the Romantic period but in the history of
English literature. All his work was published in a period of about three years from
1817 to 1820. To quote Legouis and Cazamian from their book History of English
Literature:
“John Keakts, born in London in 1795, came of a family of modest
condition: an orphan at 15 years of age, he was first intended for a
medical career, but gave up entirely to poetry. With no encouragement
save the friendship of Leigh Hunt, he published in 1817 a volume of
Poems.” (Legouis and Cazamian, 1995:1058)
During the most creative period of his life when he wrote most of his poetry, he
lived in London and in Hampstead. He there developed consumption, but given his
indomitable spirit, he fought valiantly and did not meekly succumb to the illness. All
this personal grief has its echo in his work and his poetry is occasionally tinged with
such wounds. His life was fully devoted to poetry which was his only passion after
his quest for beauty. His absolute commitment is seen the way he treated his work
with utmost sincerity. Being an ardent critic of the self, he had set very high
standards for his art and was so much fond of meticulousness in his art that he
always remained dissatisfied with his own art. A deep thirst for knowledge and
especially for the Greek literature and also for the glorious past clearly marks his
129
poetry. He tried to master the language and to a great extent succeeded in it. As Lord
Houghton, the biographer of Keats, states:
“Most critics, indeed, regard Keats as the master goldsmith of the
English language among all the poets after Shakespeare and Milton. It
would be absurd, to my mind, to put him above Wordsworth and Shelley
as a poet, but he surpasses them both in the richness of magical diction.”
(Houghton, 1954:8)
It is a pity that the poetry of this genius was not well received in the beginning of his
career and he was bitterly criticized and unjustly condemned by the stalwarts of the
trade of his period. But it was Shelley who was the first to recognize the genius in
Keats and he whole-heartedly appreciated Keats for his poems and even wrote a
poem addressed to him upon his death dedicated to him. He was a highly sensitive
soul as most of the poets are. His sensitivity was intense especially towards all the
beauties of the world and also to all the sensual pleasures that the world had to offer
to him. To quote Legouis and Cazamian:
“Keats is pre-eminently a man of sensations, with whom the very
activities of intelligence bring into play concrete notions, images and
qualities.....emotion has its share in this feast of the senses.” (1995:106061)
He was not only over-sensitive on many a times, but as his letters reveal, he was also
intensely prudent in his thoughts and courageous as well as a witty personality. He
considered beauty to be a perennial source of pleasure but later, due to his bad
health, his thoughts turned morbid and full of grief. He could see his end
approaching but did not panic.
130
2.4.2
KEATS’ WORKS:
The first major poetic work was published in a volume in the year 1817. His initial
poetry may be called as experiments in versification and showed great immaturity
with boyish vitality. But nevertheless they reveal an intense love of natural beauty
and a freedom of language, and metre of the Augustan masters. But none the less,
these poems indicated his high his ideal of poetry and his fascination and intense
love for the Greek literature was also reflected. The poems not only were
spontaneous and charming, they for sure gave a preview of greater things to come in
the future. They also reveal the poet’s keen power of observation, a sign of the great
poet who writes with his eye on the object and not in any vague or abstract fashion.
To quote William J Long from his book titled English Literature:
“Keats’ last little volume of poetry is unequalled by the work of any of
his contemporaries. We must judge him to be the most promising figure
of the early nineteenth century, and of the most remarkable in the history
of literature.” (2003:419)
There is, however, in this volume one of his best and perfect sonnet Chapman’s
Homer, which is a remarkable exception. It is a tributary sonnet addressed to Homer
wherein he offers his homage to both the great poets. To quote Willam J Long in this
regard:
“In this striking sonnet we have a suggestion of Keats’ high ideal, and of
his sadness because of his own ignorance, when he published his first
little volume of poems in 1817.....ans so he set himself to the task of
reflecting in modern English the spirit of the old Greeks.” (2003:421)
Keats also was a great fan of the Elizabethans whom he had been reading widely and
with great zeal. Then was published Endymion which however was very severely
criticized by the critics of his times despite a nearly perfect finish and sweet melody
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as compared to the first volume. Then came the most creative period of Keats’ life
during which he wrote poems of supreme genius. During the years 1818 to 1820
were published all the major poems of his life like Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes,
Hyperion, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and all the great odes as well as many of his
sonnets. But the modern readers of English remember him for his amazing shorter
poems and especially for the great odes that are simply amazing for their charm,
sensuous beauty, and for his description of the pagan idea of nature. To quote
Legouis and Cazamian, from their book History of English Literature:
“There developed an ardent vocation, a passionate love for beauty. An
instinctive desire first and foremost, implanted in a nature that is highly
sensual. But the aestheticism of Keats has also an intellectual side. No
one has ever reaped such a rich harvest of thought out of the suggestions
which life had to offer; through reading, and a thirst for knowledge, he
became acquainted with Greece, paganism and ancient art, or conjured
up in his imagination all that these stood for.” (1995:1059)
Keats grew to be a poet in the atmosphere of romanticism dominated by
Wordsworth and Coleridge. He felt their great influence. The traditions of the great
romantic poets were carried forward by Keats and they reached their culminating
point in his poems and all the qualities that characterised the Romantic Movement
during the nineteenth century found a fitting place in his poetry.
2.4.3
SENSUOUSNESS OF KALAPI AND KEATS:
The meaning of the term sensuous implies involvement of the senses. The word is
used to mean aesthetic pleasure as of art, music, and such other performing arts. It
usually describes something lovely; pleasurable that is experienced through the
senses of touch, sound, taste, etc. The word was first used by the great English poet
John Milton long back to avoid word confusion with the similar word sensual to
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avoid sexual and erotic connotations that were usually associated with that word in
those times. Though both the words share the same root sens – they are hugely
different in their meaning. It is in no way connected to anything related to the
intellect but to the five senses of touch, ear, taste, smell and sight.
In literature, the word is chiefly used to the task of providing pleasure to all the
senses of the readers. It simply means that the poetry is neither related to the
intellectual thought nor it has anything to do with any sort of idea or concept; it is
purely meant for the pleasure of the readers. It excites the readers’ senses with the
help of vivid descriptions, wonderful word pictures created by the author with the
use of appropriate diction to create the desired effect or impression upon the readers
mind. Keats was the best sensuous poet in the highest sense of the term. The term is
the most befitting to him as he was the undoubted master in arousing the senses with
beautiful presentations of his art. To quote P K Singh from his book The Poetry of
John Keats: A Study in Erotic Sensibility in this regards:
“The most distinguishing quality of Keats’ poetic genius is its
responsiveness to the impressions of external nature on his mind through
the sense organs of sight, taste, touch, sound, smell, etc. He delights and
luxuriates in all those objects which please the senses of the eye, the ear,
the tongue, the nose and the touch. All his five senses were always
awake and laert to receive impressions. He has been called a sensuous
poet because, in his poetry, the sensuous appeal is the most intense and
all-pervading.” (2010:5)
Sensuousness is a vital base of Keats’ genius. He made excellent efforts in using the
five senses and translated them into poetry the appeal made by the external world to
the senses. Sensuousness was like second nature to him, an outburst of unmuffled
pleasure.
“Of that pure gospel, he certainly, is the purest expositor; and only as he
sustains the earnest sensuosity to which nature dedicated him does his
genius thrive.” (Garrod,1957:32)
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He soars high from the beautiful and vivid descriptions of natural objects very
effortlessly and quite naturally.
Keats was more of an artist than any of the romantic poets. There is no ground work
of patriotism in his poetry as there is in Scott’s or Moore’s; he is not interested in
conveying any message of liberty or brotherhood as Shelley; it is pure art, genuine,
owing its origin to nothing but the power of imagination. He is not even a
philosophical poet as Wordsworth is. In the process of throwing out scattered
guesses and observations, Keats touches upon some problems of human life that
concern the philosophical aspect and are of the interest to a moralist. But otherwise a
whole side of his work is strong in sensuous descriptions and does not seek to probe
any mysteries of life. The senses of sight and ear are portrayed dominantly in the
poetry of Shelley, but it goes to the credit of Keats alone who had enchantingly
made use of all the five senses of his poetry. To quote Roger Sharrock from his book
titled Keats: Selected Poems and Letters in this regard:
“Keats’ art depicts the joyous fruition of love. The rich harmony of
image and verbal melody in the stanzas owes something to long practice
in the sonnet form. In image is merely decorative, for all contribute to
suggesting the pure passion of Madeline and Porphyro and contrasting it
with the dangerous feudal grandeur by which they are surrounded.”
(1976:30)
In his early poems, he took delight in sensuous pictures because sensuousness has
been the determining element of the distinctive individuality of Keats’ genius. It is
easy to discern in his work the whole range of sensations, set off by a richness and a
softness of colouring which reveal the complacency of a refined fondness.
Keats is not a philosophical poet as Milton and Wordsworth are. Even then we
notice his concern about the mystery of human life both in his poetry and his letters.
In the process of throwing out scattered guesses and observations, Keats touches on
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those problems of human life which have concerned the philosopher and the
moralist. Yet a whole side of his work is strong in sensuous descriptions and does
not seek to probe the mystery of life.
Keats always revelled in sensuous pleasures of life and that is why he cried, “O for a
life of sensations rather than that of thoughts.” This evidently indicated that he
always loved the life of sensations and intense pleasures guided by the highest of our
feelings to the life that is lived by rule and devoted to pure mental, intellectual
activity. And that perhaps is why his poetic art is always full of passion and rich of
vibrant colours of the rainbow. It was above all aspirations and desires. The object of
this desire was not the intellectual beauty of Shelley or Wordsworth, but the beauty
that revealed itself to the enchantment of the senses. To quote Sharad Rajimwale
from his book A History of English Literature: The Age of Romanticism:
“His identification of Truth with Beauty and vice-versa leads him into a
world of magic sensuousness where he prefers to drown himself in the
feeling of the present, and celebration of the concrete forms of nature.
Nature bursting out with Beauty was Keats’ realm. He had an ability t
enjoy beauty in itself for its own sake and in its perfect, idealized form,
which is epitomized in his celebrated poem Ode on the Grecian Urn.
(2004:279)
Sensation to him was all important as only through sensation he come into
communion with the principle of beauty. The following illustration aptly justifies the
above mentioned argument taken from his famous poem The Eve of St Agnes:
Of all its wreathed pearls, her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: (Sharrock, 1971:87-88)
The poet had succeeded in rousing almost all the senses of eye, touch, smell and ear
except taste very skilfully. His cunning use of appropriate verbs and words is also
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commanding in order to create the desired effect upon the readers. The description is
so vivid that the picture very easily settles in the minds of the readers. In the
following lines, taken from his poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the readers’ sense
of sight is attempted to raise with wonderful result. The love that has been described
in this poem ultimately takes to despair and death according to Roger Sharrock. To
quote him:
“One other poem of this period deals with an all-consuming love that
leads to despair and death. This is La Belle Dame Sans Merci; in it Keats
has skilfully varied both the ballad metre and ballad manner.” (Sharrock,
1971:31)
The lines from the poem are:
I saw pale Kings and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried – “La belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide.
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill’s side. (Palgrave, 1928:194)
This yardstick of pure poetry is one of the best in representing the true romantic
spirit of the age. The poem is one of the best examples of pure music satiating the
sense of ear and the effect is amazingly melodious. The music with the use of
appropriate adjectives creates a perfect visual appeal with the help of the perfect
atmosphere in the poem. To quote Francis Palgrave as regards to this from his book
The Golden Treasury:
“The representative poem of the Romantic Movement; and, in the
judgement of many, the very touchstone of pure poetry, the intuition of
which is that here we have no abiding city, but are strangers and
sojourners in an unintelligible world.” (1928:96)
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Similarly, the following lines taken from his poem The Eve of St Agnes create a
beautiful visual picture appealing to the sense of sight:
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep
In blanched linen smooth and lavendered.
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candid apple, quince, and plum and gourd,
With jellics smoothere than the creamy curd. (Sharrock,1976:89)
In the above lines, he had created a wonderful word picture using most appropriate
words for the description of the scene. The scene is very ordinary, but the
description is made amazing with the use of right words. Keats is a painter poet who
arouses your sense of sight and creates superb word pictures and it is in the
descriptions of such pictures that he is if no less but at par with the likes of Spenser
and Shakespeare. He has used almost all the senses very skilfully and with great
mastery. Even descriptions arousing the sense of taste can also be found in his
poetry. The following is a good example taken from his poem Endymion Book-II:
Here is cream,
Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam
Sweeter than that nurse Amalthea skim’d
For the boy Jupiter: and here, undimm’d
By any touch, a bunch of blooming plums
Ready to melt between an infant’s gums. (Forman, 1948:96)
The poet here creates a very tempting impression of the cream which is very
delicious and the reader thinks of the taste of it. He very minutely observed and
therefore nothing escaped his attention. The song of a bird and the undertone of
response from covert or hedge, the rustle of some animal, the rustle of some animal,
the changing of the green and brown lights and furtive shadows, the motions of the
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wind – just how it took certain tall flowers and plants – and the wayfaring of the
clouds-he has treated almost every aspect with great details to create exquisite wordpictures that left lasting impressions upon the readers.
His description of love in his poetry – though it does not comprise majority of his
poems – is also very sensuous. His descriptions of females are also highly sensuous
wherein the beauty of the females is very sensuously presented. The following lines
are a fit example of the poet’s description of the female beauty taken from the poem
“Woman I behold thee...”:
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair,
Soft dimpled hands; white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes forget, they store. (Forman, 1948:23)
The poet here has appropriately painted the dazzling description of a woman’s
beauty using fie diction. All the details are very sensuously described by the poet
arousing the senses of sight and touch. The use of the adjective ‘creamy’ is
especially noteworthy to rouse the exact sense of touch in the readers’ mind. Truly,
only upon such a beauty, ‘the dazzled senses’ can ‘rest’! Similarly, in the following
lines taken from his poem Lamia also, he had described a woman very gorgeously:
She was a Gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries – (Sharrock, 1976:110)
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Even description of love is also found in the poems of Keats. He has portrayed love
in the beginning of his career and hence it is meant for physical enjoyment and
descriptions are very vivid and interesting. The following example is taken from his
poem Bright Star wherein he describes his time with his beloved very sensuously:
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – else swoon to death. (Sharrock, 1976:134)
The poet had very sensuously described his beloved’s description and it is obviously
meant for physical enjoyment of the poet as well as that of the readers. Here in the
above lines, the description is so acute that the poet as if almost faints of excitement.
He simply longs to be on her beloved’s bosom forever and even ready to die and
nothing else is acceptable to him except her love. The above lines are presented with
extreme sensuousness and still they are not sensual as far as the undertone of the
description is concerned and that indeed is the achievement of the poet. To quote
from Mundra and Mundra about Keats’ conception of beauty from their book titled
A Hisotory of English Literature:
“Shelley and Keats were the great adorers of beauty. They stood together
as the two prophets of beauty in the early 19th century poetry. But the
distinction between these two poets as lovers of beauty was vital and
significant. Whereas Shelley was interested in the philosophical and
intellectual aspect of beauty, Keats was delighted in the representation of
beauty in its sensuous and physical aspects.....Keats travelled from earth
to Heaven, Shelley from Heaven to earth.” (1992:447-448)
Thus, Keats approached beauty from the other side of life. It was exaltation of the
senses, but of the senses that are made creative by the same exaltation. He was a
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lover of beauty and who became quite delighted like a man who was in the presence
of a woman whom he loved. But, such descriptions are few in the poetry of Keats.
This type of representation of physical beauty is not the limit of Keats’ sensuousness
which is of a more subtle and serious in form in his greater poems. There are places
in his poetry wherein he has expressed in an intensely sensuous manner his deeper
feelings and deep mental anguish or intense feeling of fatigue or pain and physical
languor. The sensation of an aching heart, for instance, has well been represented by
the poet in the following lines taken from one of his finest odes, Ode to a
Nightingale. In almost all of his odes, there is a very excellent deliberation of a
wonderful lyrical effect that has been created with the use of the most appropriate
diction. Roger Sharrock very clearly states about this in his book. To quote him:
“This concentration of lyrical effect in the odes is assisted by every
device of assonance and word music; musical repetition of vowel or
consonant is found throughout his poetry, but now it reaches its highest
accomplishment.” (1971:33)
Here are the lines from the ode:
My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, – (Sharrock, 1976:98)
The poem contains the poet’s feeling on the bird nightingale and he had described it
through varied similes and metaphors. In the above quoted excerpt, the poet seems
mentally very much disturbed and experiences some ‘drowsy numbness’. His pain is
beyond one’s comprehension as his senses had deserted him and gone to Lethe-the
river of forgetfulness. The lines are an exquisite description of the poet’s pain and
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mental agony arousing the readers’ sense of sight. The excerpt is also a fine example
of the poet’s growing maturity as well that he had attained over the passage of time
as he realised human nature to be of more importance than the treatment of scenery
and other elements. To quote H W Garrod from his book titled Keats about his odes:
“Of the longer pieces, the most perfect is, I think, The Eve of St Agnes –
more fully there than elsewhere we feel what Matthew Arnold means
when he speaks of Keats’ ‘perfection of loveliness’. Yet even St Agnes
Eve must yield to the Odes. The Odes stand apart, if for no other reason,
yet because in the, for the first time, Keats finds his own manner.”
(1957:62)
He always described instinctively as his first delight was beauty. He asked for a life
of sensation and he revelled in it and he despised a life governed by rule and devoted
absolutely to mental activity. He aimed at the sensual and physical beauty revealed
to the enchantment of the senses. He could come into a close association with the
principle of beauty only through the quenching of the thirst of his senses. The
humming of a bee or the very sight of a flower or even the glitter of the sun aroused
his deep interest and made his nature tremble and he would simply succumb to the
intense pressure of his senses and expressed his feelings with utmost sensuousness.
All of his sensuousness passionately revolved round his intense and true love for
beauty which is an inseparable aspect of his poetry. And thus, gradually his poetic
art developed and found its way in the Greek myths and mediaeval pomp and
pageantry, the feudal way of life with its ghostly thrill. And then it went on to
become his vital source of inspiration. Banerjee and Mukherji states the following
words in their book titled Leaves from English Poetry:
“We have thus in his later poetry the wonderful spectacle of a
resuscitation of the ancient myth-making spirit, a subtle responsiveness
to the spell of the supernatural that has the freshness of the original
heightened by the suggestiveness of a more searching, introspective later
age. To this revival of the past he added new features contributed by his
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personal reading of the world: a mellow, meditative maturity broken at
times by an emotional poignancy evoked by the crosses of life, an
impeccable sense of form that holds his rich vision of beauty in a superb
poise.” (1963:131)
He had no religion but that of beauty. His theory of life was based upon a very
simple principle: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” as he sang in his famous poem
Endymian. Also, beauty and truth are but the two sides of the same coin-inseparable
from each other, as sung in his famous Ode on a Grecian Urn,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. (Sharrock, 1976:103)
He provided the finest feast to the senses by his pictorial art also which had its
impact on many later poets after him. As a painter of vivid word pictures in all their
luxurious details, there was perhaps no greater artist than Keats. His vivid pictures of
nature and human life alike are undoubted masterpieces of art, and in a few words he
managed to provide a finished picture. He used colour in his pictorial presentations
with the skill of an accomplished artist. The following lines taken from To Autumn
are a very beautiful example of his use of word pictures presented sensuously:
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Oron a half-reap’s furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: (Sharrock,
1976:107)
The above picture presented with the barest minimum words and details also is one
of his finest word pictures that are so very sensuous in presenting its minute details.
His pictures are so very perfect that they can even inspire an artist to paint them with
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a brush and colour. The above lines present the sensuous picture of a farmer
winnowing the grain as a reaper which is extraordinary and a testimony to his
sensuous art of depicting an exact word picture. His poem titled The Eve of St
Agnes also present a very vivid and sensuous picture of the mediaeval period with
knights and feudal lords and all. To quote Mundra and Chowdhary from their book
titled A Concise History of English Literature:
“The Eve of St Agnes gives us a vividly sensuous picture of mediaeval
life, with its castles, knights and feudal lords, feuds, festivities,
superstitions, love and romantic adventure. In this poem we find a
graphic account of the mediaeval pomp and pageantry.” (1997:336)
To quote from the poem in this regard:
A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
All garlanded with carven imag’ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings. (Forman, 1948: 221)
To quote David Murdoch about the poem in this regard:
“Keats had a great fascination for the past and every beautiful object – a
bird, a vase or a stream. “A thing of beauty”, he says, “is a joy for
ever.”.....the theme of the poem (The Eve of St Agnes) is unrequited love.
There is something autobiographical about this poem because Keats’
own love for Fanny Brawne remained unrequited.” (1957:90)
Keats was an artist who was interested in moving through the rough and tumble of
life but in a world of romance and beauty, where the worries and anxieties of the
world fail to make their mark. As an artist, he also loved nature that he presented so
very sensuously in his poetry. He was also the poet of nature not in the sense of
Wordsworth who sees a living spirit in her, but as an artist who revelled in creating
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wonderfully sensuous and lovely pictures of nature. Unlike Wordsworth who
spiritualized Mother Nature, he was inspired only by the sensuous aspects of nature.
But he liked nature for its varied aspects of colour, sound, odour, touch, etc. that
presented before him a rainbow of vibrant natural objects. All such aspects have a
tingling effect upon his senses. Praising the external, intransient beauty of nature in
his Ode to a Nightingale, he sang of natural objects with intense sensuousness:
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. (Sharrock, 1976:000)
In the above lines, he had presented the objects of nature with commendable mastery
over its sensuous appeal. He had sung in praise of the common elements such as the
grass, the thicket, violets and the likes and left a very lasting impression in the mind
of the readers. His Ode on a Grecian Urn simply describes an ordinary urn and this
description along with the other aspects of poetical art makes it one of the finest
poems of English literature. It is for his possession of such power that Keats has
often been likened to the great Shakespeare because he possessed all the far-reaching
resources of language at one point, so that a single and apparently effortless
expression can rejoice the aesthetic imagination at the moment when it is most
expected with a new aspect of truth. H J C Grierson is all praise for him whe he says
the following words about his odes:
“Sonnet and ode, these are Keats’ favourite lyric forms, not song; and he
has written some fine sonnets, but it was in the odes that the full current
of his soul, his deep sense of the beauty of nature, the significance of art
and mythology as the symbols in which the human soul had sought to
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give expression to its adumbrations of the true values in nature and man,
his impassioned sense of the fundamental mystery of beauty, fleeting yet
perennial, was given richest and most harmonious expression.”
(1928:57)
Similarly, in The Fall of the Hyperion, Keats decided to devote himself to another
sensation, his very own; his own style of writing, manner, diction and the likes. He
decided to be true to his own poetic sensation as he was aware that poetry had to be
tested on the poet’s own pulse. And he took all the care and precautions in the poem
The Fall of the Hyperion. To quote Herbert Read in this regard from his book titled
The True Voice of Feeling: Studies in English Romantic Poetry:
“The style, the poetic diction and vocal accent, of The Fall of the
Hyperion is at last his own – free and individual, moving isometrically
round the contour of his thought, revealing the sensational structure of
his poetic experience.” (1947:67)
Keats left a body of amazing poetry that will always remain a prized possession in
the history of English literature. However bitterly he might have been condemned in
the beginning, his place now as one of the finest poets is unquestionable. Mr H J C
Grierson states in this regard:
“Keats’ visionary scenes are the more concrete and vivid, Shelley’s the
more atmospheric; and Keats’ music has an Elizabethan mellowness and
charm, nor does it lack a genuine lyrical note.” (Grierson, 1928:55)
William J Long also opines somewhat same about Keats but in different words. To
quote him from his book English Literature would be most befitting:
“The fame denied him in his sad life was granted freely after his death.
Most fitly does he close the list of poets of the romantic revival; because
in many respects he was the best workman of them all....More than any
other he lived for poetry, as the noblest of the arts.” (Long, 2003:425)
Kalapi, on the other hand, too was an equally great poet whose fame spread to the
farthest corner of the state during his time and has increased ever after. His lines are
very easily and affectionately remembered and quoted generously as proverbs by the
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people of all age. It is in his poetry that a distinction between poetry and everyday
prose is clearly discerned by the sincerity and truthfulness of his heart. By reading
the poetry of Kalapi, one is immediately reminded of Keats and Shelley who also
possessed the youthful treasure and hence their poetry expresses the sentiments of
the youth. It is a pity that all the three died at a very young age just at a time when
they attained a gifted maturity in their art. He built up a personal store of great many
reflections and ideas. He was aware of his limitations as a poet.
There is in Kalapi a delicacy of the senses that is very exquisitely expressed in his
poetry. He relished in sensuous pleasure in the beginning of his poetic career. But
even in his sensuousness, the nobility of his soul with an inborn generosity is very
undoubtedly reflected through his works. His sensuous descriptions are found in
many of his poems especially his early poems. In the following lines, taken from his
poem Ek Ferfar, he addresses the sense of sight very effectively creating great
interest:
હનાના રં ગથી પાની સનમની રં ગતો’તો „,ુ ં
¸કને વાળમાં તેનાં ુલોને ુથ
ં તો’તો „.ુ ં (Gohil, 2000:203)
(I was applying heena to colour my beloved’s legs, and bending I was
braiding the flowers in her hair. (Translation:Mine)
The poet here creates an amorous picture of the exciting the sense of sight very
effectively. To quote Prasad Brahmabhatt about the sensuous description by Kalapi:
“ઉપરની વી પંcbતઓમાં રિસક 6ેમચેNટા5ુ ં વણન સાંપડ છે . કલાપીના
›ગ
ંૃ ાર િનKુપણમાં ›ગ
ંૃ ારવણનનો રસ ^ુરખ તાUશ 9ચFોમાંથી મળે છે .
^ ૃNટસૌQદયમાં પણ કિવ માનવ›ૃગ
ં ારની રસીbતા5ુ ં દશન કર છે .”
(Brahmabhatt, 2003:33)
(In the lines such as the one mentioned above, we find descriptions of
amorous love gestures. In his descriptions of shringar also we find the
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emotion of shringar from clear and vivid pictures. The poet also sees in
the beauty of the world the shringar of man.)(Translation:Mine)
He is pre-eminently a man of sensations that is very visibly reflected in the vivid
descriptions in his poems, sensuous images that he portrays in them and such other
qualities. To quote from the book titled Gujarati Saahityano Itihas:
“કલાપી પાસે પોતાના વ-? ુિવષયને 9ચFામક બનાવવાની, િવષદ અને
મનોરમ કરવાની તથા અિતW ૂત કરવાની સાહTક ;ુશળતા છે . તેમની
કિવતાકલાનો આ એક મનોહર *શ છે .” (Joshi, Raval, Shukal, 1978:559)
(Kalapi has the ability to picturize, detailed and beautify and visualize
his subject very naturally. This is a very beautiful part of his poetic
art.)(Translation:Mine)
Even Sundaram is also of the same opinion about his ability to create stunning wordpictures by addressing the sense of sight when he says in his book titled Arvachin
Kavita in the following words:
“તેનામાં પોતાના િવષયને 9ચFામક કરવાની, W ૂત કરવાની B ૂબ સાહTક
હથોટ છે . તેણે સં;ુલ મનોભાવોને, 6સંગોનાં ક પદાથŒનાં આપેલાં અનેકાનેક
9ચFો તેનાં કાIયોની કળાસW ૃ¹vનો 6ધાન *શ છે . તેની કાIય^ ૃVNટ Eણે
^ ૂયના -વœછ 6કાશમાં ત“ન તાUશ qપે, એક ય સંદ\ધ ર ખા વગરની,
િનમળ ઝળહળતા પદાથ વી દ ખાય છે .” (Sundaram, 2004:173)
(He has this uncanny ability to picturize, incarnate the subject very
naturally. Complex mental interactions, numerous word-pictures of
incidents and objects are the main part of his rich poetic art. His poetic
world shines brilliantly like an object shining brightly in clear sunlight
under the sun without any dark line.)(Translation:Mine)
His poetic art is full of passion, of gushing emotions and of intense feelings wherein
emotions also have its appropriate share in this wonderful feast of the senses. Love
is the chief passion that is described in the majority of his poems and it is the main
force of his energy. To quote Prasad Branmabhatt in this regard from his book
Kalapinivankatha:
147
“શોભના માટના ખ·ચાણે કલાપીની મોટાભાગની કિવતાને આમલdી
6ણયકિવતા બનાવી દધી છે . કલાપીની ઉ,રાધની અિધકાંશ કિવતા એમનાં
6ણયમંથન અને 6ણયતપને ગાય છે . કલાપીની કિવતાનો WુZય ^ ૂર 6ણય
હતો.....” (Brahmabhatt, 1999:193-95)
(Kalapi’s attraction for Shobhana has turned almost all of his poems into
subjective love poems. Majority of his later poems sings of his churning
of love and his love penance. The main emotion of his poetry was
love....)(Translation:Mine)
There are excellent sensuous descriptions scattered all throughout his poetry where
the poet rouses all the five senses of the readers to experience the true poetry which
springs right from the deepest core of heart. In the poem Rasechchha, the poet has
very ably created a beautiful word picture tingling the readers’ senses of touch and
sight to create a stunning impression upon their minds:
Nુ પો પર ટપકતાં ^ુ? ુષાર9બ=>ુ,
ને c-ન\ધ પાંખ ¤લની મકરં દભીની,
*ધાર ઘોર િવ…ુહન િનશાની શાંિત,
વા —ેત >ૂધ સમ ર લ qડાં શશીની. (Gohil, 2000:22)
(Dewy drops trickle from flowers, with a smooth petal of the flower wet
with nectar, and the dark night is quiet with abundance of milky white
moon)(Translation:Self)
The above lines create a wonderful picture of morning and noon in the readers’
mind. The first line arouses the sense of sight while the second line touches the sense
of touch and again the third and fourth lines excite the sense of sight. The entire
stanza is amazing in creating the desired effect upon the readers’ mind.
The following lines taken from his poem Kashmirnu Swapna which excites the sense
of sight in a beautiful picture:
148
છે |ાંઈ અિત ઘોર ગંભીર ુફા, કાળ ઘટા ઝાડની,
કાળ તે દસતી છવાઈ જઈને *ધાર છે તે ઘણી;
Iહ છે જોસ ભર નદ અહ તહ, નાળા પડGા િવખર,
;ુંજોમાં ઝરણાં વહ ખળકતાં, છોળો ઉડ પાણીની. (Gohil, 2000:6)
(There is a deep dark cave and a dark crowd of trees, that looks darker
and surrounding, rivers gush here and there, rivulets flow scattered,
brooks flow freely splashing water.)(Translation:Self)
The above lines create an exact picture of a cave in a forest with rivers, brooks, etc.
flowing freely around arousing our sense of sight. The description is very vivid
creating an exact picture using minimum but most appropriate diction to create
maximum effect.
Kalapi too, like Keats, is a pure artist. He was not there to preach or sermonize his
poetry. He was there simply to share his deepest and intense feelings with his friends
and readers. He was out and out a true romantic poet in the truest sense of the term.
He did not believe in passing any messages in his poems. His poetry is pure art and
it is strictly owing to his poetic genius that sensuous descriptions came quite
naturally to him. To quote Jayant Pathak from his book Aadhunik Kavitapravah in
this regard:
ૂ ુ ં Tવન એક કાIય tું હ?.ું અયંત
“કલાપી TIયા ઓ‹ં પણ એમ5ુ ં એ ³ં;
સંવેદનશીલ ”દયનાં આ કિવએ Tવનમાં 6ણય-વૈષ ય અ5ુભIુ ં ને
ઉœચ નીિતUVNટ ધરાવતી હોવાને કારણે એ વૈષ યએ મનોમંથન જગાડxુ ં
તેના દદ ભયા ઉદગાર એટલે કલાપીની કિવતા. બળવંતરાય વા િવવેચક
પાસેથી 6શંસા ને આદર 6ાlત કરવામાં કલાપીની કાIયકલાનો િવજય રહલો
છે .” (Pathak, 2007:29)
(Kalapi did not live long but his life was like a poem. A poet of highly
sensitive heart, he experienced a inequality in love and his ethical
thinking created a great churning in his mind which all found expression
149
in his poems. But, the true credit of his poetic art lies in receiving high
applauds
and
respect
from
an
avid
critic
such
as
Balvantray.)(Translation:Mine)
Of course this characteristic is seen largely in the beginning of his poetic career
when he was only eighteen years of age. Obviously he was not mature enough to
understand more serious, graver aspects of his art. And hence, a whole gamut of
sensuous descriptions can be found in his work. But they also show a whole range of
rainbow colour enhanced by vivid descriptions set off by intense feelings. It is only
after his attaining his love that his philosophy of poetry changes and tries to probe
the mystery of human life and existence.
Most of his better known poems are abundant in sensuous beauty of description. One
of the finest examples is the description of a rural scene in Grammata wherein he
arouses the sense of sight with an amazing description full of minute details:
ઉગે છે ^ુરખી ભર રિવ W ૃ>ુ હમત
ં નો
ૂવમાં,
f ૂKંુ છે નભ -વœછ -વœછ, દસતી નથી એક વાદળ;
થંડો હમભયŒ વહ અનીલ શો ઉસાહને 6ેરતો,
ઉસાહ ભર દસે ›ુક ઉડ ગાતાં મીઠાં ગીતડાં! (Gohil, 2000:49)
(The red sun rises in the mild Hemant in the East, the blue sky is clear
without any cloud; the cold breeze gently blows filling zeal with which
birds fly chirping!)(Translation:Self)
The above lines create a amazing word picture of a beautiful morning in the month
of Hemant and with vivid description arouse the sense of sight very effectively. The
picture is so perfect that even with the minimal use of words; the poet has been able
to attain the desired effect. Similarly, elsewhere in the same poem, another picture is
created with wonderful effect:
150
ધીમે ઉઠ િશિથલ કરને નેFની પાસ રાખી,
t ૃvા માતા નયન નબળાં ફરવીને jુ એ છે ;
તે તેનો એ િ6ય પિત હjુ શાQત બેસી રહને,
જોતાં ગાતો શગડ પરનો દ વતા ફરવે છે ! (Gohil, 2000:50)
(Rising slowly, the old mother brings her feeble and trembling hand
close over her eyes and looks afar with her feeble eyes while her beloved
husband sits singing quietly and turns coals on the stove and
sings.)(Translation:Self)
How effectively the sense of sight is aroused here in the above lines. And the result
is simply stunning. The smoothness with which all the details are presented quite
naturally is quite commendable. The words flow so naturally and freely creating the
exact picture that the poet did not even have to look for appropriate words! Even the
sense of hearing is also aroused as the melody of the poem is also very excellent
with the music flowing very freely rhyming naturally without any efforts. The
description of the old woman is quite typical and wonderfully characteristic. Many
consider this poem written in the style of Wordsworth but the fact is otherwise. To
quote Jayant Kothari in this regard from his book titled Vaank Dekha Vivechano:
“અહ• વ‡્ સવથનાં ‘ુડ Xલેક’ કાIયનો ઉCલેખ નથી, એટLું જ નહ પણ
કલાપીએ પોતાના એક નહ પણ Fણ કાIયને સંદભy વ‡્ સવથની શૈલીનો
ઉCલેખ કયŒ છે . એટલે એમને બનાવ5ુ ં સી…ુસા>
ં ુ ં કથાન કરવાની શૈલીથી
િવશેષ ક›ુ ં અ9ભ6ેત નથી એ -પNટ થઇ Eય છે . કથાવ-? ુનાં ક બીE કશા
મળતાપણાનો અહ• Wુ“ો જ નથી.” (Kothari, 1993:6)
(Here, there is no reference of Wordsworth’s Goody Blake poem. Not
only that but also Kalapi has used this reference (in his letters) with
respect to three of his poems. Hence, it becomes clearly evident that he
has no other intentions but to describe the incident in a simple manner.
There is no question of similarity of story or anything
else.)(Translation:Mine)
151
His auditory sense i. e. of music is invariably seen in almost all the poems along
with the other senses. He can create wonderful word pictures depicting objects of
nature. He can very ably implant human emotions in the elements of nature. To
quote from the book Aapana Khandkaavyo in this regard:
“માનવભાવનાં આલેખનમાં 6;ૃિત9ચFનો તેઓ ^ુદર
ં િવિનયોગ કર Eણે છે .
વેગીલી અને 9ચFામક વાણી તથા ભાવના પલટા 6માણે છંદના પલટા
યોજવા5ુ ં કૌશલ તેમને સહજિસv છે . (Thakar, Trivedi and Bhatt, 1970:17)
(He can very ably apply nature and her elements to describe human
emotions. He can very easily change the metres and style according to
the flowing emotions and picaresque style.)(Translation:Mine)
In the following lines taken from one of his best poems Aapani Yaadi very skilfully
utilize the power of words to create a wonderful picture. The diction used is quite
effectively help in building the desired effect:
જો¦ અહ• યાં આવતી દરયાવની મીઠ લહર,
તેની ઉપર ચાલી રહ નાjુક સવાર આપની!
તારા ઉપર તારા તણાં šમી રા છે šમખાં,
તે યાદ આપે ખને ગેબી કચેર આપની!
આ B ૂનને ચરખે અને રાતે અમાર ગોદમાં
આ દમ-બ-દમ બોલી રહ ઝીણી િસતાર આપની! (Gohil, 2000:000)
(I see there the sweet waves of the sea, and your delicate ride is sailing
smoothly over them. There hover the clusters of stars over you that
remind me of thy mysterious office above! At night in our lap and with
this blood-spattered charkha your small sitari is playing with heaving
resonance!)(Translation:Mine)
To quote Chandrakant Sheth from his book Yaadi Bhari Tya Aapni in this regard:
152
“ઉપરના UNટાંતમાં ‘દરયાવ’, ‘લહર’, ‘નાjુ ક’, ‘šમી રા’, ‘દમ-બ-દમ’
ૂ રમણીય આબોહવા સaવામાં Yાવણીય
વગેર શXદો ભાવ9ચFને અ5ુ;ળ
તવથી પણ ક વો ફાળો આપે છે તે સ”દયોએ નŠ]ુ ં જ હશે. કલાપીના
-મરણીય ગિત9ચFોમાં ‘નાjુ ક સવાર’ નાં 9ચFને િનદº શtુ ં પડ.” (Sheth,
2009:10)
(In the above example, the readers must have noted how beautifully the
words like dariyav, lahar, najuk, zoomi rahya, dam-b-dam incite the
sense of sight and ear and thereby contribute to the overall effect of the
word-picture. This word-picture najuk sawari of Kalapi must be
mentioned among his top word-pictures with motion.)(Translaiton:Mine)
His response to life was quite intuitive as no matter what came to his range of
experience and whatever repercussions created in his sensitive heart would simply
find expression into his poems. And he also delighted in giving vent to his intense
feelings and emotions. His radar like mind received almost everything and gave its
immediate response to it. The sound of a running brook, the roar of a lion, the buzz
of a bee, the chirping of the birds – all have found expressions in his wide range of
poetry. Again, the poem Vanma Ek Prabhat impressively portrays a beautiful picture
of a forest wherein almost all the senses are aroused by the poet:
f ંૃ f ંૃ f ંૃ ુજ
ં 6ેમી ષટપદ કમલે અધખીCુ ં ર»ું એ,
જો જો બાલાક ઘેલો િનજ કર જલમાં ® ૂજતો આ ઝબોળે !...
...તારો ? ૂટªો નભેથી ખરરર ખરતો, તોપગોળો વ©ટªો,
રાતો વ¼ભf ૂકો ભડભડ બળતો આભમાં ઊડ ચાCયો;
ગંગાનો ધોધ ફાટªો 9ગરિશર પરથી, રામ5ુ ં બાણ ©ટ²ુ,ં
ૂ ચાCયો!
તેવો તે ›ગ
ંૃ વાળો W ૃગજલઝરhું ફાળથી ;દ
ઉભો યાં િસ=હરાE ઘરઘર ઘરર , જોરથી Fાડ દ તો,
ડોલાIયા ‡ુંગરોને, રિવ પણ ચમ|ો લાલ *ગાર વો;... (Gohil, 2000:10)
153
(The wasp is hovering over the half-bloomed lotus and a child is dipping
its finger in the water shivering; there falls a shooting star, and a cannon
ball shoots, red fire burned with rattling sound, the river Ganga cascaded
down from a hilltop, Ram’s arrow was shot, the deer with such horns
jumped across the rivulet; there stood a lion roaring terrifying the hill
and all, and the sun shone like a red coal.)(Translation:Mine)
Excellent picture created by the poet that treats almost all the senses of the readers.
The very first line begins with the hum of a wasp that arouses the sense of ear that
immediately sets the tone of the poem in the right direction. Then in the very next
line, the sense of sight is aroused where the child dips his hand in water shivering.
Again, the sense of ear is addressed, and the shooting star again addresses the right
sense. And culmination comes when the lion roars and even the hills are shaken. The
entire description creates a very sweet picture of the scene and a beautiful image is
built creating the desired effect.
Here we can see that the descriptions in Kalapi abound in its sensuous effects as they
are very varied and dramatic on many occasions. He, like Keats, did not care much
for anything that could not be perceived by the senses. Not that the intellectual or
spiritual interpretations was beyond his comprehension, but being an instinctive
poet, he believed that poetry should be intensely appealing. And this appeal should
be to the senses. He has addressed the senses creating beautiful word pictures in his
ghazals very effectively. Many of his ghazals beautifully describe various moods
through different word pictures and address various senses.
To quote Indravadna K Dave in this regard:
“કલાપીની ડઝનેક ગઝલો તો તેમાંના ઊિમ‰ધોધ, અ5ુf ૂિત5ુ ં ડાણ, ^ુર ય,
રિસક મનોહર કCપના, કાIયો9ચ, િનqપણછટા અને ભાવની કોમળતાને લીધે
ુજરાતી ગઝલ-સાહયમાં 9ચરં Tવ -થાનની અિધકાર છે .” (Dave,
1980:360)
154
(A dozen of ghazals written by Kalpi are exquisite for its lyricism,
deepness of experience, lovely, interesting imagination (addressing the
sense of sight), and appropriate style of poetic description and for the
tenderness of emotions hold their place among the Gujarati ghazal
literature eternally.)(Translaiton:Mine)
And so he did not entertain political or any other subjects in his poetry. One more
reason for this is that his poetry is highly subjective and hence there is only intense
feelings and nothing else; no philosophizing or spiritualizing of objects. Not that
there is no philosophy in his poetry, but that comes as a revelation to his personal
problems and on many occasions he is himself asking for the solutions. The objects
of his poetry are presented in such a way that we experience the actual touch of
them, their smell or their taste or even feel through our sensory perception the actual
sounds or actual scenes described in the poem in millions of pixels-in multicolour or
HD. He exherts that much power in his scenic descriptions full of sensuous beauty
which illustrates his poetic art.
His poetry being highly subjective, he has described in many of his poems his
intimate relations with his wife Ramaba wherein he has created sensuous pictures of
her beauty. The following example is taken from his poem Kelismaram wherein he
describes his wife with great sensuous details:
લતા ^ુ£ની ચડતી િવલાસે: પયોધરો ગાઢ હાલે „લ
ુ ાસે:
િવશાલ નેFો રિતમાં િવકાસે: 6½Cલ ^ુપCલવ લાલ ભાસે!
સીકાલ શXદો Wુખથી િનકાસે: 6ભા િ6યાના Wુખથી 6કાશે:
ઉરોજ કંપે ;ૃષ ઉદર5ુ:ં કપોલમાં 6-વેદ9બ=>ુ!
ુ છંદો ઝમક રહ છે : Nુ પો ગિતથી સરક પડ છે :
5ૂ ર
‹ટલ બાલો િવખરાઈ Eયે: Yિમત *ગે લપટાઈ Eયે:
155
િશિથલ બાલા ^ુ;ુમાર કાયે: -વહ-ત ઢલા જર ના હલાવે:
િનતંબભાર લચક પડ છે : કટ -તનોના ભય(ર)થી લડ છે : (Gohil, 2000:6)
(Like a vine climbing amorously, (her) large breasts were dancing, her
eyes opening widely after sex, the red saree looked even redder; heaving
sighs, her face shining brilliantly, and breasts shivering and forehead
sweating; anklets making lovely sound, and flowers falling, with hair
flung scattered and wrapping around the tired body; the exhausted girl
with her beautiful body did not move her tired hands and sits with heavy
legs: her waist bends by the weight of her breasts.)(Translation:Mine)
The above lines present a very sensuous, erotic picture of the poet’s wife. This poem
was written at a very early age when he was only eighteen years of age. His
separation from his wife made him impatient which is reflected in this poem. The
above lines are very sensuous though does not cross any limit of decorum and
narrowly escape sensuality. But the overall effect created by the use of appropriate
senses of sight, ear, etc. are just marvellous. But the following lines are taken from
his poem Jyan Tu Tyan Hu that show some restrain in the description of the
feminine beauty by some artistic touch:
તોડ ગાંઠ ન ©ટતાં કર વતી ? ું એક ચોળ તણી,
લ¶EŸ મન નીિવબંધ ©ટતાં શરમાઈ -તંભે જર;
હોયે વ સર , પડ સરક?,ું તે િવ— જો? ું રહ,
ને એ કૌ? ુક તો બ…ું નયનથી પી E¦ ‹ં „ું ખર !
હા હા! દ હકળ દગંબર બની lયાર ખીલી િનકળ;
ઊડGા કશ લપેટવા -તનતટો ને કસર શી કટ;
હ બા„ુ કમલો તણા રિસકડા છે દં ડ Qહાના સમા,
-કંધો ને -તન કોતર બરફના lહાડથી Eણે લીધા! (Gohil, 2000:34)
(You tear off a knot that does not unknot of your choli, your shy mind is
ashamed of it, still your cloth slips down and the world watches and I am
156
awestruck and watch you do so. A naked bud is blossomed into a fullbloomed flower, hair flying to cover breasts and lion-like waist; two
shoulders and breasts are very lovely like a small stick carved out from
ice-mountain.)(Translation:Mine)
The above description shows much restrain as it was written much later when the
poet attained some maturity and his poetic art is also developed. But it is an
excellent picture of feminine beauty. The poet freely praises the beauty of his wife in
the poet arousing the readers’ sense of sight and ear. Love initially to Kalapi was an
occasion of physical pleasure given his age and hence such descriptions form many
of his early poems. But with the passage of time and growing in age, his
sensuousness became more subtle and also became grave to some extent. But
nevertheless, the effect remained same and even became more poignant and
effective in his better poems.
Kalapi’s sensuous approach is also very strongly marked in his treatment of nature
and its objects also. To quote from the book titled Gujarati Saahityano Itihaas in
this regard:
“6;ૃિતવણનમાં ઇVQUયા5ુભવી (sensuous) 9ચFો5ુ ં દશન, કCપના-તરં ગોથી
6;ૃિતને શણગારવાની કળા, ઉપરાંત િવ—6ેમ, કKુણા, અહ=સાની ઝાંખી
કલાપીને 6;ૃિતમાં થાય છે . ;ુદરતના અ5ુભવ Aારા તેમને Tવન5ુ ં 9ચ=તન
-¤ર છે .” (Joshi, Raval, Shukal, 1978:561)
(Kalapi in his description of nature sees very sensuous portrayal of
nature, his art of decorating nature with imaginative fancy, and
universality, compassion, and ahimsa in nature. He is inspired to
contemplate by the experiences of nature.)(Translaition:Mine)
In his treatment of nature, Kalapi does not spiritualize or intellectualize it. His
portrayal include the pulsating music of the objects of nature, depiction of the
vibrant colours that nature offer, the reverberations of the objects of nature exciting
the readers’ sense of sound – all these and much more objects found wonderful
157
expression in his treatment of nature. Study the following lines that are taken from
one of his poems Kudrat ane Manushya that describe in his typical characteristic
fashion the objects of nature:
પહŠચે ના કણy કલકલ ]વની આ જગતના,
વહ ધીમાં ધીમાં ખળખળ અહ• શાQત ઝરણાં,
વહ ધોધો ગાT મ…ુર Hયમ માતંગ ગર,
ૂ રહ! (Gohil, 2000:36)
qડાં બœચાં Qહાનાં ચપલ હરણોનાં ;દ
(Where the sound of the world does not reach, solemn brooks flow
quietly here, waterfalls flow roaring like a lion, and beautiful deer cubs
playfully jump here and there!)(Translation:Self)
The above lines create an amazing picture of a deep forest where even the noise of
the world cannot reach. Readers’ use of the sense of sight helps in creating the effect
as well as a beautiful and sensuous word picture of the scene. The sense of sight is
excited and creates a beautiful, life-like and live image of the scene in the mind of
the readers. The first and second lines, the words kalkal and khalkhal arouse the
sense of sound which helps the readers actually perceive the sound made by the
flowing, gushing water of the brook and an amazing impression is created. At the
very outset of the poem, correct tone is set with a perfect orientation of the readers.
The next two lines only heighten the effect created by the opening lines. Thus, the
overall effect created by the sense is so powerful and intense that the readers are
simply moved as they visualize the whole picture before their eyes. The poet’s
sensuous appeal helps him in creating a better and more effective picture of nature
that yields the desired effect. Kalapi is a master craftsman in creating amazingly
sensuous word-pictures. To quote Vijayray Vaidya, as quoted in the book titled
Gujarati Saahityano Itihaas is most suitable:
158
“કલાપીએ આપણી ભાષાને થોડા કાIયો ને કોઈ કોઈ પંcbતઓ તો એવાં
આlયાં છે ક એના િવના ુજરાતી રં ક રહ હોત, િનઃશક.” (Joshi, Raval,
Shukal, 1978:561)
(Kalapi has so enriched our language with few poems and some lines
and stanzas great that Gujarati language would undoubtedly have
remained poor without them.)(Translation:Mine)
Even, Balavantray Thakor is also all praise for Kalapi. To quote him as quoted in the
book Gujarati Saahityano Itihaas:
ુ ાવ અને િનમળ
“કલાપીની ;ૃિતઓમાં સાચા 6ેમની ઝલક છે . સાચા બં…ભ
અ5ુકંપાની ^ુવાસ છે . સાચી વીરતાની ^ુરખ છે . સTવનતા અને 6વાહ છે .”
(Joshi, Raval, Shukal, 1978:561)
(There is in the works of Kalapi a glimpse of true love. There is
fragrance of true fraternity and pure compassion. There is a hue of true
valour and liveliness and flow.)(Translation:Mine)
Another excerpt taken from his poem Manushya ane Kudrat, the poet is successful
in creating another sensuous description of nature by arousing the senses of sound,
sight and smell as well:
પડ છાનો રહ ખળખળ વહQ? ું ઝરણ Hયાં,
અને પંખીડા Hયાં જલ તણી ભર ચંg ુ ઉડતાં;
મહકQતા Nુ પો લથડ પડતાં Hયાં કળ પર ,
અિત ? ૃlતીથી Hયાં મ…ુપ ^ુરભે W ૂિછ‰ત બને.
અહ• યાં ¸Qડોમાં કરણ રિવ5ુ ં કો ચળક?,ું
તહ• >ૂ ર કાŸં ખડક િશર માથે ઝ¸મ?;ું
ુફા પેલીમાં યાં W ૃગપિત પડGો શાQત ગર,
અને શાંિત5ુ ં તો દc\વજયી છે રાHય સઘળે . (Gohil, 2000:198)
(Lay quietly there by a running brook where birds fill their beak with
water and fly, where fragrant flowers stumble over a bud, where the
159
wasp faints by over satiate. There in the distance, in the mass of trees, a
sole, sunray shines and a dark rock looms large over head and the lion is
roaring
in
his
den
and
peace
reigns
supreme
everywhere.)(Translation:Self)
The pen here moves so smoothly and delicately that the effect created here by the
diction employed is absolutely stunning and the word picture of the forest yields
excellent impression upon the mind of the readers. The lines reflect the soft and
tender heart of the poet. His heart always yearns for unconditional love and
affection. But the diction used here is quite impressive and the lines rhyme so
melodiously that overall they create a wonderful poetic effect. To quote Anantray
Raval about the picturesque quality of Kalapi’s poems:
“‘કલાપી’5ુ ં કિવ તરક5 ુ ં કૌશલ અને સામ­ય એમની લાંબા³ૂંકાં વણનોમાં
પણ -પNટ દ ખાય છે , એ વણનોની 9ચFામકતા ક સાdાકારકતા મનોહર
છે .....થોડ જ પંcbતઓમાં ‘કલાપી’ ^ુરખ શXદ9ચFો સહજ ^ ૂઝ અને કલાથી
સજ y છે .” (Raval, 1984:34)
(Kalapi’s ability as a poet is clearly seen in his short and long
descriptions, the picturesque quality or manifestations of those
descriptions are simply fascinating.....only by a few lines Kalapi creates
beautiful
word
pictures
with
natural
art
and
understanding.)(Translation:Mine)
The poet Kalapi being highly subjective, he has not used much of his imaginative
power in the majority of his poems. He did not have to look for subjects either as the
incidents of his life provided him with all the necessary incidents and situations. His
extra sensitive heart like a harp kept on playing the passions and sentiments of his
heart with the most melodious tunes. The harp sometimes played the sad notes and
the other time the happy notes. He has treated the love triangle of his life with his
wife Ramaba and his beloved Shobhana very vividly in some of his major poems
and its consequences thereafter. Such poems reflected the poet’s state of mind at the
time of creation of that poem and the mental agony he underwent thereafter. But his
160
poetry scaled new heights with the passage of time to be one of the best romantic
poet Gujarati literature has ever produced. To quote Dhirubhai Thakar in this regard
from his book titled Arvachin Gujarati Saahityani Vikasrekha:
“અવા ચીન ુજરાતી કિવતાને રં ગદશR (romantic) ઝોક આપવામાં
Qહાનાલાલ િસવાય બીજો કોઈ કિવ કલાપીની બરોબર કર શક તેમ નથી.
વળ તેમની 6;ૃિત પણ કૌ? ુકિ6ય (romantic) કિવની જ હતી.” (Thakar,
1978:131)
(To provide the modern Gujarati poetry a romantic bend, no poet other
than Nhanalal can come closer to Kalapi. Besides, his nature also was
very romantic.)(Translation:Mine)
His expression bears an impression of sincerity of the poet along with clear
expression of his true feelings. His artistic perspective in writing poetry and to life
simply augmented the effect of his works. The poetry of Kalapi very sensuously
represented the poet’s love struck condition in life.
Based upon the above description, we can conclude that Kalapi was influenced by
the English romantic poets especially William Wordsworth in the beginning of his
poetic career. He even made a successful attempt to translate some of the poems of
those masters and with slight variations they were not only good translations but
transcreations as he translated them and based them upon the Indian setting giving
them a local touch. But that is quite common for a growing poet of around eighteen
years of age to compose poetry based on the models available to him. But the
impression of the Wrodsworthian influence can be traced only up to a certain level
when he was learning the art of composing poetry. It is quite natural for a budding
composer of verses to try different forms in the beginning and for that purpose had
to keep as model to base his poetry upon the examples available before him of the
past masters. Kalapi had before him in Gujarati poets like Dalpatram, Narmad,
161
Narsinhrao, and the others and William Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley among the
others in the English literature whose poems he kept before him as a model to base
his poetry. His works bore some impressions at a very early stage of the style of
Dalpatram and Narmad among the others. But at the same time they also bore the
clear impressions of the Sanskrit dramas like Meghdoot and Kadambari, among the
others recited by Joshimaster before him and sow the seed of the concept of Indian
romanticism that is only enhanced by his travel to Kashmir. His prose bear a clear
impression of the Sanskrit play Kadambari by Banbhatt and his earlier poems bear
an impression of Meghdoot by Kalidas. (Dave, 1080:73) So, this clearly indicates
that his natural inclination was towards the Indian romanticism and that he has not
been influenced by the English romanticism and English romantic poets.
162
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