Banalata Sen - Poe's "To Helen"

Poe's "To Helen"

Often Jibanananda's Banalata Sen has been compared with "To Helen" by Edgar Allan Poe. In a certain sense, Banalata Sen is akin to "To Helen". However, while Helen's beauty is the central theme in Poe's work, for Jibanananda, Banalata Sen is merely a framework to hold his anxiety for apparently endless human existence on earth since primordial time. She has occurred with various names like Shaymoli, Sobita, Suronjana, etc. However, one can see that while Poe has ended by appreciating the beauty of a woman, Jibanananda has gone far deeper and on the landscape of a woman's beauty has painted the expanse of human existence both in terms of time and topography, drawing attention to the ephemeral existence of human beings. Unlike the poetry of many others, Jibanananda's poetry is the result of filtered interaction between emotions and intellect. In the endless tumultuous continuum of ‘time’ Banalata Sen is a dot of quietude and tranquillity. Banalata Sen is a feminine emblem that Jibanananda created in his virtual world and faced on many occasions with wonder and questions as embodied in different poems. In sum, although popularly regarded a romantic lyric, the poet’s historical sense of human existence is unmistakably the underlying essence.