Jatindranath Sengupta - Literary Characteristics

Literary Characteristics

Jatindranath made his mark in Bengali literary scene in the twenties as a poet of rugged masculinity with a diction all of his own. His first three books Marichika ( Mirage ), Marushikha ( the desert flame ) and Marumaya ( the desert illusion ) established his fame as a poet of a new genre who rejected romanticism and any sublime imagination beyond the perception of senses. He thus tried to break away from the all pervasive influence of Tagore in Bengali poetry. His barbed comments on the romantic poets of the time and remarks on God, almost always satirical and sometimes irreverent earned him the label of an atheist and a pessimist. Scholars generally agree that the trio of Jatindranath Sengupta, Mohitlal Majumdar and Kazi Nazrul Islam heralded modernism in Bengali poetry. Both in form and content whether in his remarkably seamless juxtaposition of rustic expressions alongside richly Sankritized words or in metrical forms or in his perceived atheism, he left a strong influence on the immediate group of distinguished modern poets.From Sayam ( dusk ) onwards, his poems took a perceptible turn towards beauty, love and a pining for the youth, he once ridiculed. It also became clear that he was not really an atheist but his tirade against God was in reality a mental attitude, perhaps reflecting a love-hate relationship with a personal God whose benign face he wanted to see but could not. He wrote extensively on the poorer section of the society . These poems, in spite of the allegorical content, represent a broad humanism which unsurprisingly had seeds of feminism as well.