Imagery and Art in the Poems of Jibananda Das and Bishnu Dey: Traversing the Boundaries of Time and its Context in the Modern Era/ সময়ের ছায়াপথে জীবনানন্দ দাশ ও বিষ্ণু দে : কবিতায় চিত্রকল্পের প্রয়োগ ও চিত্রশিল্পের প্রভাব

Abstract

Poetic imagery is quite popular throughout the history of world poetry. In the modern era, a turning point in Bengali poetry occurred during the 1930’s. Starting from this period, poets extensively referred to imagery and art to garner a better understanding of their abstract ideas. Here we discuss how the two poets, Jibanananda Das and Bishnu Dey, successfully materialized their imaginative world by the contextual utilization of imagery and art, although with varied extents. Time consciousness has been identified as one of principal aspects of Jibanananda’s poetry. His journey through time consciousness traverses the physical to the metaphysical realm. This journey from beginning to eternity can be divided into three stages.The diversity of rural Bengal, together with folk and mythological elements such as the ‘Mangalkabhya’ largely influenced the use of imagery in Jibanananda’s works. The poetic use of metaphors to aptly convey his imagination and thoughts allow his works to be interpreted freely by the readers from different societal backgrounds. Influences from surrealism to impressionism can also be seen upon a more critical observation. On the other hand, Bishnu Dey wanted to express wisdom in poetry. Bishnu Dey's poetry brings out aspects of nature from contemporary situations. Just as paintings are created by collecting materials from literature, literature may also be influenced by the idea and thoughts of a painter. In his poetry, Bishnu Dey portrays the visibility of colour and the influence of painters like Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne are clearly notable. However, both the poets gave us poetic fragrance and helped transform the vision of a poem according to the intellect of the modern reader. Therefore, it can be said that the use of imagery in poetry and the influence of painting are interrelated.