জীবনানন্দ-পরবর্তী বাংলা কবিতায় ‘প্রাণী প্রতীক’–এর ব্যবহার : অন্তরালের আত্মসমীক্ষণ ও সমাজবীক্ষণ/ The Use of ‘Animal Symbol’ in Post-Jibanananda Bengali Poetry : Self-introspection and Social Observation in Background

Abstract

Human is the most intellectual being among all animals in the world. But the existence of human is not self-sufficient. Existentialist philosopher John Macquarrie formed the notion of a inter-related dependence of human and the world. Before that Martin Heidegger also talk about the ‘Being-in the- world’, where his focus is on the relation of the ‘Dasein’ and the ‘Worldhood of the world’. On that sense, the existence of human is related with lives of the other animals, that flows parallel. The relation of human and animals in our concern are severally discussed with the base of some theories like –Animalism, Animism and Totemism. In Western Art and literary movements like Surrealism, Magic Realism and Symbolism, we can find poets and artists expressing  the characteristics of  an individual and the society with the symbols of animals.In 20^th century after the great era of Rabindranath , the new generation of Bengali Poetry had a great impact of western philosophy and the notions of western art. Jibanananda Das was actually the pioneer, who had used several symbols of animals like ‘owl’, ‘horse’ and ‘mouse’ as well to portray the self introspection and the hollowness of the society. The time was not convenient at all. World wars, rise of Imperialism, Fascism, partition and degenerative condition of socio-economy of the country, destruction of the values of the middle-class people had lead the whole society to a void. Poets after Jibanananda Das became inspired to use the symbol of animals to create a pictorial overview of the society as well they used it as a mirrior of self –introspection.Manindra Gupta, Pabitra Mukhopadhyay, Bhaskar Chakraborty, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Sudhir Dutta were the few selected poets, who have used animals as the imagery to create a whole scenario of self-introspection and social observation in their respected poetry.