STYLE
AND TECHNIQUE
A B S T R A C T
Style
and technique are two key concepts in the problem of literary form. Style is an essentially contested concept,
the definition underlying critical practice depending upon the critical
position adopted therein against a certain common ground of critical
theory. Thus it may be granted
readily that the language of literature
is distinct from language in its everyday use in ways stable in terms of selection, extension, deviation, even distortion.
The equivalent terms in India today (shaili, tantra/taknik)
are translation loans from English, the nearest Sanskrit equivalent
concepts being riti and alaṅkāra
respectively.
The critic, in making sense of the duality
between the meaning and the being of a poem, comes to adopt one of
five a alternative, positions, namely, hedonism, didacticism, formalism,
vitalism, and bipolarism. The
problem of literary form may then be elucidated in terms of style
and technique in five corresponding ways which together constitute
an ordered array. A case study is taken up: two poems of Kabir and two poems of Tukaram
illustrating features differentiating Kabir from Tukaram and one mode
of Medieval Indian bhakti poetry from another.
In the course of this study it is shown that stylistics is
a part of literary criticism and not of linguistics and as such it
goes beyond a consideration of language and beyond description and
analysis into evaluation.
It is
high time (we are in the latter half of the 20th century
now) that we realize that literary theory is riddled with essentially
contested concepts (Gallie 1956a, b).
It will be idle to hope that some day the dust of controversy
will settle down and some consensus will emerge.
At the same time one mustnt conclude that literary disputes
are vacuous or pointless in that case or that they constitute merely
a confused medley rather than present an ordered array of positions.
The consideration
of literary form is no exception to this. The term style for example has been defined
in many ways; differences of critical approaches underline differences
of definitions. The concept
of style is essentially contested and is enmeshed with other such
critical concepts.
Before
entering into the disputes concerning literary form one had better
map out the common aground that these disputes presuppose.
(this common ground ahs been investigated and presented in
some detail in Kelkar 1969, 1970, 1983.)
(1)
In every society there are some discourses which are repeated
from time to time because
of being considered valuable. These
discourses constitute the letters for that society. (By letters I mean here literature in loose sense.) Letters
consists either of Intellectual Discourse or of Literature proper. Literature thus is species of letters comparable
to the other species, namely, Intellectual Discourse. (In modern Indian language one could distinguish
between vāṅmaya letters and sāhitya literature
proper.)
(2) At the same
time Literature is a species of fine art comparable to the
Other fine arts. (Fine Art is being used here in the broadcast
sense.) While Literature shapes the language vehicle, the other fine
arts shape their respective vehicles, so to say.
(3) Literature
being thus Janus-faced admits of a certain duality between the meaning
of a literary work, its capacity to communicate and the being of a
literary work, its capacity to make its existence felt. Knowing the
language in which literary text is couched is not sufficient for encountering
the literary work of art.
(4)
For one thing the language of a literary text has been handled by
its
author in a manner distinct
from the everyday, non- literary use of that language. The author will on occasion carry out a discriminating selection
from the sounds, words, sentence structures, sense structures offered
by ordinary language; on occasion the author will effect in extension,
a certain stretching beyond available language material; on occasion
the author will indulge in a deviation from or an alternation
of language norms; and finally there will be occasions when the author
will even countenance a distortion of language material.
(Selection, extension, deviation, distortion are simply alternate
strategies exemplified in literary language.
There is no room for any dispute here.
Contemporary discussions of style, in the present writers
opinion, spend altogether too much energy on these strategies and
miss the real points of dispute and contest).
(5)
A literary work, like any other work of art, admits of a characteristics
vehicle, namely, language
material in use; of a characteristic content, call it life or life
experience or (after ancient Indians) the way of the world (lokayātrā);
and finally of a certain shaping of the vehicle material and the content
material. This shaping confers
on the work its being, it enables the literary work to make itself
felt; the literary work acquires medium (the ancient Indians identified
it as something directly perceived by virtue of poetry, as Kāvyapratyakṣa).
So much
for the common ground. Before
we turn to the disputes as such
Certain terminological
matters need to be taken note of.
By way of considering the problem of literary form we have
chosen the concepts of style of technique to stand for the whole problematicwe
hope to motivate the choice once we enter the problematic.
Here we shall simply pause for a brief historical review with
special reference to the Indian context.
Through the terms style and technique now variously appear
in modern Indian languages, they represent a borrowing from the West.
Style is mostly shaili, literally that which manifests
ones shila or characterprobably first introduced in literary
discussion in Gadgil 1863. Technique
made its entry into literary discussion much later in the West (and
consequently in modern Indian); craft was more popular in earlier
times. (While Hindi rarely
use taknik the work tantra is quite common in Marathi.
The sense of the word technique and one of the several
senses of the word tantra in Sanskrit is simply the characteristic
method of accomplishing a given job).
The words style and technique are of course applied beyond
literature to the other fine arts.
What was the ancient Indian way of considering the problem
of literary form? The text authored by the poet and the activities
of the troupe of players (both on-stage and off-stage artists) join
so as to yield the dramatic work to the receptive theatre-goer. This
process is the rendering of an adequate performance (prayogālaṅkra). Performance may be rendered in various characteristic
modes called attitudes (vritti). The poetic texts other than those dramatically
presentable and the active participation of the receptive genius (bhāvayitri
pratibhā) of the listener or reader join so as to yield the
poetic art object. This process
is the adequate rendering of the poem (kāvyālaṁkra or
ukti). The process may
be in various characteristic modes called manners (riti or
mārga or vartma).
What vritti is for theatrical art and riti for poetic
for poetic vāṅi
is for singing and rekhā for graphic art and sculpture. (The Hindi-Urdu words bāj, qalam gharānā
of course come much later.
With all these terms what was the need of introducing shali
to answer English Style? Are
style and Sanskrit riti really different?
The commonly accepted account of this difference is that style
in consistent with; indeed a manifestation of the authors and selected
by them as appropriate for the content.
But this account is not wholly correct.
The close association between style and the expression of personality
is typical of the Romantics but is not necessarily shared by other
Western critical schoolsif style is necessarily individual, how can
one then speak of individual style or group style or period style?
The dictum of Buffon, Le style cest Ihomme mme, is appropriated by the Romantic critics.
But this appropriation is possible only if we mistranslate
and if we ignore the original context of Buffons dictum.
(Buffon said, Les chooses sont hors de Ihommme, le style
cest I homme mme. . . . Bein crier
cest tout la
fois bien penser, bien sentir et bien render, cest avoir en mme
temps de lespirt de lame et du got. Which is to sayThings one writes about are from outside man; style
is nothing less than man. . . . To write well is at the same time
to think well, to feel well, and to reder well; it is to have at the
same time mind, soul, and taste. Buffofn obviously has mind the whole man. The
usual rendering The style is the man is not correct; Lhomme is
man in general and not the man who has authored the literary text.)
The other term in Sanskrit poetics, namely alaṁkra
(adequate rendering), comes closet to technique or craft. (the exclusive identification of the Sanskrit
term with figures or tropes comes later.) The term implies that the performance (prayoga), the wording
(ukti), the sequence of musical notes (svara) are rendered
adequate or effective.
With the considerations of terminology, Western and Indian,
out of he way, we can now turn to our subject proper.
The
points of dispute in poetic theory are many.
In outlining the common ground one of these points has already
been mentioned-we have noted the duality between the meaning of a
poem and the being of a poem. So
even when a reader follows the meaning of poem by virtue of a knowledge
of the language being used, the reader may not be able to follow the
poem as a work of art. There have been different proposals for making
sense of this important reality about poems for making duality between
the meaning and the being of a poem intelligiblethere are five such
proposals each yielding a critical position. (A
somewhat detailed account of these has been presented in Kelkar 1983.) The five positions may now be set out as follows:
(1)
Critical hedonists maintain: A poem need be only in order to delight
and evince aesthetic quality. The
world in a poem is being offered for out delight.
(2)
Critical didactistis maintain: A poem need be only in order to mean,
to communicate some content. T he world in a poem is being offered
for our progressive enlightment.
(3)
Critical formalists maintain: A poem should not mean but be, have
a certain form of its own. The
world in a poem is a self-sufficient, unique whole that is being offered
for our contemplation. Delight is an unexpected bonus, it is not too
wise to seek delight. The
meaning of a poem is locked within it.
(4)
Critical vitalists maintain: A poem should be in order to mean, should
be a form of life. Participation
in poetry is nothing less than a participation in life; then alone
a poem can say more, say it more effectively and more penetratingly.
The world in a poem helps one to recognize reality and real action
for what they meaning of the poetic text.
Living by a poem is often source of delight.
(5)
Critical bipolarists maintain: A poem should mean for it to be, the
form of a poem is as much a shaping of its vehicle material as a shaping
of its content material. How
could a poem be unless it means?
It seeks to discover the form of its content.
That is why it claims to show the form of the formless Janeshvar, Jāneshvari
6:36). The world within a
poem reveals the possibilities of the world without and mans dealings
with it.
It investigating poetic
form, poetic style and technique, and poetic language it is helpful
if not indispensable to take note of this point of dispute, of this
controversy. Thus, the language of poetry is richer than
the language in ordinary use and one assesses a certain language detail
in a poem as appropriate or not in the light of what it is supposed
to accomplishbe it delight or living vibrancy or the imparting of
form to life. So one comes to consider poetic form, style,
technique, language from each of the five critical positions for viewpoints
just set out:
(1)
critical hedonists maintain: The poet almost plays with language.
Technique is a set of devices making for delight.
The recipient is hypnotized.
(2)
Critical didactiscists maintain: The poet makes use of language.
Technique is a set of devices making for communicative success.
The recipient is de-hypnotized and enlightened.
(3)
Critical formalists maintain: The poet recreates language.
Style is the shaping of language qualities that makes the poem
a unique self-sufficient form. It sensitizes the recipient and encourages
creativity.
(4)
Critical vitalists maintain: The poet lives out in language.
Style is the shaping of language gestures that makes a poem
a vibrant form of life. It makes the recipient more mature.
(5)
Critical bipolarists maintain: The poet and the language shape each
other. Style is the shaping
of language qualities and gestures that makes the poem a fusion of
language vehicle and expericental content in a unified form. Technique is the degree of success. The recipient participates in this process.
Mutually distinct as these
five positions are, they are also (as indicated earlier) mutually
related in certain ways, and constitute and ordered array.
In the first place they exhaustively account for the varied
approaches to poetry between them. In the second place, the five positions
fall naturally into certain groupings.
One such grouping is hedonist, formalists, and bipolarists
in one group and didactiscists, vitalists, and bipolarists in the
other group. The first group emphasizes how the language
of poetry attracts the recipients attention to itself and how the
poet pays special attention to it.
The second group emphasizes how the language of poetry is no
more than an extrapolation from ordinary language.
The other grouping is even more important in relation to form,
style, technique. The group
consisting of hedonists and didacticists sets more store by the concept
of technique; never losses sight of the vehicle material of language. The consideration of technique is the consideration of means to
an end; technique is open to change but change is not inevitable;
there is a demand for poetry in society; the demand is satisfied by
making poemssuch is the understanding of this group.
The other group consisting of formalists, vitalists, and bipolarists
sets more store by the concept of style; if it considers the vehicle
material it does so as a part of its consideration of the medium.
The achieved effect of the poem is a function of the inherited
material and the recipients sensibility; style is that function. Style change is not inevitable but is certainly
probable, even natural. If
one considers the two groups together, certain things make an impression
on us. The technique-oriented
critics certainly succeed in convincing us that a poem, no matter
how intense, is not beyond considerations of technique. The poet is
a Craftsman no less than an artist.
The style-oriented critics in their turn succeed in convincing
us that however overt the purpose of poetry happens to be (be it delight
or communication) any text composed in order to meet the resulting
demand will not yield a poem. The poet is an artist no less than a craftsman.
Although we have confined our attention to poetic form, one
hopes that we have thrown some light on the concepts of style and
technique and on their interrelations and their essentially contested
character in relation to all literature.
Finally, let us look at four Medieval Indian poems (presented
in the Appendix), and their style and technique.
(It is not possible to consider technique in isolation from
style.) The poems are:
(1)
A doha or saloku by Kabir: pāni te ati pātala
(2)
A pada or shabada by kabir: kauna thagavā
nagraiyā lutala ho
(3)
An abhanda by Tukaram leading itself to sermonizing: devace
gharin deven keli chori
(4)
An abhanga by Tukaram leading itself to devotiaonal singing:
āvaḍela taisen tuja āḷvina.
The first two poems are in 15th century Sadhukkadi
idiom, that is, Braj as influenced by Khari Boli and the other two
are in 17th century Marathi. And yet they resemble each other enough to
be fruitfully considered together.
Kabir and Tukaram are no court poets considering themselves
to be artists. Rather they consider themselves to be seekers
of God who happen to be poets. There
is a special impropriety and therefore a special appropriateness in
applying secular concepts like style and technique to their poems. (One would not have the same hesitation applying
transcendental concepts of inspiration or genius to their poems) Those
who are quite familiar with Medieval saint-poets of Hindostan and
Maharashtra will also see how Kabir and Tukaram specially resemble
each other and how the two differ from certain other saint-poets like
Surdas or Namdev.
The first four lines of the first poem introduce us to
some friend of Kabirs: water, smoke, wind are accepted standards
for fluidity, rarefaction, agility but are said to be no match to
this friend. What, or rather who, is being talked about? We find out
only at the end of the poem.
One could inventory the tropes of course, but they are too
dissolved into the poem to make any claim on our attention.
Identifying Kabirs friend is more important to us, so drawn
are we into the world in the
poem. Is it the familiar words that bring the unfamiliar
poem to life or is it the poem that brings familiar words to a new
life? The first three lines
feature a shared grammatical pattern:
Noun inanimate + Postposition meaning than +
Modifier meaning very + Adjective (actually the third adjective
is itself intensive and so does not need very)
The three
lines constitute a composite predicate.
The subject of this predicate is presented (contrary to normal
word order) in the fourth line. Sense-wise
the lines are grouped 1, 2, 3, 4 but rhyme-wise they are grouped a,
b; a, b. The first two adjectives suggest inanimateness
(fluid, rarefield); the third (agile) intimates to us that the subject
answers to who? and not what?. When we read any text the impressions
of vehicle-form and content-form tend to remain below the threshold
of the recipients awareness. The same is the case with such technical
details and the resulting impressions.
We do
not propose to undertake such a minute analysis of the remaining
three poems, but we do
invite the readers to do so for themselves.
While one could consider the technique of a poem in isolation
this is not possible with the style of a poem which calls for at least
one other poem for comparison. What
strikes us when we consider the four poems together and compare them
with each other? (One must not, of course, lose sight of the fact
that, whether it is technique or style that we are looking for, one
needs to be an observant participant, a critic-recipient of the poem.
A mere linguist cannot do it however competent an observer
of language the happens to be if insensitive to poetry.
A linguist can certainly help in minute analysisas an assistant. In the absence of the critic such minute analysis
is without any point.)
The comparison of the four poems serves to bring out certain
things. Kabirs dohā (poem I) and Tukarams sermon
worthy abhanga (poem 3) are not suitable for singing. Their appeal is intellect after it is aglow
with feeling. The feeling
of a helpness sense of chasing and at the same time being chased by
the Other has numbed and stirred the intellect into identifying this
Being. On the other hand Kabirs shabada (poem 2) and Tukarams song-worthy
abhanga (poem 4) lend themselves to being sung with devotional passion
in the course of bhajana.. (Instrumental
accompaniment may or may not be there.) Their appeal is to emotion
and (since the songs are by Kabir who is a nirgunabhaka and by Tukaram
who is almost identifies with the dry-eyed bride on the funeral
pyre for a sati; Tukaram with the married daughter pining for her
maternal home while playing her wifely role in her married home.
Now it is certainly true that one could see these poems in
their historical setting, identify the analogues as traditional (thus
we come across the maternal home of the Tukaram poem also in another
poem of Kabirs) and the grammatical parallelism as a recurring technical
feature; one could trace the lineage of do and abhanga as metrical
forms; one could examine how far a distinction between sermon-worthy
and song-worthy poetry is widely available in Medieval Indian religious
poetry; one could find out what motivates the poets signature towards
the end of the poem (says
Kabir, says Tukaram). All
such historical inquires will to only be interesting for their own
sake but also helpful for a richer and deeper understanding of the
poems themselves.
But no
amount of historical scholarship and insight can make up for an absence
of a direct encounter with the poem itself.
Realizing the poem (and poetic style) is conditional upon encountering
the poem. Historical perspective is not a substitute for a genuine
response; at its best it enriches and even deepens this realization.
It will be worthwhile to identify the stylistic qualities and
gestures that characterize the sermon-worthy group of prose poems
(poems 1, 3) and the song-worthy group of song poems (poems 2, 4)
and of course identify the linguistic details that underline the stylistic
qualities and gestures. The prose poems lack x remain, but the song
poems have a refrain. The role of the refrains in the poems will
bear examination:
Kauna thagavā nagariyā lūtala ho (poem 2)
nāhin yethen kānhin
laukikāchi chāḍa/
tujaviṇa
goḍa
devarāyā/(poem4)
In the prose poems there is a sustained play
of arousing curiosity (what could be mode fluid than water? Who could be Kabirs friend? How
could the theft take place without raising alarm? How is it that the
thief is inside the house and yet cannot be caught?). In the song poems such play is absent, in any case not sustained
(consider the mildly playful question that serves as a refrain of
poem 2). The signatures in
the prose poems serve to engage the recipient in a conversational
spell. The signatures in the song poems on the contrary serve to
end the hypnotizing spell of devotional passion and wake the recipient
into a new awareness.1 This inquiry could be continued further and
extended to other prose poems and song poems in Medieval Indian
religious poetry. (I hope
that the readers will do so.) It
is possible that other subgenre than these two will also turn up and
be characterized.
Kabir
and Tukaram both belong to the same broad tradition of Medieval Indian
religious poetry and share, as we have already indicated, the same
nirgunabhakta-like attitude. But
wont their poems manifest their respective personalities?
Certainly they will, but it is all the more necessary to examine
some more poems of each before the personal styles can be described
with some confidence. What
one certainly can do at This
point is to record some initial
----------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Dhond (1975) finds an analogue between the structure of an
abhanga and the four-part structre of the
prabandhaan older form of classical Hindustani music.
The prabandha, it will
be recalled, was divided into udgrāha, dhrupada, antarā,
and ābhoga, where the refrain (dhrupada) follows the opening unit (udgrāha). Thus in poem 4, the verses marked 1, dhru,
2, 3 respectively. The poets
signature in the final verse performs the winding-up function of the
ābhoga. The opening verse performs the leading-in function
of the udgrāha (literally a lifting or raising).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
impressions subject to further elaboration or even
radical modification after a fuller study.
A certain straight-faced, impish sense of humour makes itself
felt in both (consider Kabirs refrain for poem 2 and the whole of
Tukarams poem 3). But perhaps more so in Tuakaram than in Kabir
(well-captured in Arun Kolatars English rendering of poem 3). Kabirs poem 2 and Tukarams poem 4 both use
the analogue of the married woman for the bhakta pining for God. Perhaps
one could see the aching passion of separated love (my beloved is
sulking; my tears have left
the eyes) in poem 2 and the affection and pining of a family separation
(I miss you so much, my (brother), the daughter harps on her maternal home) in poem 4 as differing Hindostani and Maharashtrian manifestations
of Indian culture rather than as differing personal manifestations.
At
this point a doubt may assail us.
Can we really think of this last difference in emotion as a
difference in style? In explicating this difference, are we really
examining the language in each case?
Isnt this undoubted difference of some level higher than
the stylistic level? It must
be said that such a doubt is traceable ultimately to the supposition
that style is exclusively a matter of language in the narrow sense. Some in their enthusiasm have been identified stylistics as a branch
of linguistics. I most emphatically
beg to differ.
Of
course literary style is connected with language which is the vehicle
material of the literary art. But
more essentially style is connected with the medium of literature
which imparts form at once to its language vehicle and its experiential
content. Considering literary stylistics to be branch of linguistic science
is about as bad as identifying the stylistics of sculpture with the
engineers material science: In making this identification we are
guilty of two errors. The
first error is failing to realize that style is an aspect of the medium
as a whole and not merely an aspect of the language vehicle as such.
The second error is failing to realize that the consideration
of style is not the activity of objective, scientific explanation
but the activity of literary criticism with its essentially contested
concepts and value judgements. No
stylistics is a branch of literary criticism.
As
we saw at the outset in mapping the common ground, literature is at
once a species of letters, consisting of linguistic texts and a
species of fine art. Both the errors just mentioned can be explained
as a failure to grasp this Janus-like character of literature. But of course the explanation of an error is
not a justification of it. Once
we rectify this failure, the doubt that assailed us will disappear. The concept of technique has not been restricted
to language when we apply it to the literary art. To consider the
technique of the novel is not merely to consider the language (the
handling of the past tense, the use of the first person, the employment
of rural dialect) but also to consider such matters as plot and characterization. Exactly the same thing applies to considering
the style of the poem. What
is true of the technique and the style of the novel is also true of
the technique and the style of the poem.
(It is about time we discard the equating of literary style
with the mode of language use. If
that was all that there is to it we wouldnt need the essentially
contested concept of style; to speak of the literary language register
would be enough.)
The
removal of the doubt may, however, lead to another doubt. Having accepted that the poetic style of Kabir
and Tukaram open a literary critical study (over the protests of the
devout if need be), and that such a literary critical study will examine
not only the language vehicle but also the experimental content, how
can we include, for example, a consideration of the analogue of the
married woman in the two saint poets and exclude, for example, a consideration
of their theology? In that
case wont literary stylistics simply be the whole literary criticism
and not just a part of literary criticism to literary stylistics,
we have to keep in mind the distinction between the medium of poetry
and the world in a poem out of that medium and the poem as a communicating
text, as a species of letters. Poem I and poem 3 both embody a muted panic,
a helpless feeling that one is chasing and at the same time being
chased by the elusive Other; but this sense is not an aspect of their
poetic style. (One may note in passing that to understand
Kabir or Tukaram to capture this sense. Merely to annote that the two saint poets are
non-dualists who are conveying here the non-difference between the
personal Spirit and the cosmic Sprit, between the Me and the Other,
will hardly do justice to the power of their poetry.) To see how this
senses of helpless is being embodied is to see the style.
One would see, for example, how the analogues of water, smoke,
wind, thug, thief are working hard to this end. (The images
are employing themselves as it were.
One cant bring oneself to say that Kabir and Tukaram have
taken the trouble of seeking the analogues out and employing the images. Even stylistics has its transcendental dimension!)
It is certainly important to save oneself from the error of over-appropriation.
It is even more important not to run away from the risk and
fall into the error of under appropriation.
In
presenting this case study of the four poems by Kabir and Tukaram
there was certainly no intention to present a full-scale study but
rather a modest one of suggesting the liens
along which such a study could be undertaken.
One can only hope that this study, partial through it is, has
served to lend some substance to our earlier theoretical presentation
of the common ground of literary theory, of one of the important points
of dispute arising out of it, and the five alternate critical positions
in respect of that dispute about meaning and being in so far as these
positions impinge on the essentially contested concepts of style and
technique. (One hopes too
that the claim that a consideration of poetic technique cannot usefully
be kept separate from a consideration of poetic style has also been
substantiated.
R E F
E R E N C E S
Dhound
M. V. 1975. Aḍhala dhruācāḍhalā tārā. Satyakathā, July. Printed in:
marāṭhi
saṁshodhama patrikā 22: 4.41-8, July-August-Septemper
1975.
Gadgil,
Jānardhan Sakharam. 1863. Lihiṇyāchi shalili. Marāṭhi jnaprasrika, April, May.
Gallie, W. B. 1965a. Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society
56. 167-88, 1955-6. Reprinted in: Max Black, ed. The Importance of language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
-------------1956b. Art as essentially contested concept. Philosophical Quarterly 6.97-114.
Kelkar, Ashok, R. 1969. The Being of a poem, Foundations of language
5. 17-33. Marathi version,
Kaviteche asatepana. Satyakathā Sept. 1969. Hindi version, Kavitākā honā. Parāmarsha
June 1980; Sept. 1980. Reprinted.
Pūrvagraha May-August 1983.
-------1970. Bhāṣā
sāhitya. Māhārāshtrā
sāhityā patrikā, March 1970. Revised. Vasant S Joshi,
ed. Bāhshā vā sāhityā saṁshodhānā.
Pune: Maharashtra Sahitya
Parishad, 1981. English version,
some notes on language and literature.
Indian Linguistics 31:69-79, 1970.
Hindi version, Bhāṣā aura sāhitya. Alochānā Oct-Dec. 1971, pbul.
Sept. 1972. Revised:
Surseh Kumar; R. N. Srivastava, ed. Shali āura Shailijāna. Agra: Central Institute of Hindi, 1976.
--------1983. Kaviteche sāṅgatepaṇa-In:
Saundarapichāra. Mumbai.
Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangha, 1983.
Hindi version, Kavita kucha kahe kucha kare, Pūrvagraha
May-August 1983. English version,
The Meaning of a poem and the meaning of poetry.
Forthcoming.
------- 1985. Shaili āṇi tantra. R. V. Dhongde; Ashok, R. Kelkar, ed. Marāthi shaili-vichāra. Pune: CASL, Deccan College, 1985. The Marathi
original of Style and technique.
A
P P E N D I X
The texts of poems are presented
below
(1) Kabir, doh, sākhi, soak
֭
ן ֻ֟, ן ߭ 1
־֭ ־ֻ, ß ߸ ߭
2
(2) Kabir, pada, shabada
־
ꅅ 0
Ӥ ֚ ֻ֭ ֙, ָ֯
ֻ 1
֏߸ Ӑ ־ָ,
2
ֵ ִָ֕ ֻӐ ל , ֭
ꅅ3
ָ ֭ ״ֻ ֙ և,
פ ꅅ4
(3) Tukaram, abhanga
֓ ָ , ־
׳֍ָ߅1
Ӿםֵ Ӿ Ӿםֵ ־, ד
־ םֵ Ӿօ2
־ד דֵ ָ, ֬
֙ Ӿֵ־ָ߅3
ߓ , ־ֻ
֓ ևԅ4
(4) Tukaram, abhanga
־֛ ߭,
֙ ִ֭֬ ߾ 녅1
֕
֛
־ߝ ֵָ
0
֭ ӟָ
֟,
ֵָ ߟ ֵ 녅2
,
։ ָ
녅3
(5) Arun Kokatkars free
English rendering of Poem 3
It was a case
Of God rob God.
No cleaner job
Was ever done.
God left God
Without a bean.
God left no trace
No trail no track
The thief was lying
Low
in His flat.
When
he moved
He
moved fast.
Tuka
says:
Nobody was
Nowhere. None
Was plundered
And lost nothing.
COLOPHON:
This was published in Language Form 13:1-6, 1987= Stylistics
and test analysis ed. Suresh kumar, Bahri, New Delhi, 1987. The Mrathi Original was published in Marathi
Shali viehr ed. Ramesh V. Dhonage et at, Deccan College, Pune, 1985. The Hindu version in : Shalitattva: Siddhanata aur Vgavahar
Dakshin Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha, Hyderabad, 1988, and Ashok R.
Kelkar, Triveni Delhi 2004.
