kottha kavithallO kavi samayAlu
Ramarao, Ram (Ram_Ramarao@tri.sbc.com)
Fri, 23 May 1997 14:42:26 -0500
I have recently embarked on an experiment and wanted to see the existing
literature on this subject before proceeding further.
Here's the background: Let us assume as fact that the semantics of
traditional poetry (in Telugu and Sanskrit) can be almost completely
deduced by a) dictionary meanings of the words, b) a proper ordering of
the words, c) some vibhakthi additions when needed, and d) kavi
samayams. (This applies to most works of SriSri and a number of "modern"
poets as well.) While there may be some rare exceptions, this is
generally so. But when we get to more modern poetry, this is no longer
true (in my view). (In fact, it seems to me that there is need for a
major paradigm shift.) While Dhvani plays some role in the older poetry,
it appears that a large fraction of the recent poetry is based on Dhvani
predominently, with the other aspects listed above playing a
significantly smaller role. As a consequence, it becomes very difficult
to explain exactly what a specific piece of poetry is saying, leading to
highly subjective interpretations. (I have seen people simply picking
some words from here and there in the piece and interpret the whole
piece by postulating some relationships among those words, these
relationships in no apparent way implied by the remaining words. Is that
the way these are supposed to be understood?) I have recently been
reading a lot of these poems (one source is a book "KavithA O KavithA",
a compilation of 100 selected poems that appeared between 1981-90, apart
from compilations of individual poets such as Jayaprabha, Tripura, etc.)
and ran into this problem. I have had substantial exposure to the
traditional literature (may be that is the root cause of my troubles)
and never felt so helpless in trying to understand the poet. Imagery,
Dhvani, highly indirect referencing to events of specialized interest
and locality, personalization, etc. appear to be the norm so that to
fully appreciate the poet, the reader needs not just the language tools
but much more.
What I am trying to do: In essence, my very ambitious goal is to
identify all the tools one needs to understand this recent poetry as
clearly as the traditional one and then "build" those tools that do not
yet exist in any formal form. An example is the so-called kavi samayams:
In the traditional poetry, expressions such as simha swapnam, relations
of moon and sun to flowers, oceans, etc. convey a certain imagery in
spite of the scientific facts invalidating the truth of most of those
specific expressions. Many of those were borrowed from stories in
purAnAs, upanishads, myths, and so on. I see that there are similar kavi
samayams emerging in the modern poetry too, some based on the same
sources but others not (for example, stories from other cultures and
traditions). Another example is the "method of interpretation" itself:
For some pieces, it appears that the way to interpret is, as I was
saying above, to just pick out some "critical" words and then somehow
form relationships among them. I looked at some critiques that got the
authors Ph.D.s (a recent one I saw dealt with kAvya bimba parisIlana)
but am not satisfied with them - the test being simply whether I could
understand even the literal meaning of a piece of poetry using whatever
they were proposing.
What I am asking is: have any of you come across or have yourself done
work in this area? If you do, can you give me (and perhaps the Telusa
community) a synopsis of these works? It would be greatly helpful if you
take a non-trivial piece and walk through it like the tippaNi they used
to provide for the traditional works.
Meaningful responses will be much appreciated.
K.V.S. Ramarao (ramarao@tri.sbc.com)