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| Post Graduate Diploma in Translation Studies |
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| UNIT 422-1: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORIES |
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| 422.1.5.5.2: MODERNISM AND MODERNITY |
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| Sometimes, we confuse the decadents' misrepresentation of tradition-consciousness (in their rhetorical superficiality) with the true search of root - which is a typical feature of the 'Uttar-aadhunik' literary position. A tradition or a heritage needs to be aptly honored, not by artificial imposition of folk-element or mythological allusiveness, but with the determination of understanding the infinity of space and time, revealed in heritage and culture : the indigenous serving as a symbol of the heritage of the world, and the world, and the world symbolizing or epitomizing the cosmic truth. In this process, the individual's contribution too is quite important, for example, the heritage of the Indian mythology as manifested in the 'Jataka' is not only received but also developed and changed by later-day literary giants - just as was done by Tagore in 'Shapmochan'. As the story in 'Jataka' goes, the ugly prince Kushkumar married the beautiful Prabhabati who, after leaving Kushkumar for his ugliness, was compelled to return to him by force and threat. Here, Lord Buddha tells this story 'to control and subdue his disciple's passion and infatuation for a woman (Kush Jatak, Saptati Nipat). What gets highlighted in Tagore's treatment of the same theme in 'Sapmochan' is that the wordly passion is a part of cosmic reality. The problem of appearance and reality and the possibility of a human realization if the essentiality of this beauty which from the main aspect of its core were not there in the 'Jataka' tale. The changes brought in by Rabindranath are indication of the actual development which had in the meantime occurred to the infinity of Indian heritage and to the tradition of human culture. Thus, Tagore's work 'Shapmochan' is a part of a larger text which dates back to the Jataka literature. It is with such interconnecting texts that we find literature, art and human civilization developing, advancing and progressing. |
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| In earlier phases of Bengali poetry too, such intertextuality is discernible. The poet of 'Dharmamangala' in the medieval period responded to the Lokayata concept of Dharma which had actually been a development of the Indian incarnation-myth (the myth of the incarnation of Visnu in 'Kurma-Avatar' in this instance). It is not, therefore, surprising that Romila Thapar (in her essay on 'Origin Myth') has established that the Harappan civilization received the myth of Manu and the Great Flood form the Sumerian-Mesopotemian folklore; it came down to the Aryans and gradually became a significance myth of the Indian tradition, contributing to the Avatar-tradition as well. It is also to be noted that the Harappan myth of Manu or the Mesopotemian folklore regarding the Great-Flood is a part of the world-wide myth of the Great Deluge. This is because myths operate through a prototype history which in turn operates through the total consciousness of the people; indeed a very large canvas of human society gets covered by it and that is why in a remote corner of the world, the Bengali poetry of 'Dharmamangal' could and noteworthy strokes of their brush to this canvas. |
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| Modernism is the political philosophy of the bourgeoisie who, as it wants the total man as piecemeal man for the sake of their market-economy and, for the same reason, they would avoid the fundamental cosmic problem when the problem beholds the truth of eternity or infinity. Never before the advent of modernism, human civilization was considered or valued in parts : in the earlier chronics the history of human civilization starts with the story (so far as those chronicles knew) of the creation of universe and ends at the omega point (as they imagine it). But within the tradition of modernist criticism, when literature is studied, divisions in 'periods' are concocted, making way for the 'period of modernism'. The implication if that the modern is always contemporary. It is only because of such position that the vested interest arises to ensure that their 'ism' continues to be alive for years to come. |
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| It may not be out of place to mention here that it was only because of a numberof religious movements which arose within the Roman Catholic Church in the second half of the nineteenth century that the comprehensive term of 'modernism' was created. G.Tyrrell, a major exponent of modernism, defined it as 'the desire and affort to found new theological synthesis'. Evidently an outcome of the inner contradictions within the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, modernism at its outset upheld liberalism though the modernists always claimed to be loyal catholics who wanted to bring traditional dogma into harmony with contemporary knowledge. When it was understood that the world outside the Roman Catholic Church was prepared (it may be remembered that preparations for projecting modernism as an 'ism' had started a century before: consider the Berlin-lecture of Schlegel) to receive the bourgeois philosophy, modernism was brought outside, on the 3rd day of September 1907 to be precise, when the doctrine was 'solemnized'; by 1911, the modernists were able to settle in different parts of France, Italy and Germany, and in some of the high Anglican Churches in England. |
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| It was perhaps coincidental that the primary centers of modernism's settlement were also centers for neo-imperialism and fascism; we may only need to remember the remarkable ambition of Deniel Lerner, 'Modernisation is the current term for a old process --- the process of social change acquired less developed societies acquire characteristics common to more developed societies'. The epithet 'developed' being restricted to the bourgeois development, it is clear like daylight that modernism was needed by the vested interest and the Euro-American bourgeoisie to oppose the natural growth or development (springing from people's struggle and resulting in any other patter of the society alternating capitalist structure) of an undeveloped country. Modernism has thus gained a noble mask to wear. The Chamber's Encyclopedia (vol. ix. 1973) besides citing Daniel Terner, is also implict to point out further, 'The political aspect of modernization includes a political culture, the complex pf prevailing attitudes, beliefs and values concerning the political system'. |
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| 'The complex of prevailing attitudes' is always the keyphrase to modernism and its process including modernization. The advantage of a key-phrase like this is handsome enough for scaring the middle-class intelligensia of failing to be at pace eith the contemporary if they are not 'modern'. In the Oxford English Dictionary (vol.v1. reprint 1970) the adjective 'modern' and its noun-form 'modernity' have recourse to the idea of 'contemporary' for support : as adjective 'modern' means 'i) being at this time, now existing, ii) of or pertaining to the present and recent times, pertaining to or originating in the current age or period, iii) characteristics of the present and recent times, new freshned, not antiquated or absolute, iv) everyday, ordinary, commonplace', as a noun 'modernity' means 'i) the quality or condition of being modern, moderness of character, ii) something that is modern'. |
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