2023-03-29 18:09:48 by ambuda-bot
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THE ADEQUACY OF THE "ALAMKARIKA" POETIC
(a) Is the theoretic system itself complete; are its constitutive principles
adequately worked out in their implications?
71
(b) Does that system adequately distinguish poetry as a genre from
other kinds of expression?
(c) Is the treatment of poetry internally well differentiated? Does the
poetic adequately describe the aims, means and varieties of the poetry
which constitutes its subject matter?
The first two points have been sufficiently discussed in what precedes,
as far as the alamkāraśāstra is concerned.
Question (c) can be interpreted in two senses which we might call
"contextual" and "metaphysical". De, Dasgupta, and Keith, the standard
Western or Westernized interpreters of Indian poetics, prefer to see all
poetics addressed to an abstract genre "poetry", to the nature of poetry
per se,159 and to account for the variety of poetics in terms of varyingly
adequate responses to that problem. In this section we will ask whether
the poetic may not be better accounted for by relating it to a kind or
style of poetry which was actually cultivated at a given time in India.
The alamkāra criticism, from the emphasis it places on the mahākävya¹80
and from the style of exemplification it adopts, is evidently addressed to
the stanzaic poetry of the Indian classical period. This poetic genre has
certain definite characteristics, which shape not only the aims and achieve-
ments of the poetry, but, ipso facto, limit the criticism focussing upon it.
These factors are well known, and we will not do anything here but sum-
marize them in outline and show how certain biases of the poetic turn
out to be in fact admirably descriptive of the genre.
The poetry of classical India was microcosmic poetry. The locus of
composition was a minimal unit of expression, the stanza, and this is
to be understood in a quite radical way as excluding larger units of com-
position such as the chapter or the work itself.161 The latter are in typical
cases not even present, as, for example, in the anthological and thematic
collections of Amaru and Mayūra. But even those compositions which
have a story or a plot, however loose-the mahākāvya par excellence-
retain the stanza as the unit of composition. Much that appears at first
blameworthy in classical poetry is explicable in terms of the de-emphasis
of the story. The story is never central; it is at best a pretext for stringing
poem as the product of the poet's mind" (De, cited above, n. 156).
Also called sargabandha, treated as poetry par excellence by Bhāmaha (1.18ff.)
and Dandin (1.14ff.).
150
H
161 See Renou, "Sur la structure du Kavya", Journal Asiatique, 1959, pp. 1ff; the genre
"stanzaic poetry" is defined, and its stylistics are thoroughly described from the point
of view of grammatical usage.
(a) Is the theoretic system itself complete; are its constitutive principles
adequately worked out in their implications?
71
(b) Does that system adequately distinguish poetry as a genre from
other kinds of expression?
(c) Is the treatment of poetry internally well differentiated? Does the
poetic adequately describe the aims, means and varieties of the poetry
which constitutes its subject matter?
The first two points have been sufficiently discussed in what precedes,
as far as the alamkāraśāstra is concerned.
Question (c) can be interpreted in two senses which we might call
"contextual" and "metaphysical". De, Dasgupta, and Keith, the standard
Western or Westernized interpreters of Indian poetics, prefer to see all
poetics addressed to an abstract genre "poetry", to the nature of poetry
per se,159 and to account for the variety of poetics in terms of varyingly
adequate responses to that problem. In this section we will ask whether
the poetic may not be better accounted for by relating it to a kind or
style of poetry which was actually cultivated at a given time in India.
The alamkāra criticism, from the emphasis it places on the mahākävya¹80
and from the style of exemplification it adopts, is evidently addressed to
the stanzaic poetry of the Indian classical period. This poetic genre has
certain definite characteristics, which shape not only the aims and achieve-
ments of the poetry, but, ipso facto, limit the criticism focussing upon it.
These factors are well known, and we will not do anything here but sum-
marize them in outline and show how certain biases of the poetic turn
out to be in fact admirably descriptive of the genre.
The poetry of classical India was microcosmic poetry. The locus of
composition was a minimal unit of expression, the stanza, and this is
to be understood in a quite radical way as excluding larger units of com-
position such as the chapter or the work itself.161 The latter are in typical
cases not even present, as, for example, in the anthological and thematic
collections of Amaru and Mayūra. But even those compositions which
have a story or a plot, however loose-the mahākāvya par excellence-
retain the stanza as the unit of composition. Much that appears at first
blameworthy in classical poetry is explicable in terms of the de-emphasis
of the story. The story is never central; it is at best a pretext for stringing
poem as the product of the poet's mind" (De, cited above, n. 156).
Also called sargabandha, treated as poetry par excellence by Bhāmaha (1.18ff.)
and Dandin (1.14ff.).
150
H
161 See Renou, "Sur la structure du Kavya", Journal Asiatique, 1959, pp. 1ff; the genre
"stanzaic poetry" is defined, and its stylistics are thoroughly described from the point
of view of grammatical usage.