2023-03-29 18:09:51 by ambuda-bot
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classical) Prākritic lyrics, like those of Hala and the Buddhist canon.
Also outside the purview of this poetic was the purely narrative literature,
partly gnomic and didactic, such as the Pañcatantra or the classic Bṛhatka-
tha. Here the story, without embellishment, carries the interest of the
reader, and the linguistic form is of less import-a simile here and there
for exposition. But the Indian tradition does not consider these literary
works as kävya. Kavya is that literary form whose interest is carried by
its ideal or grammatical shape-that shape which is so exhaustively
examined by the figurationists.
The origins of kavya are perhaps connected with the realization that
language need not always be subservient to a utilitarian object-its
reference whether it is something as mundane as a story or something
as remote as the eternal truth. Each language has a proper form, which
is independent of all subject matter and which, when recognized as such,
can be manipulated according to its inherent canons of excellence, thus
defining its own beauty. The kävya represents such a poetic ideal deter-
mined within the formal categories and possibilities of the Sanskrit
language.
CONCLUSION
The alamkāraśāstra represents a very minor step forward--from poetry
to the conceptualization of poetry. It is an attempt to state and arrange
the forms which freely used constitute poetry according to their implied
ideal categories. The field of interest is thus relatively narrow, and histor-
ically is quite precise: a certain modality of language, determined as
beautiful in itself. Language determined by an extrinsic end may be
secondarily beautiful, but its conceptualization does not properly concern
the poetician. Specific references to a subject matter are of course crucial
to the perception of the figure and heighten its comprehension; but a
subject viewed as technically necessary is a far cry from the subject as a
"great idea", & conception infusing a work of art and architectonically
becoming its central issue. This option lies outside that of the kävya,
and therefore of the alamkāraśāstra. It even fails to interest later poeti-
cians, whose notions of religious bhakti are to some extent more subject-
oriented than the pure poetry of the kävya. Even here the rasa communi-
cated by the poem is in the last analysis a function, albeit emotional, of
its form alone and not a conception imposed upon the poem; it is under-
stood in all the poetics as an expressive function of language itself,
hence not decisively different from the vakrokti of the alamkārikas.
classical) Prākritic lyrics, like those of Hala and the Buddhist canon.
Also outside the purview of this poetic was the purely narrative literature,
partly gnomic and didactic, such as the Pañcatantra or the classic Bṛhatka-
tha. Here the story, without embellishment, carries the interest of the
reader, and the linguistic form is of less import-a simile here and there
for exposition. But the Indian tradition does not consider these literary
works as kävya. Kavya is that literary form whose interest is carried by
its ideal or grammatical shape-that shape which is so exhaustively
examined by the figurationists.
The origins of kavya are perhaps connected with the realization that
language need not always be subservient to a utilitarian object-its
reference whether it is something as mundane as a story or something
as remote as the eternal truth. Each language has a proper form, which
is independent of all subject matter and which, when recognized as such,
can be manipulated according to its inherent canons of excellence, thus
defining its own beauty. The kävya represents such a poetic ideal deter-
mined within the formal categories and possibilities of the Sanskrit
language.
CONCLUSION
The alamkāraśāstra represents a very minor step forward--from poetry
to the conceptualization of poetry. It is an attempt to state and arrange
the forms which freely used constitute poetry according to their implied
ideal categories. The field of interest is thus relatively narrow, and histor-
ically is quite precise: a certain modality of language, determined as
beautiful in itself. Language determined by an extrinsic end may be
secondarily beautiful, but its conceptualization does not properly concern
the poetician. Specific references to a subject matter are of course crucial
to the perception of the figure and heighten its comprehension; but a
subject viewed as technically necessary is a far cry from the subject as a
"great idea", & conception infusing a work of art and architectonically
becoming its central issue. This option lies outside that of the kävya,
and therefore of the alamkāraśāstra. It even fails to interest later poeti-
cians, whose notions of religious bhakti are to some extent more subject-
oriented than the pure poetry of the kävya. Even here the rasa communi-
cated by the poem is in the last analysis a function, albeit emotional, of
its form alone and not a conception imposed upon the poem; it is under-
stood in all the poetics as an expressive function of language itself,
hence not decisively different from the vakrokti of the alamkārikas.