2023-03-29 18:09:53 by ambuda-bot
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POSTSCRIPT
Within the perspective of the history of Indian poetry, a case can be made
for the adequacy of the figurative poetic. As a matter of fact, viewing
the poetics and the poetry together offers more hope of resolving ad-
mittedly difficult problems of aesthetic interpretation than does the
arbitrary application to either the poetry or the poetic of foreign literary
and critical values or notions of aesthetic progress. But a prerequisite
of this approach is that the alamkāra criticism be taken seriously as
criticism, as an attempt to understand a kind of poetry in its form and
aim.
The question of a universal aesthetic is possible only in historical terms.
The false universality of the present may lead the more enthusiastic
critic to propose values and ideals for all time. In fact, even his criticism
assumes, and is dated by, the literary and cultural ideas of his age. It
appears quite unfruitful, given the enormous differences in the dimensions
of time and taste, to expect Indian criticism to have explored problems
whose relevance is a product of our recent past and of a different spirit.
It is in the realm of its assumptions that one civilization or civilized
tradition is most irreducibly different from another. These assumptions
color the same apparent fact, the same apparent problem, the same
apparent solutions, and give to them wholly novel dimensions-absurd
dimensions, if the historian-cum-critic insists on his own assumptions.
We do not intend here an extreme form of historicism, which indeed
would be as false to the Indian views of time and history as are those we
have criticized. The appearance of universality and total validity is an
essential aspect of the historical sequence of forms and indeed, in good
Hegelian terms, could be said to be worked out through that developing
sequence. This appears to offer more hope for understanding the peculiar
genius of what was certainly one of the most brilliant of India's civilized
traditions.
Within the perspective of the history of Indian poetry, a case can be made
for the adequacy of the figurative poetic. As a matter of fact, viewing
the poetics and the poetry together offers more hope of resolving ad-
mittedly difficult problems of aesthetic interpretation than does the
arbitrary application to either the poetry or the poetic of foreign literary
and critical values or notions of aesthetic progress. But a prerequisite
of this approach is that the alamkāra criticism be taken seriously as
criticism, as an attempt to understand a kind of poetry in its form and
aim.
The question of a universal aesthetic is possible only in historical terms.
The false universality of the present may lead the more enthusiastic
critic to propose values and ideals for all time. In fact, even his criticism
assumes, and is dated by, the literary and cultural ideas of his age. It
appears quite unfruitful, given the enormous differences in the dimensions
of time and taste, to expect Indian criticism to have explored problems
whose relevance is a product of our recent past and of a different spirit.
It is in the realm of its assumptions that one civilization or civilized
tradition is most irreducibly different from another. These assumptions
color the same apparent fact, the same apparent problem, the same
apparent solutions, and give to them wholly novel dimensions-absurd
dimensions, if the historian-cum-critic insists on his own assumptions.
We do not intend here an extreme form of historicism, which indeed
would be as false to the Indian views of time and history as are those we
have criticized. The appearance of universality and total validity is an
essential aspect of the historical sequence of forms and indeed, in good
Hegelian terms, could be said to be worked out through that developing
sequence. This appears to offer more hope for understanding the peculiar
genius of what was certainly one of the most brilliant of India's civilized
traditions.