American Voices: A Brief Popular History of the United States in 20 You-Tube Music Videos

February 5, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Someone once wondered if you can play chess without the Queen;  I wonder,  can a poem be written without words?

Certainly no country other than the United States might have its modern history sought to be told of  in a  medley such as this.

SR

Posted in American Civil War, American history, American music, American philosophy, American popular culture, American voices, Family Values, Film and cinema, Freedom, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Literary Criticism, Literature, Men and women, Music videos, Poetry, United States Civil War, United States history, USA, United States, War, World War, YouTube. Leave a Comment »

A Literary Find: Modern Poetry in Bengali 1914-1936

October 6, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

We have made a literary find today, October 6 2008,  of a notebook of Manindranath Roy’s  that he had titled Mandakini.  It contains some 51 poems and poetic songs composed between 1914 and 1936,  from when he was  aged about 23 to when he was 45.  He has been dead fifty years now and no one knew of the existence of these poems until today.   Nor had he told anyone of the work (perhaps because some of the poems are especially candid).  Between about 1933 and 1943  Manindranath had found himself facing trials and tribulations  of such gravity and magnitude (caused in part by his own foolish squandering of his inheritance from his father) that he may have wished to  forget, ignore or even regret his creative  period.

Many of the poems are recorded  as having been published in literary journals of the time, like Bharatbarsha and Bichitra, and some are recorded as having been sung or performed  on the new radio service of the time, especially around 1931.

Here is poem number 48 titled “Saratchandra” in honour of his friend, the novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya.   Manindranath as a poet would have been certainly inspired  in his modernity by his association with Sarat  – while Sarat benefitted economically by the association and also may have found characters and plots for his novels (he apparently dedicated one at least to Manindranath’s wife, my grandmother).

When all of Mandakini is published in due course, it is not impossible  Manindranath  will come to  be recognised  as among the finest modern  Bengali poets of his era.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata October 6 2008

Posted in Bengal, Bengali modern literature, Bengali poetry, India's culture, Literary Criticism, Literature, Manindranath Roy, Poetry, Radio, Roys of Behala, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya. Leave a Comment »

Works of DH Lawrence

July 30, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

It seems incredible that DH Lawrence from about 1910 until his death in 1930 produced this immense body of creative work and perhaps more I am unaware of:

Novels:

St Mawr

Aaron’s Rod

Kangaroo

The White Peacock

Sons and Lovers

The Trespasser

The Lost Girl

Women in Love

The Rainbow

The Plumed Serpent

The Virgin and the Gypsy

(with ML Skinner) The Boy in the Bush

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Short Stories:

The Prussian Officer

England, my England

The Captain’s Doll

Twilight in Italy

The Woman Who Rode Away

Poetry

Bay

Look! We have come through!

Amores

Birds, Beasts and Flowers

Tortoises

Love Poems and Others

New Poems

Pansies

Collected Poems

Plays

Touch and Go

The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd

David

Belles Lettres etc

Studies in Classic American Literature

Movements in European History

Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious

Fantasia of the Unconscious

Sea and Sardinia

Mornings in Mexico

Translations of Giovanni Verga: Lttle Novels of Sicily

Phoenix: Posthumous Papers edited and with an introduction by Edward D. McDonald

The Letters of DH Lawrence, edited and with an introduction by Aldous Huxley

(Secondary Literature: DH Lawrence: Novelist by FR Leavis)

Of related interest here: “DH Lawrence’s ‘Phoenix’”; “On Lawrence”.

Posted in Aesthetics, Art, Beauty, Books, Britain, British history, DH Lawrence, DH Lawrence's novels, DH Lawrence's travels, FR Leavis, Life and death, Literary Criticism, Literature, Love, Men and women, Poetry, Science, Religion, Literature. Leave a Comment »
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