ABSTRACT
In this essay, Fakir Mohan Senapati undertakes a pungent reassessment of the iconic Bangla epic Meghanadvadh Kavya (1861) written by Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824-73). Fakir Mohan’s response to Meghanadvadh Kavya reflects his abiding interest in epic as a literary form. It may be recalled here that he devoted a substantial part of his career to translating into Odia Ramayana and Mahabharata. This enables him to carry out a sustained comparison between Valmiki’s epic and Michael Madhusudan’s kavya, especially in the domain of characterization; this essay, therefore, constitutes an early attempt at adopting a comparative critical approach. Another point worth mentioning here is that the impressive achievement of modern Bangla literature was an inescapable reference point for Odia writers and critics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moreover, as a pioneer in the field of realistic prose fiction, Fakir Mohan feels inclined to analyze Meghanadvadh Kavya in the light of emerging conventions governing realistic prose narratives, especially that of plausibility. At the same time, he evaluates the kavya employing the rasa theory. His irreverent humour enlivens the essay. Fakir Mohan focuses upon the following deficiencies of Meghanadvadh Kavya. Michael Madhusudan’s portrayal of major characters of the epic such as Pramila, Sita, Hanuman receive Fakir Mohan’s harsh censure; he finds them unconvincing and sometimes utterly ridiculous. The language of Meghanadvadh Kavya Fakir Mohan finds unpleasantly masculine. Fakir Mohan criticizes Michael Madhusudan’s depiction of heaven and hell for it conveys, in his view, Christian ideas of the world beyond death. He takes Michael Madhusudan to task most severely for his failure to create ideal characters worthy of emulation. He looks upon Valmiki’s Ramayana as primarily a Hindu religious text and therefore mounts a trenchant attack on Michael Madhusudan’s attempt to rewrite it as a purely literary epic. Fakir Mohan expresses here the view that most readers are not yet ready to distinguish between sacred and literary texts. It may be mentioned here that Fakir Mohan’s provocative reassessment of the celebrated Bangla kavya drew an impassioned and detailed rebuttal from Dhirendra Nath Chaudhury which was published in the April 1905 issue of Utkal Sahitya. It may be noted here that before professional/academic critics appeared on the scene major writers shaping critical discourse.
