Brief notes on known and unknown writers

Professor Sunanda Mahendra

LITERATURE: The literary enthusiasts all over the world are interested in knowing how the creative spark of those writers, whom they liked, kindled during their span of life spent with them or before them, and as such, the biographers of varying types find it interesting to uncover some of the so far un searched or briefly known material about them in order to address this desire.

In this search for the lives led by the writers, some biographers take a snapshot view of some of the salient and vital points, while some others give detailed portraits via interviews and narrative styles.

The collection of pen portraits of writers, as presented by journalist Thanuja Dharmapala is mainly a concern on poets of many lands [*lokaye vishista lekhaka tatu*, Godage 2006, or facts pertaining to the lives of great writers of the world].

The collection of short essays in this anthology had stemmed out of a series of short columns written to a poetry page in a Sunday newspaper, and as such, they are more focussed on the poetic aspects of each of the writers.

Perhaps the poets of our country may have been highly inspired by these known and unknown facts of writers, who have basically composed poems of a varying nature and of diverse interest.

Though due to an oversight either the compiler or the publisher had not presented a list of contents at a glance, the reader may have the chance of scanning the pages and come across experiences and life styles of such poets as Goethe, Shelley, Keats, Lorca, Brecht, Browning, Plath, Naidu, Tagore, Ezra Pound Akhmatova, Eliot, Khayyum, Milton, Pushkin, Gibran, Neruda etc.

There is a personal note on the part of the compiler Dharmapala, which goes to say that this interest in her to compile a series of pen portraits of poets was kindled as a result of her literary studies gained in an academic career spent in Russia, which culminated in the gaining of a profession in the field of communication.

In this direction, the compiler is more a translator from Russian to Sinhala, much more than from English to Sinhala.

Goethe

Though few learned articles have been written about the life and works of Goethe, perhaps this is the moment when the writer philosopher is seen in a lighter vein elucidating the intrinsic value of his contribution to the world literary visions.

The compiler takes a few works like the 'lover's caprice' and 'Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship' and attempts to give a synoptic view via translation, basically some of his shorter poems [which I read through the translations of Stephen Spender few years back].

Though a full length of Goethe's work is not found in translation still in Sinhala, perhaps this may give an insight to the nature of his work and perhaps inspire someone to take up the task. But I doubt the availability of capable translators in this mission.

Though the Colombo poets of our country say that some of them were inspired by reading the poems of Shelley, I wonder whether this is a truth, as there is not a single poem of Shelley translated into Sinhala.

Dharmapala in a very short sketch outlines the nature of his poetry and provides the background for the reader to go in search of his contributions, as listed by her at the end of the sketch. Then we come to the better pasture of Keats, where the compiler helps to understand what the 'ode' meant to the original poet, as he was more known to that poetic genre popularised by himself.

Quite a number of poems of Garcia Lorca are found in several other books published earlier and featured in this column. This book helps by way of providing supplementary material on the poet and his works.

It is necessary to see that the illumination of poetry depends largely on the selection from the originals rather than from a secondary source from which it is translated.

In this aspect, those who are acquainted with the original languages matter especially the tonal expressions I wish to cite the Haiku poemes translated from English into Sinhala, and I felt that there is a gap of tonal expression as a result of the lack of knowledge in the original poetic expressions.

Here, too, I felt that the inadequacy in the tonal expressions from Spanish to Sinhala is barrier to sensitively capture the essence of the poetic experience.

What Dharmapala does here is once again peep into the large gamut of works by Lorca during his short span of life presenting a synoptic view to the Sinhala reader Lorca is more known in our country as a dramatist, whose works have been staged over the years.

Brecht

Then comes the case of Bertolt Brecht, whose works are known albeit some of his independent poetic creations found in several English and German anthologies.

Compiler Dharmapala makes an attempt to re-translate some of his poetic works with short interpretations, once again in the briefest possible manner, as suited for a newspaper, but in this anthology she could have added more material and avoid repetitions as far as possible that I felt was severe shortcoming for an anthology of this calibre.

Though short, the essay on the poetic aspects of the Indian poetess Sarojini Naidu [1879-1949] is a pioneering contribution for some of her poems are adapted as songs and one such example is the well known song sung by Pundit Amaradeva titled Sannaliyane based on the poem 'the weavers', adapted by the late poet Mahagama Sekara.

The Bengali poet Tagore is of special interest to the local reader, as most of his books have been translated from the original Bengali, and from English and found a special appeal by way of his songs, plays novels short stories and poems.

Several hands have tried to translate the well-known Gitanjali into Sinhala from time to time, and this is a continuous flux raising alternative styles of expression. But to my mind, poet Tagore still remains to be re-explored re-read and re-interpreted in the light of the new literary trends [and not the pseudo post modernisms as applied in the Sinhala journals and books today, as he will be demystified for sure!].

One of the pioneering short essays is the one on the poetic works of Sylvia Plath whose works remained as posthumous items compiled by Ted Hughes.

Though the sense of the poetic expressions possessed by her are not seen sensitively captured in this context her initial insights to the development of poetic trends is expressed.

Similarly the short essay on the works of Ezra Pound is significant, as his contribution is not traced in any Sinhala anthology of this calibre.

This compilation of Thanuja Dharamapala could be acceptable from two points of view. First, this could be regarded as a supplementary reader at the school level for those, who wish to enter the realms of world literature, and second, this could be a reference book for those, who wish to acquire encyclopaedic knowledge on some of the writers, whom the reader has not discovered so far and proceed from where the compiler stopped.

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