Category Great Poets

               Sylvia Plath was a genius who was troubled by mental illness. She published her first poem when she was eight, and won several literary contests while she was in high school.

               Sylvia Plath was born on October 27th, 1932. Her first poem appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. Plath graduated from Smith College with the highest honours in 1955. Later she studied at Newnham College in Cambridge on a Fulbright fellowship.

               She married Ted Hughes, the English poet in 1956, and moved to England in 1959. Shortly afterwards, ‘The Colossus’ her first collection of poems was published. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1962.

               Sylvia Plath wrote at a feverish pace during the last three years of her life. Death, self destruction, and a sense of isolation haunt her poems. Her thorny relation with her father was explored in poems such as ‘Daddy’. She suffered from severe clinical depression. She attempted suicide and sought treatment for her illness. Plath drew on her traumatic experiences to write ‘The Bell Jar’, her only novel. Sylvia Plath committed suicide in 1963.

               ‘Ariel’, a collection of her poems became a landmark in literature. She was perhaps the greatest American poetess of the twentieth century.

            Seamus Heaney wrote poetry that was pleasing to the ear. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1995.

            Heaney who was Irish, grew up in County Derry, and lived for many years in Dublin. ‘Death of a Naturalist’ and ‘Door into the Dark’, are his verse collections of great beauty.

            Heaney was often termed as a regional poet. ‘New Selected Poems, 1966-1987’, published in 1990 was a collection of poems that differed radically from his early verse.

            His collection ‘Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996’ was widely praised’. ‘District and Circle’, won the T.S. Eliot Prize, the most prestigious poetry award in the UK. Heaney was known for the translation of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem ‘Beowulf’, in 2000. He wrote 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several anthologies.

            Seamus Heaney passed away on 30th August, 2013. His body is buried at the cemetery of St. Mary’s Church, Bellaghy in Northern Ireland.

               The great sage Valmiki has the distinction of being the author of the holy epic ‘Ramayana’. The epic narrates the struggle of the divine prince Rama to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. ‘Ramayana’ consists of nearly 24,000 verses divided into seven Kandas and about 500 sargas.

               ‘The epic Ramayana’, dated variously from 5th century BC to first century BC. Valmiki is revered as Adi Kavi, the first poet.

               According to legend, Maharishi Valmiki was born as Ratnakara. At a very young age, Ratnakara went into the forest and got lost. A hunter, who was passing by, saw Ratnakara and took him under his own care. Ratnakara turned out to be an excellent hunter. Later, he started robbing people because he found it impossible to feed his large family.

               One day, Ratnakara tried to rob the great sage Narada. However, Narada was a divine sage, and he made Ratnakara understand that robbing and killing was wrong. He advised Ratnakara that by chanting Rama’s name, he could wash away all his sins. Ratnakara started chanting the name without stopping. As he performed his penance for several years, huge anthills grew around him and this earned him the name Valmiki. Later, Valmiki wrote ‘Ramayana’, the great epic. Valmiki-Adi Kavi was the torch bearer for generations of poets. 

               The ‘Mahabharata’ is one of the greatest marvels in the literature-of the world. Veda Vyasa was the sage who gave the world this storehouse of realism, wisdom, and compassion. He is also the author of the Brahma Sutras, and is considered an incarnation of Lord Vishnu himself.

               Veda Vyasa was a genius by birth. He performed rigorous penance and practiced austerity in the Himalayas in order to realize the Supreme Truth that he explained in the Vedas and Upanishads. There is a very interesting event associated with the writing of the Mahabharata. Veda Vyasa needed to concentrate on the composing, and he needed someone to write it down as he recited the verses. It was Ganesha, who agreed to do so.

               The Mahabharata is the longest epic in the world, longer than the Odyssey and Iliad put together! It is the narrative that contains all narratives. A verse from the epic reads, ‘What is found here may be found elsewhere. What is not found here will not be found elsewhere’. Is it any wonder that the Mahabharata- and Veda Vyasa – are considered to be immortal? 

               Kalidasa, India’s greatest Sanskrit poet and dramatist lived during the fifth century. His most famous works are the dramas ‘Abhijnanashakuntalam’ or ‘The Recognition of Shakuntala, ‘Vikramorvashiyam’ or Urvashi Won by Valour and ‘Malavikagnimitram’ or Malavika and Agnimitra.

               He also wrote the epic poems ‘Raghuvansa’ and ‘Kumarasambhava’ and the lyric ‘Meghaduta’. According to legend, Kalidasa was so handsome that he caught the attention of a princess who married him. However, as legend has it, Kalidasa had grown up without much education, and the princess was ashamed of his ignorance and coarseness.

               A devoted worshipper of the goddess Kali, Kalidasa is said to have called upon his goddess for help and was rewarded with a sudden and extraordinary gift of wit.

               He is then said to have become the most brilliant of the ‘nine gems’ at the court of the fabulous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. 

               Kabir was a great poet-saint of the fifteenth century. His poems were written in vernacular Hindi. The Avadhi, Braj, and Bhojpuri dialects influenced the language of his poetry. Love for the Almighty and devotion to Him are the major themes of his poems. Kabir Das is believed to be the author of ‘Kabir Bijak’, ‘Kabir Parachai’, ‘Sakhi Granth’, ‘Adi Granth’ and ‘Kabir Granthawali’.

               Sur das was a sightless saint who wrote and sung lyrics in praise of Krishna. He lived in the sixteenth century. Vallabha Acharya is believed to have been his guru. The two holy men may have met in 1510. ‘Sur Sagar’ or ‘Sur’s Ocean’ is regarded as his masterpiece, and includes hundreds of devotional poems.

               Tulsidas was the author of ‘Ramcharitmanas’. ‘Ramcharitmanas’ is a retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana in Awadhi. Tulsidas was a poet, and saint. ‘Geetawali’ and ‘Sahitya Ratna’ were the other important works of Tulsidas.

               Michael Madhusudan Dutt is known as the father of the Bengali sonnet. Born on 25th January, 1824, Dutt’s life was strikingly similar to Lord Byron’s. Dutt was influenced by the poems of Byron.

               ‘Maghnad Bodh Kavya’ is a tragic epic of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Written in nine cantos, this outstanding epic is notable for its style and content. He also wrote poems on the agonies experienced by women, in love. ‘Tilottoma Sambhava Kavaya’ was Dutt’s first Bengali poem.

               ‘Tilottoma Sambhava Kavya’ was a trendsetter in Bengali literature. Michael Madhusudan Dutt wrote ‘The Captive Ladie’, a poem. However, the poem failed to impress critics.

               ‘Maghnad Bodh Kavya’ was the magnum opus of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. This tragic epic depicts the end of Maghnad, the son of Ravana. Michael Madhusudan Dutt died on 29th June 1873. 

               Rabindranath Tagore was a literary legend whose works linked the East and the West. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for ‘Gitanjali’, a collection of poems that shows Tagore’s insights into the relationship between nature and God. He was the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize.

               He was born on May 7th, 1861, in Calcutta in a famous family. His father, Devendranath Tagore was a noted social reformer. In ‘Manasi’ Tagore introduced new verse forms to Bengali literature. ‘Sonar Tari’ is another well known poetry collection.

               Tagore also wrote over 2000 songs. His songs and poems are popular throughout Bengal. In 1915, Tagore was offered a knighthood, but the patriot refused the honour in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Tagore wrote Jana Gana Mana, the National Anthem of India as well as Amar Shonar Bangla, the Bangladeshi national anthem. The Sri Lankan national anthem was also inspired by Tagore’s work. Tagore is also known as the Bard of Bengal.