Literary Analysis of the Poems With Similar Themes— Poet William Wordsworth And Kazi Nazrul Islam

 ABSTRACT:

Poet William Wordsworth and Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote some poems in their lifetime that embraced similar themes. Their poems contained the themes of death, love, passion and pain. Both poets adorned their imagery with the elements of nature while expressing their pain and emotion. They demonstrated their ability and avidity to derive some moments from the alluring nature amidst melancholy, unhappiness and desolation that shrouded them completely when their little daughter and son had died. Poet Wordsworth as a narrator manipulated the image of an unknown solitary girl while she was singing and reaping crops in the valley of Scottish Highland. He was attracted to the melancholic tone of her song that she was singing. A touch of those moments of resonance and vibration emanated from the bereaved heart of the girl broke down poet’s all barriers and created a profound empathy for her in his heart. He used his great power of poetic imagination and passion together to create the poem ‘The Solitary Reaper’. The other narrator Poet Nazrul narrated his pain of alienation and deep love for an unknown and unrevealed lover. He exploited his emotion and imagination as the vital source, power and volition to create his poem ‘My Lover without a Name’. A poem cannot take shape itself without the poet’s flowing feelings and creative imagination. The two romantic poets used their meaningful imagination to roam around their poems with superb literary sense and poetic talents. They utilized their elevated emotion, passion, resentments and sorrows along with the beauteous nature, reachable to all common readers, as their fundamental condition to write a poem. Poet Wordsworth’s poems ‘The Solitary Reaper’ and ‘Surprised by joy’ and Poet Nazrul’s poems ‘Deep in sleep’ (Bengali poem: ‘Ghumiye geche sranto hoiye’) and ‘My lover without a name’ (Bengali poem: ‘O-namika’) were taken as the material source of analysis. Both poets have created an image that is descriptive and that image is conveyed to the readers with extreme reality. Their imagination is not just faithfully copied from the nature rather it is mingled with their own elegant poetic testimony and manifestation.

INTRODUCTION:

A deeper literary and comparative analysis of the following poems has been made on the basis of context, topic, tone, conflict, and motifs of the poems. The approach of the subject matter and the striking features of the language in the poems are also analyzed. In ‘The solitary reaper’ Poet Wordsworth connected his imagination with emotion and they both co-existed–

 “O listen! for the Vale profound 

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt 

More welcome notes to weary bands 

Of travellers in some shady haunt, 

Among Arabian sands:” 

The passion of the Narrator in the poem was centered on the melancholic song of the lonely Reaper girl. Wordsworth in his famous definition of poetry explained— “I have said that the poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity : the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind”( William Wordsworth, ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, 1800, The Harvard Classic1909-14, vol. 39: 13). A poet’s feelings are originated from emotion and can be recalled in tranquility; with the gradual disappearance of tranquility the emotion along with imagination works together to bring the poem into being. Poet Wordsworth had created his poems throughout his poetic life through these sequence of emotion, calmness, perception and contemplation. 

Poet Nazrul can fit himself easily within Poet Wordsworth’s glorious poetic statement that “He (the Poet) considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature and thus the Poet, prompted by this feeling of pleasure, which accompanies him through the whole course of his studies.” (William Wordsworth, ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, 1800, The Harvard Classic1909-14, vol. 39:10). The captivated Nazrul looked at the nature with joy and bewilderment and took the delight in writing more than four thousand lyrics relentlessly throughout his poetic life though he was overwhelmed with the sufferings of social injustice, oppression and poverty. 

 These two poems ‘Deep in sleep’ and ‘My lover without a name’ were created from a deeper passion intermingled with painful feelings resulted from the death of a dearest child and a pain associated with detachment from an imaginary unknown lover. In those two poems he made a journey through love, pain and mysticism.  

In ‘My lover without a name’ (O-Namika) he wrote—

“Altruistic lamp of thine is yet to be kindl’d in my lightless

Home! O the infinite! Thou comest not at the finite edge!”(Kazi Nazrul Islam ‘Sanchita-Selected poems and lyrics’, 2015:144)

LITERARY ANALYSIS:

Surprised By Joy

— Poet W. Wordsworth

“Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind 

I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom 

But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb, 

That spot which no vicissitude can find? 

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— 

But how could I forget thee?—Through what power, 

Even for the least division of an hour, 

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 

To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return 

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; 

That neither present time, nor years unborn 

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.” 

(Whole sonnet)

(Williams Wordsworth, Selected poems, 2005 Penguin Classics)  

Varied rhyme-scheme in the octave, abbaacca and the sestet, dedede.

‘Surprised by joy’, the fourteen lined-sonnet, was written by William Wordsworth in 1815 when his four-year-old daughter Catherine died. This elegiac poem began with a surprised joy and ended with a lamentation for the death of his daughter Catherine. Any feeling of mild shock caused by something that we do not expect can be considered as a surprise incident. The narrator had chosen appropriately the title of the poem ‘Surprised by joy’. He walked down the graveyard and stood there in front of his daughter’s grave with saddened heart. He was not prepared to receive a stimulus that made him joyous only for an infinitesimal moment. He did not expect that blithe moment. So it came to him as a surprise event. But the source of that joyous moment that he wanted to share was not clearly mentioned in the poem. Only we could trace it from this line—“That spot which no vicissitude can find?”

‘That spot’, which is the graveyard and its tranquil vicinity captivated the narrator so much that he asked himself— was there any other vicissitude that could replace that spot? The prolonged calmness of the graveyard and the beauteous nature around it suddenly penetrated deeply into the heart of the narrator (Wordsworth) and created a joyful rhythm within him. He was surprised by the joy that jolted his heart. By being so joyful he was “impatient as the Wind”. He was bewildered not knowing whom he could communicate that joy “I turned to share the transport” . Then he himself replied — “Oh! with whom but Thee”. It is none but the narrator’s daughter Catherine would be shared with the delights of the dramatic ambience that overwhelmed him so powerfully. But that was an ephemeral moment, the narrator regained his sense and reminded him that he was standing in front of his daughter’s silent tomb where she was long buried. The affection and love for the dear daughter brought him back to the reality. He asked himself if he was beguiled to be blind to that most dire loss—

 “Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 

To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return 

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,”

He got back his all feelings of enormous pain that he wanted to save as “one” and “one only” as long as he stood there forlornly. He realized he lost one of the most treasure of his heart—his daughter and neither that day nor any day of the coming years could bring back his daughter’s heavenly face again to his vision.

 “Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; 

That neither present time, nor years unborn 

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.” 

LITERARY ANALYSIS:

 Deep in Sleep

Poet Kazi Nazrul wrote this poem ‘Deep in sleep’ (in Bengali ‘Ghumiye geche chranta hoie’) when his four-year-old son Bulbul died in the year 1930. The tragic untimely demise of his son shattered him terribly. The poem ‘Deep in sleep’ is an elegy for his son Bulbul– the songbird Nightingale. The poet constructed the entire lyric with the words that emanated from his wretched heart. He started reading and translating the Farsi Rubaiyats (Quatrain, Four-line stanza) from ‘Dewan-i-Hafiz, a book of Persian Sufi Poet Hafiz in order to divert himself from the stress of bereavement and soothe his bereft heart with the mystic words of the Rubaiyats.

  Deep in sleep— Poet Nazrul

“Deep in sleep is my wearied Nightingale,

The dull flaccid flowers of the evening 

Cast at him their plaintive look, but his all

Songs made the flowers to bloom in the morning,

Then which cruel hunter's arrow silenced

Him? In the woods the queen of evening

In her disheveled hair for his death wailed,

Oh! No buds tomorrow will be sprouting

From creeping tender vines, O listen! Whose

Melancholic breaths in the leaves murmur!

Flown far away my singing bird, exists

Now only a stark desolate nest there,

In my voice crowd not my words anymore, 

No trick of light can tempt anyone, no more.”

 (Whole sonnet) Rhyme scheme: abab–cdcd–efef–gg.

Translation from Bengali ‘Ghumiye geche chranta hoie’, Sandhya Maloti, Nazrul Rochonaboli 2012 Vol. 7 :210 Bangla Academy, Dhaka.

? mustofa munir, 2019.

In this lyric the narrator validated a veritable metaphorical approach in bringing up features from the nature in the midst of his infinite griefs and bereavement and thus, with those features he adorned his painful feelings. Here, amidst a mournful cry the narrator portrayed his son as a nightingale of the forest and connected him to all those elements of the nature around. The morning and evening-flowers, flower-buds, vines, murmuring leaves and the evening queen— all bemoaned the death of their companion, the nightingale. In the first quatrain of the poem the narrator described that his nightingale was wearied and in deep sleep. In the morning the flowers were bloomed with his sweet notes, after that he could not sing anymore. All the silent evening flowers gazed at him with a plaintive look—

“Deep in sleep is my wearied Nightingale, 

The dull flaccid flowers of the evening 

Cast at him their plaintive look, but his all

Songs made the flowers to bloom in the morning,”

The narrator was desperate to bring out anything from the polite nature to soothe his frail soul. His four years old son Bulbul (nightingale) died of a disease but he used a metaphor to describe the death of his son as if he was killed by an arrow of a cruel hunter while he (the nightingale) was singing in the forest. By choosing this touching metaphor, the narrator Poet Nazrul expressed his utter love, pain and grief over the death of his son. With profound lamentation he asked— why was he slain when he brought all the morning flowers into bloom?

“….but his all

Songs made the flowers to bloom in the morning,

Then which cruel hunter's arrow silenced

Him?

The narrator’s imagination goes further and deep. He described the forest-evening as a queen who used to listen to the sweet notes of the nightingale, but now she is utterly devastated with griefs owing to his death. She is wailing and wandering in the forest with her disheveled hair—

“In the woods the queen of evening 

In her disheveled hair for his death wailed,”

Then the narrator lamented—no flower-buds would sprout out from the tender vines anymore since his song-bird has flown away from its nest. The nest is now empty. The narrator also wanted us to listen to the sorrowful weeping breaths in the murmurings of the leaves—

“Oh! No buds tomorrow will be sprouting

From creeping tender vines, O listen! Whose

Melancholic breaths in the leaves murmur!

Flown far away my singing bird, exists

Now only a stark desolate nest there,”

Narrator’s voice was once filled with words, but now his choked voice finds no words. He also knows that his son’s light cannot entice anyone, any more.

“In my voice crowd not my words any more, 

No trick of light can tempt anyone, no more.”

LITERARY ANALYSIS:

The Solitary Reaper

William Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper is a short lyrical ballad. This ballad was written during a tour that began in August 1803 in the Scottish Highlands. Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge participated in that tour. The journey lasted about 6 weeks.

The ballad The Solitary Reaper is considered as Wordsworth’s one of the best-known works. It is about a Highland lass (girl) — who was singing a song and reaping the corn or rye in a field of northern Scotland during harvest time. 

On September 13, 1803 William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy stayed in an Inn in the village of Strathyre and took walks in the local hills. Wordsworth was inspired to write this poem while he was in the village.

The Solitary Reaper

“Behold her, single in the field, 

Yon solitary Highland Lass! 

Reaping and singing by herself; 

Stop here, or gently pass! 

Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 

And sings a melancholy strain; 

O listen! for the Vale profound 

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt 

More welcome notes to weary bands 

Of travellers in some shady haunt, 

Among Arabian sands: 

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, 

Breaking the silence of the seas 

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?— 

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 

For old, unhappy, far-off things, 

And battles long ago: 

Or is it some more humble lay, 

Familiar matter of to-day? 

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang 

As if her song could have no ending; 

I saw her singing at her work, 

And o'er the sickle bending;— 

I listened, motionless and still; 

And, as I mounted up the hill, 

The music in my heart I bore, 

Long after it was heard no more.”

(Williams Wordsworth, Selected poems, 2005 Penguin Classics)  

(Whole Poem)

In a far off valley, in a field of Highland village a lonely girl was reaping and singing by herself—

 ‘single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass’.

While she was singing the narrator beseeched the passersby not to disturb her but to stop or pass gently without making any distracting sound— “Stop here, or gently pass!”

From these words ‘Stop here, or gently pass’ we can infer that the song of reaper-girl had touched the narrator’s heart so vehemently and enormously that he wanted only her singing be continued without any external disturbance. It was the melancholic sound of the song that overflowed the valley—

“O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound…”.

The narrator did not stop there, the rhythm of his feelings he unveiled more and more— her doleful tune was more alluring to him than any nightingale’s sweet notes that could possibly bring a reposeful feeling in the heart of some exhausted travelers while they were under a shadowy place in an Arabian desert. That girl’s voice was so enchanting to him no cuckoo could ever produce such in any spring time, so thrilling it was that broke the silence of the seas in the furthest north-western islands of Scotland.

In the next stanza he asked everyone who might tell him what was the words or theme of the song that she was singing— ‘Will no one tell me what she sings?’ 

Though she was singing in local Scots Gaelic language but it was not the non-English words that bothered the narrator, rather he precisely wanted to know ‘what she sings?’—what was her state of emotion that prompted her heart to sing that melancholic song and then in the next few lines he reviewed the possible causes behind singing such song— it could be her old, unhappy, far-off things-story that she battled long ago or it could be any simple incident that happened that day— a feeling of natural loss or pain, or that pain had returned and inflicted her again. Whatever the theme of the song could be, its resonance was seemingly unending to the narrator.

“Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 

For old, unhappy, far-off things, 

And battles long ago: 

Or is it some more humble lay, 

Familiar matter of to-day? 

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang 

As if her song could have no ending;”

The narrator caught sight of her while she was in the field, reaping the crops with a bend sickle in her hand and singing. He was still and motionless while listening to that song. Then he climbed up to the top of the hill with the lingering trace of the song in his heart. When he reached the hill top he spent a considerable time there (Long after it was heard no more). But at one time he could not hear that song any more (possibly she stopped singing or she was thinking something else). The narrator at the end could not hear that song anymore but in his heart, we can assume, that music and the reaper girl left an imprint of a long lasting allusion.

“I saw her singing at her work, 

And o'er the sickle bending;— 

I listened, motionless and still; 

And, as I mounted up the hill, 

The music in my heart I bore, 

Long after it was heard no more.”

LITERARY ANALYSIS:

My Lover without a Name

‘My Lover Without a Name’ ( in Bengali: O-Namika) is one of the best known romantic poems of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. The narrator, poet Nazrul wrote this poem on July 27, 1926 when he was alone in Chittagong, a port city of Bangladesh. He was fascinated by the lustrous green canopy of the trees in the city and the sea at the southern part. In a rainy day he found himself amidst those natural beauties with a feeling of detachment— that inspired him to write this poem. The imaginary lover exists only in his heart and strolls there secretly. Sometimes she is a dream companion to him, sometimes she is a mirage, a forever frolicsome, indistinct lover and sometimes she is a distant perpetual lover. She is not a blown out light but a lustrous lamp. I quoted only those lines from some stanzas of the poem that I wanted to analyze.

My Lover without a Name

“I adore thee, my dream-companion, my belov’d!

The inducer of thirst thou art in my heart

For not having thee! Thee I adore…

O my fanci’d frolicsome lover!

Eternal youthful belle, my perpetual passionate companion!

I adore thee, my lover without a name,

O yet to come! Accept my adoration,

My love… my secret stroller, O the lover fore’er!

Since the day of creation cryest thou hiding behind desire,

But to me thou didst not surrender,

Altruistic lamp of thine is yet to be kindl’d in my lightless

Home! O the infinite! Thou comest not at the finite edge!

 In my dream I find thee and lose thee in my dream again,”

“By being The pleasing wine

 Thou art conceal’d in grapevine,

But not in my cup!”

 “Still my heart weeps in pain,

Wine’s true, not the cup of wine,

Drinkest thou from whate’er

Cup, thou wilt be intoxicat’d, O my companion for-e’er!”

“Whome’er I love, she is thou!..

Love is one, lovers are many,

That one love I drinketh pouring into many cups --

That wine elixir!

O the nameless, thee I drinketh from a pitcher,

From a glass, sometimes from a cup with many desires!” 

(Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sanchita-Selected poems and lyrics, 2015:144-147)

(Quoted from the middle of the stanzas of the poem)

In the first stanza, the narrator expressed a passion of love to his dear beloved whom he loved and adored all along his life without seeing her or knowing her wholly. He did not have her in his life but a thirst of love, for not having her, is induced in his heart.

He expressed—

 “The inducer of thirst thou art in my heart

For not having thee! Thee I adore...

O my fanci’d frolicsome lover! ”

The narrator knows no name to call her. She is yet to come with her forms and entity.

I adore thee, my lover without a name,

O yet to come!

She too bears the pain of detachment in her heart. As if from the day of creation she cries behind her desires and suffers the torments for not having him unconstrainedly.

“My secret stroller, O the lover fore’er!

Since the day of creation cryest thou hiding behind desire,”

But she remained beyond his reach—

“But to me thou didst not surrender” 

May be it was the circumstance that did not allow her to meet the narrator and that kept her away from him.

The narrator lamented that her unselfish lamp of love is yet to be kindled in his lightless mind-home—

“Altruistic lamp of thine is yet to be kindl’d in my lightless Home!”  

The narrator considered her as an infinite entity. Had she come nearer to the finite edge from her infinite entity perchance she could have reached him. But she remained in his dream all along—

“O the infinite! Thou comest not at the finite edge!”

“In my dream I find thee and lose thee in my dream again,”

In the following lines of the poem we find that wine and grapevines have become alluring metaphors for the love and lover. The narrator postulated his beloved as a pleasing wine but she is still concealed in the grapevine—his cup is yet to be filled up with that pleasing wine.

“By being the pleasing wine

 thou art conceal’d in grapevine,

But not in my cup!”

The narrator expresses that he drinks not only her love, he drinks her whole true self (‘thee I drinketh ’) from a pitcher, or from a glass, or from a cup with many desires that he amassed in his heart—

 “Whome’er I love, she is thou! 

Thee I love!

Love is one, lovers are many,

That one love I drinketh pouring into many cups --That wine elixir!

O the nameless, thee I drinketh from a pitcher,

From a glass, sometimes from a cup with many desires!”

 CONCLUSION:

Poet William Wordsworth and Kazi Nazrul Islam did not depart from their poetic instincts in the midst of griefs and utter bereavements, rather they inquired into nature’s alluring qualities that could kindle their emotion to brighten up the themes of the finest poems they created. They contemplated upon and articulated those instincts very poetically in their poems mentioned above and produced literature’s timeless classics in their own way. Their creation evolved from their pool of imagery since they were the ardent recipients of glamorous external stimuli.  Though the forever-unknown lover, the dream companion or the unknown solitary village reaper-girl is far away from the narrators; though both were unseen, unreachable and unknown to them but yet they adored their entity, their whole essence and resonance. The narrators have considered the image of the unknown girl or the lover to be the realm of their pleasure, passion and emotion. Also in their heart they had a painful feeling for the loss of their dearest daughter and son, but they blended that feeling with the softness of nature.

Poet William Wordsworth revolutionized the style of writing poetry in English literature. He was one of the first English poets who made the poetry accessible to common man with their words. In the eighteenth century Romanticism movement his ideas to keep the freedom of emotion and nature in poetry, reachable to common man, made him a great poetic philosopher in this world of mankind. Similarly, Poet Nazrul had revolutionized a thousand years old Bengali literature by using the words of common people in his poems, lyrics and other literary works along with the beauteous forms of the natural world.

  Sources:

1.    Kazi Nazrul Islam, Birth Centenary Commemorative Volume (2014), Paschimbongo Bangla Academy, Kolkata.

2.    Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sandhya Maloti,  Nazrul Rochonaboli (2012) Vol. 7, Bangla Academy, Dhaka.

3.    Mustofa Munir (2015), Sanchita, Selected poems and Lyrics of Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, Outskirts Press, Inc. USA.  

4.    William Wordsworth Preface to Lyrical Ballads. (1800). Famous Prefaces. The Harvard Classics.vol.39  1909–14.

5.    William Wordsworth, Selected poems of Williams Wordsworth (March 29, 2005). Introduction by Stephen Gill, Penguin Classics.  

? Mustofa Munir, July, 2019, USA