Analysis Of Literary Aesthetics To Foresee The Course Of Nature
Present paper tends to focus on new trend as to how literary artists across the globe envisage and appeal mankind to preserve and procure the pristine glory of Nature being terribly exploited by the surge of new inventions, scientific and technical advancements and innovations. It was perceived by the creative artists though the lens of imagination that exploitation and misuse of natural resources needs to be stopped otherwise nature will take its own recourse to retaliate over doings of mankind.
Greek philosopher Aristotle attaches the highest importance to an artist portraying an ideal world based on his thorough intuition and imaginative faculty. His ideal and artistic presentation of world percolates from the streams of deep insight and genuine perception. In the light of literary and scriptural expression, an artist picturizes the multifarious facets of nature and evaluates how they are beneficial and at the same time dangerous for human race. Whereas an artist glorifies nature with its all bounty and beauty, he also presents traumatic situations of global warming, flood, famine and other forms of divine displeasure. Such natural calamities stirred by mankind need to be introspected through prism of the literary and scriptural works which undertake the task to literate mankind to deck and don the beautiful earth as an excellent creation of God.
The world is passing through the most crucial phase of seamless happenings accounted for irrational and vitiating faculty of mankind that tries to coerce the overpowering spirit of nature. The dire consequences of man’s rash act of challenging the divine scheme and striking sharply at the propensity of nature can be experienced in the divine displeasure exhibited through floods, famine, earthquakes, global warming etc. This has posed the greatest threat to the world, which if not properly handled and timely dealt with, the most beautiful planet, which is the abode of excellent human race created by God, will gradually be moving towards its extinction. .
If one gears back into the literary and scriptural details, one come across a number of references and illustrations where divine manifestations of nature have been invoked to quell the soaring furies to enjoy the blessings of nature eternally. The Vedas and other literatures have been directing human race to be kind to nature and help it to preserve its modesty and serenity. In the Vedas, a number of suktas entitled as Prithvi Sukta, Purush Sukta, Indra Sukta etc have been devoted to promote worship of nature. The Yayurveda has a number of Richas (hymns) which are mainly cited to offer prayers to appease the spirit earth, air, sky, mountain, medicine and plants, being indispensable constituents of the divine scheme of nature: Dyauh shaantirantariksh shaantih, Prithvi shaantiraapah shaantiroshadhayah shaantih. Vanaspatayah shaantirvishwe devaah shaantirbraham shaantih sarvam shaantih shaantirev shaantih saa maam shaantiredhi. The above hymn has been offered to heaven, sky, earth, air, medicines and vegetation to keep them cool so that man is privileged to enjoy the boons of nature in its entirety. It shows that the author of the Vedas had an insight into the fact that man in succeeding course of time might venture to violate the chastity of nature by exploiting its prized resources to his own end. It is now felt that our modernized myopic vision has taken away our ability to see the living spirit in the tree, in the river, in the mountain-and to know that the life energy sustaining them and us is the same. The environmental crisis is thus a spiritual crisis which needs to be immediately addressed to save the human race from recurring furies of nature.
In Sanskrit Literature, poets like Kalidas, Magh, Bharavi, Bhavbhuti and host of other literary luminaries have presented nature as human being with all its grace and grandeur. Kalidas in his epic poetry Kumarsambhavam depicts the Himalaya and the oceans as gods that ensures the boundaries of the country and save it from the spell of undesirable happenings:
Astyuttrasyaam disi devtaatmaa, Himalayonaam nagaadhiraajah Poorvaaparau toynidhivagaahyah, sthit prithivyaamiv maandandah.
(English) - There is to the North, a mountain, named, Himalaya, whose soul is deity, with his spurs dividing into the eastern and western oceans. He stands as a measuring rod to earth. Similarly, a number of writers of other literatures have expressed the same attitude towards nature and lay stress on preserving its immaculate glory in order to enjoy its perpetual blessings showered on mankind. Tulsidas in his greatest work Ramcharit Manashas rendered well how rivers and oceans having divine spirits were offered humble prayers by Ram to succeed in his effort to kill Ravan, a great champion and originator of evils. In the Mahabharata, Goverdhanpooja is mainly prayers offered to the mountain that came to the rescue of mankind when Indra attacked people through thunderbolts in a fit of anger and tried to destroy the creation. These phases of nature have been symbolically used by great writers to create a kind of religious feeling in man so that he may be obliged to offer his prayers and safeguard their existence. These illustrations in literature are derived from the past when the writers had never faced actual problems generated by the wrath of nature but the speculated through insight the probability of sufferings to mankind emerging out of the imbalance in the temperament of nature. Therefore the literary artists always inspired man to be kind to nature as it is a free celestial gift to be used by man.
In English literature, William Shakespeare, the most powerful literary bard has glorified the pastoral elements in almost all his comedies and in some of his songs and sonnets. His plays As You Like It and A Mid Summer Night’s Dream have an exuberance of pastoral backgrounds set against the entire action of the plays. The entire action of the play As you Like It is set in the Forest of Arden and a nice portrayal of nature has been rendered to show that nature is better suited to the requirement of the needy with nobler feelings and in-depth human sensibility. The entire action in A Mid Summer Night’s Dream takes place in the woods and nature proves to be instrumental in the resolving the love intrigues between two couples who finally get happily wed.
Milton, another poet in Paradise Lost has expressed his grave concern over the exploitation of natural resources by the fallen angels from Heaven. The evil spirits, driven by inordinate ambition to make pandemonium – a huge palace in hell to hold meetings and conferences against God attacked the hill and broke open the chest of mother earth and robbed its precious treasures lying deep down in her womb.
By him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransack’d the centre, and with impious hands Rifl’d the bowels of their mother Earth For treasures better hid. Here the earth has been personified to show that earth has the spirit and human feeling and therefore be respected rather than being attacked to suit cruel design of mind. In the seventeenth century, Milton perhaps had foresighted that the crisis of temperamental imbalance in nature might arise in future due to the soaring ambition of man to win over the spirit of nature. According to Milton men who were taught by these evil angels exploit the tranquility and serenity of nature by ransacking mother earth to fulfill their own impious desires.
The Nineteenth century English literature known as the Romantic age is full of the lively and lovely renderings of nature, and the major poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron and many more writers are basically known as the poets of nature. It would be reasonable to glance through one or two representative poets rather than dealing with all the romantic poets who personified nature promoting our love and respect for it. Wordsworth with his poems such as, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early childhood,The Rainbow, Lucy Gray, To the Cuckoo, To a Skylark and the Preludepresent the vitality and human sensibility of love, ambition, imagination, thought etc. Keats in Ode to Autumn and Shelley in Ode to the West Wind have reflected on the role played by seasons and winds in the process of creation.
Andrew Marvell, one of the major poets of Metaphysical School of poetry, in his poem, The Garden glorifies nature and asserts the significant role played by it in shaping and promoting the personality of mankind. But he seems to be aggrieved by the human behavior, which always tend to harm nature at the cost of his own pleasure by cutting the barks of the trees and writing his beloved’s name to show his passionate love towards her: Fond lovers, cruel as their Flame, Cut in these Tress, their Mistress name. Little Alas, they know, or heed, How far these Beauties Hers exceed! Fair Trees! Where s’eer your barks I wound, No Name shall but your be found. The modern writer of English literature T. S. Eliot in his book The Waste Land which is also known as the classic of modern age has asserted that fury of nature is mainly spelt due to the spiritual degeneration and sterility. In the The Fire Sermon, an important part of the Waste Land, Eliot refers to the pollution of the river Thames which has been a living body of “sweating oil and tar. The water is the source of purification and regeneration but the degenerate mankind does not realize this and does not hesitate to defile the purity of water: Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights.
The solution for spiritual deterioration,T. S. Eliot thinks, can be sought through three Sanskrit words appear in The Brihadaranyak Upnishad- Datta (give), Dayadhwam (sympathise) and Damayat (control) which respectively mean one should give to others whatever he has; one should be sympathetic to others: one should control his sensual desires. If this practice of magnanimity is perpetuated, the moral and spiritual degeneration of the modern man will definitely be replaced by spiritual regeneration and world will enjoy the bliss of close association and communion with nature. Besides, American writers do not lag behind as far as the treatment of nature and impact on life is concerned. For instance, Walt Whitman the most representative poet of America in his magnum opus called The Leaves of Grass has mystically presented the divine aura of nature and its union with the Supreme Soul. Whitman asserts that basically there is no difference between various phases of nature, man and God, as all of them are made up of the same elements.
The above discussions show that the literary and scriptural renderings of nature were meant to create mass awareness that protection of nature is indispensable for heathy and happy life. If our environment is not purged of its impurities, it will not be possible for mankind to lead a happy life. What was realized by the artist long back is now being realized by people and necessary measures are being initiated by scientists and scholars for the protection of nature. The paper concludes that literary and scriptural writers are blessed with imaginative faculty who can glance beyond the horizons and appeal humans that nature is indispensable for hearty life of man. It, therefore, deserves to be commended for its magnanimous gesture, which allows mankind to play in its blissful lap with the same spirit as a mother allows her own child. Thus it will not be far from the truth to say that an artist is a visionary who portrays an ideal picture of the world as how the world ought to be and how nature needs to be protected from the onslaughts of ignorant mankind.
References:
- Compiled by Pt. Shri Rambhawanji Mishra, Nityakarma Pooja Prakash, Geeta Press Gorakhpur, 2002, P. 169
- (Ed) C. R. Devdhar, Works of Kalidas, Volume 2 Poetry, Motilal Banarasidass, Varanasi, 1984, P. 1
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. I, Airmont Publishing Co. , New York, 1966, P. 30
- (Ed) Helen Gardener, The Metaphysical Poets, Penguin Books, 1975, P. 256 5: T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems, Faber and Faber, 3Queen Square London, 1975, p. 58
