Between modernity and modernism: Reading affect in Muktibodh’s translated poetry

ABSTRACT

The belief of poet Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh that poetry can resolve the disjuncture between aesthetic and political realms is significant to interpretations of the literary production of mid-20th-century India. This article examines the use of affects in Muktibodh’s poetry translated into English, that both mark such disjunction and attempt to resolve it. It analyses affects for how they foreground the codependency of modernity and modernism. To this end, the article understands modernity through relative periodization as a phenomenon that continually causes change either through transitions towards capitalism, or alternatively through authoritative, surveillance-based forms of governance. The losses caused by such modernity require rehabilitation, which in Muktibodh’s poetry takes place through a modernist aesthetic. Thus, the article offers a reading that interprets Muktibodh’s modernism as aiming to reconcile his creative-aesthetic freedom with the sociopolitical realities of the losses caused by modernity, and as inspired by the urge to overcome loss.

KEYWORDS:

• Muktibodh
• affect
• modernism
• modernity
• postcolonialism
• Indian nation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. English versions of Muktibodh's Sanskrit/Hindi by a range of translators are used throughout. The original publication dates and locations of the poems are also cited

2. “Lalten” is a small kerosene lamp used in the rural regions of India which are often plunged into darkness due to frequent power cuts. Apoorvanand’s use of this term is indicative of Muktibodh’s struggles, both economic and personal.

3. The suggestive meaning of “alternative” as the “other” is in itself conflicted, but the recent corpus on Third World postcolonial modernism is accommodated widely within the category of “alternative”. Gaonkar (2001) describes how modernism has been “transported through commerce; administered by empires [ … ] propelled by nationalism”. He emphasizes the dual factor of “societal modernization” and “cultural modernity” as motivators of alternative modernity.

4. Brahmarakshasa is a ghost of a Brahmin (an upper-caste elite intellectual) who misused his knowledge, was cursed, and transformed into a demon (rakshasa). However, these demons possess special powers which they may endow upon human beings in the form of blessings.

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Akansha Singh

Akansha Singh is an assistant professor of English at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) University of Law, India. Her areas of research interest include nationalism, print- cultures, and modernity. She also runs the Writing Lab at NALSAR. She has previously published articles in Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, and Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.