DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16242#0198
162 LITERATURE OF BENGAL.
I
has beauties peculiarly its own. Bharat Chandra's style
is 'always' rich, graceful, flowing, but. nowhere in his
works, nowhere perhaps in the entire range of Bengali
literature do we find the language of poetry so rich,
so graceful, so overpowering in artistic beauty as ia
Bidya Sundar. The Bengali language is soft, and Ben-
'gali poetry is1 always melodious, but Bharat Chandra
has shewn to what extremes the melody and t harmony
of versification can be carried. He is a complete master
of the art of versification, and his appropriate phrases
and rjch descriptions have passed into bye-words. It
would be diflicult to over-estimate the polish he has
,given to the Bengali language.
His power of character-painting too is by no means
contemptible,, though iu his anxiety to make his descrip-
tions rich and artificial, he has nearly forgotten to give
us any indications of this power. His principal charac-
ters are, as we have remarked before, rendered perfect
daubs by over-coloring j aud there is not one single dis-
tinctive feature that we can disgern in the character of
the hero Sundar or the heroine Bidya, except that a carnal,
sensual love,—love as an appetite Efad not as a feeling,—
was the all-devouring passion of their lives. But the
minor characters are traced with a few touches, and it
is in these that we discover some power of character-
painting. The Malini or flower-woman who brings about
a meeting between Bidya and Sundar is 'powerfully
drawn; though even here there is a little too much of
Art, and too little of Nature. Tho pride and haughtiness
the queen, Bidya's mother, aud: the terror inspired by
I
has beauties peculiarly its own. Bharat Chandra's style
is 'always' rich, graceful, flowing, but. nowhere in his
works, nowhere perhaps in the entire range of Bengali
literature do we find the language of poetry so rich,
so graceful, so overpowering in artistic beauty as ia
Bidya Sundar. The Bengali language is soft, and Ben-
'gali poetry is1 always melodious, but Bharat Chandra
has shewn to what extremes the melody and t harmony
of versification can be carried. He is a complete master
of the art of versification, and his appropriate phrases
and rjch descriptions have passed into bye-words. It
would be diflicult to over-estimate the polish he has
,given to the Bengali language.
His power of character-painting too is by no means
contemptible,, though iu his anxiety to make his descrip-
tions rich and artificial, he has nearly forgotten to give
us any indications of this power. His principal charac-
ters are, as we have remarked before, rendered perfect
daubs by over-coloring j aud there is not one single dis-
tinctive feature that we can disgern in the character of
the hero Sundar or the heroine Bidya, except that a carnal,
sensual love,—love as an appetite Efad not as a feeling,—
was the all-devouring passion of their lives. But the
minor characters are traced with a few touches, and it
is in these that we discover some power of character-
painting. The Malini or flower-woman who brings about
a meeting between Bidya and Sundar is 'powerfully
drawn; though even here there is a little too much of
Art, and too little of Nature. Tho pride and haughtiness
the queen, Bidya's mother, aud: the terror inspired by