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Critical Analysis of Kamala Das' Poetry

Tags: Kamala Das , Notes & Analysis

Read The Old Playhouse by Kamala Das- Summary and Analysis

Kamala Das, as a confessional poetess opens a new arena where the feelings of a female, her dreams, hopes and sufferings are openly depicted in her poetry. Confessional poetry deals with private experience of human beings. Hemanta Singh in “Kamala Das a Confessional Poet: A Quest for Identity/Self” argues that, “In such a poetry, the self is a primary concern which is treated with utmost frankness and lack of restraint, written in ordinary speech and using open forms.” (141). The confessionalism is one kind of techniques for the writers for searching the “Self” of human being. According to Hamanta Singh:

Her poetry is the acknowledgement and celebration of the beauty and courage of being a woman … asserting the need to establish her voice and identity. Finally, she is successful in her venture of searching the ultimate self and identity through the art of confession. (144)

Since Kamala Das has observed how her beloved plays tricks to make her a slave like a dwarf, in “The Looking Glass” she suggests the women to reconstruct the concept of masculine identity. Women are always considered as the object of gaze which Kamala Das wants to reverse by her poetry. In “(Re)locating (I)dentity With(in) Politicized (Re)presentation of Fe/Male Body in Kamala Das’ Poetry” According to Sultana Sarmin and Nadia Sarwar:

Apparently, it seems that the sensitive female psyche is vulnerable under the power and behavior of a male body, but a close reading of the images of represented bodies subvert the underlying power struggle between two gendered bodies. By putting the male on display and making it an object of exposure, this poem attempts to re-construct the masculine identity in a different way. (87)

The women in the society day by day loss their individuality by the hegemonial masculine identity. While interpreting “The Old Playhouse” Arya P A in her “Quest for Self in Kamala Das’ ‘The Old Playhouse’” states that, “Kamala Das portrays the ideal Indian household scene where male controls female in the name of love” (165). She argues that her husband tries to “tame her life according to his desire and in that process, she loses her own self and identity” (165).

As a result, quest for love and identity has become a major theme of Kamala Das’ poetry. Shubha Prakash and Sujata in their article “A Desperate Craving for Identity in the Major Works of Kamala Das” tell that “women are not just sexual objects but as a human as men and have their own sentiments and aspirations” (62). They opine that in her poetry Kamal Das “presents them [the women] as true lovers, mothers, sisters and saints. She always tries to search the true dignity of women” (62). Regarding the poem “The Freaks” both of them believe that, “Das also highlights the inborn passivity of the female and yet ends with the assertion “I am Freak.” This reveals the identity crisis of every Indian woman who flaunts ‘a grand, flamboyant lust’” (63). Again, Anupama in her “Quest for Self in Kamala Das’s My Story” tells that, “Her [Kamala Das] sexual escapades can also be regarded as part of her quest for identity. She indulged in extra-marital relationships as a rebellion against her uncompassionate husband and conventional society” (63). Similar kind of statement has also been given by R.K.J. Kurup:

In her [Kamala Das] autobiography she makes it clear that beyond the body there is a realm of freedom which is so important that it is all encompassing. Viewed in this light one comes to the conclusion that even her sexual adventures are experiments of her search for her true self” (116).

C.R. Nambiar shares his observation about the essence of Kamala Das poetry, “She becomes a feminist writer by making her women conscious and providing them wings to rise and flutter… The essence of her poems is struggle about her own self and… is a cry for freedom” (122). Thus, this cry for freedom works as a stimulator to awaken the readers. It is her journey from physical to the spiritual world by which Kamala Das has tried to show her readers the way to get back their identity. Tarun D. Rawal in “Quest for Female Identity in Kamala Das” points that, Kamala Das “is not really recommending adultery, but merely searching for a relationship which gives both love and identity and accepting as a woman and it is her right” (2). He argues, “A study of her psychic geography traces her journey from the physical to the spiritual. She struggles to free herself from the lure of the body and seeks redemption in Lord Krishna, a bodiless form” (2).

The Maggots - Poem by Kamala Das

Tags: Kamala Das , Poetry

At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left...

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

Design- Poem by Robert Frost

Tags: Poetry , Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

The Sunshine Cat - Poem by Kamala Das

Tags: Kamala Das , Poetry

They did this to her, the men who know her, the man
She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish
And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor
Used her, but was a ruthless watcher, and the band
Of cynics she turned to, clinging to their chests where
New hair sprouted like great-winged moths, burrowing her
Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget
To forget, oh, to forget, and, they said, each of
Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not
In my nature to love, but I can be kind to you.
They let her slide from pegs of sanity into
A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping,
For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears,
She said, walls to shut me in. Her husband shut her
In, every morning, locked her in a room of books
With a streak of sunshine lying near the door like
A yellow cat to keep her company, but soon
Winter came, and one day while locking her in, he
Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a
Line, a half-thin line, and in the evening when
He returned to take her out, she was a cold and
Half dead woman, now of no use at all to men.

Top 15 Poets in English Literature

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Read 15 Notable American Poets

01. William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. He is the eldest son of John and Mary Shakespeare. In 1595 he became the shareholder of “The Lord Chamberlains Men”. In 1599 he got involved in the “Globe Theatre”. His famous work are The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and 154 sonnets. This great man died in 1616.

02. W.B Yeats

William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet, was born in 1865 in Dublin. His father is John Butler and mother Susan Pollexfen Yeats. He was the founder member of the Dublin Hermetic Society. The three major frameworks of his poetry are mythological, theological and philosophical. His major works are The Stolen child, The Sorrow of Love, The White Birds, The Secret Rose, Adam’s Curse, No Second Troy, A Coat, The Scholars, Her Praise, Demon and Beast, The Tower, Death, Byzantium, The Mother of God, High Talk, Under Ben Bulben etc. This poet died in 1939 AD.

03. John Keats

John Keats, the youngest of the romantic poets, was born in 1795 in London. During his lifetime he was not recognized as a great poet. In the modern age T.S.Eliot brought him the recognition as one of the major poets. Hellenism is one of the dominant aspects of Keats poetry. His major poems are Endymion, Isabella, Lamia, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Psyche, Ode to Autumn, Hyperion etc. His poetry is also full of sensuousness, aestheticism and escapism.

04.William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth in England. He was known for his love of nature. He rejects secular values and emphasizes that a child comes from heaven as an innocent and happy creature. His major poems are The Thorn, Simon Lee, Poor Susan, Ruth, Michael, The Brothers, The Recluse, To Milton, The Idiot Boy, Nutting, Lucy Gray, Animal Tranquility and Decay etc. By his poems he always suggests his readers to stay close to nature.

05. John Donne

John Donne was born in London in 1572 in a business family. His marriage with Anne Donne makes him distressed though their conjugal life was enjoyable. For Donne it must be said that he is the pioneer of metaphysical poetry. A lot of his poetry deals with metaphysics. His remarkable poems are No Man Is An Island, Death Be Not Proud, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, For whom the Bell Tolls, Air And Angels, A Hymn To God The Father, Confined Love, A Lame Beggar, Go and Catch a Falling Star, The Sun Rising, Good Morrow, A Burnt Ship, A Fever, A Valediction Of Weeping etc.

06. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born at Durham in 1806. Her maiden name was Elizabeth. She is the daughter of a west India planter. After her first work noted above there was a pause of nine years, then appeared Prometheus Bound. The other works are The Seraphim and the poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Casa Guidi Windows, Aurora Leish, an immense poem of blank verse and Last Poems.

07. Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich, an American poet born in 1951, is best known for her scrutiny of the experiences of women in society. She has expressed that her aim is to write directly and overtly as a woman, out of a woman’s body and experience. Her major volumes are A Change of the World, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, The Dream of a Common Language, Your Native Land, Your Life, Of Woman Born, What is Found there?, An Atlas of the Difficult World etc.

08. Robert Frost

Robert Frost is the most well known American Poet. He drew his images from the New England countryside and his language from New England speech. He won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for four times. Frost's poems appear simple at first glance, but reveal themselves to be subtle and enigmatic upon further scrutiny. Some popular poems of Frost are: Mowing, Revelation, The Death of the Hired Man, The Road not Taken, Birches, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Desert Places.

09. P.B. Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the romantic poets who rebelled against all conventional values. He was born in 1792 in a wealthy English family. His literary works reflect his profound revolutionary zeal. His Prometheus Unbound is a glorious venture for intellectual and spiritual liberty. Again Queen Mab attacks Christianity and all the Guardians of it. His famous poems Ode to the West Wind is also revolutionary in spirit.

10. Dylan Thomas

Thomas, Dylan Marlis(1914-1953) is a great poet, short story writer renowned for his celebration of natural beauty. He possessed immense gifts and talent which brought him his professional success as a writer, but in personal life he often suffered from disappointment. His first book of poetry, Eighteen Poems was published in 1934 when he was twenty years old. His best poems are- After the Funeral, The Hunchback in the Park, Poem in October, A Refusal to Mourn the Death and By Fire.

11. Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was born in Cheapside, London in 1591. He followed Ben Jonson in form and pagan philosophy. The theme of his work was balanced personal paganism. His works was published in one volume with two titles Hesperides and Noble Numbers. There was 1400 poems in this volume. Hesperides was full of human joy and human brave life.

12. Sir Philip Sidney

He was a unique poet who embodied all the characters tha the Elizabeth admired. He wrote a long pastoral romance called Arcadia in two forms. He also composed Astrophel and Stella the first of great Elizabethan sonnet cycle. He wrote Old Arcadia and Ye Goat-herd Gods in the form of double sestets.

13. Edmund Spenser

He was called a "poet's' poet" and "prince of poet" because many poets learned the art of versification from him. He has his own Spenserian sonnet with a special rhyme scheme. He wrote The Faery Queene where he used a lot of allegorical devices. He is also known for the usage of musical effect and verse.

14. Ted Hughes

Edward James Hughes , well known as Ted Hughes, was born on August 17, 1930 in England. During his study at Cambridge University he met with Sylvia Plath whom Hughes married after his graduation. He wrote poems for children, fables for young readers and plays for theatre goers. He feels that non-human, or non-rational source fo life-force is overpowered by modern man's excessive importance to objective intellect. His famous literary works are: The Horses, Meeting, The Jaguar, Crow Hill, Fern, Relic, Crow's Last Stand, A Childish Prank, The Risen, The Knight, Ravens, Sheep, The Song, Meet My Folks!, Pike, How the Whale Became and so on.

15. John Milton

Shakespeare and Milton are the two figures that tower conspicuously above the goodly fellowship of men who have made our literature famous. John Milton (1608-1674) was born in a family of music that helped him to catch the tone to write poems. His masterpieces were Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Paradise Lost was written in blank verse. He was self centered for he was the hero of most of his works and he wrote to leave a work after his death.

Works Cited:

http://www.poemhunter.com/john-donne/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-milton

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/559324/Edmund-Spenser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Sidney

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/percy-bysshe-shelley

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/

http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323