Skip to main content

Sonnet in a Bonnet

[On the 108th Birth Anniversary of the modern Hindi poet Trilochan]

The sonnet was born in Italy as a lover’s serenade, and soon thereafter became the most fashionable poetic form in Elizabethan England, and after a century-long eclipse, it re-appeared with a vibrance and velocity not only in all the various Englishes throughout the world, but in many other languages, too. In prosodic terms, the sonnet is perhaps the single most complexly rhyme-woven poetic form which has attracted poets everywhere for its rhyme-weave challenge. Rhyme has always been one of the cardinal musical devices in poetry in all languages, but its intricate braiding in a sonnet, with the content and the meaning interspersed, offers the most exciting creative pleasure for the poet.

One aspect of handling of the traditional form is the syntax which in Italian is more congenial to the fluidity of rhyme-sounds than in other analytical languages like English and Hindi where the syntax is more rigid and spread-out.

All this sonnet conversation is here today related to two modernist poets in English and Hindi whose sonnets - John Wain’s in English and Trilochan’s in Hindi: both translated here bilingually by me contrarily into the opposite language:Wain’s into Hindi and Trilochan’s into English – exemplify this conflict in the structure of a sonnet between syntax and meaning, on the one hand, and rhyme scheme, on the other.

Yesterday was the 132nd Jayanti of Trilochan, who had little in common in his life with the British poet of ‘the Movement’ in 20th century poetry scene, except the innate rebelliousness of their creativity, even though they were near contemporaries (Triloichan b. 1917, Wain, 1925). But there is one striking similarty, strangely reflected in their two sonnets, given here in their original as well as translated forms; particularly, in their handling of the syntax vis-à-vis the rhyme-scheme, and the modulation of the content.

Let’s have the sonnets themselves as exemplifications – first, Trilochan’s, as an anniversary tribute to his genius as the unique practitioner in Hindi of the most complex poetic form of European origin, with a long and chequered history, with countless variations and experimentations through the ages; followed by John Wain’s unusual sonnet, breaking all the traditional moulds – both in form and content.

TRILOCHAN’S  SONNET

 

सन्ध्या ने मेघों के कितने चित्र बनाए—

हाथी, घोड़े, पेड़, आदमी, जंगल, क्या - क्या

नहीं रच दिया और कभी रंगों से क्रीड़ा

की, आकृतियाँ नहीं बनायीं । कभी चलाए

झीने से बादल जिन में चटकीली लाली

उभर उठी थी, जिन की आभा हरियाली पर

थिरक उठी थी । जाते - जाते क्षितिज - पटी पर

सूरज ने सोना बरसाया । छाया काली

बढ़ने लगी, रंग धीरे - धीरे फिर बदले,

पेंसिल के रेखा - चित्रों से बादल छाए ।

विविध रूप आकार बदलते से, ज्यों न्हाए

हुए प्रकाश और छाया में, अपना पद ले ।

रात उतर आयी, दिखलायी दिये सितारे,

पेड़, गाँव अस्पष्ट दिखे, मानव-दृग हारे ।

 

Trans. Into English by Mangal Murty

 

The evening painted clouds in the sky

into different forms – forests, trees, men,

horses and elephants that would fly;

and often played with colours, its pen

not creating figures, but only pushing

wispy clouds dipped in loud red colour

with their flimsy gossamer shreds dancing

in their luminosity on the verdant green floor.

 

While the departing sun hurled grains of gold

on the darkening horizon slowly dissolving

all colors and all thin pencil lines sinking

into the vanishing cloudscapes dishevelled.

 

Light merged in shadows with stars glimmering

and men, trees, villages – all into darkness vanishing.

 

Now, let’s look at John Wain’s original English sonnet followed by its Hindi translation by me.

Sonnet

By John Wain

[English poet: 1925-1994]

 

An animal with a heart (in the ordinary sense

Of the expression) would find the going tough,

No doubt of it. Birds, to get enough

To eat, would have to peck – with no defence

Against the bully conscience  - worms they were

Sorry for. Dear me!I and cats would shed

Very hot tears for little mice, quite dead;

Digested,indeed; and hedgehogs would pay dear

 

For beetles crunched while happily at play

And so on, ad lib. Yes, if they had hearts (in

the ordinary sense) and yet still had to eat,

and copulate, despite their sense of sin,

they would be human, just like us, wouldn’t they?

But our hearts beat and ache. Theirs only beat.

 

And see how the Hindi version tries to emulate the form and spirit of the original.

दिल और दिल

जानवर (सामान्य अर्थ में) जिसमें एक दिल हो

कठिन होगा उसके लिए भी ऐसा कुछ कर पाना,

क्योंकि चिड़ियों को भी, गर हो कुछ खाना,  

पग-पग पर टोकने वाली जो आत्मा हो   

 


तो भी उसके सामने बिना चूं-चापड किये –

उन कीड़े-मकोड़ों को होगा ही चुगना-खाना,

बिल्लियों की तरह गरमागरम आंसू बहाना -

हरे हरे! बिना मन में दर्द कैसा-भी लिये -

 जो मर चुके होंगे, नन्हें-मुन्ने चूहों की वह इति,

जो गल-पच चुके होंगे पेट में उनके; उनका वह खाना,

महंगा पड़ेगा साहिल को भी तिलचट्टों को चबाना  

खेल-खेल में ही उनका चटखारा था, एवं प्रकारेण इति:.

 

हाँ, यदि उनमें भी (सामान्यत:) दिल होता

वे खाना खाते, मन में पाप लिए भी, जोड़ खाते,  

और तब तो वे बिलकुल हमारी तरह मानव हो जाते,

(हमारी ही तरह खुश होते और उदास भी हो जाते)

पर हमारे दिल तो धड़कते हैं, उनमें दर्द भी होता

है, है न?  पर उनके दिल तो हैं बस धडकते ही जाते

  

Here, indeed, is an interesting poetic conjunction, exemplifying a number of disparate elements fused into a poetic experimentation – two languages of two different families, with deep cultural hiatus, and their very different syntactical systems, with strikingly different rhyme-choices, and so on – and yet closely paralleling the content and the manner, and approximating the spirit of the two pieces in a surprisingly similar measure. Although in the case of the Hindi version of John Wains’s sonnet the basic limit of 14 lines has had to be elongated to 18, though, in an experimental way, mixing the English sonnet structure with the traditional Italian sonnet structure, i.e. three quartrains, as in the English sonnet, instead of two as in the Italian type, followed by the usual Italian sestet of six lines, in place of the final ending English couplet; which is also part of the game in poetic creativity.

 

A close analysis of the syntactical structures, rhyme patterns, and overall stanza forms will adumbrate the essential playful spirit of the poems and the poets, particularly in Wain’s sonnet. Trilochan’s experimentation with this culturally distant European poetic form always creates a kind of syntactical tension, particularly in respect of the rhyme schemes, where auxiliary verbs, and such other form words, often make ends meet, and the music is often muted or awkward-sounding. But one common marked characteristic, when we look closely into these two typical examples, is the presence of sentence periods mid-way in the lines, hurdling the flow of the music – a vital element in poetry.

 

However, these two sonnets, in particular, by two different poets - both poets characterized by greater dissonances than congruities - have interesting points of correspondence, especially in view of the cultural diversities and resultant linguistic disparities – in the structural aspects of their sonnets. Also of some interest must be their contrasting translated versions, especially in respect of their syntactical structures and rhyme-schemes, with the additional stanzaic modification in the Hindi version of Wain’s sonnet.

 

This brief essay on the sonnet form, with contrastive translations of Trilochan’s and Wain’s sonnets in corresponding languages is being presented here as a tribute to Trilochan’s genius of soneeteering in Hindi – almost 550 sonnets in his oeuvre – with the explicit intent of acquainting non-Hindi ( and, yet, even Hindi) readers with the curious fact of sonneteering in Hindi of such amplitude, variety and merit.

 

I have written a post on Trilochan in Hindi also which can be read on my blog –

vibhutimurty.blogspot.com (1 Apr, 2015) which carries the photo seen here, which was taken by me when I met the poet Trilochan in Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha in January, 1963. The other person in this photo is Pt Shivchandra Sharma, also an eminent Sanskrit scholar and friend of Trilochanji. You may read that story also as a supplement to this critical piece.

 

I also invite my readers’ of this post to read my related posts on sonnet-writing (including some of my own experimental sonnets in English)* here in some of my earlier posts, as well as my published anthology MY GARDEN OF SONNETS (available on Amazon).

 

*Visit – murtymuse.blogspot.com (Poetry & Sonnets: 7 Mar ’21; Shadow Sonnets: 22 Jul ’21)

Photos © Dr BSM Murty & Courtesy Google Images

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  CREATIVITY AND TRANSLATION               In its etymological sense, poetry means ‘the art of making’ and in that basic sense all creativity has poetry behind it. My point in today’s conversation is about a particular kind of creativity which is ‘translation’. And I would like to begin with the premise that all creativity itself can be likened to the process of ‘translation’. When we create art, in its broadest sense, we actually ‘translate’ an idea, an emotion or an experience into a concrete form in a particular genre of art – a poem, a story, a play or various other forms of art – music, painting, sculpture or whatever. When we create in art, the creative process itself is a process of translation of something into some form of art in a particular genre . Translation basically means change – but it implies both the process and the product, both the process of change, and the end-product. It is a process with a ...
Post a Comment
Read more
  Hindi Short Stories I propose to publish henceforth on this blog, in a series translations done by me, some of the finest short stories written in Hindi by eminent Hindi writers, though little known among non-Hindi knowing national or international readership, or even among the common readers familiar with the contemporary short story scene in Hindi. In Art, the real merit of a work lies in the work, and not in name of the artist. Read these stories by some lesser-known Hindi writers, most of them from Bihar, whose fictional writings are much lesser known even in the contemporary Hindi literary scene. These stories were published in a collection with the title I AM A WOMAN FIRST (in 2021), selected and translated by me in English. It begins with my Introduction written for this book, followed in this post by a remarkable O.Henryesque brief story  written originally in Hindi by an eminent Professor of English Dr D P Vidyarthy. This series will continue every month on the firs...
Post a Comment
Read more
  POETICA : 3   Poem of the Week   My poem The Leaf   Look at me I am only a leaf Torn from my branch Where I was born and blossomed Where I played and sang Fluttered in the gentle breeze Now lying torn and lonely here All alone and musing For many days now Days I have lost count, in fact, Here I lie on sodden coaltar Since the rowdy wind rose Howled and rattled, jarred and jolted, And tore me off with a single slap From the topmost branch Of this old and timeworn tree Bringing in its wake Cool monsoon showers Riding piggyback merrily Yes, the wind was rude and rowdy It shook the branches wildly Swaying them sideways Upwards and downwards Wickedly in every which way it will Tearing at them, at us the leaves Till we flew helter-skelter in the wind And fell here on the bluehued coaltar And then came the burly rain With huge buckets of water With grating rasping laughter And with angry crazy booms...
Post a Comment
Read more