Flowers in a Begging Bowl: Tagore, Eliot, and Bengali Modernism

Abstract

In the mid-1920s Bengalis found themselves in an atmosphere of political upheavals, of communal and labour riots, and of dire poverty. Amidst this destructive environment a fervent group of young poets felt that the pressures of the modern age required a new poetics. Although anxieties stemming from economic instability and political turmoil contributed to this new poetics, this group of poets, who identified themselves as modernists, found in the poetry of Eliot a reality which seemed to them to be a true reflection of their world. This article looks at that pivotal moment in Bengali poetry when a new generation broke ranks with the establishment and forged a poetics that reflected a world different to the one that Tagore had earlier introduced to the rest of the world. The poets challenged Tagore's image of Bengal and created an altogether different image, one that had strong Elitoesque characteristics.