...Continued

While poetry gained a new dimension, literary forms like the novel, the short story, the personal essay and the biography took shape in the language. The most outstanding poet of the mid-19th century was Michael Madhusudhan Dutt (1824-73) who composed the classic, Meghanad Badh Kavya, the first epic poem in Bengali in the western sense.

Bankim Chandra (1838-94) wrote his first romantic novel Durgeshnandini in 1865. Bankim wrote more such novels like Anandmath, Rajsimha, Vishavriksha, etc. that he was hailed as the pioneer novelist in India. Sarat Chandra followed him with several novels of classical dignity and charm. His Nishkriti, Bindur Cele(Bindu's ward), Shrikant and Charitrahin (dishonorable) are particularly well known. In the third quarter of the 19th centuryBengali literature was brimming with activity in all the genres of literature.

But it reached its summit of glory through the life long service of Rabindranath Tagore. Thousands of lyrics, poems and songs, about a dozen novels, three dozen plays, volumes of short stories and a mass of prose literature flowed from his pen. His own translation of Gitanjali into English brought him International fame when he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1913. His Gora is considered as a very outstanding epic novel in our literature.

The post Tagore period of Bengali literature is also very rich. Here we find novelists like Tarashankar Banerji, Manik Banerji and Bhibhutibhusan Banerji in the field of fiction, Jibananda Das, Nazrul Islam, Sudhinandra Nath Datta, Buddhadev Bose, Premenendra Mitra and Bishnu De in poetry, Dinabandhu Mitra, G.C.Ghose and Dwijendralal Roy in the field of Drama and a host of others who have an established reputation in Bengali.

Bhibhutibhusan's Aranyak and Pather Panchali are extremely sensitive novels translated into many languages. Tarashankara's Gana Devata and Arogya Niketan are equally well known. Manik Bandhopadhyaya's Padmanadir Maghi is another great novel. Some works of Post-Independence period in Bengali literature have also influenced other Indian literatures, thogh not to the same extent as the Tagore period.