> On the positive side, I should say that only in aamukta maalyada does
> one catch a glimpse of the contemporary social life. Telugu poets
> rarely bothered about what was happening around them. They were far
> more content describing a world they had never seen, a life they
> had never experienced, plants, rivers, mountains, and buildings they
> heard about from only other poets. However, with all that I have to say
> that KDR simply makes us swallow stones. I don't find the flow of Nannaya's
> "vividhOttunga taranga" or peddana's "aa puri baayakunDu" in KDR's poetry.
>
> Ramana
>
Like with every other culture, telugu literature has also gone thru
(I should say is going thru) various phases of evolution - totally
God and religion-centered, to king and Lord-centered to wishful
idealism-centered to soceity and common man-centered, and so on.
Maybe Telugu literature has ended up spending too much time in
the first and second phases. I can't say this is due to lack of
creativity - because even in describing well-known (mundane?)
aspects of religion and religious figures, our poets have been
extremely creative (".... tonDamuna avvali chan_gavaLimpabOyi,
aa vanka kuchambu kAnaka hari vallabha hAramu gAnchi....", for eg.)
The SreeSree-rAvi SAstri-chalam genre is so far removed from the older
poets, that I sometimes wonder if there is any other language at
all that offers such stark contrast of poetic palette, from the
ultra-conservative to the ultra-liberal (I may not be using the
right denominational phrases). The surprising thing is, we do not
have too many poets of distinction in the intervening spectrum of
possibilities, atleast those who wrote because they felt an urge
inside, and not because they had to find a living, or because they
had an enviable command of the sophistications of telugu. I can't think
of too many such "moderate" poets, apart from KrishNa SAstry and
karuNaSrI.
Is the situation strikingly different from other linguistic groups,
esp. in India? Does it say sth about telugus as a group that maybe
gives pointers to our present political/economic woes?
> as the people who wrote literary criticisms on aamukta maalyada. But
> as ko.ku. says "antaraatmalu porapaaTu paDavani nEnu ananau. kaanI
> tappO oppO antaraatmanu nammukOvaDam kannaa vErE gatyantaram
> emunnadi".
Ramana, I am not sure what you are trying to say here, but if you
mean that a poet uses bombastic language when he doesn't have much
of original things to say from his heart, (ie., uses erudition to
cover up lack of inspiration), then I agree with you. But I want
to point out that the inspiration need not always come in the form
of sympathy for suffering brethern. The inspiration can be a deep
love for God, or sth else.... In other words, art may not always
have a reason: bayaTa padutunna manchuni chUsi kavita rAstE, enduku
rASAvaMTE Emani cheppanu??
--sreenivas-- dsr@vnet.ibm.com