A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das, 1899-1954 [Hardcover]

Clinton B. Seely (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Delaware Pr (December 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874133564
• ISBN-13: 978-0874133561
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,227,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing mix of scholarship, insight, and creativity, October 8, 1999

By 

Tathagata Dasgupta (Irvine, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das, 1899-1954 (Hardcover)

"A Poet Apart" by Professor Seely is an amazing work where research scholarship, intelligence, multicultural insights gained only from experience, and poetic creativity have wonderfully blended in.

Professor Seely has lived in Bangladesh (particularly in Barisal, where Jibanananda was born and raised), deeply entrenched himself in a mix of the local people, their language, culture, natural surroundings (important to understand the Dhansiri, Hijal, Kirtankhola references), ethnicity, and socio-political tradition, studied the poet's work thoroughly, and produced a phenomenal work on the poet in this book.

The translations of Jibanananda's uniquely Bengali coinages are simply astounding. I literally felt the same milieu and complexities of the poet through the translations.

But a translation of Jibanananda's work is not the only gift you receive from this book - it is the hermeneutic effort that goes into 'fusion of cultural horizons", beyond objectivity and relativity, that astounds the reader.

Early on in the book, Seely goes into a chapter of Bengal's history, geography, people, and cultural archetype which is so carefully, respectfully, and accurately knit that it instantly establishes credibility.

The rest is for the reader to read and enjoy.

I insist that you read this book.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Protest tasteless, venomous "review" currently displayed, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das, 1899-1954 (Hardcover)

I am quite disappointed that amazon.com has decided to print the crude and purely venomous attack on both Professor Clinton Seely and the poet Jibanananda Das by what appears (much to my ultimate dismay) to be a Calcutta source (Telegraph? BJP?- Impossible, I am tempted to think, because neither of those entities, even at their worst, seem capable of such rabid, hateful and vicious venom- in fact, I expected far better from both). I will not dignify the garbage spewed by this source by countering any point the source has tried to make (if there is even a point to begin with)- suffice it to say that disclaiming the existence of Bengal, or proclaiming that somehow Jibanananda was so far beneath even basic human dignity in the eyes of this elevated "reviewer" that he rightly deserves to be reborn as a crow or something- all these simply illustrate that the works of good human beings do fall often into crude and brutish hands. On behalf of decent Bengalis, East, West, North or South, let me extend our heartfelt thanks to Professor Seely for his interest, compassion and love for Bengal and Bengali culture, and the fine work he and other "Occidentals" are doing to rediscover different exemplars of that culture through a variety of outlets. We need more of such fine scholastic efforts in the increasingly global age to bring people together, and more than that, to make artistic and creative classics accessible to people everywhere. I have not read Prof.Seely's book yet (except for little excerpts and highly favorable reviews from worthy Bengalis)- but I eagerly look forward to the joy of doing so soon. Respectfully, Monish R. Chatterjee, Associate Professor.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jibanananda Das - The Poet of the Invisible, November 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das, 1899-1954 (Hardcover)

"A Poet Apart" is a scholarly written book by Clinton B. Seely on Jibanananda Das, the most influential poet of Bengal after Rabindranath Tagore. Poet Jibanananda, in the book by Prof. Seely, is manifested uniquely in an historical time. Prof. Seely has rightly brought forth geography, politics, myth, metaphysics, literature etc. of Bengal, in the historical sense, as the basis for the formation of the essential matrix in which the poetry of Jibanananda formed, evolved, and completed its transmutation from the visible to the invisible. Prof. Seely has done a superb literary work in bringing the life and poetry of Jibanananda Das to the English speaking readers, writers, and scholars.