Samar Sen
Encyclopedia
Samar Sen (10th October, 1916-1987) was a Bengal
i poet and journalist. He hailed from an illustrious family, many of whose scions have enriched the intellectual world of Bengal. His grandfather, Dinesh Chandra Sen, was a well-known writer and a doyen of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. His father, Arun Sen, an academician of repute, had allegedly remarked, "I am a mediocre son of a genius father and a mediocre father of a genius son!" Samar Sen, along with Subhash Mukhopadhyay, belonged to the second generation of modern Bengali poets, to whom the torch was passed from such stalwarts as Jibananda Das, Bishnu Dey
, Sudhindranath Dutta and others. However, he gave up poetry fairly early and devoted the better part of his later life to Marxism and journalism. He was the editor of the leftist newspaper Frontier published from Kolkata
, which was banned during the notorious period of Indian Emergency (1975 -1977) declared by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi
.
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
i poet and journalist. He hailed from an illustrious family, many of whose scions have enriched the intellectual world of Bengal. His grandfather, Dinesh Chandra Sen, was a well-known writer and a doyen of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. His father, Arun Sen, an academician of repute, had allegedly remarked, "I am a mediocre son of a genius father and a mediocre father of a genius son!" Samar Sen, along with Subhash Mukhopadhyay, belonged to the second generation of modern Bengali poets, to whom the torch was passed from such stalwarts as Jibananda Das, Bishnu Dey
Bishnu Dey
Bishnu Dey was a prominent Bengali poet, prose writer, translator, academic and art critique in the era of modernism, post-modernism...
, Sudhindranath Dutta and others. However, he gave up poetry fairly early and devoted the better part of his later life to Marxism and journalism. He was the editor of the leftist newspaper Frontier published from Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, which was banned during the notorious period of Indian Emergency (1975 -1977) declared by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
.
Poetry
Samar Sen, like his other illustrious contemporaries, grew up under the gigantic impact of Rabindranath Tagore. Yet Samar Sen was perhaps the first to 'break' with the lyrical romanticism of Tagore and introduced "modern" (disenchantment, decadence, avant garde urban heterotopia) in Bengali verse. Influence of French and English modernism was originally translated into Bengali verse. A certain convergence of modernism and Marxism was evident in his poetic thought and style. His poetic life was somewhat over shadowed by his very original journalism as the editor of legendary Frontier in his later life. He was also chosen as the translator in the translator program for Soviet literature, he spent nearly five years in Moskow in the translators job, and in later part of his life became somewhat doubtful about bureaucratic "Communism" in general.Tribute
----- ...he is comparatively modern poet without being progressive. He has dedicated his first work to Muzaffar Ahmad.I pray that it should mean something more than a mere personal allgiance...Brevity is its(his poems')soul...Samar Sen is an up-to-date representative poet.He needs to be progressive by informing himself with a sense of history.He has also yet to be symbolic.Still teher is no doubt of his being a poet of a particular genre—Dhurjati Mukherji
- We talk about being rid of the influence of Rabindranath;as if this we take it for granted that the influence of Rabindranath is inevitable in a young Bengali poet's endeavour.But what amazes me is that this young poet has never been under the influence of Rabindranath—Buddhadeb Basu
Quotation
----- Among those who are penning modern Bengali poetry,most of them haven't joined political movement,and that's sad.But many of them are powerful writers and have impacted the middle class society.Reason?Because among many of them have brought changes in their perspective and expression breaking the ivory tower of mere aesthtics of truth,beauty and goodness and by being conscious of the disgust and the multi-layered failure of the middle class life.
- In these times of dereliction and dismay,of wars,unemployment and revolutions,the decayed side of things attracts us most...Perhaps that is because we have our roots deep in the demoralised pettybourgeoisie and lack the vitality of a rising class.
- Our poetry(Bengali poetry)is basically without a tradition.