Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/25

 BENGALI LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER I —o Division oF SuBJEcT. The literature produced since the permanence of the British rule in Bengal, which is often conveniently described as “modern” literature, has a character of its own, at once brilliant, diverse, and complex. To label it in a phrase is not only difficult but often misleading: for never was there a literature more memorable for its rapid development and its copious and yersatile gifts. It can to-day boast of many characteristics, and the central note is lost in the extreme diversity of forms and tendencies exhibited. It is full of vitality, versatility, and diligence : critical and eultured, intensely personal and self-regulated ; apparently defiant of all laws, of standards, of conventions: yet a little The literature why called “modern.” reflection will show that in spite of The character of mo- this diversity of styles and motives, li literature. এ রদ i, this epoch has a character which its form and motive differentiates it from any other era of from its pre-British fore-runner. Bengali literature. Can we imagine Kysnakanter Uil being published in the age of Bidyapati or Ni/-darpan in that of Bharat-chandra ?