Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/341

 KABIWALAS 317 to this original motive, each assumed its distinctive charac- ter. The peculiar conditions under which it was produced modified the form and tendency of the production of each kind. But while under the stress of a new-born religious fervour and its lyric and mystic idealism, the creations of Baisnab poets were lifted into the region of pure poetry, the more mundane object and secular interest of the Kabiwalas dragged them down toa dead level of uninspired commonplace. It is indeed very doubtful whether a great deal of Kabi-poetry can, with the utmost allowance, be regarded as strictly literary, so deeply had the peculiar condition of its making affected the character of its produc- tion. Kabi-poetry must be primarily It was primarily @ regarded as a form of popular amuse- form of popular : amusement. ment, affording no doubt an_interest- ing field of study to the student of social history but hardly to be considered by the historian of literature except in so far as it rises to the level of literature. Although essentially a popular form of amusement, composed chiefly by popular poets and transmitted through oral tradition, yet it must be noted that Kabi-songs hardly bear any resemblance to what may be But it is not strictly folk-literature or popu- lar poetry. poetry. It would be a mistake to strictly called folk-literature or popular compare them, for instance, to the medieval European ballads either in form or spirit. The Kabi- literature no doubt possesses the same dramatic or mimetic qualities and choral peculiarities : but they lack the condi- tion of communal composition which is essential to balladry and the poetical content is not, as in balladry, narra- tive nor is it submitted to an epie process of transmission. It is not simple, anonymous and objective in the sense in which the ballads are but it bears all the marks of indivi-