Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/450

 CHAPTER XII MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS IN THE OLD STYLE, The period of interregnum in poetry which followed upon Bharat Chandra’s death had been, we have seen, essen- tially a lyrie interval in which we find the Kabiwalas, Writers of the poeti. ¢4ppa-writers and authors of devo- - cal interregnum. tional songs creating a body of litera- ture which, if not great in positive achievement, is at least remarkable in the negative quality of marking a natural: reaction against the ornate and classical type of literary practice of the 1$th century. At the same time the groups of writers mentioned never separate themselves wholly from the traditions of the past nor do they work their way from the older to the newer style of the 19th century. In this sense, they are neither ancient nor modern ; neither do they represent the past adequately nor indicate and foretell the future. They were at the same time incap- able of great literature ; nor were the times suitable for it. Tiey are not, it is true, idle singers of an empty day ; but they deal essentially with trifles, though with trifles poetically adorned. Occupying, as The intermediate ; ‘ ae position of the lyric they do, an intermediate position songsters, Kabiwalas 125 between the ancient and the modern writers, they yet afford no natural medium of transition from the school of the past to the school of the present. They create a 11667210716 of their own, limited and circumscribed by their own peculiarities and the peculiarities of their circumstances, too old to be entirely new, too new to be entirely old; for although possessing lyric quality, they have little affinity to modern