Abstract
Malloban (1948), a novel by the Bengali poet and novelist Jibanananda Das (1899-1954), deserves a dedicated reading from the contemporary ecocritical perspectives. The field of ecocriticism, ever-burgeoning as its domain is, is spiraling out in various directions at great speed. This brings into focus a recent critical development known by the various interdisciplinary schools as ‘geocriticism’. Geocriticism carries within its relatively cloistered microcosm numerous interfaces that have arisen in the macrocosmic development of ecocriticism over time. The palmiest of illustration would be that ecocriticism has basically been studied with its relation to literary theory, and/but geocriticism has lent it a far sharper edge, since it concerns itself with the axiom that Earth evidences its own agency. The idea of cortesia, moreover, as it has been introduced by George Steiner in Real Presences (1991), expands the frontier of geocriticism by recognizing the validity of literary craftsmanship such as the novel is; the impact is greater when the same validation comes as a critical response to Earth’s wholeness, the continuation of which can never be summed up in conclusive terms. This very sense of inconclusiveness invites us to probe deeper into the sense of dislocation vis-à-vis location/place in Jibanananda’s Malloban. Does Malloban’s lifelong attempt for carrying within him, like holy grail, the idea about the Earth’s wholeness catapult him into a solipsistic world? In response to these questions, the paper will demonstrate how Jibanananda’s Malloban excels as an idiolectic eco-logos within the ruling ecocritical-geocritical discourse.
Author Information
Tanmoy Bhattacharjee, West Bangal State University, India
Paper Information
Conference: IICAH2024
Stream: Literature/Literary Studies
This paper is part of the IICAH2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Bhattacharjee T. (2024) ‘The Many Unruly Waves in the Earth and Sky’: An Eco/Geocritical Study of Jibanananda Das’s Malloban ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2024 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2024.14
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2024.14
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