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Chapter-II:

Quest for Self in Life and Literature

One of the most important theme and sub themes of literature is a quest

for ‘self’. In life as well as in literature the attempts to understand ‘self’

are predominant. All human activities are perhaps centered on these

endeavors to coming in terms with the self. The philosophers all over the

world and of all the ages have inquired into the question of what I am and

what I am doing here. The concern of query has led to various theories

and discourses on the topic. In literature also the search for self is a

predominant concern of authors of all genres. This search is more

obvious, direct and subtle in the poetry for the simple reason that poetry

is basically lyrical and autobiographical in nature. But before we go into

that, it is primarily important to understand what is self. All our activities

sprung from this fountainhead.

A step back to the discussion of ‘self’ is life itself. The most inclusive

perspective of the human individual is what coomonly is called his life.

‘A life’, without further definition suggests some biological totality,

sometimes the temporal span of an organism between birth and death.

Although it is conception that we can not dispense with, by itself does not

suggest what is peculiarly and comprehensively human. The tendency

then is to think of conscious life, as the essential perspective of human

order. But in the discussion of the ‘search for self’, we may need to

restrict ourselves to experience, poetic self, awareness and the role played

33

by consciousness. In the words of Justus Buchler, “The order that

constitutes a human being (or human being) is itself located in wider,

more pervasive orders. For a man or any other natural complex to be

located in or included in such an order is to share traits that are of wider

scope. Any order, any complex includes and is included in other orders.

There is no privileged order of being, no inherently primary order.

Another way of saying this is: any order may be primary in a given

respect. Thus the order of a man’s consciousness is one among the

countless orders of the world, and one among the orders that go to make

up his being. It may become primary, however, when man stand in a

relation to other complexes which are felt, or of which they are aware. It

is the kind of order, and presumably the only kind, which can define its

own limits, and which can define the forum of primary belonging to other

orders. (Buchler, Justus. The Main of Light- On the Concept of Poetry.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. p. 90)

There are few subjects in metaphysics which are more interesting than

the topic of ‘self’. The word ‘self’ is not a very common one in ordinary

language. We are probably more familiar with the reflexive form e.g.

myself, yourself, himself and so on. Earlier philosophers wrote much

about the ‘soul’, and if we turn to the writings of this century we find that

yet another term has gained considerable currency- that of the ‘person’.

The word ‘self’ is perhaps a conveniently neutral word which avoids the

religious connotations of the former term and the existentialist aura of the

other.

Selves are evidently very unique phenomena. Even in saying this one is

saying something which would give offence to many. Selves are not

34

phenomena at all, some would say. What we mean is something obvious,

something which the man in the street would agree with, and even

philosophers too in their day-to-day life- selves are not the same as the

objects. Human beings have spatio-temporal existence. They have a

beginning, live, and then, as far as we can see, come to an end; at least, if

they continue, they do not do so in exactly in the same way that they did

before. Whatever account we give of the self we shall have to remind

ourselves constantly of the fact that the self is intimately related to the

body. The body is the place of our existence.

The most remarkable thing about the self is that they are conscious. Not

only this, for animals is after all conscious too, but selves are self-

conscious. On the evolutionary view man has emerged on the scene of

things after a long process in which mutation followed mutation. The

most amazing thing that has emerged during this process was the gradual

growth of what we might call ‘awareness’, something that can be pointed

to and which comes full flowering in the self consciousness of man.

Another remarkable characteristic of selves is their capacity for

‘memory.’ The memory of animals is relatively short. The time bound

nature of man’s existence is something which takes on a special

character, for man is able not only to live in the present, which indeed he

must, but to recreate the past in memory and to look to the future in

expectation or dread.

Selves are plural and one of the strongest arguments given in the favor of

the pluralism is the fact that there is no one ‘I’. Selves, however, are

capable of coming into a form of association with each other. If there is

35

‘I’, ‘You’ and ‘He’, there is also the possibility of ‘We’ and recognition

of this in others in the word ‘They’. But the self is something not simple.

It is a constant struggle going on inside every human being to find

coherence among the selves. The innumerable selves within one self are

source of constant conflict and lack of harmony inside a human

existence. The search, in fact, of every human being, religiously or

otherwise, is to find coherence among and amidst these internally

fighting selves.

This leads to the question of the identity of self. Margaret Chatterjee puts

the problems associated with the identity of the self by saying that, “The

question of the identity of the self is no less fraught with puzzles. In what

sense are you the ‘same’ as you were ten years ago? There are similar

puzzles too about the identity of physical things. Hume has given a

brilliant analysis in his Treatise showing how empirically-based are our

criteria for judging one thing to be the same as it was earlier date. I the

case of physical things, the problem is less difficult. In judging of the

identity of persons general structure resemblance may or may not be

there. When we say ‘so and so has changed’ we often say this on the

basis of a change in the other’s attitude to ourselves. (Chatterjee,

Margaret. Philosophical Inquiries. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1968. p.

202)

Perhaps the characteristic of the self that has most impressed the

philosophers is the quality of self which knows. Now this brings up the

whole question of what it means to ‘know’. Consciousness has always

been considered to be the presupposition of knowing. But philosophers

have been by no means in agreement as to what sort of self-knowing

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demands. Knowing in the case of man is bound up with his capacity to

speak, with his capacity to put his knowledge in propositional form. Man

has a dual capacity, both to do and to think.

Margaret Chatterjee has given a detailed analysis of the various views

about the self in the book titled as Philosophical Inquiries. She notes that,

“The view that the self is a substance was held by the rationalist

philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the origin

of the theory is to be found earlier than this, in the writings of Aristotle

and Plato, and in the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages. The

rationalist theory of the self does not stand up very well against a battery

of arguments from both epistemology and psychology. Kant showed that

whereas knowledge does require a cognitive subject this is by no means

the same thing as to say that knowledge requires a substantial self. The

self, the empiricist will say, is reducible to its experiences, although

whether presupposed in the notion of ‘experience’ is something which is

itself not an experience is something to give us a pause. On a strict

empiricist view the concept of substantiality is a redundant one. The

empiricist account of the self is also known as the ‘serialist’ or

‘phenomenalist’ theory. The other contemporary theory of the self which

must be mentioned is that of existentialism. The most noteworthy feature

of this existentialist treatment of the self is the way in which it lifts the

discussion out of its usual context of cognition. That man is being who

acts rather than contemplates had been emphasized by philosophers

before. The existentialist reminds us that man is not only a being who

tries to know but a being who feels and acts.” (Chatterjee, Margaret.

Philosophical Inquiries. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1968. p. 213)

37

J. Krishnamurty, a non-conventional teacher and philosopher gives the

following account while understanding ‘self’: “I would like to ask you

what your fundamental, lasting interest in life is. Putting all oblique

answers aside and dealing with this question directly and honestly, what

would you answer? Do you know? Isn’t it your self? Anyway, that is

what most of us would say if we answer truthfully. I am interested in my

progress, my job, my family, the little corner in which I live, in getting a

better position for myself, more prestige, more power, and more

domination over others and so on. I think it would be logical, wouldn’t it,

to admit to ourselves that that is what most of us are primarily interested

in –‘me’ first? Some of us would say that it is wrong to be primarily

interested in ourselves. But what is wrong about it except that we seldom

decently, honestly admit it? If we do so, we are rather ashamed of it. So

there it is- one is fundamentally interested in oneself, and for various

ideological and traditional reasons one thinks it is wrong. But what one

thinks is irrelevant. Why introduce the factor of its being wrong? That is

an idea, a concept. What is fact is that one is fundamentally and lastingly

interested in oneself.” (Krishnamurty, J. Freedom from the Known.

Chennai: Krishnamurty Foundation India, 1969, p. 46)

Although this is very basic understanding of the self it is relevant because

the fact is that we are basically interested in ourselves only. Only after

recognizing this fact we can proceed further. In understanding the real

self the concepts and ideologies don’t work. What is really valuable is to

observe the factual details, and if possible, to accept them. So a human

being is selfish by nature. Even the ‘self’ in which a man is interested is

not a whole one. It is fragmented into innumerable pieces. In the words

of Krishnamurty, “We live in fragments. You are one thing at the office,

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another at home, you talk about democracy and in your heart you are

autocratic, you talk about loving your neighbors, yet kill him with

competition; there is one part of you working, looking, independently of

the other. Are you aware of this fragmentary existence in yourself? And

is it possible for a brain that has broken up its own functioning, its own

thinking, into fragments-and when you admit time into the process in of

understanding yourself, you must allow for the every form of distortion

because the self is a complex entity, moving, living, struggling, wanting,

denying, with pressures and stressing influences of allsorts continuously

and work on it. So you will discover for your self that this is not the way;

you will understand that the only way to look yourself is totally,

immediately, without time; and you can see the totality of your self only

when the mind is not fragmented. What you see in totality is the truth.”

(Krishnamurty, J. Freedom from the Known. Chennai: Krishnamurty

Foundation India, 1969, p. 33)

So one sees there is no becoming of the self, there is only ending of

selfishness, of anxiety, of pain and sorrow which are the content of the

psyche, of the ‘me’. There is only the ending of all that, and that ending

does not require time. J. Krishnamurty believes that “Our lives are so

short and during that short period there is nothing to learn about the

whole field of psyche, which is the movement of memory; we can only

observe it. Observe without any movement of the thought; observe

without time, without past knowledge, without the observer who is the

essence of the past. Just watch. When you watch attentively, with

diligence, there is nothing to learn; there is only that vast space, silence

and emptiness, which is all consuming energy.” (Krishnamurty, J.

39

Krishnamurty to Himself. Chennai: Krishnamurty Foundation India,

1987. p. 70)

In order to understand oneself, it is imperative that one understands as he

is; without any fabrication or duplicity. The understanding of what you

are, what ever it be- ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous- the

understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of

virtue. J. Krishnamurty is one of the major exponents of the theories of

knowing one self as he is. He writes that “The transformation of the

world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self

is a product and a part of the total process of human existence. To

transform one, self knowledge is essential, without knowing what you

are; there is no basis for right thought; and without knowing yourself

there can not be transformation. One must know oneself as one is, not as

one wishes to be which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal;

it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish

to be. To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary alertness of

mind, because’ what is’ is constantly undergoing transformation, change,

and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular

dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action.” (Krishnamurty, J.

The First and the Last Freedom. Chennai: Krishnamurty Foundation

India, 1954. p. 32)

This brings to the conclusion regarding the methods of searching the self.

There is, in fact, no particular time tested method for self knowledge.

Seeking a method invariably implies the desire to attain some result- and

that is what a man wants. We follow authority- if not that of a person,

and then of a system, of an ideology- because human beings want result

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which will be satisfactory, which will give them security. Human beings

really do not want to understand themselves, their impulses and reactions,

the whole process of their thinking, the conscious as well as the

unconscious.

In fact, if there can be any tool which can help in knowing oneself is that

of awareness. The poets have been gifted with this faculty to be aware of

everything; happening inside as well as outside. But awareness is not

introspection. In a question to “What is difference between awareness

and introspection?”, J.Krishnamurty gave the explanations that first “Let

us first examine what we mean by introspection. We mean by

introspection looking with in oneself. Why does one examine oneself? In

order to improve, in order to change, in order to modify. You introspect

in order to become something; otherwise you would not indulge in

introspection. Awareness is entirely different. Awareness is observation

without condemnation. Awareness brings understanding, because there is

no condemnation or identification but silent observation. If I want to

understand something, I must observe, I must not criticize, I must not

condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as non-pleasure.

There must merely be the silent observation of the fact. There is no end

in view but awareness of everything arises. That observation and

understanding of that observation ceases when there is condemnation,

identification or justification. Introspection is self-improvement and

therefore introspection is self-centeredness. Awareness isn’t self

improvement. On the contrary, it is the ending of self, of the ‘I’, with all

its peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands and pursuits. In

introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness there

is no identification and condemnation; therefore there is no self

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improvement. There is a vast difference between the two. Introspection

leads to frustration, to further and greater conflict; whereas awareness is a

process of release from the action of the self; it is to be aware of your

daily movements, of your thoughts, of your actions and to be aware of

another, to observe him. You can do that only what you love somebody,

when you are deeply interested in something, when I want to know

myself, my whole being, the whole content of myself and not just one or

two layers, then there obviously must be no condemnation. Then I must

be open to every thought, to every feeling, to all moods, to all the

suppressions; and as there is more and more expansive awareness, there

is greater and greater freedom from all the hidden movement of thoughts

motives and pursuits. Awareness is freedom, it brings freedom, it yields

freedom, where as introspection cultivates conflict, the process of self

enclosure; there fore there is always frustration and fear in it.”

(Krishnamurty, J. The First and the Last Freedom. Chennai:

Krishnamurty Foundation India, 1954. p. 156)

One can ask a question: why do we seek after all? We are always seeking

some form of mystery because we are dissatisfied with the life we lead,

with the shallowness of our activities, which have very little meaning and

to which we try to give significance, a meaning; but this is an intellectual

act which therefore remains superficial, tricky and in the end

meaningless. And yet knowing all this- knowing our pleasures are very

soon over, our everyday activities are routine, knowing also that our

problems, so many of them, can perhaps never be solved; not believing in

any thing, nor having faith in traditional values, in the teachers, in the

gurus, most of us are always probing or seeking, trying to find out

something really worthwhile, something that is not touched by thought,

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something that really has an extraordinary sense of beauty and ecstasy. In

Zen Meditations, this is also suggested. Scott Shaw gives the account that

“People seek salvation because they are experiencing emptiness in their

lives. This emptiness can take the form of lack of love, lack of purpose,

lack of fulfillment, and so on.” (Shaw, Scott. Nirvana in a Nutshell.

Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2004, p. 14)

The religious way to search the self has failed. There is more disillusion

than satisfaction. The Zen way of preaching also hints at that:

When people enter onto the spiritual path

They generally seek guidance from a higher power.

They often times go to a guru or a spiritual teacher

In order to be directed down to the road to Nirvana.

If we are all human beings

And we all possess Buddha nature,

What does one person possess that another does not?

What makes one person more than the next?

Is it simply they have more disciples?

How many people, throughout history,

Have claimed to hold the keys Nirvana only to be later

revealed as a fake?

If somebody claims to hold the key to Nirvana-

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Ask them to give it to you right away.

(Shaw, Scott. Nirvana in a Nutshell. Mumbai, Jaico

Publishing House, 2004, p. 18)

So there is given a difference between self-actualization and self-

realization:

Self-Actualization is not Self-realization.

A Self-Actualized individual focuses on what their needs

are,

How to systematically obtain them,

And how each individual should interact with one another.

A Self-Realized individual understands that

Needs and proper interactions are only as temporary as this

physical existence.

Thus, overtly seeking them keeps one away from Nirvana.

(Shaw, Scott. Nirvana in a Nutshell. Mumbai: Jaico

Publishing House, 2004, p. 52)

To look into the question of how this self is shaped is equally important.

Along with conditioning, circumstances and environment, sentiments

play key role in shaping the self. Sentiments are innumerable, depending

as they do on the aspect of an object to which they are linked, the

cognitive core round which they are organized and the quality of the

impulse which originates from it. They are the mainsprings of all human

activity. They are part of mental structure, whereas emotions are only a

part of mental process. The march of time and civilization engenders new

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sentiments and tend to dissolve old ones. New modes and objects of

individual and social living beget new experiences and their recurrence

results in the formation of new sentiments. Within a community, they

vary according to individual. The advancement of self knowledge and

world knowledge creates new fields of experience which promote the

growth of new sentiments. In this regard, V.K.Gokak gives the example

of poetry. He says that “The nationalism of modern Indian poets, the

imperialism of Kipling, the internationalism of Tagore, the democracy of

Whitman, the pacifism of Gandhiji, the socialism of younger Indian

poets- all these are the sentiments of modern Indian poets. The fact

remains that there is a continuous progression of sentiments along the

lines set by the evolution of humanity. The goals that a human being

pursues in life, individually or collectively, are neatly summed up by

ancient Indian thinkers as Wealth (artha), Satisfaction of Desire (kama),

Duty (dharma) and Illumination (moksha).” (Gokak, V.K. An Integral

View of Poetry. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1975, p. 68)

Thus there is a close relationship between the poet and the structure of

personality. In the essay titled as ‘The Poet and Structure of Personality’,

V.K.Gokak refers to Herbert Read and mentions that “Sentiments

therefore form the very substance of man’s personality. Herbert Read

makes the distinction between character and personality. Character is the

tragic conformity of a man to his ego-ideal. It is the power to keep the

selected motive dominant throughout life, inhibiting impulses in

accordance with a regulative principle and maintaining certain integrity

in the midst of the herd. The emotions are largely irrelevant to character,

for character expresses in action man’s attitude towards the world. It is

the front that he actively presents to the world. A man with perverse

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intelligence, like Don Quixote, is a deformed character. Character is thus

a limited organization, based on a selected motive or sentiment or

sentiments to which the claims of all other sentiments and emotions are

sacrificed. (Gokak, V.K. An Integral View of Poetry. New Delhi:

Abhinav Publications, 1975, p. 68)

How does the personality expand? In other words how does the ‘self’

getting shaped and reshaped. Herbert Read thinks that this happens

through the intermissions of inspiration- the light that comes from the

latent memory of verbal images in the preconscious state of mind or from

the unconscious in which are hidden, not only the neural traces of

repressed emotions but also those inherited patterns which determine our

instincts. More significant than inspiration, the essential faculty that

makes the poet is the capacity to cultivate the inherent activities of one’s

own personality without division or inner revolt. V.K.Gokak offers the

following remarks that “Thought and personality go hand in hand and

their goal, whether confessed or not, is that state of vision or revelation

which all great spirits have attained. The highest personality is

inconceivable without the intuition of pure being. In the fleeting

moments of his vision, the poet’s vision penetrates very deep and far, and

the degree of its penetration is measured by the range of the poet’s

thought or intelligence. The mind must rise above the realm of existence

to the realm of being, and this can only be achieved by vision.” (Gokak,

V.K. An Integral View of Poetry. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications,

1975, p. 69.)

Attitudes also play a vital role in shaping and re-shaping the ‘poetic self’.

In fact it’s a reciprocal process. The patterns or possibilities into which

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sentiments tend to be grouped may be called modes of perception or

attitudes- the attitudes of the seer towards the object. Unlike the moods of

human beings, these moods or attitudes have the quality of permanence

about them. The moods of an individual may change from moment to

moment. Sentiments vary from one individual, country or age to another.

But though sentiments which, in a way, constitute their substance vary

enormously in this way, the moods or attitudes always remain the same

for they are the possible relations which a subject can have with object.

These possibilities do not change unless human nature itself is

transformed out of recognition. V. K. Gokak gives the elaborate

description of attitude by defining it as “an innate disposition or pre-

disposition and, in this form, it exists in every human being. It is a

significant element in the composition of his personality through which

he responds or reacts to the world around him or within himself. A

number of the sentiments evolved by him constitute the substance of an

attitude.” (Gokak, V.K. An Integral View of Poetry. New Delhi: Abhinav

Publications, 1975, p. 72)

V.K.Gokak gives the following other tendencies of attitude to understand

the ‘poetic self’:

1. It is a significant element in the composition of the

personality.

2. Secondly, an attitude brings with it its own peculiar feeling tone.

3. Thirdly, an attitude is rooted in human experience. It is not a

momentary feeling or undeveloped disposition, a raw response to

reality. It proceeds from a hierarchy of sentiments.

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4. Fourthly, an attitude is directed towards a peculiar aspect of the

object, the aspect being determined by the structure of the

sentiments that constitute the attitude.

5. Fifthly, an attitude is not a fleeting impulse but an enduring mode

of perception. Moods are to a poet what leaves are to tree. They

flutter for a while and disappear. But attitudes are the branches that

divide the tree of human personality and yet show that it is one.

6. Sixthly, the relation between the attitude and vision is that

between a mood and an attitude. (Gokak, V.K. An Integral View of

Poetry. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1975. p. 72)

In the same essay, V.K.Gokak gives “twelve clearly defined attitudes at

work”. He elaborates that “If we think of the most comprehensive human

personality, that of a Vyasa or Shakespeare, we can detect in it twelve

clearly defined attitudes at work. ‘Negative capability’ seems to consist

in the free and unfettered exercise of these attitudes proceeding from a

state of inspiration and leading to a state of vision. We do not include

among these twelve a state of anoetic quiescence. It is a blank or neutral

state of consciousness void of any responses or reactions. It is a distinct

from a state of pain or pleasure, of pure sorrow or delight. It is

uncreative.” (Gokak, V.K. An Integral View of Poetry. New Delhi:

Abhinav Publications, 1975. p. 73)

So according to Gokak, these twelve attitudes of poetic self are as

following:

1. The first attitude may be termed the Attitude of objectivity.

2. A kindred attitude is that of Intellectuality.

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3. The subjective attitude is the opposite of the first two.

4. The attitude of Ardor is rooted in hope and in a certain amount of

self confidence.

5. The attitude of Pity reveals another side of our personality.

6. A sense of superiority implies a critical attitude towards others.

7. The attitude of Repulsion has the impulse of indignation at its core.

8. The next attitude is one of terror.

9. The attitude of sorrow shows that the object is not only desired and

loved.

10. The attitude of sublimity concentrates on the transcendence of the

object.

11. The attitude of delight shows the object and subject held together

in a state of union.

12. Finally, the attitude of peace implies a mastery of all that tumult of

soul that is connoted by the foregoing attitudes.

The most comprehensive personality will have the curiosity to know

everything in the universe. He will be grounded equally well in the

intellectuality. He will just not be a naked mass of sensibility but

sensibility organized according to an inner perspective. He realizes the

romance of the past and of the future; of the natural and supernatural; the

rural and the urban; the retrospective and the introspective: in short, he is

at home in all the avenues of subjective. While his sensibility in terms of

ardor and pity is profound, he can turn the search light of his critical

reason on everything. He can identify himself dramatically with any

mood of repulsion. He is as much at home with sorrow as with sublime.

And all this, not out of mere good will for an aesthetic creed but out of

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the very depths and innermost springs. The core of such personality

moves in many directions.

How can the study of poet’s attitudes help to understand his self?

V.K.Gokak offers the logic that “It will help us considerably to grasp the

range of a poet’s perceptions if we analyze the attitudes prominent in his

work and the level on which his sentiments are formed. There is much

hope and enthusiasm in Shelley as there is sorrow. Beauty and sublimity

strive for mastery in his work.” (Gokak, V.K. An Integral View of Poetry.

New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1975. p. 93)

One of the simplest understandings of ‘self’ is ‘personality’. But

personality is outer expression of inner self. May be there can be

modifications and fabrications attached to the personality of a person, but

even then the easiest traces of ‘self’ can be found in the study and

observation of a person. On personality, there are innumerable

influences. One of the major influences is that of culture. We can easily

say that culture shapes the personality. Man’s outstanding characteristic

is his personality. Heredity exerts universal influence in shaping

personality but the social and cultural environment is equally important.

P.K.Dhillon, in an essay ‘Culture and Personality’, focuses on the

cultural influences on the personality by saying that “Kluckhohn and

Murray (1953) have brought out the fact that man is in certain respects

like some other men (cultural group) and at the same time like no one

else. Each individual’s behavior is strongly influenced by the culture in

which he is born and brought up even differences in subcultures make

vast differences in personality. The all embracing influence of culture on

the interactions actions, attitudes and values cannot be underestimated.

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There are numerous definitions of culture but Taylor (1871) has the

credit of providing the first formal definition: “culture taken in its widest

sense is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief art,

morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by

man as member of society.” This definition includes everything that is

acquired or learned by individuals as members of society.” (Dhillon, P.K.

‘Culture and Personality’ Quest for Truth ed. Mittal K.K: Delhi, Prof.

S.P. Kanal Abhinandan Samiti, p. 307)

The human child unlike other living organism completely depends on the

culture for its survival. No infant can escape his cultural heritage. Culture

exists in influence mainly because it provides ready made solutions

(though not always correct) to the characteristic problems of the society,

thereby making life simpler and easier for the struggling morals. Culture

is not only a set of devices for meeting the needs of the members of the

society but it also provides a coherent outlook and way of life.

There is also a psychological effect of culture on self. In the words of

P.K.Dhillon, “The psychological effect of each culture is that it develops

a somewhat distinctive personality structure different from the other

cultures. An infant is born into a world of established values and he

begins to teach them without reflection and without awareness that

people of other cultures may not share these values. One only becomes

aware of one’s cultural values when meeting people of alien cultures.”

(Dhillon, P.K. ‘Culture and Personality’ Quest for Truth ed. Mittal K.K:

Delhi, Prof. S.P. Kanal Abhinandan Samiti, p. 309)

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In the same essay, Dhillon also gives the cultural Anthropologists and

Sociologists’ view on the cultural effect on personality. He notes that

“Cultural Anthropologists and Sociologists have carried out hundreds of

studies to find out the differences existing in the personalities of the

members of various cultures. The pioneers are Ruth Benedict and

Margaret Mead, who have emphasized the powers of cultures in shaping

human behavior. Individual differences in the personalities of the

members of a cultural group no doubt are due to the difficulties in the

biological potentialities of each individual in the process of socialization

within the same culture. The important and significant persons, who are

the agents of culture, transmit the culture in the form in which it makes

an impact upon them.” (Dhillon, P.K. ‘Culture and Personality’ Quest for

Truth ed. Mittal K.K: Delhi, Prof. S.P. Kanal Abhinandan Samiti, p. 311)

Now let us come to the discussion of the search for self with reference to

the poetry and a poet. Inquiry must be regarded as only one species of

query. Art is another. The art of poetry is another. All exemplify the

interrogative temper. In poetry this does not entail asking a question and

looking for answer. In science it not only does, but further entails both

the initial separation of questions and their structuring. For these

questions do more than raise the hope of unequivocal answers; they guide

the process of achieving them. Justus Buchler explains the point in

discussion by giving example of Greeks. He notes that “When the ancient

Greeks said that the pursuit of wisdom begins in wonder, they laid the

foundation for the concept of query. But there are at least two kinds of

wonder. There is the wonder that seeks to be appeased and a wonder

which to which appeasement is irrelevant. In the species of query

exemplified by science, the former dominates; in that exemplified by

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poetry; the later. Scientific wonder seeks to resolves questions it

provokes. Poetic wonder seeks no resolutions; its interrogative ness is not

generated by vexations. Each of these forms of query methodically

discriminates traits in the world….Terminally; a scientific finding

excludes and opposes other findings previously thought to be possible.

Terminally, a poetic finding opposes no others. Yet it is the finding that it

is, and not another. Scientific wonder, despite its need for mitigation,

extends itself systematically. Poetic wonder seeks its own extension,

though each poetic product inevitably curbs itself as a contrivance.”

(Buchler, Justus. The Main of Light- On the Concept of Poetry. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1974, p.110)

But before that, it is essential to know what a poet is. A beautiful

description is given by James Reeves by quoting Wordswoth and

Coleridge. It runs as “What is a poet? This is one of the questions asked

by Wordswoth and Coleridge in their famous preface to the second

edition of Lyrical Ballads. What is a poet? To whom does he address

himself? And what language is to be expected from him? He is a man

speaking to men: man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility,

more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human

nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than to be supposed common

among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and

who rejoices more than other men in the spirits of life that is in him;

delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in

the going on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them

where he does not find them…. He has acquired greater readiness and

power in expressing what he thinks and feels…A bold claim is made

here. Can we agree that poets are so very different from other men? Have

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they more lively sensibilities, more understanding of human nature, more

comprehensive soul, and more powerful imagination than the rest of the

mankind? Leaving this aside for a moment, I think we can agree that a

poet is ‘pleased with his own passions and volitions’ and that he ‘rejoices

more than other men in the spirits of life that is in him’. In other words,

he not only has a marked capacity for sheer animal delight in life, he

takes pleasure in this capacity, and rejoices in the sheer gratification of

his instincts. We may agree that he is acutely sensitive, and that he has a

powerful imagination- that is, the capacity to project himself beyond his

immediate surroundings.” (Reeves, James. Understanding Poetry.

London: Heinemann, 1965, p. 40)

Moreover, there is a process going on in constructing a poetic self.

Sonjoy Dutta-Roy gives an analytical description of Reconstructing

Poetic Self, where in he discusses the progressive methods of the poets

like Tagore, Whitman, Eliot and Yeats. It seems that the ‘self’ in ordinary

sense of the word and that self as ‘poetic self’ are different and same at

the same time. He cites the example of Mahabharata and says that “A

text like Mahabharata generates an un ending discourse on personalities,

selves, ways of life, philosophies in a state of creative conflict by the

very suggestive and indicative quality of its language….Besides, the

Mahabharata is the autobiography of one man, Vyasa himself, the

history of one family, the chronicle of one country- because one human

being Janamejaya wants to know about himself- and how can he know

himself without knowing his mula, sthula,phula ( roots, shoots, fruits.)”

(Dutta-Roy, Sonjoy. (Re)Constructing the Poetic Self. Delhi: Pen craft

International, 2001, p. 16)

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Thus the story of the poet can be extracted from the book of poems and

presented in a historical and discursive format. Which means, that a book

of poem can contain, as silentsub-text, the stories in the historyof the

poet? This hidden narrative is so unlike the explicit historic narrative of

formal autobiography or fiction that it is more often ignored in theories of

narrative structures. In this regard Sonjoy Dutta-Roy presents two

models. He notes that “we can notice a continuum of two models of

thinking and writing, of self consciousness and self-representation. One

is the poetic model and the other is the historic model. In the historical

mode it include all fictional, discursive, and scientific modes of

representation and exploration operating within a formally set time that

organizes, connects, combines facts, experiences, ideas and data. In the

poetic model, I include all focused, concentrated, meditative, intuitive,

associative modes of representation and exploration that resist temporal

formulations by preserving them.” (Dutta-Roy, Sonjoy. (Re)

Constructing the Poetic Self. Delhi: Pen craft International, 2001, p. 23)

A book of poems, planned and edited by the poet, could contain both

these models. It is poetry, by its very nature, but is shaped in

autobiography as the poet discovers hidden narratives connecting poem

to poem. The process begins with the backward glance over the body of

one’s poetry, a glance that reveals stories of the growth of the poet from

poem to poem in secret narratives encoded in the poems, and only later

discovered by the poet.

Neither the persona nor the poet we abstract from the poem is ever quite

the actual man: so much is clear. Nevertheless, the picture of a poet can

be abstracted from every poem, a picture made up partly of qualities the

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poet wishes to credit him with, partly of qualities he does not deliberately

display. In satire, probably, the poet’s arrangement of this picture is most

conscious because the satiric poet detaches himself from his persona. But

the attitude that contrasts with that of the persona is not the attitude of the

poet himself, but the face of the poet as he himself has prepared it. In

light satire the author shows us a sly, laughing face. In lyrics, too, the

dimensions of the poet’s personality in his poems are subtly various. In a

sense, all that is in the poem reveals what he is; in another sense, every

particular character, every momentary attitude, every habit of reflection,

every turn of phrase is drawn from what the poet is, from what he has

observed in himself. But in addition to all the characters whose actions

are reported by an observer, there are two specific personalities that

define every work of art: that of the speaker and that of the implicit poet.

Neither of these is a living poet himself, they are divided from him but

the same gap that differentiates art from life. But either of them may

serve, and may be intended to serve, as approximate representation of the

poet himself.

In fact, the poet in the poem, the intelligence with which the poet

identifies himself and with which the reader is invited to identify himself,

may exist any where between the persona and the whole poem, Poet and

reader meet together most clear and most comprehensive. But since

different ages have different views of meaning and of the poems, their

location of the poet in the poem will vary. While persona always serves

as an apparatus for giving perspective on the surface action and events of

the poem, the area of vision at which poet and reader meet provides a

perspective from which the actions and events can be interpreted as

meaningful in a world of meanings.

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Once upon a time poetry and science were one and they both were

supposed to search ‘a truth’ with different tools. If poetry is a way of

knowing, it is a means towards a special kind of knowing. What is this

special kind of knowing that is claimed from poetry? Poetry gives us a

keener awareness of life. This argument may be a bit vague, but from the

poetry we read we definitely get the idea of awareness at work. There can

be objections raised to this notion. One of the major objections is based

on perception. We know what we do know through our senses. Science is

concerned with the perceptible world: poetry, though it uses the material

of the perceptible world, is concerned with the imperceptible. But the

imperceptible admits of no examination, no proof; therefore no activity

within the field of the imperceptible can claim to produce knowledge.

But the truth of poetry and more precisely, the process of knowing by

poet through poetry can only be perceptible to those who go through the

poetry with the same kind of sensitivity.

The discussion of ‘imperceptible’ takes us to the ‘inner world’ of poet.

The notion of inner world goes very far. But with reference to searching

the self through poetry, to examine the inner world in very specific terms

is very important. But a few questions, at least, can be raised with regard

to the belief that such a world is the world in terms of which poetry is to

be understood. These questions are nicely posed by Justus Buchler. “Is

there an inner world common to all poets? Or is each poet’s world his

inner world? Or is every private inner world continuous with every

other? Such a continuum of private worlds would constitute a fairy

common world. And if this is the world of poetry, is it closed to all

poets? Is it, indeed, the world of poetry or the world of poetry? In other

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words, is it accessible to all but expressive only but poets? Is the inner

world there for poets to enter, or is it there only because there is poetry?

Is the world of actual poetry an outcome of the inner world, a product of

that world? Or is the world of poetry, as constituted by poems and other

linguistic complexes, that which gets to be called “inner”? What is to be

found in the inner world? Is there any thing besides the feelings or ideas

of the poet- of poets? If there is nothing but feelings and ideas, what are

these feelings or ideas about? To what do they relate? The outer world?

Or are they feelings about other feelings- with no need to trace how the

original feelings arose?” (Buchler, Justus. The Main of Light- On the

Concept of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. p.23)

To describe the poet’s world as the world of experience is conceptual

empty. The reason is not merely that the term “experience” has many

meanings, all established if not clearly articulated in either common or

theoretical usage, and that some of these are incompatible with others

even in the face of subtle interpretation, but that none of these established

meanings can be regarded as intrinsically more legitimate than any other.

Some of these meanings remain useful and hard to get along without. But

there is reason to believe, and increasingly as time goes on, that the

philosophic usefulness of the term is exhausted. Justus Buchler explains

that “To say that the poet resorts to “experience” is about as clarifying as

the parallel saw that the scientist resorts to “experience.” The experience

of the poet is intended to be contrasted with “fact”. The experience of a

scientist is intended to be contrasted with fancy. Everyone resorts to

“experience”; nor is it necessary to “resort”. In one sense or another, in

one respect or another, everyone experiences. Sooner or later it is evident

that those who speak of the poet’s world as the world of “experience”

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neatly entrap themselves. For inevitably, in seeking to reinforce the

integrity of this domain, they also call it “inner experience”, thereby

implicitly accepting “outer experience” as equally experimental and

therefore equally relevant to the designs of the poet.” (Buchler, Justus.

The Main of Light- On the Concept of Poetry. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1974. p. 27)

Though poetry and poets existed since the time immemorial, it is only

recently that modern individual man has turned inward into himself,

seeking to know all that he is and to unify that all he knows himself to be.

The inner quest for the totality of the self, uneasy ardent self

introspection, cultivation of self consciousness, does not go too far back

in time. Somewhere in the heritage of the myths and the exploration of

the unconscious lie hints of language continuum with the possibility of

recovery and assimilation felt with in the individual. The poet is no

longer the writer of epics depicting vast realities of impersonal allegories,

or the praiser of kings and courts, or the presenter of the large dramatic

actions, or the narrator of great historical events. The court, the battlefield

and the drama is all inside the individual poet and he is protagonist of his

poetry. The names of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Byron thus

suggest individual poetic personalities created by the poetic texts, in a

way in which the names of Chaucer, Spencer or Shakespeare don’t.

Sonjoy Dutta-Roy sums up the discussion nicely by saying that “Every

great poet in the recent times can be seen to develop gradually an

extremely self conscious and individual sense of being a poet in his time

or beyond his time. Inevitably it leads to an ever expanding retrospective

view of one’s poetic career and the compulsion to unify, connect,

combine as much of one’s poetic life as possible. This is where a reading

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of a poems reveals that how this unity of being or unification of

sensibility takes place, becomes very important. We can locate the

relationship between the poetic act and the autobiographical act right

here. This would apply equally well to the poets celebrating the full-

blooded poetic personalities (like Yeats or Tagore) and to the intellectual

poets talking of impersonality (like Eliot). For the style can be

impersonally-personal or personally-impersonal but it can not escape the

intrinsic relationship between the two.” (Dutta-Roy, Sonjoy. (Re)

Constructing the Poetic Self, Delhi: Pen craft International, 2001. p. 30)

There is also a difference between experiencing and feeling all in the

universe and only passing through those immediate happenings which

affect the poetic self. The understanding of the selfcan begones through

this way as well. Brian Lee gives the example of Rilke and Eliot to make

this point. He says that “Rilke took on the burden of experiencing all

things with a more naked determination than Eliot- a singleness of

purpose which is reflected in his resistance to any form of religion- as

institution, or politics as institution, and also in his expressed love to the

example of Christ along with the rejection of the doctrine of the Christ as

mediator between man and God. To be a poet, to re-confirm praise of the

Creator, the poet himself is to become the mediator, through language, of

what he tries to experience without the protective resistance of any

‘armature’ at all. Nothing must interpose between the self and ‘reality’; in

the conjunction of the two one can at last say ‘One is at one.” (Lee,

Brian. Theory and Personality- The Significance of T.S.Eliot’s Criticism,

London: The Athlone Press, 1979. p. 104)

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Another very crucial aspect associated with searching the self through

poetry is marketability of poetry in general. This of course is a brain-

child of Marxist way of criticizing texts and the authors of the texts. In

fact the whole gamut of literary activity can be brought under the Marxist

way of perception. That may be a different issues altogether, but there

definitely an effect on the poetic self by the market forces affecting

literature. Randall Jarrel gave a nice illustration in an essay titled as ‘The

Obscurity of the Poet’ by saying that “knowledge of literature is not an

essential requirement of the society of which one is a part. We belong to

a culture whose old hierarchy of values- which demanded that a girl read

Pope just as it demanded that she go to church and play the pianoforte-

has virtually disappeared; a culture in which the great artist or scientist,

in the relatively infrequent cases in which he has become widely known,

has the status.”(Jarrel, Randall. Poetry and the Age, London: Faber and

Faber Limited, 1955. p. 26)