Rasa Theory

 

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 11

Paper : Literary Theory & Criticism and Indian Aesthetics 

Semester : M.A sem 2

Topic : Rasa Theory 

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU 

Introduction 

Aesthetics is concerned with the concept of beauty. Hence it is known as Saundarya Shastra (સોંદર્યશાસ્ત્ર) or Lavanya Shastra (લાવણ્યશાસ્ત્ર). Rasanubhava or disinterested contemplation of beauty is the basic characteristic of all aesthetic experiences. The real perception of beauty is what distinguishes an aesthetic experience from all other experiences. Poetics is one of the three main branches of knowledge including grammar and philosophy in which Indian scholarship has presented valuable and relevant findings during ancient and medieval periods. Indian Poetics, especially classical Sanskrit poetics, holds an old and rich tradition starting from Bharta"s Natyashatra and extending up to Panditraja Jagan Natha"s Rasgangadhara. It continued for thousands of years, presenting various logical, philosophical, linguistic and semantic approaches to study the literary texts. 

Bharata says, 

“Nahi rasardṛte kascidārta pravartate” 

(Without rasa no meaning gets 

established).

In this world, human life is rare. In human life, education is rare. Among the educated, poeticity is rare. Among poets, power (talent/genius) is rare. Even if one is talented, scholarship (vyutpatti) will be rare. Wisdom is even rarer. Wisdom is nothing but Tyajagrahya Vivechana in poetry. In other words, poeticity is unavailable for those who haven’t mastered all the sastras. 

Indian poetics likens the poet to a creator and god. As the saying goes, 

“Apare kavyasamsare 

kavireva prajapati/ Yathasamay rocate viswam tatedam parivartate” 

(“In the infinite world of poetry the poet is the only creator. He transforms the world as it pleases him”). A girl may flaunt many ornaments but if she is immodest she won’t be attractive. Likewise, even if a poem has numerous figures of speech, if it lacks the sweetness of suggestion, it won’t ravish the heart.

The three basic principles that underlie all aesthetic formulations are:

1. Rasa theory is temporal. It lasts only so long as we are in the world of art.

2. Aesthetic experiences are unselfish, they are not tied to the ego. A man becomes totally unconscious of his private self when he is in the world of art. 

3. No emotion can be called rasa unless it is artistically excited. Thus when a young man falls in love and his entire frame is shaken, we cannot speak of him as being the subject of shringara rasa. Rasa is strictly an emotion excited by artistic circumstances. 

•Bharata’s Rasasutra :-

The theory of Rasa is the cornerstone of Indian aesthetics. The Sanskrit word rasa has several meanings including sap, juice, essence, water, flavour, taste, relish and sentiments. The Upanishads have used it to mean Brahman. The term rasa refers to the creative experiences of the poet, the aesthetic relish of the reader and the complex of emotional states present in the poem. In poetics, the term covers the subjective experiences of the poet and the reader and the objective structural focus of the poem.

Rajshekhar said that the founder of Rasa Sampraday was Nandikeshwar. But there is no Grantha found of him. The first scientific philosophy of interest is found in Bharata's Natyashastra. 

The principle of rasa is the most ancient and eternal principle in Indian poetry.  Natyaras were founded by Adya Kavyacharya and Natyacharya Bharatmuni.  Since then no principal has been able to disregard Rasa Shastra and Rasa Vichar. Rasa resides in one form or another.  Other theories are often formed with interest at the center.  Bharat's successors Acharya Bhatt, Lolat, Shankuk, Bhattanayak and Abhinav Gupta wrote commentaries and commentaries on Bharat's Rasa Sutra.  As a result, various opinions arose. Phonological principles like Anandvardhan also called the rasa sound excellent and discussed it in the context of Rasa's poetry.  Alankar shastris like Bhamah, Dandi, Rudrat etc. also accepted rasa through rasa  Attire.  The qualities of a formalist dwarf are also rasasadhaka.  The ironic Kuntak also shows the way to the doctrine.  Abhinav Gupta's Rasavichar is the pinnacle of Indian poetry. 

Rasa is also considered to be the "soul of the poet" in the metaphor of "poet" in Indian poetry. 

Defining drama, Bharatamuni says, 

“Natya is trailokyanukaraṇa” (Drama is an imitation of 

the three worlds). 

It is an imitation (anukarana) and narration (anukirtana) of the states and actions of the world. The basic texts that deal with rasa theory are Bharata’s Natyasastra and Abhinavagupta’s commentary on it titled Abhinavabharati. Bharata’s formula for the evocation of rasa can be stated thus:

Vibhavanubhava vyabhicari saṃyogad rasaniapattih

(Vibhava + Anubhava + Vyabhicaribhava + Sthayibhava = Rasa)

Rasa is realised by the fusion of vibhava, anubhava and vyabhicaribhava with sthayibhava, the permanent emotion (which does not find a place in the cryptic definition).

•Bhava:-

Drama represents all the bhavas of the world. Bhava means things existing including mental states. In poetics, bhavas refer to those elements of poetry which make rasa pervade the heart of the reader. Bhāvas bring into being (bhavayanti) rasa which is the end/meaning of a poem (Kavyartha). Bhava also refers to the creative experience of the poet (kaverantargatam 

bhavam).

Bharata names 49 bhavas as capable of manifesting rasa: 8 sthayi bhavas, 33 vyabhicaribhavas and 8 sattvika bhavas. This list includes sleep, dream and death which cannot be considered as emotional states. However, we cannot deny the intimate relationship these states have with emotions.

•Vibhava:-

Vibhavas are the characters and situations in a play that cause the emergence of rasa, that is, they are the objective conditions producing an emotion. Vibhavas are of two types: 

1. Alambana Vibhavas

2. Uddipana Vibhavas

Alambana vibhavas refer to a person or persons with reference to whom rasa gets manifested. Uddipana vibhavas are the excitants, the circumstances that excite the emotion. A young man may feel attracted towards a girl if the circumstances are cooperating with it. It is highly likely that a young man may fall in love with a woman of young age if they are thrown alone, there is beautiful scenery before them, the moon peeping through the clouds, the fragrant breeze blowing, there is a slight drizzle, the birds twittering and the like. Any one of such circumstances may be regarded as an uddipana vibhava and the man and the woman are Alambana vibhavas to each other.

Vibhavas may be likened to what TS Eliot calls 

“the objective correlative”. 

Eliot defines objective correlative as a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for the evocation of a particular emotion. 

•Anubhava:-

Anubhavas are those effects which are felt by the characters when they are under the influence of an emotion. These are the bodily expressions by means of which an emotion is expressed. Thus the arch glances of a lady and her inviting smile may be regarded as anubhavas. At times anubhavas are voluntary deliberate actions. Sometimes these could be purely involuntary like blushing, trembling, sweating etc. Such involuntary actions are known as Sattvika Bhavas.

•Vyabhicaribhava:-

These are the transitory moods depending on and reinforcing the sthayibhava. If the sthayibhava is considered to be the king, the vyabhicaribhavas are its servants. Or, if the sthayibhava can be considered as a chaste wife (pativrata), then the vyabhicaribhava is a prostitute. Vividhamabhimukhyena rasesu caranti: iti vyabhicarinah (That which moves towards rasa in diverse ways is vyabhichari). They do not attain the intensity of emotions, nor do they last long. They do not even have an independent status. They rise and subside with the corresponding sthayibhava. They are fragile, dependent and temporary.

However, the sthayibhavas cannot be expressed in poetry without the help of these vyabhicaribhavas. A woman in love anxiously waiting for her lover at the rendezvous may feel disappointed (vishada) that he is not coming, may be anxious (chinta) that something might have happened to him, may be jealous (asuya) that he may have been courted by another woman, may feel delight (harsa) in remembering the sweet words he whispered into her ears and so on. Each one of these transitory moods may be considered as the vyabhicaribhava reinforcing rati (love).

•Sthayibhava:-

Sthayibhavas are permanent emotions that lie embedded in the human organism. They are sthayi because (i) they remain embedded in the human system forever and (ii) they unify and dominate an entire work of art (Shanta is the angirasa of Mahabharata; Karuna that of Ramayana). Bharata speaks of eight sthayibhavas. A ninth one (Nirveda) was added by later commentators on Natyasastra. The nine rasas and their corresponding sthayibhavas are listed below:

No	Rasa	Sthayi Bhava	Colour	Deity
1.	Sringara	Rati (Love)	Green	Vishnu
2.	Hasya	Hasa (Humour)	White	Rama
3.	Karuna	Soka (Sorrow)	Grey	Varuna
4.	Raudra	Krodha (Anger)	Red	Indra
5.	Vira	Utsaha (Energy)	Golden	Rudra
6.	Bhayanaka	Bhaya (Fear)	Black	Yama
7.	Bibhatsa	Jugupsa (Disgust)	Blue	Shiva / Mahakala
8.	Adbhuta	Vismaya (Wonder)	Yellow	Brahma
9.	Shanta	Vairagya / sama (Detachment)

The sthayibhavas are of the nature of vasanas or samskaras. Every single action that we perform not just produces the intended result, but also establishes in us a habit favourable to the repetition of the same deed in the future (M Hiriyanna). These habits are termed samskaras. Vasanas on the other hand, are innate samskāras not acquired in this life. In other words, vasanas refer to the samskaras of the past lives which mostly lie dormant in the mind. 

Drama of twentieth century

 

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 11

Paper : History of English Literature - From 1900 to 2000

Semester : M.A sem 2

Topic : Drama of the twentieth  century

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU 

Introduction 

“Over time the desire to unsettle, to shock, even to alienate the audience became one hallmark of modern drama.” (Greenblatt 5)

Twentieth Century British theatre is commonly believed to have started in Dublin, Ireland with the foundation of the Irish Literary Theater by William B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J.M. Synge. (Greenblatt 1843) Their purpose was to provide a specifically Celtic and Irish venue that produced works that “stage[d] the deeper emotions of Ireland.” (The Abbey’s) The playwrights of the Irish Literary Theater (which later became the Abbey Theater, as it is known today) were part of the literary revival and included: Sean O’Casey, J.M. Synge, W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn, to name a few. 

The early twentieth century denoted the split between ‘frocks and frills’ drama and serious works, following in the footsteps of many other European countries. 

“In Britain the impact of these continental innovations was delayed by a conservative theatre establishment until the late 1950s and 1960s when they converged with the counter-cultural revolution to transform the nature of English language theatre.” 

The West End, England’s Broadway, tended to produce the musical comedies and well-made plays, while smaller theatres and Irish venues took a new direction. The new direction was political, satirical, and rebellious. Common themes in the new early 20th century drama were political, reflecting the unease or rebellion of the workers against the state, philosophical, delving into the who and why of human life and existence, and revolutionary, exploring the themes of colonization and loss of territory. They explored common societal business practices (conditions of factories), new political ideologies (socialism), or the rise of a repressed sector of the population (women). Industrialization also had an impact on Twentieth century drama, resulting in plays lamenting the alienation of humans in an increasingly mechanical world. 

Trends

∆Realism and Myth :-

Sigmund Freud inspired an interest in myth and dreams as playwrights became familiar with his studies of psychoanalysis. Along with the help of Carl Jung, the two psychiatrists influenced playwrights to incorporate myths into their plays. This integration allowed for new opportunities for playwrights to increase the boundaries of realism within their writing. As playwrights started to use myths in their writing, a “poetic form of realism” was created. This form of realism deals with truths that are widespread amongst all humans, bolstered by Carl Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious.

∆Poetic Realism :-

Much of the poetic realism that was written during the beginning of the twentieth century focused on the portrayals of Irish peasant life. John Millington Synge, W.B. Yeats, and Lady Gregory were but a few writers to use poetic realism. Their portrayal of peasant life was often unappealing and many audiences reacted cruelly. Many plays that are poetically realistic often have unpleasant themes running through them, such as lust between a son and his step-mother or the murder of a baby to “prove” love. These plays used myths as a surrogate for real life in order to allow the audience to live the unpleasant plot without completely connecting to it.

∆Women :-

The female characters progressed from the downtrodden, useless woman to an empowered, emancipated woman. They were used to to pose subversive questions about the social order. Many female characters portray the author’s masculine attitudes about women and their place in society. As time passed, though, females began to gain empowerment. G.B. Shaw became one of the first English playwrights to follow Ibsen’s influence and create roles of real women. Mrs. Warren, Major Barbara, and Pygmalion all have strong female leads. Women first started voting in 1918. Later in the century, females (and males) were both subjected to the alienation of society and routinely were not given names to suggest to the audience the character’s worth within the play.

∆Political Theatre and War :-

Political theatre uses the theatre to represent 

“how a social or political order uses its power to ‘represent’ others coercively.” 

It uses live performances and often shows the power of politics through “demeaning and limiting” prejudices. Political theatre often represents many different types of groups that are often stereotyped “women, gay men, lesbians, ethnic and racial groups, [and] the poor.” Political theatre is used to express one’s political ideas. Agitprop, a popular form of political theatre, even had its roots in the 1930s women’s rights movement. Propaganda played a big role in political theater, whether it be in support of a war or in opposition of political schemes, theater played a big role in influencing the public. 

The wars also affected the early theatre of the twentieth century. The consternation before WWI produced the Dada movement, the predecessor to Surrealism and Expressionism. 

Types of Modern Drama

∆Realism :-

Realism, in theater, was meant to be a direct observation of human behavior. It began as a way to make theater more useful to society, a way to hold a mirror up to society. Because of this thrust towards the “real” playwrights started using more contemporary settings, backgrounds and characters. Where plays in the past had, for the most part, used mythological or stereotypical characters, now they involved the lower class, the poor, the rich; they involved all genders, classes and races. One of the main contributors to this style was Henrik Ibsen.

∆Social Realism :-

Social Realism began showing up in plays during the 1930s. This realism had a political conscience behind it because the world was in a depression. These plays painted a harsh picture of rural poverty. The drama began to aim at showing governments the penalties of unrestrained capitalism and the depressions that lax economies created. One of the main contributors to this style was G.B. Shaw.

∆Avant Garde Theatre :-

“Dramatic truth couldn’t be found in the tangibleness of realistic drama, but in symbols, images, legends, myths, fantasies, and dreams” (Klaus)

∆Absurdist Drama :-

Absurdist Drama was existentialist theatre which put a direct perception of a mode of being above all abstract considerations. It was also essentially a poetic, lyrical theatre for the expression of intuitions of being through movement, situations and concrete imagery. Language was generally downplayed. (Barnet) Symbolism, Dadaism and their offspring, Surrealism, Theatre of Cruelty, and Expressionism all fall into this category.

∆Dadaism :-

Dadaism, or Dada, was a reaction against WWI. Like many of the movements, Dada included writing, painting and poetry as well as theatre. Many Dadaists wrote manifestos detailing their beliefs, which normally outlined their disgust in colonialism and nationalism and tried to be the opposite of the the current aesthetics and values. The more Dada offended, the better. It was considered to be (by Dadaists), the ‘anti-art’. It rejected the values of society and turned everything on its head, preferring to disgust and offend.

∆Symbolism/Aestheticism :-

In England, Symbolism was also known as Aestheticism. A very stylized format of drama, wherein dreams and fantasies were common plot devices, Aestheticism was used by numerous playwrights from Yeats to Pinter. The staging was highly stylized, usually using minimal set pieces and vague blocking. While the playwrights who could be considered Aestheticists lived and worked at the beginning of the century, it influenced all of the following styles.

∆Surrealism :-

Like Aestheticism, Surrealism has its base in the mystical. It developed the physicality of theatre and downplayed words, hoping to influence its audiences through action. Other common characteristics of surreal plays are unexpected comparisons and surprise. The most famous British playwright in the 20s surrealist style is Samuel Beckett. Theatre of Cruelty is a subset of surrealism and was motivated by an idea of Antonin Artaud. It argues the idea that theatre is a “representational medium” and tried to bring current ideas and experiences to the audience through participation and “ritualistic theater experiments.” Artaud thought that theatre should present and represent equally. This type of theatre relies deeply on metaphors and rarely included a description of how it could be performed.

∆Expressionism :-

The term ‘Expressionism’ was first coined in Germany in 1911. Expressionism also had its hey-day during the 20s although it had two distinct branches. The branches had characters speaking in short, direct sentences or in long, lyrical expanses. This type of theatre usually did not name the characters and spent much time lamenting the present and warning against the future. Spiritual awakenings and episodic structures were also fairly common.

∆Epic Theatre :-

Epic theater was created by Bertold Brecht who rejected realistic theatre. He found that such plays were too picture-perfect. Epic Theatre is based on Greek Epic poetry. There are dramatic illusions such as

 

“stark, harsh lighting, blank stages, placards announcing changes of scenes, bands playing music onstage, and long, discomfiting pauses” 

(Jacobus). 

Brecht believed that drama should be made within its audiences and he thought that Epic Theatre drama would reinforce the realities that people were facing rather than challenge them. Epic Theatre helped to preserve the social issues that they portrayed. 

Famous Plays 

Probably the most famous plays of the theater of the absurd are Eugene Ionesco's Bald Soprano (1950) and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953). The sources of the theater of the absurd are diverse; they can be found in the tenets of surrealism, Dadaism, and existentialism, in the traditions of the music hall, vaudeville, and burlesque; and in the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Playwrights whose works can be roughly classed as belonging to the theater of the absurd are Jean Genet (French), Max Frisch and Friedrich Durrenmatt (Swiss), Fernando Arrabal (Spanish), and the early plays of Edward Albee (American). The pessimism and despair of the 20th cent. also found expression in the existentialist dramas of Jean-Paul Sartre, in the realistic and symbolic dramas of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Anouilh, and in the surrealist plays of Jean Cocteau.

Somewhat similar to the theater of the absurd is the so-called theater of cruelty, derived from the ideas of Antonin Artaud, who, writing in the 1930s, foresaw a drama that would assault its audience with movement and sound, producing a visceral rather than an intellectual reaction. After the violence of World War II and the subsequent threat of the atomic bomb, his approach seemed particularly appropriate to many playwrights. Elements of the theater of cruelty can be found in the brilliantly abusive language of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), in the ritualistic aspects of some of Genet's plays, in the masked utterances and enigmatic silences of Harold Pinter's comedies of menace, and in the orgiastic abandon of Julian Beck's Paradise Now! (1968), it was fully expressed in Peter Brook's production of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964).

During the last third of the 20th cent. a few continental European dramatists, such as Dario Fo in Italy and Heiner Muller in Germany, stand out in the theater world. However, for the most part, the countries of the continent saw an emphasis on creative trends in directing rather than a flowering of new plays. In the United States and England, however, many dramatists old and new continued to flourish, with numerous plays of the later decades of the 20th cent. (and the early 21st cent.) echoing the trends of the years preceding them.

Realism in a number of guises psychological, social, and political continued to be a force in such British works as David Storey's Home (1971), Sir Alan Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests trilogy (1974), and David Hare's Amy's View (1998), in such Irish dramas as Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) and Martin McDonagh's 1990s Leenane trilogy, and in such American plays as Jason Miller's That Championship Season (1972), Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly (1979), and John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (1990). In keeping with the tenor of the times, many of these and other works of the period were marked by elements of wit, irony, and satire. 

Conclusion 

Throughout the century realism, naturalism, and symbolism (and various combinations of these) continued to inform important plays. Among the many 20th-century playwrights who have written what can be broadly termed naturalist dramas are Gerhart Hauptmann (German), John Galsworthy (English), John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey (Irish), and Eugene O'Neill, Clifford Odets, and Lillian Hellman (American).