Bengali poetry is a rich tradition of poetry in the Bengali language and has many different forms. Originating in the Bengal region of South Asia, the history of Bengali poetry underwent three successive stages of development: poetry of the early age, the Medieval period and the age of modern poetry. All ages have seen different forms of poetry and poetical tradition. It reached the pinnacle during the Bengali Renaissance period although it has a rich tradition and has grown independent of the movement. Major Bengali Poets throughout the ages are Chandidas, Alaol, Ramprasad Sen, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Nabinchandra Sen, Rabindranath Tagore, Dwijendralal Ray, Satyendranath Dutta, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jibanananda Das, Jasimuddin, Sukanta Battacharya, Al Mahmud.
Jibanananda Das is a Bengali poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called "Rupashi Banglar Kabi'', Das is the most read poet after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bangladesh and West Bengal. While not particularly well recognised during his lifetime, today Das is acknowledged as one of the greatest poets in the Bengali language.
Clinton B. Seely is an American academic and translator, and a scholar of Bengali language and literature. He has translated the works of Ramprasad Sen and Michael Madhusudan Dutt and written a biography of Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. He has also authored software packages related to Bengali. His latest book, Barisal and Beyond, was published in India in 2008.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to be 1600 years old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650–1200), medieval (1200–1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath who was active as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, educationist and painter during the age of Bengal Renaissance. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; where his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudeb, Kobiguru, and Biswokobi.
Buddhadeva Bose, also spelt Buddhadeb Bosu, was an Indian Bengali writer of the 20th century. Frequently referred to as a poet, he was a versatile writer who wrote novels, short stories, plays and essays in addition to poetry. He was an influential critic and editor of his time. He is recognised as one of the five poets who moved to introduce modernity into Bengali poetry. It is said that since Rabindranath Tagore, there has not been a more versatile talent in Bengali literature.
Mohitlal Majumdar was a renowned Indian poet and essayist in the Bengali-language. He began his journey as a poet, but later became literary critic.
Joe Winter is a British poet, literary critic and translator of poetry. A recent long poem is At the Tate Modern. His translations of the Bengali poets Rabindranath Tagore and Jibanananda Das are published by Carcanet Press, and his versions in modern English of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf and the Middle English poem Pearl are with Sussex Academic Press. SAP has also published Two Loves I Have: a new reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Hide Fox, and All After: What lies concealed in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'?
Khondakar Ashraf Hossain was a leading postmodernist poet, essayist, translator, and editor from Bangladesh. He wrote more than eighteen titles.
The Essential Tagore is the largest collection of Rabindranath Tagore's works available in English. It was published by Harvard University Press in the United States and Visva-Bharati University in India to mark the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth. Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakrabarthy edited the anthology. Among the notable contributors who translated Tagore's works for this anthology are Amitav Ghosh, Amit Chaudhuri, Sunetra Gupta, Syed Manzoorul Islam, and Kaiser Haq. Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher, writer and critic proposed the book as the 'Book of the Year' in the New Statesman published on November 21, 2011.
"Bodh" is a celebrated Bengali poem written by Jibanananda Das in 1930. It was first published in the literary magazine Pragati in 1336 of Bengali calendar. The poem was later included in Jibanananda Das' poetry book Dhushor Pandulipi published in 1936. Clinton B. Seely wrote that in "Sensation", Jibanananda gives his readers an account of the burden he bore, the creative process conceived of as a presence, a constant companion, and not always a welcomed one: Prof. Alam opined that the poem is "about a man overwhelmed by the poetic fit and, indeed, consumed by it."
Mohammad A. Quayum is an academic, writer, editor, critic and translator.
Harun-Ur-Rashid Askari, known as Rashid Askari, is a writer, columnist, media personality, and an academic in Bangladesh. He was the 12th vice-chancellor of Islamic University, Bangladesh. Among post-1990s Bangladeshi writers, He is easily on par with the major ones who gained identical and impressive mastery over both Bangla and English.
Chinmoy Guha is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calcutta, a Bengali essayist and translator, and a scholar of French language and literature. He has served as the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University and Director of Publications, Embassy of France, New Delhi. Earlier he taught English at Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College in Kolkata for more than two decades, and French at the Alliance Française and the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture for eleven and five years respectively.
Mozid Mahmud is a Bangladeshi poet and essayist. He is recognized as a major poet of the 1980s, with more than thirty books to his credit.
Bangladeshi English literature (BEL) refers to the body of literary work written in the English language in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diaspora. In academia, it is also now referred to as Bangladeshi Writing in English (BWE). Early prominent Bengali writers in English included Ram Muhan Roy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Begum Rokeya and Rabindranath Tagore. In 1905, Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) wrote Sultana's Dream, one of the world's earliest examples of feminist science fiction. Modern writers of the Bangladeshi diaspora include Tahmima Anam, Neamat Imam, Monica Ali and Zia Haider Rahman.
Bholabhai Patel was an Indian Gujarati author. He taught numerous languages at Gujarat University and did comparative studies of literature in different languages. He translated extensively and wrote essays and travelogues. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008.
Muhammad Mansuruddin was a Bengali author, literary critic, essayist, lexicographer and biographer from Bangladesh. He was an authority on folklore and was famous for a huge collection of age-old folk songs, mostly anthologised in thirteen volumes under the title Haramoni. In recognition of his lifelong contribution to folklore collection and research, the Rabindra Bharati University awarded him D.Litt. degree in 1987.
Faizul Latif Chowdhury is a civil servant from Bangladesh, who currently serves as the director general of Bangladesh National Museum. Chowdhury has written on a variety of academic topics, including corruption in public administration, tax policy, economics of tax evasion and tax avoidance, smuggling, and international trade policy. He is also a translator of Bengali poetry, and has researched the modern poet Jibanananda Das. Currently he works at Independent University Bangladesh as adjunct professor business.
