தினசெய்தி – 25 6 2023
பக்கம் எண் : 4
அருந்தமிழும் அன்றாட வழக்கும் – 167
பரிதிமாற் கலைஞரின் செம்மாந்த மொழியாக்கப் பணி !
முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தில்லிப் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் யான் 28 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு வழங்கிய
முனைவர் பட்ட ஆய்வின் பதினேழாம் பகுதி வருமாறு:
If one looks at V.G. Suryanarayana Sastriar, it can be said that to a great extent, his knowledge of the views of various scholars like Johnson, Dryden, Coleridge, Arnold, and French and German critics on Shakespeare, influenced him greatly.
Such influence can be seen when he began his work on Silapadikaram and Dasaroopakam and his student Salachalochna Chettiar’s translation of Shakespeare.
Again, it has been stated in the biography of V.G. Suryanarayana Sastriar that his love for Shakespeare was largely due to the lectures of his Professor Dr. Miller of Madras Christian College.
His Manavijayam was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.
Damodaram Pillai, a renowned Tamil scholar, on hearing that V.G. Suryanarayana Sastriyar stood first in Tamil in the B.A. Degree Examination, wanted to test his proficiency in Tamil.
He called him and gave him a passage from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, the famous lines on music.
In a minute, V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriar rendered the translation in Tamil, much to the delight of Mr. Damodaram Pillai.
Having attained such competence at a very early age, V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriar still remains a pioneer in Tamil dramatization and an inspiration to translators.
The point to be noted here is that a passage from Shakespeare was used to test proficiency in Tamil through translation.
Another point to note is that Tamil-English sensibility was paramount at this period. Professor M.S.Poornalingam Pillai and Damodaram Pillai were constantly inspiring and provoking V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriar into reaching higher levels.
Professor Skinner learnt from him, Tamil prosody and its inherent music.
Sastriar’s students became Translators of Shakespeare and Sarasangi, a play by Salachalochana Chettiar, his student, that an adaption of “Cymbeline”, was prescribed as a text by the Madras University in 1900.
Again, Ramaswamy Iyengar’s adaptation of “Two Gentlemen of Verona” was also the result of V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriar powerfully instilling Shakesperean passion into the minds of his students.
He wrote in forty verses on very subtle matters relating to literature, life and philosophy and they carry overtones of complex analytical resolutions echoing Taine, Mill and Spenser.
In style, he matched Macaulay and Burke.
His Manavijayam is the first tragedy written in Tamil.
As a Student of Tamil and English Philosophers, poets and Shakespeare in particular, his love for books is a pointer to the excellence prevalent in the scholarly tradition of his times.
The history of Shakespearean sensibility in Tamil Nadu, a part of the then Madras Presidency, has an interesting genesis.
The attempts to appropriate the great playwright through select efforts were phenomenal. It all began in the last three decades of the 19th century when scholars began rendering the plays of Shakespeare into readable prose narratives in Tamil and some of them were even prescribed as non–detailed texts in schools and colleges all over the Tamil speaking area.
One can actually assess the many-sided responses and reactions to this Shakespearean sensibility through the various translations and adaptations over the last one hundred years and moreny taking into account the various manifestations of Shakespearean influence, especially in learning, schooling, acting, staging, writing on Shakespeare, translations, adaptations, critics, film making, and research – all of which point to a very phenomenal base.
At the outset, one notices the establishment of the Madras School Books and Vernacular Literature Society in Madras that aimed at the preparation of text books on science and literature from English.
It is interesting to note that even during 1933, many selections of English poetry texts for school students contained many poetic pieces from the plays of Shakespeare.
The Golden Book of English Poetry edited by N.Kandasami Pillai, and published by The House of Knowledge, Tanjore contains the following poems (i) The Bees (Henry V)
(ii) The Seven Ages of Man (As you like it)
(iii) A Father’s Advice (Hamlet)
(iv) Sleep (Henry IV)
(v) The quality of Mercy (The Merchant of Venice) and
(vi) Blow Blow, Thou Winter Wind (As you like it).
The Society, as a first step, rendered into Tamil, a series of short stories from Shakespeare that were condensed versions of the plays in the form of books.
The next stage was to put on stage these adaptations and a number of amateur troupes formed by the educated groups arranged performances in big halls.
Patronage came from officials, lawyers, teachers and merchants and through such amateur dramatic societies, Shakespeare gained entry in the urban centers and on the Tamil stage.
This task proved to be a double blessing.
At one level, it provided aesthetic enjoyment and at another level there was a general improvement in the way the language was used.
Various scholars including V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriar, Sundaram Pillai and Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar have acknowledged this fact.
When the question of translating Shakespeare for stage purposes came, the native authors subjected Shakespeare’s plays to omissions, replacements and Tamilization.
The translators themselves were conscious of this.
– முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தொடர்புக்கு dr.n.arul@gmail.com
Add a Comment