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முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தில்லிப் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் யான் 28 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு வழங்கிய
முனைவர் பட்ட ஆய்வின் இருபதாம் பகுதி வருமாறு:
The second great luminary who revived the Tamils’ interest in drama and acted as a catalytic influence to translate Shakespeare in Tamil was V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriyar, as mentioned earlier.
While he inspired those Indians with English education, he also opened a new avenue of integrating Tamil, Sanskrit and English conventions and seeing them all from the Tamil stand point.
This had a certain comparative tilt, besides touching upon some Shakesperean devices.
V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriyar became the Head of the Department of Tamil at the very young age of twenty five in one of the premier institutions in the South, The Madras Christian College.
Besides excelling in his academic work, he also evinced great interest in Tamil drama.
He was aware of the paucity of prose plays in Tamil and wrote a play ‘Roopavathy’ aka ‘Kanamarpona Magal’ for which, the foreword was given by M.S.Poornalingam Pillai, a reputed Professor of English.
His next play “Kalavathi” silenced all his detractors.
His “Natakaviyal”, considered the first Tamil book on the grammar of acting was designed as an exemplification of drama and dramatization that his other works provided.
This work while substantially relying on eight of the classical Tamil sources, and twelve of the Sanskrit Canonical texts on Poetics and aesthetics significantly, also contains vignettes from Western Literary tradition.
V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriyar found a kindred spirit in Narayana Sastriyar who had similar interests and taste.
Narayana Sastriyar’s magnum opus “Boja Caritam” was completed with the help of V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriyar, who in turn was inducted into work of Sanskrit Poetics and drama by Narayana Sastriyar.
From 1900 onward, he became the associate editor of the journal ‘Gnana–bodhini’ published by M.S.Poornalingam Pillai.
V.G.Suryanarayana Sastriyar’s first prose fiction “Mathivanan” was serialized in the issues of this journal and it was a task that he under took with zeal and love till his death.
When he passed away, one of his students, Chengalvaraya Pillai paid rich tributes to him and even called him ‘The Father of Contemporary Tamil Drama’ and “Grammarian of Tamil Drama’.
No wonder there was a healthy blossoming of Tamil plays and translation of Shakespeare’s plays after his death.
Sastriyar’s knowledge of body of Shakespeare criticism was also equally profound.
He had a firsthand knowledge of the great Shakesperean critics like Dryden, Johnson, Warburton, Coleridge and Arnold, as well as Russian, German and French critics on Shakespeare.
He has also selectively drawn from the Western scholars; like for example, the classical doctrine illustrated by Ben Jonson in the posthumously published “Timber”, concerning imitation and translation that was the spirit of the Age.
Sastriyar, quite like the author of Timber, did not make a distinction between the literary value of his own thoughts and those he found in his sources.
He held that a story, a plot or muthos is no personal expression, but objective imitation entailing its own assimilation and inviting its own improvement.
In the preface to his work Kathai, Sastriyar acknowledges in a single line, his indebtedness to very many English works he was familiar with, without listing them for the obvious reason that the works were too numerous.
Also, the fear of omission of one or many, deterred him from doing so.
Hence, by conjecture and correlation, it is better to see through parts of his work that echo, corroborate or owe allegiance toor differ, from the literary traditions of the West, especially in English, and through English, in Shakesperean canon and criticism.
In his elucidation of “Kathai” and in it, the ‘Poyyurai’, ‘Meyyurai’ and Punaindurai’, the author alludes to plots original, mixed and historical.
His illustrations for these are Kalavati, Rupavati, Manavijayam and Dasarathan Thavaru.
This choice of plays illustrates his understanding of the concept of ‘plot’, testifies to his related knowledge of Aristotle’s model and a reconciled understanding of Shakesperean model with regard to ethos.
Thus, ‘Poyyurai’ echoes Phaedo 698, in Aristotelian Katharsis.
The Platonic development of truth as something purified of pleasures and fears, as something refined thereafter, constitutes Sastriyar’s rediscovering the original plot.
And, the classification of protagonists, the stage directions, and character assemblage in “Natakaviyal”, are an evidence of Sastriyar’s neoclassical insights.
Shakespeare’s views on acting, mentioned earlier, was given through the character Hamlet.
Hamlet asks the actors not to deliver the dialogue in a bombastic manner like the town – crier, who proclaims public notices in a monotonous voice.
He advises them to avoid all extravagance in acting, enunciating the purpose of acting.
Hamlet says that from the earliest times of the theatre to the present, it has been to represent life as it really is.
A play is good or bad in proportion to how true it is being to life and its representation of reality.
These are exactly the same sentiments that Sastriyar expresses in his “Natakaviyal”.
– முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தொடர்புக்கு dr.n.arul@gmail.com
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