Twentieth Century Bengali Poetry in English Translation

Abstract

The present study has been conducted primarily to prepare an Annotated Bibliography of twentieth century Bengali poetry that has been translated into English. The secondary objective, though no less important, is to assess and examine the translations of the four most important Bengali poets of the century-Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jibananada Das and Shamsur Rahman. The thesis, divided into two parts, but closely integrated, is intended to provide a comprehensive idea of how many of the Bengali poems of the twentieth century have been translated into English and how these have been presented to English audiences. The Annotated Bibliography, comprehensive and definitive in nature, is preceded by an Introduction that discusses the overall key aspects of translations that emerged from the annotated bibliography, while Part One focuses on translations of the above mentioned four poets. The thesis, therefore, is meant to fill a gap in the field of translation of Bengali poetry in general and twentieth century Bengali poetry in particular and is primarily intended to function as a reference work for further research.