Critical analysis of small scale reflection on a great house by ak ramanujan
Answers
Explanation:
“Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House” may appear on the superficial level as a poem about an ancestral house. Nevertheless, it signifies, considerably, the Great Indian Culture. The house is said to possess an incorrigible property of letting anything into its confine without allowing it to go back. The Indian culture has forever accommodated whatever had arrived at its threshold. It has incorporated all foreign elements into its internal structure to form a homogenous whole. The adroit repetition of the phrase “lost long ago” points to the loss of its true essence. The use of the present tense highlight the ‘presentness of the past’, how the past and present are intricately linked to each other.
Things that once found their way into the house lost themselves among other things in the house that had also been lost long ago. Therefore this projects the antiquity, rich heritage and innumerable elements the culture encompasses. In a world, were human beings are marginalized, irrational creatures are accepted and provided with an identity (name); as with the intruding cow. The poet also mocks at the so-called tabooisms about natural things in Indian culture. For instance, the mating of the cows that girls of the house were carefully shielded from. Library books once borrowed from libraries never found their way back. Knowledge (books) that once entered into the heritage, formed a king of amalgamation of information refusing to die away. The diversity of festivals and plurality of religion is referred to in phrases like ”the wedding anniversary of some God.” Gramophones continued to remain there. Music was an inherent part of Indian culture.
“Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House” may appear on the superficial level as a poem about an ancestral house. Nevertheless, it signifies, considerably, the Great Indian Culture. The house is said to possess an incorrigible property of letting anything into its confine without allowing it to go back. The Indian culture has forever accommodated whatever had arrived at its threshold. It has incorporated all foreign elements into its internal structure to form a homogenous whole. The adroit repetition of the phrase “lost long ago” points to the loss of its true essence. The use of the present tense highlight the ‘presentness of the past’, how the past and present are intricately linked to each other.
Ramanujan has his own personal views on the poetic process . I think we should be on our guard while making comments on his poetry in the light of the poet's own views on what poetry should be like . A poet's own views on poetry are often the will-o' -the-wisps which mislead the unwary critics . If Wordsworth found it necessary to append a preface to the Lyrical Ballads , it only shows the poet's lack of confidence . T.S.Eliot, on the contrary, set a fine example in this respect . He did not find it necessary to add any preface to his landmark poem The Waste Land In making this short commentary on Ramanujan's poem "Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House" I have tried my best not to be influenced by the poet's own critical theories .
On the surface , the poem is a quaint catalogue of things that come into the Great House but do not go out and and also an equally bizarre list of things that go out but soon come back . Even on the first reading, the reader may feel a bit uneasy and he may find the poem a deeply disturbing one in an inexplicable manner . A closer reading of the poem will convince the reader that the poem is a fine piece of social criticism. The poem will assume a universal significance when the reader ponders on this enigmatic poem .He will then recognize that the poem is an elegy on the death of human dignity and identity .