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PLAYS
169 influence Sri Chaitanya might have exercised on the masses of his times. Sri Chaitanya, thus illustrates almost all the essential features of drama.
Sri Aurobindo liked Act III of Sri Chaitanya for its design, structure and especially its idea of "...a whole scene of action with many persons and much movement shown in the vision of a single character sitting alone in her room."25
He commended the strict observance of the three unities of the Greek drama. This apart, he also tried to convince Roy not to pay much attention to critics if they object to the great length of discussions included in the play because,
*.... where the dramatic interest is itself of a subjective and psychological character involving more elaboration of thought and speech than of rapid or intensive happening and activities. this kind of objection is obviously invalid.... Here it is great spiritual ideals and their action on the mind and lives of human beings that are put before us and all that matters is how they are presented and made living in their appeal. Here there is, I think,
full success and that entirely justifies the method of the drama."26
Though Sri Aurobindo has defended the lengthy speeches delivered by characters from the viewpoints of art and seriousness of spiritual import, they definitely hinder the interest of ordinary readers or audience. At times, one may be tempted to consider Sri Chaitanya as a closet play, similar to Shelley's Cenci (1819) and Hardy's Dynasts (1903-8) because of the elaborate and, at times, instructive harangues delivered by the main characters of the play.
Sri Chaitanya is written in blank verse like the plays of Aurobindo, viz. The Visziers of Bassora, Eric, Vasavdutta, Rodogune and Perseus the Deliverer. Its fluidity and malleability are remarkable. Almost all the characteristics of the dramatic blank verse, such enjambment or continuation of the sense over from one line into another, variety of pause in lines, the use of feminine endings and inversion of rhythm, are evident in Sri Chaitanya.
Moreover, the play abounds in the figures of speech. In fact, there is not a line of Dilip Roy's which lacks a metaphor. Some metaphors, however, are specially striking. Consider, for example, the following lines, where Sachi addresses her son
"Could I help but know That I am a mere lamp whose flame you are, A dim frail stem whose one mission is to help
The hundred-petalled lotus to bloom in light ?"27
Dilip Roy thus has given the biography of Sri Chaitanya life in the form of a poetic play. It covers time span of two years of its subject's life. By paying
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