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MEANING AND EXPRESSION IN POETRY
III. Declarative communication
'Meaning' being the common ground between the poet and the reader, the latter also has to be given his due share in it. Dandin's adjective Işta' has to work both ways-it is not enough that the Artha is 'Ista' for the poet, it should at the same time be 'Ista' for the readers as well for the existence of poetry is possible only in the poet reader relationship. 'No one qua poet writes for himself.' The very object of poetry is communication. The poet as an intelligent human being has his perceptions which he inevitably wants to communicate. Communication is instinctive-it may be manipulative and declarative. All that involves the practical activity of a society is manipulative communication. The declarative communication has as its objective sympathetic comprehension and appreciation. Two sane persons having looked at a man ranting irrelevantly, look at each other and smile. The child looks at the moon, expresses his pleasure and surprise with inarticulate sounds and gestures and is satisfied when the mother acknowledges her comprehension and smiles in response. This is declarative communication in which mutual response is an end in itself. Now for the response to be mutual, the stimulus has to be
common.
1.
Poetry is declarative communication between the poet and the readers, having of course a common language. Here a sort of social response is an end in itself, pleasure may be there but it is only a by-product. Common stimulus, therefore, is the pre-requisite of poetry, for without a common stimulus social response cannot be possible. When Kālidāsa speaks of the beautiful form of Śakuntala as Anaghrātam puspam kiśalayamalūnam kararuhaiḥ' we immediately respond to it for we all had often thought of the beautiful form of a young lady, only 'it was never perceived in such combinations and so well-expressed'. The contribution peculiar to the poet alone is that he has expressed it well and behind this 'expressing well' is the fact that he is capable of seeing it in a composite texture in which discordant elements are knit together in perfect coherence. It is the condition of being knit to-gether in perfect coherence that puts a limit upon the degree of compositeness. When the poet says that a lady's stomach is so thin that it can be broken with the breath of a Manini,' a perfect coherence is not obtained for the way he has filled up the gap between the discordant elements is
उदरमिदमनिन्द्यं मानिनीश्वासलाव्यं
Jain Education International
327
Kavya M V
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