Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/301

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 277 be doubted whether, in spite of the large number of old philosophical and religious prose-works now discovered, there is a single Bengali prose work of any importance, which unites the bulk and literary quality of a book proper. It is true indeed that the prose of the early 19th century (chiefly tentative in character) is com- paratively clumsy, inartistic, but its formal importance in literary history can never be denied, and even within this shapeless mass, there is a full pulse of life that may be detected by any careful reader who does not associate old book with mummies. But in order to appreciate this importance, we must at the outset obtain some idea of the conditions under which it came about and developed so rapidly within a few years. Modern Bengali prose, like modern Bengal itself, came into being under anomalous The conditions under —egnditions. After the death of which modern Bengali prose came into being Bhiarat-chandra and with the dis- appearance of the great Baisnab and Sakta writers the literature of Bengal was left to shift for itself, uncontrolled by the power of any individual native genius, which alone, by “dwelling apart” in an age of conflicting influences, could have helped to guide it. The European writers, who took and its subjection to the lead in the matter at the এ 2 beginning of the 19th century had of the old school. little experience of Bengal and much less of Bengali literature: in matters of composition, they took as their guide, not the ancient writers of Bengal, who were by this time hopelessly entombed in a mass of old inaccess- (1) The Bhatéachar- ible manuscripts, but the great yas; their language (fea) ভাষা), Bhattacharyas or 70/7 pundits who, on account of their classical accomplish- ments, were thought fit to write in the vernacular tongue,