Jibanananda Das

Jibanananda Das is one of the greatest of all Bengali poets. Though Tagore was doubtful of some of his works, ironically, Jibananada's modernity owes most to Tagore himself. In fact, Jibanananda's modern works (all after his first poetry book) got many inspirations from Tagore's experiments.

Jibanananda's strong suite though is an acute mono no aware, wielded masterfully like none before him. It is so strong that even when expressing human expressions, this pathos of things will be the dominant feeling.

Through and through, Jibananada is a modern man with modern crisis. So much so that his writings has uncanny similarities with coeval western writer Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, written over the same time yet published much later. Surely, Jibanananda couldn't have read those.