334 BENGALI LITERATURE hackneyed to us in various ways or have been so queerly dressed in a diction, long out of fashion, that even respect- able critics have been led to treat them with unfeigned contempt proverbially associated with familiar things. In these drvaha songs, however, the note of simplicity and sincerity is unmistakable. There is no thinking about thinking or feeling about feeling, but honest human passion is expressed with a clear vision and with exquisite directness of speech. These poets sang no longer of the loves of Radha and Krsna or find in them a suitable frame-work for voicing their individual or universal human sentiment. They sing of natural human beings, often of themselves, and of the naturalistic human passion ; and their expression of the triumph and despair of love, if somewhat erude and even gross, is not sicklied over with reflectiveness as in most modern poets. In the agaman7 songs, again, the domestic atmosphere of a Bengali home with its simple joys and sorrows, Tenderness and রর রা রর human interest in which find expression in the picture agamani songs. = = A র্ of Menaka the mother and Uma the daughter,! creates a peculiar charm of sweet and tender homeliness which is rare in modern poetry. These few
1 This trait also expresses itself in the gos¢ha of Sakhisambad where Yasoda is generally speaking to the boy Krsna. It cannot be determined how far in their bhaba@ni-bigayak songs, the Kabiwalas influenced or were influenced by the writers of devotional ditties who flourished by their side. There is, however, considerable similarity of trait between the malsi of Ram-prasad and his followers and the Ggamant of the Kabiwalas, who were undoubtedly influenced by the special Ggamani or bijaya songs of Ram-prasad or Kamlakanta. Similarly there is some general resemblance between the biraha songs of the Kabiwalas and the love-lyrics of the ‘appa-writers. There must have been some amount of mutual influence and it is quite possible that both these represent phases of a certain humanising tendency of the literature of the age in which they flourished,
