Banalata Sen (বনলতা সেন): Jibanananda Das

In his poem "Banalata Sen" the impact of surrealism and impressionism is clear as throughout the poem its spontaneous flow of poet's subconscious and the use of weird imagery make the reader free from logic. Quietude, tranquility and dreamlike ambience characterize the whole poem. In Banalata Sen' being fed up with fret and fever of the outside world, the poet escapes into the dream world by the power of the sub-conscious mind. After journeying and roaming ancient and remote places,his tired soul is craving for Banalata Sen. He employs unconventional images and dreamlike metaphor to illustrate his imaginative journey and beauty of Banalata that exert etheral and surrealistic feeling and exotic sensation. However, the poem quickly turns from surrealism to real and mundane world as Banalata Sen is identified with Bangel and more specifically she belongs to Natore of Bengal. In the final stanza, his brilliant use of bizarre and evocative images again takes us to a surrealistic domain where melancholy hovers as the speaker substantiates the end of the day with hallucinatory and tangible images [Sultana Jahan, Department of English Language and Literature, International Islamic University Chittagong, Bangladesh]