• ISSN: 2382-6282 (Print); 2972-3108 (Online)
    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
    • Frequency: Bimonthly
    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
    • Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Jason Miin-Hwa Lim
    • Managing Editor:  Jennifer X. Zeng
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HOME > Archives > 2016 > Volume 2 Number 3 (Sep. 2016) >
IJLLL 2016 Vol.2(3): 113-117 ISSN: 2382-6282
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2016.2.3.78

The Mechanics of Time in Confrontation with the Poet and the Physicist in Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poetry

Sreekanth Kopuri

Abstract—A physicist in a ceaseless confrontation with the mysterious cycles of time beyond the life’s mortal periphery, Jayanta Mahapatra, as also a poet, experiments with their mechanics which are influenced by both his profession and his Christian-Hindu faith. He gleans his fragmented self that is clustered in the painful absence beyond, behind him. Collecting the self from memories in a clockwise introspection in terms of circular motion of time and trying to understand it well in terms of Alexander Pope’s view, “know then thyself presume not God to scan” [1] (Griffin 1978: 152), Jayanta Mahapatra searches for a meaning in human existence with the consciousness of Einstein’s words “A spirit is manifest in the laws of universe.” [2] (Schneider 2013: 9). A major contemporary experimental voice in Indian English Literature, Mahapatra represents India on the international threshold with a native fragrance in the portrayal of every fragment of his indigenous landscape and language. The dual personality in him examines its self through the linear and circular motions of time. In the ubiquitous vacillation in his poetry between the two standpoints, of time the two disciplines – science and poetry – relentlessly collide and leave behind a trajectory of hypnagogic images towards a search for a new metaphor to widen the scope and dimension of the post modern poetry. The bleakness of future on the other hand observed through the linear movement of time magnifies the recurring uncertainty which strongly establishes that man is but a speck in the unfathomably large universe evoking Stephen Hawking’s words, “God ……plays dice with the universe” [3] (Larsen 2005: 42) – a counter to those of Albert Einstein’s, “God does not play dice with the universe” [4] (Mills 2006: 100) on the theory of Quantum Mechanics. So his poetry opens a dialogue with science which is a kind of holistic approach towards life.

Index Terms—Time mechanics, circular movement, linear movement, Christian, holistic.

Sreekanth Kopuri is with the Sri Vasavi Institute of Engineering & Technology, India (e-mail: sreekanthkopuri@gmail.com).

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Cite:Sreekanth Kopuri, "The Mechanics of Time in Confrontation with the Poet and the Physicist in Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poetry," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 113-117, 2016.

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