It might well be that poetry is not very popular as a literary genre among the reading public and as an academic subject. Indeed, that is a sad commentary on the primeval Republic of Poets that sowed the earliest seeds of knowledge. However that may be for the glory of poetry in the past, present cannot be replaced and future is here to come. The present becomes the starting point for further discussion.
Asia and Prometheus as an epic poem does show skin-deep resemblance with the classical works by Aeschylus and Shelley. But it is on the contrary, a far-off departure from the classical myth: it spins a myth that is self-contained and self-constituted. As an admission in this regard, I started off this long poem as a "psychommunion" with Shelley in response to his "unbound Prometheus". Still to my chagrin, from my own historical experience I found the human spirit chained by the shackles of European imperialism. That poem I composed not too long ago as a psychommunion with Shelley contained 750 lines. However, it was not woven into a story line nor did it invent a myth that is the most vital part of this presentation. Whatever the merit of that original and rudimentary poem about Prometheus as an allegory for Liberty, it remained in abeyance for my own consideration as material for future development; however confident I was of its blossoming into an epic poem and a book- length publication. The ideas towards its growth kept germinating during this waiting period. Only after presenting it to S. Ramakrishnan of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) did I realize the merit of fleshing the original poem out with additional lines that easily spun into a yarn of its own. Ramakrishnan's persistence had a resonance that pulled me out of my funk as far as the poem was concerned. Of course, there were other uplifting influences as well. The prompting brought the epic poem to its present realization.
Let me begin with a caveat that I have no academic background in classical languages, i.e. Greek and Latin. My advanced learning in Sanskrit abruptly ended with the departure of a man of exceptional erudition with a wide range of scholarship. Yet these academic shortcomings have been quite sufficiently compensated for by my advanced degrees and abiding interest in linguistics, comparative literature, history and a broad range of social sciences. A cynie may wish to get away with a claim that a poet need not be a savant or a erudite person. That may be so but does not give me comfort. (S)he regards universals as part of human consciousness and argues against particulars as historical trivia. The poet is a philosopher from the antiquity of Homer and the Vedas to the present. Science predicts but in far too limited aspects and the areas of knowledge. The poet prophesies with a vision that crosses the boundaries of space and time. At the dawn of civilization, human knowledge began sprouting through verse. The poets continue to act out their impulses stirred by the muses.
Yet I don't have to apologize for my admission that the narrative of this historical poem does not offer a rosy picture of tyrants and empire-builders. Imperialism in whatever form and whatever its measure sucks the human spirit like vampire. There is nothing worthwhile in its essence for those who engage in building such an empire and the least on the ashes of those whose lives and toils feed its existence. In ancient times, Pindar extolled the Greek tyrants.
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