CULTURAL ASPECTS OF NISSIM EZEKIEL'S POETRY

Varanasi represents the culture of assimilation in the world. Here is life and drama in abundance. The mysterious and marvelous energy has encountered many over the years. Penned in such an extraordinary and rich cultural atmosphere, the book, divided into four chapters and a conclusion, attempts to bring out Nissim Ezekiel's cultural conflict as laid down in his poems. Ezekiel occupies an enviable position among contemporary Indian Poets in English. In fact, he had become a living legend in his lifetime itself and written in about half a dozen critical volumes to interpret the dimensions of his poetry. With Ezekiel the negotiation between the mighty and the marginal turned out to be a life-long creative enterprise. The present study shows that the poems published in early phase i.e. before 1965 manifest the angst of growing artist combating consistently in an antagonistic cultural space and how he rises above cultural differences in the poems of later phase; that leads him to look for assimilation in Indian milieu without any abstractions ad philosophical pontifications.