Nissim Ezekiel's Poetry- A thematic study

Modern Indian poetry is sustained by the living waters of racial tradition and by the continuing breezes from the West – both Europe and America.Of the group of poets attempting to create a modern Indian Poetry in India, Nissim Ezekiel soon emerged as the leader who advised others, set standards. Ezekiel is a great humanist poet.The concern for the common man,wherever he may be, gives Ezekiel’s poetry an authenticity and liveliness.Life is seen as a quest for wholeness, for intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, for maturity. While the aim is salvation of the spirit from distractions and obsessions, it is grounded in the physical and the social. The quest essentially concerns how to live happily, calmly, ethically, as an integrated human being.The book comprises three parts.The introductory chapter, offers a literary biography of the writer,his art, his credo and influences of his writing.The second part offers a thematic analysis of poems contained in the four volumes of his poetry-The Unfinished Man,The Exact Name, Hymns in Darkness and Latter-Day Psalms. The third chapter offers Ezekiel’s thematic concerns in as much as they affirm scale of values and a view of life.