The Calcutta Review an Illustrated Monthly (Third Series) September 1946

The consciousness of a living flow of tradition running through not only the major authors but also the minor ones of a literature is indispensable in a writer and the aim of a writer should be to try to direct his own artistic development along the course of the main stream of tradition. [...] But it is pertinent tenquire what is the 'idea' of a work of art apart from the idea of the author ? The emotion as Eliot says may be inherent in the situation but even in that case no creation is possible by a slavish report of the event ; the ultimate effecwill depend upon the author's attitude to rather the author's realisation of that emotion. [...] 3. One of the immediate problems of post-famine rehabilitation of the prowinra is therefore to help the distressed peasants to get I The total number of post-famine destitute.) was of the order of 10.8 lakhs thumbs& thousands) in May. [...] The answer of the Government of Bengal to all such discussion has been to refer the critics to the Land Act of 19441 which is designed to help the restoration of land sold by small holders in 1943. [...] 5. The ineffective character of the Act in the context of posfamine situation arises from two irreconcilable ideas that seem to underlie this measure namely the idea of guaranteeing by law the return of money to the buyer and that of facilitating restoration of land to thn seller : money cannot be returned by the small holders whom the Act 'Airports W help as most of them are now too poor