Keatsian Romantic Escapism in Syed Shamsul Haq’s Short Stories “নাম“ (Name) and “স্বপ্নের ভিতর বসবাস“ (Living in Dreams)

Abstract

One of the most prolific writers from Bangladesh, Syed Shamsul Hag, has shown his mastery over diverse genres of literature, and hence, he has proudly been called an ambidextrous writer. The nuance with which he has created a mesmerizing world of fiction is unique among his contemporaries. As a writer of short stories, he has never compromised in depicting the struggle of the middle class people. In two of his short stories “নাম“ (Name) and “স্বপ্নের ভিতর বসবাস“ (Living in Dreams), the protagonists, Ashraf and Badsha respectively, represent that struggle. They build their own worlds based on sheer imagination —a self-imposed identity and a lie —and occasionally escape into these worlds being bugged by the pangs of their middle class life. As a result, a fine thread of Romantic Escapism can be found in both Ashraf and Badsha. This sort of Romantic Escapism partially echoes one of the English Romantic poets, John Keats, whose manner of exhibiting Romantic Escapism, as seen especially in his “Ode to a Nightingale” anticipates much of the substance of Haq’s two stories we are treating in this paper, which aims at showing the extent of Keatsian Romantic Escapism that prevails over the characters of Ashraf and Badsha--the protagonists of the stories.