History of Bengali Language and Literature c11.s2.2

c11.s2.2

These are some of the products of the literary labours of our countrymen in the vernacular tongue under the intellectual stimulus of the first contact with Europe. They continued the work with an ardour which has grown without intermission, and our present day literature is the richest among the vernaculars of India in quality and in its many-sided activity. The lists I furnish embrace the literature of a period ending 1850, but it is only at and after the middle of the 19th century that we can see the full harvest grown from the seeds sown at the beginning. The works on various subjects written in Bengali after the model of European works abound like "leaves by the streams of Vallombrosa," and it will be a hard task for the historian of the present epoch of our literature to make his selection from amongst the very considerable materials which will be at his command.