Male Poets, Female Personae: A Comparative Study of Selected Poems of Nissim Ezekiel and Susheel Kumar Sharma

Male Poets, Female Personae: A Comparative Study of Selected Poems of Nissim Ezekiel and Susheel Kumar Sharma
Satyam Singh

Abstract

This study examines how male poets Nissim Ezekiel and Susheel Kumar Sharma authentically inhabit and articulate female consciousness in selected poems, exploring Ezekiel’s “Night of the Scorpion,” “On Bellasis Road,” and “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.” alongside Sharma’s “A Lament,” “Me, A Black Doxy,” and “Bubli Poems.” Grounded in feminist literary theory, it investigates how these poems convey women’s moral, emotional, and existential experiences while advancing the feminist ideal of equivalence. Central to this analysis is the Indian aesthetic concept of sādhāraṇīkaraṇa or madhumati-bhumika, which universalises individual emotion and fosters empathetic communion with female subjectivity, aligning philosophically with John Keats’s concept of Negative Capability, wherein the poet suspends selfhood and judgement to fully immerse in another’s consciousness (Keats 21). Through this cross-cultural lens, Ezekiel and Sharma transform intimate experiences of maternal suffering, social marginalisation, physical labour, and the pursuit of autonomy into emotionally resonant, universal narratives.