Love As Memory, Myth and Metaphysical Experience: A Critical Study of Dr. Phani Mohanty's Only in Love
Sonali Sahu
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) September 17, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22809911 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Mohanty's Only in Love presents love as an ontological, aesthetic, and metaphysical principle rather than mere emotion, constructed through memory, myth, feminine subjectivity, nature, silence, and longing. Contends that the poems move from erotic emotion toward philosophical and spiritual reflection, and that Sahu's English translation functions as cultural mediation between Odia poetic consciousness and a wider readership. |
Abstract
Dr. Phani Mohanty occupies a distinctive position in contemporary Odia literature, particularly in the development and continuation of Neo-Romantic poetry. His poetic world is deeply rooted in love, longing, memory, nature, mythology, separation, desire and the inward movement of consciousness. Only in Love, the English translation of his Odia collection Kebala Premare, translated by Dr. Sonali Sahu and published by Black Eagle Books in 2025, brings together a substantial body of poems in which love appears not merely as an emotional experience but as an ontological, aesthetic and metaphysical principle. The collection travels repeatedly between the visible and invisible, the physical and spiritual, presence and absence, memory and desire, mythology and contemporary consciousness. This article examines Only in Love as a sustained poetics of threshold-crossing. It argues that Mohanty’s treatment of love is constructed through a complex interaction of memory, myth, feminine subjectivity, nature, silence and longing. Poems such as “Ahalya,” “Two Blue Eyes,” “The Lone Woman of a Barren Earth,” “Longing,” “The Monsoon Is Coming,” “Riverbank,” “The Hope of Baitarani,” “Memory,” “My Beloved,” “Devi,” and “Enraptured by Her Love” reveal how erotic emotion gradually acquires philosophical and spiritual dimensions. The study also considers the significance of Sahu’s English translation as an act of cultural mediation, examining how the translation negotiates the particularities of Odia poetic consciousness while making the poems accessible to a wider readership. Drawing upon Indian aesthetic concepts of rasa and dhvani, as well as selected insights from Romanticism, phenomenology, myth criticism and translation studies, the article demonstrates that Only in Love is not simply a collection of love poems but an extended meditation on the human need to transcend separation through memory, imagination and poetic utterance.