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Chapter Five
CONCLUSION
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Chapter – 5: CONCLUSION
The rise of Indian poetry in English was the result of the reception of IndoEnglish contact during the nineteenth century and hegemony of British
systems in India. English Romanticism was a predominant influence during
this time. Poetry as a form was not new to India but the Romantic trends that
swayed English literature till late Victorian period also very naturally
influenced the pioneer Indian English poets through the time. It was a period
of reception and imitation wherein western literary forms were experimented
in Indian languages.
In Indian poetry in English, we find traits of Romanticism such as
hope, imagination, and supernaturalism, and patriotism, humanism which in
the west was a reaction to the classical mode of writing. Same can be traced in
Indian English poetry keeping with the Indian contexts. English Romantic
poets were able to express overtly while Indian poets had to address the same
expressions indirectly, for instance Derozio’s ‘The Broken Harp’ repents for
the fall of artistic richness of the country which indirectly appeals for
patriotism. Romantics lay emphasis on imagination and emotions without
thraldom of set rules and this emphasis can be marked the prominent Indian
poets Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Toru Dutt
among others.
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During the time, English educated Indians were influenced by the
British life-styles and their systems to such an extent that it brought a shift in
their perception of society, its orthodoxy and life-styles. This reflected in their
reading of rationalists from whom Romantics too were inspired. Such
readings encouraged them to write on questions pertaining to social issues
which were raised rationally in their poetry. For instance, in ‘Fakeer of
Jungheera’, Derozio represented sentiments of Raja Rammohan Roy and
eminent reformers of the Academic Association, and highlighted the
condition of Indian women. He also wrote on the condition of Indian women
as in ‘Ada’, ‘Song of the Indian Girl’, ‘The Orphan Girl’ and ‘The Deserted
Girl’. These long narrative poems were undoubtedly triggered by English
education and rationalistic thinking but evidently supplemented by the
Romantic characteristics of liberation, individualism and the tendency of
revolting against the traditions. M M Dutt in ‘Written at the Hindu College by
a Native Student’ carried the same sentiments which Derozio left of in his
poem ‘Sonnet to the Pupils of the Hindu College’. While, Toru, in her ‘Buttoo’,
highlighted the class and caste differences that existed in the nineteenth
century Bengal which was supplemented by a long and wonderful
description of Nature echoing the Romantics during the nineteenth century.
The Indian English poets in the nineteenth century were educated in
English and turned rational and revolutionary in their ideas. These poets
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were genetically natives but emotionally and intellectually anglicised to such
an extent that some of them like Michael Madhusudan Dutt and the entire
family of Toru Dutt converted to Christianity. This generation of poets due to
such and various other reasons were not able to write overtly on the subjects
of social and political events like Raja Rammohun Roy’s Atmiya Sabha in
1814, establishment of Hindu College in 1817 which was an intellectual hub
for the many, Bengal Sati Regulation in 1829, Macaulay’s infamous Minute on
Indian Education in 1835, beginning of Railways and Post in 1853, Sepoy
Mutiny during 1857-8, renaming Atmiya Sabha as Prarthna Samaj,
establishment of Aligarh Muslim University in 1875 and declaration of
Empress of India in 1876. Some of them had such a fascination for the English
life in Europe that they wholly favoured them without considering the
goodness of their own country. They frequently sought for new styles and
contemporary trends of writing for their poetry from Europe. During this
time, the Romantics as Shelley and Byron had written on various themes
pertaining to nation and society and they were in the limelight of the
intelligentsia. The clear and obvious result was the Romantics’ thematic and
stylistic influence on the budding poets.
Henry Derozio, M M Dutt and Toru Dutt had more affinity with the
second generation Romantic poets. Derozio had special acquaintances with
the English Romantics in ways that he and Byron were sharing the similar
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spirits in their personal love-lives, also he and Keats were sharing the similar
spirits, in both –in their personal and professional lives as both had been
unsuccessful lovers, poets, philosophers and journalists owing to one or other
reason(s). It may be merely a coincident, still, it, perhaps, cannot be eschewed
that all the three poets died because of various diseases; viz. cholera,
tuberculosis and fever at very young age. Also, Derozio was compelled to
resign the Hindu College just because of his rational thinking, considering
him an atheist –the way Shelley was expelled from Oxford considering him
an atheist.
Among the second generation Romantic poets, Byron was the major
influence on the poetry of Derozio and M M Dutt compared to other
Romantic poets. Byron’s echo of unsuccessful love-life, Byronic Hero,
mysticism in Nature and characters; display of impassioned style and
feelings, sensuousness of physical proximity especially in his love poems;
delineation of structurally destructive Nature, his admiration for myths and
legends (Medievalism and Hellenism), love for liberty and freedom (Man and
Woman relationship), patriotic expressions for Greece all reflected in the early
Indian poetry in English discussed in details in the previous chapters with the
poems like: ‘Fakeer of Jungheera’, ‘The Bridal’, ‘The Enchantress of the Cave’,
‘The Golden Vase’, ‘The Neglected Minstrel’, ‘Morning after a Storm’,
‘Thermophylae’, ‘Greece’, ‘The Greek’s at Marathon’, ‘Don Juanics’, ‘The
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Grecian Sire & Son’, ‘Address to the Greeks’, ‘Phlye’, ‘All is Lost Save
Honour’, ‘Freedom to Slave’ by Derozio; ‘The Fortunate Rainy Day’, ‘The
Parting’, ‘My Fond Sweet Blue-eyed Maid’, ‘A Storm’, ‘King Porus’, ‘The
Captive Ladie’, ‘The Upsori’, ‘Visions of the Past’ and ‘Composed during a
Morning Walk’ by M M Dutt.
Yet the Keatsian influences were ample on the poets as evidenced in
various manners: firstly, Derozio’s borrowing a number of images and
phrases from Keats as in: ‘Fakeer of Jungheera’, ‘Here’s a Health to thee,
Lassie!’, ‘Stanzas’, ‘A Dramatic Sketch’, ‘Leaves’, ‘Good Night’, ‘Forget Me
Not’, ‘Love Me and Leave Me Not’, ‘Love’s first Feelings’, ‘The Maniac
Widow’ by Derozio; The sensuousness of love and the element of kiss as in
‘The fortunate Rainy Day’, ‘They ask me why I fade and pine’, ‘My Found
Sweet Blue-eyed Maid’, ‘To a Star during a Cloudy Night’ by M M Dutt and
along with that evoking mood, the tinged sensuousness of Keats in the
Wordsworthian spiritual intensity as reflected in
‘Madam Therese’,
‘Baugmaree’ and ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ of Toru.
Shelley’s influences on the rise of Indian poetry in English did not
remain unnoticed. Only few of Indian poems reflect his influences but they
are very evident as in ‘On the Abolition of Sattee’ which reflects his prophetic
vision. The imagery of Moon in Derozio’s poems ‘Night’, ‘To the Moon’ and
‘To the Rising Moon’ is inspired from Shelley’s ‘To the Moon’. Shelley’s
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transcendentalist idealism along with his moods of ecstasy and languor have
been a constant source of inspiration. For M M Dutt, Shelley was his favourite
poet and he followed Shelley’s writing style of blank verse in his English
poems. Toru was inspired to compose on the theme of platonic love which
also derived from Shelley.
In many works, the influences of the minor Romantic poets like Mrs.
MacLean –her interrelation between Hope and Love with sensation of beauty
in the characterisation as in Derozio’s portrayals of Nuleeni, Radhika, Rosina,
Enchantress, Ada, lady with vase and in the description of Nature are
prominent; Walter Scott’s narrative verse and metrical romance, especially his
usage of iambic tetrameter lines reflected in ‘King Porus’ and ‘The Fakeer of
Jungheera’ are apparent. Apart this poets, Thomas Campbell, especially his
‘The Pleasure of Hope’, and Thomas Moore’s ‘Irish Melodies’, were inspiring
and influencing Indian English poets for liberty, patriotism, optimistic
idealism, emotions of nostalgia, regret, rationalistic writings with freely
moving stanzas, expressing strong feelings as in many of the Indian poems in
English.
A set of poems influenced by titles, themes, lines and phrases of the
Romantic poems are ‘The Bridal’ which is identical with ‘The Indian Bride’ by
L E L, ‘Enchantress of the Cave’ reflecting Keats’s ‘La Bella Dam San Merci’,
‘Fakeer of Jungheera’ with similar episode and characteristics of Keats’s ‘The
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Eve of St. Agnes’, ‘The Harp of India’ and ‘The Broken Harp’ anticipating
‘The Eolian Harp’ of S T Coleridge and ‘Harp of Erin’ of Moore, ‘Night’, ‘To
the Moon’ and ‘To the Rising Moon’ titles and central theme influenced by ‘To
the Moon’ composed by Shelley, ‘A Walk by Moonlight’ identical with
Byron’s ‘She Walks in Beauty’, an untitled sonnet opening ‘I wandered forth
alone, I knew not where’ borrowed the first line from Wordsworth’s
‘Daffodils’, the title ‘Parting’ derived from Byron’s ‘When We Two Parted’,
‘King Porus’ anticipated Byron, Moore and Shakespeare’s poetic lines, ‘Vision
of Past’ borrowed the phrases from Byron and is also identical with Byron’s
‘Dream’, ‘Composed during a Morning Walk’ influenced by Byron’s ‘She
Walks in Beauty’, ‘Savitri’ has similar lines from ‘Ruth, or the influence of
Nature’ written by Wordsworth, ‘The Tree of Life’ and ‘Our Casuarina Tree’
were definitely influenced by the tree poems like ‘A Poison Tree’ by Blake,
Wordsworth’s ‘Oak Tree’, ‘The Haunted Tree’ and ‘Yew-Tree’. The other
supplementing thematic elements like: Nature, sensual (kissing and
embracing); Byronic Hero, Universal Brotherhood of Man, Freedom and
Nationalistic are indebted to the Romantics. In the particular chapters, such
directly borrowed phrases are discussed in detail.
Also, the use of epigraphs by the poets draw us to hypothec the
influence of the Romantic poetry. Derozio begins many of his poems with
introductory verses in a simple adornment of epigraphs, mostly, derived from
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the Romantic poets. For instances, in ‘Enchantress of the Cave’ epigraphs
derived from ‘The Giaour’ and ‘Lalla Rookh’ written by Byron and Tom
Moore respectively; in ‘Hope’ epigraph derived from Tom Moore; in ‘Sappho’
epigraph derived from ‘Don Juan’, canto 4 written by Byron; in ‘Romeo and
Juliet’ epigraph derived from ‘Don Juan’, canto 3 written by Byron; in ‘Phyle’
epigraph derived from Byron; in ‘The Greeks at Marathon’ epigraph derived
from Byron; in ‘Italy’ epigraph derived from ‘Childe Harold’, Cant. 4 by
Byron; in ‘Freedom to Slave’ epigraph derived from Campbell; in ‘The Poet’s
Grave’ epigraph derived from Campbell; in ‘Evening in August’ epigraph
derived from Campbell; in ‘My Dream’ epigraph derived from Campbell; in
‘Leaves’ epigraph derived from P B Shelley; in ‘Tasso’ epigraph derived from
‘Life of Tasso’ by John Black; in ‘All is Lost, Save Honour’ epigraph derived
from History of France by Thurtle; in ‘Yorick’s Scull’ epigraph derived from
Shakespeare, and also the poems like ‘The Tomb’, ‘The Golden Vase’, ‘The
Deserted Girl’, ‘The Neglected Minstrel’, ‘The New Atlantis’, ‘Phyle’, ‘Ada’,
‘The Orphan Girl’, ‘Greece’ and ‘Heaven’ which were following this Romantic
characteristic of simple adornment with the epigraphs.
The poems which exhibited the Romantic themes of freedom and
liberty are ‘Thermophylae’, ‘Greece’, ‘Phlye’, ‘Freedom to Slave’, ‘All is Lost,
Save Honour’, ‘The Harp of India’, ‘The Broken Harp’, ‘The Harp’, ‘To India –
My Native Land’, ‘Sonnet to the Pupils of the Hindu College’ by Derozio;
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‘King Porus’, ‘Written at the Hindu College by a Native Student’ by M M Dutt
also projected from the readings of Byron, Shelley, Thomas Moore, Thomas
Campbell, other minor Romantic poets and philanthropists like Thomas
Paine.
There are discernible influences of Romantic themes such as mysticism,
love, hope, parting, patriotism, freedom and liberty and also the presentation
of medieval themes with gothic atmosphere on Indian poetry in English.
These themes not only planted the basic ideas for the poetry to come but they
inspired Indian poets to write within the Indian contexts. These themes were
supplemented by Romantic concept of Nature. It enhanced Indian poetry in
English with passionate and sensuous narrations of Nature, echoing
Wordsworthian Nature and his cry for pantheism. It also included insight of
Coleridge’s imaginary perceptions of Nature as ‘Super-Natural’ though
seldom in the Indian poetry but as a part of it. The narration of the passionate
romanticism in Man and Nature and the mysteriousness of Nature both were
stirred by the Byronic school. The influences of Romantic Nature on the rise of
Indian poetry in English are discussed in detail in the corresponding chapters.
This Romantic influence is on two aspects: first, structurally which
included the words, phrases, style, rhyming scheme, imagery and second
thematically which included stray ideas and concepts. On borrowing and/or
imitating of ideas and/or imagery it may be said that even Milton borrowed
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ideas from Dante for his Paradise Lost, Shakespeare was indebted to Plutarch
for the story element of his plays but what makes it significant is the
presentation of the material in genuinely artistic ways which remains more
important and not the stray idea or imagery taken from Romantics or other.
In fact, brighter side of the influence is that it supplemented Indian poetry in
English to step with contemporary modes and trends.
To put in a nutshell, this research work studies the three major poets;
Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Toru Dutt and their poetry
individually in chapter two, three and four respectively. It traces literary
influence of Romantics on each poet in detail. In the study, the major
perceptions/elements that have been considered are Nature, Supernaturalism,
Mysticism, Love, Separation, Medieval and Hellenism,
Nationalism,
Humanism and Freedom. These first generation Indian poets were definitely
successful in expressing their passions in a foreign language under the
dominant spell of English Romantic poets. It supplemented the rise of the
Indian poetry in English and aided it to achieve the poetic excellence. By
identifying such traces or influences of English Romanticism on this poetry
does not diminish the excellence and the richness.
Forgotten for a century the early Indian English poets have generated
new interest today. Post-colonial critic of the poets who wrote during the hay
days of colonial period can be studied with the contextual approach to draw
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on decolonising aspects. Another interesting study can be the selection of
Indian sources by the writer in the imitative phase of the colonial rule. Study
of contemporary Bengal poets can also be taken note of to mark the influences
of these writers on Indian poets.