UNIT 3 MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT AND THE EVOLUTION OF MODERNITY -- - -

Structure

Obje~ctives Introduction The Hindu College and Michael Madhusudan Dutt A Personal-Intellectual Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Literary Output in English Michael Madhududan Dutt and Early Nationalism Why Michael Madhusan Dutt Stopped Writing in English Let Us Sum Up Questions

3.0 OBJECTIVES

The aim of this Unit is to understand another person associated with Hindu College, Calcutta, Madhusudan Dutt, a student who had to leave the institution prematurely because, as a result of the lessons he learnt there, he converted to Christianity from Hinduism. An account of his life and the new name he acquired under his new religion will be provided. The unit will also give details of his literary output in English, the language in which he began to write as an author. An analysis of why he subsequently switched to writing in Bengali, his native tongue, will also follow the discussion of his writings.

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Michael Madhusudan Dutt is often rated as one of the greatest poets between Bharatchandra Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. He was responsible for innovating different forms and types that eventually altered the course of Bengali literature while enriching it tremendously. His contribution to the literary writings in Bengali has been the blank verse, the sonnet form, the first modem comedy and tragedy and the first epic. He is also regarded as the pioneer of westemised poetry and the new drama. His contributions as may have been noticed were largely in the field of Bengali literature. He was born Madhusudan Dutt in 1824 and educated at Calcutta S Hindu College and Bishop's College. He is said to have converted to Christianity in order to avail himself of free education at Bishop's College, (Prasad, p. 18, 1999). These points of information help us to grasp the various shifts witnessed in his writing. They are also of use to specifically underline the important interventions Madhusudan Dutt made in the society of his time.

MADHUSUDAN DUTT

Unlike Derozio, who was on the faculty ofHindu College, Dutt (then Madhusudan) was in the institution as a student. He amved at the college two years after Derozio departed from it, but came to imbibe many of the same ideas that Derozio had tried to take to his students. An avowed Anglican, he wrote exclusively in English in his early writing years. The chief inspiration for his early writing was drawn from Captain David Lester Richardson, one of the luminaries of the teaching staff of Hindu College in those days. Richardson was a poet, and some of his works were published, including in journals as reputed as the Athenaeum. Besides he was an Michael Madhusudan extremely gified professor whose pedagogy had been praised by no less a man than Dutt and the Evolution Macaulay. With the encouragement of Captain Richardson, Madhusudan came of Modernity into contact with several literary journals of India - all of them journals in English, of course - The Bengal Spectator, Literary Gleaner, Calcutta Literary Gazette, Literary Blossom, Comet, and was happy to see himself published in some of these. His poetic expression, then, was imitative of English models, and therefore largely inconsequential in terms of literary merit. A representative poem of his Hindu College, Calcutta period, goes thus: (SOMVET) (Written at the Hindu College) Oh !how my heart exulteth while I see Thosefirtureflow 'rs, to deck my country's brow, Thus kindly nurtured in this nursery! - Perchance, unmark'd some here are budding now, Whose temples shall with laurel-wreaths be crown 'd, Twined by the Sisters Nine: Whose angel - tongues Shall charm the world with their enchanting song. And time shall waft the echo of each sound To distant ages; - Some, perchance, here are, Who, with a Newton's glance, shall nobly trace The course mysterious of each wandering star; And like a God, unveil the hidden face Of many a planet to man S wondering eye, And give their names to immortality; It is not difficult to sight the shadow of Derozio on the sonnet, especially if one compares this sonnet to Derozio's sonnet on a similar topic: (SONNET) (To the Pupils ofHindu College)

Expanding like the petals of young flowers I watch the gentle opening ofyour minds And the sweet loosening of the spell that binds Your intellectual energies andpowers That stretch (like yqur birds in sop summer hours) Their wings to try their strength. O! how the winds Of circumstance, andpeshening April showers Of early knowledge, and unnumbered kinds Of new perceptions shed their influence ; And how you worship truth 's omnipotence! Whatjoyance rains upon me, when I see Fame in the mirror offirturity , Weaving the chapters you have yet to gain, And then I feel I have not lived in vain. , 1 Incidentally, Derozio was the first and Dutt the second Indian English writer to write in the sonnet form so much a favourite with the poets of England. One can notice the absence of dichotomy and conflict in Dutt's sonnet that merely asserts the obvious. The descriptive nature of Dutt's sonnet also points towards his facile perception in this phase of his poetic career.

3.3 A PERSONAL - INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT

Madhusudan Dutt was born on January 25,1824, in the village of Sagardanri in Bengal to Rajnarain and Jehnavi, an educated couple, that ran a prosperous household. When the couple's other sons, both younger than Madhusudan, died, the family moved over to Calcutta, the location of Madhusudan's first formal schooling. Beginnings of Indian Madhusudan attended a Grammar School at La11 Bazar in which, along with other Englislt Writing disciplines, he was taught Latin and Hebrew. After five years in this Grammar School, Madhusudan joined the Hindu College, Calcutta, in 1937. At Hindu College, Madhusudan breathed in the air of rebellion that permeated its climate in the early nineteenth century. This had something to do with the fight against orthodoxy. The deep admiration for things European - language, literature, culture, society and religion - that is evident in Madhusudan's early writings, was rooted in the contrast that the Hindu College pupils perceived between Europe and their own country. The contrast was, however significant since it symbolised the fight of the new with the old. C H Cameron, a member of the Governor - General's Council, records this sense of antithesis even in an essay that earned Madhusudan a Gold Medal awarded. His aversion to things Indian, at least to things Hindu, drove him to convert in 1840 from Hinduism to Christianity, something that diluted the spirit of the struggle he had so far waged. Perhaps, the answer did not lie in Christianity but in the modem, enlightened point of view.

The conversion resulted in a rupture between him and his family for a while, and his college, forever. Undeterred, he (now Michael Madhusudan) enrolled for studies at Bishop's College, which he attended till 1847. Around this period there happened a decline in his parent's fortunes. Realising that he would not be able to receive much support fiom them, Michael Madhusudan decided to tap his own potential at sustaining himself by moving, with some Tarnilian friends, to Madras. Soon after settling down in Madras, Michael Madhusudan married Rebecca McTavish, an inmate of the Orphan Asylum to which he was attached as a tutor. They had four children and had a reasonably happy mamed life. In Madras, as in Calcutta, Michael Madhusudan wrote without remission, but most of his writings were still moulded upon foreign models. Some of his writings appeared in The Madras Circulator under the pseudonym of Timothy Penpoem.

If his shorter poems were written in Calcutta; in Madras Michael Madhusudan attempted his longer poems such as Visions ofthe Past and The Captive Ladie. One can go into the question of the choice of the long poem. Initially, as we have seen, Dutt gave vent to simple feelings and emotions. His sonnets were responses to some ordinary situations of life unexpectedly presented. This made them sketchy and impressionistic. In the case of the long poems to which he shifted later, we see an urge on the part of the poet to relate disparate feelings and ideas to one another. This was the phase of taking account of the poet's earlier changes and deviations in attitude. Dutt also wished perhaps to offer a rationale of why he moved away from a fight for rationality to an effort to reconcile with the gtven circumstances. At the sapne time he composed a few prose- pieces.

Needless to say, all these poems were written in English, as were the few prose- pieces that he wrote. Among these prose-pieces, the most eminent was an essay entitled "The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu", initially delivered as a talk and by-and-by brought out as a book. While in Madras, Michael Madhusudan lost his parents and received word from his friends that his family inheritance was about to be appropriated by his cousins. These evepts made him hasten back to Calcutta in 1856, leaving his wife Rebecca and four chil9en behind in,Madras.

Though his first marriage was never dulled legally, he married a second time, within a year of returning to his native city. Michael Madhusudan had three children by his second marriage. In the course of litigation to obtain his ancestral properties, he visited his ancestral village of Sagardanri. His homecoming, apart fiom being a,material necessity, reflected a cultural nostalgia as well. There was now in him a growing inclination to write in Bengali and Bengali only. We shall briefly discuss this change of language later in the unit. Between 1859 and 1862, Michael Madhusudan produced at least ten works in Bengali including Sharmishta (A Play) - 1859: Ekei Ki Baley Sabhyata (A Play) - 1860; Buro Shaliker Ghare Rown (A Play) - 1860: Padmavati (A Play) -1 860 Tillotama Sambhava Kavya (Poems) - 1860, Meghanad Badh Kavya, Part One (Poems) - 1861; Brajangana Kavya (Poems) - Michael Madhusudan 1861; Krishna Kumari (A Play) - 1861; Veerangana Kavya (P~ems)- 1862. In 1862, Dutt and the Evolution Michael Madhusudan set sail for England, thereby hlfilling a life - long dream. of Modernity Reaching London to set about training to be a barrister and despite being dogged by financial hardships, he managed to qualify as Barrister - at Law in four years. Surviving under straitened circumstances, he however did not cease to write while in England or, briefly, in France. He wrote a number of sonnets, among which one, entitled "Banga Bhasa", tells of a dream in which his muse advises him to give up his 'beggar's garment" and recover the 'mass of jewels in your mother's lap." The "mass of jewels" is a clear reference to the Bengali language. In most of his writings abroad, there is an unmistakable pining for his national heritage: his language, his literature, and culture. Even his sonnets written on the European masters, during this phase of Michael Madhusudan's career, are couched in the Bengali idiom.

Michael Madhusudan was back in Calcutta again in 1867, trying to establish himself in the Bar. After facing some difficulties in this regard, he did manage to register as a barrister. However, his earnings were less than modest and he always spent more than his earnings. His confirmed alcoholism too came in the way of an effective practice. Thus, he was forced to abandon his profession arid take up the post of Examiner of the Privy Council Records in the High Court of Calcutta. In 1872, he returned to a legal practice but along with that he also continued with his writings in Bengali. His writings of this period included an adaptation of Homeu's Illiad and sundry songs. He also penned two plays - Maya Kanon (completed) and Bish-na- Dhanurgun (left incomplete) -in response to a request from the Bengal Theatre Group. By the end of that year Michael Madhusudan found himself virtually penniless - the result of an extravagant lifestyle and numerous illnesses. In early 1873, he was taken severely sick with consumption, a malady that affkcted his wife as well. Their end came finally, within three days of each other, in June 1873.

3.4 MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT'S LITERARY OUTPUT IN ENGLISH

Madhusudan began to write in English during his days at Hindu College, Calcutta. Some of his Hindu College period poems were published in contemporary English periodicals of renown which he himself used to enjoy reading. Madhusudan's poems in English encapsulate a wide variety. There are short epigrams, lyrics of a romantic flavour, sonnets, of which at least one is in blank verse, and a longer poem on King Porus divided into six stanzas of about twenty lines each. Unfortunately, King Porus remained an unfinished verse-tale written after the manner of Byron and Scott. In spite of Madhusudan's ostensible Emopeanisation, the theme of King Porus reveals his unmistakeable Indianness: The noble hearts that bled Forpeedom - with the heroic glow In patriot bosoms nourished - Hearts, eagle - like that recked not death But, shrank before foul Thraldom's breath. Another fragment in English, Visions of the Past, composed soon after he settled down in Madras, is a brilliant expression of the visual imagination. Consider the following lines:

I look'd - the sun had veil'd his dazzling brow - As when he saw upon thee, Calvarie; The Pilgrim porn His Father's bosom - He - His God - with blood stain 'd brow and crown of thorns Die on the accursed tree -yea - die to save - And dyingprayfor those who shed His blood. Beginnings of Indian If this representation of the scene of Christ's crucifixion highlights Madhusudan's English Writing Christian identity, Madhusudan's Bengali identity is highlighted by another passage in the same poem that celebrates the landscape of Bengal.

- As when, Bengala; on thy sultry plains Beneath thepillar'd and high arched shade Of some proud Banyan - slumberous haunt and cool - Echo in mimic accents 'mong theflocks, Couch 'd there in noon-tide rest and soft respose. Repeats the defeaning and deep thunder 'd roar Of him - the royal wanderer of the woods;

The Captain Ladie, Michael Madhusudan's most sustained poem in English, consists of an "Introduction" of eleven five-lined stanzas plus the first canto running to 61 5 rhyming iambic tetrameter lines plus the second canto ending with 572 lines; at the top of the first Canto two lines from Byron's Giaour have been quoted and,at the top of the second canto four lines from Moore's Lalla Rookh. The “introduction " is addressed to his wife Rebecca (without mentioning her) and contains some lines with an autobiographical significance. The narrative of The Captain Ladie that was written once ag,ain in the romantic mode is styled after severai~nglishpoems of that species. The poet's point of view is self - consciously European. There is an Europeanisation of Indian names, including names taken from mythological and historical frameworks of India. The basic story of The Captain Ladie revolves around 1 the life of the Rajput monarch, Prithviraj Chauhan, and his abduction of the daughter of the King of Kannauj, the battle waged by the Rajputs against Muslim invaders, and finally the defeat and death by suicide of the royal Rajput couple.

Dutt liberally confuses history and mythology, but his prosody is consistent, and his octa syllables move with almost as much vigour as that of his models - viz Moore and Byron. Besides The Captain Ladie, Michael Madhusudan also wrote Razia, the Empress of lnd, a versedrama, which was published in The Eurasian, a Madras journal, in seven consecutive instalments. Some years later, after his return to Calcutta, Michael Madhusudan attempted a Bengali rendering of the verse-drama hoping that it would be staged; however, it failed to catch on with the intelligentsia of Calcutta. The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu was by far the most eminent among the prose-pieces authored by Michael Madhusudan while he was in Madras. This essay, rhetorical in the extreme, and enmeshed with references to European cultural texts, expounds upon the merits of the Anglo - Saxon culture in comparison to Hindu culture.

What wonder then that the Hindu should be what he is ? Thefirrious waves of fanaticism, of oppression, have swept over his hapless soul for a thousand years ! From the day that the blood-thirsty wolfof Ghiznee bounded across the stupendous rocky barriers of the west desolating her homes, flinging to the dust her idol - gods from their glorious temples, leading her sons and daughters captive, ill-fated Hindustan has been the prey of the invader, the sport of the ambitious and the rapacious Zenobia - chained, not to the chariot Of a single conqueror but to those of a hundred, to grace their triumphs !

It is the mission of the Anglo-Saxon, therefore, asserts Michael Madhusudan in this essay, to "renovate, to regenerate, or - in one word, to Christianise the Hindu." Michael Madhusudan Dutt like Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was highly Michael Madhusudan influenced by the Romantic poets. Dutt drew his inspiration from Byron, as is Dutt and .the Evolution obvious from the manner in which he tries to "evoke Mahmud Ghami's vision of the of Modernity contemplated slaughter of the besieged Hindus of Old Delhi" @ R Srinivasa lyengar, Jalandhar, 1962)

3.5 MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT AND EARLY NATIONALISM

The India into which these early Indian English poets were born was a country that r had lost its former glory, like we saw in the previous unit. A country that was reeling under the yoke of imperialism and the colonial Raj, a country where poets and writers could do nothing but look towards the past and to glorify the past of a free India. Both freedom and glory had become relics of the past and the country was now a mere weak colony. These early poets took it upon themselves to try and restore the image of a glorious India in whatever way they could and what better way than to express their feelings and emotions in poetry. For this they looked for inspiration in the past of India, at the ancient myths and legends. The reason they turned to these sources was to try and awaken the India that had come to be from the slumber she had fallen into under the colonial Raj. Michael Madhusudan Dutt's poem - King Porus - A Legend of Old is an excellent example of such an attempt made by a poet. In this poem Dutt talks about how King Porus chose to battle the Greek invasion lead by Alexander the Great Macedon. How the brave Porus arid his soldiers fought against the invaders along the banks of the river Hydaspes in pouring rain as the Greeks crossed the river in the stealth of the night and attacked Porus and his kingdom in 326 BC. Undoubtedly King Porus was defeated in that battle but when brought before Alexander the Great as a prisoner of war, he demands that he be treated like a king. In the poem Alexander is duly impressed by the bravery and personality of the fallen King and treats him with great dignity deserving such I honour. But the point Dutt is trying to make in the poem is that when India could I have Kings like Porus who fought for their freedom, how can India sit still under the colonial Raj? He is trylng to tell his readers that India was once a country that treasured her freedom and her men could die fighting for liberty once upon a Qme. He I concludes by talking about her fall in the hands of the British: The crown that once did deck they brow It's trampled down - and thou sunk low: Thy pearl, thy diamond and thy mine Of glittering gold is no more thine. Alas! - each conquering tyrant's lust Has robb 'd thee of thy very dust! Thou standest like a lofty tree Shorn of fruits - blossoms - leaves and all Of every gale the sport to be, Despised and scorned e'en in thy fall!

On the one hand King Porus -A Legend of Old might be looked upon as the story of a legendary king's fight to save his kingdom but on the other hand King Porus could syrnbolise the modem Indian who can awaken and lead India to her former glory, King Porus' kingdom signifying India. The invasion by the Macedonians on King Porus' kingdom is to be read as an attack on India's liberty as Dutt is very careful in drawing the parallels very early at the outset of the poem: r Loudly the midnight tempest sang, Ah! It was thy dirge, fair'liberty, Beginnings of Indian And when King Porus and his army fighk to save their kingdom, the poet once agains English Writing links this fight with what could be India's fight for freedom: - 'BeJGre the Macedonians driven, fell India 's hardy sons, - Proud mountain oak by thunders riven, - Thatfor their country S fieedom bled - And made on gore their glorious bed!

The references Dutt makes time and again are to India as a nation and not to King Porus' kingdom alone. As mentioned earlier King Porus lost the war but when brought before the great Alexander he is very clear about what he wants, even though defeated and in disgrace:

King Porus was no slave, He stooped not - bent not there his knee, - But stood, as stands an oak, In Himalayan majesty.

King Porus wins his adversary's admiration for his courage in not only war but defeat as well. The real motive behind Dutt's writing this poem becomes evident if it has not already in the concluding lines of the poem when he asks:

But where, oh !where is Porus now? ~ And where the Noble hearts that bled For freedom - with the heroic glow . In patriot bosoms nourished - - Hearts, eagle-like that recked not death, But shrank before foul Thraldom's Breath?

Having examined his patriotic fewour we shall in the next section, explore the r&-i.sorns why Michael Madhusudan Dutt stopped writing in English and turned to writing in Bengali, his mother tongue.

3.6 WHY MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT STOPPED WRITING IN ENGLISH

Why then did such Anglocentric an intellectual abruptly cease to write in English altogether and almost exclusively begin to write in Bengali, once he came back to Calcutta from Madras? An alteration of heart and mind at least on the language issue on Michael Madhusudan's part is evident even in some of his correspondence of the Madras years. In response to a suggestion made by the educationist J E D Bethune that he exercise his literary talents more in the Bengali language than in the English language, Michael Madhusudan wrote back to their common friend Gour Dass Bysack, to whom the suggestion had been made, - .... Here is my routine; 6 to 8 Hebrew, 8 to I2 school, 12 to 2 .. Greek, 2 to 5 Telegu and Sanskrit, 5 to 7 Latin, 7 to I0 English .... Am I not preparing for the great object of embelleshing the tongue of my fathers ? .....

He is supposed to have been told by Drinkwater Bethune that he would be doing India a great duty and would also receive fame should he: Employ the taste and talents which he had cultivated by the study of English Michael Madhusudan in improving the standard and adding to the stock of the poems in his own Putt and the Evolution language, of Modernity

(Quoted in M K Naik, A History, p. 25, quoted in Prasad, Continuitiesp.20)

Whatever be the cause, the end result was that he began to write in Bengali and his Bengali epic, Meghavadh Kavya (1 861) is said to be one of the greatest works m Bengali literature. Moreover, it had become obvious to him that as a writer of English he would only be able to reach a limited number of readers. The unlimited readership that he wanted to address would be available to him only if he wrote in Bengali. Thus too, he was clear in himself that the Bengali that he would write would be a Bengali b accessible to the masses of Bengal and not a Bengali "forged for us by a servile admiration for everything Sanskrit." This however, explains only a part of the issue that is bigger and more complex than that Bengali language gave him access to a larger readership. There was a big clash between English and Bengali at the level of culture. Madhusudan Dutt lived and breathed in India: This made him a part of the native folklore and mythology. There were many voices struggling to be heard within him. These voices made sense more or less in proportions to the values Dutt adhered to and accepted. In the middle of this creative struggle, one could see the question of identity at work. Was Dutt a Hindu or a Christian? Was he a Christian from India or a part of trans- national Christianity? In the Nineteenth century, an individual's psyche remained confined to national boundaries. In fact, the transformation from a community identity to a national identity was quite a gigantic task. Living in Indian among Indians of various strata may have pulled Dutt out of his restricted English identity. Turning to the Bengali language also may have proved usehl in sorting out the Christian identity of a distant country.

3.7 LET US SUM UP

This Unit has focused upon the life and works of Michael Madhusudan Dutt an alumni of Hindu College, Calcutta, who was so influenced by the instruction he imbibed in that institution that he forsook his' religion and, for a while, even his family, and took up the vocation of an Indian writer in English. Some of his English productions are negotiated in this Unit. Th~sUnit hrther speculates upon the reasons for Michael Madhusudan's abandonment of a career of writing in English in favour of a career of writing i~ Bengali. His long poems - Visions of the Past may be considered to be an assertion of his faith in Christiimity, (Prasad, Continuities, p. 22), while his The Captive Ladie is an effort at turning to India and everything Indian. Finally, he was to make his commitment to his own culture by writing only in Bengali, his mother tongue. In all his poems he choose to redefine myths in order to create an idea of masculinity that he saw as lost to India and Indians under the colonial Raj.

3.8 QUESTIONS

a) Disuss the role of Hindu College in the fashioning of Michael Madhusudan Dutt's personal-iptellectual biography. b) Give a brief account of the character of Michael Madhusudan Dutt's literary output in English. c) Why did Michael Madhusudan Dutt stop writing in English and start writing in Bengali midway through his career as a writer?