CHAPTER II THE TRADITION OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH 2.1 INTRODUCTION: 2.2 THE RISE OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH: 2.3 THE GROWTH OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH: 2.4 THE MATURATION OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH: CHAPTER II THE TRADITION OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH 2.1 INTRODUCTION: This chapter is an attempt to map creative writing in English right from the time of its inception. Whatever divisions have been made are approximate and provisional. There are no water-tight compartments between them as such. The first division, The Rise of Indian Poetry in English (the first half of the nineteenth century), can also be called as The Seedlings. The second' division, The Growth of Indian Poetry in English (the second half of the nineteenth century), can be that of the Sprout or Early Plant-state. And the last division, The Maturation of Indian Poetry in English, may be regarded as a Tree, of many branches, spreading new aerials of literary sensibility to seek, to find human reality. All these divisions show' the most distinctive features of Indian poetry in English which has a history of nearly three hundred years. The present chapter is a modest attempt to assess the achievement of Indian English poetry so far, judging the poetry of each phase strictly on its merits, without losing sight of the total literary concerns and historical perspectives. 2.2 THE RISE OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH: Creative writing in English began in India in the early nineteenth century. Much of this early writing laboured under English influences (Daruwalla, 1980: xiv). Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Kashi Prasad Ghose and Michael Madhusudan Dutt made a creative use of Indian 6 fables, myths and* legends in their poetry. As King rightly puts it, "'...early poets were interested in Indian legend...” (King, 1987: 79). The origins of Indian poetry in English are shrouded in the dim pre­ history of the Indo-westem encounter, centuries prior to the birth of Henry Derozio (Paranjape, 1993:1). Henry Derozio published collections of poems such as Poems (1827), The Fakeer of Jungheera: A Metrical Tale and Other Poems (1828) and Poems (1923). Most of his poems are influenced both by the British neo-classical as well as the Romantic poetry as far as imagery, sentiment and emotions are concerned. He is the first poet in the lineage of Indian English Poetry. In poems like “The Harp of India” (1827) and “To my Native Land” (1827), he strikes a nationalistic note. Those hands are cold - but if thy notes divine May be by mortal weakened once again, Harp of my country, let me strike the strain. (“The Harp of India”) His reminiscences about his native land are as follows: My country! In thy days of glory past A beauteous halo circled round thy brow And worshipped as a deity thou wast — Where is that Glory, where is that reverence now? (“To My Native Land”) He aims at expressing the glory of the country in the past and repents the loss of it in the then present asking: “Where is that Glory, where is that reverence now?” 7 Kashi Prasad Ghose published his first collection of verse, The Shair and Other Poems (1830). His “Shair” is nobody else but Scott’s ‘Minstrel’ in Indian garb. His poems about the Hindu festivals and lyrics like “The Boatman’s Song to Ganga” show an honest attempt to strike a native chord. His “To a Dead Crow” reveals a crow not as a natural phenomenon but a creature that goes long back in legends as an eternal and spiritual soul: That life in thee is full and warm. Not cruel death could mar thy form. (“To a Dead Crow”) A contemporary' of Derozio and Kashi Prasad Ghose, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, a major contributor to the Indian poetry in English in this phase, published a long narrative, The Captive Ladie (1849) and a long reflective poem, Visions of the Past (1849) of which the first reveals historical India while the Visions of the Past (1849) deals with the Christian themes of temptation, fall and redemption of Man, and legend. “Many of the older poems on Indian subjects suffer from “lack of relationship to an environment” (King, 1987:110). Most of Dutt’s poems deal with episodes and incidents from Indian history and legends. All the poets of this early phase primarily handle the legendary subject in their poetry. 2.3 THE GROWTH OF INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH: It was a bit tragic that in this century the Indian muse fell willy- nilly into the hands of those who were either involved in the freedom struggle or were in the forefront of religious revivalism (Daruwalla, 1980: xv-xvj). V. K. Gokak, in his introduction to his book, The Golden .. r ..t 8 A h* -" gVUViN* K Treasury of Indo-Anglian Verse, classifies the Indian poets in English before Independence into two groups: neo-symbolists and neo- modemists. The neo-symbolists, he argues, dive deep into mysticism and the neo-modernists’ vision is coloured by humanism. Tom Dutt, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri. Aurobindo Ghose and Sarojini Naidu emphasized on expressing an Indian sensibility in terms of its rituals, customs, myths, legends, spiritual consciousness and ancient Indian mystic traditions. In general, as King rightly points out by saying that “ Indian English poetry at independence was still set in a no-where land of poeticisms or set in an India generalized by mysticism, mythologies or legends of great emperors, typical of a colonial poetry in which writers feel a need to assert a national past” (King, 1987: 111). In this phase, the central concern of poets of their creative art was to make use of the rich Indian myths and folklore. Most of the stories and subjects taken from religious books and Puranas have been reflected in their creative art. Tom Dutt, a prolific writer of the time, published a collection of poems such as A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876) that contains 165 lyrics written by a hundred French poets mostly translated into English by her. Her Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882) was published posthumously in which the figures drawn constitute the mythical and the heroic tradition of India. Even the most beautiful flower of the lotus reminds her Greek myth. And Flora gave the lotus, “rose red” dyed, And “lily-white”, queenliest flower that blows. (“The Lotus”) 9 "The Lotus" makes us feel not the pure natural essence and beauty of that flower itself but the sense of tradition and legends conglomerated in it. Parthasarathy rightly observes that the poets of the nineteenth century were interested in traditional India (Parthasarathy, 1976: 6-7). The Ancient Ballads and legends of Hindustan consists of nine legends, most of them chosen from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Vishnu Purana. They are Sita and Savitri, Lakshman, Dhruva and Pralhad, goddess Uma and many others. Her “Sita” is a remarkable poem whose subject is taken from the Ramayana. The nostalgia expressed so distressingly in her poem, “Our Casuarina Tree” does not any appeal to environmental sensibility, but merely shows her nostalgic restlessness and want of company. Dear is the Casuarina to my soul: Beneath it we have played; though years may roll, O sweet companions, loved with love intense, For your sakes shall the tree be ever dear! Blend with your images, it shall arise In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes! (“Our Casuarina Tree”) Sri Aurobindo Ghose has made major contribution to Indian poetry in English. His Short Poems (1890-1900) deal with love, sorrow, death and liberty, Short Poems (1895-1908), Short Poems {1902-1930) and (1930-1950) show mystic awareness and Savitri (1950-51) is a conventional recital of an ancient Hindu legend. Aurobindo himself said that Savitri is the Divine Word and Satyavan, the Divine Truth. “The Savitri-Satyavan legend, which is culled from the great epic of the soul of the Indian people, the Mahabharata, is transmuted to recover the 10 human ‘wholeness’. It is spiritual in its theme, conception and execution” (Bhatnagar, 1998: 13). Sri Aurobindo declares that the material of the poem comes from within. This is the representation of the spirit and the inner world in its totality. Adil Jussawalla writes: “To my mind... ‘Savitri’, a poem on the relation of the spirit to matter, unwinding like an interminable Sari through twelve books and about 2400 lines, is a vast onion of a poem. The layers gradually fall away to reveal nothing” (Jussawalla, 1973: 76). His intuitive realization leads his creative imagination not to environmental awareness and reality around but to the inter-penetration of a diviner nature. Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew Went with linked hands into that solemn world Where beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream, Where Nature’s mystic silence could be felt Communing with the secrecy of God. (“Savitri”) Sri Aurobindo’s poetry is, by and large, spiritual, mystic, symbolic and philosophical. For instance, his “A Tree”, shows that spirituality. A tree besides the sandy river-beach Holds up its topmost boughs Like fingers towards the skies they cannot reach, Earth-bound, heaven amorous (“A Tree”) Further his spirituality and mysticism reach the peak in his poem, “The Blue Bird”, in which he flies high with the ideas of heavenly bird rather than the earthly one: I am the bird of God in His blue; Divinely high and clear I sing the notes of the sweet and the time For the god’s and the seraph’s ear (“The Blue Bird”) Here, though it seems to us that there is a use of a concrete image of a bird from nature, the poet is not talking about the actual bird as such but is rather interested in creating an imaginary bird as the harbinger of God.