Here she Hints at her vocation as a poetess, in the latter, we have the following:
She died in earliest womanhood;
Thus dies, and leaves behind no trace,
A bird’s song in a leafy wood
Thus melts a sweet smile from a face. 93
This entire poem is applicable to the poetess’s sister, Aru, who died in her earliest womanhood.
Ancient Ballads has also some poems in which the personal note is clearly expressed. In this context we can mention Jogadhya Uma, Sita, and almost all miscellaneous poems. Jogadhya Uma is a folk tale which Toru obviously heard from her maid, for she says at the end:
Absurd may be the tale I tell,
I’ll suited to the marching time,
I loved the lips, from which it fell,
So let it stand among my rhymes. 94
In it she gives us the reason for her love of this story. Her poem Sita gives an idea of the happy childhood they spent in Calcutta before Abju (Toru’s brother) died. The introductory lines of Sita find the poet looking back on the happy days of her childhood:
Three happy children in a darkened room.
What do they gaze on with wide open eyes.
The ‘three happy children in a darkened room’ are none else but Abju, Aru and Toru, who are listening to the sad story of Sita as it falls from their mother’s lips in song. No wonder Toru wept, always, on hearing the ancient lays chanted every evening.
Notably enough, the poem closes on the same note of longing for the return of that happy past:
When shall those children by their mother’s side,
Gather, oh me! as erst at eventide. 95
Seven miscellaneous poems, contained in the second part of Ancient Ballads, are mostly autobiographical in theme and style. For instance in the last poem of the volume Our Casuarina Tree, we have these moving lines:
But not because of its magnificence.
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 even dear!” 96
The poem brings out an intense yearning towards the playmates lost. The success of the poem lies in the concretization of something as amorphous as nostalgia, which is a common enough experience of all exiles. 97
The glimpses of the poetess’s personal life may be best had in her letters and they are yet another flower of her multi- pronged genius.98
Toru’s faultless and refined poetic taste can easily be witnessed by the delicacy and lightness of touch displayed in her verse and the music of her poetry is also a remarkable aspect of her work. Her verses are simple to the very extent.
Toru competently handled the apparatus of translation, and successfully showed that the translator is also the creator. Her translations are fairly close as a rule though not uniformly so. Originality of a translated verse depends upon its creator’s serious efforts and supreme test of a translation is in considering it as an original composition. The translations of Toru Dutt certainly endure such rigid examination, and there are several which defy the reader to detect, from any inherent quality, that they were not purely spontaneous productions. There are serious faults at times, but these faults arise from no ineptness in reproducing the thought of the original author. She has translated her work meticulously and tries to recapture the spirit of the original to the maximum extent.
Edmund Gosse praised her creative power through these words:
A rare virtue of Miss Toru Dutt’s translations is their absolute and unaffected exactness. And English translator will always try to smooth over an inelegance _ _ _. She translates what she sees before her, and if it is impossible to make the version poetical, she will leave it in its unpolished state, rather than add any traps of her own, or cut anything away from her author’s text, In consequence, her book recalls the French more vividly than any similar volume we are acquainted with; and if modern French literature were entirely lost, it might not be found impossible to reconstruct a great number of poems- from this Indian version. 99
Not that she has blindly followed the rules of translation to reproduce the same verse, in fact, she has changed words and phrases of the original and substituted them by more appropriate ones without showing any diffidence on her part that make her work literal and yet free. The verse co-relates with the rhythm of the original.
Speaking of the technical character of Ancient Ballads, Sir Gosse suggests that in spite of much in it that is ‘rough and inchoate’, it shows that “Toru was advancing in her mastery of English verse.”100 Her poetical treasure is too valuable to sink into oblivion and she has exhibited, in her short life span, many of the essential qualities, including the technical ones, of a true poet.
The pleasing music of her poetry speaks of her ability to express a foreign tongue in an appropriate manner. She can not be accused of lack of simplicity, thus R.W. Frazer’s charge that in Toru’s hand, the ballads and legends have lost their entire plaintive cadence,101 becomes misdirected and improper. On the contrary, the fact is that her poetry spontaneously comes out of her heart. One, who has read, Jogadhya Uma and Sita and Sindhu, cannot support the charge, there is a heart-touching rhythm and a delicate sensibility in these poems and together they bear testimony to Toru’s flawless and polished poetic taste. She was simple and transparent in reproducing her verses.102
Moreover, open any page of Ancient Ballads, and we will be in the midst of pleasant stanzas. To give pleasure is a great thing in itself. Evocative and sententious utterances were also added to it by Toru Dutt. And when pleasure and meaning are to be found in one place, there is always a good, great poetry. Toru’s poetry is certainly of this kind.
References :
F.L. Lucas, Style, (Pan Book Ltd, London, 1956)
Susan Santog, Against Interpretations and Other Essays (Laurel edition – Paperback, 1969),
Y. Sahi, American English: The Search for Identity, Asian Response to American Lliterature ed. C.D. Narasimhaiah. (Delhi-1972),
C.D. Narasimhaiah, The Swan And The Eagle (Simla, 1969),
Appashastri Rasivadekar, Sri Vishnupurana (original and translation) (Modurtta Press, Wai – 1900),
Toru Dutt, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, ed. Amarnath Jha. (Kitabistan, Allahabad, 1969),
Sri Vishnupurana,
Srimadvalmiki Ramayana, (La Journal Press, Madras, 1933),
Romesh C.Dutt, The Ramayana, (Kitabistan, Allahabad, 1944),
Harihar Das, LLTD (Oxford university Press, London, 1922),
P.C. Kotoky, Indo English Poetry (The university Press, Gauhati, 1969),
A.N. Dwivedi, ed. Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (Bareilly, Prakash Book Depot, 1976),
S.V.Mukerjea, Disjecta Membra, (The Indian institute of World culture, Bangalore, 1959),
Harihar Das, The Classical Tradition in Toru Dutt’s Poetry, Asiatic Review,
Ancient Ballads,
Srimadvalmiki Ramayanam, op, cit,
Ancient Ballads,
Article published by Cornhill University press.
S.V. Mukerjea, Disjecta Membra,
Lotika Basu, Indian Writers of English Verse, (The University Press, Calcutta, 1933),
Toru Dutt, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, (Kegen Paul and company, London, 1880),
Ibid,
Ancient Ballads,
Sheaf,
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Sheaf,
Sheaf,
Edmund Gosse, ‘Introductory Memoirs’, Ancient Ballads,
The Examiner, London, August 26, 1876
Sheaf,
Ancient Ballads,
V. K. Gokak, The Golden Treasury of Indo – Anglian Poetry, (Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2003),
Harihar Das, LLTD,
Ibid, Loc. Cit, P-XXVIII
Anant, “Gifted Poetess�
�, The Times of India, March, 7, 1954
Sheaf,
Sunanda P. Chavan, The Fair Voice, ‘A study of Indian Poets in English’, (Sterling Publication, 1982),
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Ibid.
S.V. Mukerjea, Disjecta Membra,
Ancient Ballads,
Lotika Basu, Indian Writers of English Verse,
Ancient Ballads,
Joytis Chandra Das Gupta, ‘Toru Dutt’, National Biography for India, 1914, IV, 304
K.R.S. Iyengar, Indian Writing in English,
Edmond Gosse, ‘Introductory Memoir’,
E. J. Thompson ‘Supplementary Review’, The Life and Letters of Toru Dutt,
Harihar Das, LLTD,
Sri Aurobindo, Letters (Third Series)
A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, (First series, 1954),
E.F.Oaten in an article entitled “Anglo Indian literature”, In the Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol-XIV
A.N. Dwivedi, ed.Toru Dutt: A Literary Profile, (B.R.Publications, New Delhi, 1998),
Sheaf,
Ibid.
Ibid.
Toru Dutt, Notes attached with Sheaf,
Ancient Ballads,
Harihar Das, LLTD,
Ibid.
RadhaKamal Mukherjee, ed. Writers and Social Reformers of India, 1953,
K.R.S. lyengar, Indian Writing in English,
Padmini Sen Gupta, Toru Dutt, (Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1982),
Ancient Ballads,
Sunanda P.Chavan, The Fair Voice,
A. N. Jha, ‘Introductory Memoir’ Ancient Ballads, (Kitabistan, Allahabad, 1969),
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Ibid.
Harihar Das, LLTD,
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Thompson , ‘Supplementary Review’, LLTD,
K.R.S. lyengar, Indian Writing in English
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Krishna Nandan Sinha, ‘The Lyrical Poetry of Manmohan Ghosh, Ujjal Kumar Dutt’, Indian Writing in English (Heritage Publishers, New Delhi)
Ancient Ballads,
K.R.S. lyengar, Indian Writing in English,
Sheaf,
Ibid.
Ancient Ballads,
Ibid.
Ibid.
R. Parthasarathy, Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets, (Oxford University Press, Delhi),
A.N. Dwivedi, Toru Dutt: Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly, 1994),
The Examiner, August 26, 1876.
Edmund Gosse, ‘Introductory Memoir’,
R.W. Frazer, Quoted by A.N. Dwivedi, Toru Dutt Literary History of India,
V.K. Gokak, The Golden Treasury of Indo-English Poetry,
07. Her Place
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May.
Although it fall and die that night –
It was the plant and flower of light,
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be
--Ben Jonson
Toru Dutt was one of the great writers of English literature who will be remembered for ages for the eternal charm in her works. She was a versatile genius- a poet, novelist as well as a translator. The journey Dutt made in her short life presage other similar journeys that later Indian writers would make; the way she and her creative work stand at the confluence of languages and traditions in prescient of how the Indian writer in English, not to speak of the Indian writer in general, is almost always to be found at that confluence. Her works are skillfully designed which reflect the experiences of a young mind and have an intrinsic power, which is the characteristics of good literature. Toru thus lived in an age of productive and fertile awakening and proved herself a brilliant and constant star that shone not only in her time, but illuminates the literary scene even today, a century after her birth. True Indian as she is, yet the west, too, is proud to have a claim to her.
Toru Dutt, a product of 19th century Bengal Renaissance, was steeped in an intellectual atmosphere of her home with a linguist father, and a highly cultured mother. This family background exercised tremendous influence on Toru and her siblings. The very air of their garden house in Calcutta hummed with poetry as all her three uncles who were writing for Dutt family Album. The importance of the Dutt family of Calcutta in the development of Indian poetry in English cannot be underestimated. The famous administrator, writer and historian, Romesh Chunder Dutt was her cousin. Toru Dutt thus breathed in her infancy an atmosphere in which lofty thoughts naturally found rhythmical expression.
Toru Dutt was born in a period of Indian history which was influenced by Macaulay’s ‘Minute’ and Lord William Bentinck’s ruling of 1835, promoting European education among the ‘natives’ and providing all educational funds for the use of ‘English Education alone’. Colonial powers of the Britishers tried their best to impose their own language on those they ruled. They did their utmost to check the things to come up, as far as national, vernacular and regional languages are concerned. Toru Dutt also learned English, and learned it excellently, but she was quick to realize that her own oriental background of literature was so valuable that she would have to comingle it with her abundant European knowledge.
The assessment of Toru Dutt as a poetess depends upon her two collections of poetry, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields and Ancient Ballads and legends of Hindustan. Though her work is meagre in out put, it is of lasting worth and it has enabled Toru Dutt to carve out for herself a permanent place on the Anglo Indian Parnassus. She was in a hurry to put in as much work as possible, to project and interpret India’s past and glorious tradition to the English-speaking world. She possessed an inborn poetic talent, which found its best expression in the English language. She has been rightly called “the founder of the modern school of English poetry”.
Even in her short life, however, she gave positive proof that she was gradually becoming more and more fascinated with her own country’s heritage’ and would have shown us Christian thought and feeling, not as something alien but as truly belonging to him in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, English nor Bengal. The stories Toru chose were quite well known and spoke of an ancient culture and heritage, as traditional as the Greek legends. Toru herself commented: ‘The Sanskrit is as old and as grand a language as the Greek.’. Toru also had the advantage over the writers of today in being among the first to be able to present Sanskrit themes to a foreign world. These poems are sufficient to place Toru Dutt in the small class of women who have written English verse that can stand. Toru took her material from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and from the Vishnu Purana, a wonderful piece containing many legends of kings and sages. These classics embody the highest ideals of culture and civilization in Ancient India. Her ballads and Legends are especially woven around Savitri, Lakshman, Dhruva, Prahlad and other mythological characters.
She was proud of India’s cultural heritage, folklore, myths and legends, and its rich classical literature. No wonder that these form the background of her poems and the kernel of her thoughts and feelings. In her ballads, she portrayed the nobility of ancient Indian character in very simple but effective words.
Savitri’s faith in her love for Satyavan and in Fate and Karma; Lakshman’s unquestioned loyalty for Rama and regard for Sita; Jogadhya Uma’s solicitude for the old priest of the Khirogram Temple; Bharat’s affection for the orphan deer; Dhruva’s constancy of worship; Buttoo’s obedience of his Guru; Sindhu’s service of his old parents; and Prahlad’s quest for God, ‘the only one to whom is all our service due’…. these were the subjects that had an irresistible appeal to hearts born and bred noble.
The ancient legends were neit
her exotic nor strange for Toru and her siblings. From the very beginning, the children live with these mythological characters and neither maturity nor sophistication does much to lesson the hold of these tales on their imagination. The stories of the past stirred her and touched a responsive chord deep inside her. The call of the land and the call of her ancestors evoked a sympathetic answer within her. She wrote of the old myths, and tales without feeling or making her readers feel that they were effete, improbable, and fantastic.
In fact, Toru Dutt’s choice is the result of her urgent need to overcome the crisis of identity caused by her sudden exposure to the western culture, literature and religion at an impressionable age. She had long been in search of roots and ultimately found them in the ancient myths and legends of her land. Toru’s translations from French to English did not; of course make her an ‘Indian poet’ in the eyes of Indians. It took her translations from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Vishnu Purana and Bhagvad Gita, compiled in Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, to make this poet “the genuine daughter of Hinduism”.
As far as her isolation and alienation is concerned, to a far greater degree than many of us have yet realized, late 19th century women’s poetry may be poetry of alien homelands; of cultural spaces, that is, in which the domestic proves alien, even as technically alien territory comes to represent some form of home. Despite her extensive non-traditional education and middle-class Christian identity, Dutt achieved neither literary success in England nor freedom and mobility in India. The young girl faced the dilemma of triple alienation in her own motherland viz. spiritual, social and intellectual alienation. Excluded by orthodox Hindu society because of her family’s conversion, yet not wholly included in the British social order on account of her Indian ‘native’ origin. Toru traversed the improvisational space in between these two positions.
Living in the heart of Calcutta, she used to dream of ‘alien shores’. France and England were the ideal places for her to settle in, as some of her letters written to Mary Martin make clear. She was an avid reader of French and English literatures. She expressed her desire to Mlle Clarisse Bader to translate her ‘la Femme dons I’ Inde Antique’ and the permission to do so was readily granted. It was because of her interest in the ancient Indian mythical characters.
Toru Dutt Page 19
