Michael Madhusudan Dutt

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Michael Madhusudan Dutt (born Sri Madhusudan Dutta; Template:Audio; 25 January 1824 – 29 June 1873) was a Bengali poet and playwright. He is considered one of the pioneers of Bengali literature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Madhusudan was born in Sagardari, a village in Keshabpur Upazila, Jessore District of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), to a Hindu family.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His father was Rajnarayan Dutt, who was a lawyer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and his mother was Jahnabi Devi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His family, being reasonably well-off, ensured that Madhusudan received an education in the English language and additional tutorship in English at home. Rajnarayan had intended for this Western education to open the doors for a government position for his son.<ref name=":4" />

College and religious conversion

After he finished his education in Sagardari at roughly the age of fifteen, Rajnarayan sent Madhusudhan to Calcutta to attend Hindu College with the eventual aim of becoming a barrister. At Hindu College, Michael studied under a westernized curriculum in a university which had been expressly founded for the "uplift of the natives". The college required all students to wear Western clothing, eat European cuisine with cutlery, learn British songs, and speak exclusively in English—with the aim of creating an anglicized Indian middle class to serve as officials in the colonial administration.

During his time at Hindu College, Madhusudhan developed an aversion to Indian culture and a deep yearning to be accepted into European culture.<ref name="Chakrabarty2001">Template:Cite book</ref> He expressed these sentiments in one of his poems. An early and formative influence on Dutt was his teacher at Hindu College, David Lester Richardson. Richardson was a poet and inspired in Dutt a love of English poetry, particularly by that of Byron. Dutt began writing English poetry aged around 17 years, sending his works to publications in England, including Blackwood's Magazine and Bentley's Miscellany. They were, however, never accepted for publication.<ref name=":12"/> This was also when he began a correspondence with his friend, Gour Das Bysack, which today forms the bulk of sources on his life.

On 9 February 1843, Madhusudan embraced Christianity<ref name=bpedia>Template:Cite book</ref> at the Old Mission Church, in spite of the objections of his parents and relatives. He did not take the name Michael until his marriage in 1848.<ref name=":12"/>

He describes the day as: <poem style="margin-left:2em"> Long sunk in superstition's night, By Sin and Satan driven, I saw not, cared not for the light That leads the blind to Heaven. But now, at length thy grace, O Lord! Birds all around me shine; I drink thy sweet, thy precious word, I kneel before thy shrine!<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> </poem>

He had to leave Hindu College on account of converting to Christianity. In 1844, he resumed his education at Bishop's College, where he stayed for three years.<ref name=":12">Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1847, he moved to Madras (Chennai) due to family tensions and economic hardship, having been disinherited by his father.<ref name=":2" /> While in Madras, he stayed in the Black Town neighbourhood,<ref name=":12" /> and began working as an "usher" at the Madras Male Orphan Asylum. Four years later, in 1851, he became a Second Tutor in the Madras University High School.<ref name=":2" /> He edited and assisted in editing the periodicals Madras Circulator and General Chronicle, Athenaeum, Spectator and Hindoo Chronicle.<ref name=":12"/>

Literary life

Early works (1849–1855)

Dutt wrote exclusively in English in his early writing years. The Captive Ladie was published in 1849 and, like Derozio's The Fakeer of Jungheera, takes on the form of a long narrative poem. In The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu (1854), an essay in florid, even purple prose, are references to and quotations from almost the whole of Macaulay's shelf of European books. He was greatly influenced by the works of William Wordsworth and John Milton. Dutt was a spirited bohemian and Romantic.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":2" />

Calcutta years (1858–1862)

The period during which he worked as a head clerk and later as the Chief Interpreter in the court marked his transition to writing in his native Bengali, following the advice of Bethune and Bysack. He wrote 5 plays: Sermista (1859), Padmavati (1859), Ekei Ki Boley Sabyata (1860), Krishna Kumari (1860) and Buro Shaliker Ghare Ron (1860). Then followed the narrative poems: Tilottama Sambhava Kavya (1861), Meghnad Badh Kavya (1861), Brajagana Kavya (1861) and Veerangana Kavya (1861). He also translated three plays from Bangla to English, including his own Sermista.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":2" />

Final years (1866–1873)

A volume of his Bangla sonnets was published in 1866. His final play, Maya Kannan, was written in 1872. The Slaying of Hector, his prose version of the Iliad, remains incomplete.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":2" />

Linguistic abilities

Madhusudan was a gifted linguist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and polyglot.<ref>Template:Cite book

Template:Cite book</ref> He studied English, Bengali, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit.<ref name=":12"/><ref name=":5" />

Work with the sonnet

He pioneered the Bengali sonnet and introduced European-style blank verse into Bengali poetry, revolutionizing its metrical structure.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Michael Madhusudan Dutt dedicated his first sonnet to his friend Rajnarayan Basu, which he accompanied with a letter: "What say you to this, my good friend? In my humble opinion, if cultivated by men of genius, our sonnet in time would rival the Italian."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His most famous sonnet is Kapatakkha River. <poem style="margin-left:2em"> Always, o river, you peep in my mind. Always I think you in this loneliness. Always I soothe my ears with the murmur Of your waters in illusion, the way Men hear songs of illusion in a dream. Many a river I have seen on earth; But which can quench my thirst the way you do? You're the flow of milk in my homeland's breasts. Will I meet you ever? As long as you Go to kinglike ocean to pay the tax Of water, I beg to you, sing my name Into the ears of people of Bengal, Sing his name, o dear, who in this far land Sings your name in all his songs for Bengal. </poem>

When Dutt later stayed in Versailles, the sixth centenary of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri was being celebrated all over Europe. He composed a poem in honour of the poet, translated it into French and Italian, and sent it to the king of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II, then monarch, liked the poem and wrote to Dutt, saying, "It will be a ring which will connect the Orient with the Occident."<ref name="Yajnik1933">Template:Cite book</ref>

Work in blank verse

Sharmistha (spelt as Sermista in English) was Dutt's first attempt at blank verse in Bengali literature. Kaliprasanna Singha organised a felicitation ceremony for Madhusudan to mark the introduction of blank verse in Bengali poetry. His famous epic, quoted as the only epic of Bengali kind, Meghnadbad-Kabya is also totally written in blank verse.

Praising Dutt's blank verse, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, observed: "As long as the Bengali race and Bengali literature would exist, the sweet lyre of Madhusudan would never cease playing."<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> He added: "Ordinarily, reading of poetry causes a soporific effect, but the intoxicating vigour of Madhusudan's poems makes even a sick man sit up on his bed."<ref name=":0" />

In his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Nirad C. Chaudhuri has remarked that during his childhood days in Kishoreganj, a common standard for testing guests' erudition in the Bengali language during family gatherings was to require them to recite the poetry of Dutt, without an accent.

File:"Rue Des Chantiers" Street.jpg
The street where Dutt used to live in Versailles, France.

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Barrister-at-law

File:12 Rue Des Chantier, 78000 Versailles, France.jpg
12 Rue Des Chantiers, 78000 Versailles, France – the apartment building where Dutt dwelled (photo taken in July 2011)
File:Residence of Micheal Madhusudhan Dutt in Khidirpur.JPG
Dutt's residence in Khidirpur, Kolkata, India

Dutt went to England in 1862 to become a barrister-at-law and enrolled at the Gray's Inn.<ref name=":12"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

On the eve of his departure to England:<poem style="margin-left:2em"> রেখ, মা, দাসেরে মনে, এ মিনতি করি পদে সাধিতে মনের সাধ ঘটে যদি পরমাদ, মধুহীন কর না গো মনঃ কোকনদে | (Original Bengali)

Forget me not, O Mother, Should I fail to return To thy hallowed bosom. Make not the lotus of thy memory Void of its nectar honey.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (English translation by the poet.) </poem>

His family joined him in 1863, and thereafter they shifted to the much cheaper Versailles, due to the miserable state of their finances. Funds were not arriving from India according to his plans. He was only able to relocate to England in 1865 and study for the bar due to the generosity of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. For this, Dutt was to regard Vidyasagar as Dayar Sagar (meaning the ocean of kindness) for as long as he lived. He was admitted to the High Court in Calcutta on his return in February 1867.<ref name=":12"/><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref> His family followed him in 1869.<ref name=":4" />

His stay in England had left him disillusioned with European culture. He wrote to his friend Bysack from France: <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

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Marriage and family

Dutt had refused to enter into an arranged marriage which his father had decided for him. He had no respect for that tradition and wanted to break free from the confines of caste-based endogamous marriage. His knowledge of the European tradition convinced him of his choice of marriages made by mutual consent (or love marriages).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

While in Madras, he married Rebecca Thompson McTavish,<ref name=":12"/> a 17-year-old of Scottish-Indian parentage,<ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":12"/> a resident<ref name=":4" /> of the Madras Female Orphan Asylum, on 31 July 1848.<ref name=":12"/> Dutt assumed the name Michael when the marriage was registered in the baptismal register. They had four children together. He wrote to Bysack in December 1855:<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

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Dutt returned from Madras to Calcutta in February 1856, after his father's death (in 1855), abandoning his wife and four children in Madras. No records of his divorce from Rebecca or remarriage have been found.<ref name=":12"/> In 1858, he was joined there by a 22-year old woman of French Eurasian extraction,<ref name=":4" /> Emelia Henrietta Sophie White, the daughter of his colleague at the Madras Male Orphan Asylum.<ref name=":2" /> They had two sons, Frederick Michael Milton (23 July 1861 – 11 June 1875)<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref> and Albert Napoleon (1869 – 22 August 1909),<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /> and a daughter, Henrietta Elizabeth Sermista<ref name=":4" /> (1859 – 15 February 1879).<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":2" /> A fourth child was stillborn.<ref name=":12"/> Their relationship lasted until the end of her life, Henrietta pre-deceasing him by three days, on 26 June 1873.<ref name=":2" />

Rebecca died in Madras in July 1892. Only a daughter and a son survived her. The son, McTavish-Dutt, practised as a pleader in the Court of Small Causes in Madras.<ref name=":4" />

The tennis player Leander Paes is a direct descendant of Dutt, who is his great-great-grandson on his mother's side.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Death

Dutt died in Presidency General Hospital on 29 June 1873.<ref name=":2" /> Three days before his death, he recited a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth to his dear friend Bysack, to express his deepest conviction of life: <poem style="margin-left:2em"> ...out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. </poem>

File:Tomb of Michael Madhusudhan Dutta.jpg
Tomb of Michael Madhusudan Dutt at the Lower Circular Road cemetery.

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Legacy and honours

Dutt was largely ignored for 15 years after his death.<ref>"A Review": Ghulam Murshid, Lured by Hope: A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt Template:Webarchive, translated from Bengali by Gopa Majumdar, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2003. Template:ISBN. Pp 238 + xvi, at Parabaas</ref> The belated tribute was a tomb erected at his gravesite.

His epitaph, a verse of his own, reads: <poem style="margin-left:2em"> Stop a while, traveller! Should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son. As a child takes repose on his mother's elysian lap, Even so here in the Long Home, On the bosom of the earth, Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep Poet Madhusudan of the Duttas.<ref name="A poet of epic proportions">Template:Cite news</ref> </poem>

Michael Madhusudhan is a 1950 Indian Bengali-language drama film by Modhu Bose which starred Utpal Dutt in the titular role.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Author Namita Gokhale published a play about Madhusudhan in 2021, based largely on letters written by him to friends and other authors, called Betrayed by Hope.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In honour of Dutt, every year on his birthday, a fair is held in his home at Sagardari, which is organized by the District Council of Jessore. Every year, various MPs and ministers of the national parliament of Bangladesh attend this fair.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In honour of Dutt a school and a college are named after him in Jessore District. And a university was proposed to be set up in this birthplace. They are:

In India

Works

  • King Porus
  • The Captive Ladie (1849)
  • Ratul Potra
  • Sermista (1859) (Bengali and English)
  • Padmavati (1859)
  • Ekei Ki Boley Sabyota (1860)
  • Krishna Kumari (1860)
  • Buro Shaliker Ghare Ron (1860)
  • Tilottama Sambhava Kavya (1861)
  • Meghnad Badh Kavya (1861)
  • Brajagana Kavya (1861)
  • Veerangana Kavya (1861)
  • Ratnavali (English translation)
  • Nil Darpan (English translation)
  • Choturdoshpodi Kobitaboli
  • Rizia, the Sultana of Inde
  • Rosalo Sornolatika
  • Bongobani
  • Sonnets and other poems (1866)
  • Bongo bhumir prati

See also

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Notes

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References

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Further reading

  • Template:Cite book – Gopa Majumdar's translation of Ashar Chalane Bhuli
  • Template:Cite book
  • Modhusudoner Engreji Kabita by Sayeed Abubakar, Bhumika Prakashani, Bangla Bazar, Dhaka-1100, (2009)
  • Modhusudoner Engreji Sonnet, Translation and Preface: Sayeed Abubakar, Kabitirtha, 50/3, Kabitirtha Saroni, Kolkata-23 Template:ISBN

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