Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Encyclopedia
Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Michael Madhusudan Dutta ( 25 January 1824 – 29 June 1873) was a popular 19th century Bengali
poet and dramatist. He was born in Sagardari , on the bank of Kopotaksho [কপোতাক্ষ] River, a village in Keshobpur Upozila, Jessore District
, East Bengal
(now in Bangladesh
). His father was Rajnarayan Dutt, an eminent lawyer, and his mother was Jahnabi Devi. He was a pioneer of Bengali drama. His famous work Meghnad Bodh Kavya , is a tragic epic
. It consists of nine canto
s and is quite exceptional in Bengali literature both in terms of style and content. He also wrote poems about the sorrows and afflictions of love as spoken by women.
From an early age, Madhusudan desired to be an Englishman
in form and manner. Born to a Hindu landed gentry family, he converted to Christianity
to the ire of his family and adopted the first name, Michael. However, he was to regret his desire for England
and the Occident in later life when he talked ardently of his homeland as is seen in his poems and sonnets from this period.
Madhusudan is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature
and the father of Bangla
sonnet
. He pioneered what came to be called amitrakshar chhanda (blank verse
). Dutt died in Kolkata
, India
on 29 June 1873.
. He was an exceptionally talented student. Ever since his childhood, young Madhusudan was recognized by his teachers and professors as being a precocious child with a gift of literary expression. He was very imaginative from his boyhood. Early exposure to English education and European literature at home and in Kolkata made him desire to emulate the proverbially stiff upper-lip Englishman in taste, manners and intellect. One of the early impressions were that of his teacher, Capt. D.L.Richardson at Hindu College. In this respect, he was an early Macaulayite without even knowing it. He dreamt of achieving great fame the moment he landed abroad. His adolescence, coupled with the spirit of intellectual enquiry convinced him that he was born on the wrong side of the planet, and that conservative Hindu society in early nineteenth century Bengal (and by extension Indian society) had not yet developed the spirit of rationalistic
enquiry and appreciation of greater intellectual
sophistry to appreciate his myriad talents. He espoused the view that free thinking and post Enlightenment
West
would be more receptive to his intellectual acumen and creative genius. In this, perhaps he forgot the colour of his skin, as he was to realize later on in life, much to his consternation and disgust. He composed his early works—poetry and drama—almost entirely in English. Plays like Sormistha, Ratnavali and translations like Neel Durpan and poems like Captive Ladie which was written on the mother of his close friend Sri Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, indicate a high level of intellectual sophistication.
Madhusudan embraced Christianity at the church of Fort William
in spite of the objections of his parents and relatives on February 9, 1843. Later, he escaped to Madras to escape persecution. He describes the day as:
On the eve of his departure to England:
(Translated from the original Bengali by the poet.)
poet Lord Byron. The life of Dutt closely parallels the life of Lord Byron in many respects. Like Byron, Dutt was a spirited bohemian
and like Byron, Dutt was a Romantic, albeit being born on the other side of the world, and as a recipient subject of the British imperialist enterprise. However, the lives of the two can be summed up in one word: audacity. These two mighty poets at once remind us of the saying of Georges Danton
, the French revolutionist:
"L'audace, encore l'audace, toujours l'audace!"
If Lord Byron won over the British
literary establishment with Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
, a comparative analogy may be made for Dutt's heroic epic Meghnadh Badh Kabya, although the journey was far from smooth. However, with its publication, the Indian poet distinguished himself as a serious composer of an entirely new genre of heroic poetry, that was Homeric and Dante
sque in technique and style, and yet so fundamentally India
n in theme. To cite the poet himself: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." Nevertheless, it took a few years for this epic to win recognition all over the country.
and polyglot
. Besides Indian languages like Bengali
, Sanskrit
and Tamil
, he was well versed in classical languages like Greek
and Latin
. He also had a fluent understanding of modern European languages like Italian
and French
and could read and write the last two with perfect grace and ease.
to his friend Rajnarayan Basu
, along with a letter which in which he wrote:
"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."
When Madhusudan later stayed in Versailles
, France
, the sixth centenary of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri
was being celebrated all over Europe
. He composed a poem in memory of the immortal poet and translated it into French and Italian and sent it to the court of the king of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II, the then monarch, was enamored of the poem and wrote back to the poet:
"It will be a ring which will connect the Orient with the Occident."
Kaliprasanna Singha
organised a felicitation ceremony to Madhusudan to mark the introduction of blank verse in Bengali poetry.
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee
, while paying a glowing tribute to Madhusudan's blank verse, observed:
"As long as the Bengali race and Bengali literature would exist, the sweet lyre of Madhusudan would never cease playing."
He further 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."
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 the level of erudition in the Bengali language during family gatherings (like for example, testing the vocabulary stock of a would-be bridegroom as a way of teasing him) was the ability to pronounce and recite the poetry of Dutt, without the trace of an accent.
, France
during the 1860s, Madhusudan had to suffer the ignominy of penury and destitution. His friends back home, who had inspired him to cross the ocean in search of recognition, started ignoring him altogether. Perhaps his choice of a lavish lifestyle, coupled with a big ego that was openly hostile to native tradition, was partly to blame for his financial ruin. Except for a very few well-wishers, he had to remain satisfied with many fair-weather friends. It may be argued, not without some obvious irony that during those days, his life oscillated, as it were, between the Scylla
of stark poverty and the Charybdis
of innumerable loans. He was head over heels in debt. As he was not in a position to clear off his debts, he was very often threatened by imprisonment. Dutt was able to return home only due to the munificent 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. Madhusudan had cut off all connections with his parents, relatives and at times even with his closest friends, who more often than not were wont to regard him as an iconoclast
and an outcast. It was during the course of his sojourn in Europe that Madhusudan then realized his true identity. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he became aware of the colour of his skin and his native language. What he wrote to his friend Gour Bysack
from France neatly sums up his eternal dilemma:
that 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 the superiority of marriages made by mutual consent (or love marriage
s).
Madhusudan married twice. When he was in Madras, he married Rebecca Mactavys. Through Rebecca, he had four children. Madhusudan wrote to Gour in December 1855: Michael returned from Madras to Calcutta in February 1856, after his father's death. Michael married a woman named Henrietta Sophia White. His second marriage was to last till the end of his life. From his second marriage, he had one son Napoleon and one daughter Sharmistha.
The tennis player Leander Paes
is the son of his great granddaughter.
Madhusudan died in Calcutta General Hospital on 27 June 1873 three days after death of Henrietta. Just three days prior to his death, Madhusudan recited a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth
to his dear friend Gour, to express his deepest conviction of life:
(Macbeth)
Gour responded with a passage from Longfellow
:
After Dutt's death, he was not paid a proper tribute for fifteen years. The belated tribute took the form of a shabby makeshift tomb. Madhusudan's life was a mixture of joy and sorrow. Although it could be argued that the loss of self-control was largely responsible for his pitiable fate, his over-flowing poetic originality for joy was to become forever immortalized in his oeuvre.
His epitaph, a verse of his own, reads:
In word of Tagore:
Vidyasagar's lofty praise runs:
Rabindranath Tagore
would later declare:
In Byron's dramatic poem Manfred
what the Abbot
of St. Maurice spoke of Manfred can equally be applied to the life of Madhusudan:
In the words of Sri Aurobindo
:
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
poet and dramatist. He was born in Sagardari , on the bank of Kopotaksho [কপোতাক্ষ] River, a village in Keshobpur Upozila, Jessore District
Jessore District
Jessore is a district located in the Khulna Division of southwestern Bangladesh. It is bordered by India to the west.The district produces a variety of crops year-round. Date-sugar called patali is made from the sap of locally grown date trees that is cooked, thickened and crystallised using a...
, East Bengal
East Bengal
East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....
(now in Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
). His father was Rajnarayan Dutt, an eminent lawyer, and his mother was Jahnabi Devi. He was a pioneer of Bengali drama. His famous work Meghnad Bodh Kavya , is a tragic epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
. It consists of nine canto
Canto
The canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, meaning "song" or singing. Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Lord Byron's Don Juan, Valmiki's Ramayana , Dante's The Divine Comedy , and Ezra Pound's The...
s and is quite exceptional in Bengali literature both in terms of style and content. He also wrote poems about the sorrows and afflictions of love as spoken by women.
From an early age, Madhusudan desired to be an Englishman
Englishman
Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...
in form and manner. Born to a Hindu landed gentry family, he converted to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to the ire of his family and adopted the first name, Michael. However, he was to regret his desire for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and the Occident in later life when he talked ardently of his homeland as is seen in his poems and sonnets from this period.
Madhusudan is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature
Bengali literature
Bengali literature is literary works written in Bengali language particularly from Bangladesh and the Indian provinces of West Bengal and Tripura. The history of Bengali literature traces back hundreds of years while it is impossible to separate the literary trends of the two Bengals during the...
and the father of Bangla
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
. He pioneered what came to be called amitrakshar chhanda (blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
). Dutt died in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
on 29 June 1873.
Early life and education
His childhood education started in a village named Shekpura, at an old mosque, where he went to learn PersianPersian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
. He was an exceptionally talented student. Ever since his childhood, young Madhusudan was recognized by his teachers and professors as being a precocious child with a gift of literary expression. He was very imaginative from his boyhood. Early exposure to English education and European literature at home and in Kolkata made him desire to emulate the proverbially stiff upper-lip Englishman in taste, manners and intellect. One of the early impressions were that of his teacher, Capt. D.L.Richardson at Hindu College. In this respect, he was an early Macaulayite without even knowing it. He dreamt of achieving great fame the moment he landed abroad. His adolescence, coupled with the spirit of intellectual enquiry convinced him that he was born on the wrong side of the planet, and that conservative Hindu society in early nineteenth century Bengal (and by extension Indian society) had not yet developed the spirit of rationalistic
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
enquiry and appreciation of greater intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
sophistry to appreciate his myriad talents. He espoused the view that free thinking and post Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
West
West
West is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of east and is perpendicular to north and south.By convention, the left side of a map is west....
would be more receptive to his intellectual acumen and creative genius. In this, perhaps he forgot the colour of his skin, as he was to realize later on in life, much to his consternation and disgust. He composed his early works—poetry and drama—almost entirely in English. Plays like Sormistha, Ratnavali and translations like Neel Durpan and poems like Captive Ladie which was written on the mother of his close friend Sri Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, indicate a high level of intellectual sophistication.
In His Own Words
Madhusudan embraced Christianity at the church of Fort William
Fort William, India
Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...
in spite of the objections of his parents and relatives on February 9, 1843. Later, he escaped to Madras to escape persecution. He describes the day as:
On the eve of his departure to England:
(Translated from the original Bengali by the poet.)
Inspirations and Influences
Dutt was particularly inspired by both the life and work of the English RomanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
poet Lord Byron. The life of Dutt closely parallels the life of Lord Byron in many respects. Like Byron, Dutt was a spirited bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
and like Byron, Dutt was a Romantic, albeit being born on the other side of the world, and as a recipient subject of the British imperialist enterprise. However, the lives of the two can be summed up in one word: audacity. These two mighty poets at once remind us of the saying of Georges Danton
Georges Danton
Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...
, the French revolutionist:
"L'audace, encore l'audace, toujours l'audace!"
If Lord Byron won over the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
literary establishment with Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
, a comparative analogy may be made for Dutt's heroic epic Meghnadh Badh Kabya, although the journey was far from smooth. However, with its publication, the Indian poet distinguished himself as a serious composer of an entirely new genre of heroic poetry, that was Homeric and Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
sque in technique and style, and yet so fundamentally India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n in theme. To cite the poet himself: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." Nevertheless, it took a few years for this epic to win recognition all over the country.
Linguistic Abilities
Madhusudan was a gifted linguistLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and polyglot
Polyglot (person)
A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, whereas a trilingual three; above that the term multilingual may be used.-Hyperpolyglot:...
. Besides Indian languages like Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, he was well versed in classical languages like Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. He also had a fluent understanding of modern European languages like Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and could read and write the last two with perfect grace and ease.
Work with the Sonnet
He dedicated his first sonnetSonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
to his friend Rajnarayan Basu
Rajnarayan Basu
Rajnarayan Basu was a writer and intellectual of the Bengal Renaissance. He was born in Boral in 24 Parganas and studied at the Hare School and Hindu College, both premier institutions in Kolkata, Bengal at the time. A monotheist at heart, Rajnarayan Basu converted to Brahmoism at the age of...
, along with a letter which in which he wrote:
"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."
When Madhusudan later stayed in Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the sixth centenary of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
was being celebrated all over Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He composed a poem in memory of the immortal poet and translated it into French and Italian and sent it to the court of the king of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II, the then monarch, was enamored of the poem and wrote back to the poet:
"It will be a ring which will connect the Orient with the Occident."
Work in Blank Verse
Sharmistha (spelt as Sermista in English) was Madhusudan's first attempt at blank verse in Bengali literature.Kaliprasanna Singha
Kaliprasanna Singha
Kaliprasanna Singha is remembered for his two immortal contributions to Bengali literature viz. translation of Mahabharata, the largest epic, and his book Hutom Pyanchar Naksha...
organised a felicitation ceremony to Madhusudan to mark the introduction of blank verse in Bengali poetry.
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee
Ashutosh Mukherjee
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, CIE was a prolific Bengali educator and the first Indian Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta from 1906 to 1924. Perhaps the most emphatic figure of Indian education, he was a man of great personality, high self-respect, courage and towering administrative ability...
, while paying a glowing tribute to Madhusudan's blank verse, observed:
"As long as the Bengali race and Bengali literature would exist, the sweet lyre of Madhusudan would never cease playing."
He further 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."
In his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is the autobiographical work of one of India's most controversial writers -- Nirad C. Chaudhuri. He wrote this when he was around fifty and records his life from his birth at 1897 in Kishorganj, a small town in present Bangladesh...
, Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Italic textNirad C. Chaudhuri was a Bengali−English writer and cultural commentator...
has remarked that during his childhood days in Kishoreganj, a common standard for testing the level of erudition in the Bengali language during family gatherings (like for example, testing the vocabulary stock of a would-be bridegroom as a way of teasing him) was the ability to pronounce and recite the poetry of Dutt, without the trace of an accent.
In France
In his trip to VersaillesVersailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
during the 1860s, Madhusudan had to suffer the ignominy of penury and destitution. His friends back home, who had inspired him to cross the ocean in search of recognition, started ignoring him altogether. Perhaps his choice of a lavish lifestyle, coupled with a big ego that was openly hostile to native tradition, was partly to blame for his financial ruin. Except for a very few well-wishers, he had to remain satisfied with many fair-weather friends. It may be argued, not without some obvious irony that during those days, his life oscillated, as it were, between the Scylla
Scylla
In Greek mythology, Scylla was a monster that lived on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite its counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait were within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass too close to Scylla and vice...
of stark poverty and the Charybdis
Charybdis
Charybdis or Kharybdis was a sea monster, later rationalised as a whirlpool and considered a shipping hazard in the Strait of Messina.-The mythological background:...
of innumerable loans. He was head over heels in debt. As he was not in a position to clear off his debts, he was very often threatened by imprisonment. Dutt was able to return home only due to the munificent generosity of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar CIE , born Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhyaya , was an Indian Bengali polymath and a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance....
. For this, Dutt was to regard Vidyasagar as Dayar Sagar (meaning the ocean of kindness) for as long as he lived. Madhusudan had cut off all connections with his parents, relatives and at times even with his closest friends, who more often than not were wont to regard him as an iconoclast
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
and an outcast. It was during the course of his sojourn in Europe that Madhusudan then realized his true identity. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he became aware of the colour of his skin and his native language. What he wrote to his friend Gour Bysack
Gour Das Bysack
Gour Das Bysack was a Bengali writer prominent in the late 19th century. He was known for his friendship with Michael Madhusudan Dutta.-Works published:...
from France neatly sums up his eternal dilemma:
Marriage and Relationships
One of the reasons for his decision to leave the religion of his family was his refusal to enter into an arranged marriageArranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
that his father had decided for him. He had no respect for that tradition and wanted to break free from the confines of caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
-based endogamous marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
. His knowledge of the European tradition convinced him of the superiority of marriages made by mutual consent (or love marriage
Love marriage
A love marriage is a union of two individuals based upon mutual love, affection, commitment and attraction. While the term has little discrete meaning in the Western world, where most marriages are considered to be 'based in love,' the term has meaning elsewhere to indicate a concept of marriage...
s).
Madhusudan married twice. When he was in Madras, he married Rebecca Mactavys. Through Rebecca, he had four children. Madhusudan wrote to Gour in December 1855: Michael returned from Madras to Calcutta in February 1856, after his father's death. Michael married a woman named Henrietta Sophia White. His second marriage was to last till the end of his life. From his second marriage, he had one son Napoleon and one daughter Sharmistha.
The tennis player Leander Paes
Leander Paes
Leander Adrian Paes, pronounced pās, is an Indian professional tennis player who currently features in the doubles events in the ATP tour and the Davis Cup tournament...
is the son of his great granddaughter.
Death
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
to his dear friend Gour, to express his deepest conviction of life:
(Macbeth)
Gour responded with a passage from Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
:
After Dutt's death, he was not paid a proper tribute for fifteen years. The belated tribute took the form of a shabby makeshift tomb. Madhusudan's life was a mixture of joy and sorrow. Although it could be argued that the loss of self-control was largely responsible for his pitiable fate, his over-flowing poetic originality for joy was to become forever immortalized in his oeuvre.
His epitaph, a verse of his own, reads:
Legacy
In the words of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the father of modern Bengali prose, the poet of Meghnad Badh Kabya thus:In word of Tagore:
Vidyasagar's lofty praise runs:
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
would later declare:
In Byron's dramatic poem Manfred
Manfred
Manfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama...
what the Abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
of St. Maurice spoke of Manfred can equally be applied to the life of Madhusudan:
In the words of Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...
:
Major works
- TilottamaTilottamaTilottama is an Apsara described in Hindu mythology. "Tila" is the Sanskrit word for sesame seed or a bit and "uttama" means better or higher...
, 1860 - Meghnad Bodh Kavya (BalladBalladA ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
of Meghnadh's demiseDemiseDemise, in its original meaning, is an Anglo-Norman legal term for a transfer of an estate, especially by lease...
), 1861 - RatnavaliRatnavaliRatnavali is a Sanskrit drama about a beautiful princess named Ratnavali, and a great king named Udayana. It is attributed to the Indian emperor Harsha . It is a Natika in four acts. One of the first textual references to the celebration of Holi, the festival of Colours have been found in this text...
- RiziaRiziaRizia is a village in the municipal unit of Vyssa in the northern part of the Evros Prefecture in Greece. Rizia is connected via two roads to the GR-51 . The area is flat...
, the sultana of Inde. - The Captive Lady.
- Visions of the Past.
Further reading
- Ghulam Murshid, Lured by Hope, trans. Gopa Majumdar, Oxford Univ Press, (2003) ISBN 0195653629 – Gopa Majumdar's translation of Ashar Chalane Bhuli
- Clinton Seely (2004). xvi, 238 pp. $29.95 (cloth).. The Journal of Asian Studies, 63, pp 830–831 doi:10.1017/S002191180400213X
- Heart of a Rebel Poet - Letters of Michael Madhusudan Dutt Ed. Ghulam Murshid Review at Parabaas