Toru Dutt is neither a Shelley nor a Keats, neither a Tagore nor even a Sarojini. She is the Ganges’ child, who deserves a place because she wrote poetry in English in India at a pioneering time. She is the only poetess of Indo - English literature who has shown superiority in the handling of the ballad form; has managed the sonnet and blank verse with some dexterity, and has shown love for Nature.
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| Toru Dutt’s Place As A Poet |
There is some intellectual and scholarly touch in her poetry despite its simplicity and spontaneity which must have been born out of constant and careful revisions of the first drafts of her poems. The Saturday Review wrote that there was every reason to believe that in intellectual power Toru was one of the most remarkable women that ever lived. Another noted critic, Dunn, thought that Toru was the first of her sex to interpret the soul of India to the West, and as such she “struck a genuinely Indian note that reveals the sincerity of a mind proud of the intellectual traditions of its native land.”
A French critic, James Darmester wrote about her : “This daughter of Bengal, so adorably and so strangely gifted, Hindu by race and tradition, and English woman by education, a French woman at heart, poet in English, prose - writer in French; who at the age of eighteen made India acquainted with the poets of France in the rhyme of England, who blended in herself three souls and three traditions, and dies at the age of twenty, in the full bloom of her talent and on the eve of the awakening of her genius, present in the history of literature a phenomenon without parallel.”
According to Edward Thompson, “Toru Dutt remains one of the most astonishing women that ever lived, a woman whose place is with Sappho and Emily Bronte, fiery and unconquerable of soul as they…..” Another notable critic A.H.L. Fisher has been very “generous towards Dutt, and his observations are significant:
Toru Dutt was a poet with a rare genius for the acquisition of languages not her own. In her all too brief life she mastered Sanskrit and wrote in French and English with a grace, a felicity, and an individual distinction which have given her rank among the authentic voices of Western literature. Her ear, indeed, sometimes betrayed her. On points of diction she was not always beyond reproach. Here and there in the Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan or in her amazing renderings from the French poets , romance by those best qualified to judge of it . Yet when every deduction has been made for unessential blemishes, this child of the green valley of the Ganges has by sheer force of native genius earned for herself the right to be enrolled in the great fellowship of English poets.
Toru could have interpreted the soul of India to the West had she lived longer. Even after her premature death she remains sweets, fresh and graceful. In the words of Dr. Iyengar, Toru “has left behind her a body of achievement to which it will be difficult to find a parallel in the history of English literature.” Paying a tribute Mr. Alok Ranjan Das Gupta has observed: “She was the first of our modern artists who have transmitted the nervous tension of adolescence into the saner idiom of art. In the incredibly short spell of her life, she successfully crystallized the diverse ways of innocence and experience into the supreme moment of Art which is brief, yet abiding.”
Dunn has described her as “the founder of the modern school of English poetry.” In Dr. A. N. Dwivedi's opinion, “obviously, Toru Dutt was the first Indian to handle English verse with ease, freedom and command”. Along with Tagore, Aurobindo and Sarojini she is one of the four wheels of Indo - English literature, particularly of the pre - independence Indo - English poetry. Whereas Sarojini is more concerned with her personal experiences, Toru Dutt is concerned with modern problems too. The reader can come across a few meaningful utterances in Toru's poetry about the social conditions, dogmas, political states and flatterers, but Sarojini hardly ever tried to understand or reveal human nature. Toru is a “great daughter of India, holy as a white lotus, sweet as a rose, who enjoyed the beauty of the sky and air, redolent of myrrh instead of the ‘tulasi’.”
Her limitations are too obvious. Her output is light in weight and quantum: she fails to capture the English tones many a time; her grammar is faulty; her rhythms rugged; her subjects common place. She also lacks ‘mellow sweetness’; her melodies “were often foreign if not harsh to the English ear: (Anant), and that much of her poetry is that of an adolescent, and inexperienced and young girl telling stories.” Dr. Edward J. Thompson has even found the punctuation of The Ballads chaotic.
Yet, even amid the many marks of immaturity and haste, there are signs of promise in her budding poetic talent. She is the first ‘major Indo – Anglian’ poet, her poetry has not fallen into the striking pit of oblivion. She figures in the literary histories and university syllabuses; there is some inkling of Dhruva and Sita in her, the former's determination and the latter's firmness and innocence. She has attained indelible technical excellences. Her shorter poems are notable for the beauty of the form and texture that are there. She has composed poems in various stanza forms and her poetic craftsmanship is evident in her use of the English ballads stanza (“Savitri”), eight - line octosyllbic stanza (“Prahlad”) quatrain (“Sindhu”) eleven - line stanza (“Our Casuarina Tree") sonnet ("Baugmaree" and "Lotus") and blank verse ("Dhruva" and "The Royal Ascetic and the Hind").
Pinpointing the nature of Toru's achievement Dr. P.C. Kotoky says, “As an Indian writer of English verse, Toru Dutt's main achievement lies in her effective mastery of the medium. She shows in her poetry a fine sense of the English language, a feeling for its rhythm and diction, and her handling of the traditional verse - form was seldom at fault.”
Her true assessment has been made by the sympathetic Indian as well as British scholars. A few of their opinion need quoting:
1. Sri Aurobindo: “Toru Dutt was an accomplished verse builder with a delicate talent and some outbreaks of genius and she wrote things that were attractive and sometimes something that had a strong energy of language and a rhythmic force.”
2. Dunn: “Her verse is finely knit, vigorous and of a pleasing variety. It is never obviously imitative, and moves with such freedom and independence as are inseparable from genuinely creative work.”
3. Dr. A.N. Jha: “One cannot regret that time cut short prematurely a career of such promise and such early fulfilment. There were few poetic glories which, given maturity, she could not have achieved. She could have interpreted to the West the spirit of India and could have brought about a closer and more sympathetic understanding. She might have developed into a novelist or a writer of lyric breathing grace and sweetness.”
4. A. Dasgupta: “She was the first of our modern artists who have transmuted the nervous tension of adolescence into the idiom of art. In the incredibly short spell of her life, she successfully crystallised the diverse ways of innocence and experience into the supreme moment of Art which is brief, yet abiding. "
5. Padmini Sengupta: “She has passed the test of time and though born over more than a hundred years ago, is still very much alive, proving herself a classic writer.”
6. H.A.L, Fisher: “This child of the green valley of the Ganges has by sheer force of native genius earned for herself the right to be enrolled in the great fellowship of English poets.”
7. Edmund Gosse: “.... when the history of literature of our country comes to be written, there is sure to be a page in it dedicated to this fragile exotic blossom of songs.”