Discuss the poetic qualities of Toru Dutt.

Analyze Toru Dutt as a poetic artist.

Write an essay on Toru Dutt’s narrative art.

Write an essay on Toru Dutt as a poetess with a brief account of her life and works.

Ans.

The real name of Toru Dutt was Torulatha Dutt but she has been generally called by this short name. She belonged to a highly educated and enlightened family and her father had already earned a great reputation in social and literary life of Bengal. Her mother possessed a wide knowledge of Hindu scriptures, myths and legends and had translated several poems from English to Bengali. Toru Dutt inherited all these qualities from her family which chiefly contributed to make her so great a poet.

Toru Dutt left behind such a glory and legacy that even today we think of her as the marvelous young girl who died before her prime. She is praised as one of the finest flowers of the Indian Renaissance. She lived during that period when it was taken for granted that every educated Indian should be educated in English. Her first appearance in print was in The Bengal Magazine which published her two great works. Her developing personality and genius were being moulded by the Western influence but she never lost touch with India and Indian traditions. She brought Indian English poetry to a high level of poetic excellence. She left only two volumes of poetry in a brief period of her life. Her greatness and originality has been exhibited in The Ancient Ballads And Legends of Hindustan. For this great achievement, she has been praised as a ‘Classical Writer’. But she was never subjective so she did not produce any lyrics, though undoubtedly she expressed her personal reaction. Sometimes in her legendary characters. she expresses the feelings as though she herself is passing through that ordeal. Lakshman and Sita are remarkable for her personal and impersonal qualities. The poem Sita is a beautiful narrative but ends on an elegiac note which perhaps is the result of her personal grief-the death of her brother and sister. The presentation of Sita’s character shows Toru’s artistic quality. Her legends are the most personal, though the plots for these narratives have been chosen at random.

In fact, Toru was moved by the beauty and sanctity of the age-old legends. By vigorous and pleasant narration of the ancient legends, she struck a genuinely pleasing note. Her poetic vision encompassed the whole medieval religious culture of India. All of them are essentially Hindu stories steeped in the age old values of Hindu culture. There are some beautiful descriptions of nature and Indian life in these ballads. She is keenly sensitive to the sights and scenes of nature and had a remarkable eye for colours. The Lotus and The Champak, The Kokil and The Bulbul, all have been beautifully combined. She shows her fondness for varied shades and sounds. There are beautiful sensuous and picturesque scenes of nature scattered throughout her works. Similarly great is her achievement of the legendary characters who have been given a new life and new interpretation in her hands. The Ancient Ballads abounds in subtle character portrayal. There is hardly any conflict between the narration and the demands of description. The picture of Yama exactly corresponds to the accepted religious belief. Another memorable picture Toru presents is that of the lovely maiden in Jogadhya Uma which shows her wonderful capacity in subtle character portrayals. She presents the internal and external qualities of her characters together. At the same time different feelings and moods of the characters have also been presented through their speeches and dialogues. In this context, it is also noteworthy that she has brought human evils very powerfully. Prahlad focusses attention on the problem of tyranny. It has that vision which inspires him to challenge the tyranny of his father. She tells that tyranny contains the seeds of destruction. The Ballad closes with a warning to the ‘tyrants of every age’. Toru reveals to the West the soul of India through these Ballads. She has glorified the ideal of Indian womanhood in Savitri. Sindhu is an ideal son who sacrifices his life for the sake of his parents. Lakshman is an ideal and self-sacrificing brother. Toru is also aware of the social inequalities of the time. She often refers to them in widowhood, religious superstitions and class distinction. But she also refers to the freedom that women enjoyed in those days.

Toru Dutt was the master of narrative verse and got wonderful success in writing Ballads. She was gifted with the power of strong telling. She has introduced in them the interest and curiosity as well as the surprise and suspense. She was the first Indo-Anglian poet to handle English with such ease and felicity. Her diction is reminiscent of the 19th century romantic school. By translating French poems into English, she has already mastered the poetic craft to perfection. She used blank-verse, twelve line stanza and also eight line stanzas as in Lakshman. She manages the octosyllabic line with considerable ease but sometimes, her blank verse is wooden. She also successfully used the sonnet form as in The Lotus. At the same time, we notice some defects and weaknesses in her poems. There is often roughness in her lines, sometimes they are unpoetic and seem to have been written by a school girl. Still her greatness as a poetess has been universally accepted.