Literature of Review: Introduction:

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1 Literature of Review: Introduction: India is the land of beauty and diversity. There exist number of poetic forms, styles and methods. Many poets from india are bilingual who carried the treasures from Indian languages to Europeans and English literature to Indian readers. The present work aims at critically analyzing Arun Kolatkar s Jejuri. Thus it becomes a matter of immense importance to study and take review of Indian poetry written in English to locate Arun Kolatkar in the poetry tradition. Meaning of Indo-English Poetry: According to Oxford Dictonary Indo is the combination form (especially in linguistic and ethological forms) Indian. Indo- English poetry is the poems written by Indian poets in English. It is believed that the English literature began as an intresting by-product of an eventful encounter in the late 18 th century between Britain and India. It has been known by different term such as Indo-Anglican literature, Indian writing in English and Indo- English literature.however, the Indian English literarture is defined as literature written originally in English by authors Indian by birth,ancestry or nationality. This literature is legitimately a part of Indian literature, since its differntia is the expression in it of an Indian ethos.the poetry written in English in india is classified differently by different scholars; however, it is mainly classified as Early poetry, Poetry written during Gandhian Age, Poetry after Independence. Early Poetry: The first Indian English poet who is considered seriously is Henry Louis Vivian Derozio( ). He was the son of an Indo-Portuguese father and an English mother. As a teacher of English in the Hindu College, Culcutta from 1826 onwards, he inspired a number of young Indians with a love of the English language and English literature. The history witnesses that the first quarter if the 19 th century

2 was the period of incubation for Indo- Anglian Poetry and Derozio none other than in the moving spirit then. He died prematurely was Derozio lived too brief poetic carrer; in his brief poetic carrer, Derozio published two volumes of poetry: Poems (1827) and The Fakeer Jungheera: A Material Tale and Other Poems (1828). They show a strong influence of British Vase ; Sonnet: Death, My Best Friend, sentiment, imagery and diction,with some traces of neoclassicism. His satirical verse (e.g Don Juanics ) and the long narrative poems (The Fakeer of Jungheera) strongly mark special inclination and love with Byron. He marks sharp contrast to the wilting sentimentality of his romantic lyrics, Derozio s satirical versesn give genuine evidence of energy and vigour. Derozio s poetry is known for burning nationlistics zeal, somewhat surprising in a Eurasian at a time when the average representative of his class was prone to repudiate his Indian blood and identify himself with the white man, for eminently practical reasons. His poems like To India My Native Land, The Harp of India, and To the pupils of Hindu College have an unmistakable presentation of patriotic utterance which confirms Derozio as an Indian English poet as true son of the soil. Derozio is also a pioneer in the use of Indian myth and legend,imagery and diction. Kashiprasad Ghose ( ) arrived on the literary scene with The Shair or Ministrel and other Poems (1830) three years after Derozio s publication of the first poetry collection. It appears the Kashiprasad Ghoandse iby inimates turns the stylized love-lyrics of the Cavalier poets, the moralizing note in neoclassical poetry and the British romantics. Along with these pioneering poets are equally important. They include: Rajnarain Dutt ( ) verse narrative, Osmyn: An Arabian Tale (1841) in faded heroic couples; Shoshee Chunder Dutt( ) Miscellaneous Poems (1848) and Hur Chunder Dutt( ) Fugitive Pieces(1851).A better title to fame the last two Dutts the possess is that they were the uncles of a girl who was to write Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan a generation better as an epoch-making writer in Bengali.He began his carrer as an Indian English poet. In addition to some sonnets and shorter pieces,he wrote two long poems in English.

3 It believed that the first period of Indian English literature may be said to end in the 1850s, a few years before the Indian Revolt of 1857 great watershed in the relationship between India and Britain.During this period British rule in India was generally accepted by most Indians as a great boon divinely delivered. The holocaust of the Revolt ushered in different ideas. Winds of change soon began to blow over the land, affecting accepted attitudes. It was ultimately as acombined result of these changes that Indian English literature slowly struggled during the next two generations from.indian literature really came of age after 1857, when India s rediscovery of her identity became a vigorious, all absorbing quest and when she had learnt enough from the West to progress, from imitation and assimilation creation. Indian English poetry really graduated from imitation to authenticity with the emergence of Toru Dutt ( ).Toru Dutt s poetic technique shows a sure grasp of more than one poetic mode. Savitri reveals her skil in brisk narration; Lakshman a keen sense of drama, and the sonnet Baugmaree - one of the seven miscellaneous poems included in the collection a flair for description. Toru Dutt s authenticity stands out in sharp relief, when one turns to Behramji Merwanji Malabari( ), whose The Indian Muse in English Garb(1876) appeared in the same year as Toru Dutt s first collection. Ramesh Chunder Dutt( ), a cousin of Toru Dutt, was an Indian Civil Service official who retired voluntarily at the age of forty-nine in order to devote himself to scholarly and creative writing. Rabindranath Tagore ( ), who was called by Mahatama Gangdhi as The Great Sentinel, was one of those versatile men of his Age, who touched and enriched modern Indian life at several points. Poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer, composer, painter, thinke, educationist, nationalist and internalistsuch were the various roles that Tagore played with uniform distinction during bilingualism which is perhaps without a parallel in literary history.

4 Younger than both Sri Aurobindo and Tagore, Sarojini Naidu( ) won recognition in England much earlier. She was a daughter of Bengali educationist settled in the former princely State of Hyderabad, Sarojini Naidu, nee Chattopadhyaya, was a precocious child and started writing poetry at a very early age.her collected poems appeared in The Sceptred Flute(1946). Feather of dawn, a small collection of lyrics written in 1927, was published posthumously in Gandhian Age: The poetry of this period does not give evidence of any new major voices, the most significant verse being produced by earlier poets like Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore, who had consolidated their reputation before the advent of the Gandhian age.in fact, it is surprising that the impact of the Gandhian whirlwind produced no outstanding poetry of any kind, though numerically the poetic scene remains as thickly populated as earlier. These writers of verse may conveniently be considered in two groupspractitioners of religious, mystical, philosophical reflective verse, including the disciples of Sri Aurobindo, and poets mainly in the Romantic- Victo`rian tradition, who have a wider range of themes and who occasionally also try, rather half heartedly, to experiment with modernism.the two groups obviously noy mutually exclusive, since the romantic banner flutters equally prominently over the heads of the poets of the first groups also. It is in poetry that the post-independence period witnessed the most crucial developments. In the fifties arose a school of poets who tried to turn their backs on the romantic tradition and write a verse more in tune with the age, its general temper and its literary etos. They tried, with varying degrees of success, to neutralize in the Indian soil the modernistic elements derived from the poetic revolution effected by T.S. Eliot and others in the 20 th century British and

5 American poetry. The Indian English romantic tradition is not however yet completely extinct and in fact, paradoxically enough, its finest produce was to appear immediately after Independence: Sri Aurobindo s Savitri was published in its final form in , apart from his Last Poems (1952), More Poems(1953) ILion(1957), all of which appeared posthumously during this period, rather pantingly trying to follow in the giant footsteps of the master. The chief poets of the school include Dilip Kumar Roy ( Eyes of Light, 1948), Themis ( poems 1952), Romen (The Golden Apocalypse, 1953), Prithvi Singh Nahar(the Winds of Silence, 1954), Prithvindra N. Mukherjee ( A Rose- Bud Song, 1959) and V.Madhusudan Reddy (Sapphires of Solitude, 1960), the verse of K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar in Tryst With the Divine(1974). Mycrocosmographia Poetica(1976) and Leaves from a Log (1979) and that of V.K. Gokak in Song of Life and other poems(1947), In Life s Temple(1965) and Kashmir and the Blind Man(1977) also reveals the strong influence of Sri Aurobindo.Their most characteristics note is one of quiet and sometimes insightful rumination. Among other writers of romantic verse may be mentioned Adi K. Sett(The Light Above the Clouds, 1948; Rain in My Heart,1954), B.D.Sastri (Tears of Faith,1950), K.R.R. Sastri ( Gathered Flowers, 1956), Barjor Paymaster (The Last Farewell and Other Poems, 1960); Trilok Chandra(A Hundred and One Flowers,1961); Rai Vyas(Jai Hind, 1961); and P.V.B. Sharma ( Morning Buds, 1964).

6 The Poetry After Independence: By the fifties, the new poetry had already made its appearance. In 1958,P.Lal and his associates founded the Writers Workshop in Calcutta which soon became an effective forum for modernist poetry. The Workshop manifesto described the school as consisting of a group of writers who agree in principle that English has proved its ability,as a language, to play a creative role in Indian literature, through original writings and transcreation. The Workshop Miscellany was to be devoted to creative writing, giving preference to experimental work by young and unpublished writers. The first modernist anthology was Modern Indo-Anglian Poetry (1958) edited by P. Lal and K.Raghavendra Rao. In a somewhat brash Introduction the editors condemned greasy, weak-spined and purple-adjectived spiritual poetry and the blurred and rubbery sentiments of Sri Aurobindo and declared that the phase of Indo-Angelian romanticism ended with Sarojini Naidu. They affirmed their faith in a vital language which must not be a total travesty of the current pattern of speech, commended the effort to experiment, advocate a poetry that dealt in concrete terms with concrete experience, and emphasized the need for the private voice, especially because we live in an age that tended so easily to demonstrations of mass-approval and hysteria.

7 New Poets: The first of the new poets to publish a collection was Nissim Ezekiel (1924 -), easily one of the most notable post-independence Indian English writers of verse.his A Time to Change appeared 1952,to be followed by sixty poems (1953), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965) and Hymns in Darkness (1976). A major shaping factor in Ezekiel s poetry is that he belongs to a Bene-Isral family which migrated to india generations ago. The Dhammapada (1967) and Ghalib s Love Poems (1971). His verse transcreation of The Mahabharta of which more than 110 slender volumes have sp far appered is an ambitious project begun in Adil Jussawall s ( ) first book of verse, Land End(1962) contains poems written in England and some parts of Europe. Unlike Dom Moraes, however, Jusawalla chose to return to India after a sojourn of morn than dozen years in England and has since published another collection, Missing Person(1974). The nineteen seventies witnessed the arrival of K.N. Daniwalla, Shiv K.Kumar, Jayanta Mahapatra and Arun Kolatkar. Keki N. Daruwala(1937--), one of the most substantial of modern Indian English poets, has so far published Under Orion(1970), Apparition in April(1971) and Crossing of Rivers(1976). Shiv K. Kumar ( ) is a senior academic who published his first volume Articulate Silences (1970) when on the thersold of fifty. This was followed by Cobwebs in the sun (1974), Subterfuges (1976), and Woodpeckers (1979). His work reveals a mastery of both the confessional mode and ironic comment. Jayanta Mahapatra(1928--), another academic, began his career with Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971) and has since published Svayamvara and Other Poems (1971), A Rain of Rites (1976), Waiting(1979), Relationship (1980), Sahitya Akademi Award, 1981) and The False Start (1980), Mahapatra s poetry is redolent of the Orissa scene and the Jagannatha temple at Puri figures quite often in it. His

8 most characteristic note is one of quiet but often ironic reflection mostly concerning love, sex and sesuality in the earlier poetry and the social and political scene in some of the later poems.arun Kolatkar (1932--) is that rare phenomenon among modern India English poets- a bilingual poet, writing both in English and in his mother tongue (Marathi, in this case). His shorter poems in English are still uncollected, but his long poem, Jejuri appeared in 1976 and won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Many of Kolatkar s shorter poems, like Mehrotra s present a dark, surrealistic vision in which his person s loin has bared its teeth ; the cat knows dreaming as an administrative problem ; and a hag devours oranges/ In self-defence. Women poets from a sizable school in modern Indian English literature and the most outstanding work, expressive of what Mary Erulkar has trenchantly called the bitter serviceere of womanhood, is by Kamala Das(1934--), a bilingual writer like Kolatkar. A Kolatkar. A distinguished author in her mother tongue, Malyalam,Kamala Das has published three books of verse in English: Summer in Culcutta(1965), The Desceendants(1967) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems(1973). The fecundity of post-independence Indian English poetry is thus amazing, but the quality of its minor verse does not match its abundance of output. A large part of the verse written during recent years is merely clever and frequently offers on click verbal concoctions in the putative modernist style which is no more authentic than the imitative romanticism of the earlier periods. Surprisingly enough, in spite of their professed modernity, some of these versifiers are seen unashamedly bleeding barren tears. There are others who are banal only in a contemporary way. Freed from the restraints of-meter, rhyme and form (which their predecessors were compelled to obey) they seem to disregard the inevitable compulsions of rhythm, intelligibility and sometimes even grammar. Fortunately from this versified chaos the work of more than a dozen poets stands out by virtue of its unmistakable authenticity, significance and power.

Early Indian Poetry in Queen s Language

International Multidisciplinary e-journal e Journal ( ISSN 2277-4262) Prof. Zankhana ISSN Jani 2277.(109-116) - 4262 Early Indian Poetry in Queen s Language Prof. Zankhana Jani English Department, C.N