Original subtitles

A very good morning and welcome to all the listeners, lovers and learners to

NPTEL course entitled Indian Poetry in English.

You will be listening to the lectures by Vinod Mishra.

But before I start the first lecture, let me share with you some facts as to

why should we read or learn poetry.

Most of you might be thinking, as to why this quote on poetry.

Dear friends, as human beings, most of us

actually crave for delight and then also

for happiness.

Happiness, which has always been, if we have to quote Thomas Hardy,

the famous English novelist, who says, happiness, was but an

occasional episode in the general drama of pain.

But my dear friends, yet all of us try to extract pleasure,

joy, delight in different ways.

And most of you will agree with me that the changing situations and

circumstances in life have actually prepared us to such a situation.

way to think of delight is of course at times a puzzle.

And then you can come out of this puzzle by opening a world

of delight through the pages of poetry, my dear friends.

It is in order to neutralize the complexities of human life that poetry

to stay, my dear friends.

Since poetry comprises not only Joy. It also comprises pain.

It comprises rest, unrest.

It actually records all our lived and unlived experiences of life.

That is why the quote entitled Indian Poetry in English

will become very relevant. And of course, in a corporate world of today,

when as human beings, We get tired.

We find there are no ways out.

We find that we are in an age of anxiety, in an age of trouble, in an age

we do not see the light.

Of course, we need to explore this delight in the form of light

through the world of poetry.

And why Indian poetry?

Because all of us, being Indian, we actually feel the need.

to understand and explore the joys through our Indian culture, through our

Indian writings, through the sayings of our sages, through our mythological

heroes, through the legacies that we have. And we have really been proud to

all these, not only in our own country, but in the world.

So, my dear friends, that is actually why the need to have a course entitled

Indian poetry in English.

Now most of you might be thinking especially those who are new to

the world of poetry might be thinking what actually is poetry?

Can poetry be defined?

What can be the nature and scope of poetry? So first we shall try our level

to understand poetry and then we shall slowly come to Indian poetry.

There can be any number of definitions about poetry but one that actually

I like very much is by a famous theologian and a philosopher named

Saint Augustine who says, if not asked I know,

if you ask me I know not.

My dear friend, poetry is such a phenomena that it is very difficult to

Though most of the poets and many critics as well, they have defined

Many of you might be familiar with Wordsworth calling poetry as a

overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility.

If we go by what Coleridge says, Coleridge has a different view.

And Coleridge would say, That poetry is the best word in the best order.

Later on Coleridge would also say, poetry is the antithesis of science.

Since we are doing with and dealing with Indian poetry, I thought it cannot

be anything better if we quote what an Indian critique and what an exponent of

Indian writing in English writes about poetry.

What he says is quite relevant.

The true poetic word thus strives to catch the inward eye.

Look at the words.

Inward eye.

To reach the inward ear from the inward eye that you see

and to reach the inward ear because the moment we talk of poetry, sometimes

or the other you start having a feeling of some pleasantry in your ears.

and to sink into the deeper profundities of the awakening or awakened soul.

The real aim of the art, architecture, sculpture, painting, music,

poetry is to speak the spirit of man through meaningful images and only the

media vary in their different arts, the poets being the word that is charged

with power and purpose.

Most people are content to live in the outer mind and senses.

I think here lies the difference which many people would feel when they talk

about distinguishing poetry from other forms of art and even also from science.

But the aim of art and especially poetry is to help us live in the soul.

I mean when we talk about poetry naturally majority of us Start thinking

should have something special.

Not only something that can appeal to the eye and the ear.

But something that can generate feelings in our heart. That is why when you look

at a beautiful flower.

When you look at a beautiful sight.

When you look at a beautiful object. When you look at a beautiful scenery.

Think of it.

What sort of reaction is there in your heart?

How thoroughly you feel yourself transported to a different world, the

of reality but maybe the world of imagination.

To enable us to see into the utter truth of things and the poet has to find the

words and the rhythm that would achieve this aim.

So this in a way tells us that poetry will somehow be different.

And the poet will be the magician of words.

He will throw some words and those words will enlighten you and transport you

to a world of delight, my dear friend.

Most of you would like to know, how did this word poetry come into being?

Our ancient Greek philosophers say, or what they talk about the origin of

as, the ancient Greek word poie, that actually means to create.

And the Latin poem, that is to compose something in words, meaning thereby

something which could have a melody, something which could have a sort of

Because when we talk about poetry, naturally something that comes to our

since we have been talking about imagination being an important

poetry. Why the other day when you looked at the rainbow, suddenly you were

transported into a different realm?

Why you like others, those people who really feel that it is only a scientific

process, why did you simply look at it and say it is a rainbow? Because it had

different sort of echoes that you felt within.

So when we talk about or when we try to differentiate poetry,

adverse science, we find that both poetry and science may deal with the

phenomena, but may have different approaches.

Science will deal with the application of knowledge.

Science will deal with a sort of system, whereas poetry will somehow be

different. Science will look at the objectivity of things.

Science will look at a sort of detachment, whereas poetry will be

It will suggest, isn't it? Most of the poems that you might have read, you will

find that there is a sort of subjectivity in it. Fine.

It is not technical for the sake of are saying technicalities maybe when we talk

about the form when you talk about the style when you talk about the metrical

compositions and all we can say that these are the technicalities but these

technicalities finally lead us to a world of delight where we feel a sort of

musicality and this music actually enthralls poetry will actually touch

upon because it is a world which recreates your emotion the emotion

that is created generated and a poet will recreate those emotion into a

different sort of feeling into a different sort of experience and then

emotive language that is why i mean there can be n number of lectures on the

language of poetry itself but to say it briefly it will touch upon the sensation

isn't it And in a way, it is related to a human soul, the feelings that are

generated. The language at times may be scientific, but at times the language

may be unscientific. When you create something which you call beautiful,

the reactions to it will be different.

Say, for example, here you find the picture of a flower.

Fine. When a poet will look at it, the poet will say, it is the lady of the

garden. It is a flower of delight, of light, isn't it? But when a

scientist will say, and the scientist will have a different sort of nomination

for it, they can go for exploring its botanical name, which can

be Hexendria monogemia.

Hexendria monogemia. Fine.

But now, when you talk about...

this flower and you want to deal with it in a poetic way,

you will find that you actually want to see it in a sort of comprehensive

reality, beauty in totality.

I mean, what sort of sense does it evoke? What sort of feeling? Suddenly

look at a flower and you are actually transported to a different world, to

other beautiful object.

Maybe many poets have always, you know, compared the faces of their beloveds to

roses. No.

My love is like a red, red rose.

No. Sometimes they will, and you know, with the help of their symbols, with the

help of metaphors, with the help of several literary devices, they can.

They are talking of something else, but they are referring to something else.

That is how poetry differs.

From science, my dear friend, because poetic truth will completely be

from scientific truth.

And it is in this regard that we can say poetry begins where matter of

fact or of science ceases to be merely such.

Lee Hunt, a famous English poet and critic, who says that poetry begins

matter of fact or of science ceases to be merely such.

And to exhibit a further truth, the connection it has with the world of

and its power to produce imaginative pleasure.

That is why on a morning or an evening when you are passing

by, when you are crossing by the seaside and you look at the waves

and suddenly there are different emotions that are evoked.

Fine? Maybe The scientist will say, it is quite, no?

Yes, since it is sea, there can be waves.

But a poet will say, these are the waves, like the waves in my soul.

Here I can see my anxieties. Here I can see the ups and downs. Here I can see

the sensations of life.

My dear friends, a poet will always and of necessity deal

largely with such aspects of things as which will appeal directly

to the senses and the feelings. That is why those many of you who read

poetry and enjoy poetry will find that whenever you are reading a piece of

poetry, you are not confined only to one meaning.

You are not confined only to one reaction.

There can be several interpretations of one poem.

which you cannot find in something that is scientific.

There is nothing to prevent him, no one can prevent a poet from penetrating

beneath their surface or from taking as his subject matter those more

recondite truths rather, hidden truths. Can you really think when

you look at a rose and its petals?

And when the petals are being broken, my dear friend, not like the scientists

you want to see from where the fragrance comes, but you actually want to see the

beauty of the rose in its totality. But still, you want to find some hidden

truths, truths of nature, which are revealed by science. There are a number

points which are actually inspired by nature. And, you know, the truth that

have found those truths.

are going to be permanent, those truths are going to be relevant in all those

times. Fine? That is why most of the time you might be reminded of what

in one of the poems entitled Rainbow.

The veteran romantic poet says, my heart lifts up when I behold a rainbow in the

sky. So was it when my life began.

So is it now I am a man.

So be it when I shall grow old.

or let me die.

The child is the father of the man.

And I could with my days to be bound each to each by natural piety.

My dear friends, and then he actually relates it to human life. That how, no?

So was it when I was a child, so it shall be when I shall grow old, and so

shall be when I shall die.

The child is the father of the man.

Fine. So actually he talks about human nature and also talks about the nature

that is real, the nature that is, I mean, the nature in which, around which

live. And, you know, poets taking the background of nature and other natural

objects have actually talked about so many things which perhaps scientists

cannot think of because science believes in truth.

It believes in the practicality of knowledge. It believes in wisdom.

Now, what is actually the function of poetry?

Do we really need poetry?

Do we really need art?

There can be n number of questions as to if poetry is art like other forms of

art, should there be art for art's sake or art for life's sake?

I mean, this is actually a debatable question.

It can be a debatable essay.

But my dear friend, when you look at an object with an artistic bent of mind,

and if you simply get yourself involved it in being simply an art, perhaps you

will be ignoring the other realities. As I said in the beginning, that the

realities of life are changing.

Human lives are changing. And so we also, and of course, as we read and as

we explore poetry in all edges, be it from any nation, you will find the

is changing. Not only in terms of its content, not only in terms of its form,

not only in terms of its interpretation, but here it is quite important to

mention what Wallace Stevens said about poetry. What he says was, poetry was

one of the enlargements of life.

Oscar Wilde, marvelous critic and dramatist, who himself was a weak poet,

remarked that all art was perfectly useless and irony we need not

When you talk of poetry in general conversations and all, many people may

fine, because those people who believe that poetry is simply a pastime affair

it is only a wastage of time. But then Wilde knew better than almost all of us.

that Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Bajart are superbly useful.

Had it not been so, my dear friends, despite the progress and the development

that we have so far made, poetry still continues.

Poetry writing is still in a continuing process.

It has not come to an end.

They give the more difficult pleasures that can persuade us to abandon

that are too easy.

The pleasure that we derive, the satisfaction that we derive out of

fine, is not instant, my dear friends.

It actually, these pleasures are not easily available as other pleasures are

adopt Sully's formulation of the sublime mode.

This has been quoted from Harold Bloom.

Now, do we really or should we really consider the poet as a powerful being?

What is actually the use of a poet?

I mean, you might be aware that there have been people who have criticized

poetry. There have been critics who have actually stopped poets.

Fine, you might know well.

But then, does the poet have some power?

Yes, of course.

If we go by what Sri Aurobindo says in Future of Poetry, vision

is the characteristic of the poet.

I mean, a poet can have a reason, and I'll give you certain examples

as to how, when one of the Indian poets, you know, one of the Indian poets,

more than 100 years before, wrote actually a book, a

journal, it was actually by Kailash Chandra Dutta, who wrote a journal of

48 hours.

in 1945.

And my dear friends, here he actually, here the poet made use of his emotions

and his imagination rather.

And you will find in 1947, India got independence.

You will be surprised to know that how could this poet might have a vision of

1945 and that also 100 years before.

So that is actually the power of a poet. So vision I was talking about. Vision

is the characteristic power of the poet as is discriminated thought the

essential gift of the philosopher and analytic observation the natural genius

the scientist.

The Kabhi, I mean that is the Hindi word for poet.

The Kabhi was in the idea of the ancients, the seer and the revealer of

Those... who are passionate lovers of poetry might have found how the poet

actually looks more and looks rather further than what is not possible.

That is why they have been called reasonaries. Fine? And there are certain

you will find not only in English but also in Indian English poetry where you

can find what the poet said some years before.

could happen so is it not the reason therefore the greatest poets have been

always those who have had a large and powerful interpretive and intuitive

intuitive vision don't you remember my dear friends when sally uh wrote that

poem uh sally's sally's famous poem owed to the west wind

fine and there when he talks about the difficulties on his own of his own

life Where he says, oh, make me a liar. What if my leaves are falling like the

forest? But many people might consider and rather think that Sally was a

pessimist. But towards the end, you see, what sort of vision did he give when he

says, can spring, if winter comes, can spring

be far behind?

See the optimistic note.

So therefore the greatest poets have been always those who have had a large

powerful interpretive and intuitive vision of nature and life and the man

whose poetry has origin out of that in a supreme revelatory utterance of it my

dear friend. You remember what when Wordsworth says child is the father of

man. You see.

It is not a simple statement.

It is not a simple utterance rather. It actually talks volumes about how the

influences that we have in our childhood continues till long.

So, can there be anything better than a reason which Wordsworth has given

in a very short poem? And you will find there are endless poems like

this. And a good number of poets have been practicing their art where they

been talking about their vision. My dear friends, since we are talking about

Indian poetry in English, we should also rather try to discuss

where are the ancient roots of our literature. Did Indian

poetry in English or for that matter, even before Indian literature in

My dear friends, as Aurobindo mentions, the Vedic poets regarded their poetry as

mantras. Now, when you talk about the artificial, the element of artificiality

in poetry, can you also think of Indian literature where our Vedic poets

regarded their poetry as mantras? They were the vehicles of their own

realization and could have become vehicles of realization for others.

Even today we find the Vedas are one of the greatest relations that mankind

has. And not only in India, my dear friend, but all over the world, all our

ancient literature, say for example, the Ramayana, the Mahavarata, the Gita, and

the lines which are there, they are still true. They are still becoming the

eye -openers.

not only to a people of one country, but also to the people of other countries,

my dear friends.

Now, when we talk about Indian English literature, because we have named

this course as Indian Poetry in English, did we really have English even before?

No, my dear friends.

All of our English influences came through foreign people.

Especially you know. Through Basco de Gama. Portuguese and Dutch. There were

several invasions in our country. If you might have read. From the pages of the

history. And still in India. When the East India Company came.

This East India Company.

Historically you know.

Actually they had come as merchants. But they became rulers.

And later on we could find.

That. In order to have people who could work for them, they actually wanted

the people of this country to have the knowledge of English.

So the English education which came to India and especially which was

given to us by none other than these Britishers, they actually felt the need

because they also wanted people who could work for them.

And we will see when we come across Macaulay's minutes that they wanted a

of people, class of people who could help them govern millions of

people. And who should these people be? These people should actually be Indian

in blood and color, but English in taste, in morals.

and in opinion.

That is what Macaulay says in his minutes.

And we find that with this, because in the beginning there were several

oppositions as to why we should have English, but it was actually the need of

the hour.

And that is why after the disintegration of Mughal Empire, these Britishers

These actually, since they wanted to rule over for a longer time and they

rule only because of English.

So when we find that English came to India through East India Company,

of course, many of the historians and others find that it was actually a

shock for many people. But then this shock had its own advantage, my dear

friend. We'll see later. Now, why did we need English?

And what did Indian English literature mean to us? How did it help?

Because we are living under the rule of the East India Company and the country

was not united.

And these people wanted to rule over our country with the help of the select

group of people who could, to quote the words of Macaulay, who could be Indians

in blood and color, but English.

In taste, in morals and in opinion.

So, but then how did it help?

This actually gave the voice to the voiceless in the struggle for social

justice. You cannot suppress a country or a people for a long time even with

help of only language, my dear friend. Of course, language is a great weapon to

control. But for that, you needed people who could speak your language, isn't

it? But initially, Indians who were writing, they were writing in their own

language. But in order to survive, they wanted a language which was alien

though, but which was friendly in order to carry out their own objectives.

English worked as an elixir to the uns caused by the social chaos. There was a

great division in the society.

And these people who were considered baboos, fine, they were considered to be

elite class.

fine among the common people common masses but then with their knowledge of

english sometimes so the other you know since i said you cannot control or you

cannot suppress a country for a long time these people also might have

that it is their own soil it is their own mati to say because it

started in bengal and you know till that time even indian women

who did not have, because our tradition had, if some certain good qualities,

there were some lapses also, and for that, we actually needed to have a sort

education that was not only moderate, but that was forward -looking.

And in this regard, English did a human service, my dear friend. It also helped

discover a sense of identity and...

stability identity and stability my different and indians got a sense of

belonging with the health of english now they could know because majority of the

people started learning english since the schools were also started you know

when english schools were started and when hindu college was started in

one of the directors of the east india company had said

we actually had created a folly and had lost America because of the

establishment of schools there and we are going to repeat the same folly and

dear friend it has really become true they started English education and it

only a group of english educated people most of them britishers who founded some

of these schools and colleges and the hindu college was the first to come into

existence and with the hindu college coming to existence now english

started and it also started creating among indians a sense and a

sort of you know a sort of realization that they can have their own identity my

different What were actually the repercussions? And the repercussions was

wanted that their country should be free from the clutches of a foreign rule.

And for that, if you are a student of history, you might realize how

several revolutions, because the Britishers came to colonize India, but

colonizing India, they civilized India. They civilized India in the sense that

they gave Indians a sort of language a weapon of language through which they

became more conscious and then there was birth of nationalism there from time to

time came to be some collision between Indian religion and the colonial

education because many people were against this colonial education there

some poets even and there were some novelists who while writing They often,

especially to quote Bankim Chandra who said, why is India a subject country?

Who will praise our noble qualities if we do not praise them ourselves?

And they wanted to praise their own country. So even when Bankim Chandra

his own work, even though he was writing in Bengali, but a new consciousness

was created in their mind.

of people and you will find that many indians they started writing in english

so in a way something that was actually a sort of imposition

that actually become a compulsion and it stirred the minds of millions and they

thought they could write uh they could write even though with the help of

english language they could actually bring the indian problems to the masses

to the world my dear friend and this happened you will realize when we

Michael Madhusudan Dutt and others how they started writing in English of

they initially were writers who were writing in their own mother tongue and

only Michael Madhusudan Dutt but in other parts of the country many people

writing in their own language but they realized That the need of the hour was

propagate the Indian problem and in a language that the world could know. And

that really worked a miracle, my dear friend.

Now, when we talk about the history of English literature, as I said, my dear

friend, in the beginning, there were several views about Indian English

literature. Some of them started calling it an Indo -Anglian literature.

Some started calling it Indian writing in English. And then some started

Indo -English literature.

Now, all these terms had actually some differences. But in a way, all they

wanted, what they wanted was, they actually wanted to say that the

written by Indians and that also in English. It was.

Only when V .K. Gokak wrote his first book in the year 1964, it is there that

he makes explicit differences between the terms Indo -Anglian literature and

Indo -English literature.

While he calls Indo -Anglian literature as literature created by

Indians, when he talks about Indo -English literature, he talks about the

translated literature. Why different?

And then, you know, Because by 1800, by 1850,

these things had already subsided, my dear friends. And Indians

now wanted to write their own stories and that also in English.

Their own poems and that also in English.

J .B.

Alfonso Caracalla in his book titled Indo -English Literature in the 19th

Century.

suggests the term to mean literature produced by Indians in English. So after

the debate,

as many people had started calling it by different names. Some of them felt that

when we say Anglo -Indian, Indo -Anglican, there is actually a tinge of

But then we wanted our own literature.

One of the writers has gone to the extent of saying that when we say Anglo

-Indian, what we mean, we are not talking about language, but we are

about a language and a country.

And it was only in 1962 when Srinivas Iyengar wrote a book,

Indian Writing in English.

So everyone accepted.

And later on, it was also accepted by Sahitya Kadmi, Indian English

Literature as a new branch.

And since then...

Not only have we come a long way, but we have our own literature, my dear

friends. It was, of course, the by -product of an eventful encounter, as

M .K. Nayak in his book says.

But then, all these terms with different appellations wanted only one thing,

wanted the contributions of Indians in English writing.

I have been mentioning that it was Bengal which was the home of Indian

literature where it flourished before it did in Bombay. Later on

as you go into the details of Indian English literature and for that matter

Indian poetry in English you will find that there came to be several groups

Bombay groups, Calcutta groups, and then many of the people who were writing in

their regional languages, they also tried their hand at English.

If we take a look at the political repercussions, we'll find that when

Hindi was being introduced, there were several slogans against it

because Hindi was not being accepted as a link language.

And that is why later on, English also started being used as a language for all

purposes. And this is how the journey of Indian writing in English began.

So people like Swami Vivekananda, Swami Vivekananda once said that

the system of Sanskrit education can be best calculated to keep India in

darkness. Now for the first time, my dear friends, People like Swami

and others, they also felt the need that English was actually the need of the

hour. And it was only through English that India could come a long way and

show its own contribution.

Of course, we have talked about Macaulay's minutes on education.

And you will really appreciate that there were some Britishers,

namely William Jones, Hal Hard, And Charles Wood, who actually

said that a medium of intercourse was necessary in order to have the

administrative facility available to all people. And that is how English

actually in India got recognized and English education had its own dividends

reap in the days to come, my dear friend.

But then as we came forward, we found that even many

novelists also, Of course, they realized that English was a sort of imposition.

Here, I would like to make a mention of the quote that Raja Rao, one of the

famous Indian English novelists, I mean, the four runners of Indian novel in

English, who said, the telling has not been easy. One has to convey in a

language that is not one's own and the spirit that is one's own.

So they felt that when you were speaking in a different language or writing in a

different language, you were not able to create or to show the spirit that was

your own. One has to convey the various said and omissions of a certain thought

movement that looks maltreated in an alien language.

They actually thought that English language was against the spirit of

There are many people who later will come to have a further discussion when

have the second lecture on it. When they also realized that no, we should

actually write in English. And before I conclude, my dear friend, let me also

make a mention of how the famous Bengali poet.

who got Nobel Prize in Literature, especially for his work Gitanjali, how

also felt that English was a sort of imposition and it was a sort of

And in one of his letters to his niece, he says, you have written to me about my

English translations of Gitanjali, because Tagore had translated his own

Gitanjali into English. How I wrote them and why people like them so much, I

still cannot quite comprehend.

That I cannot write English is such a plain fact that I never had the pride to

ever feel ashamed of it. If nobody wrote to me in English inviting me to tea, I

didn't have the courage to even write a reply.

You are thinking perhaps that I have rid myself of that illusion today?

Absolutely on the contrary, that I have written in English seems to me to be the

illusion. So he could never think that he could write in English, but later on

it is said, that Tagore was also highly influenced by English and one more

Indian poet especially when Seerudh because you know gradual change in

came and people accepted that they had to write in English if they really had

survive and if they really had to make a mention of their own and they wanted

that India should be known elsewhere So what she says in one of her poems,

you can read, only I'll talk about the lines which I have emphasized.

I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one.

Don't write in English, they said.

English is not your mother tongue.

Why not leave me alone?

Critics, friends, visiting cousins, every one of you, why not let me speak

any language I like? The language I speak becomes mine.

My dear friends, to say that English is only the language of the British, here

Kamaladas gives a very good retort and she says the language I speak becomes

mine, its distortions, its queerness, all mine, mine alone, it is half

half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest, it is as human as I am human. My

dear friends, language not only humanizes, language civilizes.

But a language of one's own actually allows one to express one's own

spirit, one's own reactions, one's own feeling. And that is how English came to

be accepted, my dear friend. And when we talk about the first writers of

English, we will find that even though they had started writing in English much

before, fine.

Much before even say Henry de Roggio who is considered to be the first English

poet. But even before that there were many who had started writing

autobiographies, who had started writing letters. And you know in this regard

even in 18th century you know 1794 when one Indian named Dean Muhammad who had

written, who had published in 1794 a book called The Travels of

Dean Muhammad.

Unfortunately, later on he got settled in England because he was one of the

employees of East India Company and that is why he is not mentioned in many of

the books, my dear friend. So, before we come to the conclusion, let us also

make a mention that those people who had started writing in English, they had

not been writing in English and they were not accepted because they had

translated some of the works. in english and that is why we cannot consider them

to either to be the first indian english writer or to be the first indian

english poet my different so before we conclude let us say that language is

a weapon and it is it is in our ability to learn language and we can of course

learn a language and with the help of language we can really make our

felt elsewhere across

the seven C's in other nations, in other countries. With this, I come to the end

of lecture and in the second lecture, I shall start talking how Indians also

started writing in English and we shall come to Indian poetry in English.

And I think since Indian English poetry is a vast corpus like Indian English

literature, but then a discussion on it is essential because we want to

familiarize people with the Indian ways of life, with the Indian ethos, with the

Indian strain, with the Indian sensibility, my dear friend. So before

for the next talk, till then, thank you very much. Have a nice day. Bye.