Layered homogeneities: Madhusudan Dutt and the dilemma of early Bengali theatre
Abstract
Owing to its colonial tag, Christianity shares an uneasy relationship with literary historiographies of nineteenth-century Bengal: Christianity continues to be treated as a foreign import capable of destabilizing the societal matrix. The upper-caste Christian neophytes, often products of the new western education system, took to Christianity to register socio-political dissent. However, given his/her socio-political location, the Christian convert faced a crisis of entitlement: as a convert they faced immediate ostracization from Hindu conservative society and even as a devout western modernized could not partake in the colonizer’s version of selective Christian brotherhood. I argue that Christian convert literature imaginatively uses Hindu mythology as a master-narrative to partake in both these constituencies. This paper turns to the reception aesthetics of an oft forgotten play by Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the father of modern Bengali poetry, to explore the contentious relationship between Christianity and colonial modernity in nineteenth-century Bengal. In particular, Dutt’s deft use of the semantic excess as a result of the overlapping linguistic constituencies of English and Bengali is examined. Further, the paper argues that Dutt consciously situates his text at the crossroads of different receptive constituencies to create what I call layered homogeneities.
References
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Acharya, Poromesh (1985), ‘Education: Politics and social structure’. Economic and Political Weekly, 20(42): 1785-1789.
________. (1986), ‘Development of Modern Language Text-books and the Social Context in Nineteenth-century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 21(7): pp. 245-251.
Ākhˡṙā Śam̩gramˡbis̩aẏak. Candrika. 16 Magh 1238 (28 January 1832) (ed.) Brajendranāth Bandyopādhyāy. Śaṃbād Patrey Sekāler Kathā. Kalikātā: Baṅgiẏa Sāhitya Pariṣad, 1994.
Bagchi, Amiya Kumar (1985), ‘The Comfortable Fallacies of the “Bhadralok“ Mind’, Social Scientist 13(143): 57-79.
Bandyopadhyay, Samik (1996), ‘Bengali Theatre: The End of Colonial Tradition?‘ Seagull Theatre Quarterly, 12: 53-57.
Banerjee, Brajendra Nath (1943), Bengali Stage(1795-1873). Calcutta: Ranjan Publishing House.
Banerjee, Himani (2007), The Mirror of Class: Essays on Bengali Theatre. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Banerjee, Sumanta (1993), ‘The “Beshya“ and the “Babu“: Prostitute and Her Clientele in 19th Century Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly, 28(45): 2461-2472.
________. (1989) The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Basu, Rājˡnārāẏaṇ (2004[1893])‘Bāṅlā bhāṣā o sāhitya biṣaẏak bakttā‘ in Yogendranāth Basu: Māikel Madhusūdan Dattar jībanˡcarit. Kalˡkātā: De’j.
________. Ātmacarit (1981) reprinted in Ātmakathā, (ed.) Nareś Candra Jānā. Kalˡkātā : Ananyā Prakāśan, 1981.
Bhattacharya, Rimli (2003), ‘The Nautee in the Second City of the Empire’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 40: 191-235.
Bhattacharya, Tithi (2005) The Sentinels of Culture, Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.
________. (2001), ‘In the Name of Culture’. South Asia Research, 22(2): 161-187.
Bose, Amalendu (1981), Michael Madhusudan Dutt. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
Bose, Buddhadev (1964), ‘Modern Bengali Literature: A Study in Indo-Western Relations’, Comparative Literature Studies, 1(1): 47-53.
Bose, Sujit (2007), Michael, His English Literature, Calcutta: Northern Book Centre
Chatterjee, Partha (1997), Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories. Oxford: New Delhi.
________. (2006), ‘An Equal Right to the City: Contests over Cultural Space in Calcutta’. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 18(2) : 166-184.
Chatterjee, Sudipto (2007), The Colonial Staged, Theatre in Colonial Calcutta. New York, London, Calcutta: Seagull.
Chaudhuri Amit (2001), ‘Poles of Recovery: From Dutt to Chaudhuri’, The Hindu. Sunday, July 15.
________. (2003), ‘The Moor’s Legacy: A Jolly Christian Youth in Bengal Takes on Rama and his Rabble’. The Telegraph. October 26
Chaudhuri, Rosinka (2009), ‘Michael Madhusudan Datta and the Marxist Understanding of the Real Renaissance in Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly, 44(4) 61-70.
Choudhury, Mita (1994) ‘Sheridan, Garrick, and a Colonial Gesture: “The School for Scandal” on the Calcutta Stage’. Theatre Journal, 46(3): 303-321.
Chowdhury-Sengupta, Indira (1997), ‘The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of Race in Bengal’. (ed.) Peter Robb. Concept of Race in South-Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press: pp. 282-303.
Das, Sisir Kumar (1994) (ed.) A History of Indian Literature, 1800-1900, Western Impact: Indian Response. Vol. VIII. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1994.
________. (1994), Michael. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Dasgupta, R.K. (1970), The Nineteenth Century Indian Renaissance; Fact or Fiction, Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
Datta, Amaresh (1988), Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
De, Sushil Kumar (1919), Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century. Calcutta: Calcutta University.
Dharwarkar, Aparna Bhargava (2005), Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory and Urban Performance in India since 1947. Iowa city: University of Iowa Press.
Dutt, Madhusudan (1993[1974]), Kshetra Gupta(ed.) Racanābali, Madhusudan. Collected Works of Madhusudan. Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad,: p. 438.
Dutt, Madhusudan (2010) (trans. William Radice), Micahel Madhusudan Dutt, The Poem of the Killing of Meghnād, Meghˡnādˡbadh Kābya. New Delhi: Penguin.
Dutt, Utpal(1992), Girish Chandra Ghosh, New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
Everts, R. Alain and Liu Jian (1995), ‘Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Second Wife’. East and West, 45(1): 389-394.
Ghose, Benoy (ed.) (1980), Belgatchia Theatre’. Hindoo Patriot 10th September 1859. Selections From English Periodicals of 19th Century Bengal V. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Ghosh, Anindita; Power in Print (2006), New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gupta, A. (1977), Studies in Bengal Renaissance, Calcutta: Minerva Publications.
Gupta, Tapati (2005), ‘Shakespeare Re-configured: Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay’s Bangla Transcreations’. Anukriti, 2(1).
Harder, Hans (2004), ‘The Modern Babu and the Metropolis, Reassessing Early Bengali Narrative Prose (1821-1862)’ (eds.) Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha Dalmia. India's Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century. New Delhi: Permanent Black: pp. 358-401.
Kundu, Manujendra (2010), ’Bengali Theatre: An Edifice on the Ashes of People’s Culture’. Social Scientist, 38(3): 55-73.
Kundu, Manujendra (2013), ‘The Dramatic Performances Act of 1876: Reactions of the Bengali Establishment to Its Introduction’. History and Sociology of South Asia 7(1): 79-93.
Lal, Ananda(ed.) (2004), The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Majumdar, R.C. (1960), Glimpses of Bengal in the Nineteenth Century. Calcutta: Firma KLM.
McGuire, John (1983), The Making of a Colonial Mind: A Quantitative Study of the Bhadralok in Calcutta, 1857-1885, Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Mukherjee, S.N ‘Bhadralok in Language and Literature: An Essay on the Understanding of Caste and Status’. Bengal Past and Present 181(1976).
Murshid, Ghulam (2004), The Heart of a Rebel Poet: The Letters of Madhusudan Dutt. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Murshid, Ghulam, and Gopa Majumdar (2003) Lured by Hope: A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Oxford University Press.
Nag, Sajal (2007), ‘Modernity and Its Adversaries, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Formation of the Hindu “Self” and the Politics of Othering in Nineteenth Century India’. Economic and Political Weekly, 42(5): 429-436.
Nair, Rukmini Bhaya (2002), Lying on the Postcolonial Couch, The Idea of Indifference. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Niranjana, Tejaswini (1992), Siting Translation, History Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkely, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press.
Paranjape, Makarand (2012),‘Michael Madhusudan Dutt: The Prodigal’s Progress’, Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the Afterlife of Indian English Authority, Dortrecht: Springer: pp. 65-83.
Radice, William (1995), ‘Milton and Madhusudan’, (eds.) G.R. Taneja and Vinod Sena. Literature East and West: Essays Presented to R. K. Dasgupta. New Delhi: Allied Publishers: 177-194.
Raha, Kiranmoy (1978), Bengali Theatre. New Delhi: National Book Trust.
________. (1999), ‘Old Calcutta’s English Theatres’, (ed.) Utpal K. Banerjee. Bengali Theatre 200 Years. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India:.49-53, 51.
Rahman, Fazlur (1997), ‘A Poet’s Birthday’. Harvard Review, 12: 92-95.
Ray, Bidisha (2008), Contesting Respectability: Sexuality and Corporeality and non-Bhadra Cultures in Colonial Bengal, unpublished dissertation, Manchester University.
Riddiford, Alexander (2013), Madly after Muses, Bengali Poet Michael Madhusudan Datta and his Receptions of the Graceo-Roman Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roy, Kumar (1999), ‘“Nabanna” and Mainstream Theatre’ , (ed.) Utpal K. Banerjee. Bengali Theatre 200 Years. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India: 54-62.
S.N. Mukerjee (1970), ‘Class, Caste and Politics in Calcutta, 1815-38‘(eds.) E. Leach and S.N. Mukherjee, Elites in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 33-76.
Sarkar, Tanika (1997), ‘Talking about Scandals: Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth-century Bengal’, Studies in History 13(1): 63-95.
Schildgen, Brenda Deen (2012), ‘Dante and the Bengal Renaissance’, Aida Audeh and Nick Havely(eds.), Dante in the Long Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 323-352.
Singh, Jyotsna (1996), Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues, Discoveries of India in the Language of Colonialism. London: Routledge.
Singh, Lata (2008), ‘Making of “Modern“ Theatre and Actresses’ Question: Negotiation and Contestation’. Indian Historical Review 35(2): 3-26.
Solomon, Rakesh, H. (1994), ‘Culture, Imperialism, and Nationalist Resistance: Performance in Colonial India’. Theatre Journal, 46: 323-347.
Srinivas, Aravadan (2003), ‘The Logic of Late Romanticism‘. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 102(1): 179-214.
Van Meter, Rachel (1968), ‘Innovation and Tradition in Nineteenth-century Bengali Literature’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 88(2): 352-358.
Zbavitel, Dušan, and Jan Gonda (1976) Bengali literature. Vol. 9. Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz.
Acharya, Poromesh (1985), ‘Education: Politics and social structure’. Economic and Political Weekly, 20(42): 1785-1789.
________. (1986), ‘Development of Modern Language Text-books and the Social Context in Nineteenth-century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 21(7): pp. 245-251.
Ākhˡṙā Śam̩gramˡbis̩aẏak. Candrika. 16 Magh 1238 (28 January 1832) (ed.) Brajendranāth Bandyopādhyāy. Śaṃbād Patrey Sekāler Kathā. Kalikātā: Baṅgiẏa Sāhitya Pariṣad, 1994.
Bagchi, Amiya Kumar (1985), ‘The Comfortable Fallacies of the “Bhadralok“ Mind’, Social Scientist 13(143): 57-79.
Bandyopadhyay, Samik (1996), ‘Bengali Theatre: The End of Colonial Tradition?‘ Seagull Theatre Quarterly, 12: 53-57.
Banerjee, Brajendra Nath (1943), Bengali Stage(1795-1873). Calcutta: Ranjan Publishing House.
Banerjee, Himani (2007), The Mirror of Class: Essays on Bengali Theatre. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Banerjee, Sumanta (1993), ‘The “Beshya“ and the “Babu“: Prostitute and Her Clientele in 19th Century Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly, 28(45): 2461-2472.
________. (1989) The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Basu, Rājˡnārāẏaṇ (2004[1893])‘Bāṅlā bhāṣā o sāhitya biṣaẏak bakttā‘ in Yogendranāth Basu: Māikel Madhusūdan Dattar jībanˡcarit. Kalˡkātā: De’j.
________. Ātmacarit (1981) reprinted in Ātmakathā, (ed.) Nareś Candra Jānā. Kalˡkātā : Ananyā Prakāśan, 1981.
Bhattacharya, Rimli (2003), ‘The Nautee in the Second City of the Empire’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 40: 191-235.
Bhattacharya, Tithi (2005) The Sentinels of Culture, Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.
________. (2001), ‘In the Name of Culture’. South Asia Research, 22(2): 161-187.
Bose, Amalendu (1981), Michael Madhusudan Dutt. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
Bose, Buddhadev (1964), ‘Modern Bengali Literature: A Study in Indo-Western Relations’, Comparative Literature Studies, 1(1): 47-53.
Bose, Sujit (2007), Michael, His English Literature, Calcutta: Northern Book Centre
Chatterjee, Partha (1997), Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories. Oxford: New Delhi.
________. (2006), ‘An Equal Right to the City: Contests over Cultural Space in Calcutta’. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 18(2) : 166-184.
Chatterjee, Sudipto (2007), The Colonial Staged, Theatre in Colonial Calcutta. New York, London, Calcutta: Seagull.
Chaudhuri Amit (2001), ‘Poles of Recovery: From Dutt to Chaudhuri’, The Hindu. Sunday, July 15.
________. (2003), ‘The Moor’s Legacy: A Jolly Christian Youth in Bengal Takes on Rama and his Rabble’. The Telegraph. October 26
Chaudhuri, Rosinka (2009), ‘Michael Madhusudan Datta and the Marxist Understanding of the Real Renaissance in Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly, 44(4) 61-70.
Choudhury, Mita (1994) ‘Sheridan, Garrick, and a Colonial Gesture: “The School for Scandal” on the Calcutta Stage’. Theatre Journal, 46(3): 303-321.
Chowdhury-Sengupta, Indira (1997), ‘The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of Race in Bengal’. (ed.) Peter Robb. Concept of Race in South-Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press: pp. 282-303.
Das, Sisir Kumar (1994) (ed.) A History of Indian Literature, 1800-1900, Western Impact: Indian Response. Vol. VIII. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1994.
________. (1994), Michael. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Dasgupta, R.K. (1970), The Nineteenth Century Indian Renaissance; Fact or Fiction, Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
Datta, Amaresh (1988), Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
De, Sushil Kumar (1919), Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century. Calcutta: Calcutta University.
Dharwarkar, Aparna Bhargava (2005), Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory and Urban Performance in India since 1947. Iowa city: University of Iowa Press.
Dutt, Madhusudan (1993[1974]), Kshetra Gupta(ed.) Racanābali, Madhusudan. Collected Works of Madhusudan. Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad,: p. 438.
Dutt, Madhusudan (2010) (trans. William Radice), Micahel Madhusudan Dutt, The Poem of the Killing of Meghnād, Meghˡnādˡbadh Kābya. New Delhi: Penguin.
Dutt, Utpal(1992), Girish Chandra Ghosh, New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
Everts, R. Alain and Liu Jian (1995), ‘Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Second Wife’. East and West, 45(1): 389-394.
Ghose, Benoy (ed.) (1980), Belgatchia Theatre’. Hindoo Patriot 10th September 1859. Selections From English Periodicals of 19th Century Bengal V. Calcutta: Papyrus.
Ghosh, Anindita; Power in Print (2006), New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gupta, A. (1977), Studies in Bengal Renaissance, Calcutta: Minerva Publications.
Gupta, Tapati (2005), ‘Shakespeare Re-configured: Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay’s Bangla Transcreations’. Anukriti, 2(1).
Harder, Hans (2004), ‘The Modern Babu and the Metropolis, Reassessing Early Bengali Narrative Prose (1821-1862)’ (eds.) Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha Dalmia. India's Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century. New Delhi: Permanent Black: pp. 358-401.
Kundu, Manujendra (2010), ’Bengali Theatre: An Edifice on the Ashes of People’s Culture’. Social Scientist, 38(3): 55-73.
Kundu, Manujendra (2013), ‘The Dramatic Performances Act of 1876: Reactions of the Bengali Establishment to Its Introduction’. History and Sociology of South Asia 7(1): 79-93.
Lal, Ananda(ed.) (2004), The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Majumdar, R.C. (1960), Glimpses of Bengal in the Nineteenth Century. Calcutta: Firma KLM.
McGuire, John (1983), The Making of a Colonial Mind: A Quantitative Study of the Bhadralok in Calcutta, 1857-1885, Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Mukherjee, S.N ‘Bhadralok in Language and Literature: An Essay on the Understanding of Caste and Status’. Bengal Past and Present 181(1976).
Murshid, Ghulam (2004), The Heart of a Rebel Poet: The Letters of Madhusudan Dutt. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Murshid, Ghulam, and Gopa Majumdar (2003) Lured by Hope: A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Oxford University Press.
Nag, Sajal (2007), ‘Modernity and Its Adversaries, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Formation of the Hindu “Self” and the Politics of Othering in Nineteenth Century India’. Economic and Political Weekly, 42(5): 429-436.
Nair, Rukmini Bhaya (2002), Lying on the Postcolonial Couch, The Idea of Indifference. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Niranjana, Tejaswini (1992), Siting Translation, History Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkely, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press.
Paranjape, Makarand (2012),‘Michael Madhusudan Dutt: The Prodigal’s Progress’, Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the Afterlife of Indian English Authority, Dortrecht: Springer: pp. 65-83.
Radice, William (1995), ‘Milton and Madhusudan’, (eds.) G.R. Taneja and Vinod Sena. Literature East and West: Essays Presented to R. K. Dasgupta. New Delhi: Allied Publishers: 177-194.
Raha, Kiranmoy (1978), Bengali Theatre. New Delhi: National Book Trust.
________. (1999), ‘Old Calcutta’s English Theatres’, (ed.) Utpal K. Banerjee. Bengali Theatre 200 Years. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India:.49-53, 51.
Rahman, Fazlur (1997), ‘A Poet’s Birthday’. Harvard Review, 12: 92-95.
Ray, Bidisha (2008), Contesting Respectability: Sexuality and Corporeality and non-Bhadra Cultures in Colonial Bengal, unpublished dissertation, Manchester University.
Riddiford, Alexander (2013), Madly after Muses, Bengali Poet Michael Madhusudan Datta and his Receptions of the Graceo-Roman Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roy, Kumar (1999), ‘“Nabanna” and Mainstream Theatre’ , (ed.) Utpal K. Banerjee. Bengali Theatre 200 Years. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India: 54-62.
S.N. Mukerjee (1970), ‘Class, Caste and Politics in Calcutta, 1815-38‘(eds.) E. Leach and S.N. Mukherjee, Elites in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 33-76.
Sarkar, Tanika (1997), ‘Talking about Scandals: Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth-century Bengal’, Studies in History 13(1): 63-95.
Schildgen, Brenda Deen (2012), ‘Dante and the Bengal Renaissance’, Aida Audeh and Nick Havely(eds.), Dante in the Long Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 323-352.
Singh, Jyotsna (1996), Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues, Discoveries of India in the Language of Colonialism. London: Routledge.
Singh, Lata (2008), ‘Making of “Modern“ Theatre and Actresses’ Question: Negotiation and Contestation’. Indian Historical Review 35(2): 3-26.
Solomon, Rakesh, H. (1994), ‘Culture, Imperialism, and Nationalist Resistance: Performance in Colonial India’. Theatre Journal, 46: 323-347.
Srinivas, Aravadan (2003), ‘The Logic of Late Romanticism‘. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 102(1): 179-214.
Van Meter, Rachel (1968), ‘Innovation and Tradition in Nineteenth-century Bengali Literature’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 88(2): 352-358.
Zbavitel, Dušan, and Jan Gonda (1976) Bengali literature. Vol. 9. Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz.
Published
19-Apr-2015
How to Cite
Chattopadhyay, D. (2015). Layered homogeneities: Madhusudan Dutt and the dilemma of early Bengali theatre. The South Asianist Journal, 4(2). Retrieved from http://www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk/article/view/1073
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