
Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824-1873), the 19th century Bengali poet and playwright, was born on 25 January 1824 in a landed family in the village of Sagardari in Jessore district, Bengal (now in Bangladesh). He was the only son of a well-to-do Kayastha Family. His father, Rajnarayan Dutta, was a law practitioner in Kolkata. Madhusudan in his early years, was taught at house by his mother, Jahnabi Devi, and later he joined Sagardari Primary School. At the age of 7 he went to Khidirpur School, Kolkata. In 1843 he got admitted to Kolkata’s well-known Hindu College. Here, amongst other subjects, he also studied Bengali, Sanskrit and Persian.
Madhusudan started writing although at Hindu College. He drew everyone’s attention at a college function when he recited a self-composed poem. He won numerous scholarships in college exams as well as a gold medal for an essay on ladies’s education. Although a student at Hindu College, Madhusudan’s poems in Bengali and English had been published in Jnananvesan, Bengal Spectator, Literary Gleamer, Calcutta Library Gazette, Literary Blossom and Comet. Lord Byron was Madhusudan’s inspiration.
Michael’s exceptionally colourful personality and his unconventional, dramatic and in numerous methods tragic life have added to the magnetism and glamour of his name. Generous in friendship, romantic and passionate by temperament, he was also fond of the great life; he was financially irresponsible, and an incorrigible spendthrift. He experimented not only in the field of writing, but also in his personal life.
On 9 February 1843, Madhusudan ran away from property and converted to Christianity, to escape a marriage his father had arranged and also to satiate his fascination with every thing English and Western. He took the name ‘Michael’ upon his conversion and wrote a hymn to be recited on the day of his Baptism. Even so, on becoming a Christian, Madhusudan had to leave Hindu College as Christians had been not allowed to study there throughout that time. In 1844, he got admitted to Bishop’s College and remained there until 1847. There, he also studied Greek and Latin.
Madhusudan’s conversion to Christianity estranged him from his family, and his father stopped sending him income. In 1848, Michael left for Madras where he began teaching, very first at Madras Male Orphan Asylum School (1848-1852) and then at Madras University High School (1852-1856). Besides teaching, Madhusudan was also involved with many newspapers and journals. He edited the Eurasian (later recognized as the Eastern Guardian), the Madras Circulator and General Chronicle and the Hindu Chronicle. He also worked as Assistant Editor of the Madras Spectator (1848-1856).
Even though in Madras, Madhusudan married Rebecca Mactavys Thompson and had a family by her. Meanwhile, his mother died and then his father. After his father’s death, Madhusudan abandoned Rebecca and his very first family due to a failed marriage and returned to Kolkata in February 1856 to live with a Frenchwoman named Henrietta White and had a second family by her. She and Michael did not appear to have been formally married, presumably due to the fact Rebecca had by no means granted him divorce. There is no record either of their marriage or of Michael obtaining a divorce from Rebecca.
In Kolkata, Michael 1st worked as a clerk at the police court and then as interpreter. He also began contributing to distinctive journals. His friends urged him to write in Bengali.
Madhusudan realised the paucity of excellent writing in Bengali as well as his own capability to fill this vacuum. Even though translating ramnarayan tarkaratna’s play Ratnavali (1858) into English, he felt the absence of great plays in Bengali. He became associated with the belgachhiya theatre in Kolkata patronised by the Rajas of Paikpara. In 1858 he wrote the western-style play Sharmistha based on the mahabharata story of Devayani and Yayati. This was the 1st original play in Bengali, making Madhusudan the very first Bengali playwright.
By dint of his genius, he removed the stagnation in bengali literature both in style and content. He was the initial to use blank verse in 1860 in the play padmavati based on a Greek myth. This use of blank verse freed Bengali poetry from the limitations of rhymed verse. This success prompted Madhusudan to write his 1st Bengali poem, Tilottama-Sambhava in blank verse in that very exact same year. It is based on the Puranic story of the war waged on the Gods by the demon brothers Sunda and Upasunda. This poem was written totally in blank verse, and so had been the two later poems Meghnad-Badh Kavya (Ballad of Meghnad’s Demise in Ramayana) in 1861 and Virangana. The later poems silenced the critics and detractors, and permanently established the vogue of blank verse literature.
Madhusudan’s epic poem: Meghnad-Badh Kavya is considered his all-time masterpiece till right now. Written in blank verse, this epic was based on the Ramayana but inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost. Madhusudan transformed the villainous Ravana into a Hero. This grand heroic-tragic epic was written in nine cantos which is very different in the history of Bengali Poetry. Meghnad-Badh Kavya was Bengali literature’s very first original epic and gave Madhusudan the status of an Epic Poet.
The years 1861-62 had been Madhusudan’s most fruitful period. These had been the years of publication of Meghnad-Badh, Krishna-Kumari, Vrajangana, and Virangana-Kavya (1862). Virangana was modeled on Ovid’s heroic epistles, and contains some of Madhusudan’s most beneficial blank verses. Technically it is his most beneficial work. Nearly all his poems, except Brajangana-Kavya (1861) had been written in the blank verse pattern.
Madhusudan worked briefly as Editor of the hindu patriot prior to leaving for England on 9 June 1862 to study Law. In 1863 he went to Versailles in France, staying there for about two years. It was in France that Madhusudan overcame the longing for England that had inspired his early works and realised the significance of his motherland and mother tongue – Bengali.
A lot of his time abroad, extremely in Versailles, was spent in abject poverty, as the cash from his late father’s estate on which he was relying did not come frequently. His Indian friends who had inspired him to cross the ocean had by now managed to forget the beggar Madhusudan altogether. He fell hopelessly into debts and appealed for aid to the excellent personality, the scholar, social reformer, and activist Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar (this type soul was recognized to all as Dayar Sagar – the ocean of kindness, for his immense generosity).
Vidyasagar laboured to guarantee that sums owed to Michael from his property at household had been remitted to him and sent him a big sum of income to France. Nevertheless, as Madhusudan was still not in a position to clear off all his debts, he was very regularly threatened by his creditors with the eventuality of prison-arrests. He was deeply over head and ears in debt.
Madhusudan returned to England from Versailles in 1865. In 1866 he became a Barrister. He returned to Kolkata on 5 January 1867 and began practising Law. But his practice did not pick up and in June 1870, he was obliged to give up his legal career to work as a translator at the High Court on a monthly salary of Rs 1000.
Nonetheless, his habit of reckless spending ran up debts once more. Despite all ups and downs, Madhusudan kept on writing. In 1871 he wrote Hectarbadh after Homer’s Iliad. His last composition was Mayakanan (1873).
Madhusudan’s last days had been painful, mainly because of debts, illness and lack of treatment. He had no location of his own and had to take shelter in the library of the Zamindars of UttarPara, Hooghly, W.B.
His extravagant life-style, fickleness in cash matters, and reckless drinking to drown troubles conspired to wreck his well being and happiness, and likewise the well being and happiness of his second partner Henrietta, who had also succumbed to alcoholism throughout her days of poverty in Versailles.
On 29 June 1873, 3 days after the death of Henrietta, the most beneficial poet of the bengal renaissance died in Calcutta General Hospital in a miserable condition at the age of only 49 years. Thus, he and his partner both died prematurely, within 3 days of each other’s demise, leaving behind orphaned youngsters.
Even now after a lot more than 100 years to his death, Michael Madhusudan Dutta is revered as the pioneer of the new 19th century awakening of Bengal. With his unusual talent, he brought about revolutionary changes in Bengali language and literature. Drawing profusely on Sanskrit themes for his poems and borrowing from western literature, he set a entirely new trend in Bengali literature.
He was a man of real, though somewhat erratic, genius, and a courageous innovator of forms and kinds which altered the entire course of Bengali literature and added new dimensions to it. To his adventurous spirit, Bengali Literature owes its very first blank verse and the sonnet , its 1st modern comedy and tragedy, and its very first epic.
The life-style and poetic virtues of Michael Madhusudan Dutta had been not only unconventional but awe inspiring. He would be generally extremely regarded and remain immortal in the history of Bengali literature as the founder of Amitrakshar Chhanda or blank verse (rhymeless verse) and as its greatest ever exponent.
Madhusudan employed to collect themes for his poetry from the Sanskrit Puranas, ancient Hindu epics and also English and French literature.
He also wrote poems about the sorrows and hurts of love spoken by ladies. He is considered as the Father of Bengali Sonnet.
He was also a amazing linguist. Besides Bengali, Sanskrit and Tamil, he studied Greek, Latin, Italian and French and could read and write the last two languages with ideal grace and ease.
Madhusudan’s life was a stupendous boon and also an enormous sorrow. Loss of self-control was mainly responsible for his life’s financial and emotional sorrows and Even so it was a God-gifted boon for his over-flowing poetic originality.
The all-inviting epitaph on his grave came from the poet himself:
Stop a whilst, traveler!
Really should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son.
As a child takes repose on his mother’s elysian lap,
Nonetheless here in the Long House,
On the bosom of the earth,
Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep
Poet Madhusudan of the Duttas.
http://www.aparnaonline.com/michael.html
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