Critically analyse the poems written by Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu.

Critically analyse the poems written by Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu.

In the rich and variegated garden of the English muse, there appeared in the latter half of the nineteenth century two plants of exotic growth, bringing to it a new colour and a strange beauty to which it was hitherto unused. One was the lily of Toru Dutt, pale and fragile, but stately, graceful and delicate. The other was the rose of Sarojini Naidu–tiny, bright, sweet and fragrant.

To change the metaphor, one could think of Toru Dutt as the skylark, singing loud and clear, soaring high into the sky, like a star of heaven in the broad daylight. The other was the Nightingale, more familiar and melodious, tiny but powerful. One was the “blithe spirit,” with a strain of sadness, “the unbodied joy whose race is just begun.” The other was the happy, light-winged dryad of the trees.

In considering the poetry and personality of the two in more specific terms, we might remember that Toru Dutt was almost classical in her sense of form, her restraint and reserve. Sarojini Naidu was obviously and impenitently romantic in her outlook–her sense of colour, her wide-eyed wonder at the world and her spontaneous ecstasy. One had a flair for the narrative and and ambitions for the epic achievement. The other was lyrical in her impulse, with a natural lilt in her song.

If one was cut off in the prime of her life and ever remains the heir to an unfulfilled renown, the other had, in the hectic throes of a nation in the making, to exchange the lyre of the poet for the sword and shield of the patriot and the freedom-fighter. Both wrote in English, familiar to them as the functional mother-tongue, though still dubbed an alien language. Both were children of Bengal and of India, but represented the fruits of cross-fertilisation and the results of emotional and intellectual integration at the deepest level.

Both were precocious in their intellectual development and had discovered themselves as poets while still in their early teens. About the age of eleven, Sarojini began to write a long poem in English, while struggling unsuccessfully with a problem in Algebra, which was her bugbear (as that of many other poets and writers). Toru attained a commendable mastery of English and French by the age of fifteen and contributed substantially to the Dutt Family Album, brought out by her father and his cousins..............................................................................

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