Narasinhrao
Divetiya (1859-1937), the well-known Gujarati poet, critic and
linguist, modeled his poetry consciously on the British Romantic
lyrics and translated the Romantic sensibility into Gujarati poetry
through his anthology, Kusummala (1887). This anthology
presents complete or partial translations of poems by Wordsworth,
Keats, Shelley, Byron and other British romantic poems. The paper
shows how Divetiya uses various strategies of translation such as
direct translation, free translation, transcreation and teeka
to generate a new literary sensibility in Gujarati. Narasinhrao
Divetiya’s lifelong association with the act of translation made
available a Gujarati version of the British romantic lyric and its
cognate sensibility and taste.
Nineteenth-century
renaissance in
Gujarat made English education
and English literature available to the native Gujaratis. Further, the
fourth part of F.T. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury (1861), with the poems
of the British romantic poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and
Byron, was frequently prescribed as a textbook in schools and colleges
of
Gujarat. Narsinhrao
Divetiya (1859-1937), a major poet, critic and linguist, modeled his
poetry consciously on the British romantic lyrics and proposed to
translate their allied sensibility and taste into Gujarati poetry and
Gujarati readership through his anthology Kusummala (1887). This
anthology, along with his other anthologies, also presents complete or
partial translations in various forms of the poems by Wordsworth,
Keats, Shelley, Byron and others. The pronounced pitch of romanticism
in Gujarati poetry is invariably linked with the act of translation in
the colonial context, not ignoring at the same time native Sanskrit
tradition and Charani folk literature.
Needless
to say, the concepts of “romanticism” and “translation” themselves are
at stake at the moment, and a historical perspective may contextualize
them meaningfully. Dalpatram’s poem “Bapani Pinpar” (1845) inaugurated
modern Gujarati poetry as it adopted Gujarati, leaving the Vraj
language, and chose Nature as the subject matter. It markedly
differentiated itself from the didactic, religious medieval Gujarati
poetry. Dalpatram was closely associated with Alexander Forbes, a
British officer. He celebrated his friendship with him in “Forbes
vilas” (1867) and commemorated his death in “Forbes virah” (1865), the
first elegy in Gujarati. But Dalpatram still wrote in pragmatic mode,
aiming at verbal wit and flashes.
It is Narmadashankar Lalshankar
Dave or Narmad (1833-1886) who brought modernity as well as
romanticism to Gujarati poetry by introducing new poetic subjects like
love, Nature and freedom. Sundaram, a major twentieth-century Gujarati
poet and critic, observes:
The third and the most important feature of Narmad’s
poetry is the introduction, for the first time, of new subjects or a new way of
introducing the old subjects into Gujarati poetry. The number of such poems is
more than half of his total poetic corpus. This poetry is of three kinds: the
poetry of love, the poetry of Nature, and the poetry of freedom. The last of
these kinds of poetry came to be written in Gujarati for the first time by
Narmad. Poetry of love and that of Nature had been written since long. Subjectivity
was introduced to the poetry of love by Narmad for the first time, and the
subjective element kept developing since then. Narmad contributed to the poetry
of natural description by freeing it from its restrictive thematic context and
from its function as a subsidiary subject, meant only to nourish the main rasa;
and thus by making it an independent poetic subject matter.1
(Sundaram 1946:39-40)
Narmad, a prolific writer, has a number of poems on the
subjects of love, Nature and patriotism. The theme of love is treated in the
poems under the general titles of “Premniti,” “Priyani vani,” “Priyani vani,”
“Priya ane priyani vani.” Poems descriptive of Nature are grouped under the
general titles of ‘Van varnan’, ‘Pravas varnan’, ‘Gram ane srushtisaundaryana
varnankavyo’. The poems, embodying the theme of freedom are collected under the
general titles of ‘Svatantrata’, ‘Shuravirna lakshano’, ‘Virkavita’, and
‘Deshabhiman sambandhi’. Romanticism in such poetry by Narmad would mean a
shift from the didactic, religious poetry of the medieval period to the poetry
allowing subjectivity with new subjects like love, Nature and freedom.
Though Narmad must be credited with his pioneering contribution
to the emergence of modern Gujarati poetry with its romantic strain, he leaves
its further cultivation to his descendants. Sundaram comments on the way
Narmad’s poetry treats the theme of love:
There is hardly any attractive element left in
Narmad’s poetry other than the specific element of subjectivity in these love
poems by Narmad. He shows a genuinely felt passion of love, which is more than
physical. A desire for true love also appears in him. But he could never go
deeper than the physical level in his poetry.
In the same vein Vishnuprasad Trivedi, a distinguished scholar
and a critic, points out the scope left for further development of the theme of
Nature in Narmad’s poetry:
The Nature poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge describe
a certain mood or sentiment of Nature herself. The poems embodying independent
sentiments of Nature herself are yet in a formative phase in Narmad. They are
bound to conventions, echoing Sanskrit poets, at some places.
(Trivedi 1964)
In historical terms, Gujarati poetry after Narmad, waits for a
more refined and subtle approach to the themes of love and Nature in a
subjective poetic mode.
Self, which is centrally located in romanticism, interacted
with the British Other in the colonial period of the nineteenth-century
renaissance and accordingly attempted to define itself in the matrix of nodal
cultural events. “Gujarat Vernacular Society” was set up by Alexander Forbes,
with the help of Dalpatram, in 1848. This body started publishing the magazine,
Budhhiprakash, since 1850. Buddhivardhak Sabha was set up by Narmad and his
friends in 1851 for social reforms and woman’s education. “Forbes Gujarati
Sabha” was instituted by Mansukhram Tripathi in 1854 in Mumbai in the memory of
Alexander Forbes. It aimed at collecting old Gujarati manuscripts and
translation of good English books. The same year the British parliament made
the law for educating Indian people in English. In 1857 the British contained
the rebellion and the East India Company was replaced by the British Queen’s
rule. The same year universities were set up in Bombay,
Calcutta and Madras
and textile industry was set up in Gujarat. Arya Samaj
was founded by Dayanand Sarasvati in 1875. The first non-Parsi paper, Gujarati,
a weekly, was published by Ichharam Suryaram Desai in 1880, in Mumbai. National
Congress was instituted in 1885. It was a fertile period of history, with
varied cultural stimulie, allowing an interaction with the British other,
creating a shift between two contexts as it happens in an act of translation.
Narsinhrao Divetiya’s Kusummala was published in 1887.
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