Proposal for Anthology on Indian-English Poetry

Final Report for Summer 2011 Faculty Research Grant

Latha Reddy

Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication

I received a Summer 2011 Faculty Research Grant for my project, to work on two chapters for my book project, which revises my dissertation, entitled Materializing ‘India’ in English, 1870-1920. I used the funds to substantially revise two chapters of this manuscript.

One chapter, entitled “Re-Presenting the Native Voice and Body,” examines the two newspapers Reis and Rayyet (1882-1910) of Calcutta and the Indian Spectator (1878-1913) of Bombay, which often conflate aesthetic and political representation in their discussions of imperial rule. By speaking for or as or through different groups in poetic utterance, the topical poetry published in these newspapers negotiated various loyalties and types of (representative) government so that the formal qualities of these poems re-enact their political concerns. In situating themselves as a representational medium as well as the representative of two groups (the British to the natives and the natives to the British), these Indian-English newspapers attempted to participate in, even as they critiqued, imperial governance.

Another chapter, entitled “Indian-English Epics and Epochs,” examines the ways Indian-English poets used the genre of the epic to establish a genealogy (a linear history) and ethnography (a spatial survey) of the nation. This genre would narrate, if not the origins, then a primordial era that was not primitive but civilizationally advanced, signified most prominently through the cultural artifacts supposedly left by that past so that the very thing, the epic, that narrates this history is also an artifact of that history. I examine the genre of the epic through two “translations” of the authoritative Sansrkit versions of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata by Romesh Chunder Dutt and two “original” epic productions by Toru Dutt and T. Ramakrishna.

I was able to use the development funds to access and request some necessary materials remotely through the British Library system, which was sent to me. In this manner, I was able to successfully complete rough drafts of two chapters as planned. I submitted an article drawn from the chapter on Indian-English epic production for consideration for inclusion in a peer-reviewed journal this past Fall 2011. This article, entitled “Romesh Chunder Dutt’s Indian-English Epics and Epochs,” is appearing in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, most likely in the June 2012 issue. I presented material from another chapter at an academic conference. I continue to make substantial progress on my book manuscript and hope to complete it soon.