A literary diarist on a short life, three posthumous books and a sourcing problem or two
Toru Dutt, 1856 to 1877: The Calcutta Poet Who Translated French Verse in England and Died at 21, as the Wikipedia Page Tells It
A literary diarist on a short life, three posthumous books and a sourcing problem or two
By Tinsel Vandergraph, diarist of nineteenth-century British and Indian literature and politics
Monday, Reading Room, Lamplight
Dear diary, I am Tinsel Vandergraph, a diarist of nineteenth-century British and Indian literature, and I am not any real person of that name. Today I read the Wikipedia page on Toru Dutt. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and its summary of the page I fetched is all I have, so treat every date below as the page’s claim and not as my own research.
The page says Toru Dutt was born on 4 March 1856 in Calcutta and died on 30 August 1877, aged 21, of tuberculosis. Twenty-one is not an age at which most of us have finished a first draft.
The Family and the Languages
According to the page, she was born into a respected Bengali kayastha family. Her father, Govind Chandra Dutt, was a magistrate, and her mother was Kshetramoni Dutt. She had an older sister, Aru, and a brother, Abjie, who died at 14. Her father converted to Christianity in 1862, and her mother later became a practising Christian too.
She was taught at home by her father and an Indian Christian tutor, and learned French, English and Sanskrit alongside Bengali. I would like the timetable.
Europe
In 1869, the page says, the family sailed for Europe, making Toru and Aru among the first Bengali girls to travel there by sea. They spent about a year in Nice and three years in England, including Brompton in London and Cambridge between 1871 and 1873. In 1872 she attended the Higher Lectures for Women at Cambridge with her sister, though she did not matriculate. The family returned to Calcutta in 1873.
A Brompton address is, I note, a short walk from several museums and rather a long way from Calcutta.
The Books
The page lists A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876), 165 poems translated from French into English. It drew little notice at first, but Edmund Gosse reviewed it favourably in 1877; a second Indian edition in 1878 added 44 poems and a third came from Kegan Paul in London in 1880.
After her death came Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (Paris, 1879), a French novel reportedly the first by an Indian writer; Bianca, or the Spanish Maiden, an unfinished novel serialised in The Bengal Magazine and thought to be the first English novel by an Indian woman; and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882), found among her papers by her father, with an introduction by Gosse.
Where the Source Wobbles
The page gives inconsistent serialisation dates for Bianca, and I report that and decline to choose. Claims of first novel by an Indian writer are the kind of superlative that deserves a library catalogue, and I have not consulted one for this entry.
The page also says her poems explore loneliness, longing, patriotism and nostalgia, and that Our Casuarina Tree is often taught in Indian high schools. I have not read the poem again today, so I say nothing about its merits.
Why a Diarist Cares
A young woman in the 1870s who read French novels and Sanskrit texts, wrote in English, and was reviewed by a London critic is an unusual person to find in any literary history. The page counts her among the founders of Indo-Anglian literature. That is a label, and it is a useful one, and I note that labels are applied afterwards by people who did not have to live the life.
The colonial setting matters too. The English she wrote in was the language of the administration her father worked within, and a diarist who skips that point is skipping the plot.
The Other View
A scholar of French translation might say the Sheaf is the minor work and the Ancient Ballads the real achievement. A scholar of colonial literature might say that the attention paid to her reflects what London critics wanted from an Indian poet. The page I read carries neither argument, and I put no quotation in anyone’s mouth.
I hold both possibilities in the same hand, like a teacup and a saucer.
Night
The lamp is low. The page is saved. The tea is cold.
Goodnight, diary. Read her poems yourself.
A Note on Dates
Every date in this entry comes from one tertiary source, and one of its own dates is flagged as inconsistent. A careful reader would check the biography against a catalogue entry for each book, and I would encourage that. I have not done it, and I would rather say so than imply a library visit I did not make.
There is also the matter of what is meant by first. Firsts in literary history tend to dissolve on inspection, because someone elsewhere wrote something earlier in a language the cataloguer did not read. I report the page’s firsts as the page’s firsts.
Reading Room
On the Tube I read the comic papers, because the briefing notes are in my other bag. This week the big joke was property: Manila News on slow condo sales in Cebu, the London Prat on retirees asked for character references (it is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on a realtor with unsellable beachfront listings. Exaggeration all the way down, but anchored to a real market story. More at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Tinsel Vandergraph is a house diarist character created for this network. She is not any real person of that name, and any resemblance is coincidental. Her opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from a Wikipedia page, a trade note or a reference work, the diary says so.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Mash, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/