The Indian Soul in an English Form: Toru Dutt’s Use of Myth and the Poetics of Indian Sensibility
- Assignment Details
Paper : 201 - Indian English Literature – Pre-Independence
Topic : The Indian Soul in an English Form: Toru Dutt’s Use of Myth and the Poetics of Indian Sensibility
Submitted to - Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U.
- Personal Information
Name: Nikita Vala
Batch: M.A. Sem - 3 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number: 5108240089
Roll No: 17
- Table of contents
Assignment Details
Personal Information
Abstract
Key Words
Introduction
The Colonial Context and the Language of Expression
Myth as Cultural Reclamation
The Poetics of Indian Sensibility
Gender, Myth, and Voice
Between Empire and Epics: Dutt's Synthesis of Cultures
Conclusion
This paper examines Toru Dutt's (1856–1877) pivotal role in establishing Indian English literature by transforming the colonial language into a vehicle for Indian identity and emotion. Dutt’s work, particularly Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, achieves a unique synthesis of cultures (Mitra, 1966) by applying English Romantic forms to Indian mythological content (e.g., Sita, Savitri).
The central argument is that Dutt's poetry embodies "the Indian soul in an English form" by expressing "Indian sensibility" (Ujjal Dutta, 1983)—a spiritual and moral consciousness within the colonizer’s idiom. By giving voice to mythic heroines, she performed an act of cultural reclamation and articulated a feminine and national consciousness (Srivastava, 1975), proving that Indian thought and emotion could transcend linguistic boundaries and survive colonial imposition.
Keywords
Indian Sensibility (Ujjal Dutta), Cultural Reclamation, Mythic Imagination, Synthesis of Cultures, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan , Colonial Context , English Romanticism , Feminine Consciousness / Gender (Srivastava), Sita, Savitri, Lakshman , Transnational Literary Exchange (Gibson).
Introduction
In the history of Indian English literature, Toru Dutt (1856–1877) occupies a foundational position as a poet who transformed the colonial language into a medium of Indian emotion, imagination, and identity. Her work demonstrates what Ujjal Dutta (1983) terms “Indian sensibility,” a mode of poetic expression rooted in indigenous feeling and moral consciousness. Writing in the late nineteenth century, at a time when the British colonial system defined English as the language of power, Dutt reimagined that language as a space of cultural reclamation. Her poetry, particularly in Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, reflects a profound engagement with Indian myth and memory. By reinterpreting stories such as Lakshman, Savitri, and Sita, she reasserted the moral and spiritual values of Indian civilization while adapting the rhythms and diction of English Romanticism.
Mary Ellis Gibson (2014) in “English in India, India in England” describes this cross-cultural encounter as a two-way exchange in which “Indian writers made English literature their own” (p. 327). Toru Dutt exemplifies this creative appropriation: she uses the English lyric to voice Indian devotion and to transform the colonizer’s idiom into the vehicle of a native soul. Dipendranath Mitra (1966) notes that Dutt’s “warmth of Indian feeling” and “restraint of English verse” mark her as a poet of synthesis, bridging the gap between East and West (p. 35). Her handling of mythic material is not mere translation but an act of interpretation a reinterpretation of epic women as symbols of endurance, purity, and inner strength. Narsingh Srivastava (1975) adds that Dutt’s contribution must also be seen through the lens of gender, for she was among the first Indian women to claim poetic authority in English while drawing upon India’s own narrative traditions.
This paper argues that Toru Dutt’s poetry embodies the Indian soul in an English form a poetics that combines mythic imagination with Indian sensibility to construct a lyrical, moral, and cultural selfhood under colonial conditions. Through her reinterpretation of Indian myths, she not only preserved a threatened heritage but also voiced a national and feminine consciousness long before the rise of political nationalism.
The Colonial Context and the Language of Expression
Toru Dutt’s literary career unfolded in a period when English was both an instrument of domination and a gateway to global modernity. Her mastery of the language and her choice to write in it placed her in the middle of what Gibson (2014) calls “the transnational circuit of Victorian English,” a system that linked Indian and British intellectuals through shared literary culture (p. 329). Yet for Dutt, English was not merely the tongue of empire but a medium for self-expression. She used it to translate the ethos of India’s mythological imagination into the idiom of Romantic lyricism.
In poems such as “Lakshman”, Dutt draws from the Ramayana yet focuses not on heroic conquest but on the emotional and moral center of the tale Sita’s devotion and suffering. Her English lines preserve the cadence of Sanskrit moral gravity. By doing so, she transforms English verse into what Ujjal Dutta (1983) might call “an instrument of Indian consciousness” (p. 36). Her diction remains simple but carries the resonance of Indian spirituality; the moral universe she constructs belongs not to Victorian realism but to the dharma of the epics. This linguistic and thematic synthesis defines Dutt’s Indianism an assertion that Indian thought, when expressed in English, need not lose its essence.
Myth as Cultural Reclamation
In Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882), published posthumously by her father Govin Chandra Dutt, Toru Dutt reclaims Indian myth as a form of cultural memory. Dipendranath Mitra (1966) observes that Dutt’s “ballads have the double merit of reviving Indian legend and of expressing it through an English idiom purified by feeling” (p. 36). Her mythic retellings are not nostalgic returns to a lost past but living recreations that connect moral value, devotion, and personal emotion.
1. " Lakshman " - The Voice of Sita
In “Lakshman”, Sita’s voice dominates the poem; her anxiety, tenderness, and moral insistence on Lakshman’s obedience are portrayed with psychological depth. The poem captures the emotional realism of a mythic moment the conflict between duty and love. Dutt’s choice to center Sita’s voice gives agency to the feminine and spiritual dimensions of the Ramayana. Her English stanzas maintain the rhythmic grace of bhakti devotion, and the poem’s emotional tone at once domestic and sacred exemplifies her Indian sensibility. The closing invocation of loyalty and faith reflects the ethical ideal that binds her mythic imagination to moral truth.
2. “Savitri” — The Triumph of Devotion
In “Savitri”, Dutt reinterprets the legend of a wife’s determination to reclaim her husband’s life from the god of death. The poem fuses classical Hindu virtue with Romantic faith in love’s power. Dutt’s Savitri is not a passive figure but an emblem of will and endurance an Indian ideal of womanhood rendered in English blank verse. Srivastava (1975) regards such reconfigurations as acts of cultural self-expression, noting that Indian women writers like Dutt “broke the imposed silence of the East” by speaking through inherited myths (p. 65). Through Savitri’s voice, Dutt articulates an Indian understanding of spiritual agency that transcends colonial hierarchies.
3. “Sita” — Nature and Nostalgia
In “Sita”, Dutt merges personal memory with national and maternal imagery. The poem opens with a recollection of childhood evenings when her mother recited the story of Sita. The scene transforms myth into intimate remembrance; the mother’s storytelling becomes an act of cultural transmission. As Mitra (1966) remarks, “Her genius is Indian in its inwardness and devotional tone” (p. 37). Here, Indianism resides not only in subject matter but in sentiment the sanctity of family, faith, and remembrance. The forest imagery echoes both the Ramayana exile and the poet’s own longing for spiritual belonging.
Together, these poems demonstrate how Dutt uses myth to construct an emotional map of India one where the epic past becomes a metaphor for inner moral truth.
The Poetics of Indian Sensibility
Ujjal Dutta (1983) challenges simplistic definitions of “Indian sensibility,” arguing that it is not merely an accumulation of native symbols but a mode of feeling shaped by Indian moral and spiritual vision. Toru Dutt’s poetry exemplifies this ideal form of sensibility: her English verse vibrates with Indian values faith, self-sacrifice, renunciation, and reverence for nature.
Her emotional world is governed not by Western individualism but by collective consciousness. In “Lakshman,” Sita’s anguish is not personal suffering but a symbol of the moral duty that sustains Indian civilization. In “Savitri,” love is devotion, not passion it is spiritual tapasya. In “Sita,” nostalgia for myth becomes a yearning for moral wholeness. This ethical-emotional framework reflects what Ujjal Dutta calls the “Indo-English moral temperament,” distinct from British Romantic sentimentality (p. 39).
Moreover, Dutt’s sensitivity to Indian nature the forest, river, and seasons reflects the aesthetic of rasa. Each poem evokes a mood of karuna (compassion), bhakti (devotion), or shanta (peace). By embedding these affective structures in English verse, Dutt demonstrates that Indian emotion is not bound by linguistic borders. Her poetics thus function as both translation and transformation the English language becomes naturalized by Indian spirituality.
Gender, Myth, and Voice
Narsingh Srivastava (1975) observes that Indian women writers in English during the nineteenth century occupied a paradoxical position: they were products of colonial education yet preservers of native tradition. Toru Dutt embodies this paradox most gracefully. Her reinterpretation of mythic heroines allows her to voice Indian womanhood in both cultural and spiritual terms.
In “Lakshman” and “Savitri,” she revises patriarchal myth not through confrontation but through elevation by emphasizing women’s moral power and emotional wisdom. Sita and Savitri become not victims but moral exemplars, embodying the eternal strength of Indian dharma. Dutt’s feminism, though implicit, lies in her insistence that women’s voices articulate the nation’s conscience. Her use of the domestic scene a mother telling stories in “Sita” converts private space into cultural archive. Through this feminized voice, Indian heritage survives colonial displacement.
Thus, Srivastava’s framework helps us see that Dutt’s Indianism is not only national but also gendered a fusion of female experience and cultural continuity. The “Indian soul” in her poetry speaks in a woman’s voice that sustains moral order through mythic remembrance.
Between Empire and Epics: Dutt’s Synthesis of Cultures
What makes Toru Dutt’s poetry remarkable is her effortless synthesis of two worlds: the mythic India of devotion and the classical England of poetic form. Gibson (2014) calls this intermingling “a traffic of texts” a circulation of ideas and emotions between the colony and the metropole (p. 330). Dutt’s command of English metrics, rhyme, and diction reveals her deep immersion in European literature, especially Wordsworth and Tennyson. Yet her themes and tone remain unmistakably Indian.
Mitra (1966) notes that her verses “breathe the Indian atmosphere though they wear the English garb” (p. 37). This duality is not compromise but creation the construction of a hybrid poetic identity. By writing of Savitri or Sita in English, Dutt transforms mythology into a bridge between civilizations. Her “Indian soul in an English form” becomes the very image of colonial India’s cultural resilience.
Through myth, Dutt reclaims the moral imagination of India; through language, she extends it to a global audience. This is the essence of her Indian sensibility: a fusion of faith and art, devotion and discipline, memory and modernity.
Conclusion
Toru Dutt’s poetry stands as one of the earliest and most luminous examples of the Indian spirit speaking through the English language. Her reworking of Indian myths, far from being imitation, is a deliberate act of cultural preservation and artistic innovation. In “Lakshman,” “Savitri,” and “Sita,” she gives emotional depth and lyrical voice to the moral ideals of Indian civilization. As Mitra (1966) affirms, her writing “preserves the fragrance of India even in the garb of English” (p. 38).
Mary Ellis Gibson’s (2014) concept of the transnational literary exchange finds its perfect embodiment in Dutt: she writes as both inheritor and innovator, fusing Western literary form with Eastern spiritual content. Ujjal Dutta’s (1983) theoretical vision of “Indian sensibility” finds its first authentic realization in her verse, where emotional intensity and moral depth are harmonized. Srivastava’s (1975) recognition of Indian women writers’ moral strength is also validated Dutt’s heroines are the voices of endurance, faith, and identity.
In giving voice to Sita and Savitri, Toru Dutt voiced India itself — its emotional richness, its spiritual resilience, and its power to humanize the language of empire. Her poetry, therefore, remains not only an artistic triumph but also a cultural testament: the English language, once a colonial imposition, becomes in her hands a sanctuary of the Indian soul.
References :
Dutt, Toru. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan. www.gutenberg.org/files/23245/23245-h/23245-h.htm.
Dutta, Ujjal. “Indo-English Poetry and ‘Indian Sensibility’
(A Note in Dissent).” Indian Literature, vol. 26, no. 4, 1983, pp. 35–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23331476. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
Gibson, Mary Ellis. “INTRODUCTION: ENGLISH IN INDIA,
INDIA IN ENGLAND.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 42,no. 3, 2014, pp. 325–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24575884. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
Mitra, Dipendranath. “THE WRITINGS OF TORU DUTT.”
Indian Literature, vol. 9, no. 2, 1966, pp. 33–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23329477. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
SRIVASTAVA, NARSINGH. “Some Indian Women Writers in
English.” Indian Literature, vol. 18, no. 4, 1975, pp. 63–72.
JSTOR,http://www.jstor.org/stable/24157563 . Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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