1. Introduction
Bengali poet and playwright Michael Madhusūdan Datta (1824–73)Footnote 1 is one of the central figures of modern Indian literature. His corpus, until recently little studied in the West,Footnote 2 deserves our attention for its great literary merit, but perhaps especially because of the poet's sophisticated use of Western literary models including the Graeco-Roman classics.
His Meghanādbadha Kābya (MBK) was written in Bengali and first published in 1861,Footnote 3 though a certain number of his works were composed in English,Footnote 4 and the MBK has recently been translated by Clinton Seely.Footnote 5 This epic, widely acknowledged to be his most important work,Footnote 6 draws heavily on a variety of Western and Indian models,Footnote 7 influences that have since first publication received no little critical attention.Footnote 8
I will argue here that the MBK, though it narrates an episode from the Indian Rāmāyaṇa and uses Indian characters,Footnote 9 in many ways takes as its primary poetic model the Iliad of Homer.Footnote 10 The approach adopted will be broadly in line with that of Hardwick, who constructs “Reception studies” as the “dynamic interaction” of two cultures, arguing that to study a response to a classical text sheds light both on the receiver and the received.Footnote 11 Certainly, various features of Datta's response to the Iliad imply that he was alive to that work's subtle thematic and structural patterning. In addition, a study of the Iliad as a source of the MBK complicates and enriches our appreciation of the Bengali poem.
The approach of this study will conform to another aspect of Hardwick's definition of reception, that it is “a field for the practice and study of contest about values and their relationship to knowledge and power”.Footnote 12 In addition to the examination of the direct relationship between the MBK and the Iliad, it will be contended that Datta's poem was influenced in its response to the Greek epic by Matthew Arnold's “Homeric” poems, and that the MBK is best studied in terms of contemporary British literary discourse.
This contention is significant for our understanding of Datta's role in the politics of Anglo-Bengali literary culture: many suggest comparisons between the MBK and works of Datta's literary education (Paradise Lost, Comedia Divina, Gerusalemme Liberata); few compare his literary output with that of his contemporary British counterparts.
First of all, I shall introduce Datta and his cultural context, his competence as a reader of Classical Greek, and his attitude towards the contemporary British literary scene. This will be followed by a treatment (in three parts) of the MBK's debt to the Iliad: an overview; a discussion of similes; and a close reading of MBK 6, 7 and 9 compared with Il. 16–24. Finally it will be argued that Datta's response to the Iliad, rich and sophisticated in its own right, is also influenced by Arnold's “Homeric” poems and bears the hallmarks of a close engagement with contemporary British literary culture.
2. Datta and the Iliad
The literary work of Michael Madhusūdan Datta represents a cardinal moment in the history of Anglo-Indian literary culture.Footnote 13 His oeuvre is to be approached with an awareness of the radical shifts in Bengali society in the nineteenth century: the “collaboration” with the British of religious reformists such as Rammohan Roy (1774–1833);Footnote 14 the shift from a Muslim high culture in the late eighteenth century to a British one by the early nineteenth;Footnote 15 and the emergence of the “Young Bengal” movement (embraced by Datta and his teachers) which challenged traditional “Hindu” values and literary tastes.Footnote 16
Datta's own attitude towards traditional Indian aesthetics was complex. He complains in a letter to a friend: “As for the old school, nothing is poetry to them which is not an echo of Sanskrit”.Footnote 17 And yet when the “old school” warmed to his work his pleasure is clear: “You will be pleased to hear that the Pundits are coming round regarding Tilottama [Datta's recently published poem]…”.Footnote 18 Indeed in his MBK Datta famously “reverses” the traditional distribution of sympathy attaching to the characters in earlier accounts of the Rāmāyaṇa story.Footnote 19 Chaudhuri, in his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, says of Datta: “Ravana was to him another Priam, Ravana's son Meghanad a second Hector, and Ravana's city, which to us was the Citadel of Evil, was to Dutt a second Holy Troy”.Footnote 20 The Rākṣasas (traditionally the villains of the story) for Datta become the Trojans, thereby complicating the reader's antipathy towards them.Footnote 21
Underlying his complex attitude towards India and her literary tradition is Datta's relationship with, and aspirations towards, British and European high culture. As Radice notes, Datta was the first major Indian poet “to acquire a Western education and to learn Classical European languages”.Footnote 22 Indeed, that Datta read the Iliad in the original seems clear. His excellent knowledge of Greek is confirmed by various sources: he refers in letters to his own reading in the language;Footnote 23 Bishop's College Calcutta, where Datta was first schooled, is known to have taught Greek with great care;Footnote 24 and we have the direct testimony of a Mr Street, a missionary at the college, who wrote to Rev. Fagan regarding Datta's scholarship: “He is very intelligent, a good Greek and Latin scholar …”.Footnote 25 In addition it is known that Manomohan Ghosh, who had failed the Indian Civil Service entrance examinations and wished to retake them, came to Datta for help with his Latin and Greek.Footnote 26 Given the very high standard of Greek and Latin expected of candidates for the ICS,Footnote 27 Datta's facility in those languages must have been deemed, at least by his friend, to be very high indeed.
While it seems clear that Datta was able to read the Iliad in the original, his response to the poem appears to have been mediated by the responses of other poets: in a letter to a friend, for example, he quotes Cowper's translation of Il. 1.8–9 comparing it with Milton's Paradise Lost ll. 33–4.Footnote 28 Indeed it is clear that these British poets were an important part of the filter through which Datta “received” Homer.Footnote 29
However, this essay will contend that the reading of the Iliad underlying the MBK represents, above all, a markedly Victorian (contemporary) response to the Homeric poem. While many have treated Datta's debt to his literary antecedents, few have tried to show how he engaged in the discourse of contemporary British poetry. In particular Datta's MBK (1861) echoes features of Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum (1853) and Balder Dead (1855): all of the works are “miniaturizations” of the Iliad;Footnote 30 and the MBK is also, like Sohrab and Rustum, an “orientalization” of the Homeric poem. Specific resonances between the works will be noted in the course of this article. It will be argued in the conclusion that the evidence, both internal and external, amounts to proof that the MBK's response to the Iliad was mediated by Arnold's “Homeric” poems.
Datta stated that his approach in composing the MBK was not to “borrow Greek stories but write, rather try to write, as a Greek would have done”.Footnote 31 In this same letter he stated that his ambition was to “engraft the exquisite graces of the Greek mythology on our own …”.Footnote 32 Indeed his response to the Iliad is sophisticated and sensitive in its own right. However, this article contends that the MBK's engagement with the contemporary British literary discourse is perhaps the most crucial aspect of its reading of the Iliad, for it militates against seeing his work as necessarily “subaltern”.Footnote 33 As the following study contends, Datta's reading of the Iliad was not idiosyncratic and subaltern but British and contemporary.
3. The MBK and the Iliad
(i) Current state of knowledge
The connection between MBK 8 and Aen. 6 has been treated in great depth by Clark (Reference Clark1967), but studies of the poem's debt to the Iliad have been rather superficial. The main contribution of the two key works treating the MBK's use of the Iliad (Dasgupta Reference Dasgupta1933 and Reference Dasgupta1969)Footnote 34 has been to establish a thoroughgoing set of correspondences between the characters of the Bengali poem and their Iliadic models. This set of correspondences is broadly as follows.Footnote 35
Rāvaṇa, king of the Rākṣasas, is thought to be modelled on Priam. (The Rākṣasas are thus equivalent to the Trojans.)Footnote 36 Both are kings of a besieged city (Laṅkā and Troy respectively). Both suffer the loss of a great warrior son, whose obsequies are performed at the end of the poem.Footnote 37
Meghanāda, Rāvaṇa's son, is in turn a Hektor-figure. He is the stalwart of his city's defences, the greatest warrior of Laṅkā. His family life in particular and his character in general are depicted with great sympathy:Footnote 38 Meghanāda's farewell to his wife Pramīlā at MBK 3.523–34, for example, recalls Hektor's farewell to Andromache at Il. 6.369–502.Footnote 39 Meghanāda's wife Pramīlā, by extension, corresponds to Andromache.Footnote 40
Rāma, leader of the Rāghavas, is like Agamemnon. (The Rāghavas are thus equivalent to the Akhaians.) He leads the invading army and besieges the city. His mission is to recapture his wife Sītā, which also sets him in line with Menelaos. In particular, Rāma's despondency about the war (he declares from time to time that the Rāghavas should go home; cf. MBK 6.47–67 and 8.49–78) recalls Agamemnon's exhortation (insincere, unlike Rāma's) of his army to return home at Il. 2.110–41.Footnote 41 Aligning Rāma with Agamemnon in this way is an extension of the poet's reversal of the traditional attitude towards the conflict (in which Rāma represents good and Rāvaṇa evil);Footnote 42 for the Iliadic Agamemnon is not an especially sympathetic character.Footnote 43
Sītā is equivalent to Helen.Footnote 44 She is abducted from her husband Rāma. The war is waged because of her. Indeed at MBK 9.185–200 her lament is similar to Helen's at Il. 3.399–412: both are vehemently self-censuring.Footnote 45
Lakṣmaṇa, as Rāma's younger brother, is aligned with Menelaos (though it is Rāma whose wife has been abducted). As the Rāghavas' champion who vanquishes the enemy's greatest warrior he is equivalent to Akhilleus;Footnote 46 however, his subsequent death at the hands of Meghanāda's father recalls Hektor's revenge killing at the hands of Akhilleus; Vīrabhadra's preservation of Lakṣmaṇa's corpse (MBK 7.757–761) likewise recalls Apollo's preservation of Hektor's corpse (cf. esp. Il. 24.18–21).Footnote 47 Lakṣmaṇa's characterization is, therefore, very complex.
Śiva is Zeus.Footnote 48 He, like Zeus, has the greatest power of all the gods.Footnote 49 Like Zeus he has a wife (Durgā) whose will is in conflict with his. The most famous correspondence is between Śiva's deception at the hands of his wife on mount Kailāsa (MBK 2.265 ff.) and Hera's deception of Zeus at Il. 14.197 ff.Footnote 50
Durgā, Śiva's wife, is Hera.Footnote 51 She, like Hera, is set against her husband, supporting the Rāghava clan (while her husband favours Rāvaṇa) just as Hera supports the Achaians in contrast to her husband's partiality for the Trojan side. In both cases the side supported by the goddess is ultimately triumphant, though on the back foot for much of the poem.
Māẏā is equivalent to both Athena and Iris, while her name (literally Deception/Illusion) recalls that of the Iliadic Ate. She protects Lakṣmaṇa from the enemy's weapons (MBK 6.607–610) just as Athena protects Menelaos from the Trojan assault (Il. 4.130–133).Footnote 52 But she is also rather like Iris; at Śiva's command she sends a dream to Lakṣmaṇa at MBK 5.109–125 in much the same way as on Zeus' orders Iris communicates, for example, with Priam at Il. 24.143 ff.
The establishing of these correspondences represents the most useful work done to date on the MBK's debt to the Iliad. Nobody, however, has yet made a study of the respects in which the MBK's structure and narrative strategies are modelled on those of the Iliad. These structural and narrative imitations are highly significant for our understanding of how the MBK miniaturizes its Homeric model. Furthermore, as will be seen, the way in which this miniaturization is effected in fact complicates the basic character equivalences outlined above.
The MBK takes the Iliad as the basic model for the structure of its narrative. For example, the MBK is set towards the end of the siege of Laṅkā just as the Iliad is set towards the end of the siege of Troy. Datta's choice of episode from the Rāmāyaṇa tradition,Footnote 53 which treated the expedition to Laṅkā and the causes of the war in their entirety, was conditioned by the poet's attempt to accommodate the story-arc of the Iliad into his narrative.
A feature of the MBK concomitant with the poet's selection of this brief episode in the Rāmāyaṇa story is that, like the Iliad, the poem has external prolepses of the end of the war. Troy's fall (cf. Il. 17.406–7) and Akhilleus' death (cf. Il. 22.358–60) are foreshadowed in the Iliad;Footnote 54 similarly Rāma's success and the fall of Laṅkā (cf. MBK 8.784–6) are foreshadowed in the MBK (whereas they are narrated in full in the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa).Footnote 55
Also on a microtextual level, the MBK's structural devices seem to be modelled on those of the Iliad. For example, many of the books of the MBK begin with an indication of time.Footnote 56MBK 2.1–2, 3.17 ff., and 8.1–6 all bear indications of nightfall, echoing Il. 2.1 ff., 10.1 ff., 24.2 ff.Footnote 57 Similarly, books of the MBK sometimes begin with an indication of dawn, as at MBK 7.1 ff. and 9.1.Footnote 58 This recalls, for example, Il. 8.1, 11.1 ff., and 19.1 ff.Footnote 59
Furthermore, the story-arc of the MBK seems to be modelled (in miniature) on that of the Iliad. The MBK, organized into nine “sargas” (or “cantos”), may be seen to fall into three triads. The first of these begins, as at Il. 1.1–7, with a poetic invocation.Footnote 60 The march of the Rākṣasas at MBK 1.555 ff., having the effect of a catalogue of warriors, is narrated early in the poem just as the Catalogue of Ships occurs at Il. 2.484–877.
The end of MBK 3 (concluding the poem's first “triad”) narrates a deliberation among the gods; this is paralleled by the council of the gods held at Il. 8.350–488 (occurring at the end of the poem's first third). Furthermore, at MBK 4.21 ff., just after the second proem, the defenders of the city exult in their success, echoing the Trojans' confidence at Il. 8.542–63.
At the end of the second triad, the sixth book of the poem, is narrated the death of Meghanāda. At the equivalent point in the Iliad's narrative (the sixteenth book) Patroklos is killed by Hektor (cf. Il. 16.829–63). This slaying is immediately followed by the revenge killing of Meghnāda's slayer by his father Rāvaṇa. In the Iliad this second death is relatively later on (in the twenty-second book) but the sequence is analogous: A kills B and C kills A (where C's love of B motivates his killing of A).Footnote 61
MBK 7 is a compression of Il. 18–22: Vīrabhadra reports Meghanāda's death to Rāvaṇa (MBK 7.95 ff.) just as Antilokhos reports Patroklos' death to Akhilleus (Il. 18.2 ff.); Rāvaṇa musters the troops (MBK 7.153 ff.) just as Akhilleus inspires the Akhaians by showing himself to them again (Il. 18.215 ff.); a theomakhia intercedes in the narrative (MBK 7.516 ff.), just as in the Iliad (Il. 20.54 ff.); and finally the revenge killing is narrated (MBK 7.729 ff. and Il. 22.249 ff.).
The MBK ends with the cremation of Meghanāda (MBK 9.209-fin) just as the Iliad closes with the burial of Hektor (Il. 24.718-fin). In both cases the funeral follows, and is made possible by, something of a reconciliation between mortal enemies: Rāma and Rāvaṇa (MBK 9.103 ff.); and Akhilleus and Priam (Il. 24.217 ff.).Footnote 62
(ii) Similes
Before examining the implications of this Iliadic story-arc for our understanding of the MBK (especially MBK 6, 7 and 9), attention is first turned to a structural device of the MBK modelled on the Iliad. The simile in the MBK, like the book-initial indication of time, is to a large extent based on the Homeric model. The poem's response to the Iliadic simile is highly sophisticated and symptomatic of a broader incorporation of Homeric narrative patterns into the fabric of the Bengali poem.
The relationship of the simile at MBK 6.607–10 to Il. 4.130–33 was first noted by Dasgupta.Footnote 63 The allusion is unmistakable: in both passages a goddess protecting a favoured warrior from missiles is compared with a mother protecting her sleeping son from flies/mosquitoes.
The Iliadic simile here alluded to is sui generis, the vehicle's subject being found only here and nowhere else in the poem.Footnote 64 However, what is just as striking, and perhaps more significant for our understanding of Datta's incorporation of Iliadic patterns and structures into his narrative, is the poet's imitation of Iliadic simile types. Datta not only makes vivid allusion to unique Homeric similes, as at MBK 6.607–10, but he also models whole kinds of simile on the types found in the Iliad.
In the case of the Iliadic simile it has been shown that, in addition to the often striking occurrence of unique subjects like that of the mother and child, the narrator also has a stock of frequently recurring subject types. The most frequently occurring types may be said to treat: lions (forty examples, plus seven of an aggressive beast); birds (twenty-two); fire (nineteen); cattle (eighteen); wind and wave (eighteen); and boars (twelve).Footnote 65
To take, by way of example, the similes treating “lions”, “fire”, and “wind and wave”, it may be seen that Datta has modelled his simile types on the Homeric paradigm.
At MBK 7.608–700 the narrator says: pālāilā satrāse caudike/raghusainya (jala yathā jāṅgāla bhāṅgile/kolāhale)…, “The Rāghava army scattered in panic to the four directions (like water breaking its banks with a crash) …”.Footnote 66 This simile puts one in mind, perhaps in particular, of the Iliadic extended simile describing Diomedes' onslaught at Il. 5.87–91 in which the hero, sweeping over the plain, is likened to a river bursting its dyke in winter. However, the tenor of the MBK simile is the “panic” and “noise” of the scattering warriors, and to this extent it may perhaps be said to recall Il. 4.452 ff. where the noise and struggle (l. 456) of the warriors are likened to a raging torrent. This MBK simile may be said to take the image of its vehicle (the overflowing river) from one Iliadic simile (Il. 5.87–91) and its point of comparison (uproar) from another (Il. 4.452–6).
However, it is important to note that the Iliadic similes cited above belong to a broader sub-type (which one might label “overflowing river”); and the simile at MBK 7.608–700 also conforms to a comparable sub-type within that poem's simile type “wind and wave”. To this extent it is perhaps better to compare not the specific simile at MBK 7.609–700 with those at Il. 4.452–6 and 5.87–91, but the whole of this subset of similes (MBK 2.563–5, 4.169–72, 7.532–5, and 7.608–700) with the whole Iliadic subset (Il. 4.452–6, 5.87–91, 5.597–600, 13.136–45, 15.381–9, 17.746–53, 21.281–3). An Iliadic narrative pattern has been imitated, not just an Iliadic passage.Footnote 67
This effect, the incorporation of an Iliadic distribution of similes, is not limited to the simile type referred to as “wind and wave”. Another type of Iliadic simile imitated in the MBK is that of “fire”,Footnote 68 in particular the sub-type of “forest fire”. Here too we find a range of “forest fire” similes (MBK 3.363–6, 3.512–3, 6.392–3, 7.611–2) corresponding to the analogous Iliadic “forest fire” subset (Il. 2.455–8, 2.780, 11.155–9, 15.605–6, 20.490–4). Once again, there is perhaps no MBK example corresponding perfectly to a specific Iliadic model, but in both poems the “forest fire” simile occurs with a similar variety of tenors: a bright gleam (Il. 2.458 and MBK 3.365); an onward march (Il. 2.780 and MBK 3.512); the devastating attack of a warrior (Il. 15.605–6, 20.490–4 and MBK 6.392).
In this case, then, as with the “wind and wave” similes treated above, the subset of “forest fire” similes as found in the MBK occurs in a variety of contexts and attaching to different tenors. It is the Iliad's very variety of application and emphasis in its deployment of the similes that Datta has imitated. The poet has not only set up an allusion to his Homeric model, he has incorporated within his poem an Iliadic narrative pattern.
The most frequently occurring simile type found in the Iliad, that of the lion or the unidentified beast,Footnote 69 also finds an analogue in the MBK. Here too it may be seen that Datta imitates the variety of contexts in which the similes are deployed in the Iliad, and the aspects of the image that are emphasized.Footnote 70
However, what is perhaps even more significant about the poet's adaptation of this simile type is his “orientalization” of it. Often the image described is a straightforward imitation of the Iliadic type, a lion attacking or being attacked; but there are also many instances in which the narrator “orientalizes” the terms of the Homeric simile. The narrator of the MBK often substitutes for the Homeric “lion” a non-Homeric “tiger”, a markedly Indian animal. At MBK 4.48–51, for example, the narrator compares the guards' abandonment of Sītā with a tigress leaving a dying doe to prowl the forest for more prey. At MBK 5.350–1 (an implied simile), the goddess Māẏā addresses Lakṣmaṇa, instructing him: sahasā, śārdulākrame ākrami rākṣase/nāśa tāre!, “All of a sudden, leap on the Rākṣasa with the leap of a tiger; destroy him!” The Indian tiger is thus substituted for the familiar Homeric lion in many similes in the MBK; the phenomenon may also be observed at MBK 5.472–5, 6.295–7, 6.413–5, 6.486–7, 6.704–8, 7.572–3, 8.241–6, 9.231–3.
This substitution of the Indian tiger for the Homeric lion is a markedly “orientalizing” effect.Footnote 71 Datta's introduction of the tiger into the Homeric lion simile, as with his use of the elephant (another markedly Indian animal) in a variety of other similes,Footnote 72 figures an aspect of the poet's “orientalization” of his Homeric model.Footnote 73
One further respect in which Datta models his use of the simile on the Iliadic paradigm is his use of “consecutive similes”. Whereas the simile of Sanskrit epic is used with such frequency that it has hardly any effect of emphasis,Footnote 74 the Iliad deploys a group of similes particularly at moments of tension, interest and excitement.Footnote 75 In this respect, as in others, the MBK follows its Greek rather than its Sanskrit model.
At MBK 3.158 ff., for example, the narrative reaches a moment of emotional climax: Pramīlā, the female warrior and wife of hero Meghanāda, has delivered a rousing speech before leading a charge through a blockade in order to see her husband. Hereupon, the narrator captures the excitement of the moment by ornamenting his description with three similes: the first comparing the warrior women with a herd of female elephants (ll. 158–9); the second comparing Pramīlā with a forest fire (ll. 160–1); the third comparing the band's brilliance with a flame at night (ll. 164–6).
This feature of “consecutive similes”, paralleled at various junctures in the MBK's narrative,Footnote 76 recalls a feature of the Iliad's narrative. In the Homeric epic a series of consecutive similes is reserved for “especially impressive effects”.Footnote 77 In preface to the Catalogue of Ships, for example, the narrator piles up similes in his description of the massed Akhaian forces: a fire simile (2.455–8); four nature similes (2.459–73); a simile from husbandry (2.474–7); and, finally, Agamemnon (like Pramīlā) is singled out for attention, being compared with the gods and with the leading bull of a herd (2.477–83).
This deployment of consecutive similes, paralleled most strikingly at Il. 15.605–36 and 17.725–18.1,Footnote 78 is an Iliadic “special effect” deployed at moments of great interest. Here, then, the MBK, by using consecutive similes as a means of vivifying a moment of import, has incorporated within its structure a narrative strategy employed by the narrator of the Iliad.Footnote 79
Datta's use of his Homeric model in the development and distribution of similes and simile types reflects a close and sensitive reading of the Iliad. His adaptation of the Homeric simile and the manner in which he incorporates it within the structure of his poem represents one of the respects in which the MBK's structure and narrative patterning are indebted to the Iliad.
(iii) Slaughter, revenge and reconciliation
Datta's use of the Iliad as a model for the structure and narrative patterning of his poem extends beyond an imitation of this kind of basic rhetorical figure. The poet's use of an Iliadic story-arc is also significant for the relationship between the MBK's structure and that of the Iliad. Furthermore, the manner in which certain narrative sequences of the Iliad map on to the Bengali poem serves to complicate our interpretation of the Iliadic character-equivalences as outlined above, and to influence in turn our interpretation of the text as a whole.
Attention is now turned to three books of the MBK with an especially complex relationship to the Iliad. MBK 6, 7 and 9 may be seen to figure a sequence analogous to that of Il. 16–24. This analogy, however, complicates any attempt to assign a straightforward set of correspondences between the Iliadic heroes and those of the MBK.Footnote 80
As noted earlier, the death of Meghanāda in MBK 6 occurs at the end of the poem's second third, just as Patroklos dies at the end of the Iliad's second third, at Il. 16.829–63. The problem raised by this correspondence is, as it were, one of identity: with which Homeric character are we to identify the hero Meghanāda? Chaudhuri felt that, for Datta, Meghanāda was “a second Hector”.Footnote 81 This opinion is understandable considering Meghanāda's status as principal hero and defender of his city. However, although he is like Hektor in this respect, he is also comparable with Patroklos in others. His death, for example, sets in train a revenge killing, just as Patroklos' death sets in train Hektor's.
Furthermore, there are some finer textual resonances that serve to align Meghanāda with Patroklos. For example, at MBK 6.651 ff. Meghanāda makes a dying prophecy to his slayer, Lakṣmaṇa, foreseeing Rāvaṇa's untiring efforts to exact revenge for his death. This dying prophecy brings to mind very specifically the last words of Patroklos to Hektor (Il. 16.852–4): fate will soon bring Hektor down at the hands of Akhilleus.Footnote 82
Meghanāda's dying prophecy to Lakṣmaṇa is more like that of Patroklos to Hektor than that of Hektor to Akhilleus. At Il. 22.356–60 Hektor foretells the death of Akhilleus at the hands of Paris and Apollo, a killing that will take place after the Iliad's narrative. Hektor's prophecy is, then, an “external prolepsis”.Footnote 83 In the case of the dying prophecies of both Meghanāda and Patroklos what we have is “internal prolepsis”: the killing foreseen will occur later in the same narrative. Indeed in both cases the slayer foreseen is a single character (Akhilleus and Rāvaṇa respectively). Hektor, on the other hand, foresees a pair slaying his addressee. Meghanāda, though he is in many ways a Hektor figure, is at the point of death more closely aligned with Patroklos.Footnote 84
MBK 7, following immediately after the slaying of Meghanāda in MBK 6, is in turn a compression of Il. 18–22. As has been noted, critics have seen Rāvaṇa as analogous to Priam,Footnote 85 which in some respects is certainly correct: he is the king of a beleaguered city, the father of a hero slain while protecting his people. However, by extension of Meghanāda's dual status as both a Hektor- and a Patroklos-figure, his father Rāvaṇa is not only a Priam but also an Akhilleus. Indeed, Rāvaṇa's revenge-killing of Lakṣmaṇa in MBK 7, following the latter's slaughter of Meghanāda in MBK 6, is analogous to Akhilleus' revenge killing of Hektor in Il. 22.
The analogy of Rāvaṇa's actions to those of Akhilleus begins with the delivery of the news of Meghanāda's death. The manner in which Rāvaṇa learns of his son's death is more akin to that in which Akhilleus hears of Patroklos' death than to that in which Priam learns of Hektor's. Indeed, Priam does not need to be told of Hektor's slaughter, for he witnesses it first-hand (cf. Il. 22.408), and it is made clear that he is a spectator of the whole event (cf. Il. 22.25–8 where Priam is the first to see Akhilleus).
Just as at Il. 18.2 ff. Antilokhos comes as a messenger to tell Akhilleus of his comrade's death at the hands of Hektor, so too at MBK 7.95 ff. Vīrabhadra comes as a messenger to tell Rāvaṇa of his son's death at the hands of Lakṣmaṇa. Whereas Akhilleus is prescient of the bad news (Il. 18.4), Rāvaṇa erroneously expects good news (MBK 7.108–10). However, in both instances the messenger foresees an act of violence in response to the news: Antilokhos fears Akhilleus may cut his own throat (Il. 18.34); Vīrabhadra, imagining that the king's anger would be directed towards him, refuses to relate the news before Rāvaṇa grants him abhaẏa, “assurance of safety” (MBK 7.111–4).
Priam's first impulse, in response to his son's death, is to go to Akhilleus to supplicate him (Il. 22.418). Rāvaṇa's response to the news is much more akin to Akhilleus' than to Priam's. Rāvaṇa's response is not desperate, like Priam's, but angry (cf. MBK 7.153 ff.); and he exhorts his men to arm for battle to exact revenge (ll. 153 ff.). This angry response echoes that of Akhilleus who, after great lamentation, states that he has no wish to live unless Hektor is slain by his spear and made to pay for his comrade's death (Il. 18.90–3).
Indeed this idea, that the sole purpose of the bereaved is to avenge the death of the slain, is echoed clearly in Rāvaṇa's address to his wife. Here, in conversation before going out to battle to exact revenge for his son's death, he states that they live only to avenge Meghanāda (MBK 7.339 ff.).Footnote 86
The parallelism between the revenge narrative of Il. 18–22 and that of MBK 7 extends right up to the killing itself. Lakṣmaṇa, victim of the revenge killing and therefore analogous here to Hektor, swears at MBK 7.247: maribo, nahe māribo rābaṇe…, “Either I shall die or kill Rāvaṇa…”. This echoes Hektor's deliberation before facing Akhilleus which he concludes by exhorting himself to test which way the Olympian will give victory (Il. 22.129–30). In both cases the hero who will be slain commits himself to mortal combat, conceding that his own death is a possible outcome and an acceptable risk.
The subsequent combat between Rāvaṇa and Lakṣmaṇa is itself reminiscent of that between Akhilleus and Hektor in Il. 22. Akhilleus refuses a pact and insists that he will feed Hektor's body to the dogs and birds (Il. 22.353). Similarly Rāvaṇa, upon joining with Lakṣmaṇa in fight, addresses his opponent in wrath, saying (MBK 7.716–7): māṃsa tor māṃsāhārī jībe/dibo ebe…, “now I will give your flesh to flesh-eating beasts…”. Akhilleus taunts his victim, telling him that he was wrong not to fear his wrath and to think he could get away with killing Patroklos (Il. 22. 331–3). In the same way, Rāvaṇa makes it clear to Lakṣmaṇa that killing Meghanāda was a mistake and that he will pay for it (MBK 7.718 ff.).
Furthermore certain rhetorical devices used to describe the MBK's revenge killing itself recall those used in the Iliadic scene. For example, the slaying of Lakṣmaṇa is described with a series of similes.Footnote 87 As Rāvaṇa delivers the lethal blow the narrator ornaments the narrative with four similes (MBK 7.736 ff.). This concentration of similes to describe the fall of Lakṣmaṇa echoes the concentration of similes in the description of Hektor's death, not only at the moment of his slaying (at 22.306–21 the narrative culminates in two similes), but also in the narrative building up to it (cf. esp. 22.162–6 and 189–93).
Another device for focusing attention on the event of Lakṣmaṇa's death is the spectatorship of both men and gods, a markedly Iliadic feature.Footnote 88 At MBK 7.729–30 the narrator comments: cāhilā biśmaye/deba nara dõhā pāne…, “Gods and men looked at them in wonder…”. This device echoes the Iliad's narration of Hektor's death. In the Iliad's account of Hektor's death there is a “framing” of the event whereby, both before and after the event, the spectatorship of both gods and men is described. At Il. 22.166 the gods are said to be spectating; and immediately upon Hektor's death the spectatorship of his mother is mentioned (Il. 22.407). Like Hektor's downfall in the Iliad, Lakṣmaṇa's death sequence in the MBK is also accentuated and “framed” by the narrative device of divine and human spectatorship.
The complex relationship between the characters of the MBK and their Iliadic counterparts (the overlaying of features of various Iliadic characters in the characterization of a single hero of the MBK) continues through to the “reconciliation” that occurs in MBK 9.Footnote 89
Various critics have noticed striking parallels here between Rāvaṇa and Priam, notably in his successful call for a truce during the funeral ceremonies for his son Meghanāda.Footnote 90 Once again, however, this neat correspondence between Rāvaṇa and Priam is disrupted by further Iliadic allusions. In some respects the rapprochement between the two characters for the duration of the funeral is a clear allusion to Il. 24. However, the manner in which the reconciliation is effected puts one in mind not so much of Akhilleus and Priam in Il. 24 as of the Embassy to Akhilleus in Il. 9, aligning Rāvaṇa not with Priam nor with Akhilleus (as in MBK 7) but with Agamemnon.
For example, whereas the negotiations between Akhilleus and Priam in Il. 24 are conducted in person, the embassy of Il. 9 is a negotiation by proxy using third-party representatives, a crucial difference that may to an extent underlie Akhilleus’ distinct responses to the two requests: sincerity, dear to Akhilleus (cf. Il. 9.312–3), is perhaps more successfully expressed in person.Footnote 91 In this respect, Rāvaṇa's overtures to his enemy (cf. MBK 9.70 ff.) are more akin to Agamemnon's embassy to Akhilleus than Priam's supplication of him: the king does not go in person, like Priam in Il. 24, but sends an embassy (his minister Sāraṇa), like Agamemnon in Il. 9.
This allusion to Il. 9 is deepened at MBK 9.103 ff. Here Sāraṇa, rather than apologizing or conveying Rāvaṇa's apology for the abduction of Sītā (here the “Indian Briseïs” rather than the “Indian Helen”)Footnote 92 makes excuses for the king that are reminiscent of Agamemnon's failure in Il. 9 to “make things up” with Akhilleus “in person” or to make a truly contrite apology.Footnote 93
At MBK 9.115–6, Sāraṇa blames Rāvaṇa's folly on the “māẏā” (deception)Footnote 94 of Fate. This claim that Fate is responsible for the offender's actions, rather than the offender himself, recalls Agamemnon's speech at Il. 9.115 ff. Here Agamemnon claims to have been blinded (ll. 116), a claim elaborated at Il. 19.91–2 where, like Rāvaṇa's minister, he claims that it was a divinity who brought about the mistake – namely Ate, the Greek Māẏā.Footnote 95 Rāvaṇa's negotiation with Rāma here in MBK 9, as with much of the preceding narrative, uses Iliadic resonances to add layers of complexity to the basic character correspondences between the two poems.
This allusion in a single narrative sequence to both Il. 9 and Il. 24 represents a subtle reading of the Greek epic; for the two Iliadic scenes, as has been suggested by Macleod, are connected by a variety of narrative and thematic devices.Footnote 96 Furthermore, this alignment of one Indian character with several Iliadic heroes is part of a broader pattern. As we have seen through the course of this section, Rāvaṇa is not only aligned with Priam,Footnote 97 but also (in MBK 7) with Akhilleus and to an extent (in MBK 9) with Agamemnon; Meghanāda is not only a Hektor figure,Footnote 98 but (in MBK 6) also recalls Patroklos; Lakṣmaṇa, the aggressor's brother and therefore most naturally equivalent to Menelaos, is also (in MBK 6) a Hektor-figure. Or to put it another way, Hektor becomes two characters in the MBK – Meghanāda and Lakṣmaṇa; Agamemnon becomes two characters, Rāma and Rāvaṇa (and so forth).
This technique of combining several Iliadic characters into one, and vice versa, represents a sophisticated response to the Homeric model. Indeed it reminds one of the Aeneid's use of Iliadic resonances; as Knauer has observed: “… Vergil has sometimes combined several Homeric characters into one … But the reverse too may occur. One Homeric character is split up into three …”.Footnote 99
4. Conclusion: Datta, Homer and Victorian poetry
Datta's use of his Iliadic model is very sophisticated. The MBK represents a highly sensitive reading of the Homeric poem: Iliadic narrative patterns are incorporated into it; its story-arc is closely modelled on the Iliad's; complex allusions serve to conflate several Homeric characters into one (and vice versa). Datta's response to the Homeric poem implies a sophisticated appreciation of thematic and structural connections between certain episodes of the Iliad Footnote 100 and his “Vergilian” use of Homeric characters serves to disrupt the traditional distribution of sympathy accorded to the various Indian heroes in earlier accounts of the Rāmāyaṇa story.Footnote 101
Furthermore, Datta's response to the Iliad is markedly in line with that of the contemporary British poet. His compression of the Homeric model is itself a distinctly nineteenth century reaction to the poem; although the MBK is still a lengthy work, it is much shorter than the Iliad and compresses a narrative arc of twenty-four books into one of nine cantos.Footnote 102 In particular it has been suggested throughout the essay that there are striking resemblances between the MBK (1861) and Matthew Arnold's Balder Dead (1855), and especially Sohrab and Rustum (1853). These correspondences are perhaps so striking as to suggest that Arnold's poems influenced the composition of the MBK. In any case, the resonance is sufficient to show that both the Bengali and English poets were engaged in certain shared literary discourses: Datta's response to the Iliad was informed by contemporary Western attitudes towards the Greek poem.
Both the MBK and Sohrab and Rustum miniaturize and “orientalize” the Iliad, Datta's poem taking an Indian source and Arnold's a Persian.Footnote 103 Furthermore it has been shown that, like Arnold's poems, the MBK is marked (at important junctures in the narrative) with Iliadic indications of time.Footnote 104 Both the MBK and Sohrab and Rustum sometimes “orientalize” the terms of the Homeric simile.Footnote 105Sohrab and Rustum, like the MBK, deploys Iliadic consecutive similes.Footnote 106 Moreover, and perhaps most strikingly, both the MBK and Sohrab and Rustum transpose the central Iliadic relationship between comrades (Akhilleus and Patroklos) to one between father and son (Rāvaṇa/Meghanāda and Rustum/Sohrab respectively):Footnote 107 this transposition, being such a distinctive alteration of the Homeric model, is a key piece of evidence.
Further internal evidence to be considered is the simile at MBK 8.385–6, describing the flitting of ghosts in the underworld: śuṣka patra uṛi yāẏ yathā/ bahile prabala jhaṛa …, “They flee like dry leaves when a fierce storm blows”.Footnote 108 Clark argues: “Datta had read Shelley whose famous simile is echoed here; but in Shelley's Ode it is the leaves that are driven away ‘like ghosts’; whereas in Datta it is the ghosts that flee away ‘like leaves’”.Footnote 109 However, an even closer match is found in Arnold's Balder Dead (ll. 176–7): “Then might he not regard the wailful ghosts/Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around …”.Footnote 110 Here (unlike in Shelley's Ode) the tenor and vehicle of the simile are the same way round as in the MBK, and so the resonance is even greater.
There is also a certain amount of external evidence that Datta knew Arnold's work. In Madras in 1854 Datta delivered a series of lectures (in English) entitled The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu, the first of which was delivered in June 1854,Footnote 111 over six months after the first publication of Sohrab and Rustum.Footnote 112 In this lecture Datta declares: “I have moralised with Saddi, and seen Roustom shedding tears of agony over his brave but hapless son…”.Footnote 113 It seems quite possible that this is a direct allusion to Arnold's poem, though we should note the difference between Arnold's spelling of “Rustum” and Datta's of “Roustom”.Footnote 114
Whether or not this is taken to show Datta's knowledge of Arnold's work, there is further evidence suggesting Datta had been exposed to Sohrab and Rustum as early as the summer of 1854. In Madras during the 1850s, Datta edited various English-language periodicals. One of these, the (Madras) Athenaeum, often published material (typically with a lag of only two months) from important British literary journals, especially Blackwood's Magazine.Footnote 115 In the edition of March 1854, Blackwood's Magazine published an anonymous article treating Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum in which a great deal of the poem is quoted in full.Footnote 116 The article discusses in depth Arnold's use of his Homeric model (cf. esp. p. 311), and so Datta's reading of the article (if we assume he read it) would have drawn his attention specifically to Arnold's response to the Iliad.
Whether or not Datta had read Sohrab and Rustum and Balder Dead by June 1854 (and the evidence presented above suggests that he could have done),Footnote 117 it is hard to imagine, given his avid reading of contemporary British literature,Footnote 118 that the poet would not have been exposed to Arnold's “Homeric” poems by the time he composed the MBK.
However, what is perhaps most crucial about the resonances detected between the Homeric readings of Datta and Arnold is the suggestion that the Bengali poet was thoroughly engaged in contemporary British literary discourse. Datta is rarely compared with a contemporary British poet. So often critics treat Datta's debt to poets of Europe's literary past (Dante, Tasso, Shakespeare, Milton, or Cowper).Footnote 119 Of course his work is very heavily indebted to these models. But it is crucial to note that Datta's interest in these poets, like his reading of the Iliad, represents a markedly Victorian feature of his work. That is to say, British poets (and the reading public) of the Victorian period also had a particular interest in Milton,Footnote 120 Shakespeare,Footnote 121 Dante,Footnote 122 and Cowper.Footnote 123 Datta's interest in the West's literary past was a crucial part of his engagement in its literary present.Footnote 124
This omission leads to the inaccurate sense that Datta's literary oeuvre was somehow disconnected, isolated, and separate from contemporary British poetry. This gives the false impression that Datta's poetry is essentially subaltern and, as “colonial” literature, disengaged from the élite discourses of British poetry.
Datta and his Bengali contemporaries, according to Dharwadker's recent article treating their attitude towards contemporary British poets, “dreamed (impossibly) of being acknowledged as artistic equals…”.Footnote 125 In this essay it has been argued that Datta's use of his Homeric model represents a sophisticated, but moreover a strikingly Victorian, response to the Iliad. Datta may never have been acknowledged as the “artistic equal” of his British contemporaries, but his reading of Homer was very markedly British and contemporary.
Appendix 1: MBK plot summary
Book 1: Vīrabāhu has died; Meghanāda is instated as principal defender of Laṅkā.
Book 2: Goddess Durgā procures weaponry for Lakṣmaṇa to slay Meghanāda.
Book 3: Meghanāda reunites with Pramīlā.
Book 4: Sītā relates (in an embedded analepsis) her capture by Rāvaṇa.
Book 5: Preparations are made for battle.
Book 6: Lakṣmaṇa slays Meghanāda.
Book 7: Rāvaṇa slays Lakṣmaṇa.
Book 8: Rāma goes to the underworld to revive Lakṣmaṇa.
Book 9: Lakṣmaṇa is revived and Meghanāda is cremated.
Appendix 2: Basic character correspondences
