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Homer's Iliad and the Meghanādbadha Kābya of Michael Madhusūdan Datta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2009

Alexander Riddiford
Alexander Riddiford*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

The debt owed to Homer's Iliad by the Meghanādbadha Kābya (1861), Michael Madhusūdan Datta's Bengali epic and masterpiece, has long been recognized but has never been examined with any close or academically sensitive reference to the Greek poem. This study sets out to examine the use of the Homeric epic as a model for the Bengali poem, with particular regard to character correspondences, the figure of the simile and narrative structure. In addition to this close analysis, Datta's response to the Iliad will be set in the context of contemporary (and earlier) British receptions of the Homeric poem: the Bengali poet's reading of the Greek epic, far from being idiosyncratic (“colonial”), in fact bears the marks of a close engagement with contemporary British appreciation of the poem.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 335 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2009

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References

Bibliography

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Pathak, M. 1968. Similes in the Rāmāyaṇa. Baroda.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. 1990. Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature. Oxford.Google Scholar
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Radice, W. 1998. “Xenophilia and xenophobia: Michael Madhusudan Datta's Meghnadbadh Kabya”, in Snell, 1998, 143–70.Google Scholar
Richman, P. (ed.) 1992. Many Ramayanas, the Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Oxford.Google Scholar
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Richardson, N. 1993. The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. VI: Books 21–24. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schadewaldt, W. 1943. Iliasstudien. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Schadewaldt, W. 1959. Von Homers Welt und Werk. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 1982. “Rama in the nether world: Indian sources of inspiration”, JAOS 102/3, 467–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seely, C. 1988. “Homeric similes, Occidental and Oriental: Tasso, Milton, and Bengal's Michael Madhusudan Dutt”, Comparative Literature Studies 25/1, 35–56.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 1992. “The Raja's new clothes: redressing Ravana in Meghanadavadha Kavya”, in Richman, 1992, 137–55.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 2004. The Slaying of Meghanada, A Ramayana from Colonial Bengal. Oxford.Google Scholar
Snell, R. et al. (eds). 1998. Classics of Modern South Asian Literature. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Snipes, K. 1988. “Literary interpretation in the Homeric scholia: the similes of the Iliad”, AJP 109/2, 196–222.Google Scholar
Stanley, K. 1993. The Shield of Achilles. Princeton.Google Scholar
Taneja, G. et al. (eds). 1995. Literature East and West, Essays Presented to R. K. DasGupta. Delhi.Google Scholar
Taplin, O. 1992. Homeric Soundings. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, A. 1984. Homer's Iliad: Its Composition and the Motif of Supplication. Göttingen.Google Scholar
Tinker, C. et al. (eds). 1957. The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Oxford.Google Scholar
Turner, P. 1989. Victorian Poetry, Drama, and Miscellaneous Prose 1832–1890. Oxford.Google Scholar
Vasunia, P. 2005. “Greek, Latin, and the Indian Civil Service”, PCPS 51, 35–71.Google Scholar
Allott, M. et al. (eds). 1986. Matthew Arnold. Oxford.Google Scholar
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. 1854.Google Scholar
Flannagan, R. (ed.). 1998. The Riverside Milton. Boston.Google Scholar
Gilfillan, G. (ed.). 1851. The Book of British Poesy, Ancient and Modern; Select Extracts. With an Essay on British Poetry. London.Google Scholar
Gupta, K. et al. (eds). 1974. Madhusudan Racanāvalī. Calcutta.Google Scholar
Krishnacharya, T. et al. (eds). 1911–13. Śrīmad Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa (3 vols). Bombay.Google Scholar
Majumdar, U. (ed.). 2004. Meghanādbadha kābya carcā. Kolkata.Google Scholar
[Madras] Athenaeum Magazine. 1854.Google Scholar
Milford, H. (ed.). 1967. Poetical Works. (Poetic Works of William Cowper.) Oxford.Google Scholar
Ricks, C. (ed.). 1989. The Poems of Tennyson (3 vols). London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, M. (ed.). 1998, 2000. Homeri Ilias (2 vols). Munich.Google Scholar
Alden, M. 2000. Homer Beside Himself: Para-Narratives in the Iliad. Oxford.Google Scholar
Brockington, J. 1998. The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buxton, R. 2004. “Similes and other likenesses”, in Fowler, 2004, 139–55.Google Scholar
Cairns, D. (ed.). 2001. Oxford Readings in Homer's Iliad. Oxford.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, N. 1951. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, T. 1967. “Meghnādbadhkābya, Canto VIII: Descensus Averno”, BSOAS 30/2, 337–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffey, M. 1957. “The function of the Homeric simile”, AJP 78, 113–32.Google Scholar
Cook, E. 2003. “Agamemnon's test of the army in Iliad Book 2 and the function of the homeric akhos”, AJP 124/2, 165–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, R. et al. (eds). 2002. A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Oxford.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, J. 1933–35. “Western influence on the poetry of Madhusūdan Datta”, BSOAS 7, 117–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, H. 1969. Western Influence on Nineteenth Century Bengali Poetry. Calcutta.Google Scholar
Dharwadker, V. 2003. “The historical formation of Indian–English literature”, in Pollock 2003, 199–270.Google Scholar
Donlan, W. 1971–72. “Homer's Agamemnon”, CW 65, 109–15.Google Scholar
Douglas-Fairhurst, R. 2003. “Shakespeare's weeds: Tennyson, elegy and allusion”, in Marshall, 2003, vol. 2, 114–30.Google Scholar
Edwards, M. 1991. The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. V: Books 17–20. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenik, B. 1968. Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad: Studies in the Narrative Techniques of Homeric Battle Description. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Fowler, R. (ed.). 2004. The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goff, B. (ed.) 2005. Classics and Colonialism. London.Google Scholar
Gransden, K. 1984. Virgil's Iliad: An Essay on Epic Narrative. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. 1980. Homer on Life and Death. Oxford.Google Scholar
Hardwick, L. 2003. Reception Studies. Oxford.Google Scholar
Harrison, S. (ed.). 1990. Oxford Readings in Vergil's Aeneid. Oxford.Google Scholar
Janko, R. 1992. The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. IV: Books 13–16. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Jenkyns, R. 1980. The Victorians and Ancient Greece. Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Jenkyns, R. 2002. “The classical tradition”, in Cronin, 2002, 229–45.Google Scholar
Jensen, M. 1999. “Dividing Homer: when and where were the Iliad and Odyssey divided into Songs?”, Symbolae Osloenses 74, 5–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, I. 1987. Narrators and Focalizers. Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Karlin, D. 2003. “‘The Names’: Robert Browning's ‘Shakespearean Show’”, in Marshall, 2003, vol. 2, 150–69.Google Scholar
Katzung, P. 1960. “Die Diapeira in der Iliashandlung: Der Gesang von der Unstimmung des Griechenheeres”. (Doctoral Dissertation.) Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Kaviraj, S. 2003. “The two histories of literary culture in Bengal”, in Pollock, 2003, 503–66.Google Scholar
Knauer, G. 1990. “Vergil's Aeneid and Homer”, in Harrison, 1990, 390–412.Google Scholar
Lee, D. 1964. The Similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey Compared. Parkville.Google Scholar
Lesky, A. 2001. “Divine and human causation in Homeric epic”, in Cairns, 2001, 170–202.Google Scholar
Lohmann, D. 1970. Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias. Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machor, J. 2001. Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. New York.Google Scholar
Marshall, G. et al. (eds). 2003. Victorian Shakespeare. Basingstoke.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macleod, C. (ed.). 1982. Iliad. Book XXIV/Homer. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Milbank, A. 1998. Dante and the Victorians. Manchester.Google Scholar
Moulton, C. 1977. Similes in the Homeric Poems. Göttingen.Google Scholar
Murshid, G. 2003. Lured by Hope, A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Oxford.Google Scholar
Murshid, G. 2004. The Heart of a Rebel Poet: Letters of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Oxford.Google Scholar
Pathak, M. 1968. Similes in the Rāmāyaṇa. Baroda.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. 1990. Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature. Oxford.Google Scholar
Pollock, S. (ed.) 2003. Literary Cultures in History, Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radice, W. 1987. “Tremendous literary rebel: the life and works of Michael Madhusudan Datta (1824–73)” (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford; permission to cite from this work has kindly been granted by the author).Google Scholar
Radice, W. 1995. “Milton and Madhusudan”, in Taneja, 1995, 177–94.Google Scholar
Radice, W. 1998. “Xenophilia and xenophobia: Michael Madhusudan Datta's Meghnadbadh Kabya”, in Snell, 1998, 143–70.Google Scholar
Richman, P. (ed.) 1992. Many Ramayanas, the Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Oxford.Google Scholar
Richardson, N. 1980. “Literary criticism in the exegetical scholia to the Iliad: a sketch”, CQ 30/2, 265–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, N. 1993. The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. VI: Books 21–24. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schadewaldt, W. 1943. Iliasstudien. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Schadewaldt, W. 1959. Von Homers Welt und Werk. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 1982. “Rama in the nether world: Indian sources of inspiration”, JAOS 102/3, 467–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seely, C. 1988. “Homeric similes, Occidental and Oriental: Tasso, Milton, and Bengal's Michael Madhusudan Dutt”, Comparative Literature Studies 25/1, 35–56.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 1992. “The Raja's new clothes: redressing Ravana in Meghanadavadha Kavya”, in Richman, 1992, 137–55.Google Scholar
Seely, C. 2004. The Slaying of Meghanada, A Ramayana from Colonial Bengal. Oxford.Google Scholar
Snell, R. et al. (eds). 1998. Classics of Modern South Asian Literature. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Snipes, K. 1988. “Literary interpretation in the Homeric scholia: the similes of the Iliad”, AJP 109/2, 196–222.Google Scholar
Stanley, K. 1993. The Shield of Achilles. Princeton.Google Scholar
Taneja, G. et al. (eds). 1995. Literature East and West, Essays Presented to R. K. DasGupta. Delhi.Google Scholar
Taplin, O. 1992. Homeric Soundings. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, A. 1984. Homer's Iliad: Its Composition and the Motif of Supplication. Göttingen.Google Scholar
Tinker, C. et al. (eds). 1957. The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Oxford.Google Scholar
Turner, P. 1989. Victorian Poetry, Drama, and Miscellaneous Prose 1832–1890. Oxford.Google Scholar
Vasunia, P. 2005. “Greek, Latin, and the Indian Civil Service”, PCPS 51, 35–71.Google Scholar