Literary historians seem to have consigned Michael Madhusudan Dutt to oblivion, even though, in the context of the modern literary development of South Asia, the Bengali poet and playwright occupies a pivotal position. Now thanks to Professor Ghulam Murshid, people can glimpse the life and achievements of a literary genius and a fascinating personality.

In Lured By Hope: A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Murshid quotes from a letter written by Dutt to a friend: “You may take my word for it, friend Raj. I shall come out like a tremendous comet and no mistake”. The then unacknowledged spendthrift poet of the 19th century (1824-1873) was proved right by history.

Dutt was born around the time of Ram Mohan Roy, a Bengali Brahmin turned social reformer who proclaimed monotheism and criticised cultural and religious practices such as the giving and receiving of dowry and sati.

With a group of likeminded people, Roy found the Brahmo Samaj, which promoted this ideology. Among those who supported them was the influential Tagore family. Conservative upper-caste Hindus, however, regarded the Brahmos as well-meaning eccentrics, influenced, or misled, by the European Enlightenment.

Dutt, too, was influenced by this atmosphere. He was educated at home in Bengali and Sanskrit and taught Persian by a Muslim teacher in a mosque near his family estate. He was proficient in languages and soon excelled in English. In fact, his earliest poems were penned in English. He avidly read Shakespeare and the Romantics and took Byron as his hero.

But when Dutt’s father tried to arrange his marriage, Dutt, already critical of religious rituals and of caste-based arranged marriages, rebelled and converted to Christianity and took the name Michael. Cut off from his family, he left Hindu College and joined Calcutta’s Bishop’s College where he immersed himself in Latin and Greek and the classical literatures of Europe. Later he left for Madras where he married Rebecca Mactavys and worked as a teacher and a journalist.

In 1858, Dutt wrote Sharmistha, the first original play in Bengali. His literary works are heavily influenced by European classical literature. His epic work, Meghnad-Badh Kavya, composed in nine blank verse cantos and inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost, is recognised as Bengal’s greatest modern poem. He shocked Hindu sensibilities by portraying Ravana, the demon king of Lanka who abducted Sita, as a figure of heroic proportions. Virangana, also in blank verse, takes Ovid’s heroic epistles as its model. His other important works were Razia, the Sultana of Inde and The Captive Ladie, perhaps his best poem in English. His eulogy to Dante was praised by the King of Italy.

Ultimately though, Dutt’s flamboyant and lavish lifestyle, of an upper class Englishman, took its toll. Being the sole heir to a rich family, he had no idea where money came from and how it was managed. He dressed in costly European suits, lived extravagantly, drank expensive wines, drove in grand carriages and generally spent well beyond his means. In spite of this lifestyle though, Dutt could never fully be integrated into the Western society.

In 1862 Dutt left for London to read law. But once there, the great Bengali intellectual suffered from lack of recognition. He fled to France and lived in Versailles because it was cheaper than London and money from his estate was now in short supply. When he became heavily in debt and was in danger of being imprisoned he went back to London and somehow managed, through the patient help of his good friend the scholar and reformer Vidyasagar, to be admitted to the Bar. As a writer he concentrated his energies on his mother tongue, Bengali.

In 1867 Dutt returned to Calcutta to practise law. But a poet, playwright and bon viveur is not cut out to be a successful lawyer. Dutt failed as an advocate and took to heavy drinking. On June 29, 1873, one of the greatest Bengali poets of the Bengal Renaissance died a pauper at the age of forty-nine at Calcutta General Hospital. But not before he had written Hectarbadh, another masterpiece.

Lured By Hope: A Biography of Michael Madhusudan Dutt (BIOGRAPHY) By Ghulam Murshid Oxford University Press, UK ISBN 978-0-19-565362-5 225pp. £22.99