Fin-de-Siècle Indian English-Language Poetry: British Imperialism, India and the Irish Question

This article offers a close study of how three Indian authors (Avadh Behari Lall, Aurobindo Ghose, and Romesh Chunder Dutt) considered and represented Ireland. There remains a tendency to restrict the scope of any given fin-de-siècle Indian text to properly Indian foci for purely aesthetic lyrical pieces as much as for ardently nationalist didactic poetry. This encourages the perpetuation of British Orientalism’s cultural arrogance and renders too reductive a picture of late-nineteenth-century Indian literature’s range. The discussion explains how during the fin-de-siècle the three Indian English-language poets envisioned the evils of British imperialism as represented in the Irish Question. In their individual ways they trace a pattern of increasing doubt which pedagogical, poetical, and/or political strategy might best be employed to expose the ends of empire and to bring about the end of empire. [134 words]