In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

169 Kasiprasad Ghosh d D Born in Kidderpore, near Calcutta, Kasiprasad Ghosh (1809–1873) grew up in a high-caste Bengali family, members of which had for generations held government appointments, 0rst under the Mughals and then under the British. He was a much-longed-for child. Following the death of their 0rst son, his parents had undertaken a pilgrimage to Benares, seeking to ensure through religious rituals the birth of a son and heir. Some months later, Kasiprasad was born. As a sickly child and the eldest son, he was treated indulgently, but when he turned fourteen his father “reprimanded” him for being a poor scholar. As Kasiprasad admitted in an autobiographical essay written some years later, he “could scarcely read either English or Bengallee” (Calcutta Literary Gazette, November 1, 1834, 279). Though a bright boy, he had not pro0ted from his father’s instruction in English. The young Kasiprasad’s ignorance became a matter of general family consternation , and 0nally his grandfather intervened to suggest that the boy be sent to the Hindu College, which was then under the supervision of Horace Hayman Wilson (whose poems also appear in this volume). Either his ignorance was not so deep as his father feared, or he was a quick study. Admitted to the college in 1821, Kasiprasad soon rose to be head boy in the 0rst class. With Wilson’s encouragement , in 1827 Kasiprasad and the other students tried their hands at English poetry, and Kasiprasad clearly demonstrated poetic as well as intellectual talent. Although he later destroyed most of his juvenilia, he began very early to publish in the local newspapers, as was common at the time for British poets resident in India. At the age of twenty-one, he published a book of English language verse, The Sháïr, and Other Poems. Kasiprasad’s account of his life reveals a young man of considerable linguistic talents. Though a devout Hindu, he read and criticized the Bangla translation of the Gospel of Matthew then being published by missionaries at Serampore, and at their request he undertook to criticize and correct the translations of succeeding biblical texts. At the same time, he acquired what he called a “tolerable” knowledge of Persian, devanagari (written Hindi or Hindustani), and Sanskrit. The last accomplishment led, at least indirectly, to the texts anthologized here, which seek to create in English poetic forms a series of poems celebrating the major religious festivals of the Hindu year. 170 d Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India About his personal life, Kasiprasad commented in the same autobiographical relection, I was 0rst married at the age of seventeen, in 1825, and had a son in 1828. My wife dying in that year, I married again. . . . My father paid the debt of nature in 1831, and my second wife departed this life after she had been delivered of a girl, who died on the same day that she was born. . . . I have been again married , and God alone knows what length of life my third wife may enjoy. . . . On the death of my father, who left behind him six sons and four daughters, I was involved in a law-suit in the Supreme Court with my half brothers. . . . As . . . all my half brothers were then under age[,] I was . . . obliged to go to Court, where . . . we had to pay no less than 25,000 rupees as costs for this amicable settlement! (Calcutta Literary Gazette, 279) This passage is, in many ways, an earnest of the man, for as an adult and head of his family, Kasiprasad was at once a traditionalist, an admirer of English verse, and a critic of the shortcomings—or worse—of the British administration. Though he delighted in English language verse—and admitted that he preferred writing in English to writing Bangla verse—Kasiprasad was by no means infatuated with things English. His 0rst publicly presented essay critiqued the 0rst four chapters of James Mill’s History of British India. Horace Hayman Wilson found this essay particularly 0ne, and it was soon printed in the Government Gazette and the Asiatic Journal. After leaving the Hindu College, Kasiprasad continued his work as an essayist, historian, and journalist. He published essays on Bangla literature and a history of the Marathas, and he went on to publish and edit a weekly newspaper, the Hindu Intelligencer, fostering the careers of many aspiring Bangla journalists. This efort he left of in 1857, following Lord Canning’s “gagging act,” which severely restricted the...

Share