Anti-Colonial Metrics: Homeric Time in an Indian Prison, ca. 1909

Recent scholarship on Victorian poetry has drawn attention to the social meanings of meter, especially as a symbol of English national culture. This essay looks at the significance of AurobindoGhose (1872-1950) [Sri Aurobindo] within English metrical history. Ghose was a revolutionary for Indian self-rule and modern guru who began a Homeric epic in hexameters whilst in prison. By situating his creative and critical writings within nineteenth and early twentieth century debates on meter, I elaborate an aesthetic dimension of his assertively cosmopolitan and nonsecular politics. His generally overlooked case points towards a history that takes into greater account the contrapuntal metrics of colony and metropole.