Lakshman by Toru Dutt

 Lakshman by Toru Dutt  

This blog is written as a task assigned by Prof. Megha Trivedi ma'am.

“Lakshman” by Toru Dutt
Poet	Toru Dutt (1856–1877), Indian poet from Bengal; pioneer of Indian English literature. Famous for Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882).
Poem Title	Lakshman – a narrative ballad from Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (posthumously published in 1882).
Source & Background	Based on the Ramayana episode (Aranya Kanda). Set in the forest of exile where Sita and Lakshman await Rama. Sita’s fear and mistrust lead to her abduction by Ravana.
Main Characters	Sita: Emotional, anxious, and impulsive. Lakshman: Loyal, dutiful, and self-controlled. Rama: Divine hero, an offstage presence whose cry triggers the action.
Form & Structure	Narrative poem in dramatic dialogue (ballad form). Quatrains with regular rhyme (ABAB/AABB). Elevated, emotional, and lyrical tone.
Summary	Sita hears Rama’s cry, urges Lakshman to help. Bound by Rama’s command, he refuses. Sita accuses him unjustly; he leaves after drawing the Lakshman Rekha. Ravana abducts Sita — leading to tragedy.
Major Themes	Theme Explanation Dharma (Duty) Conflict between loyalty to Rama and obedience to Sita. Love & Misunderstanding Sita’s mistrust causes tragic irony. Emotion vs Reason Sita’s impulsiveness contrasts Lakshman’s restraint. Heroism & Sacrifice Lakshman’s silent moral strength. Faith & Illusion Tests of perception and devotion. Feminine Emotion Sita’s humanity and vulnerability.
Tone & Mood	Shifts from anxiety → anger → sorrow → forgiveness. Overall mood: tense, tragic, emotional.
Literary Devices	Dialogue: Creates dramatic intensity. Imagery: Forest and nature reflect inner turmoil. Symbolism: Lakshman Rekha as moral/spiritual boundary. Allusion: Drawn from Ramayana. Irony: Sita’s accusations cause her downfall. Foreshadowing: Vulture’s cry anticipates tragedy.
Symbolic Elements	The Cry: Illusion (Maya), test of faith. The Circle (Rekha): Protection, dharma, divine law. The Forest: Spiritual testing ground. The Vulture’s Scream: Omen of doom.
Key Quotations	“Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry! / It is—it is my husband’s voice!” “Delusive was that piercing cry,— / Some trick of magic by the foe.” “He perishes—well, let him die! / His wife henceforth shall be mine own!” “Here with an arrow, lo, I trace / A magic circle ere I leave.”
Central Conflict	Moral dilemma: Lakshman must choose between duty to Rama and obedience to Sita. His decision, though virtuous, leads to tragedy.
Poetic Style	Blends Indian myth with Western Romanticism. Victorian diction, emotional rhythm, and moral tone reflect Toru Dutt’s bicultural sensibility.
Significance	First English poetic retelling of a Hindu epic by an Indian. Bridges East and West; unites spirituality, psychology, and poetic artistry.
Moral Message	True devotion demands faith and patience. Emotion without reason leads to downfall. Forgiveness and duty are supreme virtues.
Ending & Tone	Lakshman leaves sorrowfully after forgiving Sita. Prays for her safety; tragedy looms. Ending tone: pathos, nobility, and foreboding.
Literary Importance	Psychological reinterpretation of epic myth. Unites Indian ethos with Western poetics, confirming Toru Dutt’s mastery and pioneering role in Indian English literature.

Write a critical note on Lakshman by Toru Dutt.

I. Introduction

Toru Dutt (1856–1877) remains one of the most remarkable early voices in Indian English literature. Writing at a time when India was still under colonial rule and English was the language of the colonizer, Dutt turned it into a vehicle of cultural pride and spiritual expression. In her poetry, she sought to reclaim India’s mythological heritage and present it to Western audiences with lyrical sensitivity and intellectual grace.

Her collection Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (published posthumously in 1882) exemplifies this synthesis of Indian thematic content and Western poetic form. Among these poems, “Lakshman” stands out as one of the finest examples of her poetic craftsmanship and cultural vision. It retells an episode from the Ramayana, not as a mere mythological narrative, but as a profoundly psychological and ethical drama a tension between duty and love, reason and emotion, faith and misunderstanding.

Through this poem, Dutt demonstrates her command over narrative verse, her deep understanding of the Ramayana’s moral complexity, and her ability to infuse the English ballad form with the spiritual and emotional intensity of Indian epic tradition.

II. Context and Source

The story of “Lakshman” comes from the Aranya Kanda (Book of the Forest) of Valmiki’s Ramayana. Rama, Sita, and Lakshman are living in exile in the Dandaka forest. One day, the demoness Shurpanakha, Ravana’s sister, approaches Rama, desiring him as her husband. When Rama rejects her, she attacks Sita, but Lakshman cuts off her nose and ears. Enraged, she reports this insult to her brother Ravana, who plans to abduct Sita in revenge.

Ravana seeks help from the demon Maricha, who disguises himself as a golden deer to lure Rama away. When Rama goes after it, Sita hears his voice calling for help and, in panic, urges Lakshman to rescue him. Bound by Rama’s command to protect Sita, Lakshman hesitates. Misinterpreting his hesitation as betrayal, Sita accuses him of evil intentions, forcing him to leave. The moment Lakshman departs, Ravana appears and abducts Sita.

Toru Dutt dramatizes this moment of emotional intensity the crisis of misunderstanding between Sita and Lakshman. The poem, therefore, does not recount the whole epic episode but focuses on a single psychological conflict and moral choice which makes it deeply human and tragically universal.

III. Structure and Form

“Lakshman” is composed in the ballad form a narrative poem written in rhymed quatrains (ABAB) with a steady rhythm and musical cadence.

This form is particularly suited for storytelling, allowing a balance between narrative progression and lyrical emotion.

However, Dutt modifies the traditional English ballad style by infusing it with Indian ethos and epic solemnity. The dialogue between Sita and Lakshman occupies most of the poem, giving it a dramatic structure similar to a miniature play in verse.

The poem can be divided into four major movements:

1. Sita’s Anxiety and Appeal (Stanzas 1–3) – Her plea for Lakshman to go to Rama’s aid.

2. Lakshman’s Calm Reasoning and Reassurance (Stanzas 4–8) – His logical refusal and faith in Rama’s strength.

3. Sita’s Accusation and Misjudgment (Stanzas 9–15) – Her transformation from love to anger, driven by fear.

4. Lakshman’s Pain, Forgiveness, and Departure (Stanzas 16–end) – His noble response and tragic exit.

The rhythmic regularity reinforces emotional tension, while the alternation between Sita’s passionate voice and Lakshman’s composed speech dramatizes the moral duality at the poem’s heart.

IV. Summary of the Poem

The poem opens with Sita’s urgent cry:

“Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry!

It is,  it is my husband’s voice!”

She implores Lakshman to rush to Rama’s aid, convinced that he is in danger. Lakshman, however, reminds her of Rama’s invincibility, asserting that no demon or evil being could harm him. He tells her that Rama had commanded him to stay and guard her, and he refuses to disobey that order.

Sita, consumed by fear and emotion, misinterprets Lakshman’s calmness as cowardice. Her anxiety turns into suspicion: perhaps he harbors secret desires or disloyalty. In a frenzy of misunderstanding, she hurls cruel accusations calling him traitor, coward, and even implying unholy motives:

“He perishes   well, let him die!

His wife henceforth shall be mine own!”

Lakshman, deeply wounded, yet restrains himself. He forgives her, acknowledging that fear has made her irrational. Despite knowing the danger, he decides to go, accepting the blame if anything should happen. Before leaving, he draws a magic circle around her known as the Lakshman Rekha a boundary of protection against evil.

The poem ends with Lakshman’s farewell to Sita and his prayer to the forest gods to guard her. The ominous cry of a vulture at the end foreshadows the calamity to come Sita’s abduction by Ravana.

V. Character Analysis

1. Sita – The Humanized Goddess

In the Ramayana, Sita is the embodiment of chastity, devotion, and moral purity. In Dutt’s version, Sita becomes more human, more emotional, and more fallible. Her love for Rama is absolute, but it blinds her to reason. Her emotions shift rapidly from fear to anger, from doubt to pride revealing the psychological realism of a woman overwhelmed by love and insecurity.

When she accuses Lakshman, she is not malicious but possessed by fear. Dutt portrays this emotional breakdown with empathy rather than judgment. Sita’s outburst thus becomes symbolic of the conflict between faith and fear, love and reason, emotion and morality.

Her transformation is vividly described:

“She said and proudly from him turned, 

Was this the gentle Sita? No.

Flames from her eyes shot forth and burned,

The tears therein had ceased to flow.”

This metamorphosis from the gentle to the fiery marks her as a tragic heroine, a figure of both devotion and error.

2. Lakshman – The Embodiment of Duty

Lakshman represents the moral and rational ideal duty, loyalty, and restraint. Unlike Sita, he is not guided by emotion but by principle. He reveres Rama as his master and obeys his command with unwavering faith. Yet, he is not without feeling; his pain under Sita’s accusations shows his deep humanity.

He defends himself with dignity, saying:

“Have I deserved this at thine hand?

Of lifelong loyalty and truth

Is this the meed?”

Even when insulted, he forgives her, understanding that fear and grief have clouded her judgment. His moral nobility culminates in his farewell, where he entrusts her safety to the gods and departs, knowing full well the danger ahead.

Lakshman is thus the moral center of the poem a figure of ethical endurance, standing firm in the face of emotional chaos.

VI. Major Themes

1. The Conflict Between Duty and Emotion

This is the poem’s central theme. Sita represents the voice of emotion love, fear, and devotion while Lakshman stands for duty, rationality, and obedience. Their confrontation dramatizes the eternal human conflict between the heart and the mind, the personal and the ethical.

Lakshman’s adherence to duty costs him dearly: he loses Sita’s trust and indirectly causes her abduction. Yet, Dutt presents his decision as morally correct showing that righteousness often demands personal suffering.

2. Love and Devotion

Sita’s love for Rama is absolute, but it blinds her to reality. Her devotion, though pure, becomes destructive when coupled with fear. Through this, Dutt questions whether love without trust can remain sacred.

At the same time, Lakshman’s devotion to Rama his elder brother shows a different, selfless kind of love, rooted in loyalty and discipline.

3. Misunderstanding and Tragedy

The poem’s tragedy stems from miscommunication. Sita’s misunderstanding of Lakshman mirrors the tragic irony found in Western dramas where flawed perception leads to irreversible consequences.

Dutt’s portrayal of this moment echoes Shakespearean psychological depth, transforming mythic figures into emotionally complex individuals.

4. Feminine Emotion and Agency

Sita’s impulsive speech, though destructive, also signifies emotional agency. She acts, speaks, and accuses breaking the stereotypical silence of mythological women. Toru Dutt, writing as a woman in colonial India, may be seen as identifying with Sita’s emotional confinement within patriarchal boundaries.

Sita’s rebellion though tragic is an assertion of voice, a feminist gesture within the structure of tradition.

5. Faith and Illusion

The cry that Sita hears is later revealed to be a trick of demonic illusion a māyā. Symbolically, it represents the deceptive nature of the world and the human tendency to be misled by appearances.

Dutt uses this to underline a moral truth: fear clouds wisdom, and illusion triumphs when faith falters.

6. Indian Ethos in Western Form

Perhaps the most striking feature of “Lakshman” is the blending of Indian spirituality and Western aesthetics. Dutt adopts English verse patterns but fills them with Indian moral sensibility, Sanskrit imagery, and epic gravitas.

She thus becomes a pioneer in the indigenization of English poetry, asserting an Indian identity through the colonizer’s tongue.

VII. Symbolism and Imagery

1. The Cry

The cry that Sita hears symbolizes illusion and spiritual testing. It is not only a literal cry for help but a metaphoric one—testing her trust and patience.

2. The Magic Circle (Lakshman Rekha)

This line drawn by Lakshman symbolizes protection, chastity, and moral boundaries. In Hindu tradition, crossing it signifies stepping outside dharma. Symbolically, it marks the fragile boundary between safety and danger, reason and emotion.

3. The Forest

The forest (Aranya) in the poem is not just a physical space but a psychological one a realm of moral testing, temptation, and transformation. It embodies the liminality between civilization and chaos, reason and passion.

4. The Vulture

The vulture’s cry at the end symbolizes doom and foreknowledge. It functions as a prophetic sign, preparing the reader for Sita’s abduction and the beginning of the epic’s darker phase.

VIII. Style and Language

Toru Dutt’s diction is simple, musical, and deeply emotional. She balances clarity with lyricism, creating verses that are both easy to read and rich in resonance. Her lines flow naturally, resembling spoken dialogue yet maintaining poetic grace.

• The rhymed quatrains create rhythm and continuity.

• The alternating voices Sita’s passionate and Lakshman’s composed provide a dramatic tension reminiscent of dialogue poetry.

• The imagery (e.g., lions, serpents, eagles, and demons) enhances the mythic grandeur.

• The tone moves from urgency and anger to sorrow and forgiveness, mirroring the emotional arc of the poem.

For instance:

“Hoarse the vulture screamed,

As out he strode with dauntless air.”

This final image fuses natural sound with symbolic dread, closing the poem on an ominous, tragic note.

IX. Tone and Mood

The overall tone is tragic and emotional, alternating between anxiety, anger, sorrow, and resignation.

Sita’s speeches are charged with urgency and fear, while Lakshman’s responses are calm, rational, and dignified. The contrast between their tones deepens the poem’s psychological intensity.

The mood evolves through the stages of:

1. Tension – Sita’s initial panic.

2. Conflict – Verbal and moral confrontation.

3. Pathos – Lakshman’s forgiveness.

4. Foreboding – His departure and the ominous ending.

X. Poetic Techniques

1. Dialogue and Dramatic Monologue – The poem unfolds as a conversation, but Sita’s outbursts often become dramatic monologues that reveal her inner turmoil.

2. Repetition – Phrases like “That cry, that cry!” heighten emotion and rhythm.

3. Contrast – Between Sita’s emotional impulsiveness and Lakshman’s stoic restraint.

4. Imagery – Vivid descriptions of animals and supernatural forces emphasize the epic atmosphere.

5. Irony – The reader knows that Sita’s fear will bring about her downfall a tragic irony that enhances emotional power.

XI. Critical Perspectives

1. Feminist Reading

From a feminist viewpoint, “Lakshman” can be read as Toru Dutt’s subtle commentary on the limited role of women in patriarchal culture. Sita’s emotional extremity reflects not weakness but repression the intensity born of silence. Her “voice” in this poem, though destructive, is an assertion of individuality and agency.

2. Postcolonial Reading

As an Indian woman writing in English, Dutt performs an act of cultural translation. She reclaims the Ramayana narrative traditionally conveyed in Sanskrit and rearticulates it in the colonizer’s language. In doing so, she asserts the intellectual and cultural depth of Indian civilization before a Western audience.

3. Psychological Reading

The poem also invites a psychoanalytic reading: Sita’s accusations stem from subconscious fear of loss and abandonment. Her emotional breakdown mirrors the Freudian conflict between eros (love) and thanatos (fear of death revealing the timeless universality of human emotion.

4. Ethical and Religious Reading

Lakshman’s moral integrity and self-sacrifice embody the Hindu ideal of dharma. His action, though misunderstood, upholds divine order. The poem thus becomes a moral allegory showing that righteousness may lead to temporary suffering but ultimately serves cosmic balance.

XII. Toru Dutt’s Achievement

Through “Lakshman”, Toru Dutt achieves several literary triumphs:

1. Cultural Synthesis: She merges English poetic form with Indian mythic content, bridging two civilizations.

2. Psychological Realism: Her characters are humanized, emotionally complex, and morally conflicted.

3. Moral Depth: The poem teaches patience, faith, and forgiveness without moralizing.

4. Emotional Power: Her portrayal of grief, anger, and forgiveness evokes empathy and awe.

Toru Dutt’s early death at 21 makes this accomplishment all the more extraordinary. Her work anticipates later Indian poets like Sarojini Naidu and Nissim Ezekiel, who would continue her mission of blending Indian themes with English aesthetics.

XIII. Conclusion

Toru Dutt’s “Lakshman” is far more than a poetic retelling of a mythic episode; it is a psychological drama, a moral allegory, and a feminist statement. Through the emotional conflict between Sita and Lakshman, Dutt captures the eternal tension between love and duty, emotion and reason, devotion and doubt.

Her poetry universalizes Indian legend making it intelligible and moving to both Indian and Western readers. By humanizing divine figures and infusing epic grandeur with lyrical pathos, she transforms the Ramayana into a deeply modern work of emotional truth.

Ultimately, “Lakshman” stands as a testimony to Toru Dutt’s genius her vision of a harmonious world where East and West, reason and emotion, male and female, faith and doubt coexist in poetic balance.

Toru Dutt’s Approach to Indian Myths: A Critical Study

I. Introduction

Toru Dutt (1856–1877) stands as one of the earliest and most remarkable figures in Indian English literature. Despite her brief life of only 21 years, her poetic achievement is extraordinary for its maturity, cultural breadth, and emotional depth. She belongs to the generation of early Indian poets writing in English who sought to reconcile Western literary form with Indian spiritual content. Among these pioneers, Dutt was the most successful in interpreting the ancient myths, legends, and moral ideals of India in a form accessible to Western audiences.

Her approach to Indian myths was both artistic and ideological: she not only retold stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, but also reinterpreted them to reveal human emotion, moral truth, and national pride. Her poetry becomes a site where the classical Indian imagination meets the Romantic English sensibility a dialogue between the East and the West, tradition and modernity, faith and reason.

II. Biographical and Cultural Context

Toru Dutt was born into a wealthy and educated Bengali family that converted to Christianity in the mid-19th century a time when colonial influence had reshaped Indian intellectual life. Her family encouraged education and cross-cultural exposure. Dutt studied in England and France, mastering both languages and absorbing Western literature, particularly Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Arnold, and Victor Hugo.

However, when she returned to India, she experienced a profound spiritual and emotional awakening. She rediscovered her Indian roots through the ancient epics and legends her mother had narrated to her in childhood. In this rediscovery lay the seed of her mythic imagination. Writing in English (and sometimes French), Dutt sought to reassert the richness of Indian civilization before a colonial readership that often dismissed it as backward or myth-ridden.

Thus, her use of Indian myth was not only literary but ideological a form of cultural resistance that aimed to vindicate the moral and aesthetic worth of Indian tradition within a Westernized world.

III. Her Mythic Sources: Epics and Puranas

Toru Dutt drew extensively from:

• The Ramayana (for poems like “Lakshman” and “Sita”),

• The Mahabharata (for “Savitri” and “Sindhu,” among others), and

• Puranic legends (for “The Royal Ascetic and the Hind,” “The Tree of Life,” etc.).

Her most important collection, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882), published posthumously, showcases her lifelong engagement with Indian mythic material. She translated and adapted these legends into English verse, not merely reproducing their content but reimagining them through her modern, emotional, and Romantic sensibility.

IV. Thematic Analysis of Her Mythological Approach

1. The Humanization of the Divine

One of Toru Dutt’s greatest achievements lies in her ability to humanize mythic figures, turning divine archetypes into emotionally complex individuals.
For example, in “Lakshman”, Sita is not the distant ideal of chastity and obedience we see in Valmiki’s Ramayana; she is a woman in emotional turmoil, torn between fear, love, and doubt. Lakshman, too, is portrayed not as a flawless hero but as a man struggling between obedience to duty and compassion for his sister-in-law.

This psychological realism is central to Dutt’s reimagining of myth. Her characters are humanized, fallible, and emotionally resonant an approach that anticipates later modernist reinterpretations of epic characters by writers like T.S. Eliot or Girish Karnad.

2. Myth as Moral Allegory

In Dutt’s poetry, myths function as ethical allegories. She treats them as vehicles for universal moral truths rather than merely religious or cultural narratives.

In “Savitri,” she celebrates the ideal of conjugal fidelity, where Savitri’s devotion and intelligence triumph over death itself.
In “The Royal Ascetic and the Hind,” she portrays renunciation, compassion, and the moral superiority of love over austerity.
Through these myths, Dutt conveys ethical ideals dharma, devotion, and moral strength yet presents them in human and rational terms accessible to all readers.

3. Feminine Consciousness and Proto-Feminism

Toru Dutt’s reinterpretation of Indian myths often centers on female figures Sita, Savitri, Uma whose strength, intelligence, and agency are emphasized. Unlike traditional patriarchal readings, Dutt portrays women as spiritual and moral equals to men, capable of heroism, sacrifice, and profound insight.

For instance:

• Savitri becomes a symbol of feminine power and intellect, defeating death through her moral strength.

• Sita represents emotional endurance and moral courage even when misunderstood.

By giving psychological depth and voice to these women, Dutt anticipates later feminist readings of mythology, making her one of the earliest Indian writers to articulate a female-centered mythic vision.

4. Cultural Revivalism and National Pride

Toru Dutt wrote during a period when the British colonial discourse often dismissed Indian religion and mythology as irrational. Against this backdrop, her poetic reinterpretations functioned as acts of cultural affirmation.
By rendering Indian legends in refined English verse, she presented them as sources of ethical wisdom and aesthetic beauty, equal to the myths of Greece or Rome that dominated Western imagination.

In doing so, Dutt became a cultural ambassador, bridging civilizations. Her poetry asserts the universal value of Indian spiritual thought, offering the West an insight into the moral grandeur and poetic richness of the East.

5. East–West Synthesis

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Toru Dutt’s mythic approach is her fusion of Indian spiritual content with Western artistic form.
She uses Western poetic structures ballads, sonnets, and narrative lyrics but fills them with Indian characters, landscapes, and moral philosophy.
For example:

• “Lakshman” employs the English ballad form but narrates an episode from The Ramayana.

• “The Lotus” uses allegory reminiscent of Keats or Shelley to symbolize the fusion of Eastern and Western ideals of beauty.

This cultural synthesis makes her poetry a unique hybrid art form, representing the beginning of an Indo-English aesthetic tradition later developed by poets like Aurobindo, Tagore, and Sarojini Naidu.

V. Stylistic and Artistic Features

1. Lyrical and Romantic Tone:
   Dutt’s style reflects the influence of Romantic poets. Her descriptions of nature, her musical rhythm, and her emotional intensity show her debt to Wordsworth and Tennyson.

2. Dramatic Monologue and Dialogue:
   Many of her mythological poems especially “Lakshman” use dramatic dialogue to express inner conflict and moral choice.

3. Imagery and Symbolism:
   Her imagery often merges the natural and the divine. Forests, rivers, and dawns in her poems symbolize both physical and spiritual journeys.

4. Moral Idealism:
   Even in retelling myths, Dutt infuses them with ethical universality dharma, truth, faith, and self-sacrifice.

5. Cultural Authenticity:
   Though she wrote in English, her language retains a distinct Indianness through references, idioms, and imagery rooted in the Indian landscape and psyche.

VI. Representative Example: “Lakshman”

Toru Dutt’s “Lakshman” is one of her finest mythological reinterpretations. Based on the episode in The Ramayana where Sita hears Rama’s cry for help and urges Lakshman to go to his rescue, the poem dramatizes the emotional conflict between love and duty, fear and faith.

• Sita’s Character: She is portrayed as passionate and impulsive, her maternal love and anxiety leading her to misunderstand Lakshman’s loyalty.

• Lakshman’s Character: He embodies moral steadfastness and devotion, torn between obedience to his brother’s command and compassion for Sita’s distress.

• Conflict: The poem transcends mythology to explore universal human dilemmas how emotions can cloud moral judgment, how duty demands sacrifice, and how misunderstanding can wound the purest loyalty.

• Technique: The poem’s balladic rhythm, vivid imagery, and dramatic dialogue give it the intensity of a psychological drama.

Through this retelling, Toru Dutt achieves a fusion of Indian epic ethos and modern emotional realism.

VII. Comparative Insight: Toru Dutt and Western Romanticism

Toru Dutt’s use of Indian myth parallels the Romantic poets’ use of classical and medieval myths. Just as Keats reimagined Greek myth in “Endymion” or “Hyperion”, and Tennyson reinterpreted Arthurian legend in “Idylls of the King”, Dutt reinterprets Indian myths to explore human emotion, moral courage, and spiritual struggle.

However, her approach is distinct because she writes as a cultural translator under colonial rule, not merely as a literary artist. Her reinterpretation of myth is therefore a political and spiritual act, asserting the dignity of her colonized culture through art.

VIII. Critical Reception

Early critics like Edmund Gosse praised her for her “exquisite sensibility” and “classical restraint.” He wrote that she “interpreted the legends of her land with the imagination of a poet and the conscience of a saint.”

Later critics such as K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar and Harihar Das have highlighted her dual heritage and her role as a pioneer of cultural synthesis. Modern scholars see her mythic poetry as a proto-postcolonial expression a form of reclaiming the Indian narrative voice in the English language.

IX. Philosophical and Symbolic Dimension

At a deeper level, Toru Dutt’s use of myth expresses her philosophical worldview a belief in the unity of all human experience. Myths, for her, are not relics of superstition but symbolic expressions of universal truths about life, death, duty, and love.
Through myth, she connects the finite human world with the infinite spiritual order, echoing the ancient Indian idea of Sanātana Dharma the eternal moral law.

X. Conclusion

Toru Dutt’s approach to Indian myths is a landmark in Indian literary history.
She revitalized ancient Indian legends by infusing them with Romantic emotion, psychological realism, and moral depth. Her mythic imagination transcended mere retelling it was interpretative, spiritual, and revolutionary. Through her poetry, she restored dignity to Indian tradition, bridged the East–West divide, and asserted a voice of cultural confidence in a colonized age.

In her hands, myth becomes not a relic of the past, but a living moral and emotional truth, eternally relevant to the human condition. Toru Dutt remains a pioneer of Indian literary modernity—a poet who transformed myth into a medium of universal human understanding and cultural self-expression.

 References

• Dutt, Toru. Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882. Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23245
• Das, Harihar. Life and Letters of Toru Dutt. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
• “Lakshman by Toru Dutt.” Famous Poems, Famous Poets. - All Poetry, allpoetry.com/lakshman.