«But I’m wandering –». H.L.V. Derozio’s Poetic Revolution, Dashes and Global Romanticism
Abstract
H.L.V. Derozio has often been seen as the «Indian Keats» and an imitative and conventional Romantic poet. However, textual analysis has revealed an extensive use of dashes in all this author’s works, including recently discovered texts. Dashes are used to insert ongoing incidental remarks that emphasise truths not yet recognised by the dominant British and orthodox Brahmin canons of the time, subverting these ideologies and aesthetics. Rather than passively imitating a model, this author then appropriates, transforms, and transcends dominant cultural canons, articulating early nationalistic sentiments in nineteenth-century India and contributing to Indian literary modernity. Derozio’s counter-gaze is notably cosmopolitan, highlighting the transcultural literary scene of the 1820s and 1830s Calcutta that shaped his brief, though significant, career, thus illustrating what Gottlieb refers to as «global Romanticism».
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