World Literature and the Rise of Sub-nationalisms in Indian Vernaculars: British Romantic Poets in Gujarati Translation

Abstract

This paper focuses on how world literature played a crucial role in shaping a sub-national Gujarati identity. Narsinhrao Divatia (1859-1937) – the well-known Gujarati poet, critic and linguist presented partial or complete translations of British Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Byron from the fourth part of F.T. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury (1861) in his seminal poetry anthology Kusummala (1887). This translation played a significant role in redefining Gujarati poetics and Gujarati identity. It also elevated the cultural status of Gujarati literature by introducing Sanskrit poetics in the Gujarati translations. However, in the Gujarati literary tradition, Divatia’s translations of the British Romantic poets are treated as ‘nakal’ (copy) and derivative of Western poetry. This paper argues that the Gujarati translations of the British Romantic poets in Kusummala (1887) cannot be dismissed as cheap copies, but have to be read as refractions, a kind of rewriting elaborated by André Lefevre. Kusummala is an example of an interliterary text where Gujarati translations of the British Romantic poets are mediated with the help of Sanskrit poetics. This paper also argues that the sub-national Gujarati identity goes beyond the dichotomy of Vishwa and Rashtra, as proposed by Vinay Dharwadker.