Satyendranath Dutta
Encyclopedia
Satyendranath Dutta (1882-1922), a Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

 poet, is considered the wizard of rhymes (or ছন্দের যাদুকর - chhonder jadukar in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

). Satyendranath Dutta was an expert in many disciplines of intellectual enquiry including medieval Indian history, culture, and mythology.

His Life

He was the son of Rajaninath Duttaa, who was a trader. He was born at Chupi in Bardhaman
Bardhaman District
'Bardhaman district is a district in West Bengal. The headquarter of the district is Bardhaman, though it houses other important industrial towns like Durgapur and Asansol...

 on February 11, 1882. His grandfather, Akshay Kumar Datta
Akshay Kumar Datta
Akshay Kumar Datta was born in Chupi in Bardhaman. Son of Pitamber Dutta, he was one of the initiators of the Bengal Renaissance. After studying in the Oriental Seminary under the special care of Hardman Jeffroy, he had to give up studies because of the death of his father and go job-seeking...

, was a great thinker, Brahmo
Brahmo Samaj
Brahmo Samaj is the societal component of the Brahmo religion which is mainly practiced today as the Adi Dharm after its eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1859. It was one of the most influential religious movements responsible for the making of...

 social reformer and writer who was the guiding spirit of the Tattwabodhini Patrika
Tattwabodhini Patrika
Tattwabodhini Patrika [Tattwabodhini Patrika ] was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore on 16 th August, 1843, as a journal of the Tattwabodhini Sabha, and continued publication until 1883...

. After passing the school leaving examination from the Central Collegiate School, he received his graduate level education from the General Assembly’s Institution
Scottish Church College, Calcutta
The Scottish Church College is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in India. It is affiliated with the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education , the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education for the awarding of baccalaureate and post baccalaureate...

 in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

. Although he left (what is now) Scottish Church College without taking a degree, his training there helped him immensely for the future. After unsuccessfully to join the ranks of his father in their family business, he quit that to devote his energies entirely to scholarly pursuits.

He composed poems and initially composed poems for the Bengali magazine Bharati. Although his stylistic nuances during this stage reflect the influence of Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Michael Madhusudan Dutta was a popular 19th century Bengali poet and dramatist. He was born in Sagardari , on the bank of Kopotaksho [কপোতাক্ষ] River, a village in Keshobpur Upozila, Jessore District, East Bengal . His father was Rajnarayan Dutt, an eminent lawyer, and...

, Akshay Kumar Boral, and Debendranath Sen, his later poetry illustrates a greater resonance with the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

. Nevertheless, he maintained his distinctive poetic style. He was well known for his material skill, and devised several metres while keeping intact the sound system and phraseology
Phraseology
In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units , in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than or otherwise not predictable from the sum of their meanings when...

 of Bangla. This is why he was known as 'the magician of metrics' or 'the king of metres'. His famous essay, Chhanda-Sarasvati, on metrics, was published in the Baishakhi issue of the Bharati magazine in 1918. He was the first poet to compose poems using words from Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 and Arabic and thus expanded the versatility of the Bengali language
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

. Being a polyglot
Polyglot (person)
A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, whereas a trilingual three; above that the term multilingual may be used.-Hyperpolyglot:...

, he translated poems from Arabic, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, thus giving Bengali readers a taste of foreign poetry and metric nuances. He tried to bridge the gap between Bengali literature and world literatures. The main thematic refrains of his poetry are patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...

, humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

, tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

, worship of power, among others. He also wrote poems on the depressed classes or Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...

s, such as the sweeper community.

Satyendranath Dutta wrote under several pseudonyms: Nabakumar, Kaviratna, Ashitipar Sharma, Tribikram Varman, Kalamgir etc.

He died on June 25, 1922. Rabindranath has immortalized Satyendranath in a poem written after his death.

Books of Poems

  • Sabita(The Sun, 1900)
  • Sandhiksan (The Opportune Moment, 1905)
  • Benu O Bina (1906)
  • Hom Shikha (The Blaze of the Yagya, 1907)
  • Fuler Fasal (The Harvest of Flowers, 1911)
  • Kuhu O Keka (1912)
  • Tulir Likhon (Written with a Brush, 1914)
  • Abhra-Avir (1916)
  • Hasantika (1919)
  • Bela Sheser Gan (Song at Dusk, 1923)
  • Biday-Arati (Farewell Hymn, 1924)
  • Kavyasanchayan (Collected Poems, 1930)
  • Shishu-Kavita (Children's Poetry, 1945)
  • Bhorai (The song of DAWN)

Other works

  • Janmaduhkhi (Destined to be sad from Birth - novel, 1912)
  • Chiner Dhup (Chinese incense - essays, 1912)
  • Rangamalli (play, 1913)

External links

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