The Fakir Of Jungheera Analysis

Here also we hear echoes of romantic poets and influence of English poets is felt clearly. The reference to April showers reminds us of Chaucer’s “April with its showres soote” though the weather in Calcutta does not have showers in April. However, barring such occasional glimmer of good poetry, much of his poetry is mediocre. His longer narrative poem The Fakir of Jungheera is a tale of unsuccessful love of a Brahmin widow, Nuleeni, and a Fakir who is an outlaw who saves Nuleeni when she was to be sacrificed on the funeral pyre of her husband. The brief lease of life that Nuleeni get before her she and her paramour die after a fight between her relatives and the Fakir. The poem evinces good use of different metres and the narration is fast pacing echoing Byron’s strong influence on the poet and the social reformer in the poet surfacing intermittently. On the whole Derozio is, in the words of M. K. Naik, “a poet of slender actual achievement” and “remains a writer of sadly unfulfilled promise” (M. K. Naik, A History of English Literature. Sahitya Akademi. New Delhi P. 25. 2015)

A more disappointing poet of the era is Kashiprasad Ghosh who enjoys the credit of being the first Indian English poet of pure Indian blood. His The Shair or Minstrel and other Poems appeared in 1830. Ghosh studied prosody on the advice of his British teacher and read aloud English poetry “in a regular and measured tone which accustomed” his ear to English intonation. His poetry show remarkable ease