ABSTRACT
In this essay, Sachchidananda Mishra makes a convincing attempt to give literary modernity in Odisha an alternative genealogy by showing how Baladeb Ratha’s poetic experiments conducted in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries anticipate some of modernity’s crucial aspects. He begins by emphasizing the distinctiveness of the historical and cultural milieu in which Baladeb’s poetry is embedded. This milieu absorbed influences from diverse sources such as the Qutab Sahi rule in South Odisha, the colonial dispensation of the East India Company, and the strong impact of the Telugu literary tradition. Sachchidananda shows how the milieu exposed the poet to diverse cultural, political and linguistic worlds, and led him to carry out innovative experiments. He is one of the earliest Odia poets to employ Perso-Arabic expressions in his poems, and he also created a space for colloquial expressions in otherwise highly stylized kavyas. Sachchidananda has painstakingly drawn up a sizeable list of such expressions which has lent his diction a supple liveliness. The use of humour, wit and satire in his poetry constitute yet another crucial element in Baladeb’s contribution to literary modernity. This essay provides not only an insight into the poet’s significance, but adds substantially to one’s understanding of the history of Odia literature and language.
