Introduction – Sivajee is a historical poem of Shoshee Chunder Dutt. Shoshee Chunder Dutt was a poet of second half of 19th century. He was uncle of famous economic historian Romesh Chunder Dutt. This poem is based on famous incident of imprisonment of Sivajee by Aurangzeb and he ran away.
Central Idea – This poem talks about the incident when Sivajee was brought to Aurangzeb’s court on assurance that he would not be imprisoned and duly respected but the betrayal made him eternal enemy of Mughals. He ran away from there and pestered Mughals rest of the life. Poem focuses on vengeance of Sivajee against Aurangzeb.
Themes
1. Breach of Trust – Main theme of the poem is breaking trust of a person. Sivajee was assured by Mughals that he won’t be imprisoned and respected too if he attends court of Aurangzeb. But contrary happened, he was mocked, scorned and imprisoned too. This betrayal and breaking of trust made the Sivajee never trust them again and he departed on the path of vengeance against Aurangzeb.
2. Vengeance – After getting humiliated at the court of Aurangzeb, Sivajee decided to take the vengeance. He would now come with his ‘blood red sword’. Bravest of hearts will be filled with dread by ‘fury of his wrath’. He will lead the carnage against Mughals. Poet explained how Sivajee would approach his vengeance against Mughals. His attitude, anger and role of an avenger is quite magnificently explained.
Figure of Speech
- Alliteration – In ‘pomp of power’, ‘knights and nobles’, ‘caught no courtly’, ‘can cross’, ‘hearts had’ have Repetition of consonant sounds /p/, /n/, /k/ and /h/ respectively at the starting of words. Hence these have alliteration.
- Rhetorical Question – ‘Bur who can cross the fox’s wile? / Control the eagle free?’ Here these are examples of rhetorical question as these are just heightened way to express a thought rather than asking questions.
- Metaphor – In line ‘The bird has flown’, bird is a metaphor for Sivajee as he had ran away or flown away like bird. Similarly in ‘he comes with sword and flame’, ‘flame’ is a metaphor for passion and anger.
- Synecdoche – ‘Bravest heart’ has synecdoche as heart is used for people and in synecdoche a part of body is used to represent the whole person.
- Personification – In ‘unconscious ground’ Personification is used. As ground is a non living object which is being treated like human being.
- Paradox – In line ‘While yet shall glow, though wet and dim’ two contrasting nature of things are logically presented. Here sword is glowing despite it is wet and dim. How can a dim sword glow? Poet means to say that wet by blood sword’s shine has hidden but it is still glowing as passion and anger of sivajee is unrelenting. Hence it’s a paradox here.
- Assonance – ‘Struggled still’, has Repetition of vowel sound /e/ hence it’s an assonance.
- Imagery – ‘His bosom, plough with manly scars’ has a beautiful image. Sivajee has ploughed scars on his chest as a farmer ploughs field.
Structure and Rhyme Scheme – Poem has 10 stanzas and each stanza has eight lines. It has Rhyme scheme of ABCBCDED.
Shoshee Chunder Dutt : Critical Appreciation of ‘India’ – http://ourguruji.in/2023/11/30/critical-appreciation-of-poem-india-shoshee-chunder-dutt/
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