Subaltern Squibs and Sentimental Rhymes: the Raj Reflected in Light Verse

Download or read book Subaltern Squibs and Sentimental Rhymes: the Raj Reflected in Light Verse written by Graham Shaw and published by Jadavpur University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-25 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first anthology to be devoted exclusively to light verse composed by British authors in undivided India, plus a few items illustrating parallel experiences in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Written overwhelmingly by the junior ranks of the military and civil service, these works constitute a ‘running commentary’ on the Raj from below. The typical subaltern liked to picture himself as unduly put upon, unfairly ignored, and inexplicably underrated. Before departure for India, the impressionable heads of young recruits could all too easily be filled with stories of immense fortunes to be easily made by ‘shaking the Pagoda Tree’. Once in India, such dreams quickly evaporated for a variety of reasons – the climate, the isolation, the slow pace or complete lack of career advancement, illness, or untimely death. Whatever the authors may have lacked in technical skill and refinement of poetical expression, they more than made up for by the vast range of subject-matter tackled and the outspokenness of the reactions recorded – amusing, surprising, shocking, scurrilous, abusive or otherwise thoroughly distasteful. As witnesses to both attitudes and events, these verses are of enormous value to social and cultural as well as political historians of nineteenth-century India.