Voicing The Voiceless: Social Consciousness In Modern Indian English Women Poetry

Abstract

For the last few decades , women-writing has been centre-stage of Literary and Critical scenario in India ,with women litterateurs making their presence strongly felt in all the genres of literature. Poetry has emerged as their favourite genre before and after independence though the thematic concerns of the pre and post independence generation have substantially varied. The Romantic Indian English women poets represented by Toru  Dutt and Sarojini Naidu have not revealed much social consciousness and their major thematic concerns continue to be nature ,love, eternity , spiritual and mystical leanings. In the post-independence scenario, the canvas gets much wider as  the poets transcend their personal self and relate to the world around ,revealing wide-ranging social consciousness and concern in their writings. The pathetic lives of the deprived, destitute and downtrodden people are at the core of their social concern. This paper explores the theme of their social consciousness in depth , studies their social concern  and brings out their overall final vision for society.