English medium of Indian literature growth and deployment : a critical study

Abstract EN

The century before independence of India many of writers began to use the English language as a medium of literary expression.

Cavelly Venkata Boriah was the one who undertaken the first literary work in English.

His translated work, Accounts of the Jains (1809), is perhaps the first published work in English.

The first original writing in English appeared in prose.

Raja Rammohan Roy was the first to write in English and his essay is called A Defence of Hindu Theism (1817).

After Raja Rammohan Roy many writers appeared like Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Toru Dutt, Aurobindo Ghose, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and others who showed keen interest in English language.

Most of these writers were educated abroad and their literary accounts were influenced by western ideas and philosophy.

The political and social environment was charged with highly patriotic sentiments.

The paper presents some of the issues in connection to the development of Indian English literature form pre-colonial days to the present day.