DUTT, MICHAEL MADHU SUDAN the greatest native poet of India in the i9th century, was born at Sagandari, in the district of Jessore in Bengal, on Jan. 25, 1824. His father was a pleader in Calcutta, and young Madhu Sudan received his education in the Hindu college of Calcutta. In he ran away to avoid a marriage into which his father wished to force him, and embraced the Christian religion. Continuing his studies now in the Bishop's college, Madhu Sudan learnt Greek and Latin and some modern European languages, and in 1848 went to Madras. There he wrote English verses, and married the daughter of a European indigo-planter, but was soon separated from her. He then married an English lady, with whom he re turned to Calcutta in 1856, and soon discovered that the true way to win literary distinction was by writing in his own language, not by composing verses in English. His three classical dramas Ratnavali (1858; Eng. trans. 1904), Sarmishtha (1859; Eng. trans. 1859, 1914) and Krishna Kumari—appeared between 1858 and 1861, and were recognized as works of merit. But his great ambition was to introduce blank verse into Bengali. His knowl edge of Sanskrit poetry, his appreciation of the Greek and Latin epics, and his admiration of Dante and of Milton, impelled him to break through the fetters of the Bengali rhyme, and to attempt a spirited and elevated style in blank verse. His first poem in blank verse, the Tilottama, was only a partial success; but his great epic which followed in 1861, the Meghanad-Badha, took the Indian world by surprise, and at once established his reputation as the greatest poet of his age and country. He took his story from the old Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, but the beauty of the poem is all his own, and he imparted to it the pathos and sweet ness of Eastern ideas combined with the vigour and loftiness of Western thought. In 1862 Madhu Sudan left for Europe. He lived in England for some years, and was called to the bar; and in 1867 returned to his country to practise as a barrister in Calcutta. He still wrote much, but nothing of enduring merit. He died in a Calcutta hospital on June 29, 1873.