DUTT, doot, Michael Madhusudan, Indian poet : b. 25 Jan. 1824 at Sagandari, in the dis trict of Jessore, Bengal, India; d. 29 June 1873. His father, Rajnarayan Dutt, was a lawyer in Calcutta. From his earliest boyhood Mad husudan showed signs of future greatness. He received his education in the Hindu College of Calcutta. His teachers always spoke highly of his scholarship. Young Dutt refused to marry according to his father's wishes and had to leave home; he renounced the faith of his fore fathers and embraced Christianity on 9 Feb. 1843. After his conversion he studied in Bishops' College, Calcutta, and learned Latin, Greek, French and other languages. The study of the different literatures of the world in spired him to take up a literary career. He moved to Madras in 1848 and began to write verses in English. He married a French woman, but they were separated not long after. He then married the daughter of an English educator and this marriage proved a happy union. The couple returned to Calcutta in 1856. Dutt then realized that if he sought lasting distinction in poetry he should write in Bengali. So he began writing in Bengali in Calcutta and his first works, the 'Krishna Kumari,' (Sartnista,' etc.,
were published between 1858 and 1861. The books were well received by the critics. As a great lover of Dante and Milton, Dutt wanted to introduce blank verse into Bengali poetry. His first book in blank verse was Kabya.> He then brought out his masterpiece, (Meghnad-Badha Kabya,' which has immortal ized him as one of the master poets, not only of India but of the world. The story was taken from the Ramayana and the book was published in 1861. In 1862 Dutt went to England and studied for the bar. On his return to Calcutta in 1867 he began to practise law in the Calcutta High Court, but did not win success in his profession. Financial difficulties broke his health, and in extreme poverty Dutt, the greatest poet of Bengal, died in a charitable hospital at Alipur. After the award of the Nobel Prize to Rabindranath Tagore in 1913 a leading Bengali magazine took a vote as to which was the best book of poetry in Bengali and Kabya' ('The Epic of the Death of MeglinacP) won the first place.