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The Golden Threshold

The Golden Threshold is an anthology of poems written by Sarojini Naidu. The text was published in 1905 when Naidu was only 26 years old. The selection of poems within The Golden Threshold were inspired by her own life and are written in English diction. The poems present a variety of themes, some being romance, nature and spirituality. Naidu utilizes them to express orientalism, cosmopolitan nationalism, and Indian feminization. She meticulously chose her words to shed light on significant issues that resided within her culture, paving the way for her Political career.

Author, Sarojini Naidu

Shortly after providing a voice for silenced women through her poetry, Naidu entered the political realm. In 1914 Gandhi and Naidu gathered for the very first time in London to discuss protests against British enactment that would tax Indian people and force them to carry passes. The reunion would lead them to the establishment of their friendship. Her relationship with Gandhi influenced the approach she would take in her political life as she worked very closely with him. In 1925 Naidu became the first woman President of the Indian National congress.

Contents

Folk Songs

• Palanquin-Bearers
• Wandering Singers
• Indian Weavers
• Coromandel Fishers
• The Snake Charmer
• Corn Grinders
• The Village Song
• In Praise of Henna
• Harvest Hymn
• Indian Love-Song
• Cradle-Song
• Suttee

Songs For Music

• Song of a Dream
• Humayun to Zobeida
• Autumn Song
• Alabaster
• Ecstasy
• To my Fairy Fancies

Poems

• Ode to the H.H. the Nizam of Hyderabad
• Leili
• In the Forest
• Past and Future
• Life
• The Poet’s Love-Song
• To the God of Pain
• The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa
• Indian Dancers
• My Dead Dream
• Damayanti to Nala in the Hour of Exile
• The Queen’s Rival
• The Poet to Death
• The Indian Gypsy
• To my Children
• The Pardah Nashin
• To Youth
• Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad
• Street Cries
• To India
• The Royal Tombs of Golconda
• To a Buddah seated on a Lotus

Character Analysis

"The Indian Gypsy"

This poem represents a free-spirited nature of the Gypsy people in India. It highlights their unique way of life and emphasizes the sense of freedom that they have, which invites the reader to appreciate their vibrant culture.

"The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa"

In this poem, she uses Princess Zeb-un-Nissa as a tribute to her since she was a poet and a patron of the arts during the Mughal era in India. Naidu uses her character and voice to create an impact and leave a legacy of her thoughts, expressions, and love for beauty. The character reveals the themes of orientalism and decadence.

"To India"

It is interesting how although there are not specific characters, her poem personifies India as a lovely motherland, describing its attributes, such as: historical significance, the elasticity of its people, and its overall beauty. The portrayal of India’s heritage reveals the cosmopolitan nationalism because of its cosmopolitan values of embracing their culture.

"Indian Dancers"

This poem focuses on the Indian dancers themselves. This poem captures Indian femininity by highlighting the beauty of the traditional dancers, which shows Naidu’s admiration for their strength and elegance.

"The Queen’s Rival”

The protagonist in this poem is the queen herself. Naidu uses the queen here, to show her resilience in the way she overcomes several hardships. The character of the queen is significant because it symbolizes the power, strength, and leadership Indian women have within them.

“Cradle Song”

While giving the appearance of a simple comforting lullaby, this poem is arguably one of Naidu’s most hopeful when analyzed in terms of her push for cosmopolitan nationalism. She paints a general picture of nighttime in the fields, addressing her audience directly with “I bring for you… a little lovely dream.” Her choice of pronouns is telling, revealing her desire to connect with her readers both creatively, in appreciation for her work, and politically. Her lines, “on you I press, with soft caress,” hint at her political work of advocating for cosmopolitan nationalism, urging people to embrace the idea of community and the lovely dream of a world united even amidst all of the diversity. 

Literary Devices

Poetical Ideologies

Naidu’s The Golden Threshold “explicitly situates against the ideology that poetic concerns are private ones”. Naidu’s lyric is not of private telling as her work is far less personal but rather on board with public concerns. Her public recitation of her books poetry “evinces a communal function”, painting herself as a “poet of the people”. Her refusal of the private poetic ideology serves her poetry’s relevance between the literary form between individualism and communitarianism. Rather than keeping her poetry separate from the spheres of personal and political issues, Naidu took on poetry as her form of activism. She “intentionally blurred the established boundaries between political rhetoric and lyric poetry”. Naidu’s poetry served as her outlet to simultaneously showcase the pride she had in her culture and promote cosmopolitan nationalism, using her personal experiences to then speak on broader political issues.

Literary Identifications

In The Golden Threshold, Naidu positions herself “as a colonial subject caught in the pull of competing identifications”. Naidu attempts to reinstate her identity “as an Indian-English poet working within English literary traditions” while still being able to claim herself “as an Indian poet of an Indian nation writing for the Indian ‘people’”. Within her poems, she uses her English literary style to write pieces that allude to Western audiences to bring attention to her Indian home and community. She positions herself as the advantaged speaker that can interest the consideration of the Western colonizers. Her literary identity within her poems, however, complicates her political ideologies of individualism and communitarianism as she unknowingly encourages the Indian country to be viewed through the orient lens, somewhat “performing” her exoticism. Her success in the Western world relied on this vision of her as oriental, exotic enough that readers could picture the aesthetics of her culture, but still contained enough so as not to ostracize herself from her audience.

Themes

Orientalism

The Golden Threshold paints the land of the mysterious East as an orientalist interest. Naidu’s home city, Hyderabad, is specifically presented through a Western perspective, defining it “as a place of fading princely power and prerogatives but also of sensual mystical beauty”. Through vivid descriptions of the city's riches and dwindling hierarchical power, Naidu depicts Hyderabad, as well as all of India, as a place that can be colonized for its system of knowledge and configuration of power. Naidu romanticizes the Orient by detailing the retention of Indian ancestral practices to draw familiarity to the Western’s knowledge of Orientalist tropes. Naidu’s decision to depict India as an orientalist subject was taken to appeal to Western interest, but it also subjected India to mass colonization because its allure “epitomizes such difference” and targets itself for conquest. Naidu however, does relieve herself from the responsibility of orientalizing India by setting up the poetic subject, Nizam, as a literary trope. Naidu romanticizes the Orient.

Cosmopolitan Nationalism

Naidu’s poems delve into the theme of cosmopolitan nationalism, the idea that all human beings are members of the same community. The term believes in the establishment of world citizens and universal community, promoting different dimensions of community, such as universal moral standards; global political structures; and mutual cultural expression and acceptance. This theme is explored in detail in her piece “Ode to H.H the Nizam of Hyderabad”, specifically asking for the promotion of ethical  “global humanism that posits religious coexistence” and calling it “an attainable possibility for the Indian nation”. Nuidu uses the theme of the Orient by employing its language to paint Hyderabad as glorious and an interest for Western societies. Her use of the Orient is not to call for a colonizing effect, but to appeal to outside worlds to consider the integration of cosmopolitan nationalism.

Indian Feminization

In The Golden Threshold, Naidu characterizes India as a feminine character, tying features that paint the country as a representation of the gender roles that oppress women in part by their male counterparts. Her poems are read through the sexual appeal they display, allowing Naidu to prove her point of the inequalities and stereotypes inflicted onto Indian women. In her pieces, men are portrayed as their physical embodiments, but women are portrayed as land that is open for conquest, domination, and maltreatment. Her use of the theme is reflective of the Indian culture and norms she was fighting against in her political campaigns.

Literary Trope

Naidu uses the Nizam of Hyderabad, a public political ruler of Hyderabad, as a literary trope in The Golden Threshold to allude to the outside focus that calls her as a poetic address. As Hyderabad’s ruler, the Nizam is represented as a power of higher entity that calls Naidu forth to represent the modern nation through her public poetry. The Nizam establishes Naidu “as a poetess-politician of the Indian nation” to render the “archaism acceptable” through her cosmopolitan view of manufacture and circulation of difference. Naidu becomes the voice for the ruler, but eventually replaces him. Throughout her book of poems, we see her emphasis of being the representative speaker on behalf of India, powered by her political movements.

Poetic Form

Naidu uses poetic form in conjunction with her means of political ideologies to create an “abstract measure of the nation”. Naidu’s poetic form aims to build the nation and showcase the work her community has done respectively.

Ties to Decadence and Orientalism

Sensuality Regarding Decadence

Critique of Naidu's use of the senses

Many critics, such as Symons, view Sarojini Naidu’s poetry as decadent through “agony of sensation.” The idea of “agony of sensation” refers to Naidu’s unique and unconventional style of writing driven by her “pain or pleasure [that] transported her,” allowing her to encapsulate strong emotions through contrasting objects such as anger to “a flower’s cup” often romanticizing negative emotions (Hoene 2). “Symmons also seems to suggest that these objects Naidu writes about never “seemed of importance” to “others,” essentially claiming her emphasis on certain subjects was possibly misplaced (Hoene 2). This interpretation often labels the work as overly sensual or discredits its descriptive power because of interpretations such as Symons claiming women are “overly sensitive.” This essentially creates a misogynistic and problematic atmosphere because it allows women of color to be scrutinized for implementing powerful descriptive diction in their poetry and writing it off as the author being “easily excitable” (Hoene 2). Many then also question if Naidu’s poetry was intentionally an act of “self-orientalisation” simply because her poetry was written in a different cultural context or background. The common conclusion to this question revolves around the idea that Symons encouraged Naidu to incorporate aspects of orientalism into her writing to make her writing intriguing and unknown to a Western audience.

Decadent Aesthetic Through Rasa

What is rasa?

Rasa is an Indian aesthetic theory that focuses on “the emotional response to a work of art” (Hoene 2). Although Naidu’s poems are written in English, her stylistic choices are “deeply embedded in Indian aesthetics and cultural tradition,” which plays a significant role in why her poems are often misinterpreted and overly romanticized by Western culture, thus Symons. Hoene claims that Naidu essentially is tied to orientalism because of her Indian traditionalist style of writing while her ties to decadence stem from her ability to evoke sensuality through perception regarding the essence and beauty of describing Indian culture.

Decadent Aspects and Origins for Inspiration

Naidu draws inspiration from her roots in Hyderabad (her home city), often discussing its beauty and mystical qualities. She emphasizes the senses through her life experience, which she describes as “dramatic” and full of “fiery beauty” (Hoene 2). She depicts the sensuality of “colour, music, perfume” and “vivid human faces” she has experienced in Hyderabad (Hoene 6). The sensuality she describes in her poetry is then translated and recognized by Western culture as decadence because of its indulgence and romanticization of the physical.

Naidu as a Nationalist Author

Naidu’s work as an author prior to her nationalist and political work constructs the discrepancies in the critiques of The Golden Threshold  work by English critics. The “flattering” reviews made by Arthur Symons and Eunice Tiejens emphasized the representation of the orient as presented in The Golden Threshold in Naidu’s prosec(Cite1).

The New Republic's review of The Golden Threshold highlighted lack of orientalism despite Nadiu being a Hindu woman(Cite 2).M.K Naik elaborated upon the inadequate representation of the orient and Naidu’s language hybridity as an Indian and English writer. (Cite3)

Naidu’s poetic voice was influenced by her colonialism, racism, and the critical reading of her work as related to her feminism. In 1986 Naidu’s writing was noticed by Edumund Gossse, who constructed a program that orientalized and influenced Naidu’s technical writing skills to make them more appealing to English critics (Cite 4).

The Golden Threshold illustrates Naidu’s work as a nationalist in poems such as; “Eastern Dancers” and “Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad”, that exemplify the orient through Naidu’s interpretation and commemorate Indian tradition, as Naidu was influenced by folk traditions(Cite 5). The poem “To India” nuances nationalism and patriotism, though the hybridity of her language as a poet. While the Decadence of Naidu’s work is related to her collaboration with Symons and his acquaintances (Cite 6).

In 1915, Bombay, Naidu supported home rule at the Indian National Congress, encouraging unity to India’s diverse populations contenting for self-government, and Indian unity. Naidu’s work after the publishing of The Golden Threshold indicates more clearly her political action and advocacy for India’s unity (Cite 7).

Critics analyze Naidu through her limitations in her stance as a feminist, within the political context.

Naidu as a Translingual Subject

The fact that The Golden Threshold is written in English is an example of how Naidu uses the language to challenge Western colonial ideology rather than as a tool of assimilation. According to Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo, Naidu was “conscious of the fact that the English language was a colonial instrument.” Early in her literary career, she had translated Persian poetry for English-speaking readers and published poetry with Persian titles in English magazines. She took inspiration from decadent women poets such as Nur-Jahan and Zeb-Un-Nissa while writing poems to be included in The Golden Threshold. Poems in the collection such as “The Song of Princess Zeb-Un-Nissa In Praise Of Her Own Beauty” exemplify both Naidu’s inspiration from these poets and her refusal to reinvent herself as an Orientalist subject for English audiences. In Vadillo’s reading of “The Song of Princess Zeb-Un-Nissa,” Naidu refuses to lift her veil to the suitor as a representation of how Naidu likewise refuses to unveil herself to the audience who “want[s] to recognize her as an authentic Indian (and not an English) poet.” Additionally, Padillo argues that the English title of the collection itself is a symbol, representing a translingual imagining of the world as it evokes a borderless liminal space. By doing so, Naidu is able to affirm Decadence as an Indian literary movement.

The Golden Threshold and Sarojini Naidu’s Work as a Indian Nationalist and Politician

Evaluations of The Golden Threshold fail to recognize Naidu's request to not untangle her poetry and politics, her stance in the public and private sector, and her work as a cosmopolitan and nationalists. The circulation of her poems and herself as a writer were aimed to address and challenge the separation of her spheres as she intended to use her poetry to intentionally blur the boundaries between political rhetoric and lyric poetry.  

Her nationalist discourses within Indian politics focused on the icons of feminine duty; when read carefully, her poetry can be used to understand the current Indian situation in regards to female power. She addresses India as “female”, feminizing the country; this is misunderstood as her orientalising Indian culture rather than reading her poems through the feminine duty that was enforced onto women. A large aspect of her work as an Indian politician was her work in the Women’s Indian Association, paralleling the movement to the Indian Independence Movement. In The Golden Threshold, she creates the illusion of naming India as a woman to allow outside readers to understand the power dynamics inflicted by the men of the country. The proposed “woman question” shows the superiority of Indian spiritually located in the figure of he woman and the domestic; it is not to be meant as a subject of Western Materialism.  

Naidu was accepted in both the Western and Indian sphere because of her qualification in literary and political establishments, yet that same lyrical work undermined her status as a politician. Her positions crossed roles and were not understood as one, even after Naidu established and suggested her audience to consider her work as a whole rather than individual aspects.