Mahadevi Varma and the Chayavada Age of Modern Hindi Poetry

The only woman to have become a major figure in modern Hindi letters, Mahadevi Varma is one of the leading poets of the romantic Chhayavad movement that revolutionized Hindi poetry in the 1920s and 1930s. In this literary biography of the poet, Karine Schomer delineates the Chhayavad break with tradition, compares it with English romanticism, and revisits the controversies surrounding the movement in the light of traditional Indian interpretations of the nature of poetry. The narrative touches many areas of Indian life, tracing the political, educational, and cultural involvements that shaped Varma as a creative writer, a modern intellectual, and an independent woman. A final chapter offers a challenging new reading of her poetic art and sensibility.