Rayaprolu Subba Rao

Rayaprolu Subba Rao was a Telugu poet of the early 20th century.¹ He led a new kind of Telugu poetry, short lyrics about nature and love, written under the influence of English poetry.²¹ Its followers came to be called bhava kavulu.³ Sitaramaiya explains bhava kavitvam as poetry in which thought counts for more than subject and form.⁴ In 1918–19 he was invited to the new Telugu chair at Osmania University in Hyderabad.⁵

The new poetry

P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, in their history of Telugu literature (1928), called the “New Poetry” the most promising movement in Telugu writing.² It was expressing itself in lyric and sonnet, and in a love of nature.² “The honour of being the pioneer in this line of development”, they wrote, “belongs to Rayaprolu Subba Rao”.²

K. Sitaramaiya, writing in Hyderabad in 1943, wrote that Rayaprolu’s outlook was purely literary.¹ He was drawn to the love of nature that he found in English poetry.⁶⁷ P. T. Raju, in 1944, wrote that his poems at first fitted none of the known kinds of Telugu poetry.³ So G. Harisarvottama Rao invented a name for them, bhava kavitvam.³

His books

Sitaramaiya gives the dates of his first books:¹

• Lalita, published by 1909, with a second edition by 1912
• Trunakankanamu (the grass bracelet), published in 1914¹

He wrote that Trunakankanamu “took the whole country by storm”.¹ It won praise from old-style scholars such as the Tirupati Venkata Kavulu and from modern critics such as C. R. Reddy.¹⁵ Sitaramaiya found in it new matter and thought inside the old form.⁵ Love was raised above the bodily, and nature and its effect on the poet were seen in it.⁵

Rayaprolu also wrote many short poems, some of them patriotic.⁸ He translated Omar Khayyam into Telugu verse.⁸ Sitaramaiya noted that in 1940 the public presented him with a silver jubilee edition of his works.⁴

At Osmania University

Sitaramaiya wrote that it called Rayaprolu to preside over its newly created Telugu chair in 1918–19.⁵ Raju, in 1944, describes him as “the Head of the Department of Telugu, Osmania University, Hyderabad”.³ Sitaramaiya also noted that some readers found in him traces of Shelley, Keats and Swinburne.⁵ Because he had stayed for some time at Santiniketan, he thought, Tagore’s mysticism also shaped his poetry.⁵

Footnotes

1. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 90 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 117 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (1944), p. 59 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 93 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

5. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 91 and note (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 79 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

7. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 80 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

8. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 92 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²