Earliest Prominent Marathi Poetry

The two poets, Namadev (Devanagari

Devanagari

Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

: नामदेव) and Dnyaneshwar

Dnyaneshwar

Dnyāneshwar , also known as Jñanadeva , was born into a Deshastha Brahmin Kulkarni family.He was a 13th century Maharashtrian Hindu saint , poet, philosopher and yogi of the Nath tradition whose works Bhavartha deepika teeka ,...

 (Devanagari: ज्ञानेश्वर), wrote the earliest significant poetry in Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

. They were respectively born in 1270 and 1275 CE in Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and both wrote religious poetry. A little over 400 verses in the so-called “abhang” (अभंग) form are authentically attributed to Namdev. Dnyaneshwar composed his poetry in the so-called “owi” (ओवी) form. His compositions Bhavartha Deepika (भावार्थदीपिका), popularly known as Dnyaneshwari

Dnyaneshwari

The Dnyaneshwari is the commentary on Bhagavad Gita written by Marathi saint and poet Dnyaneshwar during the 13th century at age 16...

 (ज्ञानेश्वरी) and Amrutanubhawa (अमृतानुभव) respectively consisted of 9,037 and about 800 “owis” (ओव्या).

16th, 17th, and 18th Century Poetry

Eknath

Eknath

Eknath was a prominent Marathi scholar and religious poet. He is called a "sant" in the Marathi tradition as are most other religious poets...

 (एकनाथ), who lived in the sixteenth century (1533 – 1599) was the next prominent poet in Marathi. The seventeenth century produced first-rate poets Tukaram

Tukaram

Sant Tukaram was a prominent Varkari Sant and spiritual poet during a Bhakti movement in India.Sant Tukaram was born and lived most of his life in Dehu, a town close to Pune in Mahārāshtra, India. He was born to a couple with the family name "More", the descendent of the Mourya Clan with first...

 (तुकाराम) (1598 – 1649), Mukteshwar (मुक्तेश्वर) (1609 - 1660), Ramdas

Ramdas

Ramdas or Ram Das may refer to:*S. A. Ramadass, a MLA from Karnataka, India*Samarth Ramdas or Samartha Ramdas Swami, a 17th-century Hindu saint from Maharashtra, who was a devotee of Lord Rama and the spiritual guru of Maratha king Shivaji*Ramadasu, a 17th-century Hindu devotee from Andhra...

 (रामदास) (1608-1681), Vaman Pandit

Vaman Pandit

Vaman Pandit was a Marathi scholar and poet of India. Some sources say that his family hailed from Nanded but had moved to Dharwad where Vaman Pandit was born and grew up. Later he migrated to Kashi for a significant period of his life. His most significant work, the Yatharthadipika is a...

 (वामनपंडित) (1608-1695), Raghunath Pandit (रघुनाथपंडित), and Shridhar Pandit (श्रीधरपंडित) (1658 - 1729). Moropant (मोरोपंत) (1729-1794) was the prime poet of the eighteenth century.

All above poets wrote either religious or semireligious compositions. Some details of the works of the poets whose names are highlighted above are available in their Wikipedia articles. (Very briefly, Ramdas wrote Dasabodh (दासबोध); Vaman Pandit wrote Yathartha Dipika (यथार्थदीपिका); Raghunath Pandit wrote Nala Damayanti Swayamvara (नलदमयंती स्वयंवर); and Shridhar Pandit wrote Harivijay (हरिविजय), Ramavijay (रामविजय), Pandavpratap (पांडवप्रताप), and Shivaleelamrut (शिवलीलामृत)).

Moropant's Aryabharata (आर्याभारत) was the first epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 in Marathi.

19th Century Poetry

The early nineteenth century Marathi poetry consisted of “powada

Powada

The Powada is a genre of Marathi poetry emerged during the late 17th century. The powadas are a kind of ballad written in an exciting style and narrate historical events in an inspiring manner. The composer-cum-singers of the powadas are known as Shahirs...

” (पोवाडे: ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

s), “phataka” (फटके), and "lawani” ("लावण्या), which were composed by “tantakawi” (तंतकवि) or “shahir” (शाहीर). Prominent among those poets were Parasharam (परशराम), Honaji Bal (होनाजी बाळ), Anantaphandi (अनंतफंदी), Ram Joshi (रामजोशी), and Prabhakar (प्रभाकर).

By the time the second half of the nineteenth century commenced, the rule of British East India Company

British East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 had been firmly established in India, and the consequent study of English and English literature by the elite of Indian society produced in the mid-nineteenth century Marathi composers like Krushnashastri Chipalunkar (कृष्णशास्त्री चिपळूणकर), Kunte (कुंटे), Lembhe (लेंभे), and Mogare (मोगरे) whose Marathi poetry showed influences of both Sanskrit and English poetry.

In the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, inspired by the poetry of English poets like Wordsworth and Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....

, poets Keshavasuta

Keshavasuta

Krishnaji Keshav Damle was a Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India, who wrote poetry under the pen name Keshavasuta .-Life:Damle was born on March 15, 1866 in the town of Malgund near Ratnagiri....

 (केशवसुत) (1866-1905) and Rev. Tilak (रेव्हरंड टिळक) (1862 - ?) extended the horizon of Marathi poetry to encompass beauty in nature, love, romance, and mysticism as the subjects of their poetry.

20th Century Poetry and Latest Poetry

Modern Marathi poetry began with Mahatma Jyotiba Phule's compositions. The later poets like Keshavsuta, Balakavi, Govindagraj, and the poets of Ravi Kiran Mandal like Madhav Julian wrote poetry which was influenced by the Romantic and Victorian English poetry. It was largely sentimental and lyrical.Prahlad Keshav Atre, the renowned satirist and a politician wrote a parody of this sort of poetry in his collection Jhenduchi Phule.

The major paradigm shift in sensibility began in the forties with the avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 modernist poetry of BS Mardhekar

BS Mardhekar

Bal Sitaram Mardhekar was a Marathi writer who brought about a radical shift of sensibility in Marathi poetry. He was born in a town called Faizpur in the Khandesh region of Maharashtra....

. In the mid fifties, the 'little magazine movement' gained momentum. It published writings which were non-conformist, radical and experimental. Dalit literary movement also gained strength due to the little magazine movement. This radical movement was influenced by the philosophy of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and challenged the literary establishment which was largely middle class, urban, and upper caste people. The little magazine movement threw up many excellent writers. Bhalchandra Nemade

Bhalchandra Nemade

Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade is a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India.-Life:Nemade was born in 1938 in the village of Sangavi in Khandesh. He received his bachelor's degree from Fergusson College in Pune and Master's degree in Linguistics from Deccan College in Pune and English Literature from...

 is a well known novelist, critic and poet. The poetry of Arun Kolatkar

Arun Kolatkar

Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was a poet from Maharashtra, India. Writing in both Marathi and English, his poems found humor in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets...

, Dilip Chitre

Dilip Chitre

Dilip Purushottam Chitre was one of the foremost Indian writers and critics to emerge in the post Independence India. Apart from being a very important bilingual writer, writing in Marathi and English, he was also a painter and filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Baroda on 17 September 1938...

, Namdeo Dhasal

Namdeo Dhasal

Namdeo Laxman Dhasal is a Marathi writer and Dalit activist from Maharashtra, India.-Biography:Dhasal was born on February 15, 1949, in a village near Pune, India. A member of the Mahar Dalit class, he grew up in dire poverty...

, Vasant Abaji Dahake

Vasant Abaji Dahake

Vasant Abaji Dahake is a Marathi poet, playwright, short story writer, artist, and critic from Amaravati district in the Maharashtra state of India. He is awarded Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection ` Chitralipi' for the year 2009....

, Manohar Oak

Manohar Oak

Manohar Shankar Oak was a Marathi poet, novelist, and translator from Maharashtra, India.Oak led a Bohemian life style. An influence of English poets like Allen Ginsberg can be discerned in his poetry...

 and many other modernist poets is complex, rich and provocative.

The another major paradigm shift in Marathi sensibility began in the nineties with the another avant-garde modernist poetry of poets associated with Abhidhanantar

Abhidhanantar

Abhidhanantar was a significant literary magazines in the Marathi langugage primarily devoted to poetry. It was edited by Hemant Divate, a noted Marathi poet and publisher. It started as a small magazine called Abhidha in 1992 and in 1998 it was named Abhidhanantar because of registration issues.....

 and Shabadavedh. In the post nineties, this 'new little magazine movement' gained momentum and poets like Manya Joshi

Manya Joshi

-Biography:Manya Joshi was born in 1972. He has Master's in Marathi Literature from Mumbai University and a Master's in Library and Information Studies from the University of Oklahoma, USA. He works as a freelance library research advisor and copywriter...

, Hemant Divate

Hemant Divate

Hemant Divate is a reputed Marathi poet, translator and publisher based in Mumbai.- Biography :Hemant Divate is an avant-garde poet, a reputed editor, publisher and translator....

, Sachin Ketkar, Mangesh Narayanrao Kale

Mangesh Narayanrao Kale

- Biography :Mangesh Narayanrao Kale was born in Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, in 1966. He is a post graduate in journalism and Hindi. As a journalist, he started his career with the Marathi daily ‘Marathwada’. Later he started own daily, ‘Khandesh’. He now works in publishing and printing...

, Saleel Wagh

Saleel Wagh

Saleel Wagh is a Marathi poet, translator and critic based in Pune.-Biography:Saleel Wagh was born in 1967 in Rajkot, Gujarat. His collections include Nivadak Kavita, Sadhyachya Kavita, Aadhichya Kavita a Marathi translation of a major Hindi poet Shamsher Bahadur Singh and Blog Pahila, a...

, Mohan Borse, Nitin Kulkarni, Nitin Arun Kulkarni, Varjesh Solanki, Sandeep Deshpande, Vasant Gurjar touched the new areas of post-modern life. The poetry collections broughtout by Abhidhanantar Prakashan and the regular issues of the magazine Abhidhanantar is taking Marathi poetry to the global standards. Another leading wave in contemporary Marathi poetry is the poetry of non-urban poets like Arun Kale, Bhujang Meshram, Pravin Bandekar.

External Links

• A brief outline of Marathi literature
• Dilip Chitre on History of Marathi Poetry
• Marathi poetry in Early twentieth Century
• Introduction to Recent Marathi poetry along with Marathi poems and their English translation
• English Translation of Recent Marathi poetry by Sachin Ketkar
• Some Famous Marathi Poems in Marathi Font