| Summary/Abstract |
The Hindi-language journal, Sarasvati (1900–82), belonged to a new breed of periodical, the illustrated monthly, emerging in India at the turn of the century. It pursued and established an integral connection between art and literature. In this essay, I examine visually-oriented strategies implemented by the journal's editor, M.P. Dwivedi, to establish literary authority amidst resistance to his poetic agenda. In particular, I focus on two of Dwivedi's earliest attempts at establishing literary authority through combined literary–visual narrative forms: literary criticism conveyed through editorial cartoons, and poetry inspired by, and accompanying, the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma. A closer look at the deliberate cultivation of such literary interactions with the visual provides the basis for a more nuanced history of the modernisation of Hindi poetry and indicates the interactive significance of literature and art across multiple regions in the early twentieth century.
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