Naidu began writing at the age of 12. Her play, Maher Muneer, written in Persian, impressed the Nizam of Kingdom of Hyderabad.
Naidu's poetry was written in English and usually took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism, which she was sometimes challenged to reconcile with her Indian nationalist politics.[5] She was known for her vivid use of rich sensory images in her writing, and for her lush depictions of India.[8][28] She was well-regarded as a poet, considered the "Indian Yeats".[7]
Her first book of poems was published in London in 1905, titled "The Golden Threshold".[29] The publication was suggested by Edmund Gosse, and bore an introduction by Arthur Symons. It also included a sketch of Naidu as a teenager, in a ruffled white dress, drawn by John Butler Yeats. Her second and most strongly nationalist book of poems, The Bird of Time, was published in 1912.[5] It was published in both London and New York, and includes "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad".[30] The last book of new poems published in her lifetime, The Broken Wing (1917). It includes the poem "The Gift of India", critiquing the British empire's exploitation of Indian mothers and soldiers, which she had previously recited to the Hyderabad Ladies' War Relief Association in 1915. It also includes "Awake!", dedicated to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which she read as the conclusion to a 1915 speech to the Indian National Congress to urge unified Indian action.[5] A collection of all her published poems was printed in New York in 1928.[31] After her death, Naidu's unpublished poems were collected in The Feather of the Dawn (1961), edited by her daughter Padmaja Naidu.[32]
Naidu's speeches were first collected and published in January 1918 as The Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, a popular publication which led to an expanded reprint in 1919[33] and again in 1925.[34]
Works
- 1905: The Golden Threshold, London: William Heineman[35]
- 1915: The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring, London: William Heineman and New York: John Lane Company[30]
- 1917: The Broken Wing: Songs of Love, Death and Destiny[36][37]
- 1919: "The Song of the Palanquin Bearers", lyrics by Naidu and music by Martin Shaw, London: Curwen[38]
- 1920: The Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co.[39]
- 1922: Editor, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, An Ambassador of Unity: His Speeches & Writings 1912–1917, with a biographical "Pen Portrait" of Jinnah by Naidu, Madras: Ganesh & Co.[40]
- 1928: The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India, New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co.[41][31]
- 1961: The Feather of the Dawn, edited by Padmaja Naidu, Bombay: Asia Publishing House[32]
