AD's English Literature

Introduction: The Source of the Title “Passage O soul to India! ---- Passage to India! Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?             ---------- A worship new I sing,             You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,             You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,             You, not for trade or transportation only, But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.  ” -- " A Passage to India"  by  Walt Whitman              Walt Whitman in his poem "Passage to India" wants the soul to take a journey to India for further advance. The ‘passage’ that Forster explores is also a similar journey. Like Whitman’s cry: “Passage to more than India”, Forster’s novel  "Passage to India"  is more than a historical novel about India; it is a prophetic work i...

 "We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language."                            --   Oscar Wilde Introduction American English is now a craze. It is obviously due to the fact that the Americans made a spectacular progress in the sphere of science and technology, in the sphere of trade and commerce, in the sphere of literature and athletics. Moreover, political power of America has assumed a formidable proportion. Naturally, the people of the world abroad, by and large, feel and urge to learn the language of the American people. But it is to be noted that American English and British English are fundamentally the same.  Though they share a common origin, centuries of geographical, cultural, and political separation have led to notable differences between the two.  On...

  “Some things are of that nature as to make One’s fancy chuckle while his heart doth ache” Wrote Bunyan.  The nature of things mostly appeared to Charles Lamb in this way. Lamb does not frolic out of lightness of heart, but to escape from gloom that might otherwise crush. He laughed to save himself from weeping. In fact, Lamb’s personal life was of disappointments and frustrations. But instead of complaining, he looked at the tragedies of life, its miseries and worries as a humorist. Thus his essays become an admixture of humour and pathos. Examples of his keen sense of humour and pathetic touches are scattered in all of his essays. Let’s focus our discussion on Dream Children: A Reverie.

Thomas Gray 's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"   is one of the most famous elegies written in any language. It is not on the death of any particular person, friend or relative. One evening while Gray was standing at Stoke Poges Churchyard watching the graves of the poor, unknown peasants, an idea came to his mind, he wrote his elegy on the death of the neglected fellow citizens – A note of deep melancholy, and broad humanity runs throughout Gray’s elegy. It is a retrospective of humble rustics with universal notes and sentiments. It is renowned for its poignant exploration of human life and mortality. The poem's evocative imagery, contemplative tone, and universal themes have resonated with readers for centuries, making it a timeless masterpiece.  After building an atmosphere of befitting evening landscape the transitional poet Gray in his poem  "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"   proceeds further to elaborate the rude ancestors who lie burie...

“Effectiveness of assertion is the Alpha and Omega of style”. –  Preface of Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw. The line bears ample truth in Vijay Tendulkar . He strives for this effectiveness of assertion in a variety of ways. Silence! The Court is in Session is his perfect creation. A multifaceted dramaturgic skill is employed here in this drama-- Stage-within-a-stage, importance of absentee character, the problem of identity and feminine assertion and above all the poetic language are accurately and effectively interwoven in his dramatic pattern.

                                               Swami Vivekananda      (January 12, 1863–July 4, 1902)                                   “If you want to know India , study Vivekananda; in him everything is positive and nothing negative”.                           ---- Rabindranath Tagore                Rightly says Tagore, Swami Vivekananda is the very spirit of youth and dream.  His exemplary and distinguished life i...

Alfred Prufruck is the central character of T. S. Eliot ’s famous poem The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock . He is middle aged dandy, a neurotic and tragic figure. The rottenness, the corruption and decadence of contemporary modern society is exposed with a rare poignancy here. Urban in setting, very often allusive, full of images symbols and references, drawn from various sources, the poem mercilessly exposes the boredom, inaction, restlessness of modem city life. What passes within Prufrock’s consciousness forms the narrative framework of the poem. In an unorganized and seemingly unconnected series of insights, memories and reflections the natural flow of the narrator’s  thoughts here it captures the total in decisions and doubts of Prufrock’s mind. With his mental and physical weakness, alternating between realism and fantasy, faltering within dreams, revisions, and revised opinions, alike the endless rounds of coffee and cigarettes in modern life, Prufrock has become coax, ...

The multidimensional world of As you like It. The conflicting world of reality and romance in As you like It. The Court versus Arden in As you like It.    “Though the ultimate world of Shakespeare’s comedy is romantic, poetic and imaginative, it is by no means unsubstantial and fantastic” – H. B. Charlton.              In fact, the union of fantasy and realism is a peculiar characteristic of the comic world of Shakespeare. Though the world of his comedies is highly romantic and visionary, it is not cut off from the world of reality. Though the background and atmosphere are romantic, they are all built on the solid rock of realism. Shakespeare’s    As You like It is a perfect blend of this singularity – a fusion of reality and romance, of courtly life and pastoral life of Arden, of actuality and imagination. As You like It is a juxtaposition of such variegated elements of life. The many-sided world in    As You like ...

Here is 30 short questions on Literary Topics & Grammar                                                            Fool, said my Muse to me, look in the heart and write – What kind of advice is given by the Muse to the poet? Do you find any anticipation of romantic theory? Ans. Poet Sidney wants to articulate his earnest love in the poetry of his own. But he can’t compose poetry worthy of its own and lacks the faculty of poetic articulation. Hence he steals others poetry to articulate his own verse. The poetic Muse here comes to guide his rescue and instructs him to introspect. Words spoken in the core of the heart must form the real poetry, she instructs.             The line anticipates the romantic theory of poetry as if spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions forms po...

Introduction: As you probably know that Robert Browning’s genius was essentially dramatic. His favourite form is dramatic monologue which though not invented by Browning was immensely popularized after him. Being a psychologist having his main idea to study the incidents that go to compose the development of the soul. Browning found this form to be extremely suitable to his purpose. His purpose is to throw light into the consciousness and so he frees himself from all the shackles that impede analysis. Thus to him dramatic monologue is a comprehensive soliloquy in which a certain critical moment in one’s person is taken and by permitting the individual to speak his character, the whole course of his existence are revealed in a brilliant search light. Now we will discuss his poem  "My Last Duchess"  as a dramatic monologue and see how far it interprets the flow of speaker's conscience.  What is a Dramatic Monologue? Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is a ...

Rabindranath Tagore, a towering figure in Indian and Bengali literature, was the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His contributions to the world of literature and his influence on Bengali culture and society are immeasurable. A Literary Giant: R abindranath Tagore  is a prolific writer, and he tries his hand successfully at almost all the major forms of literature producing a vast body of work that spanned poetry, drama, fiction, and essays.  Born in an educated Bengali family he receives his education primarily at home and close to natural setting. He paces  Bengali literature  to its highest scale by his versatile genius.  His most renowned work, "Gitanjali" (Song Offerings), a collection of poems, earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. The poems in "Gitanjali" explore themes of love, spirituality, and the beauty of nature, expressed with a lyrical and evocative style.

“My subject is war, and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity” – Wilfred Owen. Paradoxically enough Wilfred Owen began writing poetry in the tradition of the romantics with Keats and Shelley as his models equipped with a Romantic sensibility, Owen might have written better poetry but circumstances ordained otherwise. The war provided Owen with subject matter, which turned the romantic elegiac strain of his early poems into the deep feelings of sorrow and compassion, which characterize his later poems. The idea of the futility of the soldiers’ sacrifice is the theme of Strange Meeting . It simply  reflects the author's anti-war sentiment through vivid imagery and powerful language.  In fact, it is a poem of visionary dream. The poet soldier imagines that he has escaped from battle and gone to the other regions. As he keeps watching the corpses, one springs up with piteous recognization in fixed eyes’.  The poem begins with the horrors of war through vivid and g...

I n each of the modern play, psychology forms the upper hand . In the opacity of abysmal human psychological world the floating characters in the modern play broods over the revelation of life and its greater meaning. Eugene O Neill's  one-act play  "Thirst"  also provides a befitting atmosphere to snatch away the agonized hearts of three persons who are pinned up in the formulated phrase of lifelessness. The zeal for life, for rescue as if, in co-relation to fleeting El Dorado or missing Godot is totally absent in the hovering atmosphere of vast Atlantic Ocean where there is scorching sunlight and the endless blue horizon. The Dancer is still aspiring to live, dreams to live for the love of her life even if, it is denied altogether by fate or by still unknown human actions. The Dancer represents the class of arts, of living with hope, betterment and full of human dreams. Thus her transformation from life to death is the greatest tragic downfall expressed in the...

Literature is often regarded as a mirror to society, reflecting the spirit of the age —the dominant attitudes, values, beliefs, and concerns of a particular period. Through its themes, characters, and narratives, literature encapsulates the intellectual, cultural, political, and social climate of its time.  It is often said that history is the biography of a nation while   literature  is its autobiography. Truly speaking an author is as much a product of his society as his art is product of his own reaction to life.  Literature  reflects ‘zeitgeist’ or the time-spirit. Everyman, according to Goethe’s statement, is the citizen of his age as well as of his country. Literature as a whole grows and changes from generation to generation and obviously it is the rise, growth and decline of ideas, precepts and morals. Thus  literature  becomes a sort of sociological approach, a supplementary and commentary on history. As the pearl is the product of the oyster...

Philology, the study of language in written historical sources, involves the investigation of linguistic change over time and across cultures. It is closely tied to etymology, semantics, and syntax, examining how languages develop, evolve, and influence one another. This analysis focuses on various philological terms that play a crucial role in understanding the richness of the English language. By exploring terms like loanwords , cognates , back-formation , and malapropism , we gain insight into the processes that shape linguistic evolution. Such terms highlight how languages borrow, adapt, and transform vocabulary, syntax, and meaning, reflecting cultural exchanges and the dynamic nature of communication. This study not only illuminates the history of English but also demonstrates the broader impact of linguistic diversity. 1.Affixation- The three basic category terms in a word are affixes (divided into prefixes and suffixes steams and roots. Affixes are of two sorts in English; ele...

What is Twentieth Century Novel?   The Novel as the Modern Epic The stream of Consciousness Novel  The modern Psychological Novel  Introduction: Modern novels have taken place of the ancient epics. The magnitude of epic is not its volume or narrative enlargement; rather it is expansion of thought and perception. An epic reflects the conscience of an age, its life style and thought equilibrium. Thus, from Homer to Milton the epics become the carriage of social, moral and communal representation. Later, the same search of age – consciousness is done, at least tried, through the dramas. The dramas have their limitation in its time frame and dramaturgic setting. Even Shakespeare fails to cross these limitations. After many currents and cross currents of prose-lyrics become multi-faceted , many – sided, complex and abundantly rich in it astonishing variety. The modern novelists are reading the conscience of his characters through the medium of his own, and by the process the...

William   Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature and Man as revealed in  "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"  (commonly referred to as  "Tintern Abbey" ), the cult and creed of Wordsworth’s poetry, was the outcome of his direct communion with nature. This education of Wordsworth’s feelings, passions, receptive powers were derived namely from natural phenomena. Nature was a necessity of his being and through it he lives and breathes.  Here, Wordsworth expresses a profound and evolving relationship between Nature and Man . His attitude in the poem reveals his deep reverence for the natural world and highlights the crucial role it plays in shaping human consciousness, emotions, and moral values. Wordsworth contrasts his youthful, passionate connection with nature to the more reflective, spiritual understanding he gains as an adult. 1. Nature as a Source of Solace and Tranquility In " Tintern Abbey " Wordsworth has carefully analyzed the stages of his ...