AD's English Literature

A Critique on R. J. Rees's English Literature: An Introduction for foreign students : chapter Epic   R. J. Rees in his English Literature: An Introduction for foreign students has passed the verdict that ‘the epic as a form of literature is now dead’. This orbiter dictum is quite justifiable considering the fact that no modern writer (barring the exception of James Joyce , whose Ulysses can justifiably claim epical stature) embarks upon this form today. This does not however, mean that great epics like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey or Virgil’s Aenied or Dante’s The Devina Commedia are no longer read with interest. But it must also be as certain that serious epics of the part have lost popular appeal among modern readers and that their interest today has been narrowed to the limited sphere of the academia. 

 An epic has been generally described as a long narrative poem, on a grand scale, about the deeds of warriors and heroes, kings and Gods. It is  majestic both in theme and style. It is a polygonal heroic story incorporating myth, legend, folktale, religion, and historical events of national or universal significance, involving action of broad sweep and grandeur.. Epics are mostly of national significance in the sense that they embody the history and aspirations of a nation in a lofty or grandiose manner. An epic is a cultural mirror with a fixed ideological stance, often reflecting the best and the noblest principles of a nation’s ethos. Basically there are two kinds of epic – a) Primary – also known as Oral or Primitive FOLK EPICS and b) Secondary – also known as literary. The first belongs to the oral tradition and is thus composed orally and recited. The secondary epic is a literary work of art. In the first category we may place, for example, Gilgamesh, the Sumerian epic...

An Introduction   William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were the high priest of romanticism and it is by their joint efforts that the 19th century becomes the periods of change and new birth in literature. It is the romantic revival --- a movement in the literature, characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature. The great achievement of theirs is Lyrical Ballads that brought about a new line of poetic thought. The preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) was of prime importance as a manifesto of literary romanticism. Here, the two poets affirmed the importance of feeling and imagination to poetic creation and disclaimed conventional literary forms and subjects. Thus, as romantic literature everywhere developed, imagination was praised over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science—making way for...

Of The Renaissance Spirit      As An Opportunist    As A Pragmatic Essayist     As A Utilitarian Philosopher   FRANCIS BACON  , LORD VERULAM, AND VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN'S (1561-1626)  the man is the product of Renaissance. Man’s glory, generous or tense, his opportunities of mind and body, his eyes rolling across the subtle and magnificence of the world his joy in learning, discovering, weighing – creating all these as it existed in Bacon’s mind, Essays (counsels: Civil and Moral) exhibits a practical value in life. Bacon’s essays are counsels and are designed for the practical benefits of man and not for his emotional or imaginative development. This utilitarian attitude is most evident in his 59 essays. 

Introduction Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963) 's " Tragedy and The Whole Truth" is an essay of literary criticism . With lucid, crystal clear statements his criticism at the literature and its truthfulness is expressed here. As a critique it is analyzing detailed, learned and brilliant exposition. The artistic revelation of the essence of literature – the truth, the whole truth interwoven the subject of interest in this piece.  It examines the nature of tragedy, exploring its impact on human existence and the pursuit of truth. Through his unique writing style and thought-provoking insights, Huxley offers readers a profound exploration of the human condition, illuminating the complex interplay between tragedy and the search for a deeper understanding of reality.  Let us study the piece through the following points.    The Super Truth Aldous Leonard Huxley draws a distinction between tragedy and novel in his essay. Tragedy is limited in its scope and range. Th...

T here is a conflicting view on the place of mother tongue in the teaching of English. The supporters of Translation Method strongly advocate the use of mother tongue in the teaching of English. On the other hand, the followers of the Direct Method insist on the “inhibition of the mother tongue” in teaching this language. H. Champion holds that the mother tongue may be used in the learning stage, but never in the practice stage. He also remarks, “But where he is satisfied that he is unable to explain the meaning of a new language form by the method of direct illustration or by verbal explanation in English he should not hesitate to use the mother tongue”. Thompson & Wyatt said that “the teacher should make the best use of the pupils knowledge and study of the vernacular”. A severe training in the use of the mother tongue is not rival, but a necessary preliminary to training in the use of English .  Let us carefully consider how the mother tongue can be used in teaching English...

With the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, literally the Romantic Movement started in England. However, the simplicity of diction, love of nature, attachment to human emotions, traits of super naturalism which are the basic features of Coleridge and Wordsworth’s poetry, can have its stress another fifty years back. In the poetry of James Thomson, William Collins, Thomas Grey, William Cowper etc. we have the fervent of early romantics. Let us discuss them under the following heads.

        OF TRUTH “Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.” “To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.”

 " A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, shows slowness: and a good reply or second speech, without a good settled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness."- Of Discourse   There can be no doubt about Bacon’s greatness as an essayist or a prose artist. The essay Of Discourse   clearly demonstrates Bacon’s powers and talents. Of Discourse is the second group of Bacon’s Essays that describe man in his intellectual and moral relations with others. Of Discourse is an essay on perfect oratory. Bacon has given a combative study between the traits and characteristics, virtues and vices etc of different modes of discourse.

1.      To which centuries do Robert Greene and Graham Greene belong? Ans. Robert Greene belongs to the second half of the sixteenth century (1558-1592).           And Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991 ) belongs to the earlier twentieth century. 2.      Can you name the authors of Hudibras and Erewhon ? Ans. Hudibras was written by Samuel Bulter (1612-80) and Erewhon was written by another Samuel Butlar (1835-1902). Read More A to Z (Objective Questions) 3.      Name two greatest elegies in English along with the names of the poet? Ans. Lycidas and In Memoriam are two greatest elegies in English literature. The former was written by John Milton and the later by Alfred Tennyson. 4.      Who are the author of Pamela and Pride and Prejudice ? Which of these two is epistolary novel? Ans. Pamela , a novel published under the authorship of Richards and ...

In an altercation in the 2 nd act of Major Barbara   Andrew Undershaft explains his philosophy thus:   Undershaft: Only that there are two things necessary to salvation. Cusins: Ah, the church catechism…………… U: The two things are C: Baptism and U: No. Money and gunpowder. C: Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honour, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth? U: Yes: They are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong and safe life. This is the trumpeted ‘Gospel’ of Andrew Undershaft, often taken to be Shavian mouth piece in the play. In the ‘Preface’ to Major Barbara, Shaw explains in details this religion of money and gunpowder and hails Andrew Undershaft as a ‘Saint’. Under the section entitled ‘the Gospel of St. Andrew Undershaft’, Shaw writes: “In the millionaire Undershaft, I have represented a man who has becomes intellectually and spiritually as well as practically conscious of the irresistible natural truth ……………… that our first duty, to which ev...

  Q what is the Greek mythological story associated with the title The Lotus Eater’? Ans: In Greek mythology , Odyssey IX, 84.  the Lotophagi ("lotus-eaters") were a race of people on an island dominated by lotus plants. The lotus flowers were the primary foodstuff of the island and it caused the people to sleep in peaceful apathy. When Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the lotus-eaters, they began doing as the natives did, eating the lotus flowers. This caused them to sleep and stop caring about ever going home. Finally, Odysseus managed to rescue himself from the apathy and set sail.                                                                ...

It is the epic convention to begin the poem with an invocation to the divine spirit to aid the poet in his great motivation of writing Poetry . Read More Poetry Homer thus begins his Iliad :            ‘Achilles wrath, to Greece the direful spring             Of Woes unnumbered, Heavenly Goddess sing!’  In Odyssey the Muse is again addressed to depict or to sing the wandering of Odysseus. Virgil too begins his Aeneid with the words: “Arms and the man I sing….”. Such epical canon is also employed by Milton too in his Paradise Lost where the first 26 lines constitute the part of invocation in which a pious address is made to the Muse and states his theme of the Poem .  Like Virgil Milton directly states the elevated theme of his, that is the ‘man’s first disobedience’. In a highly Latinized verse he alienates the subject from The Book of Genesis:      ...

A ristotle defined tragedy , as an imitation of action which is exalted and ‘serious’, evoking the twin emotions of ‘pity and fear’ of which there is a ‘Cathersis’ that is affected at the end. Read More Drama While defining tragedy thus in his treatise on the art of poetry named poetics, Aristotle realized that the tragic action requires a central agent to be carried out. This agent or the conveyor of the tragic action is the tragic hero. (In this context it should be mentioned that in poetics which deals with the art of poetry, by the word ‘Poetry’ Aristotle meant imaginative literature as a whole.)

Herman Ould defines one act play as, “it may be neat, compact and rigid; but it may also be wayward, expansive and flexible. So long as it does not conflict with the fundamental principles of drama, it may venture into a hundred different directions and exploit almost as many themes as the ingenuity and inventiveness of the author can suggest”. Such rules are never fixed and may change its degree of intensity. Sometimes the setting or impression or character does play vital roles in one act play. For example, W.W. Jacob’s “The Monkey’s Paw” or Galsworthy’s “The Little Man” or J. M. Synge’s “Riders To the Sea” are characteristically so different yet great one act plays. Let’s focus our discussions on J. M. Synge’s “Riders To the Sea” as a one act play and discuss its natural setting, plot construction, characterization and overall impressions on life. 

Old English ,  a variant of West Germanic , was spoken by Angles, Saxons , and Jutes. In Ecclesiastical History of the English People  ( Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ), completed in   A.D. 731, the Northumbrian cleric Bede reported that the Germanic settlers of Anglo-Saxon England came from "three very powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes." According to tradition, the Jutes were the first to arrive, in 449. Settling in Britain , the invaders drove the indigenous Celtic-speaking peoples, notably the Britons, to the north and west. As time went on, Old English evolved further from the original Continental form, and regional dialects developed.   The Old English language was comprised of four distinct dialects, including Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Of these, West Saxon emerged as the dominant dialect, and thus the majority of Old English documents available for study today are written in this dialec...

Keatsian Romanticism stresses strong emotion and the individual imagination as the ultimate critical and moral authority. His ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ is one of the finest achievements of such motifs. It is a ‘richly meditative ode’ as Prof Hereford calls it. The whole poem is built on the “thought of the contrast between the Joy, beauty and apparent permanence of the bird song and the sorrow and transience of beauty and joy in human life”. He had heard the “still sad music of humanity”. Read More Romantic Period The song fills him with a desire to escape from the hard reality of life into the world of love and beauty, into the world of visions and passions, into the world of the blessed. The nightingale’s song in the poem symbolizes the beauty of nature and art.

C harles Lamb occupies a unique place in the history of the English prose by virtue of his unique style. Though critics have more or less been unanimous in labeling Lamb’s style as ‘imitative’ of the Elizabethan prose writer like Browne, Burton, Fuller, it is not his imitativeness that strikes the modern readers, but his ability to stamp upon the old Elizabethan style with his mark of personality that lends a pleasing quietness to his style with versatility and insight, with humour and spontaneity. Read More Essay No doubt, there are many points in which Lamb imitates the Elizabethan writer – for example, in his use of words in the obsolete or Elizabethan senses, his fondness for alliteration, his use of compound words, his formation of adjectives from the proper names, his frequent use of Latinism. However, he is unique by the virtue of his telling stories bearing his personality as forever sweet memories, the quality as one of “Elia's” distinctive hallmarks, along with his fond...

New Pattern of SSC Exam Consist of One/Two Paper/s: Pass Category: (for classes VI to VIII) only TET ( Paper II) H/ PG Category: (for classes VI to VIII)TET & Subject( Paper I) H/ PG Category: (for classes IX to XII) only Subject( Paper I) Paper II TET ( Paper II) for Pass Category Or TET Paper For Qualifying to Paper I (Subject Paper) H/ PG Category: (for classes VI to VIII)TET & Subject( Paper I)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel about the education of a young Irishman, Stephen Daedalus, whose background has much in common with Joyce’s. However, in determining the genre of A Portrait readers and critics both face a lengthy debate. In terms of its critical reception A Portrait has had its share of detractors and its admirers. As far as its autobiographical elements are concerned A Portrait can be seen both as a ‘ Bildungsroman ’ which describes the youthful development of the central character and as ‘aesthetic autobiography’ or ‘ kunstlerroman ’ . We will now carryout our discussions on Joyce’s portrayal of Stephen and see how he keeps varying his distance from Stephen but never does so drastically.

The essence of a Romantic comedy especially the Shakespearean kind lies primarily in the explorations of the depths of the lover’s hearts, their emotions, their feelings, their joyous outbursts and their momentary agonies. The way Shakespeare sounded the depths of passion in Viola and Olivia, in Hermia and Lysander , in Rosalind and Orlando , shows that the purpose of the Romantic Comedies is to explore in depth love, a deep attribute of the heart, as a value guiding human lives. This fathoming the depth of cordial emotions is absent in a comedy of manners. In a comedy of manners love is a portrayal, but the purpose of the playwright is not to try and analyze the guiding spirit of this steadfast passion called love in the form of intrigues, just as a game of the two sexes presented only on the superficial social plane. Millamant and   Mirabell   are not Violas and Rosalinds ; the former take love as an intrigue, the latter are deeply swayed by it.

The Victorian Age, spanning from the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), was a period of significant social, political, and economic change in England. English literature during this time reflected the complexities and contradictions of the era, exploring themes of industrialization, imperialism, social justice, and the human condition. Key Events and Literary Movements: 1830s: The Oxford Movement begins, seeking to revitalize the Church of England. 1832: The Great Reform Act expands voting rights, leading to increased political participation. 1859: Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" is published, challenging traditional views of creation and sparking controversy. 1860s: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is formed, promoting a return to medieval artistic ideals. 1870s: Realism becomes a dominant literary movement, focusing on the depiction of everyday life and social issues. 1880s: The Decadent movement emerges, celebrating aestheticism and the re...