AD's English Literature

The political background of  English dramatist William Shakespeare 's tragedy , Antony and Cleopatra is manifest from the very beginning of the play and its quite natural being  a historical drama. As we all know the story is based on the intertwined lives of Roman general Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt from 51 to 30 bc . For his account of the characters and times, Shakespeare used Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Greek biographer Plutarch's Parallel Lives . The very first act of the play shows the internal political situation at Rome consequent upon Antony’s dotage on Queen Cleopatra of Egypt at Alexandria. The play opens in  Alexandria, Egypt, where Antony rules the Roman Empire with Octavius Caesar (later the emperor Augustus) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Although Antony and Cleopatra are already lovers, Antony has returned to Rome from Egypt and married Octavius’s sister, Octavia, in order to assuage Octavius’s misgivings...

Introduction:  Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" is one of the most celebrated works of Romantic poetry, written in 1820. In this lyrical ode, Shelley addresses the skylark, a small bird with an extraordinarily melodious song, and uses it as a symbol of ideal beauty, joy, and creativity. English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley becomes known as one of the greatest lyric poets of English literature. Among his best-known poems are 'To a Skylark' and 'To the West Wind.' Like acting or the playing of music, it is an art of interpretation, more difficult than mare saying so.  Percy Bysshe Shelley, the supreme lyric in the romantic period, always longs for something ethereal, something that is far beyond the earthly, spare of sorrow. His ‘To a Skylark’ as Wordsworth puts in “the expression of the highest to which the poets genius has attained”. It is one of the most marvelous of English lyric ever written. It is the expression of a genius who sings In profuse...

Edward Sapir   (1884–1939)  was a German-born American anthropologist-linguist and a leader in American structural linguistics.  He was a highly influential figure in the development of structural linguistics in America. As one of the founding fathers of modern linguistic theory, Sapir made significant contributions to the study of language structure, culture, and their interrelationships. His work laid the foundation for the field of American structuralism, and he is remembered not only for his theoretical contributions but also for his work on Native American languages. Key Contributions: Linguistic Relativity (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis): One of Sapir's most well-known ideas is related to linguistic relativity, later known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis . This theory suggests that the structure of a language influences the way its speakers perceive and think about the world. Sapir believed that language is not just a tool for communication but also shapes cultural patterns...

 The epigraph of A portrait of the Artist As A young Man: This Latin epigraph is taken over from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, VIII, 188 means ‘And he applies his mind to obscure arts’.  The epigraph sums up the theme of the novel. The mythic Daedalus escaped himself from the labyrinth of crete forming wax wings. Stephen Dedalus, too, is out to emancipate himself from labyrinth like Ireland with which he is disgusted. Evidently he will escape himself from there not by was wings but by ‘viewless wings’ of imagination. So the aim of the mythic Dadalus and Stephen Dedalus are alike. Significance of the name Stephen Dedalus: The name Stephen Dedalus conjoins the first Christian martyr St. Stephen, stoned to death outside Jerusalem in 34 A.D. and the great pagan artificer – artist hero, Dedalus. Like St. Stephen, the hero of the novel is or at least sees himself as, a martyr, a person whose potential spiritual dedication is thwarted by Ireland. His surname, however reminds us of the cunn...

Q. WHAT IS THE SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE OF BI CYCLE IN THE OX  ? ANS: The bi-cycle is the symbol of sole companionship for Mrs. Thurlow . She dreams about it and cannot walk without it. The bi-cycle is an object that externalizes the sway of emotions that lie suppressed in her. Q. what is the symbolic significance of Mrs. Thurlow's cottage? Ans: The location of Mrs. Thurlow's house and the movement of seasons   are all symbolic of a symbolic image of the human condition of gloom, despair,isolation and suffering where someone like Mrs. Thurlow symbolizes a Sisyphus-like existentialist fortitude and stoicism which makes her go on amid all the misery. Q. Do you find any symbolic meaning of Mr. Thurlow's silver plate?                                    Ans: Mr. Thurlow's silver plate in the head is another sad emblem of a lost self-hood and it is the assertion of its material va...

 Like the rhythms in nature, such as the motion of the planets, the succession of seasons, and the beating of the heart, poetic rhythm usually is organized in regularly recurring patterns. Such patterns regulate the motion of the music and aid the human ear in grasping its structure. The most basic rhythmic unit is the Iambic pentameter, alternates weak unstressed and strong stressed syllables to make a ten-syllable line (weak strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak strong).   iamb -- x / . . . . . . . . . (adjective form = iambic ) trochee- - / x . . . . . . . . (adjective form = trochaic ) anapest- - x x / . . . . . . . (adjective form = anapestic) dactyl- - / x x . . . . . . . . (adjective form = dactylic ) pyrrhic -- x x . . . . . . . . (adjective form = pyrrhic ) spondee -- / / . . . . . . . . (adjective form = spondaic ) dimeter  --two feet per line trimeter --three feet per line tetrameter   --four feet per...

  Fitzwilliam Darcy is the hero of Jane Austen‘s novel Pride and Prejudice . The ups and downs in the romance between Darcy and Elizabeth form the principal interest of the novel. The pride of Darcy gives rise to the Prejudice of Elizabeth and the complications of the plot are due to the increasing prejudice of Elizabeth against Darcy . Most interestingly with the mingling of positive and negative traits, Darcy seems deeply human. 

H ardy in a fatalist and to him destiny is always hostile to mankind. Fate acts according to its own whims in the form of chances, accidents and coincidences. Hardy thinks that the expected happy reality; the unexpected happens suddenly. The fate of his characters especially the hero or the heroine depends on the working of fate. In far from the Madding crowd there are number of events which make the characters to place them in the odd situation from which they have no way to get out. Chance in its purely malevolent aspect enters our life and spoils it, brings trails and tribulations, sorrows and sufferings, pain and agony in its train. What is the use of being play thing in the hands of “the President of the Immortals”. Hardy's novel Far from the Madding crowd is also a wanton field of destiny.