AD's English Literature

The Evolution of Poetic Drama: From Dionysian Festivals to Modern Revivals The traditional origin of drama as the chorus in Dionysian festivals in pre – Socratic Greece has led to the primal form of the drama to be poetry. Such verse drama was seen not only in plays of these Greek masters like Aeschylus and Sophocles , but was continued by English masters such as Marlowe , Shakespeare and Ben Jonson during the Renaissance of English literature in the Elizabethan period . The belated efforts of the romantics like Wordsworth with The Borderers , Shelly with The Cenci and Byron with his Manfred were unable to remain no more than closet plays. It was only in the 20 th century, when stalwarts like Yeats and Eliot made a serious foray into the genre, the poetic drama regained some of its lost status. They attempted to revive poetic drama, which had fallen out of fashion with the rise of realism.  The Poetic Fusion: Yeats's Mythic Vision and Noh-inspired Dramas"  The Irish poet an...

Satan's Speeches in Paradise Lost: A Magnificent Blend of Rhetoric, Passion, and Psychological Insight Satan's Persuasive Power If William Blake ever declared that Milton, ‘was of the Devil’s party without knowing it’ ( The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), the judgment stems chiefly from the fact that Satan’s speeches were so admirable and arousing that even the devout of Christians would not be able to refrain from holding Satan in great esteem. Though some critics like C.S. Lewis may arraign Satan for his ‘blatant lies’ ( A Preface to Paradise Lost ) , it must be conceded that Satan believed at least sound of his arguments to be true. Further at would be naïve to expect a leader, and particularly one of Satanic stature, to adhere only to facts, Satan is a leader of the rebels, and a leader’s success lies in motivating his people. Satan’s speeches, magnificent as they are in their psychological insight, passionate feeling and rhetorical grandeur, must be judged only by that yard...

Pandemonium: The Infernal Marvel of Milton's Creation The pandemonium is that creation in hell designed for infernal conclaves which would rival in its splendor the greatest of human creations and perhaps even divine architecture. It is a word formed by the union of two Greek words, pan, all, and daemon, demon, but the compound word did not exist in the Greek vocabulary, and Milton formed it out the analogy of ‘pantheon’, the abode of the gods. The pantheon at Rome was a temple containing statues of all the gods. Milton’s pandemonium is the capital of Hell built to receive all the devils. The coinages of Milton have gained currency in the English, the common noun being used to express a place full of tumultuous voice, confusion and discord.

“ The noblest mind the best contentment has. ”  The Faerie Queene  Introduction In spite of the variety and beauty of his shorter poems, The Faerie Queene( 1609) is by far the most important of Spenser’s works. “Virgil without the Aeneid , Milton without Paradise Lost ------ would still rank as the great poets” , C.S. Lewis observed “whereas Spenser ’s reputation is almost entirely dependent on the Faerie Queene ” Purpose and Structure In his educatory letter to sir Walter Raleigh , Spenser explains that his book is 'continued allegory or dark conceit ' of which the general purpose is to fashion a gentle man or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline '. These were to be twelve books , each book to deal with the adventures of a particular knight , who was to represent some Virtue, He has chosen king Arthur as his epic hero and in his person represents 'magnificence ' as being the perfection of all the virtues , and makes twelve other Knights the 'pa...

The Anatomy of Tragedy: Exploring the Tragic Hero, Catharsis, Hamartia, and Comic Relief What is Tragedy? A tragedy is a serious play representing the disastrous downfall of a central character, the most influential definition of tragedy is that of Aristotle in his Poetics which says that tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and complete in achieving a catharsis through incidents arousing pity and terror. Aristotle also observed that the protagonist is led in to fatal calamity by his hamartia or ‘error’ which often takes the form of hubris or excessive pride. The tragic effect usually depends on our awareness of admirable qualities in the protagonist which are wasted terribly in the fated disaster. The most painfully tragic plays like Shakespeare’s King Lear shows a disproportion between the hero’s initial error and the destruction with which it is punished. Modern tragedies are different from the earlier ones in the sense that they depict socially inferior hero...

Introduction Jane Austen's domestic novels are renowned for their intricate exploration of everyday life. With a keen eye for satire, Austen exposes the attitudes prevalent in the rural middle and upper-middle classes. In  Pride and Prejudice , she centers the story on the Bennett sisters, delving into their domestic lives and aspirations. Elizabeth, Jane, and their siblings navigate the complexities of love, societal expectations, and personal growth. Austen's insightful portrayal of the Bennett family offers a captivating glimpse into the ordinary yet captivating world of the middle class, making Pride and Prejudice a timeless masterpiece.     Domestic Life: Exploring Jane Austen's  Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen’s novels have rightly been called domestic novels. For one thing, 'She never goes out of the parlor' and chooses to work with two or three families in a small village as her source material. Thus, in Pride and Prejudice, she primarily delves into the d...

The first fifty years of the 20 th century pass the emergence of two major poets in Great Britain and their contribution to Briton poetry is of immense value. First came W.B. Yeats an Irishman and the other, Thomas Sterns Eliot, an American who made England his home. And it was with the publication of The waste Land , in 1922, that Eliot came to be recognized as a leading light of English poetry in the period following the great war. T.S. Eliot The poem is written is an extremely difficult style. It is extremely rich in recondite symbolism and obscure references to ancient literate, mythology, history and even religion. The poem has five sections- (a) The Burial of the Dead (b) The Game of Chess (c) The Fire Sermon (d) Death By Water (e) What the Thunder Said. The uniting link between these five parts is the figure of Tiresias. However, it is less a unity of character than a unity of mood. It’s the mood of despair and gloom that there is a remote possibility of hope and redemption...

Most common Literary Terms Schools of Literature Literary Movements Metaphor Simile Symbolism Irony Foreshadowing Alliteration Personification Hyperbole Allegory Imagery Theme Tone Point of view Conflict Setting Plot Characterization Satire Rhyme Protagonist Romanticism Realism Naturalism Modernism Postmodernism Existentialism Transcendentalism Harlem Renaissance Beat Generation Renaissance Victorian Literature Gothic Literature Surrealism Magical Realism Southern Gothic Minimalism Harlem Renaissance Absurdism Dadaism Symbolism Renaissance Enlightenment Romanticism Realism Naturalism Symbolism Modernism Postmodernism Beat Generation Harlem Renaissance Transcendentalism Existentialism Surrealism Dadaism Imagism Cubism Futurism Magical Realism Minimalism Absurdism Most common Literary Terms: Wordsworthian definition of poetry: Poetry is a criticism of life, masters the laws of poetic trust and poetic beauty. Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful fillings, taking its origin from e...

The Language policy followed in the Post independence era was expected to be vernacular rather than upon pro English . Mahatma Gandhi, as early as 1937, had commented on the deleterious effect of early education though English:  “English having been made the medium of in striation in all the hasher branches of learning has created a permanent bar between the highly educated few and the medicated many. It has prevailed knowledge from percolating to the masses. The excessive importance given to English has cast upon the educated class a burden which has maimed then mentally for life and made then strangers in their own land.”

  PART – I Mock Test Examination  Difficulty Level: Graduation Full marks: 100 Time: 3hrs (a)     Answer ANY TEN question: 10*3= 30   What is called sonnet sequence? Mention two sequences along with their authors. What is the meaning of the tile word Astrophel and Stella ? Bring out the significance. What is the meaning of the title word Amoretti? How many sonnets are there in this series? “Oft turning other’s are leaves, to see if there would flow some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun burnt brain”-Whose brain is ‘sun burnt’ and why? What is meant by ‘showers’? Which is called ‘nature’s child’ and why? ‘Vain man’, said she, “that dost in vain assay”- Why does the lady call the man ‘vain’? It the lady right in saying so?   “My verse yours virtues rare shall eternize”- rewrite the sentence in proper grammatical order. What kind of rhetoric is in the quoted line?   To whom does Shakespeare address his Sonnet no 130? Give...