AD's English Literature

“In the mean time the world was in an alarm, and all the inhabitants of it gathered together upon a spacious plain; so that I seemed to have all the species before my eyes. A voice was heard from the clouds, declaring the intention of this visit, which was to restore and appropriate to everyone living what was his due. The fear and hope, joy and sorrow, which appeared in that great assembly after this solemn declaration, are not to be expressed.”  ---- A Vision of Justice by  Joseph Addison A Vision of Justice by Joseph Addison is thematically complex, with much material to argue about. The most disputable theme or concept may be the implication of inevitability disclosed at the end of the essay: the reality of judgment.   A Vision of Justice , however, is a delightful essay which has neatness, lucidity and precision of expression. Its style is highly polished and cultivated. There is spontaneity and ease in it. It is written in a familiar and elegant mann...

"I must live a well regulated life.  I have a weak heart, continual pappitations, and I am very sensitive and always getting excited...But the worst of all is sleep! I hardly lie down and begin to doze before....I jump up like a madman, walk about a little, and lie down again.... And so it is all night long!" -Ivan Vassilievich Lomov in Anton Chekhov’s A Marriage Proposal     Anton Chekhov’s one act play A Marriage Proposal is not thoroughly anti romantic like that of G. B. Shaw’s Arms and the Man . In Shaw’s case it was practicality and good judgment preceding over romance and love, here in Chekhov’s A Marriage Proposal economic security takes precedence over romance and love. Even though Russia is the primary setting, it can be anywhere in the world, and the home can be the case of any household history. Read More Drama Ivan Vassilievich Lomov is no superhuman Bluntschli, and Natalia is no sweet sixteen of Riana. But they are representative of every man, ev...

                                                                                                       “I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—”That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but a...

I ntroduction: John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Tulsidasa's Ramcharitmanas enjoys a magical cast of characters including one mournful king-man, an inarticulate but athletic scarecrow devil, a chattering spiritual, two apprentice enchanters, many headstrong leaders, and a host of others. The Wizard Satan is, of course, one of the major characters, as is the determined Rama hater, who proves by the end of the story to be both his match and his mate. Read More Criticism Myth the fire demon and the Ravana of the far, furlong round out the central foursome, and it is through their intervention that Satan and Rama originally come—and eventually remain—together by the voice of incarnation. Tulsidasa's Ramcharitmanas opens with Rama, the eldest of four brothers. Although gifted with intelligence, diligence, and a supportive nature, Rama constantly denigrates himself because of the expectations surrounding her birth status: In India it is quite a fortune to be born the eldest of ...

“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.” Percy Bysshe Shelley  (1792 - 1822) English poet. A Defence of Poetry The unfinished critical work A Defence of Poetry (written 1821; published 1840) by P. B. Shelley is minutely skillful. The justly celebrated A Defence of Poetry by P. B. Shelley was originally written, as its title suggests, in a polemic vein, as an answer to Peacock's The Four Ages of Poetry. In this essay, written a year before his death, as earlier said, Shelley addresses  The Four Ages of Poetry ,  a witty magazine piece by his friend, Thomas Love Peacock. Read More Romantic    Period Peacock’s work teases and jokes through its definitions and conclusions, specifically that the poetry has become valueless and redundant in an age of science and technology, and that intelligent people should give up their literary pursuits and put their intelligence to good use. Shelley takes this treat...

  M other Tongue interferes in the teaching of foreign language in a number of ways. When a child learns his mother tongue there is no other language getting in the way but when he learns a foreign language (F.L) the habits of his mother tongue conflicts with those of the foreign tongue. Read More Teaching English ( TEFL )   This conflict arises in all areas viz sounds, structures and vocabulary. The distances of languages   is to be looked for—( 1 ) in pronunciation, or the ways of speaking the same words by different peoples; (2) in the vocabulary, or the use of the same words to express the same ideas in different languages ; (3) in grammatical structure, or the ways in which words are put together to make sentences. Read More Teaching English ( TEFL )   So that in two languages we shall find that letters and words are pronounced rather differently, but that the words used are mostly the other, and that there is so much difference in the grammar—that is, in t...

“I found how the World had been misled by prostitute Writers, to ascribe the greatest Exploits in War to Cowards, the wisest Counsel to Fools, Sincerity to Flatterers, Roman Virtue to Betrayers of their Country, Piety to Atheists, Chastity to Sodomites, Truth to Informers.” Jonathan Swift’s  Gulliver’s Travels ( Part III) Jonathan Swift’s "Gulliver’s Travels" is a timeless creation. George Orwell considered it to be one of the finest five works of world literature. Gulliver’s Travels resembles Daniel Defoe’s "Robinson Crusoe". But it is not merely an adventurous travel tale. It is more than that. The creator had some basic viewpoints about life. He makes it dear that he will advocate his unbiased view of life in the guise of some exciting story. The obvious source of attraction of the book is its rich humour. Read More Novel It is written in a technique of a science fiction. But the most striking feature of the tale is the satire inherent in the different s...

“Everything comes to us that belong to us if we create the capacity to receive it.” - Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore ’s perceptive and insightful essay ‘Modern Poetry’ was written long before either   the emergence of what we call to the post modernist trends, or even the application of the term ‘modern’ trends initialed in the 20 th century English literature by writers like T.S. Eliot. We call T.S. Eliot a modernist today. But Tagore would naturally have been unfamiliar with the term. In any case, among the modernist poets, only Eliot is Tagore’s concern in his essay is to define the term ‘modern’ and indicate its limit, he first deals with the question of relativity which is always implied by the term. The term is in fact semantically mobile and in general sense, modern poetry is something that progresses in company with and at the speed of the years: the last year’s modern is not this year’s. Tagore realizes the problem where he says that the poetry of the g...

“Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking? mad or well advised? Known unto these, and to myself disguised! I'll say as they say, and persever so, And in this mist at all adventures go” ---ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE The Comedy of Errors ( 1592 ), play by English playwright and poet William Shakespeare,  exemplifies the common Elizabethan practice of adapting classical comedy to the contemporary stage: The plot is loosely based on the play Menaechmi of Roman dramatist Plautus, and it also borrows from his Amphitrus . The story revolves around the twins Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse, their parents, and the family’s two servants, Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, who are also twins. Read More William Shakespeare   A shipwreck separates the family into two groups, leaving the mother with one son and one servant and the father with the other pair. The 'errors' of the play’s title are caused by repeated instances of mistaken identity. T...

  Introduction:   Sakoontala, written by     Kalidasa in Sanskrit literature, in Old Testament, the Book of Job are splendid drama, mighty in theme. On the other hand, great writers like Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in tragedy, and Aristophanes in comedy, produced masterpieces before which the world has marveled.   As in Greece, drama in England was its beginning a religious thing. Its oldest continuous tradition was from the mediaeval Church. Read More Drama Early in the Middle Ages the clergy and their parishioners began the habit, at Christmas, Easter and other holidays, of playing some part of the story of Christ's life suitable to the festival of the day. These plays were liturgical, and originally, no doubt, overshadowed by a choral element. But gradually the inherent human capacity for mimicry and drama took the upper hand; from ceremonies they developed into performances; they passed from the stage in the church porch to the stage in the street....