AD's English Literature

A Forbidden Land of Spiritual Barrenness There are some parallels between Alfred Tennyson’s The Lotos-Eaters and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land . Lotosland offers not abundant life but spiritual death; it is no Garden of the Hesperides but a magnificently ironic variation upon a wasteland.  In both poems the past has become a bucket of ashes, a heap of broken images; fragmented and dimly remembered; it also is incapable of giving a sustenance which is not wanted anyway: ‘Let what is broken so remain.’..Lotosland has yellow down and sleeping poppies, thick twined vine and weeping long- leaved flowers, not Eliot’s dull roots, city streets and endless plains, but it is, as surely as Eliot’s ‘Waste Land’, a spiritual desert. John Pettigrew has pointed out: ‘In both the poems enervation and desiccation of spirit is refracted through symbolic landscape: The waters of the ‘hateful sea’ of troubles and life are as resented as the spring rains; of The Waste Land stirring memory and de...

  Introduction:  In the age of Digital Revolution, the English literature students are not far away of aspiring goal of ‘getting and reaching’ and by the process enriching the ultimate goal of learning. The same process cannot be overlooked in other South Asian / developing countries too. The recent meeting between Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodar Modi entices one to write this article where it can be easily stressed my wishes of suggesting your learning English literature through Facebook. Talking Facebook seriously: Facebook  I have seen students spending their valuable time on internet. They find nowhere to go but snuff and flirt with nonsense stuff online. But those early days of fantasy is gone now. They are now empowered by mobile. The great apps of Whatsapp, Facebook, and Google talk make them truly empowered by knowledge hub. They can access internet and get the news of their topics. Even through internet.org they ac...

Reading literature at the tender age can shape one’s characteristics by million ways. In this age of cyber communication and hyper activity, the literature can be at steady pace to safeguard and mould young siblings by providing them the right text at right time. Taking this into account we can devise a plan of reading into three separate groups.    Reading at Student Life On Job Reading   Pleasure Reading at the Pastime

Introduction: In spite of the great changes that occurred at the reign of Queen Victoria, Victorian poetry was, in a nutshell, a continuation of the Romantic Movement . But there were certain distinctive characteristics.  Doubts and  Disbelief  in the Religious Authority of the Church:

A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK 1. Which two plays were written by Thomas Heywood? (A) A Woman Killed With Kindness, The Royall King and the Loyall Subject (B) The Revenger's Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi (C) King Lear, Othello (D) The Alchemist, Volpone Answer: (A) (Thomas Heywood is known for these works, showcasing his contribution to English drama in the early 17th century.) 2. Who is the chief figure in John Webster's "The White Devil"? (A) Brachiano (B) Vittoria (C) Isabella (D) Commillo Answer: (B) (Vittoria is central to the plot, manipulating events leading to tragic outcomes.) 3. Which two dramatists collaborated on plays? (A) John Webster and Thomas Middleton (B) Beaumont and Fletcher (C) Marlowe and Shakespeare (D) Ben Jonson and Thomas Heywood Answer: (B) (Beaumont and Fletcher were a significant duo in the early 17th century, contributing many popular plays.) 4. Who is credited with introducing Revenge Tragedy ...

A Projection of Life:   The Choice-I is a poem taken from The House of Life which consists of 101 sonnets. These sonnets of Rossetti call to mind a projection of life ‘associated with love and death, with aspiration and with ideal art and beauty.’ They have been interpreted ‘as a record of his love for his dead wife and sorrow over her death, and as a record of his passion for W. Morris’s wife Jane.’ The emphasis placed on secrecy, delayed union, and reborn rapture would seem to support the view that the sonnets are, a record of his passion for Jane. However, both Rossetti and his brother William did not like their interpretation to be done from a biographical standpoint. The House of Life  Biographical or Fictitious: Unpleasant Reasons:  Acquaintance with these facts is necessary to understand whether the lovers referred to in  The Choice-I  are fictitious or they have some biographical basis. Rossetti did not approve of any Biographical interpretat...

The Victorian Age may be called the Golden Age of Literature if the size and variety is in count. No earlier age can compare or compete with it in respect of the variety, quality and output of its literature. Covering the span of 1832 to 1901, it has seen a wide, immense, variegate as well as self critical literary activities. The chief literary trends of the age are - (1) Bag Full of Words:  Despite the production of many poets the age is primarily an age of prose. Prosperity brought in leisure to a large section of the people who now wanted their minds to be filled with intellectual food, and the novel proved to be one of the pleasantest forms of Intellectual entertainment. In fact ‘never before, in any age or language, has the novel appeared in such numbers and in such perfection’. (ii) Moral Purpose:  Another trend of the age is its moral purpose reflected both in prose and poetry. Long remarks ‘The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great poets, nov...

Early sonnets are related to the early plays and later ones are akin to the dark comedies or tragedies:   Despite the controversy about the date of composition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, they may be taken to have been composed during 1590’s whether we take Meres’ Palladis Tamia which dated the sonnets before 1598 or Jaggard’s Miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim , which published two sonnets in 1599. The nineties of the sixteenth century constituted Shakespeare’s lyrical period which produced besides the sonnets such pieces as Venus and Adonis, Lucrere, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice .

The fourteenth century is a period of great political, social, religious and literary activity. Politically it was a period of the Hundred Years’ War which strengthened the feeling of national consciousness and patriotism both in England and France, people began to realize that they were Englishmen of Frenchmen and the idea of a Holy Empire vaporized from their thoughts. The victory at the battle of Crecy (1346) and of Portiers (1356) made Englishmen fervent patriots. As these crucial battles were largely won by the English yeomen, middle class sprang up to ascendancy. They gradually grabbed power from the hand of the nobility. Power, like a slippery cell , slipped from the hand of the nobility. The English Parliament, democratic to the very core, came into prominence. The position of the King was not better than a doll or a puppet. He was reduced to a doleful condition. He was like a bird whose wings were clipped off. He was not the ruler but he was ruled by his subjects. He did...