AD's English Literature

“There are many who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their Mother Tongue.” John Dryden  (1631 - 1700) English poet, playwright, and literary critic. Sylvae (translation of Horace's Odes) T he system of learning English or any other foreign language after learning the mother tongue is justified or not is much debated.  The controversial subject needs to be cleared on the sequence of learning mother tongue and foreign language in more psychological analysis.  Although many century linguists strove to make their own mother dialects the basis for a standard language, attempts were also made to work out a general   tongue. Literature, however, languished in dominant language until the late   century, when signs of a marginalized language literary revival developed—in reaction to the dominant language, which had become rivaling, control over other languages.

R abindranath Tagore once declared that his own country would best remember him for his songs, and indeed he is seen by an over whelming majority of his countryman not merely as a poet  but doubled with a singer. The essentially musical charter of the lyrics in Gitanjali was clearly indicated by the title which Tagore gave to the English version Songs Offerings. The pieces included in it were prose renderings of a selection of poems from the Bengali Gitanjali, Naividya , kheya, Gitimalya –all titles which reveal the song –like character of the poems. The accent in all these anthologies is as much on the music as on the poetry. As K.R.S Iyengar says; “the stillness is suddenly disturbed by a dance of rhythm; the ear is charmed and enraptured, there is a quick passage through the doors of sensibility and the chords reach the soul’s sanctuary at last.” This is evident even is the translation, though many feel that Tagore defies translation into English even when the attempt is ma...

  T he peasants in the novels of Hardy may be regarded as the chorus. We meet these rustic characters in " The Return of the Native  "(Fairway, Christian, Grandfer Cantle, and the rest), " Far from the Madding Crowd" (Joseph Poorgrass, Henry Fray, Billy Smalibury, Jan Coggan), and so on. They cannot be compared with the central figures in the drama, because they are placed in the story to provide a chorus. They always appear in a group, seldom separately. They are not full-length portraits.  Moreover, they are drawn in a different convention. Here Hardy is in the straight tradition from Shakespeare. These rustic characters are the direct descendants of Bottom and Dogberry and the rustics who gather in response to Falstaff’s call to arms at the house of Justice Shallow, and are made up of a few strongly marked, deliberately caricatured personal idiosyncrasies. Rich fragments of rusticity, they are as entertaining as any of the classic comic characters of Fielding or ...

M ilitary Heroism regards a soldier as a superhuman being above the ordinary weaknesses, moved entirely by noble impulses Patriotism and self sacrifice, utter disregard of life, and strive for honour and honour only—these are the traits of Military Heroism. Military Heroism is the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in literary works such as great epics or poems. Survival in the Face of Mass Destruction of War is in fact the goal in being a soldier and that there is s no such unified political or national response to the Military Heroism. Shaw thinks that this view is the view of home sweet home who have never been to the battle front. In reality, a soldier is a man like any other man. War is his profession. A true soldier is not anxious to fling away his life, but he adopts all means to save it. The hero Bluntschli climbs a waterpipe and enters a lady’s bed-room in order to save his life. He does no jump to the mouth of the cannon like Sergius who, he say, should be court...

    I ntroduction:  Teachers of English should be on intimate terms with the masterpieces they are expected to teach. They ought to have a clear idea of the action of the play, and mental pictures of the various scenes and characters. They should be familiar with the fine lines; should be able to quote what is worthwhile; and should appreciate the diction, the wealth of allusion, and the various other literary qualities that combine to produce style. These things come through careful and loving study of a masterpiece and this is also true for the teaching of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar . In fact, since its first production, Julius Caesar has enjoyed immense and enduring popularity. The play forms part of the repertoire of most Shakespearean stock companies. A notable production, with the actors in modern dress, was directed by Orson Welles for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1937. There have been several motion picture productions of Jul...

 “From the conjunction of Vibhãvas, Anubhãvas and Vyabhicaribhãvas Rasa are produced.”-  Bharatamuni’s Natyasastra   T he principle of Rasa is the very kernel of Indian Poetics . Rasa is the essence of literature. The outlines of the nature of poetry appeared in Bharatamuni’s Natyasastra . Bharata says, “From the conjunction of Vibhãvas, Anubhãvas and Vyabhicaribhãvas Rasa are produced.” Just as persons, mentally peaceful, while eating food mixed with various kinds of condiments taste and derive pleasure and the like, so also spectators with calm minds taste the Sthyibhãvas spiced with various kinds of emotions enacted and combined with verbal, physical and Sãttvika acting and derive pleasure. Bharata’s aphoristic statement “Vibhavanubhavayabhicarisamayogidrasanishpattih” has been discussed at length by good many scholars. Of these Bhattalollata, Srisankuta, Bhattanayaka and Abhinavagupta deserve special mention. They will be discussed separately in this short critical e...

W illiam Blake was one of the greatest poets of the Romantic age and a protest against oppression which also becomes an aspect of Blake’s religious faith. His The Divine Image   glorifies the innocence of human being as in the grand design of God. The poem The Divine Image   is from Songs of Innocence and is written in the ballad metre. It expresses Blake’s faith in man as being an embodiment of all the divine qualities. This being so, the poet feels that man must love his fellow-beings just as he loves God, Love for man alone, believed Blake  could bring man closer to God and create paradise on earth.

T he poem ‘Birches’ was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in August 1915. In this poem we come across the poet’s desire to withdraw from the world as also his love of the earth as symbolized by the boy’s game of swinging birches. Frost’s central subject is humanity. His poetry lives with particular aliveness because it expresses living people. Other poets have written about people. But Robert frost’s poems are of the people; they work, and they walk about, and converse, and tell their tales with the freedom of common speech. “Birches” is among Frost best-known piece and has acquired wide popularity. What places the poem on a distinctly high level of appeal is the true and broad humanity running throughout the poem. In the background of the swinging birches, the imaginary boy’s behaviour and utterances acquire a philosophical depth and wisdom. The central thought of this poem is that the poet dreams of becoming a swinger o birches once again in his life as he was during his boyh...

  W hen students walk into classroom, they should feel that they have entered a place of and for learning; an English classroom specifically; classroom in particular. But the classroom is not only physical but also mental. Establish a clutter-free and organized room. Ensure that desks, tables and shelving are used, mainly, for one purpose. Exercise books, textbooks, novels, paper, pens, dictionaries and worksheets should have a specific place; preferably labeled. Class displays should be current and well presented. How is the English classroom different from others?

1. The Evolution of Theater Acting: T heater encompasses various elements, such as actors, audience, text, costumes, scenery, lights, sound, and props, which collaboratively contribute to the production. This article delves into the roles of masks, costumes, and symbolic elements in classical Greek theatre, shedding light on their profound significance.  A cting in  classical theatre  was highly stylized. Speeches were rendered in a declamatory manner. This was essentially because theatre was an open door affair, and the audience was quite large in number. The nature of the performance environment placed considerable task on the voice. According to Oscar G. Brockett, the Greeks “judged actors above all by the beauty of vocal tone and ability to adapt to manner of speaking to mood and character”.  2.  The Evolution of Theater: From Rituals to Theatrical Spectacles: Euripides (480?-406? bc) In the realm of theater, the significance of voice projection led to a hei...

K eats is one of the major poets of the Romantic Revival of the early 19th century. Along with Byron and Shelley he forms the trio of the younger romantic poets. Keats was greatly fascinated by classical literature comprising the poetry of Homer and Virgil. His emotional reacting to Homer’s poetry is conveyed in his early sonnet ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’. However, despite his love of Greek lore and his interest in classical literature, Keats is thoroughly a romantic poet. Keats developed his own romantic theory of poetry and expressed it in his poem ‘Sleep and Poetry’, just as Wordsworth and Coleridge had formulated their romantic theory of poetry in the preface to ‘Lyrical Ballads’ about two decades ago. No poet could have owed his education more completely to the English poets than did John Keats. His knowledge of Latin was slight--he knew no Greek, and even the classical stories which he loved and constantly used, came to him almost entirely through the medium of El...

"A River"  by A. K. Ramanujan is a tour de force of impressive potency and insightful philosophy and yet a poem characterized by its graceful lucidity and finely honed criticism. Through the poem the poet raises the question of an artist’s commitment to the society. A.K. Ramanujan develops the theme very well, with excellent pacing, through very solid use of imagery. This poem is a pretty melancholic but it's presented well, cohesive, thought provoking piece. The river, which is a symbol of life and fertility, becomes a destructive force. The poets, both old and new, are indifferent to the sufferings and havoc wrought by the river. The emotional sterility matches with the dryness and the river has water enough to be poetic once a year as a reporter witnesses the scene. The river mentioned is the Vaigai, famed in Tamil legends and puranas. A. K. Ramanujan in "A River" presents these ideas in an unsentimental manner. In " A River" , the narrator ta...