00212—Central issues/concerns of Postcolonial studies [Post-colonialism/Postcolonial literature] [English Literature free notes]


The central issues are:
1. The rejection of the “master narrative” of Western imperialism,
2. Concern with the construction of the colonial and postcolonial subject, and,
3. Disestablishing the Eurocentric norms of literary and artistic values.

1.    The colonial other is marginalized and subordinated in the master narrative where the central power is western imperialism.  Traditionally, the Eurocentric notions regulated the art and literature.  But here there is a revolution. The master narrative is replaced by a counter-narrative.  By doing this the colonial cultures fight their way back into a world history manipulated by Europeans.

2.     Postcolonial studies are also concerned with the categories of by means of which this subject conceives itself and perceives the world within which it lives and acts. The colonial subject=Subaltern.  Subaltern is a British word stands for a low ranked military personnel. Sub=under. Alter=other. (Latin) Gayatri Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak is an important work in this field. 

3.    The main agenda of post colonialist thinkers is to destroy the centre that holds the power (here it is Eurocentric norms) so that both the colonial and postcolonial writers can come under one umbrella. 

00201--'Dover Beach' mourns the loss of faith in the modern times. OR Discuss the poem as an elegy on the spiritual degeneration in modern times. [Matthew Arnold] [English Literature free notes]




Mathew Arnold's 'Dover Beach' is a beautiful lyric which describes the helpless uncertainty and doubt of the Victorian period.  There was a gradual decline in man's faith in God and religion.  The Victorian mind was dazzled by the achievements of science and material progress.  Faced with this choice between the world of faith and the world of materialism, the Victorian found himself in a sad Plight.  In Dover Beach Mathew Arnold pictures this inability of man to make the right choice.  The poet uses the sea as a symbol to bring home this idea.
            The poem has a very beautiful setting.  It is a very peaceful quiet moonlit night at the Dover Beach.  The sea is calm and full.  The Dover cliff stands out glimmering and vast.  The night air is sweet.  The tides coming to the shore fling down pebbles on the stand with a clattering sound.  The poet watches this ceaseless action of the waves.  He listens to the rhythmic cadence of the waves and he detects the eternal note of sadness in it.
            The sad note is not only the poet's own personal feeling.  It is the universal note of sadness.  The poet now takes us back through history to the time of Sophocles.  He too listened to the sad music of the waves; it brought into his mind the miserable plight of humanity, its turbid ebb and flow.  Though the reference is to Sophocles, Arnold bridges the present with the past. 
            From the real sea Arnold now goes to the metaphorical sea.  It is the sea of faith.  It was once full, beautifully spread out and deep.  This sea of faith once encircled and protected the entire world's faith in God and religion sustained humanity in those days of glory.  The poet feels a sense of loss and utter despair as he looks on the dimly lit scene before him. 
            The sea of faith is no longer full.  It has receded with a long melancholy roar like the sea in front of him has receded exposing the pebbles and leaving the shore littered with shingles.  Arnold has in mind a society which has moved away from religious faith cherished in the past and is now torn between faith and the glamour of materialism.
            Arnold thinks that there is only one clear solution for man to get out of this dilemma.  It is the power of true love.  The last part of the poem thus reveals Arnold's abiding faith in the power of true love to console man when he is plunged in despair.
            The world of science and technology seems to be a dream world, so beautiful, so varied and so new.  The poet feels that there is no real joy and happiness in this world.  No joy, no light, no certitude, it is only a beautiful mirage.
            The poet is once again plunged in despair as he looks on the dimly lit sea scape.  The tide has receded so low that the sea shore seems to expand in to a vast dark plain.  The poet now visualizes ignorant armies clashing on this battle field.  They are in utter confusion and fight without knowing friend from foe.  Thus Arnold closes the poem giving us a terrifying picture of anarchy and futility. 




00210--'A Prayer for my Daughter' by W.B.Yeats [English Literature free notes]



This is a poem in which Yeats prays for the happiness and well-being of his daughter, who has just been born.  The poet is slightly upset as he thinks with apprehension about the collapse of modern civilization.  While the poet's mind is stormy with this fear the child is calmly sleeping in the cradle.  The thought about the dangers awaiting the child frightens him.  The poet listens to the ominous howling of the storm in his mind as he thinks of the dangers his daughter may be exposed to.  The gloomy poet walks up and down and prays for his daughter.  As he listens to the stormy wind he thinks the prophetic vision described in his poem "The second Coming" is at hand.
            Then there follows a skillful description of the kind of beauty that is not desirable in a woman – beauty that makes a stranger crazy or that makes a woman exult at her reflection in the mirror.  The poet prays that his daughter may have beauty, but not excessive beauty.  He knows that too much beauty in a woman will land her in danger.  He knows that fabulous beauty goes with an empty mind.  The poet makes suggestive allusions to Helen who had "much trouble from a fool" and Venus who chose "a bandy-legged smith" as her husband.  From both these stories the poet draws a realistic and at the same time entertaining moral:
                        It's certain that fine women eat
                        A crazy salad with their meat
                        Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
            So the poet wishes and prays that his daughter may be granted moderate beauty.
     Yeats's next prayer is that his daughter should grow up like a laurel tree with linnets singing on its branches.  The laurel tree represents luxuriant growth and peace and harmony.  While the birds stand for joy.  She should bring joy to those around her just as the birds provide joy to people.  The poet wants her daughter to become free from hatred.  The poet knows that intellectual hatred is great evil and can make the mind hollow.  The soul is the fountain of joy and peace and so if she can attune her will to the will of God, she need not have any fear about anything.  As the radical innocence of the soul is the highest form of spiritual development, Yeasts asks his daughter to recover it.  It is a gift from heaven and no earthly temptations can subdue her.
            Yeats's next wish is that his daughter should not become a political fanatic.  Fanaticism will create hatred and ill will and a woman with these vices will become incapable of using the gifts conferred on her.  No doubt, the poet is referring to Maud Gonne, the talented and beautiful lady whom Yeats loved.  She rejected him and married John Macbride, another political fanatic.  According to the poet, she wrecked her life and caused misery to her friends and relatives.  It was vanity and hatred that threw her life into confusion.  It is Yeats's wish that his daughter should not devote herself to any impersonal cause, sacrificing all other values in life.
      Yeats prays that her daughter be endowed with courtesy which he considers as the queen of all virtues.  Courteous behaviour can win over hearts.  Ceremoniousness is another quality that the poet wishes her daughter to possess.  According to him ceremony alone will engender innocence and beauty.  The poet makes references to Maud Gonne in several places in the poem.  This shows the poet's inordinate love foe her.  She rejected his love and chose to dedicate herself to the cause of Irish Independence.  Later though she married another political fanatic, John Macbride, she did not have a happy married life.  It is the poet's prayer that his daughter should not have similar experiences.
            The poem contains many heart-warming lines expressive of affection, humanity, generosity, optimism, good cheer, amiability etc.  Besides, we find several examples of the felicity of word and phrase: "the murderous innocence of the sea", "an old bellows full of angry wind", "rooted in one dear perpetual place" etc. are examples.  We also get a bit of moralizing which has its own appeal:  "an intellectual hatred is the worst."
                        "Ceremony's s the name for the rich horn
                        And custom for the spreading laurel tree."
            "A prayer for my Daughter" is a poem full of practical wisdom, moral philosophy and beauty.                        


                                                                               

00209--Robert Frost///'"The Road Not Taken." summary




THE ROAD NOT TAKEN- SUMMARY


  "The Road Not Taken" is one of Frost's most characteristic meditative lyrics.  Among the major themes of Frost's poetry are his ambiguous relationship with nature, his interest in the paradoxes of life and his faith in human fortitude.  Some of these are touched upon in "The Road Not Taken."  The "road" here is, of course, the career or occupation that a man might choose to follow at a particular period of his life.  Frost was a farmer, a teacher and a journalist before he chose to become a professional poet.  Perhaps it is this choosing of a new "road" in his life that prompted the poem.  Life always offers us roads of different choices.  Our decision determines our future.
           One day as the poet was walking through a small forest he saw his road branching away into two directions.  It was autumn, the roads were covered with yellow leaves.   As he had to make a choice, the poet stood there for some time and took the road that was less used.  This means that the other road was much traveled by, meaning that it was a path of conventional career.  But he took the road which was less conventional, and therefore more adventurous.  The poet thought that he would travel along the other road some other day.  But when he thought that the way he took must lead to other ways, he knew that he could never come back to use the second road.  Years later he would tell his friends about those roads and how his choice had made all the difference.  But the poet does not clarify what the difference has been, whether it has been good or bad.  He leaves it in ambiguity.
            
Robert Frost
Superficially the poem describes a simple, common country scene in simple language.  But a closer look will reveal the deeper meaning it has.    Many of the characteristic features of Frost's poetry can be seen here.  The speculation on the untrodden path is natural to a poet like Frost who avoids the expression of romantic excitement about the experiences of life.  Frost employs a simple language and no decorative imagery.  But his interest in paradox and ambiguity makes the poem deeper than it looks at the first reading.






00208--"The Unknown Citizen" by W.H.Auden [English Literature free notes]


  
W.H. Auden in his poem "The Unknown Citizen" tackles an immediate problem of contemporary life.  In this satirical poem he laughs at the attitude of an ordinary citizen in a totalitarian state.  The decline of the status of the individual has made him a cog in the machine.  The individual has no freedom of action or initiative.  He seems to be happy in a superficial, in  a purely material sense, but he has been deprived of his basic rights.  It is the cause of these modern citizens that Auden depicts in the poem.
            The title of the poem "The Unknown Citizen" is suggestive.  It recalls the name 'the Unknown warrior' which was used for a fallen soldier who was taken as the representative of all those who had been killed in the Great War, and who lay in nameless graves in foreign battlefields.  The Unknown Citizen is a representative of the citizens who have been virtually buried in the modern scientific society and have lost all their individuality.  Auden laments the loss of individuality and freedom of the citizen.
            Auden's Unknown Citizen was one who satisfied the standards set by his state.  The Bureau of statistics declared that he obeyed all the laws of the state and followed all conventions of society and there was no complaint about him.   Fudge Motors Inc where he was employed was fully satisfied with his work.  He paid his dues to the local trade union.  Researchers in social psychology declared that he was social and gave company to his co-workers by joining them for a drink occasionally.  The evaluators of newspapers stated that he bought a newspaper every day and was normal in his response to advertisements.  The agents of manufacturers of modern machines on installment basis and he paid his installments and insurance premium regularly and punctually.  He was in fact a 'saint' in the modern sense of the term.
            Public opinion polls showed that he had the right opinions for the right season, always conforming to the general opinion.  Though he loved peace, he was quite willing to fight in a war.  He had the right number of children and had no objection to the state's giving any kind of education to them.  All these prove that he was not free to express his opinions or view in any matter.  He strictly did abid by the laws and interests of his state.
            In the last lines of the poem Auden asks an important question; was the unknown citizen free and happy?  The poet says that the question is absurd.  What he implies is that the citizen might say that he is free and happy for fear of social isolation or harassment.  In fact he is not free to express any of his preferences.  He has no freedom of action and initiative.  Where there is no freedom, there cannot be any happiness.  Though he seems to be happy, he is only pretending to be happy in the midst of the modern materialistic comforts.
            Auden ironically depicts the problems of an ordinary citizen in a totalitarian state.  He has no identity.  He is just a cog in the machine.



00207--An Analysis of John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” [English Literature free notes]



John Donne addresses his poem “The Sun Rising” to the sun, but the theme of the poem is the joy of true love.  The poet derives infinite joy by loving and by being loved.  The poet’s wit and irony are here directed against the sun for trying to interfere in the lover’s happiness.

In the opening stanza, the sun is addressed as “busy, old fool” flashing his light into the lover’s bedroom, perhaps with the intention of waking up and parting them.  It is unfair on his part to expect the lovers to act according to his movements.  He may go about his trivial errands like pulling up ‘late school boys’ and lazy apprentices who hate to work.  The country ants and courtiers may knuckle under his authority but not so the lovers.  Love is above time, which is regulated by the sun.  For lovers, seasons, hours and days have no meaning.

The argument against the sun is continued.  The sun need not think that his light is dazzling and worthy of respect.  If the poet closes his eyes, the sunlight is rendered dark.  But he does not like to lose sight of his beloved by closing his eyes.  In hyperbolic language he asks the sun if the eyes of his beloved are not brighter than sunlight.  Gazing into her eyes, the sun may feel dazzled.  Roaming over the whole world, the sun can inform him on the next day whether the lady is not worth more than the East and the West Indies.  The poet’s lady comprises in her all the kingdoms.  The poet, in the possession of his mistress is thus richer than any king on earth.

The lovers in Donne’s poem are the archetypal ideas or the soul of the world, of which the states and princes are imperfect perfections.  The poet declares that there is nothing else besides him and his beloved which implies that they have become one, and together they constitute the soul of the world.  The lovers can look down upon the world from the heights of perfection they have reached through the realization of their true love.  The pomp and majesty of a king is then a mere imitation of the glory attained by lovers.  Compared to their spiritual wealth, all material wealth seems counterfeit.  The sun, being old and run down, will welcome the contraction of the world.  Now that the lovers are the world, the can fulfill his duty of lighting and warming the world by merely shining on them.  By circling round a single room, he can circle round the whole world.

The tone of the poem is gently ironic besides being playful and colloquial.  Love is shown as having triumphed over time and space.  The poet’s sense of completeness in the possession of his mistress is an illusion.  The lovers mock at space and time as illusions without realizing that they themselves are under an illusion.  Those who accept the reality of time and space may be poor deluded mortals, but the lovers who pride themselves I having achieved a sense of completeness are by no means better.  Professor A.  Stein points out, “What the lovers represent majestically is not a distillation of all that is precious and delightful on earth to the imagination of a lover, who does not feel himself quite on earth….  The lovers possess in their bed what does not seem to incommode them as idea and image, a composite token of the material possession of that gross external world.”

The lovers look out on other illusions from an unexamined illusion.  The poet, with his beloved by his side, feels infinite bliss, which to him appears perfect.  He tries to force on us the conviction that the kings and their kingdoms are all with the lovers.  The lady comprises in her all the kingdoms, and the poet comprises in him all the kings.  A king with all his indisputable power and majesty can only imitate the bliss of the lovers.  Even the sun is presented as being glad to move round the lovers who represent the whole world.  The sun’s duty of giving light and warmth to the world is thus lightened.

All told, one is left wondering if Donne is not mocking at himself and his lady, living in an illusory world of unadulterated joy.  Donne is here mocking at the conventional conceits found in the love poems of his time, or he imply that the lovers represent the soul of the world or the Platonic archetype of the world.


00206--Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth[English Literature free notes]



The poem Tintern Abbey ranks among the finest and the most characteristic of Wordsworth’s works.  It sums up Wordsworth’s development and furnishes a sure criterion to evaluate his life and poetry.  Moreover, it marks the birth of a new age in the history of English poetry.  It is usual for Wordsworth to compose lyrics by recalling a scene observed weeks, months, or even years earlier.  In the poem Tintern Abbey he describes a second visit to the Wye valley after an interval of five years.  This provides the occasion for his statement that during all these years he has been bearing in mind the sights and sounds there as a balm to his troubled soul amid the fret and fever of life.  In seeking to explain how this can be, he gives us an autobiography in a nutshell, outlining the three successive phases of his love of nature. 

Wordsworth recalls how five years earlier he had made his previous visit to the beauty-spot round Tintern Abbey.  Now he sees again the familiar and lovely spot recognizing the pleasing murmurs of the mountain streams, the Wye flowing down the mountain side.

The poet sees the landscape rendered solemn and impressive by the steep sides of lofty hills in one of the most unfrequented and wild spot in Wales.  A holy inexplicable calm pervades the scene which seems to ascend to the heavens themselves.  From where he stands in the shade of a sycamore tree, he gets a general view of distant cottages, each standing in its own small plot of ground hidden amidst the green foliage of trees, bushes and creepers trailing to the very doors of the houses.  Wisps of smoke arise from the chimneys of the cottages, but as the latter are hidden behind a curtain of leaves and branches, the on-looker gets the impression of nomads or stray gypsies living in the open and cooking their food.  The poet even wonders if there could be some hermit’s cave nearby from which the lonely ascetic is preparing his simple food.  Thus amidst the profusion of nature, unbroken solitude and absence of human beings, the poet derives an almost religious and inspiring tranquility.


  Recognizing the familiar features of the landscape seen earlier, the poet feels a sense of joy, of release in the presence of congenial natural sights and sounds.  He thinks of the uneasiness and confusions generated by the cities.  During the last five years, memories of the abbey and the river have frequented him at times of distress and gloom, and miraculously cheered up his drooping spirits.  As often as his emotions were pained or his spirits dejected, he had only to recall the lovely scenes of the country round Tintern Abbey to feel refreshed and to be revived.  These contacts with Nature delighted his mind and strengthened his character.  From this the poet inferred that there must be some vital and secret connection between the spirit of nature and the cultivation of human feelings in the right direction. 

Over and above the chastening and strengthening of his moral and emotional aspects, the poet derived from the nature the power of looking into the mystery of life and finding the principle of unity and harmony underlying all creation.  By practicing a kind of yoga he attuned his mind and spirit to the mysterious working of a supreme presence all around him, he got rid of the frustrations and failures of life step by step, forgot the weight of the mortal body and became exalted in spirit and sensation until he saw nothing but a beneficent force brooding over all the universe of which he himself was a part.  Thus he came to unravel the mystery or riddle of existence itself.  It was indeed the triumph of spirit over flesh.  Thanks to this realization which enabled him to escape from the fever and fret of life, from the restrictions and artificialities of conventional society, into deep communication with the spirit of Nature herself as he felt it when he was in Tintern Abbey.

There are three stages in the evolution of his attitude to Nature.  The first stage is called the infant stage.  In this period he looked upon nature much as the rose looks upon its new-begun course of life.  This stage is of mere sensation, of the gratification of instincts and feelings without any attempt to analyze or sort them out. 

The second stage is that of adolescence. Love is the most turbulent and ecstatic manifestation of youth.  The poet’s attitude towards nature becomes that of a lover’s attitude to his mistress.  Just as in the presence of his beloved, or even at the mere thought of her, the lover’s entire body, feelings and mind become roused as with extreme rapture, so did the poet feel in the presence of “the sounding cataract”.  This is only symbolical, for the “sounding cataract” is but one manifestation of nature.   

The final and third phase of Wordsworth’s attitude happened when both the unreasoned and unanalyzed attitudes give place to the philosophic interpretation of the influence and essential attributes of Nature.  Wordsworth was able to find in the all pervading spirit of nature a full recognition of the sadness or pathos of human life with its countless trials and tribulations; this sadness was necessary for a proper integration of the higher faculties and active expression of a sublime and supreme spirit in nature.  This spirit was to be recognized in his own heart as well as in remote planets and worlds other than ours. To this all-pervading power of Nature Wordsworth owes the stimulation of his creative faculties as well as his power of enjoying the beauties of the manifested world.  He believes that all his good qualities are the results of his adoration of Nature.

Ultimately the poet connects his sister with this spiritual development.  The human element of the poem is strengthened by these references to his sister.  He sees in her what he was a few years ago.  He wishes that she may continue to be so for few more years and  then follow his path of evolution.




00205--'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' as a ballad [John Keats]. [English Literature free notes]


A ballad is a narrative song of love and adventure usually using a dramatic form of questions and answers.  Keats's famous poem  "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", has been written in the style of a ballad.  It tells the story of a knight who was enchanted by a beautiful lady who finally destroyed him.  In his poem Keats has followed the ballad style.  He uses archaic words and the metre of the poem conforms to the ballad style.  The subject matter of the poem is also a characteristic of a ballad.  The theme of most of the early ballads is a knight's love for a fairy, the deception and the consequent sad plight of the knight.  This poem is one of the few successful ballads written in English poetry. 
            Like most traditional ballads the poem begins with a question.  The poet finds a knight equipped with his weapons loitering about alone in the woods.  He looks sad and pale.  It is the autumn season and even the weeds of the lake are dried up and no bird sings.  The poet asks the knight why he is roaming about alone in the dull season of the year when the corn has been reaped and even the squirrels are not found moving about the fields as they are stored enough grain for the winter.  He further tells the knight that his face is as white as a lily and his forehead is covered with drops of perspiration resulting from some inward pain.  His cheeks are bloodless and dry like a rose which is losing its colour and withering quickly.
            The knight tells the poet his touching story.  While roaming about in the meadows he met an extremely beautiful lady.  She looked a fairy child.  She had long hair and walked nimbly.  There was wildness in her eyes.  The knight was so much enchanted by her beauty that he plucked flowers and made a garland for her head and bracelets and sweet smelling belt.  The beautiful lady did not speak a word.  From her look and sweet melancholic manner the knight thought that she loved him dearly.  He took her on his horse and they rode the whole day.  In his extreme love for the lady, he did not notice anything around him.  While riding, the lady bent sideways and sang some fairy song.  At last they reached a strange place.  The lady offered him delicious food.  She spoke in a strange language.  The knight thought that she was expressing her love for him.  She then took him to her fairy home and there she lulled him to sleep.  In his sleep he saw a nightmare.  He felt that he was lying on the side of a cold hill and there he saw a number of princes, kings and warriors.  They looked very pale.  They told him that they had been deceived by the beautiful lady.  They were her early Victims.  When he woke up he found that he was lying alone on the cold hill.  The lady had deserted him.  In his sad plight he is roaming about the dreary hill in that dull season of the year.   

00204--"My Last Duchess" as a dramatic monologue. OR A critical analysis of 'My Last Duchess'. [Robert Browning] [English Literature free notes]




.

Browning's poems are studies of the character.  They are studies of the other men.  The poet stands apart and gives his characters a platform and lets them speak to us, and as they speak they unfold their character.  It was for this purpose that Browning invented a new genre of poetry known as dramatic monologue or dramatic lyric.  It has a few well-defined characteristics.  It is a compromise between the drama, the soliloquy and the lyric.  The author keeps himself entirely in the background and so it is essentially dramatic.   As only one character speaks it is a monologue.  The monologue is essentially a lyrical outpouring or a subjective self-examination.



     "My Last Duchess" is one of Browning's finest dramatic monologues.  The poem proves that Browning is a matchless master of this kind of poetry.  The poem also reveals the poet's deep understanding of human character and capacity to present it in the most dramatic and impressive manner.  As in the other monologues here also the chief character is the speaker of the monologue.  Here there is only one listener, who does not speak anything at all.  The central character of our poem is an Italian nobleman who intends to marry the daughter of a rich count, whose agent is the silent listener.  As his speech goes on we come to understand the character and outlook of the man.  As he narrates his relationship with his wife point by point our understanding of him gets widened.  Browning is a master of delineating the complex inner life of men.  Here we find the Duke talking about his last Duchess, but in fact he speaks more about himself.

listen to : Short summary of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning


            Usually what Browning does in his dramatic monologue is to bring the speaker before us at a crucial moment when he is most likely to reveal his character.  In 'My Last Duchess' the apt moment is when the Count's agent has come to conclude the negotiations regarding the proposal of a union between the count's daughter and the Duke.  It is quite natural that the Duke would look back into the past and think about his first wife and his relationship with her.  The snobbish Duke must have taken the agent around the house and on reaching the art gallery he must have shown the portrait of his last Duchess.  Explaining to the agent the reason behind the depth of the passion and earnest glance on the face of the portrait, the Duke briefly reveals the character of his former wife, wand in the process lays bare his own egotism, possessiveness and cruelty.
 The dramatic situation and the presence of a listener is very subtly and cleverly suggested by the occasional direct address made by the Duke to the count's agent.  Indirectly we see his curiosity to take a look at the curtained portrait and then his desire to know how such an expression of intense joy happened on the face of the portrait.  This gives occasion to the Duke to describe his former wife's character and the way in which he treated her.   His cruelty, his egotism, his jealousy minus love are all revealed to us.   Finally there is a suggestion that the agent stood back as they began to descend the steps so that the Duke may proceed.  However the Duke invites the agent to walk abreast and as they step down he points to a bronze statue of Neptune, remarking that it is a rare piece.
The poem is thus a very good example of a dramatic monologue.  It is full of action, not merely a long soliloquy delivered by a character.  It is dramatic, however small the compass may be, and it projects before us a vivid picture of all the emotion natural to a character.

 listen to : Detailed Analysis of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning




00203--John Milton's ‘Lycidas’ as a Pastoral Elegy [English Literature free notes]






John Milton's ‘Lycidas’ as a Pastoral Elegy

Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ is one of the greatest pastoral elegies in English literature.   Pastoralism in literature is an attitude in which the writer looks at life from the view point of a shepherd.  In classical literature this has been successfully handled by Theocritus of Sicily, and after him by Virgil and Bion.  In English literature it was popularised by Sir Philip Sydney and Edmund Spenser, but the scintillating star in the firmament of pastoralism is certainly John Milton.

Pastoral elegy has its own conventions handed down from generation to generation.  Let us see how far Milton has observed them in ‘Lycidas’.  The pastoral poet begins by invoking the Muses and goes on referring to other figures from classical mythology.  In ‘Lycidas’ we find an invocation to the Muses from line 15 to 22.  Milton concludes by expecting a similar service from some other poet when he is dead.

Secondly, the mourning in pastoral poetry is almost universal.  Nature joins in mourning the shepherd’s death in ‘Lycidas’, private sorrow giving place to public sorrow.  Lines 37-49 in Lycidas describes the mourning.  Woods and caves once haunted by Lycidas now mourn for him.




The inquest over the death is another tradition found in Pastoral poems.  In lines 50-63, Milton charges the nymphs with negligence.  But the next moment it dawns on him that they would have been helpless.  Triton, the herald of the sea questions every wind and is assured that the air was calm when Lycidas set sail.  The conclusion drawn is that the fatal ship that sank Lycidas was built during the eclipse and fitted out in the midst of curses.

Then comes a description of the procession of mourners as found in all pastoral elegies.  Camus, representing Cambridge university and leadership, leads the procession.  The last among the mourners is St.Peter mourning the loss to the church incurred by the death of Lycidas.  With a denunciation of the corrupt clergyman, St.Peter disappears.  Lines 88-111 are occupied with this description.

Post-Renaissance elegies often included an elaborate passage in which the poet mentions appropriate flowers of various hues and significance brought to deck the hearse.  Lines 133 to 151 carry such a description.  Among the primrose, the crowetoe, the pink and the woodbine, the amaranth alone signifies immortality with its unfading nature.

In orthodox pastoral elegies there is a closing consolation.  The poet accordingly asks the shepherds to weep no more, for Lycidas is not dead, but has merely passed from one earth to heaven.  Lines 165 to 185 offer consolation.  In Christian elegies, the reversal from grief to joy occurs when the writer realizes that death on earth is entry into a higher life.  But Milton adds that Lycidas has become a genius of the shore to play the guardian angel to those who wander in the dangerous flood.

Milton has followed the conventions in pastoral poetry, but he has mingled in it Greek mythology and Christian theology.  In addition there are two digressions from pastoral strain: a) a discussion on the true values of life, and, b) a bitter criticism of the clergyman of the day. He introduces St.Peter into the list of mourners which shows the deepening puritanical fervour of the poet.  In the other parts of the poem he has merely used the images handed down from classical ages.  But when questions about the religious state of England rose in his mind, he could not restrain himself.  He puts into the mouth of St.Peter a trade against the corrupt clergymen of his day.  He prophesies that the domination of the corrupting leaders is doomed.   The note of keen personal regret is conspicuous by its absence.  Milton here laments the loss of the church, for Edward king was intended for the church.  He would have certainly set an example of purity and devotion to the other priests.  In addition, the poet is bewailing the loss of another poet, who also knew “to build the lofty rhyme”.


‘Lycidas’ is unquestionably a pagan poem.  But Milton, the austere puritan could not help introducing Christian elements into it.  Thus with its curious mixture of pagan loveliness and Christian austerity, it becomes the offspring of Milton’s unparalleled genius.  The poem starts with an apology for breaking the poet’s resolve not to write any poetry until his poetic talent has matured fully.  The concluding eight lines from a sort of epilogue in which Milton speaks directly, having stepped out of the character of the shephered.  Having passed through many moods and sung in different strains, the shepherd draws his clock around him and leaves the spot.





00202--A critical appreciation of the poem "Punishment in Kindergarten" [Kamala Das]. [English Literature free notes]



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"Punishment in Kindergarten" is a little autobiographical poem by the famous Indo-Anglian poet Kamala Das.  She recalls one of her childhood experiences.  When she was in the kindergarten, one day the children were taken for a picnic. All the children except her were playing and making merry.  But she alone kept away from the company of the children.  Their teacher, a blue-frocked woman, scolded her saying.
                        "Why don't you join the others, what
                        A peculiar child you are!"
            This heard, all the other children who were sipping sugar cane turned and laughed.  The child felt it very much.  She became sad at the words of the teacher.  But the laughter by the children made her sadder.  She thought that they should have consoled her rather than laughing and insulting her.  Filled with sorrow and shame she did her face in a hedge and wept.  This was indeed a painful experience to a little child in the nursery school.
            Now after many years she has grown into an adult.  She has only a faint memory of the blue-frocked woman and the laughing faces of the children.  Now she has learned to have an 'adult peace' and happiness in her present state as a grown-up person.  Now there is no need for her to be perturbed about that bitter kindergarten experience.  With her long experience in life she has learned that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow.  She remembers how she has experienced both the joy and sorrow of life.  The long passage of time has taught her many things.  She is no more a lonely individual as she used to feel when she was a child.  The poet comes to a conclusion that there is no need for her to remember that picnic day, when she hid her face in the hedge, watching the steel-white sun, that was standing lonely in the sky.
            The poem is written in three stanzas, each having different number of lines – the first with seven lines, the second with six and the third with nine.  The poem does not follow any regular rhyme scheme.  The subject matter of the poem has two parts, the first of which being the description of the painful experience of the kindergarten days and the second, the adult's attitude to the incident at present when she is no more a child.
            The poet seems to be nostalgic about her childhood days.  There are certain expressions in the poem that are worth remembering.  The poet says that the child buried its face in the hedge and "smelt the flowers and the pain".  "Smelt the flowers can be taken as an ordinary expression, but "smelt the pain" is something very evocative and expressive.  In the first stanza of the poem, the poet describes the pain caused to the child, "throwing words like pots and pans".  This again is beautiful.  The phrase used by the poet to describe the child's teacher, namely, "blue-frocked woman" can be justified from the child's point of view.  But to the poet who is an adult the use of the phrase looks a little too awkward.  On the whole, the poem can be taken as the poet's interest in remembering her childhood days.



00201--Summary of Ode On A Grecian Urn [John Keats] [English Literature free notes]


Stanza 1.  The poet addresses the Urn. Looking at the urn the poets imagination conjures up the ancient life and worship suggested by the sculptured images and he speculates on the abstract relation of art and life.  These figures are unpolluted by the hand of man and not destroyed by time.  Time which destroys everything has preserved it like a foster child.  Scenes from rustic life are depicted on the urn.  It is also if some historian had recorded ancient Greek life.  The engraver has succeeded in giving it permanence.  A poet could not do this better.  The scene is pictured with an ornamental border of leaves.  It tells the tales of gods and men in Tempe or the valleys of Arcadia in Greece.  The poet now asks a few questions.  We are these men or gods?  Who are these women feigning coyness?  Why do the men or gods pursue them madly?  The poet wonders how they elude their pursuers.  Pipes and timbrels are playing and the whole scene is filled with exquisite rapture.
            Stanza 2.  In the second stanza the poet emphasizes the permanence of a moment captured by art.
            Songs heard in reality are sweet, but those unheard, those which dwell in the realm of the ideal are sweeter still.  From the real world the poet takes us through the world of art into the pure realm of imagination.  So the pipes he seems on the urn play on not to the physical ear but to the ears of the soul and we hear the harmonies of eternity.  The poet addresses the sculptured figure of the young man who cannot stop singing.  The trees under which he is standing will be ever green, Both the youth and the trees have passed into the realm of eternity through art.  The lover is about to kiss his beloved.  The consoles the lover.  His beloved is always young because as in real life the lover and the girl do not grow old and lose their beauty. 
            Stanza 3.  On the urn the trees are even green.  They cannot shed their leaves because it is always spring for them.  The piper standing under the tree will keep on signing fresh songs.  The lovers on the urn keep on loving.  They are always happy.  The fleeting passions of real life do not affect them.  They are never surfeited.  They do not suffer from the agonies of thwarted love.
            Stanza 4.  The poets curiosity is aroused watching the figures coming to the sacrifice.  Who are these men and women?  Who is this mysterious priest who leads the young sacrificial cow to the grassy alter.  The poet hears the pitiful crying of the cow.  Looking beyond what he seems before this eyes the poet visualizes the empty stress of the little town.   All the people have gone to the sacrifice.  They will never return and the streets of the city will ever be silent and desolate. 
            Stanza 5.  The beautiful shape of the Grecian Urn raises in the mind of the poet the ideal of Beauty which he equates with Truth.  The sculptured figures of men and women and the pastoral scene raise thoughts which baffle the poet.  They are as mysterious as eternity.  When men of this age are crippled by old age the urn would whisper words of comfort Oman of succeeding generations.  Beauty is truth, truth beauty.  Beauty and truth becomes one and the same thing.


00200--Consider 'Mac Flecknoe' as a satire. [John Dryden, Poetry] [English Literature free notes]




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John Dryden's MacFlecknoe is one of the finest satires in the English language. It was Neo-classical period in English literature and Dryden, along with another brilliant satirist Alexander Pope, was the power who dominated the literary scene.  Satire was the most popular form of poetry and both Dryden and pope were great masters of this poetic genre.

Mac Flecknoe is the product of a literary and personal rivalry.  The poem was Dryden's reply to Thomas Shadwell's poem.  The Medal of John Bayes which in turn was a criticism of Dryden's earlier poem.  The Medal. Shadwell's poem was an unfair and indecent attack.  This provoked Dryden and he brought out mac Flecknoe that silenced his adversary.
            Dryden's satirical genius is fully revealed in the poem.  It is a satire on Thomas Shadwell.  Who was once a friend of Dryden.


            Mac Flecknoe is ready to vacate his tile as the world's worst poet.  A worthy successor has to be chosen.  The choice falls on Shadwell. The coronation takes place in Barbican, London suburb notorious for its low and vulgar life.  The events are presented in an absurd ridiculous manner.

            Dryden uses allusions, paradies and quotations profusely to ridicule the great hero of the poem.


            The gross stupidity of Shadwell is highlighted from the beginning of all the sons of Flecknoe, he Shadwell is dullest and therefore by nature the fittest to succeed his father.  His stupidity is of such comprehensive nature that the rest to some faint meaning make pretense.  But Shadwell never deviates into sense.  Shadwell is described as a giant of a man, but a pygmy intellectually.  Thus Nature designed him to be the great monarch of dullness.  Flecknoe himself was the king of the kingdom of dullness.  He says he was only a John the Baptist preparing the way to the great Jesus Christ. 


            Irony is the most potent weapon Dryden wields in his literary warfare.  Shadwell's enormous stupidity is highlighted throughout the poem.  The man's corpulence, his mountain belly and his addiction to opium are referred to.  Apart from this attack on his adversaries personal attributes, Dryden uses, most of the poem to criticise the 'poetic talents' of his rival.
            Mac Flecknoe is designed to be a mock heroic poem.  So the interest is always focused on this aspect.
            Mock-heroic poetry employs a satirical devise in which the great ad the silly are brought together and compared.  This way the absurd nonsensical effect is largely increased.  For this purpose Dryden has chosen events and characters from the Bible and ancient history.  Shadwell is selected and put n the throne of stupidity in a coronation which is described in detail.  It is as if the audience is witnessing the coronation of a great king who is destined to rule a vast empire.  The poem ends drawing a parallel to the Biblical story of the mantle of Elijah falling on the shoulders of Elisha giving him a double portion of his sire's prophetic spirit.







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