Tuesday, 21 April 2015

The War of Independence (1857)

      WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1857)
India’s First War of Independence (1857-58), also referred to as the Sepoy Mutiny, Uprising of 1857 or Great Rebellion, and was an uprising against British rule in India, which had its roots in a variety of political, social, economic and religious factors that had built up over time. A few specific areas such as Meerut, Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Jhansi were the centers of resistance. The resistance disintegrated primarily due to lack of leadership and unity on the part of the Indians. It was a remarkable event in Indian history, marking the formal start of the British Raj in India as well as the initial stirrings of the struggle for independence from colonialism.
Causes of War:
The War of Independence broke out due to a variety of factors some longstanding and some more immediate. One important cause was the Doctrine of Lapse introduced in 1852, under which the British could take over kingdoms that did not have a direct male heir. The Governor General, Lord Dalhousie, was able to annex several prominent states such as Awadh using this doctrine. Then there were reforms such as replacement of Sanskrit and Persian with English as the language of official use in 1834 and the abolishment of sati, which along with the work of missionaries lead to fears that social and religious values were under threat.
Disgruntlement amongst the Bengal Army, which was recruited from Northern India particularly Awadh, also formed a basis for the uprising. As the East India Company expanded its territory, soldiers from the Bengal Army were now expected to serve in far-away territories or overseas, something that they were previously exempted from due to religious reasons. There were also issues related to the basis for promotion and low salary that served as causes for discontent in army. The immediate cause of the war was the introduction of the infield rifle in January 1857 which used greased cartridges apparently coated in cow and pig fat that lead to dissent amongst the Indian troops. The British eventually sought to recall the cartridges but it was too late, as troop uprisings had already begun.
            In 1857, British faced a serious challenge to their rule in India. This war is called war of Independence. There are many causes for this war which are:
Political:
As British extended their control they introduced many ways of grabbing land like the use of Doctrine of Lapse was introduced by Lord Dalhousie was very unpopular. The mistreatment of Mughal Emperor was also another cause and when Lord Dalhousie moved the capital from Delhi. It angered many people. English was replaced by Persian as an official language.
Religious and Social:
As the rule of British grew so did its culture. The British thought that they were Superior Culture and Disrespected the Indian culture they also did not get mixed with the Indians as they thought that Indians are uneducated and uncivilized people. This arrogant attitude and the introduction of new ways of life with railways, roads and telegraph were not accepted to many Indians. Indians thought that their religion was threat by foreigners. Christian monks had started the preaching of Christianity in the schools, offices in all over the sub-continent. These monks insulted the religion of the Indians. This angered many Indians.
Economic:
We know better that how British merchants traded with India which was very profitable for them. The British imposed high taxes on Indians and the tax collectors were corrupt and kept some money for themselves. The resentment grew when the British filled Indian market with cheap mass produced goods and many families were unable to sell their goods. The natives of sub-continent could not export their goods to Europe or any other country but the goods of British could be imported, thus this made most of the Indians poor. British also made the salary of their army (Infantry) low.
Military:
There were many Indian soldiers in the British army but not even a single one of Indian was made an officer. The British used their army to fight other countries and this was not accepted to Indians who wanted to leave their mother land. They were also rumors that The Indians were forced to convert into Christianity before they could be made the Officers.
The Events of 1857:
●      In January 1857 the British announced that they would introduce a new rifle with a paper cartridge covered with grease to keep the powder dry and before the cartridge would be loaded the end had to be bitten off. However a rumor spread that the grease was made up of Cow and pigs fat. The Sepoys were so angry that they refused to use the new rifle.
●      In March a Sepoy named Mangal Pandey defied his British officer and was executed.
●      In May Sepoys of Meerut refused to touch the new cartridge so they were put to prison but their fellow Sepoys freed them and killed all the British then the soldiers marched to Delhi and captured it. The Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar won the support of Hindus and Muslims. The War spread and British lost control of Mathura, Kanpur, Jhansi and Allahabad as well as Delhi and Lucknow. This area is now known as Uttar Pardesh. However British proved to be too powerful and quickly regained the areas they had lost.
●      In September Delhi was regained and Bahadur Shah Zafar was put into life time prison. In august 1858 the war was officially over.
Reasons for Failure of War of Independence 1857
1. Lack of Unity:
Although the whole Indian nation faced resentment against the British but the aims were different. The Muslim wanted to regain control and again set up the Mughal Empire. There was no general plan or a Leader. The princes did not want the Imperial power once again. There was no sense of patriotism and India was too dived for such a feeling. The only uniting force was Islam but the other groups opposed them which were Hindus and Sikhs as they did not want the rule of Muslim once again on the India. These were the reasons as British considered this as “Muslim Revolt”.
2. British Strength:
The most powerful country of that time and because of Industrial Resolution they had High tech weapons. The British army was well trained and was much disciplined and they were provided with large weapons and Funds by the British government. The Perhaps the major reason for the failure of this uprising was the strength of the British. The Britain was Indians were still fighting with each other and in the mean time the British use it clever techniques and weapons to crush the rebellion furthermore it had the support of some loyal states like Kashmir who sent 2000 troops to support the British win the war.
THE EFFECTS OF WAR
The failure of the war conformed the British masters of India. The war did not loosen control but rather tightened it. The East India Company was abolished and the Britain took full control of the Indians affairs. In 1877 the Queen Victoria was given the title as Empress of India and the Mughal royal family decade away. There were very cruel acts in the war as in the town of Cawnpore the Indians had murdered several British women and children to avenge their deaths the British killed anyone who was sympathetic to Indians.
They also introduced Viceroy who was known responsible for all the acts in the country. He had over thousand civil servants to help him administer the country. These ranged from highly paid judge to lowly paid junior administer. After the War the British stopped funding Muslim schools and because Muslims still were not ready to accept the British rule so they did not go in the British schools and became uneducated. This was not the case with Sikhs and Hindus and they became friendly with the British and very quickly learned to speak English. After 1857 British did not trust the Indians and thus they were not taken in the army and the British did not allow Indians to have their own weapons and thus making the further rebellions less effective. The Control of the British in India was now unchallenged.
            The scale of the punishments handed out by the British "Army of Retribution" were considered largely appropriate and justified in a Britain shocked by reports of atrocities carried out against British and European civilians, and local Christians by the rebels.
            Bahadur Shah was tried for treason by a military commission assembled at Delhi, and exiled to Rangoon where he died in 1862, bringing the Mughal dynasty to an end. In 1877 Queen Victoria took the title of “Empress of India on the advice of Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.
            The rebellion saw the end of the East India Company's rule in India. In August, by the Government of India Act 1858, the company was formally dissolved and its ruling powers over India were transferred to the British Crown. A new British government department, the India Office, was created to handle the governance of India, and its head, the Secretary of State for India, was entrusted with formulating Indian policy. The Governor-General of India gained a new title, Viceroy of India, and implemented the policies devised by the India Office. Some former East India Company territories, such as the Straits Settlements, became colonies in their own right. The British colonial administration embarked on a program of reform, trying to integrate Indian higher castes and rulers into the government and abolishing attempts at Westernisation. The Viceroy stopped land grabs, decreed religious tolerance and admitted Indians into civil service, albeit mainly as subordinates.
            Essentially the old East India Company bureaucracy remained, though there was a major shift in attitudes. In looking for the causes of the Mutiny the authorities alighted on two things: religion and the economy. On religion it was felt that there had been too much interference with indigenous traditions, both Hindu and Muslim. On the economy it was now believed that the previous attempts by the Company to introduce free market competition had undermined traditional power structures and bonds of loyalty placing the peasantry at the mercy of merchants and money-lenders. In consequence the new British Raj was constructed in part around a conservative agenda, based on a preservation of tradition and hierarchy.

            On a political level it was also felt that the previous lack of consultation between rulers and ruled had been yet another significant factor in contributing to the uprising. In consequence, Indians were drawn into government at a local level. Though this was on a limited scale, a crucial precedent had been set, with the creation of a new 'white collar' Indian elite, further stimulated by the opening of universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, a result of the Indian Universities Act. So, alongside the values of traditional and ancient India, a new professional middle class was starting to arise, in no way bound by the values of the past. Their ambition can only have been stimulated by Victoria's Proclamation of November 1858, in which it is expressly stated that "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to our other subjects...it is our further will that... our subjects of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability and integrity, duly to discharge."

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Doctor Faustus as a Morality Play

Doctor Faustus as a Morality Play

Morality Play:

                An allegorical play which is intended to teach a moral lesson, using characters to represent abstract qualities like virtues, vices, or death is called a morality play. It was popular in 15th and 16th centuries in Elizabethan age. Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the most popular morality playwright of that time. Morality play is basically about common people, characters are often allegories, dramatized allegories representing a Christian life and his quest for salvation, to show audience that luck is unpredictable and there is only one plot throughout the play.

Introduction:

                Doctor Faustus is written by Christopher Marlowe, the only playwright before Shakespeare who is still read with full zeal and zest. He is a poet and dramatist but he is well known for his four dramas—tragedies, which are known as ‘Marlowsque’. His all plays strongly show the characteristics of Elizabethan age and have an influence of Renaissance.  Marlowe’s work is remarkable for its splendid imagination for the state of verse, and for its poetic beauty but in dramatic instinct, in greatly knowledge of human life, in humor, in all that makes a dramatic genius, Marlowe simply paves the way for his followers. He lived very short life but his influence in English literature can’t be forgotten. We remember him for his ‘Mighty lines’ which he uses as an instrument of dramatic expression, for his realistic character, for his subject matter, marvelous poetry and his passionate heroes.
                Dr. Faustus is his 2nd play, which presents the tragedy of German physician and scholar Dr. Faustus. The story is very pathetic. He sells his soul to devil to learn necromancy on condition that he’ll have power, knowledge and wealth for 24 years. This drama is actually the story of 24 years. Rare poetic beauty has been presented in many passages of this play. The last moment is very pathetic when he departure to hell.

As a Morality Play:

                We see in the morality play that a pious person is attracted by some evil figure to adopt an evil way, but in Dr. Faustus we don’t see an attraction by an evil figure or devil. It is Faustus who is a scholar and a man of great knowledge who consciously and willingly sets himself on an evil way.
                The play starts with the tone of anti-religion. Faustus rejects the Divinity by quoting selective verses from New Testament. In this way, he succeeds in taking Christianity a negative light because he has become blind in choosing the necromancy which is the most beneficial profession according to him. He reads that “the reward of the sin is death”, and that “if we say that we have no sin/ We deceive ourselves and there is no truth in us”. He just has a look on these lines and takes decision to reject Divinity. Though, in the very next line of New Testament, another thing is written, “if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Hence, with the help of selective verses, he makes it seem as through religion promises, there is only death and no forgiveness and so he leaves the religion by saying, “what will be, shall be”. According to him, he can become ‘a Mighty god’ by learning magic.
                                   "These metaphysics of physicians
                                    And necromantic books are heavenly."
Good and bad angels are also an aspect of this morality play. They come again and again to convince Faustus. Bad angel tempts him to do bad things by giving him the examples of worldly pleasure and other delightful things and good angel urges him to be true with God, otherwise he’ll be damned. The bad angel makes his mind in this way that he is not stopped by the Good angel. But Faustus needs everything in his life, he makes his mind that there will be no life after death so I should enjoy my life here in this world.
                When he sells his soul to Lucifer, then in other words he returns obedience to God and swears to support the devil. When Lucifer sees that Faustus is already having very disrespectful behavior towards God, he takes him to the deeper and deeper eternal damnation. But this play ends with a trace of moral and religious belief. We find this change at the end when Faustus has no other way to escape from damnation and wishes to repent.
                Seven deadly sins are also the elements of this play as a morality. We have a moral lesson in all those sins. The sins are pride, covetousness, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth and lechery. These sins are present in many people of that time and still they are existed. But the lesson is if we avoid from these all sins, we’ll be awarded heaven otherwise there will be hell in our fortune.  So we should teach lesson from the sins that Faustus adopts and is damned.
                Vision of hell is another feature of morality in this play, the way hell is described here and way how Faustus will be damned to hell teaches us that we should keep in mind the sketch of hell that is too much dangerous and hateful and full of fire. One cannot live there even for a single moment. So, if we want to keep us away from the hell, we should adopt good things and virtues.
                Writers use allegory in the morality plays that is a form of extended metaphor. There is the personification of good or bad qualities; characters in a narrative have symbolic meaning as well as literal meaning. Writer uses allegory to explain universal truth and to teach moral lessons. In this play Good angel and the Bad angel are allegorical characters,
                There are some elements of Christian morality found in this play. Like, in this universe God sits on high, as the judge of the world, and every soul goes either heaven or to hell, there are angels and devils; devils attract people towards sin and angels urge them to be loyal and true to God. It can be called a morality play but not completely a Christian morality play. No doubt, the religion of this play is Christianity but it does not have the affirmation of goodness or justice of the religious system.

                The basic purpose of describing all the events of play especially sins and repentance by the Faustus in the last scene is just to learn some lessons. It teaches us that we should not stick to the unbound desires of our mind that are difficult to control. It is the nature of a human that he needs worldly pleasure and he wants life not to have an end, but we should prepare ourselves by getting rid of sins and all other evils and adopt the path of truth and virtue. 

Sunday, 12 April 2015

The Romantic Age

                                      The Romantic Age (1789-1830)
The Romantic period is sometimes called the Age of Revolutions too: American Revolution of 1776, and the spirit of ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity of the French Revolution in 1789 made it a time of hope and change. Romantic Age brought a more daring, individual, and imaginative approach to both literature and life. The Romantic writers spoke against social evils, tyranny, spreading evils of industrialism, urban blight, polluted environment and alienation of people from nature. The Romantic writers tended to believe that the eighteenth-century dedication to common sense and experience, reasonableness, and tradition.
For Augustans, feelings and imaginations were dangerous; for Romantics, reason and the intellect were dangerous. The individual spirit rather than ordered society became important. In literature, Romantic writing is mostly poetry: six major poets emerged who permanently affected the nature of English language and literature and changed the face of English literature forever.
Two Generations of poets
There are two generations of these poets;
William Blake, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are regarded as the first generation of the Romantic poets, writing most of their major works from 1786 to 1805.
Lord Byron, Percy Bysse Shelley and John Keats are the second generation, producing their major works between 1810 to 1824.
William Blake:          (1757-1827)
William Blake was born in London in 1757 and lived all but three of his seventy years in a working-class section of the city. Blake was educated through the efforts of his father and his own avid reading in the Bible, philosophy, and poetry. He is considered as a poet, painter, engraver, and spiritual visionary of extraordinary originality and genius.
At age ten, Blake expressed an interest in becoming a painter and was enrolled in a drawing school and later learned to an engraver. His marriage in 1782 to Catherine Boucher was happy, whom he taught to read, write, and assist him in his engraving work. As a child Blake was deeply religious, having had an experience of mystic revelation when he was only four. On one occasion, said that he had seen a tree filled with angels and, on another occasion, he informed his parents that he had seen the prophet Ezekiel in a tree. By the time of his marriage, Blake had become so consumed in mystical beliefs that his wife is said to have marked: “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company. He is always in Paradise.”
            He, as a painter was fairly gradual, as a poet he was precocious; already in his early teens Blake had begun writing verse.
William Blake achieved little fame in his lifetime, his poetry and art were largely ignored, even derived as a work of a madman, but in the twentieth century he has come to know to be recognized as a poetic genius.
Characteristics of His Works:
            Blake wrote in a lyrical visionary style and developing, in the process, an individual view of the world. A characteristic feature of his poetry and central concept to his vision was a tendency to see the world in terms of opposites. He wrote that ‘Without Contraries is no Progression’ and much of his poetry illustrates this. The major opposition reflected in his poetry is a contrast between the order of the eighteenth century and the sense of liberation felt in the 1790’s as a new century approached.
            Blake also used symbolism in his poetry. Some of the symbols are straightforward: innocence is symbolized by children, flowers, lambs, or particular seasons. The symbolism in some of his later poems, such as the epic Milton, and the use of tiger in his poem The Tyger, its basic meaning is the natural and creative energy of human life, an inspiring shape (‘symmetry’) which no one should try to control.
    
                        Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
                        In the forests of the night,
                        What immortal hand or eye
                        Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Works:
He wrote, illustrated, and printed his most famous collection of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Experience, published separately in 1789 (Songs of Innocence) and 1793 (Songs of Experience), and together in 1794, abounded in images of children in a world in which people were exploited. The child in Blake’s poetry stands for the poet’s dissatisfaction with society and for his belief in the power of uncorrupted feeling and imagination. Through the images of childhood, Blake dramatizes the conflict between nature and social order, between natural innocence and the pressures of social experience. He prepared his own illustrative engravings for these poems by a process he himself developed.
            Absent from Blake’s best known poems are the classical allusions and formal language that characterized the work of his contemporaries in their place are a childlike simplicity, lyricism and visual immediacy that link him to other writers of the Romantic movement.
            In the volume of Songs of Innocence and Experience, several poems are written in pairs, contrasting states of human innocence and experience. In them, Blake reveals a profound understanding of psychology and an ability to explore the spiritual side of human existence, both of which are remarkably modern.
            Before his death, Blake reaffirmed the artistic creed to which he was faithful all his life: “I have been very weak and an old man, feeble and tottering, but not in spirit and life, not in the real man, the imagination, which liveth forever.
            The Songs of Innocence and Experience contain the famous poems—Little Lamb who made thee? and Tyger, Tyger burning bright, we are impressed by their lyrical quality. In other poems such as The Book of The, Marriage of Heaven and Hell, it is the prophetic voice of Blake which appeals to reader.
            In the words of Swinburne, Blake was the only poet of “supreme and simple poetic genius, the one man of that age fit, on all accounts, to rank with the old great masters” of eighteenth century. Some of his lyrics are no doubt, the most perfect and the most original songs in the English language.
William Wordsworth:      (1770-1850)
            The Child is father of the Man
                                (William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up)
Words worth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, a village on the edge of the Lake District, a scenic mountain region in northwest England. He spent his childhood years in researching a landscape of extraordinary beauty and variety. He attended the school in the age of eight years, where his love of reading and poetic tendency was strongly encouraged. He enrolled in college as a scholarship student.
            During the summer of 1790, instead of studying for his comprehensive examinations, Wordsworth undertook a walking tour of Switzerland and France from which he returned revolutionize in his political thinking and fired with enthusiasm for the French Revolution. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!” is his description of that period in his autobiographical poem, The prelude. After graduation, Wordsworth returned to France to learn French well enough to qualify as a tutor. Here he met and fell in love with Annette Vallon. He returned back to the England due to the lack of funds.
            Two developments marked a major turning point in Wordsworth’s life:
a bequest of nine hundred pounds from a friend that enabled him to establish a home for his beloved sister Dorothy and himself, and the beginning of his friendship and artistic collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a creative association that would lead, in 1798, to the publication of a revolutionary volume of poems and ballads. Published without giving any name, Lyrical Ballads contained twenty three poems (nineteen by Wordsworth and four by Coleridge). Wordsworth alone was responsible for the important Preface, which was to influence the whole of the Romantic movements and much subsequent poetry in English.
            In the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, published in 1800, Wordsworth stated the poetic principles that he and Coleridge believed in:
            First, that ordinary life is the best subject for poetry because the feelings of simple people sincere and natural; second, that the everyday language of these people best conveys their feelings and is therefore best suited to poetry; third, that the expression of feeling is more important in poetry than the development of an action, or story; and finally, that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” and “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”.
            Actually Wordsworth was the great Romantic poet. The credit of originating the Romantic movements goes to him. He refused to abide by any poetic convention and rules, and forged his own way in the realm of poetry. He stood against many generations of great poets and critics, like Dryden, Pope and Johnson, and made way for new type of poetry. By giving his ideas about the poetic language as simple and natural, he opposed the gaudiness of classical style.
            Wordsworth was not merely a lyrical poet; he justly claims to be the poet of Man, of Nature, and of Human Life. Though in his youth he came under the influence of the ideals of the French Revolution, he was soon freed from illusion and came to this opinion that emancipation of man cannot be effected by poetical violent, but by his living a simple, natural life. He discovered that there is a harmony between Nature and Man. It is when man lives in the lap of nature that he lives the right type of life. Nature has a dignity effect on him, and even the simplest things in nature can touch a responsive cord in man’s heart.
            Wordsworth poetry is essentially empirical; that is, he records the evidence of his senses, looking inward rather than outward. Sometimes he uses more complex grammar and vocabulary in his writings. His poetry is also concerned with the everyday world and with the impact of memory on the present. He gives detailed accounts of the lives of ordinary people in poems such as The Old Cumberland Beggar and The Leech Gatherer.
            In Wordsworth’s long autobiographical poem The Prelude (1805; final version 1850) the main concern is the psychology of the individual. He revised The Prelude throughout his life; in each version he tries to capture more accurately the lasting insights of his past.
He is famous for his lyrics, sonnets, odes and short descriptive poems. His The Recluse should treat of nature, man and society, and The Prelude treating of the growth of poets’ mind. He also wrote a number of sonnets of rare merit like To Milton, Westminster Bridge, The World is too much with us, in which there is a fine combination of the dignity of thought and language. In his odes, as Ode to Duty and Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, he gives expression to his high ideals and philosophy of life.
There is not a single line in his poetry which has not got the dignity and high moral value which we associate with Wordsworth who, according to Tennyson, “uttered nothing base.”



Samuel Taylor Coleridge:          (1772-1834)
            Coleridge’s poetry frequently communicates a sense of the mysterious, supernatural and extraordinary world. Wordsworth and Coleridge both contributed to Lyrical Ballads, he wrote four poems out of twenty three in that audition of Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge was very possibly the most versatile and stimulating mind of his generation—a poet, critic, philosopher, theologian, lecturer, journalist, and charismatic personality. He was simultaneously self destructive, impulsive, and contradictory.
            In his teen age, Coleridge was spoiled, precocious and restless, continually lost in his dream world. His father died when he was ten years old Coleridge was sent to school in London, a time of loneliness and intense intellectual growth that he recalls in his poem, “Frost at Midnight.” At age nineteen he went up to Cambridge. Here he spent a studious year before falling into bad habits and sinking deeply into debt. Robert Southey, another Romantic poet, was his friend. He became engaged to Sara Fricker, the sister of Southey’s fiancée.
            In one outstanding year, 1798-1799, Coleridge began his stimulating association with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, wrote three of his best poems (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan,” and the first part of “Christabel”), and was given 150 pounds a year for life, relieving him of oppressive financial burdens.
            Wordsworth dealt with naturalism which was an important aspect of the Romantic Movement; Coleridge made the supernatural his special domain, which was an equally important aspect. In his youth Coleridge came under the spell of French Revolution, he gave poetic expression to his political aspiration in Religious Musings, Destiny of Nations and Ode to the Departing Year.
            Coleridge was a man of gigantic genius, but his lack of will power and addiction to opium prevented him from fulfilling much in the realm of poetry. In the fields of theology, philosophy and literary criticism that he exercised a tremendous and lasting influence. His two best-known poems The Ancient Mariner and Christabel represent the high watermark of supernaturalism.
            In The Ancient Mariner which is a poetic masterpiece, Coleridge introduced the reader to a supernatural realm. In it an old sailor or mariner tells the terrible sequence of events, the intense curse of the albatross, the opposite spirit, the magic breeze, and a number of other supernatural things and happenings. The whole poem is operated with the color and glamour of the middle Ages and yet Coleridge makes no slavish attempt to reproduce the past in a mechanical manner. The Ancient Mariner is made actual and vital to our imagination by its faithful pictures of nature, its psychological insight and simple humanity. In it the poet deals in a superb manner with the primal emotions of love, hate, pain, remorse and hope.
            It is simple, in ballad form, its intense imagery, the sweet harmony of its verse, and the aptness of its phraseology, all woven together in an artistic whole, make this poem the most representative of the romantic school of poetry.
            Unlike Wordsworth, who concentrates on the everyday world of the present, Coleridge turns to the romance and mystery of the past. Christabel, also written in a mediaeval ballad form, and an unfinished poem, is another allegory in which dangerous and unpleasant images from a distant past have an everyday reality. It is a fragment, seems to have been planned as the story of a pure young girl who fell under the spell of sorcerer in the shape of the woman. In artistic power it is inferior to The Ancient Mariner; it has supernatural terrors of the popular hysterical novels.
            Kubla Khan is another fragment in which the poet has painted a gorgeous oriental dream picture. He personified the essence of the poetic imagination. The subtitle of the poem is A Fragment. It was reported that Coleridge did not complete the poem due interruption of a visitor during his composition. The poem is indeed a fragment of a powerful vision. The whole poem came to Coleridge in a dream one morning when he had fallen asleep, and upon awakening he began to write hurriedly.
            Coleridge complained that poetic inspiration had left him and he wrote no poetry during the last thirty years of his life. Instead he dedicated himself to philosophy and to literary criticism. In 1817, he published Biagraphia Literaria, which has become one of the most influential of works of criticism.
            Though Coleridge wrote a number of other poems—Love, The Dark Ladie, Youth and Age, Dejection: an Ode, which has great, outstanding and touches of personal emotion but his reputation as a poet rest on The Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan where he touched the heights of romantic poetry.
           
John Keats:               (1795-1821)
            John Keats was born in London. His father was killed in road accident when he was nine. Six years later, his mother died due to tuberculosis and his brother also died due to the same disease. Keats attended a small school and distinguished himself as a brilliant student and got his passionate love of English poetry. The family was very poor, that’s why in his early age he had to work as a doctor’s assistant. Although he spent some time working in London hospitals and qualified to practice as a chemist, he soon left this profession to devote his time to literature.
            Of all romantic poets, Keats was the pure poet. He was not only the last but the most perfect of the Romanticists. He was devoted to poetry and had no other interest. Unlike Wordsworth who was interested in reforming poetry and upholding the moral law; unlike Shelley who advocated impossible reforms and predicted about the golden age; and unlike Byron who made his poetry a vehicle of his strongly egoistical nature and political dissatisfied of the time; unlike Coleridge who was a metaphysician, and Scott who enjoyed in story-telling, Keats did not take much notice of the social, political and literary turmoil, but devoted himself entirely to the worship of beauty, and writing poetry as it suited his temperament. He was, about all things, a poet, and nothing else. His nature was entirely and essentially poetical.
            With support from the critic Leigh Hunt, the poet William Wordsworth, and the Essayist Charles Lamb, Keats at age twenty-one began his literary career. His first volume of poems appeared in 1817 and his first long poem Endymion in 1818. This poem was severely criticized by contemporary critics, which must have shocked Keats. Keats brought out his last volume of poems in the year 1820 (which is called the ‘Living Year’ in his life.)  The Poems of 1820 are Keats’ enduring memorial. They include the three narratives, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Lamia: the unfinished epic Hyperion; the Odes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and a few sonnets.
            Though deeply influenced by his reading of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, Keats looked Wordsworth as his chief poetic guide, believing with him that poetry should be the creation of concrete sensual images in the service of profound creative thought.
            The landmark of Keats is Great Odes. He is generally regarded as one of the masters of the form. In them, he used escapism i.e. escape from harsh realities of life and took refuse into an ideal world. It is the kind of entertainment which helps you forget unpleasant things. He wrote six odes; Ode to Psyche, To a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn, On a Melancholy, On an Indolence and The Ode to Autumn.
            In Ode to a Nightingale we find a love of sensuous beauty, and a touch of pessimism. In Ode on a Grecian Urn we see Keats’s love for Greek mythology and art. It is this Ode which ends with the following most memorable lines in the whole of Keats’s poetry.
                        Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty, -- that is all
                        Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

            The Ode to Autumn, in which Keats has glorified Nature, is a poem which for richness and color has never be exceeded. Normally autumn considers as a symbol of sad but he gave a beautiful picture of autumn.
            A main theme of Keats’s poetry is the conflict between the everyday world and eternity: the everyday world of suffering, death and decay, and the timeless beauty and lasting truth of poetry and the human imagination. According to Keats point of view, after melancholy, beauty and success will come which is everlasting. He shared the Coleridge’s view that suffering is necessary for an understanding of the world and that great poetry grows from deep suffering.
            Keats died young in the age of twenty-five due to tuberculosis on February 23, 1821. He had only a few years in which he could effectively write poetry. He lays buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome under the epitaph he wrote for himself, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley:          (1792-1822)
                   The lone and level sands stretch far away
                                                        (Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias)
Shelley was an exceptionally controversial personality, whose reputation was marred by scandal. He was well known for his personal, charm, opposition to tyranny, and great gifts. He was revolutionary idealist, a prophet of hope and faith. He was the visionary who dreamed of the Golden Age. Shelley’s genius was constructive as compare to other poets of Romantic age. His motive impulse was love.
            Shelley was the eldest son of a well-to-do country squire who never was able to control his maverick child. During his school years, Shelley cruel fellow by the older boys because of his slight build and moody shyness; he became known at his school as “mad Shelley” because of his odd ways. At Oxford his rebelliousness behavior caused him severe problems. Soon after leaving for London, Shelley eloped with sixteen-year-old Harriet, with whom he had two children. After three years he fell in love with William Godwin’s, (a philosopher), daughter, Mary, and eloped with her to Switzerland. There he married to her.
            In his early days Shelley came under the influence of William Goodwin’s Political Justice. He began to imagine the new world which would come into existence when all the error and hatred had disappeared. In his first long poem, Queen Mab, which he wrote when he was eighteen, he condemns kings, governments, church, property, marriage and Christianity. The Revolt of Islam is a sort of transfigured picture of French Revolution is charged with the young poet’s hopes for the future regeneration of the world. His Prometheus Unbound is the hymn of human revolt triumphing over the oppression of false gods. His poetry is not too much romantic. He talked about the freedom of Irish people and spoke against the Peterloo Massacre of 1819
            Shelley’s other great poems are Alastor, in which he describe the chase of an unattainable ideal of beauty; Julian and Meddalo in which he draws his own portrait; The Cenci, a poetic drama, which deals with the terrible story of Beatrice who takes his life in revenge. Adonais, the best-known of Shelley’s longer poems, which is an elegy dedicated to Keats. Another poem that he dedicated to Keats is The Triumph of Life.
            He is in fact the greatest lyrical poet of England. Besides the longer poems, Shelley wrote a number of small lyrics of Exquisite beauty, such as ‘To Constantia Singing’, the ‘Ozymandias’ sonnet, the ‘Lines written among the Euganean Hills’, the ‘Stanzas written world! O life! O time’. It is in fact on the foundation of these beautiful lyrics, which are absolutely complete and there is no chance of improvement the whole range of English lyrical poetry that Shelley’s real reputation as a poet lays.
            As the poet of Nature, Shelley was inspired by the spirit of love which was not limited to mankind but extended to every living creature—to animals and flowers, to elements, to the whole Nature.
            In 1822, when Shelley was approaching his thirtieth birthday, he was drowned while sailing off the Italian coast. His dead body washed ashore ten days later. A volume of Keats was found in one pocket and a volume of Sophocles in the other. Shelley’s ashes were buried near Keats’s grave. Describing his valued friend, Byron called Shelley, “the best and least selfish man I ever knew. I never knew one who was not a beast in comparison.”
            In one of his best known lyrics, Ode to the West wind, Shelley makes the wildness of the wind a controlled symbol of his deepest personal aspirations for human freedom. In this, he talked about the freedom of the man and his own freedom. He used symbolism in it.
                        I could lie down like a tired child,
                        And weep away the life of care
                        Which I have borne and yet must bear.

These are some poets of romantic era, their poetry is not only for their era, but actually it is universal. It is still read with full passion and students of all type like and appreciate them.

Friday, 10 April 2015

Test of Literature

Tests of Literature:
There are two tests in literature;
·         Universality
·         Style
Universality:
The first of these is universality, that is, the appeal to the widest human interests and the simplest human emotions. Though we speak of national and race literatures, like the Greek or Teutonic, and though each has 'certain superficial marks arising out of the peculiar universalities of its own people, it is nevertheless true that good literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds save those of humanity. It is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and emotions, love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and faith, which are an essential part of our human nature; and the more it reflects these emotions the more surely does it awaken a response in men of every race.
Style:

The second test is a purely personal one, and may be expressed in the indefinite word "style." It is only in a mechanical sense that style is “the adequate expression of thought," or "the peculiar manner of expressing thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetoric’s. In a deeper sense, style is the man, that is, the unconscious expression of the writer's own personality. It is the very soul of one man reflecting, as in a glass, the thoughts and feelings of humanity. As no glass is colorless, but tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface, so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it the native hue of his own soul. It is this intensely personal element that constitutes style. Every permanent book has more or less of these two elements, the objective and the subjective, the universal and the personal, the deep thought and feeling of the race reflected and colored by the writer's own life and experience.

Basic Ideas of Literature

What is Literature?
         Creative writing of recognized artistic value.
         The humanistic study of a body of literature.
         All the information relating to a subject, especially information written by specialists
Definitions:
           Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer the works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. 
           Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty; it is the written record of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations; it is the history, and the only history of the human’s soul.
           Literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history  and sciences, as well as its poems and novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture.
Introduction to Literature:
Literature (from Latin litterae (plural); letter) is the art of written work. The word literature literally means: "things made from letters". Literature is commonly classified as having two major forms; fiction and non-fiction; and two major techniques; poetry and prose.
Literature can be classified according to historical periods, genres, and political influences. Important historical periods in English literature are Old English, Middle English, the Renaissance, the Elizabethan era which includes the Shakespearean era, the restoration period, the age of Reason, the Romantic age, the Victorian age, Modern age and Post-modern age. The study of literature is influenced by the intellectual movements like feminism, romanticism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-colonialism, post-structuralism and post-modernism.
Major Types of Literature:
Literature is divided into three major types. These types are prose, poetry, and drama. Prose includes books and stories, poetry includes poems, and drama includes plays.

Qualities of Literature:
There are three qualities of literature; artistic, suggestive and permanent.
Artistic:
The first significant thing is the essentially artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise noticed. 
All artistic work must be a kind of revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeals to our own sense of beauty, we have many writers but few artists. In the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture.
Suggestive:
The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, it appeals to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not so much what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When Milton makes Satan say, "Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact, but rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" he does not state a fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism,--the whole splendid world of Greek literature. Such magic is in words.
Permanent:
The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone. Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle Permanent and apparent absorption in material things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture; though permanence is a quality we should hardly expect in the present deluge of books and magazines pouring day and night from our presses in the name of literature. But this problem of too many books is not modern, as we suppose.

But literature is like a river in flood, which gradually purifies itself in two ways, the mud settles to the bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When we examine the writings that by common consent constitute our literature, the clear stream purified of its dross, we find at least two more qualities, which we call the tests of literature, and which determine its permanence.

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Tolerance, its meanings and how to promote it in a society..??


Tolerance

Tolerance can be defined as the possession of a fair and objective perspective and attitude towards those people who are of different races, religions, nations or have a set of opinions, beliefs and ideas that differ from our own. Tolerance is the most necessary quality of a man. Tolerance is one of the conditions of good manners.
It is a “willingness to accept opinions and behaviors that you may not agree with or people who are not like you”.
It is “Relative capacity to endure or adapt psychologically to an unfavorable environmental factor.”
William Ury notes, "tolerance is not just agreeing with one another or remaining indifferent in the face of injustice, but rather showing respect for the essential humanity in every person.”

Importance

 Tolerance has great significance in our life. Without it, we cannot even think of survival in every walk of life. It is the only factor which can enable all the people of different races, classes, nations to sit together and work for the welfare of human beings. The importance of tolerance lies in its ability to make a human being broad enough in mind to be receptive to all kinds of ideas. It also creates a deeper understanding of others views and beliefs.
Tolerance is the virtue of a civilized age. “Tolerance is the only real test of civilization”. It was Arthur Kelps who thus extolled the virtue of tolerance. It enables us to see always the other side of things, to suffer fools with patience, fanatics without losing out temper.

Religious Perspective

Every religion of the world lays stress on tolerance.
      ALLAH ALMIGHTY has said in THE HOLY QURAN: “You shall resort to pardon, advocate tolerance, and disregard the ignorant”.
     In Christianity, if a person slaps you, you must offer him the other check.
     In the teachings of Buddha, we also find importance on tolerance.
So, it is the common teaching of all religions.

The Consequences of Intolerance (In our daily routine of life)


Tolerance is not only an abstract virtue; it is of considerable influence in the current affairs of life. Man is a social being and has to live in a spirit of harmony and co-operation with others. In this process some amount of give-and-take is necessary, a capacity for compromise. We cannot persuade others unless we ourselves are at the same time ready to be persuaded by practicing sweet reasonableness.

Intolerance drives human beings apart, creating a sense of permanent separation among them. But unfortunately we, as human beings do not tolerate others. Owing to the lack of a good sense of tolerance, disputes, riots, hatred, pride, discriminations, dehumanization, repression, violence and jealously are taking place in our daily routine of life.
We need tolerance in our political system, in religious matters, in our society, families, offices and institutions etc.

Political Disputes

There are some countries which do not want that other countries should also make progress. Always they are imposing sanctions on others countries. Political leaders do not tolerate one another. They try to overthrow the stable government of their opponents.

Religious Conflicts

If we cast a cursory glance on our religious matters, we come to know that Religious minorities have been suppressed and oppressed. The religions are divided into various sects. This thing causes bloodshed of countless innocent people. We should tolerate others according to the teaching of our religion.

Families Conflicts

The traditional conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is going on in our families even at present days.

What Individuals Can Do?

Individuals should continually focus on being tolerant of others in their daily lives. This involves consciously challenging the stereotypes that typically encounter in making decisions about others.

What the Media Can Do?

Media can play an important role to utilize tolerance. It should use positive images to promote understanding and cultural sensitivity.

What the Educational System Can Do?

Educators play an important role in this matter. Schools and other educational institutions should include the topic of tolerance in their course and teach the students from grass level. In this way, habit of forgiving others in trivial matters can be overcome. In Israel, an Arab and Israeli community called Neve Shalom or Wahat Al-Salam ("Oasis of Peace") created a school designed to support inter-cultural understanding by providing children between the first and sixth grades the opportunity to learn and grow together in a tolerant environment.

International organizations

International organizations need to find ways to enshrine the principles of tolerance in policy. For instance, the United Nations has already created The Declaration of Moral Principles on Tolerance, adopted and signed in Paris by UNESCO's 185 member states on Nov. 16, 1995, which qualifies tolerance as a moral, political, and legal requirement for individuals, groups, and states.

Governments

Governments also should aim to institutionalize policies of tolerance.

Special role of parents and teacher

Children from their early childhood should develop the habit of tolerance. The parents and teachers should guide them in this respect. Then our soul will live in peace and happiness.
There is no doubt in it that tolerance is the most necessary quality of our everyday life. If we culture tolerance, we will be free from all the pains of envy within ourselves. But there can be no tolerance where we come up against fundamental principles. If we tolerate evil, our best self goes down and under. Therefore, in matters relating to deeper questions and principles of life, it is our duty to stand up for them and refuse an easy compromise. We should never tolerate moral corruption, social wrongs, political and financial dishonesty; we should never be complaisant towards attacks on our national integrity, on our fundamental rights on the forces of progress in society.