Thursday, 29 November 2018

Wordsworth's Preface To Lyrical Ballads

This post is in reference to the questions asked here:
 http://dilipbarad.blogspot.in/2014/09/short-learning-video-on-wordsworths.html






          Lyrical Ballads, with a few other poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English Literature and poetry.

          The preface to the Lyrical Ballads is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition published in January 1801, and often referred to as the "1800 Edition". The second edition of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expended in the third edition of 1802. Wordsworth added an appendix titled Poetic Diction in which he expanded the ideas set forth in the preface.


Q1.   Why does Wordsworth say 'What is Poet?' Rather than who is poet?
Ans.  In the Preface of Wordsworth he says a poet is a man speaking to sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a great knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, who rejoices, more than other men in the spirit of life, habitually impelled to creative volition's, passion and situations where he does not find them.

          Poet defers from normal people in degree for example he is endowed with more lively sensibility. A poet is a person who creat's something in his imagination even if it does not exist.


Q2.   What is poetic diction? Which sort of poetic diction is suggested by Wordsworth in his preface?
Ans.  In simple words poetic diction is choice of words which gives a unique style for each individual poet or author. Wordsworth published his Lyrical Ballads for the first time in 1798. In Biographia Literaria there is Coleridge's disagreement with Wordsworth poetic diction. Wordsworth is against the poetic diction and says that poet should use language or words which are really used by common people.


Q3.   What is Poetry?
Ans.  According to Wordsworth "Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollect in tranquility." Spontaneous is subjective but classical believe in objective. It is different of their approach to life.


Q4.   Discuss 'Daffodils- I wondered lonely as a cloud' with reference to Wordsworth poetic creed.
Ans.  Daffodils is a poem with four stanzas; first three are in past tense. In the last stanza poet says that he is laying on his couch and rejoicing the feelings or emotions he had when he went for a walk at lakeside and saw thousands of Daffodils and through that he is a lonely and is wondering like a lonely cloud here and there. He compares himself  with the lonely cloud. Daffodils is an example of spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling which he feels and writes the poem.


Q5.   What is the basic difference between the poetic creed of 'Classicism' and 'Romanticism'?
Ans.  In England Neo-Classicism began at the latter half of the 18 century and Romanticism began at the end of the 18 century. Some of the famous neo-classiest are John Dryden, Alexander Pope etc were as Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly etc are romantic writers.





Neo-Classicism
Romanticism
·         Intellect is the guiding force.
·         Imagination is the guiding force.
·         They thought restrained was the ruling world.
·         They believed in liberty and freedom.
·         They relied on classical masters.
·         They inspired themselves from medieval poets and writers.
·         There topics are about city or urban life.
·         There topics are about rustic life or countryside.
·         There poetry is objective.
·         There poetry is subjective.

Aristotle's Poetics

 
1 :- I agree with Plato's objection to freedom of expression and artistic liberty enjoyed by creative writers. because literature should give a mirror-image of life it should reflect real life incidents in itself. creative writers took itto another level and by freedom of expression and artistic liberty writer started writing the things which is only possible in imaginative world and not real life. Nowadays a TV show PORUS is going on. In which the story of Puru is narrated but there are so many imaginative parts given. Like his life as a tribal people in childhood and then as king and the war between him and Alexander and many such things are not acceptable if we considere the real life story of maharaja Purshottam.


2 :- With reference to B.A there was a story of morden literature named 'Black cat'. In the story the concept of tragedy is full filled. The unnamed character first deals with catharsis as he losses all of his emotions towards animals whom he loved the most onec. the moment narrator tried to kill the cat but eventually kills his own wife by mistake. This leads us to the conclusion of Hamartia ; The error of his judgement and thus he himself slipped to his downfall.


3 :- Far From The Madding Crowd is a novel which i think did not follow Aristotelian literary tradition. In the novel there are more then one main characters and also they doesn't belong to any godlike figure or any warrior type human being. where else there are error of judgement by Bathsheba in novel but it doesn't leads her directly to a horrible end ; till the return of Troy novel also don't have any kind of tragic sopt.


4 :- Othello is one of one of the tragic protagonist from the tragedy "Othello". the hamartia of othello was he believed what others told him without checking the credibility of the truth and his fate also done a great part in that. In the end when he goes to kill Desdemona ; his hamartia overcomes thus he doesn't listen to his own betterhalf and kills her. Desdemona gets killed without any reason and thus Othello's hamartia is Believing others without checking credibility of truth.


5 :- Yes , Othello follows the rules like chain of cause and effect , principal of probability and necessity and unity of actions. when Othello findouts that the Handkerchief of his mother which was given to Desdemona as present is missing and by Desdemona's misfortune she tells him a lie about it this incident follows the rule Chain of cause and effect.

Online discussion on Mario Vargas Llosa's Interview


Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist was awarded the noble prize for literature in 2010. His most recent novel is “The Neighborhood”. Here I try to point out some ideas which I like the most from his interview for the worldpost by Michael Skafidas, a journalist and professor of comparative literature at City University of New York.


I personally believe that  it is right to denounce abuses against woman. As we know that in our society abuses against women are increasing day by day. As mentioned below here,he gave an example of feminist attacked in Nabokov's "Lolita", it is the best novel of 20th century.

But feminism now has a kind of problem. It has become very sectarian, very dogmatic, and I think you have to criticize and oppose these trends. For example, recently we have had a big debate in Spain when a group of feminists attacked Nabokov’s “Lolita,” which I think is one of the greatest 20th century novels. They attacked it because they claim the main character is a pedophile. With this criterion, literature will disappear. It is grotesque! If you respect literature you must accept not only the very idealist, altruist vision of human beings but also the infernal vision of them.

 The second is that in which George Bataille said that in human beings, there are angels and devils. Sometimes the angels are important, but for literature, devils are important too. Literature is a testimony of what we want to hide in the real word. This is the raison d’ĂȘtre of literature. You cannot attack literature for our vices and prejudices and stupidities.

The third one is that in which Llosa said that,today's world young generation give the importance to image more than ideas. It is very harmful to youth that they think  images are creative for modern time but they do not think that this century is the age of Photoshop and post truth. 

"Lagaan" - Movie Review

          On the special occasion of Independence day ,film screening of movie "Lagaan" was organized by film screening committee members of our our English department of  MK Bhavnagar University. As a students of Literature we have to watch the movie with the help of various literary approaches and theories not only as a sake of entertainment.“Lagaan – once upon a time in India” movie was released in 2001.

                   

          It is a sports-drama film, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, produced by Aamir Khan and Mansoor Khan, written by Gowariker and Abbas Tyrewala. The film is set in the Victorian period of India's Colonial British Raj. Here I am interpreting film as per my understanding.


Patriotism



          The main theme of the movie is patriotism. In the movie the protagonist Bhuvan has a such qualities. Bhuvan shows the great courage in his rebellion against British provience. He wants the welfer of the village people and thats why he also encourages or motives them to rebell against British provience. The main reason behind their rebellon is that they have a strong inclination of their own land.The farmers have to pay yearly lagaan to the the king and than king have to pay to the British captain.When they were suffering from draught and was not able to pay their lagaan, at that time captaion Russell has doubled the text and also challged the people of village to beat them in cricket match and three years of tax will be removed or erased.People of village are very hard at their work because they want to defeat the Britishers in match.This shows their passion for their land. 

Rural India 

          The setting of the movie largely remains in the village and it also presents the actual situation of India at the time of British governor. They have to face a lot of social problems and as well as economic problems because the agricultural activities are only their chief resource of their livelihood. And also the Britishers imposed the high taxes on the farmers.The culture and religious atmosphere also shows the real rural India. The dialect which are used by people that also represents the countryside.They have to face a lot of problems than even they  live happily.

Subaltern theory


          Subaltern means marginalization in caste, gender, race, etc by dominace of power. Here the character of king is also observed as marginalized character he is under the british rules and he can not do anything against him. His voice is oppressed by the british Captain.
The character of Kachra is marginalized character who belongs to lower class. And when Bhuvan elects Kachra as in the team of cricket at that time his other teammates deny to take him as team member because he is untouchable.The other marginalized character is Gauri. She wants to play cricket but his father denies her and says to do only household work.



          The effect of post colonialism is still present among Indians.In the film there is only a thing which presents post colonialism is the game of cricket. There is colonial game Cricket which was played by the Indians to win the challenge given by the Britishers. They accept to play cricket because they want freedom from tax but now in free India why this game is more famous than any other game. It clearly shows that how still British people ruling our mind. This is the reason why cricket is more played and watched than our national game. There is strong impact of the Britishers over the mind of Indians that still in present they are not able to come out from this game.

Aishwaryam Youth festival 2018 Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University




Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University has celebrated the “Aishwaryam Yuva Manthan”- youth festival of three days on 26th, 27th and 28th October. The entire festival was hosted by Takshashila institute of Science and Commerce collage as “Aishwaryam Yuva Manthan”. There were many events like Skit, Mono- Acting, One act play, Rangoli, Cartooning, Poster Making, Installation, On the spot painting, Poetry Reciatation, Western group and solo song and many others events. This festival allow young people to bring out their talent in various event and competation. During those days I have attended several events like One act play, Mono acting, western and solo song competation and rangoli.So this blog is a part of task activity given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad sir in which we have to write down on events which were attented by us and try to interpret with various literary theory.


ONE ACT PLAY





In one act play session I have watched one act play: “Sikkani Triji Baju”. The play represents the suffering of the third gender. The title of this play is itself significant. Sikkani Triji Baju or Third side of coin- As we know that every coin has two side which is called as heads and tails. In the same way if we look in the society of humankind there are two gender which is known as Man or Woman. But what about the third gender? This play Sikkani Triji Baju tries to show the suffering of third gender and which types of problems they have to face and how they are humiliated by society.

  If we try to interpret this play with feminist perspective than we can say that this play represents the suffering of the mother or a girl who gave birth to the third gender child who known as Kinner or Hijada. She humiliated by society as far as humiliated by her own family members. She forced to leave the house. Rather than suffering this humiliation by family members she left the house and raised up her child alone.



MONO ACTING 


 I have seen a mono acting about the suffering of Lady Hawker which was very well performed and full of all types of emotions like happy, sad, anger. The situation of woman in patriarchal society was reflected by this mono acting. It started with the comedy but suddenly it was moving from comedy to seriousness, when a customer asked her about her daughter. With the full of tears in her eyes, she gave explanation about the condition of her daughter to whom her in laws sold somewhere. During this mono acting she generated the catharsis among all audience and was able to make the audience cry with her lively performance.

Wednesday, 28 November 2018

Dryden's Essay: of Dramatic Poesy

This post is in reference to the questions asked here:
 http://dilipbarad.blogspot.in/2015/09/drydens-essay-on-dramatic-poesy-short.html





          John Dryden was born on 9 August 1631, Aldwincle and died on 12 May 1700, London. He was an English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.

Works:

  • Absalom and Achitophel
  • Mac Flecknoe
  • The Hind and the Panther
  • Palamon and Arcite
  • Annus Mirabilis



Q1.   Do you find any difference between Aristotle's definition of tragedy and Dryden's definition of play?
Ans.  Yes, I find much difference between Aristotle's definition of tragedy and Dryden's definition of play. So let's see the major difference:

  • Aristotle's definition:
          "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornaments, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of  narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."   

  • Dryden's definition:
          "A play ought to be a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humors and the changes of fortune to which it is subject for delight and instruction of mankind."

  If we see the definition of Dryden we can see this three thing:
  1. Just and lively image
  2. Passions and humors
  3. Delight and instruction
 If we see the definition of Aristotle than it ends with purgation which is related to catharsis, whereas Dryden ended with delight and instruction of mankind. This way we can see the touch of realism in Dryden's definition.


Q2.   If you are supposed to give your personal predilection, would you be on the side of the Ancient or the Modern? Please give reasons.
Ans.  I would like to be on the side of modern because as the time changes the things also change and so for that we should also learn and accept new things. Whenever we see anything at that time we try to connect our self with it. Due to modern way people can also come to know about the current situation and can also learn from it. I'm not completely neglecting ancient it is also important because it gives base or a platform to modern for uplifting.


Q3.   Do you think the argument presented in favour of the French plays and against English plays are appropriate? (Say for example Death should not be performed as it is neither 'just' not 'lively' image, displaying duel fight with blunted swords, thousands of soldiers marching represented as five on stage, minglingn of mirth and serious, multiple plots etc.)
Ans.  No, I don't think the arguments against English play is appropriate because if we see any thing then it has a good effect on our mind and if we just visualize thing just by listening or reading then we don't get proper idea about that particular scene. If we just here about death or fight it would not have much impact on audience mind but if we watch that scene that we can have it's perfect image about what writer is trying to tell. I think to make the play more effective English plays were showing the scene of death, fight etc.


Q4.   What would be your preference so far as poetic or prosaic dialogue are concerned in the play?
Ans.  I think both are equally important in the play. Prosaic dialogue helps in understanding the play easily but poetic dialogue is like sugar coated words which adds sweetness to the play. If we only use prosaic dialogue then it helps in understanding but sometime it feels boring and if we only use poetic dialogues then it becomes difficult to understand. So the combination of both makes it interesting and gives please and delight to the audience.




Coleridge: Biographia Literaria

 This post is in the reference to the questions asked here:
https://dilipbarad.blogspot.com/2015/10/coleridge-biographia-literaria.html


          

          Biographia Literaria, in full Biographia Literaria; or Biographiacal Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, work by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in two volumes in 1817. Another edition of the work, to which Coleridge's daughter Sara appended notes and supplementary biographical material, was published in 1847.

          The first volume of the book recounts the author's friendship with poets Robert Southey and William Wordsworth. Coleridge goes on to describe the influences on his philosophical development, from his early teachers to such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, Johann Ficte and Friedrich von Schelling. This section includes his well-known discussion of the difference between fancy and imagination. In the second volume Coleridge concentrates on literary criticism and proposes theories about the creative process and the historical sources of the elements of poetry.

          Biographia Literaria was the most important work of literary criticism of the English Romantic period, combining Philosophy and literary criticism in a new way and it was lasting influential.


Q1.   Write in your words the difference between poem and prose.
Ans.  The poem and prose has the similar elements like language, events or thoughts. The major difference is between their objectives.

          Prose is a work in which the events are arranged in an order and has an end. It's aim is to give information to the reader about the truth. On the other hand, poem is a piece of an art in which the truth is created through imagination. It's aim is to delight the readers. Prose has simple language, while poem has ornamental language with rhyme and meter.

          This way we can know about the difference between poem and prose. I feel that prose are more informative and poems are mostly to have pleasure or delight to the readers.

Q2.   Write in your words the difference between poem and poetry.
Ans.  Poetry is the use of words and language to evoke a writer's feelings and thoughts, while a poem is the arrangement of these words. Poetry is the process of creating a literary piece using metaphor, symbols and ambiguity, while a poem is the end result of this process.

Q3.   Give illustration to support your answer.
Ans.  Any kind of art can be taken as an example. If we take any painting as an example because as per Coleridge said that highest kind of poetry may exist without meter and it is a activity of mind. This work of an art is also a creative of mind. That's why it can be considered as poetry.

         So it can be said that the prose and poem are not only distinguished by rhyme or meter but their immediate and ultimate goal makes them different. when poem is a form of poetry and poetry is the art of creating poem.