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Unit III Poetry

1. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
1819

John Keats
Keats, John (1795-1821) - Widely regarded as the most
talented of the English romantic poets, Keats, whose work
was poorly received during his lifetime, could not have
foreseen his later recognition. Ironically, he wrote for his own
epitaph: Here lies one whose name was writ in water. Ode
on a Grecian Urn (1819) - Includes the famous line,
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-
Opening lines: Thou still unravishd bride of quietness, / Thou
foster-child of silence and slow time.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
I
Thou still unravishd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
II
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
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Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeard,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal- yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
III
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
IV
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Leadst thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?4
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
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Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can eer return.
V
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. - -
THE END


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2. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
(3/26/1874 - 1/29/1963)
Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, and after his
fathers death in 1885, he moved with his family to Lawrence,
Massachusetts, where he became interested in reading and
writing poetry while in high school. Frost attended
Dartmouth College and Harvard University, but never
received a degree. He was a jack of all trades, and had many
different occupations after leaving school, including a
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teacher, a cobbler, and an editor of the local newspaper, the
"Lawrence Sentinel". His first published poem was "My
Butterfly: An Elegy" in the New York literary journal "The
Independent" in 1894. A year later he married Elinor Miriam
White, with whom he shared valedictorian honours with at
his Massachusetts High School.
In the following years, he operated a farm in Derry, New
Hampshire, and taught at Derry's Pinkerton Academy. In
1912, he sold his farm and moved his family to England,
where he could devote himself entirely to his writing. His
efforts to establish himself in England were immediately
successful, and in 1913 he published "A Boy's Will", followed
a year later by "North of Boston". It was in England where he
met and was influenced by such poets at Rupert Brooke and
Robert Graves, and where he established his life-long
friendship with Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and
publish his work.
Frost returned to the United States in 1915, and by the
1920's, he was the most celebrated poet in North America,
and was granted four Pulitzer Prizes. Robert Frost lived and
taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and
died on January 29, 1963 in Boston.







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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.



The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost


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3. Every Town a Home Town

Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan (March 16, 1929 July
13, 1993) also known as A. K. Ramanujan was a poet and
scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and
Kannada. Ramanujan was an Indian poet, scholar and author,
a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His
academic research ranged across five languages: Kannada,
Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit, and English. He published works on
both classical and modern variants of these literature and
also argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects
their due. Though he wrote widely and in a number of
genres, Ramanujan's poems are remembered as enigmatic
works of startling originality, sophistication and moving
artistry.Posthumously he has been awarded the Sahitya
Akademi Award in 1999 for his collection of poems " The
Collected Poems".
















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Every Town a Home Town

Every town our home town,
Every man a kinsman.

Good and evil do not come
from others.
Pain and relief of pain
come of themselves.
Dying is nothing new.
We do not rejoice
that life is sweet
nor in anger
call it bitter.

Our lives, however dear,
follow their own course,
rafts drifting
in the rapids of a great river
sounding and dashing over the rocks
after a downpour
from skies slashed by lightnings-

we know this
from the vision
of men who see.

So,
we are not amazed by the great,
and we do not scorn the little
- Kaniyan Punkunran

Purananuru- 193
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from "The Purananuru"
translated by A. K. Ramanujan.

From the ancient collection called "Purananuru" or "Four
Hundred Poems about the Exterior" - an anthology of 400
poems by more than 150 poets composed between the first
and third centuries in the Christian Era. Written before the
penetration of Aryan influence in South India, it remains a
great historical record of life in pre-Aryan India. Moreover, as
George Hart and Hank Heifetz state, "The Purananuru is one
of the few works of classical India that confronts life without
the insulation of a philosophical faade; it makes no
assumptions about karma and the other world; it faces
existence as a great and unsolved mystery". The Purananuru
concerns itself with life outside the self and family - with
kings and kingship, war, statesmanship, greatness and
generosity, ethics, death and dying.

The first line of this particular poem is very well known
amongst Tamil speakers - "Yaavum Oore Yavarum Kelir". The
poem in itself is work of remarkable simplicity and existential
realism. It makes no pretense to understand the whys and
wherefores of the world. It merely makes a statement that
the world is what it is. The great dualities that concern us all,
and indeed most religions - such as good and evil, joy and
sorrow, happiness and pain, victory and defeat - are a part
and parcel of the great uncertainty that is life. In this sense it
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resonates with modern poetry, which is amazing considering
that it was probably written 2000 years ago. The universality
of life expounded in this poem really appeals to me.
Again, AK Ramanujan has achieved a lyrical translation from
the Tamil original. Tamil poetry has an alliterative and
sometimes dramatic quality to it that adds to the pleasure of
listening to it being
declaimed. This is difficult to reproduce in any other language
but Prof Ramanujan has managed it.

Those of you interested in reading about early Tamil poetry
to understand its place in world literature would do well to
look at George Hart's "The Poems of Ancient Tamil" The
University of California Press,
1975.













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Unit IV: Prose
2. My Financial Career
(Stephen Leacock)
Stephen P. H Butler Leacock, FRSC (30 December 1869 28
March 1944) was a Canadian teacher, political scientist,
writer, and humourist. In the early part of the 20th century
he was the best-known humourist in the English-speaking
world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms
of people's follies. The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for
Humour was named in his honour. Early in his career,
Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports to
supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His
stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United
States and later in novel form, became extremely popular
around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had
heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Also,
between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most
popular humorist in the English-speaking world

My Financial Career
When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me;
the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me;
everything rattles me.

The moment I cross the threshold of a bank and attempt to
transact business there, I become an irresponsible idiot.

I knew this beforehand, but my salary had been raised to
fifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was the
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only place for it.

So I shambled in and looked timidly round at the clerks.
I had an idea that a person about to open an account must
needs consult the manager.

I went up to a wicket marked "Accountant." The accountant
was a tall, cool devil. The very sight of him rattled me.
My voice was sepulchral.

"Can I see the manager?" I said, and added solemnly,
"alone." I don't know why I said "alone."

"Certainly," said the accountant, and fetched him.

The manager was a grave, calm man. I held my fifty-six
dollars clutched in a crumpled ball in my pocket.

"Are you the manager?" I said. God knows I didn't doubt it.

"Yes," he said.

"Can I see you," I asked, "alone?" I didn't want to say
"alone" again, but without it the thing seemed self-evident.

The manager looked at me in some alarm. He felt that I
had an awful secret to reveal.

"Come in here," he said, and led the way to a private
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room. He turned the key in the lock.

"We are safe from interruption here," he said; "sit down."

We both sat down and looked at each other. I found no
voice to speak.

"You are one of Pinkerton's men, I presume," he said.

He had gathered from my mysterious manner that I was a
detective. I knew what he was thinking, and it made me
worse.

"No, not from Pinkerton's," I said, seeming to imply that
I came from a rival agency.

"To tell the truth," I went on, as if I had been prompted
to lie about it, "I am not a detective at all. I have
come to open an account. I intend to keep all my money
in this bank."

The manager looked relieved but still serious; he concluded
now that I was a son of Baron Rothschild or a young Gould.

"A large account, I suppose," he said.

"Fairly large," I whispered. "I propose to deposit
fifty-six dollars now and fifty dollars a month regularly."

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The manager got up and opened the door. He called to the
accountant.

"Mr. Montgomery," he said unkindly loud, "this gentleman
is opening an account, he will deposit fifty-six dollars.
Good morning."

I rose.

A big iron door stood open at the side of the room.

"Good morning," I said, and stepped into the safe.

"Come out," said the manager coldly, and showed me the
other way.

I went up to the accountant's wicket and poked the ball
of money at him with a quick convulsive movement as if
I were doing a conjuring trick.

My face was ghastly pale.

"Here," I said, "deposit it." The tone of the words seemed
to mean, "Let us do this painful thing while the fit is
on us."

He took the money and gave it to another clerk.

He made me write the sum on a slip and sign my name in
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a book. I no longer knew what I was doing. The bank swam
before my eyes.

"Is it deposited?" I asked in a hollow, vibrating voice.

"It is," said the accountant.

"Then I want to draw a cheque."

My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for present
use. Someone gave me a chequebook through a wicket and
someone else began telling me how to write it out. The
people in the bank had the impression that I was an
invalid millionaire. I wrote something on the cheque and
thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it.

"What! are you drawing it all out again?" he asked in
surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six
instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had
a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing.
All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.

Reckless with misery, I made a plunge.

"Yes, the whole thing."

"You withdraw your money from the bank?"

"Every cent of it."
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"Are you not going to deposit any more?" said the clerk,
astonished.

"Never."

An idiot hope struck me that they might think something
had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that
I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look
like a man with a fearfully quick temper.

The clerk prepared to pay the money.

"How will you have it?" he said.

"What?"

"How will you have it?"

"Oh"--I caught his meaning and answered without even
trying to think--"in fifties."

He gave me a fifty-dollar bill.

"And the six?" he asked dryly.

"In sixes," I said.

He gave it me and I rushed out.
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As the big door swung behind me I caught the echo of a
roar of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank.
Since then I bank no more. I keep my money in cash in my
trousers pocket and my savings in silver dollars in a
sock.























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Unit V Short Story and One Act Play

2. Little Girls Wiser Than Men

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
On September 9, 1828, Leo Tolstoy was born in Tula
Province, Russia. In the 1860s, he wrote his first great novel,
War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy set to work on the second of
his best known novels, Anna Karenina. He continued to write
fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most
successful later works was The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Tolstoy
died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.

Little Girls Wiser Than Men
(1885)
IT WAS AN EARLY EASTER. Sledging was only just over; snow
still lay in the yards; and water ran in streams down the
village street.

Two little girls from different houses happened to meet in a
lane between two homesteads, where the dirty water after
running through the farm-yards had formed a large puddle.
One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their
mothers had dressed them both in new frocks. The little one
wore a blue frock the other a yellow print, and both had red
kerchiefs on their heads. They had just come from church
when they met, and first they showed each other their finery,
and then they began to play. Soon the fancy took them to
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splash about in the water, and the smaller one was going to
step into the puddle, shoes and all, when the elder checked
her:

'Don't go in so, Malsha,' said she, 'your mother will scold
you. I will take off my shoes and stockings, and you take off
yours.'

They did so, and then, picking up their skirts, began walking
towards each other through the puddle. The water came up
to Malsha's ankles, and she said:

'It is deep, Akolya, I'm afraid!'

'Come on,' replied the other. 'Don't be frightened. It won't
get any deeper.'

When they got near one another, Akolya said:

'Mind, Malsha, don't splash. Walk carefully!'

She had hardly said this, when Malsha plumped down her
foot so that the water splashed right on to Akolya's frock.
The frock was splashed, and so were Akolya's eyes and
nose. When she saw the stains on her frock, she was angry
and ran after Malsha to strike her. Malsha was frightened,
and seeing that she had got herself into trouble, she
scrambled out of the puddle, and prepared to run home. Just
then Akolya's mother happened to be passing, and seeing
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that her daughter's skirt was splashed, and her sleeves dirty,
she said:

'You naughty, dirty girl, what have you been doing?'

'Malsha did it on purpose,' replied the girl.

At this Akolya's mother seized Malsha, and struck her on
the back of her neck. Malsha began to howl so that she
could be heard all down the street. Her mother came out.

'What are you beating my girl for?' said she; and began
scolding her neighbour. One word led to another and they
had an angry quarrel. The men came out and a crowd
collected in the street, every one shouting and no one
listening. They all went on quarrelling, till one gave another a
push, and the affair had very nearly come to blows, when
Akolya's old grandmother, stepping in among them, tried to
calm them.

'What are you thinking of, friends? Is it right to behave so?
On a day like this, too! It is a time for rejoicing, and not for
such folly as this.'

They would not listen to the old woman and nearly knocked
her off her feet. And she would not have been able to quiet
the crowd, if it had not been for Akolya and Malsha
themselves. While the women were abusing each other,
Akolya had wiped the mud off her frock, and gone back to
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the puddle. She took a stone and began scraping away the
earth in front of the puddle to make a channel through which
the water could run out into the street. Presently Malsha
joined her, and with a chip of wood helped her dig the
channel. Just as the men were beginning to fight, the water
from the little girls' channel ran streaming into the street
towards the very place where the old woman was trying to
pacify the men. The girls followed it; one running each side of
the little stream.

'Catch it, Malsha! Catch it!' shouted Akolya; while Malsha
could not speak for laughing.

Highly delighted, and watching the chip float along on their
stream, the little girls ran straight into the group of men; and
the old woman, seeing them, said to the men:

'Are you not ashamed of yourselves? To go fighting on
account of these lassies, when they themselves have
forgotten all about it, and are playing happily together. Dear
little souls! They are wiser than you!'

The men looked at the little girls, and were ashamed, and,
laughing at themselves, went back each to his own home.

'Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.'