Apr

Keatss Odes A General Study

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai
Std.:M.A.-1, Sem-2
Sub: Romantic Literature
Topic: Keatss Odes A General Study
Roll no: 15
Submitted to: Heenaba Zala,
Department of English,
Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar
Introduction:
John Keats was born on 31st October,
1795.He lived only 25 years, and four months, yet his
poetic achievement is extraordinary. His writing career
lasted a little more than five years, and three of his great
Odes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and
Ode on -Melancholy. Most of his major poems were
written between his 23rd and 24th years, and all his poems
were written by his 25th year. Keats died of Tuberculosis at
the age of 25, shortly.

1. Ode on a Grecian Urn:

Ode on a Grecian Urn, is a poem
poem written by English Romantic poet John Keats. Keats
found earlier forms of poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose,
and the collection represent a new development of the ode
form. He was inspired to write the poem after reading two
articles by English artist and writer Benjamin Haydon.
Greek art was idealistic and captured Greek virtues, which
forms the basis of the poem.
Ode on a Grecian Urn was not well
received by contemporary critics. It was only by the mid
19th century that it began to be praised although it is now
considered to be one of the greatest odes in the English
language. Ode on a Grecian Urn, portrays his attempt to
engage with the static immobility of sculpture. The Grecian
Urn passed down through countless centuries to the time of
the speakers viewing, exists outside of time in the human
sense, it does not age, it does not die, and indeed it is alien
to all such concepts. In the speakers meditation, this
creates an intriguing paradox for the human figures carved
into the side of the urn. They are free from time, but they
are simultaneously frozen in time. They do not have to
confront again and death, but neither can they have
experience.
In final two lines, in which the speaker
imagines the urn speaking its message to mankind Beauty
is truth, truth beauty, have proved among the most
difficult to interpret in the Keats canon. If it is the urn
addressing mankind, than the phrase has rather the weight
of an important lesson, as though beyond all the
complication of human life, all human beings need to know

on earth is that beauty and truth are one and the same. It is
largely matter of personal interpretation which reading to
accept.
2. Ode to Psyche:
In this ode, the story basis on the
psyche is a famous myth. Psyche was the youngest and
most beautiful daughter of a king. She was so beautiful that
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was jealous of
her. She dispatched her son. Eros the god of love to punish
Psyche for being so beautiful. But Eros was so startled by
Psyches beauty that he pricked himself with his own arrow
and fell in love with her. Eros summoned Psyche to his
palace, but he remained invisible to her, coming to her only
and night and ordering her never to try to see his face. One
night Psyche lit a lamp in order to catch a glimpse of her
lover, but Eros was so angry with her for breaking his trust
that he left her. Psyche was forced to perform a number of
difficult tasks to placate. Venus and win back Eros as her
husband. The word Psyche is Greek for soul and it is not
difficult to imagine why Keats would have found the story
attractive the story of the woman, so beautiful that love fell
in love with her.
Additionally; as Keats observed, the myth
of Psyche was first recorded by Apuleius in the second
century and is thus much more recent than, most myths. It
is so recent, infect, that Psyche never worshipped as a real
goddess, that slight is what compeers Keatss speaker to
dedicate himself to becoming her temple, her priest and her
prophet, all in one. So he has found a way to move beyond
the numbness of indolence and has discovered a goddess to

worship. To worship Psyche, Keats summons all the

resources of his imagination. He will give to Psyche a
region of his mind. Where his thoughts will transforms into
the sumptuous natural beauties Keats imagine will attract
Psyche to her bower in his mind. Taken by itself, Ode to
Psyche is simply a song to love and the creative
imagination in the full contexts of the odes, it represents a
crucial step between Ode on I indolence and Ode to
Nightingale the speaker has become preoccupied with
creativity but his imagination is still directed toward wholly
internal ends. He wants to partake of divine permanence by
taking his goddess into himself; he has not yet become
interested in the outward imaginative expression of art.
3. Ode to Nightingale:
Ode to Nightingale Keatss
speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of the
themes of creative expression and the morality of human
life. In this ode, the transience of life and the tragedy of old
age is set against the eternal renewal of the Nightingales
fluid music. The speaker reprises the drowsy numbness
he experienced is Ode on Indolence that numbness was a
sign of disconnection from experience, in Nightingale it is
a sign of tool full a connection: being too happy in thine
happiness, as the speaker tells the Nightingale; hearing the
song of the nightingale, the speaker longs for a draught of
vintage to transport him out of himself. But after his
meditation in the third stanza on the transience of life, he
rejects the idea of being charioted by Bacchus and his
pards and chooses instead of embrace, for the first time

since he refused to follow the figures in Indolence the

viewless wings of poesy.
The rapture of poetic inspiration
matches the endless creative rapture of the nightingales
music and lets the speaker, in stanza five through seven,
imagine himself with the bird in the darkened forest. The
ecstatic music even encouragers the speaker to embrace
the idea of dying of painlessly succumbing to death while
enraptured by the Nightingales music and never
experiencing and further pain or disappointment. But when
his meditation causes him to utter the word forlorn he
comes back to himself, recognizing his fancy for what it isan imagined escape from the inescapable. As the
Nightingale flies away, the intensity of the speakers
experience has left him shaken, unable to remember
whether he is awake or a sleep.
He can imagine the light of the moon,
But here there is no light, he knows he is surrounded by
flowers, but he cannot see what flowers are at his feet.
This suppression will find its match in Ode on Grecian
Urn, which is in many ways a companion poem to Ode to
Nightingale. In the later poem, the speaker art subject not
subject to any of the limitations of time; in Nightingale,
he has achieved creative expression and has placed his faith
in it, but that expression the Nightingale song is
spontaneous and without physical manifestation.
4.Ode to Autumn:
In both its form and descriptive surface,
To Autumn is one of the simplest of Keatss odes. There
is nothing confusing or complex Keatss paean to the

season of autumn, with its fruitfulness its flowers, and the

song of is swallows gathering for migration. The
extraordinary achievement of this poem lies in its ability to
suggestion explore, and develop a rich abundance of
themes without ever ruffling its calm gentle, and lovely
description of autumn, where Ode on Melancholy
presents itself as a strenuous heroic quest To Autumn is
concerned with the much quieter activity of daily
observation a appreciation. In this quieted the gathered
themes of the preceding odes find the fullest and most
beautiful expression.
To Autumn takes a where the other
odes leave off. Like the other, it shows Keatss speaker
paying homage to a particular goddess in this case, the
deified season of autumn. The selection of this season
implicitly takes up the other odes themes of temporality,
and change: Autumn in Keatss ode is a time of warmth and
plenty, but it is perched on the brink of winters desolation,
as the being enjoy. Later flower, the harvest is gathered
from the fields, the lambs of spring are now full grown
and in the final line of the poem the swallows gather for
their winter migration. The understated sense of inevitable
loss in that final line makes it one of the most moving
moments in all of poetry; it can be read as a simple
uncomplaining summation of the entire human condition.
In this poem, the act of creation is
pictured as a kind of self harvesting; the pen harvests the
fields of the brain and books are filled with the resulting
grain. In To Autumn, the metaphor is developed
further; the sense of coming loss that permeates the poem
confronts the sorrow underling the seasons creativity.

When autumns harvest is over, the fields will be bare, the

swaths with their twined flower cut down, the cider press
dry, the skies empty. But the connection of this harvesting
to the seasonal cycle softens the edge of the tragedy. In
time, spring will come again, the fields will grow again,
and the bird song will return. The development the speaker
so strongly resisted in Indolence is at last complete: He
has learned that an acceptance of morality is not destructive
to an appreciation of beauty and has gleaned wisdom by
accepting the passage of time.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we can say that, Keats wished,
to die into nature to cease upon the midnight with no
pains, but this was not his ordinary mood. Keats sought, in
spite of such moments of pain, to live in nature and to be
incorporate with one beautiful thing after another. He had a
way of fluttering butterfly fashion from one object to
another, touching for the moment the charm of each thingthe work of fancy who is never at home. Keats all odes, is
very difficult to understanding, and his all odes are very
famous in the romantic age.

Posted 4th April 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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1.
Oct
30

Paper-12: English Language Teaching

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti .V.
Sem: 3
Paper: English Language Teaching
Topic: Difference between Acquisition and Language
Teaching

Submitted to:
Smt.S.B Gardi
Department of English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavanagar University, Bhavanagar
Gujarat (India)

Difference between Acquisition and Language

Learning

Language Acquisition is a natural process

for any native to acquire his native regional language.
Language learning is a structured system for anyone to
learn a language.
.

According to Stephan Krashens

acquisition learning hypothesis, there are two
independent ways in which we develop our linguistic
skills: Acquisition and Learning.

Acquisition of language is a subconscious

process of which the individuals are not aware. One is
unaware of the process as it is happening and when the
new knowledge is acquired, the acquirer generally
does not realize that he or she possesses any new
knowledge. According to Krashens, both adults and
children can subconsciously acquire language, and
either written or oral language can be acquired. This
process is similar to the process that children under go
when learning their native language. Acquisition
requires meaningful interaction in the target language,
during which the acquirer is focused on meaning
rather than form.
Learning a language, on the other hand
is a conscious process, much like what one
experiences in school. New knowledge or language
forms are represented consciously in the learners
mind, frequently in the form of formal instruction, and
according to Krashens, is less effective than
acquisition.

Stephan Krashens draws a big

distinction, between learnt and acquired language, a
distinction that has caused controversy in itself, quite
apart from his idea for promoting this acquisition.
According to Krashens students who are taught in a
formal, for focused way will learn the language but
never fully acquire it. Acquisition, which is the basis
for all first language knowledge, consists of rules and
principles that are not available to conscious attention.
By contrast, learnt language can only use of learnt
language and further goes on to say that learnt
knowledge can never become acquired knowledge.
Krashens model has thus been termed a dual
competence model.
Error correction only useful fir learning
should thus be generally avoided if acquisition is the
aim of the teacher. Krashens doesnt believe the
classroom to be the place where a second language
can be successfully acquired and so states that the
priority in the classroom should be to equip students
for real life conversations and for real life situations
where acquisition is more likely to take place. It
should be noted here that Krashens has been heavily
criticized for making such a bold distinction between
learning and acquisition and especially for his claim
that classroom ESL teaching does little or nothing to
help students acquire a language.

It is important to understand the

difference between language acquisition, in which
language is acquired, and language learning, in which
language is learned. The term second language refers
to language developed in addition to ones first
language. Some children acquire a second language in
which much the same way as a first language for
example, if they move to another country at a young
age or if their care giver. But in most cases a second
language is learned, rather than acquired.

Many children use simply learn language

easier than adults. Children do indeed seem to develop
better pronounciation skills than do adults who learn
language later in life. In fact, it is nearly impossible
for adults to develop completely native like
pronounciation. However, adults are just as capable of
learning language as are children. The reasons it
seems easier for children has less to do with age than
with other factors that go along with age.

There is an important deference made by

linguistics between language acquisition and language
learning. Children acquire language through a
subconscious process during which they are unaware
of grammatical rules. They get a feel for what is and
what isnt correct. They reading acquire the language
to communicate with classmates. A student who has

memorized the rules of the language may be able to

succeed on a standardized test of English language but
may not be able to speak or write correctly.
As we all have noticed that children
acquire their mother tongue through interaction with
their parents and the environment that surrounds them.
Thire need to communicate paves the way for
language acquisition to take place. As experts says,
that there is an innate capacity in every human being
to acquire language. Although, parents never sit with
children to explain to them the workings of the
language their utterances show a superb command of
complicate rules and patterns that would drive an adult
crazy if they tried to memorize them and use them
without mistake. This suggests that it is through
exposure to the language and meaningful
communication that a first language is acquired
without the need of systematic studies of any kind. It
is hard when they are unfamiliar with the English
language and its rule.

The difference between language

learning and language Acquisition is acquiring a
language is simply knowing the words where as
language learning is understanding the words and the
part they play in a sentence along with structure of the
sentence.

Language acquisition refers to the

process of natural assimilation, involving intuition and
subconscious learning. It is the product of real
interactions between people in environment of the
target language and culture. Where the learner is an
active player. It is similar to the way children learn
their native tongue, a process that produces functional
skill in the spoken language without theoretical
knowledge. It develops familiarity with the phonetic
characteristic of vocabulary, and is responsible for oral
understanding the capability for the identification of
cultural values.

In acquisition inspired methodology,

teaching and learning are viewed as activities that
happen on a personal and psychological level. The
acquisition approach praises the communicative act
and develops self confidence in the learner.
The concept of language learning is
linked to the traditional approach to the study of
language and today is still generally practiced in high
schools worldwide. The task requires intellectual
effort and deductive reasoning. The student will be
taught how to form interrogative and negative
sentences, will memorize irregular verbs, study modal

verbs etc, but hardly ever masters the use of these

structures in conversation.
However, the effort of accumulating
knowledge about the language with all its irregularity
becomes frustrating because of the lack of familiarity
with the language.
The clear understanding differences
between acquisition and learning makes it possible to
investigate their interrelationships as well as
implications for the teaching of language.
We ought to be considering that
languages
are
complex,
arbitrary, irregular
phenomena, full of ambiguities, in constant random
and uncontrollable evolution. Therefore, the
grammatical structure of a language is too complex
and abstract to be categorized and defined by rules.
Even if some knowledge of the
functioning of the language is reached it is not easily
transformed into communication skills. What happens
in fact is the opposite: to understand the functioning of
a language with its irregularities is a result of being
familiar with it. It is also necessary to analyze the

personal characteristics of the players in the teaching

learning area.

Conclusion:

In conclusion we can says that language

acquisition is more efficient than language learning for
attaining functional skill in a foreign language not
only in childhood.
The efficient teaching of language isnt
that tied to a packaged course of structured lessons
based on grammatical sequencing, translation or oral
drilling, nor is the one that relies on the technological
resources. Efficient teaching is personalized takes
place in bicultural skills of the facilitator in building
relationships and creating situations or of real
communication with comprehensible input focusing
on the Learners interests.
Posted 30th October 2013 by vibhuti bhatt
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2.

Oct
30

Paper 11: Postcolonial Literature

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti. V

Sem: 3
Paper: Postcolonial Literature
Topic: How does A Tempest differ from and relate
to The

Tempest and its significance

Submitted to:
Smt.S.B Gardi

Department of English, Maharaja

Krishnakumarsinhji

Bhavanagar University, Bhavanagar

Gujarat (India)

How does A Tempest differ and relate to

The Tempest and its significance.

The Tempest is one of the William

Shakespeares final plays written around the year 1610
and consider to represent the culmination of his
career, centered on a disposed ruler Prospero. The
play takes place exclusively on a distant island after
the ship carrying the king of Naples encounters a
powerful storm and the crew is forced to abandon the
vessel. We find out that this is caused by the
Prosperos. This in fact marks the beginning of a series
of actions by Prospero to manipulate the other
characters in the play towards his own end.
After reassuring his daughter Miranda that
no one on the ship was hurt, Prospero proceeds to
inform her of how they ended up on island being
betrayed by his brother Antonio who took his title as

duke of Milan. We then meet Caliban a slave of

Prospero and rightful owner of the island by his
mother Sycorax who owned it previously. Soon
Ferdinand, the king son happens upon Miranda and
the two instantly fall in love. Although this is just what
Prospero expected and hoped to happen he plays the
suspicious father and enslaves. Ferdinand despite his
daughters protects.
Other character is Alonso, the king of
Naples and his party, including his scheming brothers
Sebastian Antonio and good hearted Gonzalo. We find
Sebastian and Antonio both plotting against the king
despite very bad situation they appear to be in. The
next scene has the jester Trinculo and Stephano, a
drunk come across Caliban as he hides from what he
takes to be an agent of Prospero. By the end of this
scene Caliban has decided to swear his loyalty to
Stephano and secure his aid in killing Prospero.
Aime Cesaires A Tempest is a
politicized take on Shakespeares play created during
the late sixties a time of great social change. It is really
a Postcolonial response to the Tempest and as such
deals much more with the story from the point of view
of Caliban and Ariel. In this version Caliban is a black
slave and the spirit Ariel is represented as a Mulatto
slave.

This version more or less follows the same

story however there are other differences from the
play which influenced it. The dialogue on Calibans
part is much harsher and more frequent. In saying, I
will impale you! And on a stake that you will have
impaled yourself! Calibans aggression and hate
towards Prospero is a bit more evident.
In The Tempest there is quite a few
characters that might be easily identifiable as villains
but the main figure, Prospero seems to play many
roles, good and bad. All of the events in the play are
more or less orchestrated by him in his attempt to get
justice and return to Milan. It can be argued that he is
largely at fault for his current situation by neglecting
his duties as duke and passing off responsibility to his
brother. Whether Prospero is a villain or not is not so
difficult to figure out in Cesaires work as that is his
purpose as a oppressive European colonist.
Miranda plays a unique role as she is
really the only female character present on the island.
She is also depicted as a helpless character, which was
the focus of Calibans unwanted attention thus
resulting in his current situation. In this way his
treatment is justified, he comes to represent bestial

desire, and Miranda establishes herself as an innocent

in need of constant protection.
As to whether Shakespeares play lends
itself to an interpretation like Cesaires, I would have
to say that it does Calibans character and the way
Prospero treats him is a good representation of
colonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples. His
rebuke of the idea that Prospero did him a favor by
teaching him English is synonymous with the view of
many especially during the late sixties when Cesaire
wrote his version.
The subtitle has led some commentators
to believe that Cesaires play should be considered as
but one more modern version of Shakespeare, this one
having ethnic over tones. Other has concluded on the
basis of an earlier statement by Cesaire that he
intended to write a play on the contemporary racial
situation in the United States, that his Tempest must be
read allegorically. Both groups under estimate the
significance of the play as contemporary drama and
fail to assess critically its relationship to the
Shakespearean model.
Comparison of these two plays leads
necessarily to consideration of theater as a critical
reflection on the value system of western humanism.

Cesaire has adopted a strategy of systematic

selectivity and reordering of priorities; consideration
of a more technical to a basic shift in vision. Cesaires
island is not the theatric it is a model of a Caribbean
society. In designating Ariel as a slave, Cesaire has set
the action within a recognizable set of Caribbean
problems of material and cultural dominance.
Cesaires Tempest in this respect does have a distant
analogue in Shakespeare.
Shakespeares marvelous opening scene
with its direct presentation of the storm at sea has been
largely rewritten by Cesaire, who has cut out the
nautical stage business all most completely.
Furthermore, details which in Shakespeare are related
by Ariel to Prospero are reassigned by Cesaire to
Gonzalo and Ferdinand at the end of the scene one.
Shakespeares palace revolt has been displaced in
favor of a grander scheme more in accord with the
thematic complex of exploration, conquest,
exploitation, and cause to lose freedom of choice or
action, all of which are closely related and finally
unable to be treated separately for Cesaire. Alonso and
Antonio sought to divide between them the colonial
empire Prospero himself had intended to found in the
lands recently explored as a result of his own
projections and mapping.

Several elements essential to the plot of

Shakespeares Tempest either disappears entirely or
are pushed discreetly into the background as a result
of this major shift of emphasis. Cesaires Prospero is
not primarily a magician, the important references to
his are, his robes and his books have no significant
function here. Aside from the magical pass which
immobilizes the sword arm of Ferdinand, Cesaire has
ignored the magical import of numerous phenomena
in the play. The illusions of Shakespeares Prospero
become weapons in the arsenal of Cesaires who is
already a Cartesian rationalist in his approach to
problem solving.
As symbol, Cesaires Tempest
represents the moment of negation in the dialectic of
colonialism: Caliban must negate the value system of
the colonialist in order eventually to freedom. Caliban
is not being accorded an easy victory, however. When
we close of act-3, scene-4 he proves himself incapable
of killing Prospero in cold blood when the occasion
presents itself. Two points are made here, as Prospero
point out; Caliban does not have the ability to commit
murder, a characteristic of Prosperos own humanity.
In conclusion we can say that, the
characters also differ in both works. Cesaires writing
style also differs from Shakespeare. It is also different
in the end of the both plays. In Shakespeare The

Tempest, Caliban dont have ability to fight with

Prospero, and surrender himself, and Cesaire, A
Tempest he described different way, he says that in
end of the play Caliban have ability fight with
Prospero. In Shakespeare a fourth and fifth, act of one
scene each concludes the play. There is an internal
logic to Cesaires incorporating both within a structure
in three acts. The fourth act included the masque and
according to some interpreter, the antimasque in which
Calibans crew is chased by Prosperos hounds. While
it was not within the scope of this play to chart a
course the final scene does avoided a strong sense of
the meaning of revolutionary theater as Cesaire
conceives it, or to paraphrase G. Durozois notes on
Cesaires adaption if the skeleton is Shakespearean the
flesh is the work of Cesaire and it is finally the flesh
that counts.

Posted 30th October 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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3.
Oct
30

Paper:10 American Literature

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti. V
Sem: 3
Paper: American Literature
Topic: Female Characters in Mourning becomes
Electra
Submitted to:
Smt.S.B Gardi
Department of English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji

Bhavanagar University, Bhavanagar

Gujarat (India)

Female Characters in Mourning Becomes

Electra:

(1) Lavinia Mannon:

Lavinia Mannon the daughter of Christine and
Ezra Mannon. Lavinia is Tall, Flat breasted, angular
and imperious in Manner, Lavinia is fond of her father
and firecely jealous of her mother. While Ezra was
fighting in the civil war, Christine had an affair with
Captain Adam Brant. Unconscious desire to have
Adam for she leads Lavinia to demand that Christine
give up Adam or face a scandal that would ruin the
family name. Unable to go on living with a husband.

She despises Christine plots with Adam to poison

Ezra, when he returns. Ezra is murdered, and Lavinia
discovers her mothers guilt. When her brother Orin
returns, wounded and distraught, from the war,
Lavinia tries to enlist his aid in avenging their fathers
death. Orin refuses until Lavinia proves Christines
guilt by a ruse. Blaming Adam for the murder, Orin
goes to Adams ship and shoots him. When Orin
reveals to Christine what he has done, she kills herself.
Orin and Lavinia then close the Mannon house and
voyage to the South Seas. Symbolically liberated from
the repressiveness of the New England puritan
tradition, Lavinia blossoms into a duplicate of her
voluptuous mother. She plans to marry and start a new
life. Orin hounded by his guilt and going mad,
threatens to reveal the Mannons misdeeds and tries to
extort from Lavinia a lovers promise never to leave
him. Lavinia agrees but ruthlessly drives Orin to
suicide.
Despite her loyalties to the Mannon line.
Lavinia appears as her mother double from the same
lustrous copper hair, violet eyes and mask like face.
Christine is her rival. Lavinia considers herself robbed
of all love at her mothers hands. Christine not only
taking her father but her would be lover as well. Thus,
she schemes to take Christines place and become the
wife of her father and mother of her brother. She does
so upon her mothers death reincarnating her in her
own flesh.
When Orin tells her sister, that she can
never see peter again. A distorted look of desire

comes into his face. Lavinia stairs at him in, horror,

and saying, For Gods sake No! Youre insane!
You cant mean...
Lavinia wishes his death. Startled, Orin
realizes that his death would be another act of justice.
Lavinia and Orin also talk with each other. Lavinia
already has told peter of Orins envelop. Peter arrives
and the pair pledges their love a new started by the
bitterness in his voice, Lavinia desperately fallings
herself into his arms, and crying take me Adam!
horrified, Lavinia orders peter home. Lavinia cackles
that she is bound to the Mannon dead. Since, there is
no one left to punish her, she must punish, she
schemes herself, she entomb herself in the house with
the ancestors.
In doing so, Lavinia comes to femininity
and sexuality. Lavinia traces a classical oedipal
trajectory in which the daughter, horrified by her
father that would redeem her father that would redeem
her lack. Orin figures as this child as well as the
husband she would leave to be with her son that is
peter substituting as Brant.
(2) Christine Mannon:
Christine Mannon is a striking woman of fort
with a fine, voluptuous figure flowing animal grace
and a mass of beautiful copper hair. Her place is also a
life like mask, a mask that represents both her
duplicity and her almost superhuman efforts at
repression.

Having long abhorred he husband Ezra,

Christine plots his murder with her lover Brant upon
his return from the civil war. She loves incestuously,
repudiating her husband and clinging to her son as that
which is all her own. She repeats this incestuous with
Brant, rediscovering Orin in a substitute.
Like her double, Brants mother Marie,
Christine moves with an animal like grace, grace that
codes for her sexual excess. This grace makes her
exotic, aligning her with the recurring figures of the
island native. It makes among the natives to fully
assume her figure.
As her characteristic green dress suggests.
Christine is consumed with envy. She envies Brants
Island women hating them for their sexual pleasures.
Despite the desperate veneer of kindness. She envies
Hazel for her youth, imagining her as a figure for what
she once was. Before the threat of her on coming age.
She massacres her love affair with Brant at all costs.
What Lawrence calls The mechanical bond of
purposive life without becoming someone other than
herself but once Christine gets utility, She feels, she
has a right to love, as her son.
Orin later says of her. Interestingly, when
Vinnie virtually Becomes her mother toward the end
of the play, she too believes she has a right to love.
Christines main failing, beyond a certain. Pathetic
longing for youth, and beauty is that she doesnt see
clearly enough that she is acted too late, and acting too
late, is the heart of tragedy.

Christine has been married for twenty,

years to a man she doesnt love. She has become less
and her lover also less and mate more and more the
person who takes care of the family. She is the mother
to all and yet finally rejects her role and family and the
Mannon tomb, for her promise of romance and
adventure in the South Seas, where the Christine
doctrine of sin is unknown.
Christine must only promise to never see
Brant again. Laughingly, Christine accuses her
daughter of wanting Brant herself. When Orin ask
about Adam Brant to Christine, that time she also
angry on Lavinia and she tells that, Lavinia has gone
mad and begun to accuse her of the impossible. Only
Orin is her flesh and blood, while Lavinia is fathers.
Christine recalls the secret world she shared with Orin
in his childhood with their unforgivable, password
No Mannons allowed and reveals that Ezra always
hated Orin jealously.
(3) Hazel Niles:
A long friend of the Mannon children. Hazel is a
pretty, healthy, dark haired girl of nineteen. O Neil
describe her character as frank, innocent, amiable, and
good. She functions as Orins would be sweet heart,
and both Christine and Lavinia attempting to pass Orin
flee with their suitors. Hazel also helplessly attempts
to rescue Orin from his fate.
(4) Louisa Ames:

Amoss wife. Louisa Ames is similarly

a gossip though much more maliciously.
(5) Minnie:
Louisas meek middle aged cousin and
most eager listener.
(6) Emma Borden:
Josiahs Wife. Emma is a typical New
England woman of pure English ancestry with a horse
face, buckteeth, and big teeth. Her manner is
defensively sharp and assertive.
(7) Mrs. Hills:
A sallow, flabby and self effacing
ministers wife.
Conclusion:
In the novel, Mourning becomes Electra,
only three women characters are more important like,

Lavinia Mannon, Christine Mannon and Hazel Niles.

Other characters are minored.

Posted 30th October 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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4.
Oct
30

Paper-9: ModernistLiterature
Name: Bhatt Vibhuti.V.

Sem: 3
Paper: Modernist Literature
Topic: The Waste Land Significance of its title
Submitted to:
Smt.S.B Gardi
Department of English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavanagar University, Bhavanagar
Gujarat (India)

The Waste Land Significance of its Title:

The title of the poem composed of the central

Wasteland symbol and a significant date 1922. For the
title of his poem, Eliot chose the central symbol of a
destroy land. The title evokes all the association of a
barren (not fertile) landscape blighted by drought
famine, leading on to wide scale human starvation,
misery and death. At another level, his symbolic title
recalls the ancient vegetation or fertility myths and
primitive folklore associated with the sterility of a land
affected by the impotence of its ruler. Both the land
and its people could be saved by a virtuous and daring
youth whose life was ritually sacrified so as to renew
the earth.
The Waste Land, as a title and symbol has a
profound and subtle significance. Eliot uses it to refer
to the post war devastation of Western civilization as a
modern counterpart to the mythological Waste Land
significantly Eliot affixed the date 1922 to the title
suggesting there by that his Waste Land Pertains to
the contemporary scenario of woe and Waste
following the carnage of world war-1, for the most
part, Eliots relates the Waste Land symbol of the title
to the Unreal City such as London, Athens,
Alexandria, Vienna or Jerusalem.
The Title: Spiritual Death of the Waste Landers:
The opening section of The Waste Land is
entitled The Burial of the Dead. It refers to the (a)
Burial of the dead fertility god, (b) The burial service

for the dead performed by the Christian church. In

both the cases death is believed to be followed by
rebirth. But the inhabitants of the contemporary Waste
Land are spiritually dead and the very thought of
rebirth or spiritual re- generation is painful to them.
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
In these lines, he says that April is the cruelest month
for the denizens of the modern Waste Land, for it
signifies rebirth, and they prefer Winter or spiritual
death, for rebirth implies some effort on their part and
any spiritual effort is hate full to them. Their values
are all topsy-turvy. April is the cruelest month, and
winter is welcome, for it keeps them warm and no
effort is needed on their part. The contrast with the
opening lines of Chaucers prologue is obvious. April
mixes memory with desire, for example, humanity is
reminded of the death of the fertility god in whose
death it had a share and is desirous for his rebirth. In
the primitive state the father was often murdered by
the son jealous of his prerogatives, and the god is
simply the father substitute; or it may be April is cruel,
for it reminds them of thire spiritual death, makes

them desirous of regeneration, but since regeneration

requires effort, the desire is painful for them.
(1) Contemporary Rootlesness:
The opening lines are the
meditation of Tiresias, the representative of humanity.
Then there is a light chat between two in habitants of
the Waste Land, perhaps overheard and remembered
by Tiresias, or perhaps he himself, is one of the
speakers. One of the two is German Princess, Marie.
She is a globe trotter, symbolizing the Rootlesness of
the modern man and the fact that life is lived entirely
on the physical plane. The princess remembers only a
cousin with whom probably she had sex relations. She
does not remember her parents or her brothers and
sisters. She has no roots either in the family, or
community or the nation. Eliot considers such ties
necessary for culture, for real life spiritual and the
moral.
(2) Tiresias: A mythological figure:
Tiresias, the central figure of Eliots
Waste Land.
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing
Between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female

Breasts can see.

(And I Tiresias have fore suffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Tiresias, is historical connected with the
story of king Oedipus of Thebes, which is clearly and
demonstrably the classical legend of a Waste Land,
with striking resemblances to the drought infested, sinridden kingdom of the medieval fisher king Oedipus
who unwittingly kills his father and marries his own
mother and thus calls down upon his supposedly
innocent head the curse of the Gods in the form of a
virulent plague, epidemic and destructive, which
neither king nor commoner fails to regard as a
punishment for some dark and hidden crime. Tiresias,
the blind prophet, is summoned and when compelled
by the king tells the shocking truth that he, the king
himself, is the plague spot. Such is the conspiracy of
circumstances that the king is slowly but irresistibly
driven to the realization of this horrible truth. Nothing
remains for the king but the duty of expiation, self
mutilation, self exile, self abasement and a prolonged
penance which eventually result in spiritual calm and
inner illumination.
(3) Biblical Waste Land :

There is a third Waste Land also the

biblical Waste Land or evil land of Emmaus,
mentioned in Ecclesiastes and Ezekiel parts of the Old
Testament. The prophet Ezekiel warns his followers to
remember god and give up idolatry. Their sins have
laid the country Waste and regeneration will come
only when they return to God. The Dead Tree, The
Handful of Dust, The dead Tree, The dry Grass,
The Cricket, The Rock, etc, are all derived from the
biblical imagery of decay and desolation in the parts
mention above.
(4) Sexual Perversion:
Sex relationship in the middle classes in
equally mechanical. This is seen in the mechanical
relationship of the typist and the clerk. The typist
gives herself to the clerk with a sense of total
indifference and apathy. There is neither repulsion nor
any pleasure, and this absence of feeling is a measure
of the sterility of the age. As soon the young man has
departed, the typist rearranges her hair, and puts a
record on the gramophone, with automatic hands.
This perversion of sex is also to be seen in the lower
classes of society. The songs of three Thames
daughters clearly show that they have been sexually
exploited, but they can do nothing about it. They and
their people are too poor and too apathetic to make
any efforts for the betterment of their lot. Man has
grow inhuman humanity has lost its humanity. That
sex is matter of a momentary pleasure or a business

proposition is also suggested by the image of the

deserted Thames, which in the summer was a
favourite picnic spot for the nymphs and their rich
friends. Further, the conversation of the ladies in some
London pub also brings out the sordid nature of
sexrelationship in the contemporary Waste Land. Not
only has sex been vulgarized and commercialized
there also prevailed abnormal sex practices of various
kinds. Thus Mr. Eugenides is a relationship which is
essentially sterile. All Europe is burning with lust and
sexuality.
(5) The Fisher King: His Desolate Lands:
It is that in the course of their hazardous
quest Parsifal, the Quester, and his fellow adventurers
happened to arrive in a country ruled over by a prince
named the fisher king. It was one of the regions where
Grail worship had been anciently in vogue, and a
temple, known as chapel perilous, still stood there,
broken and dilapidated, as a mournful memorial of
what once was, but later had ceased to be. It was said
that the lost Grail was hidden in this chapel. At that
time the king himself had become a physical wreck,
maimed and impotent, as a result. It was whispered, of
a sin committed by his soldiery in outraging the
chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail
chapel. The impotency of the fisher king was reflected
sympathetically in the land of which he was the head
and the ruler. It had become dry and barren the haunt
and home of want and famine. The king however was

waiting with hope, despite his illness, that one day the
night of the pure soul would visit his star crossed
kingdom, march to the chapel perilous, answer
question and solve riddles. This would be followed by
a ritual washing of his, king fishers sinful body,
which would purge it and renew its health and energy.
It was also the king would be followed by the life
giving rains to the parched land and the thirsty
kingdom, which would once more enjoy its earlier
fertility.
(6) Other Sources:
Eliots inspiration for the poem is a book
about the immemorial antiquity of the search for union
with the source of inner vitality. The legend behind it
is one which aims at finding the source of this vitality
and undertaking the necessary displines involved in
that search. But there are many other external sources
for Eliots poem: these include Shakespeares play,
The Tempest, Dantes purgatorio, Buddha and
St.Augustine as preachers of asceticism, and a legend
from an Upanishad giving moral instruction.
(7) Conclusion:
Eliot has linked up the past with the present,
and universalized the topical. He has thus shown that
the spiritual sterility of the modern age is nothing
peculiar to it. Sin especially sexual perversion, has
always resulted in spiritual decay and desolation.

Spiritual regeneration will result; life giving rain will

come, only when humanity is prepared to pay the price
in the form of suffering and penance.
Thus by the use of these medieval myth the
poet has succeeded in depersonalizing his emotions,
and thus has imparted the impersonality of great art to
this poem.
Such is the theme and such the message of
The Waste Land. However, Eliot does not assert
anything; he conveys his meaning through delicate
suggestion, the use of implication, and the use of the
mythical technique. This accounts for the general
misunderstanding of the poems significance.

Posted 30th October 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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5.
Apr
4

Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai

Std.: M.A.: 1, Sem: 2
Sub.: Cultural Studies
Topic: Postmodernism and Popular Culture
Roll no: 15
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad
Department of English
Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar

(1)

Postmodernism:
o

Introduction:

Postmodernism is a term
usually applied to the period in literature and literary
theory since the 1960s, though some regard
postmodernism as the prevailing intellectual mood
since World War-2 ended in 1945. Numerous
Philosophers, critics, and belletristic writers can be
seen as precursors or early representatives of the
cultural and aesthetic approach that would come to be
called postmodernism, among them Martin Heidegger,
Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Bretch, Jorge Luis Borges,
and Roland Barthes. Postmodernism is characterized
by a strikingly radical skepticism toward all aspects of
western culture, the impetus for which many
practitioners of postmodern theory they trace back to
the writings of the nineteenth century, philosopher
Frederic Nietzsche. Nietzsches spiritual descendants
seek, in so many words, a new kind of meaning
independent of the prevailing cultural myth of
objective truth.

Defining Terms:

What exactly is meant by the

label Modernism and how does Postmodernism
differ from it? In the English speaking world,
modernism has a very specific meaning among most
literature scholars, referring not to the Modern Age
since the Enlightenment, or to Modern in the sense
of contemporary, but to the period after World War-1,
When T.S.Eliot, James Joyes, W.B.Yeats, Ezra Pound,
and Gertrude Stein were in their heyday.
Postmodernism offers no suggestion of anything like a
comprehensive substitute world- view. Postmodernism
means to make a clean break with the past in the sense
that the past and its way of looking at the world
become the subject of satirical, often sarcastic play
with historical figures texts, and ideologies.
Postmodernism represents a final disillusion with
western cultural preconceptions and indulges in a
merciless rethinking of history, pedagogy, and
aesthetics in literature, the visual arts, and
architecture. By the same token, postmodernism in
the days after the end of the cold war (1945-1989), is
no closer to offering direction but asserts only its
prerogative to question infinitely and to subvert.

Post-structuralism and Deconstruction:

Is post-structuralism a continuation
and development of structuralism or a form of
rebellion against it? In one important sense it is the
latter, since a very effective way of rebelling is to
accuse your predecessors of not having the courage of
their convictions. The post structuralism maintains
that the consequences of this belief are that we enter a
universe of radical uncertainty, since we can have no
access to any fixed landmark which is beyond
linguistic processing, and hence we have no certain
standard by which to measure anything.
However, perhaps it will be helpful
simply to list some differences and distinctions
between structuralism and post structuralism under the
four headings below.
1. Origin:
Structuralism derives ultimately from
linguistics. Structuralism in herits this outlook: it too
believes in method, system, and reason as confidently
scientific being able to establish reliable truths. It
regards any confidence in the scientific method as
nave, and even derives a certain that we cant know
anything for certain fully conscious of the irony and
paradox which doing this entail.

2. Tone and Style:

Structuralism writing tends towards

abstraction and generalizations: it aims for a detached
scientific coolness of tone, an essay like Roland
Barthes 1966 piece introduction to the structural
Analysis of narrative is typical of this tone and
treatment, with its discrete steps in an orderly
exposition, complete with diagrams. Over all it seems
to aim for an engaged warmth rather than detached
coolness.
3. Attitude to language:
Structuralists accept that the world is
constructed through language, in the sense that we do
not have access to reality other than through the
linguistic medium. The long dormant metaphorical
bases of words are often reactivated by their use in
philosophy or literature and then interfere with literal
sense or with the stating of single meanings.
Linguistic anxiety then is a keynote of the post
Structuralists outlook.
4. Project:

Structuralism, firstly questions our way of

structuring and categorizing reality, and prompts us to
break free of habitual modes of perception or
categorization, but is believe that we can thereby
attain a more reliable view of things. Thus, its torch of
skepticism burns away the intellectual ground on
which the western civilization is built.

Post structuralism-life on a decenterd planet:

Post structuralism emerged in France in

the late 1960s. The two figures most closely
associated with this emergence are Roland Barthes
and Jacques Derrida. Barthess work around this time
began to shift in character and move from a
Structuralists phase to a post Structuralists.
The second key figure in the development
of post structuralism in the late 1960s is the
philosopher Jacques Derrida. Indeed, the starting point
of post structuralism may be taken as is 1996 lecture
structure, sign and play in the discourse of the Human
sciences. In this paper Derrida sees in modern times a
particular intellectual even which constitutes a
radical break from past ways of thought, loosely
associating this break with the philosophy of
Nietzsche and Heidegger and the psychoanalysis of
Freud.

Derridas method always involves the

highly detailed deconstructive reading of selected
aspects of other philosophers works, and these
deconstructive method have been borrowed by literary
critics and used in the reading of literary works. They
always turn out of to be representative of the
monstrous births predicted at the end of structure,
sign, and play.

Postmodernism-post-postmodernism

Recently
the
notions
of
metamodernism, post-postmodernism and the death
of postmodernism have been increasingly widely
debated in his introduction to a special issue of the
journal 20th century literature titled After
postmodernism that declarations of postmodernisms
demise have become a critical commonplace. The
exhibition postmodernism- style and subversion 19701990 at the Victorian and Albert Museums was billed
as the first however to document postmodernism as a
historical movement.
(2)

Popular Culture:

Introduction

Popular culture is the entirely of ideas, perspective,

attitudes, images and other Phenomena that are within
the mainstream of a given culture, especially western
culture of the early to mid 20th century and the
emerging global mainstream of the late 20 th and early
21th century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this
collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the
society.

Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and

dumbed down in order to find consensual acceptance
throughout the mainstream. As a result it comes under
heavy criticism from various non mainstream sources
(most notably religious groups and counter cultural
groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist,
sensationalist, and corrupted.

History and Definition:

The term Popular Culture' was coined in the 19

century or earlier.Traditionally, the term has denoted
the education and general culturedness of the lower

th

classes, as opposed to the official culture and higher

education emanated by the dominant classe.The stress
in the distinction from official culture became more
pronounced towards the end of the 19 century, a
usage that became established by the interbellum
period.
th

According to John Storey, there are six definition of

popular culture. The quantitative of culture has the
problem that much high culture is also defined as
the culture that is left over when we have decided
what high culture is. However, many works straddle
the boundaries, for example, Shakespeare and Charles
Dickens.
A third definition equates pop culture with mass
culture and ideas. This is seen as a commercial
culture, mass producer for mass consumption by mass
media. From a western European perspective, this may
be compared to American culture. Popular culture
changes constantly and occurs unequal in place and
time. Important contemporary contribution for
understanding what popular culture means have been
given by the German researcher Ronald Daus, who
studies the impact of extra European culture In North
America Asia and especially in Latin America.

Folklore:

Adaption based on traditional folklore

provides a source of popular culture. This early layer
of culture main stream still persists today, in a form
separate from mass produced popular culture,
propagating word of mouth rather than Victorian mass
media, for example in the form of jokes or urban
legend with the widespread use of the distinction
between mass media and word of mouth has become
blurred. Moreover, beliefs and opinions about the
products of commercial culture spread bu word of
mouth, and become modified in the process in the
same manner that folklore evolves.

Self referenc:

Many cultural critics have dismissed this as

merely a symptom or side effect of mass
consumerism; however, alternate explanations and
critique have also been offered. One critic asserts that
it reflects a fundamental paradox: the increase in
technological and cultural sophistication, combined
with an increase in superficiality and dehumanition.
Extreme example approach a kind of thematic infinite
regress wherein distinction between art and life
commerce and critique, ridicule and homage become
intractably blurred.

Conclusion:

The postmodernism was first used in the

1960s by literary critics such as Ahab Hassan and
Leslie Fiedler. They were joined by Susan Sintag in
arguing for the postmodernist aesthetic. Defenders of
postmodernism often respond that such criticism
misses the point; postmodern writers expose questions
of reality they do not provide explicit answers about
reality.Sometimes popular culture can so overtake and
repackage a literary work that it is impossible to read
the original text without reference to the many layers
of popular culture that have developed around it.

Posted 4th April 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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6.
Apr
4

Literary Terms (1) New Historicism

(2) Queer Theory (3) Feminism

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai

S.T.D.: M.A.-1, Sem: 2
S.U.B.: Literary Theory and Criticism
Topic: Literary Terms

(1)

New Historicism

(2)

Queer Theory

(3)

Feminism
Roll no: 15
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English
Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar
(1)

New Historicism:

Introduction:
The Twenty first century is
regarded as the age of globalization transnationalism

and telecommunication. Education today is focused to

prepare people to be flexible multiskilled dynamic
problemsolvers, and creative explorer of resources
with the ability to interpret reality from multiple
perspectives and bring harmony between knowledge
and creative.
Therefore the traditional
approaches to teaching literature have been replaced
with modern approaches. The modern approaches
were introduced at the turn of twentieth century. Initial
efforts were mad by formalists and the new critics,
who assigning primary importance to the text set up
the tradition of close reading.
Today readers response,
deconstruction and other deconstructive reader based
interpretative theories such as New Historicism, Post
structuralism, Maxicism cognitive poetics, feminism
post colonialism and post modernism are considered
majore interpretative method.
Meaning and Definition of New Historicism:
A simple definition of the New
Historicism is that it is a method based on the parallel
reading of literary and non- literary texts, usually of
the same historical period. That is to say New

Historicism refuses to privilege the literary texts;

instead of the literary fore ground and a historical
background it envisages and practices a mode of a
study in which literary and non- literary texts are
given equal, weight and constantly inform or
interrogate echo there. Petre Berry, Beginning
Theory- An introduction to Literary and cultural
Studies.
New Historicism is based on the
assumption that a literary work is the product of the
time, place, and circumstances of its composition. The
New Historicists, therefore, reject the autonomy of
both an artist and work of art and argue that literary
texts cannot be read and understood in isolation. They
emphasize that literary texts must be read and
interpreted in its biographical, social historical
contexts.
Origins of New Historicism:
The term New Historicism was
coined by the American critic Stephan Green Blatt.
Whose book Renaissance self- Fashioning: From more
to Shakespeare (1988). This is usually regarded as the
beginning of New Historicism. However, similar
tendencies can be identified in work by various critics
published during the 1970s. J.W.Lever, The tragedy of
State: A study of Jacobean Drama, Published in 1971.

This brief and epoch making book challenged

conservative critical views about Jacobean Theater,
and linked the plays much more closely with the
political events of their era than previous critics had
done. New Historicism provides critical method of
interpretation of a literary work of art; which came,
into being as a reacting New Historicism.
Michel Foucaults views that the
discourse of an era, instead of reflecting pre- existing
entitle and orders, brings into being the concepts,
oppositions and hierarchies of which it speaks; that
these elements are both products and propagators of
power, or social forces, and that as a result, the
particular discursive formations of an era determine
what is at the time accounted knowledge and
truth, as well as what is considered to be criminal, or
insane or sexually deviant; see Foucault under post
structuralism.
Harold Bloom criticizes the New
Historicism for reducing literature to a footnote of
history, and for not paying attention to the details
involves in analyzing literature.
(2)

Queer Theory:

Introduction:

Queer Theory is often uses to

designate the combined area of gay and lesbian
studies, together with the theoretical and critical
writings such as cross dressing, bisexuality, and
transsexuality from societys normative model of
sexual identity, orientation, and activities. The term
Queer was originally derogatory, used to stigmatize
male and female same sex love as deviant and
unnatural; since the early 1990s, however, it has been
increasingly adopted by gays and lesbians themselves
as a non invidious term to identify a way of life and
area for scholarly inquiry.
Both lesbian studies and gay
studies began as liberation movement- in parallel
with the movements for African-American and
feminist libration during the Ant- Vietnam War, Antiestablishment, and countercultural ferment of the late
1960s and 1970s. Since that time these studies have
maintained a close relation to the political activities to
achieve, for gays and lesbians, political, legal, and
economic rights equal to those of the heterosexual
majority. Through the 1970s, the two movements were
primarily separatist: gays often thought of themselves
as quintessentially male, while many lesbian, aligning
themselves with the feminist movement, characterized
the gay movement as sharing the anti-female attitudes
of the reigning patriarchal culture. Recently, however,
there has been a growing recognition of the degree to
which the two groups share a history as a despised and

suppressed minority and possess common political and

social aims.
A number of Queer theorists,
for example, adopted the deconstructive mode of
dismantling the key binary opposition of western
culture,
such
as
male/female,
heterosexual/homosexual, and natural/unnatural, by
which a spectrum of diverse things is forced into only
two categories, and in which the first category is
assigned privileged, power and centrality, why the
second is derogated, subordinated, and marginalized in
an important essay of 1980, compulsive
Heterosexuality and lesbian existence, Adrienne Rich
posited what she called the lesbian continuum as a
way of stressing how far ranging and diverse is the
spectrum of love and bonding among woman
including female friendship, the family relation
between mother and daughter, and womans
partnerships and social groups, as well as overtly
physical same sex relation. Later theorists such as Eve
Sedgwick and Judith Butler undertook to invert the
standard
hierarchical
opposition
by
which
homosexuality is marginalized and made unnatural, by
stressing the extent to which the ostensible
normativity of heterosexuality is based on the
suppression and denial of same sex desires and
relationships.
A number of Journals are now
devoted to Queer Theory and to lesbian, gay, and

transgender studies and criticism; the field has also

become the subject of regularly scheduled learned
conferences and has been establish in the curriculum
of the humanities and social science in great many
colleges and universities. See also the there is a larger
and rapidly growing body of book on these subjects.
See also the readings listed under the feminist
criticism and gender studies.
(3)

Feminism:

Introduction:
Feminism is a collection of
movement and ideologies aimed at defining,
establishing, and defending equal political, economic,
and social rights for women. This includes seeking to
establish equal opportunities for women in education
and employment.
The French Philosopher,
Charles Fourier is created with having originated the
word feminism and feminist first appeared in
France and the Netherland in 1872, Great Britain in
the 1890s, and the United States in 1910, and the
oxford English dictionary lists 1894 as the year of the
first appearance of feminist and 1895 for
feminism. Today, the oxford English dictionary

defines a feminist as an advocate or supporter of the

rights and equality of women.
Feminist activists campaign
for womens rights such as in contract law, property,
and voting-while also promoting bodily integrity
autonomy, and reproductive rights for women.
Feminist campaigns have changed societies,
particularly in the west, by achieving womens
suffrage gender neutrality in English, equal pay for
women, and the right to enter into contracts and own
property. Feminists have worked to protect women
and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment,
and sexual assault. They have also advocated for work
place rights, including maternity leave, and against
forms of discrimination against women.
Feminism is mainly focused on
womens issues but because feminism seeks gender
equality, bell hooks, among other feminists, has
argued that mens liberation is a necessary part of
feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and
gender role.
(1)

Movement and Ideologies:

Many overlapping feminist

movement and ideologies have developed over the
years.

 Political Movement:
Some branches of feminism
closely track the political leanings of the larger
society, such as liberalism and conservation, or focus
on the environment. Liberal feminism seeks
Individualistic equality of men and women though
political and legal form without altering the structure
of society other feminists criticize separatist feminism
as exist, Ecofeminists see mens control of land as
responsible for the operation of women and
deconstruction of the natural environment,
ecofeminism has been criticized for focusing to much
on a mystical connection between women and nature.
Black and postcolonial ideologies:
Sara Ahmad argues that
Black and postcolonial feminisms pose a challenge to
some of the organizing premises of Western feminist
thought. During much of its history, feminist
movements and theoretical developments were led
predominantly by middle class white women from
Western Europe and North America. These ideas also
correspond with idea in African feminism, motherism,

stiwanism, negofeminism, transnational, feminism,

and African womanism.
Social constructionist ideologies:
In the late 20th century various
feminists began to argue that gender roles are socially
constructed, and that it is impossible to generalize
womens experiences across cultures and histories.
Post structural feminism draws on the philosophies of
post strucralism and deconstruction in order to argue
that the concept of gender is created socially and
cultural through discourse. Post modern feminists also
emphasize the social construction of gender and the
discursive nature of reality, however as Pamela Abbot
et al note, a postmodern approach to feminism
highlights the existence of multiple truths.
Cultural Movement:

Riot Grrrl is an underground feminist

punk movement that started in the 1990s and is often
associated with third wave feminism. It was ground in
the DIY Philosophy of punk values. Lipstick feminism
is a cultural feminist movement the attempts to

respond to the backlash of the 1960s and 1970s by

reclaiming symbols feminism identity such as men
up suggestive clothing and having a sexual allure as
valid and empowering personal choice.
(2)

Feminist Culture:

Art:
According to the Tale collect
feminist art can be defined as art by women artists
made consciously in the light of developments in
feminist art theory since about 1970
Literature:
The feminist movement produced
both feminist fiction and nonfiction and created new
interest in women writing. More recently, broad views
press continues to issue 18th and 19th century novels,
many hitherto out of print, and the university o
Kentucky has a series of republications of early
womens novels. Notable texts of this kind are Ursula.
Le Guinns, The left hand of Darkness (1969),
Joanna Russs, The Female Man(1970), Octavia
Butlers, Kindred (1979), and Margaret Atwoods,
Handmaids Tale (1985).

Posted 4th April 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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7.
Apr
4

Middlemarch- A Feministic
Perspective

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai

Std.: M.A.-1, Sem -2

Sub.: Victorian Literature

Topic: Middlemarch- A Feministic Perspective
Roll no: 15
Submitted to: Heenaba Zala
Department of English
Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar
Introduction:
George Eliot was born on
November 22, 1819. Baptized Mary Anne Evans, Eliot
chose to writer her novels under a male pseudonym.
She scorned the stereotypical female novelist; rather
than writing the silly, unrealistic romantic tales
expected of women writer, she wrote according to her
own states.

 Feministic Perspective:

The feministic criticism of

George Eliots novel , Middlemarch, feministic
perception of the character of Dorothea Brooke;
Dorotheas relations with majors male figures of the
novel; portrayal of female character of Eliot through
limitation of education and opportunity imposed by
the society imbalance between male and female
strength in the novel.
In a seminal feminist
interpretation of Middlemarch Gilbert and Gubar
suggest that the novel should be read as an attempt on
Eliots part to resolve the conflict between two
opposing sides of her personality, her mans mind and
womans heart.
As Alan Mintz suggests that
George Eliots use of vocation as a subject in
Middlemarch is very original. This work becomes not
romance of love, but romance of vocation. But
Dorothea, frustrated by the inhabiting conditions of
Middlemarch society and by her own spots of
commonness, gives up her pursuit of vocation and
seems happy to sink into her second marriage to Will
Ladislow.

Zelda Austen agrees that Eliot

did not permit Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch to
do what George Eliot did in real life. Eliot doesnt
allow Dorothea an opportunity of self achievement
like herself, in Austens words, because she was a
genius, one in a thousand, and Dorothea was not.
Now, second details the
problems of Dorotheas second marriage and the
romantic ending of the novel. This second marriage is
at least better than the first. As Joan Bennett
comments, Dorotheas seconds marriage is an
improvement on the first, because its basis is an
appreciation of the man as he is; their love for each
other comprises mutual sympathy understanding and
respect. Besides, when Dorothea gives up her fortune
under Casaubons will to marry Will, it implies
Dorotheas bravery to rebel against the repressive
society that is run by in heritance. Though Dorothea
does not rebel for the radical revolution of society
itself, but for her individual happiness; this act
suggests her active pursuit of fulfillment.
Dorotheas predicament in
Middlemarch is an eloquent plea that a fine mind be
allowed an occupation; but it goes no farther than
petition. She marries Will Ladislaw and can expect no
more of life than the discovery of a good companion
whom she serves as secretary.
Dorothea had a mothers
advice, she might have made some changes to Mr.

Casaubons Lowicmanor, her future home, to

accomplish two things minimally first, she would have
made her feminine mark on her own environment
which would have psychologically sent a message to
her husband that life is to be shared; and secondly, by
altering the drapes, for instance, to allow more light
into her world and his, she could have made her own
preferences those of enlightenment. Instead, Eliot
chooses to have Miss Brooke deny even the advice of
the narrator.
In making this statement, I do
not wish to inscribe Eliot as token of feminine
scientific individualism. My main argument runs
counter to such an individualistic interpretation of
scientific thought.
Dorothea attempts to save her
uncle from the consequences of the contradiction
between his public and private selves. Moreover, her
intervention illustrates the much narrower range of
choices for women. Dorothea has an intense desire to
be a reforming philanthropist. However, as a woman,
she can only enact the reforms she plans through man.

Rosamond Vincy has a similar

ambivalence to music, though we may be tempted to
think otherwise because she is constantly performing
music. Unlike Casaubon, however Rosamond is not
innocuously tone deaf, here is a far larger fault in

George Eliots views because she understands music

intellectually yet she remains profounding unmoved
by its presence. Rosamond offers not noble music to
the people of Middlemarch, only an imitated
rendering of noble music.
Rosamond herself is also a target
of feminist criticism. Many critics have seen her
portrayal as harsh and unsympathetically perhaps there
is some truth to this charge. Eliot certainly does blame
woman a bit for their position, of subjugation. Blame
is placed on Dorothea for her initial unthinking
acceptance of the patriarchal order. Her views on
marriage make her complicit in her own subjugation.
But Rosamond is neither as intelligent, compassionate,
nor as ardent as Dorothea. She is not without
redeeming qualities, but they are few. It is this
portrayal of women that prompts much of the feminist
criticism.
George Eliot presents glimpse into
the private and public lives of several women and their
thought processes in Middlemarch. Each woman
uniquely represent something feminist, whether it is
her desire to stick with her principles, exercise her free
will, or outwardly represent the perfect model of
modern, contemporary womanly attributes. Mary
Garth,Dorothea Casaubon, and Rosamond Lydgate all
expresses themselves as a strong female presence in
relation to other, especially with regard to the threat or
hint of a promise. Their perspectives regarding the

meaning of a promise and how they act in accordance

with promises shape their roles in public life. Some
extremists castigate Eliot for the vast difference of
personal freedom when comparing her own life to the
limited options available to their character.

Conclusion:

Consequently, when the definion of

feminist is qualified to mean the perception and
sympathetic expression of contemporary womans
repression and of the tention between the romance of
love and the romance of vocation, Eliot can be called a
feminist and a realist in the best sense. As Jeanie G
Thomas succinctly points out, Eliot is profoundly
feminist in her insight into the restrictions on
womens development and the complex, social and
psychological dynamics that maintain those
restrictions and in her feeling for the human waste and
suffering often there by engendered.

Posted 4th April 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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8.
Apr
4

Keatss Odes A General Study

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai
Std.:M.A.-1, Sem-2
Sub: Romantic Literature
Topic: Keatss Odes A General Study
Roll no: 15
Submitted to: Heenaba Zala,
Department of English,

Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar

Introduction:
John Keats was born on 31st
October, 1795.He lived only 25 years, and four
months, yet his poetic achievement is extraordinary.
His writing career lasted a little more than five years,
and three of his great Odes, Ode on a Grecian Urn,
Ode to a Nightingale, and Ode on -Melancholy.
Most of his major poems were written between his
23rd and 24th years, and all his poems were written by
his 25th year. Keats died of Tuberculosis at the age of
25, shortly.
1. Ode on a Grecian Urn:
Ode on a Grecian Urn, is a poem
poem written by English Romantic poet John Keats.
Keats found earlier forms of poetry unsatisfactory for
his purpose, and the collection represent a new
development of the ode form. He was inspired to write
the poem after reading two articles by English artist
and writer Benjamin Haydon. Greek art was idealistic
and captured Greek virtues, which forms the basis of
the poem.

Ode on a Grecian Urn was not

well received by contemporary critics. It was only by
the mid 19th century that it began to be praised
although it is now considered to be one of the greatest
odes in the English language. Ode on a Grecian Urn,
portrays his attempt to engage with the static
immobility of sculpture. The Grecian Urn passed
down through countless centuries to the time of the
speakers viewing, exists outside of time in the human
sense, it does not age, it does not die, and indeed it is
alien to all such concepts. In the speakers meditation,
this creates an intriguing paradox for the human
figures carved into the side of the urn. They are free
from time, but they are simultaneously frozen in time.
They do not have to confront again and death, but
neither can they have experience.
In final two lines, in which the
speaker imagines the urn speaking its message to
mankind Beauty is truth, truth beauty, have proved
among the most difficult to interpret in the Keats
canon. If it is the urn addressing mankind, than the
phrase has rather the weight of an important lesson, as
though beyond all the complication of human life, all
human beings need to know on earth is that beauty and
truth are one and the same. It is largely matter of
personal interpretation which reading to accept.
2. Ode to Psyche:

In this ode, the story basis on the

psyche is a famous myth. Psyche was the youngest
and most beautiful daughter of a king. She was so
beautiful that Aphrodite, the goddess of love and
beauty, was jealous of her. She dispatched her son.
Eros the god of love to punish Psyche for being so
beautiful. But Eros was so startled by Psyches beauty
that he pricked himself with his own arrow and fell in
love with her. Eros summoned Psyche to his palace,
but he remained invisible to her, coming to her only
and night and ordering her never to try to see his face.
One night Psyche lit a lamp in order to catch a glimpse
of her lover, but Eros was so angry with her for
breaking his trust that he left her. Psyche was forced to
perform a number of difficult tasks to placate. Venus
and win back Eros as her husband. The word Psyche
is Greek for soul and it is not difficult to imagine
why Keats would have found the story attractive the
story of the woman, so beautiful that love fell in love
with her.
Additionally; as Keats observed, the
myth of Psyche was first recorded by Apuleius in the
second century and is thus much more recent than,
most myths. It is so recent, infect, that Psyche never
worshipped as a real goddess, that slight is what
compeers Keatss speaker to dedicate himself to
becoming her temple, her priest and her prophet, all in
one. So he has found a way to move beyond the
numbness of indolence and has discovered a goddess
to worship. To worship Psyche, Keats summons all the

resources of his imagination. He will give to Psyche a

region of his mind. Where his thoughts will transforms
into the sumptuous natural beauties Keats imagine will
attract Psyche to her bower in his mind. Taken by
itself, Ode to Psyche is simply a song to love and
the creative imagination in the full contexts of the
odes, it represents a crucial step between Ode on I
indolence and Ode to Nightingale the speaker has
become preoccupied with creativity but his
imagination is still directed toward wholly internal
ends. He wants to partake of divine permanence by
taking his goddess into himself; he has not yet become
interested in the outward imaginative expression of
art.
3. Ode to Nightingale:
Ode to Nightingale Keatss
speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of
the themes of creative expression and the morality of
human life. In this ode, the transience of life and the
tragedy of old age is set against the eternal renewal of
the Nightingales fluid music. The speaker reprises the
drowsy numbness he experienced is Ode on
Indolence that numbness was a sign of disconnection
from experience, in Nightingale it is a sign of tool
full a connection: being too happy in thine
happiness, as the speaker tells the Nightingale;
hearing the song of the nightingale, the speaker longs

for a draught of vintage to transport him out of

himself. But after his meditation in the third stanza on
the transience of life, he rejects the idea of being
charioted by Bacchus and his pards and chooses
instead of embrace, for the first time since he refused
to follow the figures in Indolence the viewless
wings of poesy.
The rapture of poetic inspiration
matches the endless creative rapture of the
nightingales music and lets the speaker, in stanza five
through seven, imagine himself with the bird in the
darkened forest. The ecstatic music even encouragers
the speaker to embrace the idea of dying of painlessly
succumbing to death while enraptured by the
Nightingales music and never experiencing and
further pain or disappointment. But when his
meditation causes him to utter the word forlorn he
comes back to himself, recognizing his fancy for what
it is- an imagined escape from the inescapable. As the
Nightingale flies away, the intensity of the speakers
experience has left him shaken, unable to remember
whether he is awake or a sleep.
He can imagine the light of the
moon, But here there is no light, he knows he is
surrounded by flowers, but he cannot see what
flowers are at his feet. This suppression will find its
match in Ode on Grecian Urn, which is in many
ways a companion poem to Ode to Nightingale. In
the later poem, the speaker art subject not subject to

any of the limitations of time; in Nightingale, he has

achieved creative expression and has placed his faith
in it, but that expression the Nightingale song is
spontaneous and without physical manifestation.
4.Ode to Autumn:
In both its form and descriptive
surface, To Autumn is one of the simplest of Keatss
odes. There is nothing confusing or complex Keatss
paean to the season of autumn, with its fruitfulness its
flowers, and the song of is swallows gathering for
migration. The extraordinary achievement of this
poem lies in its ability to suggestion explore, and
develop a rich abundance of themes without ever
ruffling its calm gentle, and lovely description of
autumn, where Ode on Melancholy presents itself
as a strenuous heroic quest To Autumn is concerned
with the much quieter activity of daily observation a
appreciation. In this quieted the gathered themes of the
preceding odes find the fullest and most beautiful
expression.
To Autumn takes a where the
other odes leave off. Like the other, it shows Keatss
speaker paying homage to a particular goddess in this
case, the deified season of autumn. The selection of
this season implicitly takes up the other odes themes
of temporality, and change: Autumn in Keatss ode is a
time of warmth and plenty, but it is perched on the

brink of winters desolation, as the being enjoy. Later

flower, the harvest is gathered from the fields, the
lambs of spring are now full grown and in the final
line of the poem the swallows gather for their winter
migration. The understated sense of inevitable loss in
that final line makes it one of the most moving
moments in all of poetry; it can be read as a simple
uncomplaining summation of the entire human
condition.
In this poem, the act of creation is
pictured as a kind of self harvesting; the pen harvests
the fields of the brain and books are filled with the
resulting grain. In To Autumn, the metaphor is
developed further; the sense of coming loss that
permeates the poem confronts the sorrow underling
the seasons creativity. When autumns harvest is over,
the fields will be bare, the swaths with their twined
flower cut down, the cider press dry, the skies empty.
But the connection of this harvesting to the seasonal
cycle softens the edge of the tragedy. In time, spring
will come again, the fields will grow again, and the
bird song will return. The development the speaker so
strongly resisted in Indolence is at last complete: He
has learned that an acceptance of morality is not
destructive to an appreciation of beauty and has
gleaned wisdom by accepting the passage of time.
Conclusion:

In conclusion, we can say that, Keats

wished, to die into nature to cease upon the midnight
with no pains, but this was not his ordinary mood.
Keats sought, in spite of such moments of pain, to live
in nature and to be incorporate with one beautiful
thing after another. He had a way of fluttering
butterfly fashion from one object to another, touching
for the moment the charm of each thing- the work of
fancy who is never at home. Keats all odes, is very
difficult to understanding, and his all odes are very
famous
in
the
romantic
age.

Posted 4th April 2013 by vibhuti bhatt

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1.
Nov

Role of Religion in Indian Society in

Fakeer of Jungheera
Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai
Subject: Indian Writing in English
Topic: Role of Religion in Indian Society in
Fakeer of
Jungheera
M.A. 1, Semester-1

Roll no: 23

Submitted to: Heena Madam

Department of English
Role of Religion in Indian society in Fakeer
of Jungheera:

Introduction:
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio as the first IndoAnglian poet. He was a poet, thinker, radical, and
one of the earliest Indian educationists to

disseminate western learning and philosophy

among the young men of Bengal was also
crucially the first modern Indian to write of the
incumbent nation extensively in English.
Derozio became famous in his
lifetime as Indias first national poet. On 25
December, 1822 Derozios first sonnet signed
D.V.L.H. called sonnet to night was published
in the India Gazette when he just thirteen and
with this he claimed the title.He removal to
Bhagalpur the following year saw an immediate
spurt in poetic activity and from January 17
onwards, he published approximately twenty
poems in that paper, many of which were later
collected in his book of poems.

Role of Religion in Indian society in

Fakeer of Jungheera.
The Fakeer of Jungheera is one of the best
poems of Henry Derozio.

 The Fakeer of Jungheera- A study in the

Narrative Art:
The Fakeer of Jungheera is the
masterpiece creation of Henry Derozio. In his
poems, he deals with the theme of patriotism, of
love, of nature, of death. The central theme of
The Fakeer of Jungheera is the ignoble and in
human practice of sati in the contemporary
orthodox Indian society. This rotten system had
been in vogue in the Indian society for centuries,
and Derozio vehemently protested the sati
system both in his social life and in the
classroom as a teacher at the Hindu college,
Calcutta. He wrote this poem to highlight the
issue. Derozio writes in it of various aspects of
natural scenery, the evils of love which leads to
confrontation at different levels. First the funeral
pyre, and later when Nuleenis relatives, with the
help of the Mughal army, try rescue her from the
Fakeer a fierce battle goes on. The Fakeer fights
bravely but is ultimately killed, in the battle
field. Nuleeni joins him and dies in his embrace
and their souls depart from this mundane world,
bound by the considerations of customs and
creed.

The Fakeer of Jungheera is a long

narrative poem in two cantos, each running into
about a thousand lines. Each canto, again, is
divided into different metrical sections in various
measures. This subject-matter in conventional
because most of the epics, ballads and narratives
deal with the subject of love, unsuitable
marriage, separation by death, reunion with the
former lover followed by the reaction of the
society and relatives who rise in revolt to take
revenge upon the person outraging the social
norms.
The character of Fakeer is
secondary to that of Nuleeni. It is Nuleeni who is
at the center of the tragic tale. She is a figure of
misery and a helpless, hapless, forlorn object
of social religious regimentation. First of all
there is the theme of social injustice. Dr. Jasbir
Jain also says, at the thematic level the unifying
idea is the suffering of women at the hands of
society.
The holy Ganga has religious and
ritual association with her. She prompts the poet
to write about the theme of religion which we get
in the chorus of Brahmins and that of women.

The theme of happy life after death achieved

through the rite of sati has also been projected.

The social Malaise of Sati:

Instead of belaboring upon the
misery of slavery, Derozio embarked upon a
mission of resolving some of the inherent evils
of Hindu society especially the practice of
widow burning. In his notes on canto 1, Derozio
criticizes the mistaken belief that the practice of
Hindu widow burning exemplies an act of
unparalleled magnimity and devotion and
explains at length the problem of sati and his
position on it, He writes,
The fact it, that so far from any
display of enthusiastic affection, a suttee is a
spectacle of misery, exciting in the spectator a
melancholy reflection upon the tyranny of
superstition and priest craft. The philanthropic
(the practice of helping people in need) views of
some individuals are directed to the abolition of
widow burning; but they should first ensure the
comfort of these unhappy women in their
widowhood otherwise, instead of conferring a
boon upon them, existence will be too many a
drudge, and a load.

Derozio approvingly quotes a writer

from the Indian magazine and endorses the
latters opinion that sati constitutes the most
barbaric and degrading aspect of Indian society
which can be overcome through education and
intellectual development. During the 19th century
many upper caste Hindu women willfully
committed sati mistakenly believing in the
veracity of the Hindu ritual, an abominable act
through a long process of socialization.

Analysis

of

Fakeer

poem:
The protagonist of the Fakeer poem is a
robber Fakeer or a mendicant, who belongs to
some unidentified Muslim sect, while the
heroine, the widow Nuleeni, comes from an
upper cast Bengali Hindu family. Derozios uses
Christian imagery, such as heaven and juxtaposes
it against the Hindu tradition of sati, Muslim
prayers and tantric tale of raja Vikramjit and
Baital to create acquaint, romantic atmosphere.
There are however conflicting
opinions about his character. There are some
who say that he is saintly wise and holy while

other talk of his mindless cruelty, treachery and

devilry. In stanza four the poet comments that
there are cases when evil men may take to
religion to hide their criminal intent:
Alas! In fairest seeming souls
The tide of guilt all blackly rolls;
And then they steal religions ray
Upon its surface but to play:
As oer the darkest sea a gleam
Of brightest sunshine oft may beam,
Gilding the wave, while dark beneath
Are lurking danger, woe, and death.
The wonderful play of light and
shade bring out a deceptive human nature and
the evil that lies buried in the human soul.

Conclusion:
The hardening of religious
identifies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

and the deepening schism between various

religious categories, especially Hindus and
Muslims, rejected the entire syncretistic tradition
that once flowed unhampered not only in Bengal
but the entire British India exemplified in the
cult of satya pir. The theme coupled with the use
of imagery set in the Indian context imparts to it
a unique Indian colouring. This poem amply
testifies to the poetic genius of such a young
poet.

Posted 2nd November 2012 by vibhuti bhatt

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2.
Nov
2

Six Parts of Tragedy

Name: Bhatt Vibhuti Vikrambhai

Subject: Literary Theory and
Criticism
Topic : Six Parts of Tragedy
M.A. -1, Semester-1
Roll no: 23
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad
Department of
English

Six Parts of Tragedy

Introduction:
Aristotle was born in 384
B.C.at Stagira. He came to Athens at the
age of seventeen and became a disciple

of Plato. He stayed with his master till

his death in 347 B.C.The most important
of his works are(1) Dialogues,(2) On
Monarchy,(3)Natural History,(4)
Organon,or The Instrument of correct
Thinking,(5) Rhetoric,(6) Logic,
(7)Educational Ethics,(8) Nicomachean
Ethics,(9) Physics,(10) Meta physics,
(11) Politics,(12) The Poetics. Aristotle
is the first scientific literary critic and his
literary criticism is largely embodied in
The Poetics which must have been
penned by him after he settled as teacher
and investigator in Athens. It does not
say much about comedy, touches rather
briefly on the epics, and the renowned
concept of Catharsis has not been fully
developed or explained. It is a lopsided
work, concerned mainly with the Greek
Philosophers theory of tragedy.

Definition of Tragedy:

After this Preliminary

discussion Aristotle comes to a
consideration of the nature and
function of tragedy. He defines
tragedy as:
The imitation of an action,
serious, complete and of a certain
magnitude, in a language beautifies in
different parts with different kinds of
embellishment, through action and
not narration, and through scenes of
pity and fear bringing about the
catharsis of these emotion.
This definition has wide implication.
It falls naturally, into two parts. The
first part from The imitation of an
action to, And not narration, is
concerned with tragedy as one of the
imitative arts, and points out its
medium, object, and manner of

imitation. The second part is

concerned with the function and
emotional effect of tragedy.

Six Parts of Tragedy:

Having examined the
definition, nature and function of
tragedy, Aristotle comes to a
consideration of its formative or
constituent parts. He enumerates six
formative elements of a tragedy like,
Plot, Character, Diction, Thought,
Spectacle, and Song (Melody).Two of
these parts relat to the medium of
Imitation, one to the manner of
imitation, and three to the objects of
imitation.

1. ThePlot:
While all the six elements listed are
essential to tragedy and have always
been employed by poets, the most
important constituent of tragedy,
according to Aristotle, is Plot. It is
the soul of a tragedy. By Plot
Aristotle means the arrangement of
incidents. Incident mean action and
tragedy is an imitation of an action,
both external and internal. In a
successful Plot, the various incidents
are casually related to each other and
are also probable and necessary under
the circumstrances.The Plot should
be so framed that it arouses the
emotions of pity and fear among the
spectators which is the function of
tragedy. The best tragic plot is one
which shows a good man, but not a

perfectly good one suffering as a

conciqanceof some error or fault,
Hamartia on his own part.
Plot and Character-A comparative
study:

As regards the
comparative importance of plot
and character. Aristotle is quite
emphatic that plot is more
important than character. Justas
colour however beautiful have no
meaning and significance without
the outline so, also the tragedy has
no soul, no significance without
plot. It is plot, which like the
painters outline gives meaning
and significance to character.

2. The Character:

The word Character, as

Humphrey House emphasises can
be used in two scenes. It may
mean,(1) Dramatic personages
or(2) The bent or tendency, or
habit of mind, which can be
revealed only in what a dramatic
personages say or does. Character
comes in as subsidiary to the
action. Hence, the incidents and
the plot are the end of a tragedy;
and the end is the chief thing of all.
By likeness Aristotle may mean
either of two things; first the
characters must be life like, they
must be true representatives of
actual human nature; or, secondly,
they must be like the traditional or
historical personages on whom
they are modeled and whose name

the bear.Ther must be no sudden

and unaccountable changes in
character; in whatever the
character says or does the demands
of necessity and probability must
be satisfied.

3. The Thought:
Thought is third in
importance and is found where
something is prove to be, or a general
maxim is enunciated. Aristotle say
little about thought, and most of what
he has to say is associated with how
speeches should reveal character.
However, we may assume that this
category would also include what we
call the themes of a play. Thought
that is, the faculty of saying what is
possible and pertinent in given

circumstances. Thought is the

intellectual element in a tragedy.
And it is expressed through the
speech of a character.

4. The Diction:
Fourth among the elements
enumerated comes Diction; by which I
mean, as has been already said, The
expression of the meaning in words; and
its essence is the same both in verse and
prose. In the modern sense it means
choice of words. He meant by it use of
various kinds of verses fit for evoking
emotions which the poet wanted to
evoke.

5. The Song(Melody):
Song or the Lyrical
element is to be found in the choric
parts of a tragedy, it is the

embellishment spoken of earlier

which distinguishes the tragedy from
the epic. The songs and dialogues
sung out loud would pin the attention
of the spectators in the vast
Greek theater on the spectacle, spur
their imagination, sustain the illusion
of reality and move them to tears and
transport.

6. The Spectacle:
It is one of the sources of the
pleasures of tragedy. The spectacle or the
scenic effects have more to do with
stagecraft than with the writing of
poetry, and hence Aristotle is of the view
that the dramatist must depend for his
effects on his own powers, rather than on
spectacle. Besides, the production of
spectacular effects depends more on the
art of the stage machinist than on that of
the poet. There can be no worse enemy

of the art of the dramatist, than the

theater manager, and relince on the
theatrical and the sensational has spoiled
many an excellent play.

Conclusion:
All these has been the
discussion if Aristotles concept of
tragedy. In every kind of representational
literature plot has its own important
place, characters are bound to be there
though they may be of different types; it
will have a definite central thought
expressed in appropriate diction and
technique; finally, it will have its own
end or purpose in place of catharsis.
Similarly, they have their own thought,
way of presentation and spectacle.

Posted 2nd November 2012 by vibhuti bhatt

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