"To the Lighthouse" (1927)

"To the Lighthouse" (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind."[] It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.

❤️"Orlando: A Biography "(1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed in order for it to be mocked.

"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".

Flush: A Biography (1933)[] is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.

The Tudors and the Elizabethan

The Tudors and the Elizabethan

The beginning of the Tudor dynasty coincided with the first dissemination of printed matter. William Caxton's press was established in 1476, only nine years before the beginning of Henry VII's reign. Caxton's achievement encouraged writing of all kinds and also influenced the standardization of the English language. The early Tudor period, particularly the reign of Henry VIII, was marked by a break with the Roman Catholic Church and a weakening of feudal ties, which brought about a vast increase in the power of the monarchy.

Stronger political relationships with the Continent were also developed, increasing England's exposure to Renaissance culture. Humanism became the most important force in English literary and intellectual life, both in its narrow sense—the study and imitation of the Latin classics—and in its broad sense—the affirmation of the secular, in addition to the otherworldly, concerns of people. These forces produced during the reign (1558–1603) of Elizabeth I one of the most fruitful eras in literary history.

The energy of England's writers matched that of its mariners and merchants. Accounts by men such as Richard Hakluyt, Samuel Purchas, and Sir Walter Raleigh were eagerly read. The activities and literature of the Elizabethans reflected a new nationalism, which expressed itself also in the works of chroniclers (John Stow, Raphael Holinshed, and others), historians, and translators and even in political and religious tracts. A myriad of new genres, themes, and ideas were incorporated into English literature. Italian poetic forms, especially the sonnet, became models for English poets.

Sir Thomas Wyatt was the most successful sonneteer among early Tudor poets, and was, with Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, a seminal influence. Tottel's Miscellany (1557) was the first and most popular of many collections of experimental poetry by different, often anonymous, hands. A common goal of these poets was to make English as flexible a poetic instrument as Italian. Among the more prominent of this group were Thomas Churchyard, George Gascoigne, and Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford. An ambitious and influential work was A Mirror for Magistrates (1559), a historical verse narrative by several poets that updated the medieval view of history and the morals to be drawn from it.

The poet who best synthesized the ideas and tendencies of the English Renaissance was Edmund Spenser. His unfinished epic poem The Faerie Queen (1596) is a treasure house of romance, allegory, adventure, Neoplatonic ideas, patriotism, and Protestant morality, all presented in a variety of literary styles. The ideal English Renaissance man was Sir Philip Sidney—scholar, poet, critic, courtier, diplomat, and soldier—who died in battle at the age of 32. His best poetry is contained in the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) and his Defence of Poesie is among the most important works of literary criticism in the tradition.

Many others in a historical era when poetic talents were highly valued, were skilled poets. Important late Tudor sonneteers include Spenser and Shakespeare, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, and Fulke Greville. More versatile even than Sidney was Sir Walter Raleigh—poet, historian, courtier, explorer, and soldier—who wrote strong, spare poetry.

Early Tudor drama owed much to both medieval morality plays and classical models. Ralph Roister Doister (c.1545) by Nicholas Udall and Gammer Gurton's Needle (c.1552) are considered the first English comedies, combining elements of classical Roman comedy with native burlesque. During the late 16th and early 17th cent., drama flourished in England as never before or since. It came of age with the work of the University Wits, whose sophisticated plays set the course of Renaissance drama and paved the way for Shakespeare.

The Wits included John Lyly, famed for the highly artificial and much imitated prose work Euphues (1578); Robert Greene, the first to write romantic comedy; the versatile Thomas Lodge and Thomas Nashe; Thomas Kyd, who popularized neo-Senecan tragedy; and Christopher Marlowe, the greatest dramatist of the group. Focusing on heroes whose very greatness leads to their downfall, Marlowe wrote in blank verse with a rhetorical brilliance and eloquence superbly equal to the demands of high drama. William Shakespeare, of course, fulfilled the promise of the Elizabethan age. His history plays, comedies, and tragedies set a standard never again equaled, and he is universally regarded as the greatest dramatist and one of the greatest poets of all time.

Greek Theater

Greek Theater.!!

👇👇👇👇👇👇

Greek theater was very different from what we call theater today. It was, first of all, part of a religious festival. To attend a performance of one of these plays was an act of worship, not entertainment or intellectual pastime. But it is difficult for us to even begin to understand this aspect of the Greek theater, because the religion in question was very different from modern religions. The god celebrated by the performances of these plays was Dionysus, a deity who lived in the wild and was known for his subversive revelry. The worship of Dionysus was associated with an ecstasy that bordered on madness. Dionysus, whose cult was that of drunkenness and sexuality, little resembles modern images of God.

A second way in which Greek theater was different from modern theater is in its cultural centrality: every citizen attended these plays. Greek plays were put on at annual festivals (at the beginning of spring, the season of Dionysus), often for as many as 15,000 spectators at once. They dazzled viewers with their special effects, singing, and dancing, as well as with their beautiful language. At the end of each year’s festivals, judges would vote to decide which playwright’s play was the best.

In these competitions, Sophocles was king. It is thought that he won the first prize at the Athenian festival eighteen times. Far from being a tortured artist working at the fringes of society, Sophocles was among the most popular and well-respected men of his day. Like most good Athenians, Sophocles was involved with the political and military affairs of Athenian democracy. He did stints as a city treasurer and as a naval officer, and throughout his life he was a close friend of the foremost statesman of the day, Pericles. At the same time, Sophocles wrote prolifically. He is believed to have authored 123 plays, only seven of which have survived.

Sophocles lived a long life, but not long enough to witness the downfall of his Athens. Toward the end of his life, Athens became entangled in a war with other city-states jealous of its prosperity and power, a war that would end the glorious century during which Sophocles lived. This political fall also marked an artistic fall, for the unique art of Greek theater began to fade and eventually died. Since then, we have had nothing like it. Nonetheless, we still try to read it, and we often misunderstand it by thinking of it in terms of the categories and assumptions of our own arts. Greek theater still needs to be read, but we must not forget that, because it is so alien to us, reading these plays calls not only for analysis, but also for imagination.

Antigone

Antigone was probably the first of the three Theban plays that Sophocles wrote, although the events dramatized in it happen last. Antigone is one of the first heroines in literature, a woman who fights against a male power structure, exhibiting greater bravery than any of the men who scorn her. Antigone is not only a feminist play but a radical one as well, making rebellion against authority appear splendid and noble. If we think of Antigone as something merely ancient, we make the same error as the Nazi censors who allowed Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of Antigone to be performed, mistaking one of the most powerful texts of the French Resistance for something harmlessly academic.

Oedipus the King

The story of Oedipus was well known to Sophocles’ audience. Oedipus arrives at Thebes a stranger and finds the town under the curse of the Sphinx, who will not free the city unless her riddle is answered. Oedipus solves the riddle and, since the king has recently been murdered, becomes the king and marries the queen. In time, he comes to learn that he is actually a Theban, the king’s son, cast out of Thebes as a baby. He has killed his father and married his mother. Horrified, he blinds himself and leaves Thebes forever.

The story was not invented by Sophocles. Quite the opposite: the play’s most powerful effects often depend on the fact that the audience already knows the story. Since the first performance of Oedipus Rex, the story has fascinated critics just as it fascinated Sophocles. Aristotle used this play and its plot as the supreme example of tragedy. Sigmund Freud famously based his theory of the “Oedipal Complex” on this story, claiming that every boy has a latent desire to kill his father and sleep with his mother. The story of Oedipus has given birth to innumerable fascinating variations, but we should not forget that this play is one of the variations, not the original story itself.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Ecopornography

Ecopornography:

In the past few years our preferences for the self-certified and greatly advertised “green products” seem to have increased considerably. From “herbal cosmetics & beauty products” to “eco-friendly and energy-saving air conditioners”, from “green building with roof-top garden” to “ecotourism”, our choices in “green products” make us think that we have been doing great job in saving our planet from ecological ruin. But the fact is that we are being deceived daily by capitalist consumerism in our desperation to do at least something in the face of our collective sense of guilt in tampering with the environment. Our brains have been trained into accepting that our buying of the “green products” will solve all the problems looming large before us. Producers label their products as ‘green’ with the sole purpose of selling their products more and maximising profits through sales. In the process of boosting business, facts are fudged, statistics are doctored, truths are hidden, data are misinterpreted, consumers are misled about the claimed environmental benefits of a product and people are led to believe that they are performing their ethical responsibility towards the environment. This practice of conveying false impression and advertising outrageous environmental claims (Popularly known as “GREENWASHING”) is a brilliant marketing strategy and corporate capitalism has been excellently using it for high-profit selling. So, whenever you think that you are playing your part in environmental protection and sustainability by buying a ‘green product’ you are living in a fool’s paradise and your proud shift to the “green products” is merely an illusion.

[This practice is also known as "ECOPORNOGRAPHY".আপনাকে ভাবানো হয় যে আপনি নিজেই সবকিছু করছেন, কিন্তু আসলে আপনি কিছু করছেনই না। 

You are just deriving pleasure by responding to a kind of make-believe in a way the big THEY want you to do.

Important Points on Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer  

(1340-1400)  

  

 He was born between 1340-1345 probably in London. His father was a prosperous wine merchant. 

 In 1357 he was a page in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster (wife of Prince Lionel). 

 He was captured by the French during the Brittany Expedition of 1359 but was ransomed by the King. 

 Edward III later sent him to France on a diplomatic mission. He also travelled to Genoa and Florence. 

 Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady in waiting in the Queen’s household. 

 Phillippa’s sister, Katherine Swynford later became the third wife of John of Gaunt (King’s fourth son and  

Chaucer’s patron). 

 In 1374 Chaucer was appointed Comptroller of the Lucrative London customs. 

 In 1386 he was elected Member of Parliament for Kent and also served as a justice of peace. In 1389, he  

was made clerk of the King’s works, overseeing loyal building projects. 

 He held a number of royal posts serving both Edward III and his successor Richard II. 

 Chaucer lived during  

Edward III – 1327-1377 

Richard II – 1377 -1399 

Henry IV – 1399 -1413 

 He was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey now known as “The Poets Corner.” 

 Arnold called him father of English poetry. 

 In the “Legends of Good Women”, the 9 legends are - Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea,  

Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra. 

 Dryden re-wrote Canterbury Tales in Modern English. 

 He was the first national poet of England. 

 Dryden said about him – “Here is God’s plenty” and “A Rough diamond and must first be polished ere  

he shines”. 

 Boccacio exercised a deep influence on Chaucer. On diplomatic mission he was sent to Italy where he  

met Petrarch and Boccacio. He makes a clear reference of Petrarch in his Clerk’s tale. 

 He is called father of English poetry and Grandfather of English Novel. 

 He is called morning star of song, and morning star of Renaissance. 

 Arnold says about him – “Chaucer lacks not only the accent of Dante but also the high seriousness.” 

 He is the first one to use Ottava Rima in The Book of The Duchess. (Ottava Rima is the eight syllable line  

in couplet rhyming) 

 He first used heroic couplet in The Legends of Good Women. (Heroic couplet is ten syllable line  

rhyming in Couplets i.e. Decasyllabic Couplet) 

 He first used Rhyme Royal in Troilus and Cressida. Rhyme Royal is ten syllable line arranged in Seven  

line stanza (ABAB BCC) 

 Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida is called novel in verse. 

 In The House of Fame, Chaucer resemblance closes to Dante’s Divine Comedy. 

 W. J. Long called the prologue to the Canterbury tales as “the prologue to modern fiction” because of its  

realism. 

 The general prologue of The Canterbury Tales contains 858 lines.

 The general plan of Canterbury tales is taken from Boccacio’s Decameron. In Canterbury the pilgrims  

could be seen going to Thomas a Beckett in the month of April. He gave pen picture of 21 pilgrims in this  

work. 

 “Had Chaucer written in prose it is possible his Troilus and Cressida and not Richardson’s “Pamela”  

would be celebrated as 1st English Novel” - by S. D. Neil. 

 Edmund Spenser in his “Faerie Queene” called – “Chaucer, well of English undefiled.” 

 Nevill Coghill interpreted Canterbury Tales in 20th Century English. 

 ‘Albert’ called Chaucer “The earliest of the great moderns.” and “the morning star of Renaissance.” 

 Dryden called Chaucer “The father of English poetry.” 

 “Chaucer found his native tongue a dialect and left it a language” - By Lowes 

 “Chaucer is the earliest of the great moderns”: By Mathew Arnold 

 “If Chaucer is the father of English poetry, he is the grandfather of English novel.” -By G.K. Chesterton. 

 “Here is God’s plenty.” By Dryden 

 Occleve wrote a famous poem “The Regiment of Princess” on the death of Chaucer. 

 Chaucer and Langland died in the same year (1400). 

 Chaucer has been criticised for presenting about courts and cultivated classes and neglect the suffering of  

the poor. 

 Although in Canterbury Tales 120 stories were planned but only 24 were completed. 

 Chaucer introduced ‘Felicity’ in English. 

 Longest tale of Canterbury Tales is Knight’s Tale. 

 Chaucer has been called the “Prince of Plagiarists.” 

 “Chaucer was not in any sense a poet of the people” – by Hudson 

 The works of his life can be divided into three periods 

French Period (1359-1372)  

 During this time, Chaucer translated the "Roman de la Rose," a French poem written during the 1200s.  

 He also wrote his "Book of the Duchess," an elegiac poem that shared much with contemporary French  

poetry of the time but also departed from that poetry in important ways.  

 Chaucer's extensive reading of Latin poets such as Boethius also influenced his own work. 

 He was influenced by French masters as Guillaume de Machaut, Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris. 

The Romaunt of the Rose (1360) 

 This book was almost a translated version of French work “le Roman de la Rose” Jean de Meun and  

Guillaume de Lorris. 

 The story begins with an allegorical dream, in which the narrator receives advice from the god of love on  

gaining his lady's favour. Her love being symbolized by a rose, he is unable to get to the rose. 

 The second fragment is a satire on the mores of the time, with respect to courting, religious order, and  

religious hypocrisy. In the second fragment, the narrator is able to kiss the rose, but then the allegorical  

character Jealousy builds a fortress encircling it so that the narrator does not have access to it. 

 The third fragment of the translation takes up the poem 5,000 lines after the second fragment ends. At its  

beginning, the god of love is planning to attack the fortress of Jealousy with his barons. The rest of the  

fragment is a confession given by Fals-Semblant, or false-seeming, which is a treatise on the ways in which  

men are false to one another, especially the clergy to their parishioners.  

 The third fragment ends with Fals-Semblant going to the fortress of Jealousy in the disguise of a religious  

pilgrim. He speaks with Wikked-Tunge that is holding one of the gates of the fortress and convinces him  

to repent his sins. The poem ends with Fals-Semblant absolving Wikked-Tunge of his sins.

The Book of the Duchess (1369)  

 This book was written on the death of the Dutchess Blenche, who was the wife of John of Gaunt ( Patron  

of Chaucer). She belongs to Lancester. This book is an elegy and allegory in nature. It comprises 1300  

lines. In this book Chaucer used Ottava Rima for the first time.  

 'The Book of the Duchess' begins with a man who cannot sleep. His heavy thoughts and fantasies are so  

disturbing that he hasn't slept for eight years. He fears he will die of his insomnia, so he asks a servant to  

bring him a book to read, which he calls a romance, a medieval European genre of literature often about  

knights and their adventures and romances. He says that it's better to read than to play chess to try to fall  

asleep. 

 He reads about a fictional king, Ceyx, who sets sail for an adventure at sea and is drowned in a storm. The  

queen, Alcyone, waits for him to return and when he doesn't, she grieves inconsolably. She begs the  

goddess Juno to let her see what happened to her husband, if only in a dream. She vows to give her total  

devotion to the goddess if she grants her wish. 

 The goddess causes Alcyone to fall into a deep sleep and summons Morpheus, the god of sleep, to go find  

the king on the ocean floor, inhabit his body, and make him appear to Alcyone in a dream so that she sees  

that he has drowned. He does so, and Alcyone dies of grief three days later. 

 The narrator, or the speaker of the poem, figures that if a god helps Alcyone fall asleep and dream, maybe  

a god would do the same for him. He sends a plea up to the gods that he will reward them with the most  

luxurious gold-painted bedchamber, with a bed of the finest down, with covers embroidered with the finest  

threads of pure gold, if they will help him sleep. He immediately falls asleep and has a vivid dream. 

 First, the narrator hears the birds singing the sweetest symphony he's ever heard. He is lying in a room  

whose walls have pictures of all the characters of the great European epic poems. 

 'For the entire story of Troy was wrought in the glasswork thus: of Hector and of King Priam, of Achilles  

and of King Lamedon, and also of Medea and of Jason, of Paris, Helen, and of Lavinia. And on all the  

walls were painted with fine colours the entire Romance of the Rose, both text and gloss.' 

 Some of the other works of this period are:-  

 The ABC- It is written in eight line stanza. 

 The Complaint into Pity :- Chaucer has used first time a seven line stanza known as 'Rhyme Royal  

in this work. 

 The Complaint of Mars. 

 Queen Anelida. 

Italian Period (1372-85)  

 In 1372 Chaucer has been to Italy & came in personal contact with Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. The  

important works of this period are : Troilus and Criseyde, The Parlement of Foules, The House of Fame 

and The Legend of Good Women. 

Troilus and Criseyde  

 It is a tragic verse romance by Geoffrey Chaucer, composed in the 1380s and considered by some critics  

to be his finest work. The plot of this 8,239-line poem was taken largely from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il  

filostrato.  

 It recounts the love story of Troilus, son of the Trojan king Priam, and Criseyde, widowed daughter of the  

deserter priest Calchas. 

 The poem moves in leisurely fashion, with introspection and much of what would now be called  

psychological insight dominating many sections. Aided by Criseyde’s uncle Pandarus, Troilus and

Criseyde are united in love about halfway through the poem, but then she is sent to join her father in the  

Greek camp outside Troy.  

 Despite her promise to return, she is loved by the Greek warrior Diomedes and comes to love him.  

Troilus, left in despair, is killed in the Trojan War.  

 These events are interspersed with Boethian discussion of free will and determinism and the direct  

comments of the narrator.  

 At the end of the poem, when Troilus’s soul rises into the heavens, the folly of complete immersion in  

sexual love is contrasted with the eternal love of God. 

The Parliament of Foules (1382)  

 It is a 699-line poem in rhyme royal by Geoffrey Chaucer, written in 1380–90. Composed in the tradition  

of French romances. 

 This poem has been called one of the best occasional verses in the English language. Often thought  

to commemorate the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia in 1382, it describes a conference of  

birds that meet to choose their mates on St. Valentine’s Day. 

 The narrator falls asleep and dreams of a beautiful garden in which Nature presides over a debate between  

three high-ranking eagles, all vying for the attentions of a beautiful female. 

 The other birds, each of which represents a different aspect of English society, are given a chance to  

express their opinions; Chaucer uses this device to gently satirize the tradition of courtly love. He handles  

the debate with humour and deftly characterizes the various birds.  

 Although the debate on love and marriage is never resolved, the poem is complete in itself and ends on a  

note of joy and satisfaction. 

The House of Fame (1380)  

 It was written after the influence of Dante. It has the resemblance to Dante’s Divine Comedy.  

 It is an unfinished dream‐ poem by Chaucer. There are three books, in 2,158 lines of Octosyllabics. 

 After the prologue on dreams and the invocation to the god of sleep, Book I says the poet fell asleep and  

dreamt that he was in a Temple of Glass where he saw depicted Aeneas and Dido; the dream moves on to  

deal more briefly with other parts of the Aeneid. 

 The poet sees an eagle that alights by him and is his guide through the House of Fame. The eagle  

explains, philosophically and at length, how Fame works in its arbitrary ways. 

 The eagle departs and Chaucer enters the Palace of Fame (Rumour) where he sees the famous of both  

classical and biblical lore. Eolus blows a trumpet to summon up the various celebrities who introduce  

themselves in categories reminiscent of the souls in Dante's Divina Commedia.  

 Towards the end of the poem comes a vision of bearers of false tidings: shipmen, pilgrims, pardoners, and  

messengers, whose confusion seems to be about to be resolved by the appearance of ‘A man of gret  

auctorite…’; but there the poem ends. 

The Legend of Good Women (1385)  

 It is written on Queen Bohemia’s bidding who asked him to write of good women. Much of this poem is  

devoted to the first use of the heroic couplet by Chaucer to retell in lyrical form the tragic love stories of  

Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra. 

 It is a dream-vision by Geoffrey Chaucer. The fourth and final work of the genre that Chaucer composed,

it presents a “Prologue” (existing in two versions) and nine stories.

 In the “Prologue” the god of love is angry at Chaucer for writing about so many women who betray men.  

As penance, Chaucer is instructed to write about good women.  

 The “Prologue” is noteworthy for the delightful humour of the narrator’s self-mockery and for the  

passages in praise of books and of the spring.  

 The stories—concerning such women of antiquity as Cleopatra, Dido, and Lucrece—are brief and rather  

mechanical, with the betrayal of women by wicked men as a regular theme. As a result, the whole becomes  

more a legend of bad men than of good women. 

English Period (1386-1400)  

 The famous work of this period is Canterbury Tales which was written after influence of Boccaccio’s  

‘The Decameron’. 

The Canterbury Tales (contains 17000Lines)  

 In The Canterbury Tales, 32 characters make the trip to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in  

Canterbury. 

 Although 29 characters are mentioned in line 24 of the “General Prologue.” The narrator joins this group  

(making 30). The host, Harry Bailey, makes 31. The Canon’s yeoman, who joins the group later, makes  

32. 

 The narrator gives a description of 27 Pilgrims. (Except second Nun or Nun’s Priest). 

 This work remained unfinished at Chaucer’s death. 

 In Prologue to Canterbury Tales Chaucer employed the Heroic couplet. 

 There are four characters that are not criticised or satirised by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales – 

i) Knight 

ii) Parson 

iii) Clerk 

iv) Plowman 

 Clergymen in the Canterbury Tales are: 

1. Prioress (Madam Eglantine) 

2. Parson 

3. Friar and 

4. Monk 

 Canterbury Tales have the characters from three social groups or estates Viz. Nobility, Church and  

Commoners.

Opinion of Chaucer about different Characters of Canterbury Tales in The Prologue  

 Plowman: He would help the poor for the love of Christ and never take a penny. About Plowman  

Chaucer says – “He would pay his taxes regularly. 

 Host: Bold in his speech, yet wise and full of tact no manly attribute he lacked, merry- hearted man. 

 Doctor (Physician): He was rather close to expenses and kept the gold he won in pestilence. Gold  

stimulated the heart or so we are told, had a special love for gold. 

 Reeve: He was under contract to present the accounts, right from his masters earliest years; no one ever  

caught him in arrears. 

 Miller: A wrangler and buffoon who had a store of tavern stories, filthy in the main, was a master-hand at  

stealing grain. 

 Summoner: Loved Garlic, Onion, leeks and drinking strong wine till he was hazy. Then he would shout  

and jabber as if crazy and wouldn’t speak a word except in Latin when he was drunk.

Franklin: His house was never short of bake-meat pies of fish and flesh, and these in such supplies it  

positively snowed with meat and drink and all the dainties that a man could think. 

 Clerk of Oxford: His horse was thinner than a rake and he was not too fat, but had a hollow look, a sober  

stare; the thread upon his overcoat was bare. 

 Friar: Knew the taverns well in every town and every innkeeper and barmaid too; better than leapers,  

beggars, and the crew, kept his tippet stuffed with pins for curls and pocket-knives to give to pretty girls. 

 Merchant: Had set his wits to work, none knew he was in debt, was so stately in negotiation, loan, bargain  

and commercial obligation. 

 Wife of Bath: Liked to laugh and chat and knew the remedies of love’s mischances, an art in which she  

knew the oldest dances. 

 Cook: Had an ulcer on his knee, as for blancmange he made it with the best.

List of Literary Movements in English Literature

List of Literary Movements in English Literature.!!

Generally Literary movement are some piece of literature done by various authors over same period of time usually which carries some similar ideas among them. There are many literary movements present and here is some of the important ones are listed mostly above 19th century. 

1. Amatory fiction - 17 th and 18 th century, romance fictions

2. Cavalier Poets - They are called son of Ben, Ben Jonson. 17th c royalist poets write about courtly love

3. Metaphysical poets - Often write about religion or love, but not always

4. The Augustans - 18th c works based on satire, skepticism or classic ideals

5. Romanticism - 19th c , imaginary and emotional works

6. Gothic novel - supernatural and violence

7. Lake Poets - Poets from Lake district write about nature 

8. American Romanticism - Majorly about American history

9. Pre-Raphaelitism - 19th c poets who mostly skilled in painting too

10. Transcendentalism - 19th c American movements independent from modern technology self- reliance poetry and philosophy.

11. Dark romanticism - Reaction to transcendentalism, man inherently sinful and self destructive.  

12. Realism - An everyday concern, simplification of image & style of 19th c.

13. Naturalism - 19th c, works that believe in heredity

14. Symbolism - Basically a French movement, structure of thought rather than image or poetic form

15. Stream of consciousness - Quotidian thought without authorial presence.

16. Modernism - Reaction to science and technology, 20th century.

17. The Lost Generation - Impact of post World war I

18. Dada - Against artistic norms 

19. First World War Poets - Horrors of the war during the world wars.

20. Stridentism - Speaks about social revolution and urban life. Mexican movements.

21. Los Contemporáneos - Mexican movements, served as a group's mouthpiece 

22. Imagism - Depends on the theme natural objects are always adequate symbol.

23. Harlem Renaissance - Elements of blues and folklore. African - American poets.

24. Surrealism - written in unconscious tone

25. Southern Agrarians - Metrical verse and narratives

26. Oulipo - Based on arbitrary rules for the sake of challenges in addition.  

27. Pargatiwadi Dhara - Marxist sloganistic tone

28.Paryogsheel Lehar - Panjabi poetry, mapping new direction to the future generation. 

29. Postmodernism - Post war movements

30.Black Mountain Poets - Based on the poets of the Black Mountain College. 

31. Beat poets - Counter culture and youthful alienation, an American movement. 

32. Hungryalist Poets - A literary movement in postcolonial India, Kolkata.

33. Confessional poetry - Brutally exposed poetry, beauty and power of human frailty. 

34. New York School - Gay or Gay- friendly poets of 1960's. 

35. Magical Realism - Consist of magical elements, Latin American literary boom of 20th century. 

36. Postcolonialism - Loosely connected movements of writers of colonies of European countries.

37. Prakalpana Movement* - Chetanavyasism philosophy, Indian writers in Bengali literature

38. Spiralism - Level of relations and historical connections.

39. Spoken Word - Monologue, speaking voice to present fictions. 

40. New Formalism - American poetry advocating a return to traditional accentual-syllabic verse.

Important Education Commission

 * Important Education Commission * ✨

1. Wood's manifesto-1854

2. Lord Macaulay - 1835

3. Kothari Commission - 1964--1966

4. Hunter Commission (Indian Education Policy) - 1882

5. NCERT - 1961

6. SCERT - 1981

7. Basic Education Council - 1972

8. National Education Policy - 1986

9. District Education Primary Association - 1986-87

10. Operation Black Board - 1987-88

11. Mid Day Meal (MDM) - 1995

12. School Walk Campaign - 1995-96

13. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - 2000-01

14. Free and Compulsory Education-2009

15. Kasturba Gandhi Girl Child Scheme - 2004

16. National Curriculum Framework (NCF) - 2005 (implemented since 2011 in UP)

17. Education Rights Act - 2009 (implemented 1 April 2010)

18.Indira Gandhi Open University - 1985 Delhi

19. State Institute of Education - 1964 Allahabad

20. Sarvepalli Commission - 1948

Absurd Theatre / absurdism

AbsurdTheatre / absurdism

Theatre of the Absurd, dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and early ’60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose. The term is also loosely applied to those dramatists and the production of those works. Though no formal Absurdist movement existed as such, dramatists as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, and a few others shared a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose and to control its fate. Humankind in this view is left feeling hopeless, bewildered, and anxious.

The ideas that inform the plays also dictate their structure. Absurdist playwrights, therefore, did away with most of the logical structures of traditional theatre. There is little dramatic action as conventionally understood; however frantically the characters perform, their busyness serves to underscore the fact that nothing happens to change their existence. In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952), plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as two lost creatures, usually played as tramps, spend their days waiting—but without any certainty of whom they are waiting for or of whether he, or it, will ever come.

Language in an Absurdist play is often dislocated, full of cliches, puns, repetitions, and non sequiturs. The characters in Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (1950) sit and talk, repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense, thus revealing the inadequacies of verbal communication. The ridiculous, purposeless behaviour and talk give the plays a sometimes dazzling comic surface, but there is an underlying serious message of metaphysical distress. This reflects the influence of comic tradition drawn from such sources as commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, and music hall combined with such theatre arts as mime and acrobatics. At the same time, the impact of ideas as expressed by the Surrealist, Existentialist, and Expressionist schools and the writings of Franz Kafka is evident.

Originally shocking in its flouting of theatrical convention while popular for its apt expression of the preoccupations of the mid-20th century, the Theatre of the Absurd declined somewhat by the mid-1960s; some of its innovations had been absorbed into the mainstream of theatre even while serving to inspire further experiments. Some of the chief authors of the Absurd have sought new directions in their art, while others continue to work in the same vein.

#absurd #absurdity #English #net #SaturdaySpecial

IMPORTANT WORKS TO REMEMBER IN CAPSULE FORM

SOME IMPORTANT WORKS TO REMEMBER IN CAPSULE FORM

📗 The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951)

Graham Greene’s moving tale of adultery and its aftermath ties together several vital strands in this work.

📗 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

J.D. Salinger’s study of teenage rebellion remains one of the most controversial and best-loved American novels of the 20th century.

📗 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953)

In the long-running hunt to identify the great American novel, Saul Bellow’s picaresque third book frequently hits the mark.

📗 Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)

Dismissed at first as “rubbish & dull”, Golding’s brilliantly observed dystopian desert island tale has since become a classic.

📗 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Nabokov’s tragicomic tour de force crosses the boundaries of good taste with glee.

📗 On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

The creative history of Kerouac’s beat-generation classic, fuelled by pea soup and benzedrine, has become as famous as the novel itself.

📗 Voss by Patrick White (1957)

A love story set against the disappearance of an explorer in the outback, Voss paved the way for a generation of Australian writers to shrug off the colonial past.

📗 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

Her second novel finally arrived this summer, but Harper Lee’s first did enough alone to secure her lasting fame, and remains a truly popular classic.

📗 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1960)

Short and bittersweet, Muriel Spark’s tale of the downfall of a Scottish schoolmistress is a masterpiece of narrative fiction.

📗 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

This acerbic anti-war novel was slow to fire the public imagination, but is rightly regarded as a groundbreaking critique of military madness.

📗 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962)

Hailed as one of the key texts of the women’s movement of the 1960s, this study of a divorced single mother’s search for personal and political identity remains a defiant, ambitious tour de force.

📗 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

Anthony Burgess’s dystopian classic still continues to startle and provoke, refusing to be outshone by Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant film adaptation.

📗 A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (1964)

Christopher Isherwood’s story of a gay Englishman struggling with bereavement in LA is a work of compressed brilliance.

📗 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, a true story of bloody murder in rural Kansas, opens a window on the dark underbelly of postwar America.

📗 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)

Sylvia Plath’s painfully graphic roman à clef, in which a woman struggles with her identity in the face of social pressure, is a key text of Anglo-American feminism.

📗 Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth (1969)

This wickedly funny novel about a young Jewish American’s obsession with masturbation caused outrage on publication, but remains his most dazzling work.

📗 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (1971)

Elizabeth Taylor’s exquisitely drawn character study of eccentricity in old age is a sharp and witty portrait of genteel postwar English life facing the changes taking shape in the 60s.

📗 Rabbit Redux by John Updike (1971)

Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, Updike’s lovably mediocre alter ego, is one of America’s great literary protoganists, up there with Huck Finn and Jay Gatsby.

📗 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)

The novel with which the Nobel prize-winning author established her name is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the African-American experience in the 20th century.

📗 A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul (1979)

VS Naipaul’s hellish vision of an African nation’s path to independence saw him accused of racism, but remains his masterpiece.

Capsule Points on English Writers

SOME IMPORTANT WRITERS IN LITERATURE

📙 Jonathan Swift: Anglo-Irish writer born in Dublin Swift was a prominent satirist, essayist and author. Notable works include Gulliver’s Travels (1726), A Modest Proposal and A Tale of a Tub. 

📙 Samuel Johnson: British author best known for his compilation of the English Dictionary. Although not the first attempt in producing dictionary, it was widely considered to be the most comprehensive, setting the standard for later dictionaries. 

📙 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: German poet, playwright, and author Notable works of Goethe include: Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Elective Affinities. 

📙 Jane Austen: English author who wrote romantic fiction combined with social realism. Her novels include: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1816). 

📙 Honore de Balzac: French novelist and short story writer Balzac, was an influential realist writer who created characters of moral ambiguity–often based on his own real life examples. His greatest work was the collection of short stories La Comédie humaine. 

📙 Alexander Dumas: French author of historical dramas, wrote works including–The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), and The Three Musketeers (1844). Also prolific author of magazine articles, pamphlets and travel books.

📙 Victor Hugo: French author and poet, Hugo’s novels include Les Misérables, (1862) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). 

📙 Charles Dickens: English writer and social critic. His best-known works include novels such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol. 

📙 Charlotte Bronte: English novelist and poet, from Haworth Her best known novel is ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847).

📙 Henry David Thoreau: American poet, writer and leading member of the Transcendentalist movement, Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854) was a unique account based on living close to nature.

📙 Emily Bronte: English novelist Emily Bronte is best known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), and her poetry.

📙 George Eliot: Pen name of Mary Ann Evans Wrote novels, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876).

📙 Leo Tolstoy: Russian novelist and moral philosopher Famous works include the epic novels – War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Tolstoy also became an influential philosopher with his brand of Christian pacifisms.

📙 Fyodor Dostoevsky: Russian novelist, journalist and philosopher Notable works include Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.

📙 Lewis Carroll: Oxford mathematician and author Famous for Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and poems like The Snark.

📙 Mark Twain: American writer and humorist, considered the ‘father of American literature’. Famous works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).

📙 Thomas Hardy: English novelist and poet Hardy was a Victorian realist who was influenced by Romanticism. He wrote about problems of Victorian society–in particular, declining rural life. Notable works include: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).

📙 Oscar Wilde: Irish writer and poet. Wilde wrote humorous, satirical plays, such as ‘The Importance of Being Earnest‘ and ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey.'

📙 Kenneth Graham: Author of the Wind in the Willows (1908), a classic of children’s literature.

📙 George Bernard Shaw: Irish playwright and wit Famous works include Pygmalion (1912), Man and Superman (1903) and Back to Methuselah (1921).

📙 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: British author of historical novels and plays Most famous for his short stories about the detective–Sherlock Holmes, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and Sign of Four (1890).

SUMMARIES IN CAPSULE FORMAT

SOME USEFUL WORKS: SUMMARIES IN CAPSULE FORMAT

📔 The Lion and the Jewel

 🔻Play by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka which was first performed in 1959. 

🔻It chronicles how Baroka, the lion fights with the modern Lakunle over the right to marry Sidi, the titular Jewel. 

🔻Lakunle is portrayed as the civilized antithesis of Baroka and unilaterally attempts to modernize his community and change its social conventions for no reason other than the fact that he can. 

🔻The transcript of the play was first published in 1962 by Oxford University Press. 

🔻Soyinka emphasises the theme of the corrupted African culture through the play, as well as how the youth should embrace the original African culture.

📔 The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities

🔻Book by James Thurber first published in 1931 by Harper and Brothers.

🔻It collects a number of short humorous pieces, most of which had appeared in The New Yorker, and an introduction by E. B. White.

🔻Part One: Mr and Mrs Monroe

A number of short stories featuring the Mr and Mrs Monroe and which contain many autobiographical elements.

🔻Part Two: The Pet Department

"Inspired by the daily pet column in the New York Evening Post" and consisting of a number of short question and answers, each illustrated by a Thurber drawing.

🔻Part Three: Ladies and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage "Inspired by Mr. H. W. Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage"

📔 The American Scholar

🔻Speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

🔻He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work Nature, published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America's fledgling society to regard the world. 

🔻Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country's history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping "from under its iron lids" and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.

📔 The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature

🔻The 1989 Non-fiction book on postcolonialism, penned by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.

🔻The title references Salman Rushdie's 1982 article "The Empire Writes Back with a Vengeance". 

🔻In addition to being a pun on the film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the phrase refers to the ways postcolonial voices respond to the literary canon of the colonial centre.

📔 The Fakeer of Jungheera

🔻Masterpiece creation byHenry 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.

INDIAN ENGLISH POET : MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT

INDIAN ENGLISH POET QUICK FACTS: MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT

📔 Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Datta also spelled Dutt (1824-1873), born in Calcutta was a poet and dramatist.

📔 He is also the first great poet of modern Bengali literature, was a dynamic, erratic personality and an original genius of a high order. 

📔 He was educated at the Hindu College, Calcutta, the cultural home of the Western-educated Bengali middle class. In 1843 he became a Christian.

📔 His early compositions were in English, but they were unsuccessful and he turned, reluctantly at first, to Bengali. His principal works, written mostly between 1858 and 1862, include prose drama, long narrative poems, and lyrics. 

📔 His first play, Sarmistha (1858), based on an episode of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, was well received. His poetical works are Tilottamasambhab (1860), a narrative poem on the story of Sunda and Upasunda; Meghnadbadh (1861).

📔 His most important composition, an epic on the Rāmāyaṇa theme; Brajangana (1861), a cycle of lyrics on the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa theme; and Birangana (1862), a set of 21 epistolary poems on the model of Ovid’s Heroides.

📔 Dutt experimented ceaselessly with diction and verse forms, and it was he who introduced amitraksar (a form of blank verse with run-on lines and varied caesuras), the Bengali sonnet—both Petrarchan and Shakespearean—and many original lyric stanzas.

HARD TIMES: IMPORTANT THEMES IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

HARD TIMES: IMPORTANT THEMES IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

📕 The Mechanization of Human Beings 

Hard Times suggests that nineteenth-century England’s overzealous adoption of industrialization threatens to turn human beings into machines by thwarting the development of their emotions and imaginations. This suggestion comes forth largely through the actions of Gradgrind and his follower, Bounderby: as the former educates the young children of his family and his school in the ways of fact, the latter treats the workers in his factory as emotionless objects that are easily exploited for his own self-interest. In Chapter 5 of the first book, the narrator draws a parallel between the factory Hands and the Gradgrind children—both lead monotonous, uniform existences, untouched by pleasure. Consequently, their fantasies and feelings are dulled, and they become almost mechanical themselves.

📕 The Opposition Between Fact and Fancy 

While Mr. Gradgrind insists that his children should always stick to the facts, Hard Times not only suggests that fancy is as important as fact, but it continually calls into question the difference between fact and fancy. Dickens suggests that what constitutes so-called fact is a matter of perspective or opinion. For example, Bounderby believes that factory employees are lazy good-for-nothings who expect to be fed “from a golden spoon.” The Hands, in contrast, see themselves as hardworking and as unfairly exploited by their employers. These sets of facts cannot be reconciled because they depend upon perspective. While Bounderby declares that “what is called Taste is only another name for Fact,” Dickens implies that fact is a question of taste or personal belief. As a novelist, Dickens is naturally interested in illustrating that fiction cannot be excluded from a fact-filled, mechanical society.

📕 The Importance of Femininity 

During the Victorian era, women were commonly associated with supposedly feminine traits like compassion, moral purity, and emotional sensitivity. Hard Times suggests that because they possess these traits, women can counteract the mechanizing effects of industrialization. For instance, when Stephen feels depressed about the monotony of his life as a factory worker, Rachael’s gentle fortitude inspires him to keep going. He sums up her virtues by referring to her as his guiding angel. Similarly, Sissy introduces love into the Gradgrind household, ultimately teaching Louisa how to recognize her emotions. Indeed, Dickens suggests that Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy of self-interest and calculating rationality has prevented Louisa from developing her natural feminine traits. Perhaps Mrs. Gradgrind’s inability to exercise her femininity allows Gradgrind to overemphasize the importance of fact in the rearing of his children. On his part, Bounderby ensures that his rigidity will remain untouched since he marries the cold, emotionless product of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind’s marriage. Through the various female characters in the novel, Dickens suggests that feminine compassion is necessary to restore social harmony.

Concrete Poem

Concrete Poem

A concrete poem is written in the shape of its subject. As form is the highest consideration here sometimes the poems consist of single words describing their subject rather than complete lines. 

Concrete poems shouldn't be confused with calligrams where individual words take on a shape that reveals their meaning. 

The first example of a concrete poem in print is The Mouse's Tail from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:

Top Ten Gothic Novels

Top Ten Gothic Novels

This is list of the top ten Gothic novels. 

The Monk by Matthew Lewis

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf by George William MacArthur

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve