Arms and the Man: GB Shah

Arms and the Man is one of the finest anti-romantic comedies on the theme of love and war which comes from the pen of Bernard Shaw, who refused, on the one hand, to believes that soldier are exceptionally heroic and inspired by patriot sentiments. On the other hand, he thought of marriage not as a means of satisfying the personal desire of individual men and women. Thus, as we see these two themes are quite distinct from each other but Shaw has developed his plot in such a way that they are interwoven. Here Shaw’s object is to expose the romantic notion of war with love and marriage.

Death of Salesman: Miller

Death of the Salesman is a personal and social tragedy which shows the cultural change. It may be viewed as a tragedy of a middle class neurotic caught up in a large city by his dreams. Miller’s concept of tragedy is quite different from that of Shaw and Galsworthy. His view of tragedy is different even from the classical view. The Greek heroes are destined to suffer but Miller takes man as a tragic product of dark surroundings. Unlike the Greeks, Miller considers the common man the most suitable subject for the tragedy.

BURLESQUE

BURLESQUE (Ital. burlesco, from burla, a joke, fun, playful trick), a form of the comic in art, consisting broadly in an imitation of a work of art with the object of exciting laughter, by distortion or exaggeration, by turning, for example, the highly rhetorical into bombast, the pathetic into the mock-sentimental, and especially by a ludicrous contrast between the subject and the style, making gods speak like common men and common men like gods. 

Medivial Drama

THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA

For the sake of clearness we have reserved for a separate chapter the discussion of the drama of the whole medieval period, which, though it did not reach a very high literary level, was one of the most characteristic expressions of the age. It should be emphasized that to no other form does what we have said of the similarity of medieval literature throughout Western Europe apply more closely, so that what we find true of the drama in England would for the most part hold good for the other countries as well.

All About H. Hatter: G.V. Desani

Written in 1948, All About H. Hatter is G.V. Desani’s masterpiece. The H. Hatter in the title stands for Hindustanwallah Hatter which is a pseudonym of a fifty-five years person who the orphaned son of European seaman and non-Christian woman from Malaya. The novel is the comic record of the life of this orphan who is constantly threatened, gulled, robbed and bullied in life. The following utterance made by him gives us a true idea bout his character:

“I haven’t had my mother to love me….

I have no relations, don’t you see! I am afraid,

can’t you see?”

Religio Medici: Browne

Religio Medici is an autobiographical work of Caroline prose writer of Sir Thomas Browne who studied medicine at Padua and Leiden, and got his degree in 1633. The book was written in 1635 during his residence at Halifax. Although the book was published twice without his permission yet the Authorized Version was brought up by Andrew Crooke, a publisher of London. Religio Medici which in English means the religion of physician became instantly popular after its authorized publication and was subsequently translated into various languages including Dutch, German, Latin and French. Religion is very core of this work. 

Macbeth: Shakespeare

In 1606 William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, wrote a play which would go down in history as the cursed Scottish play after numerous mishaps during production. It was written for his new patron, James I (James VI of Scotland), following the death of Queen Elizabeth. James was interested in witchcraft and Scotland, and hence the themes in the play. Banquo is James's ancestor. The play itself tells the story of a man, urged by his wife and foretold by prophecy, who commits regicide in order to gain power. Unfortunately, due to numerous quirks of language and obscure allusions, the play is difficult to understand without assistance. Using this annotated version along with external links and analysis, to more information, you can now get a better grasp of one the best tragedies ever written, the tale of Macbeth.

Novel

A novel is a long prose fiction having a plot, a number of characters, and the plot developing and coming to a logical conclusion through the characters’ interaction with one another. J.B. Priestley defines a novel “as a narrative in prose treating chiefly of imagery characters and events”. J.B. Priestley further says “we may regard fiction as a narrative pure and simple, or as a picture manners, or as an exhibition of characters, or as a vehicle of certain philosophy”.

Addison: A Social Reformer

Addison was a great critic and a social reformer of the age of Queen Anne. As there was excessive immorality in the society, so the writers of the age start taking interest in the study of man’s behavior. Thus the literature of the age turns reformative; but Addison is the only critic who knows who to ridicule without inflicting a wound. Through his mild satire he tries to correct the society. Thought his contemporaries like Pope, Dryden and Defoe were also satirist, but they were personal in their satire. For example: Pope’s Rape of the Lock and Dunciad; another instance of personal satire is Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel. But like them Addison does not satirizes anything that is a serious defect of mankind.

Shelley: As Romantic

Wordsworth and shelley have point in common. They unlike the contemporaries intellectualized nature; their music, each glorius in its own way is set to transcedental language. They are not merely poets of nature, they are prophets of nature, they are concerned less to depict than to explain less to marvel at her beauty than to exhul at its inner significance. They are ever oving from external fact to the idea. If wordsworth and shelley have a common end in viw their way of achieving that end is sufficiently distinctive.

Classical Mythology: Keats

The odes embody the single final achievement of Keats. The “Ode to Nightingale” personifies the very spirit of Old Romance. It is “The most voluptuous and passionate in emotion.” The idea of intoxication in the first stanza is associated with the idea of poetic inspiration on the second stanza. Classical mythology comes to Keats’ service and he refers to “blushful Hippocrence” ir Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses. The Lovely image of Ruth is brought in, in connection, with the song of Nightingale. The poet says that she too must have heard the song Nightingale:

Nineteen Eighty Four: Orwell- Horrible Society

As a social writer, Orwell was interest in the society that infected the man. He was not interested in the type of the novel developed by Joyce, Virgina Woolf, Conard and Lawrence. Therefore, it is not proper at all to condemn him on account of his lack of psychology. He has a very great moral, as he himself remarks: “I wrote a book because there is some lie that want to expose.” His novel Nineteen Eighty Four is a nightmarish picture of the future world, as Randal Stevenson Remarks: “The novel is a horrible picture of the future world in which automated individual will live miserably under the totalitarian dictatorship”.

The Ars Poetica: Horace

“If in a picture, Piso, you should see

A handsome woman with a fish’s tale

Or a man’s head upon a horse’s neck

or limbs of beasts of the most different kinds

covered with feathers of all sorts of birds

would you not laugh, and thinks the painter mad?”

The Ars Poetica is a celebrated work of Horace who lived in the first century B.C. during the Augustan Age which is known as the golden period of the Roman literature. Horace was a younger contemporary of Virgil and stands almost equal to him in the realm of poetry.

The Duchess of Malfi: A Revenge Play

The earliest writer of the tragedy in English language, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, fastened on a story of revenge for their Gorboduc, which first produce in 1561. Since than for next sixty years revenge continued to be one of the popular theme for the dramatic representation and it is pointed out that Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is a revenge play. We shall analyze this line of argument with the help of Senecan Model--a model for the revenge tragedy.

Twelfth Night: As a Romantic Comedy

Twelfth Night is a typical Shakespearean romantic comedy written about the time as Julies Ceaser, perhaps at the same time. Shakespeare borrowed this romantic comedy form Bandello’s The History of Apolonius and Silla. Music and love, drinking and jollity, practical jokes and a riot of laughter are also a part of the play. It is so romantic that not one, not two characters are in love but the whole atmosphere is full of love. The Duke is love sick and is in love with Olivia. Viola falls in love with the Duke and she inwardly wanted to marry him; both, Malvolio and Sir Andrew are in love with Olivia and wanted to marry her; whereas Olivia is in love with Cesario--- disguise in Viola, thinking him to be a man---- but she mistakes Sebastian for Cesario and gets hurriedly married to him. We are also told that sir Toby is married to Maria.

Arnold: As a Critics

Introduction: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the Victorian poet and critic, was 'the first modern critic' [1], and could be called 'the critic's critic', being a champion not only of great poetry, but of literary criticism itself. The purpose of literary criticism, in his view, was 'to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas', and he has influenced a whole school of critics including new critics such as T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, and Allen Tate. He was the founder of the sociological school of criticism, and through his touchstone method introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools of criticism. Arnold's evaluations of the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are landmarks in descriptive criticism, and as a poet-critic he occupies an eminent position in the rich galaxy of poet-critics of English literature.

T. S. Eliot praised Arnold's objective approach to critical evaluation, particularly his tools of comparison and analysis, and Allen Tate in his essay Tension in Poetry imitates Arnold's touchstone method to discover 'tension', or the proper balance between connotation and denotation, in poetry. These new critics have come a long way from the Romantic approach to poetry, and this change in attitude could be attributed to Arnold, who comes midway between the two schools.

The social role of poetry and criticism

To Arnold a critic is a social benefactor. In his view the creative artist, no matter how much of a genius, would cut a sorry figure without the critic to come to his aid. Before Arnold a literary critic cared only for the beauties and defects of works of art, but Arnold the critic chose to be the educator and guardian of public opinion and propagator of the best ideas.

Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold. Scott James, comparing him to Aristotle, says that where Aristotle analyses the work of art, Arnold analyses the role of the critic. The one gives us the principles which govern the making of a poem, the other the principles by which the best poems should be selected and made known. Aristotle's critic owes allegiance to the artist, but Arnold's critic has a duty to society.

To Arnold poetry itself was the criticism of life: 'The criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty', and in his seminal essay The Study of Poetry' 1888) he says that poetry alone can be our sustenance and stay in an era where religious beliefs are fast losing their hold. He claims that poetry is superior to philosophy, science, and religion. Religion attaches its emotion to supposed facts, and the supposed facts are failing it, but poetry attaches its emotion to ideas and ideas are infallible. And science, in his view is incomplete without poetry. He endorses Wordsworth's view that 'poetry is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science', adding 'What is a countenance without its expression?' and calls poetry 'the breath and finer spirit of knowledge'.

A moralist

As a critic Arnold is essentially a moralist, and has very definite ideas about what poetry should and should not be. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas, he says, is a poetry of revolt against life, and a poetry of indifference to moral ideas is a poetry of indifference to life. Arnold even censored his own collection on moral grounds. He omitted the poem Empedocles on Etna from his volume of 1853, whereas he had included it in his collection of 1852. The reason he advances, in the Preface to his Poems of 1853 is not that the poem is too subjective, with its Hamlet-like introspection, or that it was a deviation from his classical ideals, but that the poem is too depressing in its subject matter, and would leave the reader hopeless and crushed. There is nothing in it in the way of hope or optimism, and such a poem could prove to be neither instructive nor of any delight to the reader.

Aristotle says that poetry is superior to History since it bears the stamp of high seriousness and truth. If truth and seriousness are wanting in the subject matter of a poem, so will the true poetic stamp of diction and movement be found wanting in its style and manner. Hence the two, the nobility of subject matter, and the superiority of style and manner, are proportional and cannot occur independently. Arnold took up Aristotle's view, asserting that true greatness in poetry is given by the truth and seriousness of its subject matter, and by the high diction and movement in its style and manner, and although indebted to Joshua Reynolds for the expression 'grand style', Arnold gave it a new meaning when he used it in his lecture On Translating Homer (1861): "I think it will be found that that the grand style arises in poetry when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with a severity a serious subject." According to Arnold, Homer is the best model of a simple grand style, while Milton is the best model of severe grand style. Dante, however, is an example of both.

Even Chaucer, in Arnold's view, in spite of his virtues such as benignity, largeness, and spontaneity, lacks seriousness. Burns too lacks sufficient seriousness, because he was hypocritical in that while he adopted a moral stance in some of his poems, in his private life he flouted morality.

Return to Classical values

Arnold believed that a modern writer should be aware that contemporary literature is built on the foundations of the past, and should contribute to the future by continuing a firm tradition. Quoting Goethe and Niebuhr in support of his view, he asserts that his age suffers from spiritual weakness because it thrives on self-interest and scientific materialism, and therefore cannot provide noble characters such as those found in Classical literature.

He urged modern poets to look to the ancients and their great characters and themes for guidance and inspiration. Classical literature, in his view, possess pathos, moral profundity and noble simplicity, while modern themes, arising from an age of spiritual weakness, are suitable for only comic and lighter kinds of poetry, and don't possess the loftiness to support epic or heroic poetry. Arnold turns his back on the prevailing Romantic view of poetry and seeks to revive the Classical values of objectivity, urbanity, and architectonics. He denounces the Romantics for ignoring the Classical writers for the sake of novelty, and for their allusive (Arnold uses the word 'suggestive') writing which defies easy comprehension.

Preface to Poems of 1853

In the preface to his Poems (1853) Arnold asserts the importance of architectonics; ('that power of execution, which creates, forms, and constitutes') in poetry - the necessity of achieving unity by subordinating the parts to the whole, and the expression of ideas to the depiction of human action, and condemns poems which exist for the sake of single lines or passages, stray metaphors, images, and fancy expressions. Scattered images and happy turns of phrase, in his view, can only provide partial effects, and not contribute to unity. He also, continuing his anti-Romantic theme, urges, modern poets to shun allusiveness and not fall into the temptation of subjectivity.

He says that even the imitation of Shakespeare is risky for a young writer, who should imitate only his excellences, and avoid his attractive accessories, tricks of style, such as quibble, conceit, circumlocution and allusiveness, which will lead him astray. Arnold commends Shakespeare's use of great plots from the past. He had what Goethe called the architectonic quality, that is his expression was matched to the action (or the subject). But at the same time Arnold quotes Hallam to show that Shakespeare's style was complex even where the press of action demanded simplicity and directness, and hence his style could not be taken as a model by young writers. Elsewhere he says that Shakespeare's 'expression tends to become a little sensuous and simple, too much intellectualised'.

Shakespeare's excellences are 1)The architectonic quality of his style; the harmony between action and expression. 2) His reliance on the ancients for his themes. 3) Accurate construction of action. 4) His strong conception of action and accurate portrayal of his subject matter. 5) His intense feeling for the subjects he dramatises. His attractive accessories (or tricks of style) which a young writer should handle carefully are 1) His fondness for quibble, fancy, conceit. 2) His excessive use of imagery. 3) Circumlocution, even where the press of action demands directness. 4) His lack of simplicity (according to Hallam and Guizot). 5) His allusiveness.

As an example of the danger of imitating Shakespeare he gives Keats's imitation of Shakespeare in his Isabella or the Pot of Basil. Keats uses felicitous phrases and single happy turns of phrase, yet the action is handled vaguely and so the poem does not have unity. By way of contrast, he says the Italian writer Boccaccio handled the same theme successfully in his Decameron, because he rightly subordinated expression to action. Hence Boccaccio's poem is a poetic success where Keats's is a failure. Arnold also wants the modern writer to take models from the past because they depict human actions which touch on 'the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time'. Characters such as Agamemnon, Dido, Aeneas, Orestes, Merope, Alcmeon, and Clytemnestra, leave a permanent impression on our minds. Compare 'The Iliad' or 'The Aeneid' with 'The Childe Harold' or 'The Excursion' and you see the difference.

A modern writer might complain that ancient subjects pose problems with regard to ancient culture, customs, manners, dress and so on which are not familiar to contemporary readers. But Arnold is of the view that a writer should not concern himself with the externals, but with the 'inward man'. The inward man is the same irrespective of clime or time.

The Function of Criticism

It is in his The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) that Arnold says that criticism should be a 'dissemination of ideas, a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world'. He says that when evaluating a work the aim is 'to see the object as in itself it really is'. Psychological, historical and sociological background are irrelevant, and to dwell on such aspects is mere dilettantism. This stance was very influential with later critics. Arnold also believed that in his quest for the best a critic should not confine himself to the literature of his own country, but should draw substantially on foreign literature and ideas, because the propagation of ideas should be an objective endeavour.

The Study of Poetry

In The Study of Poetry, (1888) which opens his Essays in Criticism: Second series, in support of his plea for nobility in poetry, Arnold recalls Sainte-Beuve's reply to Napoleon, when latter said that charlatanism is found in everything. Sainte-Beuve replied that charlatanism might be found everywhere else, but not in the field of poetry, because in poetry the distinction between sound and unsound, or only half-sound, truth and untruth, or only half-truth, between the excellent and the inferior, is of paramount importance.

For Arnold there is no place for charlatanism in poetry. To him poetry is the criticism of life, governed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. It is in the criticism of life that the spirit of our race will find its stay and consolation. The extent to which the spirit of mankind finds its stay and consolation is proportional to the power of a poem's criticism of life, and the power of the criticism of life is in direct proportion to the extent to which the poem is genuine and free from charlatanism.

In The Study of Poetry he also cautions the critic that in forming a genuine and disinterested estimate of the poet under consideration he should not be influenced by historical or personal judgements, historical judgements being fallacious because we regard ancient poets with excessive veneration, and personal judgements being fallacious when we are biased towards a contemporary poet. If a poet is a 'dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best . . . enjoy his work'.

As examples of erroneous judgements he says that the 17th century court tragedies of the French were spoken of with exaggerated praise, until Pellisson reproached them for want of the true poetic stamp, and another critic, Charles d' Hricault, said that 17th century French poetry had received undue and undeserving veneration. Arnold says the critics seem to substitute 'a halo for physiognomy and a statue in the place where there was once a man. They give us a human personage no larger than God seated amidst his perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus.'

He also condemns the French critic Vitet, who had eloquent words of praise for the epic poem Chanson de Roland by Turoldus, (which was sung by a jester, Taillefer, in William the Conqueror's army), saying that it was superior to Homer's Iliad. Arnold's view is that this poem can never be compared to Homer's work, and that we only have to compare the description of dying Roland to Helen's words about her wounded brothers Pollux and Castor and its inferiority will be clearly revealed.

The Study of Poetry: a shift in position - the touchstone method

Arnold's criticism of Vitet above illustrates his 'touchstone method'; his theory that in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. From this we see that he has shifted his position from that expressed in the preface to his Poems of 1853. In The Study of Poetry he no longer uses the acid test of action and architectonics. He became an advocate of 'touchstones'. 'Short passages even single lines,' he said, 'will serve our turn quite sufficiently'.

Some of Arnold's touchstone passages are: Helen's words about her wounded brother, Zeus addressing the horses of Peleus, suppliant Achilles' words to Priam, and from Dante; Ugolino's brave words, and Beatrice's loving words to Virgil. From non-Classical writers he selects from Henry IV Part II (III, i), Henry's expostulation with sleep - 'Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast . . . '. From Hamlet (V, ii) 'Absent thee from felicity awhile . . . '. From Milton's Paradise Lost Book 1, 'Care sat on his faded cheek . . .', and 'What is else not to be overcome . . . '

The Study of Poetry: on Chaucer

The French Romance poetry of the 13th century langue d'oc and langue d'oil was extremely popular in Europe and Italy, but soon lost its popularity and now it is important only in terms of historical study. But Chaucer, who was nourished by the romance poetry of the French, and influenced by the Italian Royal rhyme stanza, still holds enduring fascination. There is an excellence of style and subject in his poetry, which is the quality the French poetry lacks. Dryden says of Chaucer's Prologue 'Here is God's plenty!' and that 'he is a perpetual fountain of good sense'. There is largeness, benignity, freedom and spontaneity in Chaucer's writings. 'He is the well of English undefiled'. He has divine fluidity of movement, divine liquidness of diction. He has created an epoch and founded a tradition.

Some say that the fluidity of Chaucer's verse is due to licence in the use of the language, a liberty which Burns enjoyed much later. But Arnold says that the excellence of Chaucer's poetry is due to his sheer poetic talent. This liberty in the use of language was enjoyed by many poets, but we do not find the same kind of fluidity in others. Only in Shakespeare and Keats do we find the same kind of fluidity, though they wrote without the same liberty in the use of language.

Arnold praises Chaucer's excellent style and manner, but says that Chaucer cannot be called a classic since, unlike Homer, Virgil and Shakespeare, his poetry does not have the high poetic seriousness which Aristotle regards as a mark of its superiority over the other arts.

The Study of Poetry: on the age of Dryden and Pope

The age of Dryden is regarded as superior to that of the others for 'sweetness of poetry'. Arnold asks whether Dryden and Pope, poets of great merit, are truly the poetical classics of the 18th century. He says Dryden's post-script to the readers in his translation of The Aeneid reveals the fact that in prose writing he is even better than Milton and Chapman.

Just as the laxity in religious matters during the Restoration period was a direct outcome of the strict discipline of the Puritans, in the same way in order to control the dangerous sway of imagination found in the poetry of the Metaphysicals, to counteract 'the dangerous prevalence of imagination', the poets of the 18th century introduced certain regulations. The restrictions that were imposed on the poets were uniformity, regularity, precision, and balance. These restrictions curbed the growth of poetry, and encouraged the growth of prose.

Hence we can regard Dryden as the glorious founder, and Pope as the splendid high priest, of the age of prose and reason, our indispensable 18th century. Their poetry was that of the builders of an age of prose and reason. Arnold says that Pope and Dryden are not poet classics, but the 'prose classics' of the 18th century.

As for poetry, he considers Gray to be the only classic of the 18th century. Gray constantly studied and enjoyed Greek poetry and thus inherited their poetic point of view and their application of poetry to life. But he is the 'scantiest, frailest classic' since his output was small.

The Study of Poetry: on Burns

Although Burns lived close to the 19th century his poetry breathes the spirit of 18th Century life. Burns is most at home in his native language. His poems deal with Scottish dress, Scottish manner, and Scottish religion. This Scottish world is not a beautiful one, and it is an advantage if a poet deals with a beautiful world. But Burns shines whenever he triumphs over his sordid, repulsive and dull world with his poetry.

Perhaps we find the true Burns only in his bacchanalian poetry, though occasionally his bacchanalian attitude was affected. For example in his Holy Fair, the lines 'Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair/ Than either school or college', may represent the bacchanalian attitude, but they are not truly bacchanalian in spirit. There is something insincere about it, smacking of bravado.

When Burns moralises in some of his poems it also sounds insincere, coming from a man who disregarded morality in actual life. And sometimes his pathos is intolerable, as in Auld Lang Syne. We see the real Burns (wherein he is unsurpassable) in lines such as, 'To make a happy fire-side clime/ to weans and wife/ That's the true pathos and sublime/ Of human life' (Ae Fond Kiss). Here we see the genius of Burns. But, like Chaucer, Burns lacks high poetic seriousness, though his poems have poetic truth in diction and movement. Sometimes his poems are profound and heart-rending, such as in the lines, 'Had we never loved sae kindly/ had we never loved sae blindly/ never met or never parted/ we had ne'er been broken-hearted'.

Also like Chaucer, Burns possesses largeness, benignity, freedom and spontaneity. But instead of Chaucer's fluidity, we find in Burns a springing bounding energy. Chaucer's benignity deepens in Burns into a sense of sympathy for both human as well as non-human things, but Chaucer's world is richer and fairer than that of Burns. Sometimes Burns's poetic genius is unmatched by anyone. He is even better than Goethe at times and he is unrivalled by anyone except Shakespeare. He has written excellent poems such as Tam O'Shanter, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, and Auld Lang Syne. When we compare Shelley's 'Pinnacled dim in the of intense inane' (Prometheus Unbound III, iv) with Burns's, 'They flatter, she says, to deceive me' (Tam Glen), the latter is salutary.

Arnold on Shakespeare

Praising Shakespeare, Arnold says 'In England there needs a miracle of genius like Shakespeare's to produce a balance of mind'. This is not bardolatory, but praise tempered by a critical sense. In a letter he writes. 'I keep saying Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is'. In his sonnet On Shakespeare he says; 'Others abide our question. Thou are free./ We ask and ask - Thou smilest and art still,/ Out-topping knowledge'.

Arnold's limitations

For all his championing of disinterestedness, Arnold was unable to practise disinterestedness in all his essays. In his essay on Shelley particularly he displayed a lamentable lack of disinterestedness. Shelley's moral views were too much for the Victorian Arnold. In his essay on Keats too Arnold failed to be disinterested. The sentimental letters of Keats to Fanny Brawne were too much for him.

Arnold sometimes became a satirist, and as a satirical critic saw things too quickly, too summarily. In spite of their charm, the essays are characterised by egotism and, as Tilotson says, 'the attention is directed, not on his object but on himself and his objects together'.

Arnold makes clear his disapproval of the vagaries of some of the Romantic poets. Perhaps he would have agreed with Goethe, who saw Romanticism as disease and Classicism as health. But Arnold occasionally looked at things with jaundiced eyes, and he overlooked the positive features of Romanticism which posterity will not willingly let die, such as its humanitarianism, love of nature, love of childhood, a sense of mysticism, faith in man with all his imperfections, and faith in man's unconquerable mind.

Arnold's inordinate love of classicism made him blind to the beauty of lyricism. He ignored the importance of lyrical poems, which are subjective and which express the sentiments and the personality of the poet. Judged by Arnold's standards, a large number of poets both ancient and modern are dismissed because they sang with 'Profuse strains of unpremeditated art'.

It was also unfair of Arnold to compare the classical works in which figure the classical quartet, namely Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra and Dido with Heamann and Dorothea, Childe Harold, Jocelyn, and 'The Excursion'. Even the strongest advocates of Arnold would agree that it is not always profitable for poets to draw upon the past. Literature expresses the zeitgeist, the spirit of the contemporary age. Writers must choose subjects from the world of their own experience. What is ancient Greece to many of us? Historians and archaeologists are familiar with it, but the common readers delight justifiably in modern themes. To be in the company of Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra and Dido is not always a pleasant experience. What a reader wants is variety, which classical mythology with all its tradition and richness cannot provide. An excessive fondness for Greek and Latin classics produces a literary diet without variety, while modern poetry and drama have branched out in innumerable directions.

As we have seen, as a classicist Arnold upheld the supreme importance of the architectonic faculty, then later shifted his ground. In the lectures On Translating Homer, On the Study of Celtic Literature, and The Study of Poetry, he himself tested the greatness of poetry by single lines. Arnold the classicist presumably realised towards the end of his life that classicism was not the last word in literature.

Arnold's lack of historic sense was another major failing. While he spoke authoritatively on his own century, he was sometimes groping in the dark in his assessment of earlier centuries. He used to speak at times as if ex cathedra, and this pontifical solemnity vitiated his criticism.

As we have seen, later critics praise Arnold, but it is only a qualified praise. Oliver Elton calls him a 'bad great critic'. T. S. Eliot said that Arnold is a 'Propagandist and not a creator of ideas'. According to Walter Raleigh, Arnold's method is like that of a man who took a brick to the market to give the buyers an impression of the building.

Arnold's legacy

In spite of his faults, Arnold's position as an eminent critic is secure. Douglas Bush says that the breadth and depth of Arnold's influence cannot be measured or even guessed at because, from his own time onward, so much of his thought and outlook became part of the general educated consciousness. He was one of those critics who, as Eliot said, arrive from time to time to set the literary house in order. Eliot named Dryden, Johnson and Arnold as some of the greatest critics of the English language.

Arnold united active independent insight with the authority of the humanistic tradition. He carried on, in his more sophisticated way, the Renaissance humanistic faith in good letters as the teachers of wisdom, and in the virtue of great literature, and above all, great poetry. He saw poetry as a supremely illuminating, animating, and fortifying aid in the difficult endeavour to become or remain fully human.

Arnold's method of criticism is comparative. Steeped in classical poetry, and thoroughly acquainted with continental literature, he compares English literature to French and German literature, adopting the disinterested approach he had learned from Sainte-Beuve.

Arnold's objective approach to criticism and his view that historical and biographical study are unnecessary was very influential on the new criticism. His emphasis on the importance of tradition also influenced F. R. Leavis, and T. S. Eliot.

Eliot is also indebted to Arnold for his classicism, and for his objective approach which paved the way for Eliot to say that poetry is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality, because it is not an expression of emotions but an escape from emotions.

Although Arnold disapproved of the Romantics' approach to poetry, their propensity for allusiveness and symbolism, he also shows his appreciation the Romantics in his Essays in Criticism. He praises Wordsworth thus: 'Nature herself took the pen out of his hand and wrote with a bare, sheer penetrating power'. Arnold also valued poetry for its strong ideas, which he found to be the chief merit of Wordsworth's poetry. About Shelley he says that Shelley is 'A beautiful but ineffectual angel beating in a void his luminous wings in vain'.

In an age when cheap literature caters to the taste of the common man, one might fear that the classics will fade into insignificance. But Arnold is sure that the currency and the supremacy of the classics will be preserved in the modern age, not because of conscious effort on the part of the readers, but because of the human instinct of self-preservation.

In the present day with the literary tradition over-burdened with imagery, myth, symbol and abstract jargon, it is refreshing to come back to Arnold and his like to encounter central questions about literature and life as they are perceived by a mature and civilised mind.

(Original material by S. N. Radhika Lakshmi edited and revised by Ian Mackean)

Bibliography

[1] Annan, Noel, in Matthew Arnold: Selected Essays. London: OUP 1964

Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism. Ed. S. R. Littlewood. London: Macmillan. 1958

Arnold, Matthew. 'Preface to the First Edition of poems: 1853'. The Poems of Matthew Arnold. Ed. Miriam Allot, London, 1979. 654-671

Arnold, Matthew. Selected Poems and Prose. Ed. Denys Thompson. London: Heinemann, 1971.

© S. N. Radhika Lakshmi

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Meghdootam: Kalidasa

Meghdootam is a great tribute to the richness of Indian classical poetry in general, and Kalidasa’s genius in particular, who is known as “Shakespeare of India”. Belonging to the tradition of Duta-Kavyam, Meghdootam is a love poem, natural poem, and romantic poem, besides being a social document. The poem also shows Kalidasa’s knowledge of Indian landscape and geography; and ritual prescribed in those days. One is astonished to find, romanticism and classicism, rational and physical, spiritual and emotional are going nicely with each other. An overtly, the subject matter is bound in Mandakranta meter--- a lyrical quality.

Eve of St Agnes: Keats

“The Eve of St. Agnes” was composed between 18 January and 2 February, the following time Keats concentrated on “Hyperion”. He did not think high of the poem but the poem has its own beauty and is one of the glorious creations of Keats. It has its origin same in the sense of exquisite with that Isabella is born. The story of “The Eve of St. Agnes” is based on a tradition ritual mentioned in Burton’s “Anatomy and Melancholy”. Keats refashioned the legend of St. Agnes and blended it with romantic effect. Real excellence of the poem lies in its beautiful images and phrases. There is a sweet elfin music that runs through the texture of the poem. Numbness chill, bitter frost, rising storm, the moon peeping through the window adds mush of the beauty of the wild scenes. The atmosphere of the poem is typically that of Middle Ages.

Touchstone Method: Arnold

"Poetry is interpretative by having natural magic in it,
and moral profundity".

Touchstone Method is a short quotation from a recognized poetic masterpiece ‘The Study of Poetry’ (1880), employed as a standard of instant comparison for judging the value of other works. Here Arnold recommends certain lines of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton as touchstones for testing ‘the presence or absence of high poetic quality’ in samples chosen from other poets.

The" Touchstone Method" - introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual poets. Thus, Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, and Shelley fall short of the best, because they lack "high seriousness". Even Shakespeare thinks too much of expression and too little of conception. Arnold's ideal poets are Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world, Dante and Milton, and among moderns, Goethe and Wordsworth. Arnold puts Wordsworth in the front rank not for his poetry but for his "criticism of life".

Arnold writes, in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. From this we see that he has shifted his position from that expressed in the preface to his Poems of 1853. In The Study of Poetry he no longer uses the acid test of action and architectonics. He became an advocate of 'touchstones'. 'Short passages even single lines,' he said, 'will serve our turn quite sufficiently'.

Some of Arnold's touchstone passages are: Helen's words about her wounded brother, Zeus addressing the horses of Peleus, suppliant Achilles' words to Priam, and from Dante; Ugolino's brave words, and Beatrice's loving words to Virgil. From non-Classical writers he selects from Henry IV Part II (III, i), Henry's expostulation with sleep - 'Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast . . . '. From Hamlet (V, ii) 'Absent thee from felicity awhile . . . '. From Milton's Paradise Lost Book 1, 'Care sat on his faded cheek . . .', and 'What is else not to be overcome . . . '

Like Ruskin Arnold too wanted the contemporary reader against certain fallacies; the ‘fallacy’ of “historical estimate” and the “fallacy” of “personal estimate” were both, in Arnold’s view, reflections of inadequate and improper response to literature. According to him, both the historical significance of a literary work as well as its significance to the critic in personal terms tend to obliterate the real estimate of that work as in itself reality is. The best way to know the class, to which a work belongs in terms of the excellence of art, Arnold recommends, is

“to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of
 the great masters, and to apply them
 as a touchstone to other poetry.”

Comparing with the best lines and passages from Homer and Shakespeare, Arnold surveys the entire track of English poetry, and divides the various poets into the categories of the good-and-great and the not-so-good and not-so-great. His idea of tradition is select in that only the great constitute the body of literary history we should care for, and the rest we better ignore. Arnold’s view of the greatness in poetry and what a literary critic should look for are summed up as follows:

“it is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at
bottom a criticism of life;  that the greatness of a poet lies in his
powerful  and beautiful application of ideas to life,
—to the question: how to live.”

here is sort of manifesto for the criticism of the early Victorians as well as an indictment of the critical creed, ‘art for art’s sake,’ as propounded and advocated by the later Victorians.

Psychology and Form: Burke

The application of Freudian psychoanalytical technique began to be practiced in the works of art in the twentieth century; the psychoanalytical approach is basically reader-oriented. The chief aim of this approach is to reveal the true content of a literary work lay relating its elements to the unconscious determinants. Burke, read, Northrop Fry and Carl Jung are among those critics who applied this approach in their criticism to literature. Burke begins by saying that a psycho-analytical critic believes in the principle that a writer builds his from through the effect on audience. He uses his contents as pieces of information, which he places one upon the other in ascending order. The reader moves from one fact to the other.

Loneliness: Of Mice and Men- Steinbecks

During the great Depression (1930s-1940s) in america, where nobody had enough to eat, a lot of migrant workers went to california, searching for a job. In this time it seemed that everybody is afraid of everybody. John Steinbecks novel, Of Mice And Men, deals with the issue of loneliness. The three most lonely persons in this novel are Candy, the oldest person on the farm. Crooks, the crippled negro and Cuerly's wife, the only women in the book,who did not even get a name. These three characters are isolated on account of different persons or because of crippled parts of the body. The color of the skin, crippleness or jealous people can be the reason for loneliness.

Future Utopia: Brave New World- Huxley

The term dystopia ("bad place") has recently come to be applied to works of fiction,
including science fiction, that represent a very unpleasant imaginary world in which
ominous tendencies of our present social, political, and technological order are
projected into a disastrous future culmination.

—M.H. Abrams in A glossary of Literary Terms

Satan in Paradise Lost: Milton

Satan, as portrayed by Milton, was a different kind of character in an epic. Accordingly to the strict rules of dramatist art Satan should be a piece of villain but he is the most important character of the poem. The narrative which Milton selected for Paradise Lost is depended for its action on a wicked character rather than hero; but “Paradise Lost exists for one figure that is Satan”, as Abercrombie remarks. Satan has all the heroic qualities, besides being nobility and dignity; he has valour and determination which goes to make him a great hero.

On the Nature of Things: Lucretius

Lucretius’s only but incomplete work of six volumes, dedicated to Gaius Memmius—a politician and his pupil—edited by Marcus Cicero, is On the Nature of Things which was originally written in Latin language with title De Rerum Natura in hexameter form where one finds the combination of Democritus and Epicurus’s scientific ideas. This philosophical work says “tat um religio potuit suad ere matorum” means evil deeds are done under the power of religion.

Candide: Voltaire

Voltaire’s Candide or Candide, ou’ optimisme (1759) is a short philosophical novel which is a strong criticism of the theory espoused by the German philosopher, Leibniz, that “ours is the best possible of all the words”. The message of the novel is that if one wants to reform the society around him, one should reform oneself; though this world is full of evil yet we should, as Eliot says, “Give sympathies and control”.

History of ELT

The English ruled over India for more than two hundred years. During this period, they tried their best to perpetuate their rule over this country, and for this, they adopted several means—among such means was the introduction of English in India. It is said that Lord Macaulay was the chief architect in this context and who thinks “the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native subjects.” We all know that Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the chief protagonist among those who wanted that English should be taught in Indian schools and colleges. He believed like many others that the knowledge of English could facilitate the possibility of early freedom for India by giving the Indians the knowledge of several democratic and freedom movements aboard.

Foregrounding: Halliday

“The foreground is part of a view, picture, etc. that is nearest to you when you
 look at it (whereas) Foregrounding is the action of emphasizing something
by means of linguistic devices.” Oxford Dictionary

Halliday defines foregrounding as a part of the functional theory of language, or what cannot be expresses statically is foregrounding, which was introduced by The Prague School (1926) as the feature of stylistics, that is “The branch of knowledge that deals with literary or linguistic style.” 

Myth of Oedipus

Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. After having been married some time without children, his parents consulted the Oracle of Apollo(God of Sun) at Delphi about their childlessness. The Oracle prophesized that if Jocasta should have a son, the son would kill her husband Laius and marry her. In an attempt to prevent this prophecy's fulfillment, when Jocasta indeed bore a son, Laius had his ankles pinned together so that he could not crawl, and gave the boy to a servant to abandon ("expose") on the nearby mountain. However, rather than leave the child to die of exposure, as Laius intended, the sympathetic servant passed the baby onto a shepherd from Corinth and then to another shepherd.

Character in Prologue to to the Canterbury Tales

The individuality and the typicality of the Pilgrim’s Inn in The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales has been recognized by all critics. Chaucer’s pilgrims have another quality about the,. They embody universal traits of human nature, which are basic and permanent to human beings, thus, Chaucer’s characters are type, individual and universal, all at the same time.

Fancy as a mode of satire in Swift

Satire seems to have begun as a magical abuse purporting, like a curse, to wreck effective harm on the victim. Such attacking literature using invective as its main weapon would now be styled ‘Lampoon’ rather than satire. On the other hand when, as in the case of Swift, methods of stylistic caricature ad farcical content to predominate that malice and morality tend to melt away in the mockery. Swift started working on the book Gulliver’s travels apparently around the 1720 when the idea was advanced in Scriblerus Club of which he was a member. It was to have been incorporated in “Memoirs of Scriblerus”. It has the advantage of being a book interest to adults because of its satire on man and his institutions and to children because of its fantasy.

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Emile :Rousseau

Second to Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Emile is the philosophical book on education which needs to be first examined that is why, as Geraint Parry cries, “In Emile, he produces an account of an education that is designed to allow persons to live an honest life even when surrounded by the pressures of a corrupt society. It shows Rousseau’s target was to present his Philosophy through this titanic creation, which messages: 

“Why we should build our happiness on the opinions of other
when we can find it in our hearts”.

Locale of RK Narayan

Just as Hardy immortalized his Wessex, Narayan has succeeded in giving a permanent place to his malgudi in Indian English Fiction. But the inhabitants of Malgudi have their recognizable locale trappings—are essentially human, nad hence, have their kinship with all humanity. In Swami and Friends, Malgudi is neither village nor city but a town of modest size. The River Sarayu flows by its side. One can get board the train for Madras at the Malgudi Station. Within the town there is the Market Road, which is described as “the life line of Malgudi” in Mr. Sampath. This road intersects the Race Course Road (we often pass through it in The Dark Room). There are various streets and lanes: Kabir Street and Kabir Lane, Anderson Lane, Sarayu Street.

Mythical Method in The Waste Land: Eliot

The design of the He do the Police in Different Voices, well known as The Waste Land is mythic that it conceives and takes final shape from the perspective of the poet as sheer. Eliot was considers as mythic poet not because he uses a known myth for the skeletal structure of the poem but because his artistic point of view is always formed by mythic perspective. Mythic conscious conceive a real world as unified, individual and self-contained despite apparent contradiction in both the universe and human affairs. The profane world of illusion which an ordinary man thinks to be real is not more than “a broken bundle of mirrors”--- in words of Pound, a fragrant that never cohere.

Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness

It is impossible to define a feminine practice of writing, and this is an
impossibility  that will remain, for this practice will never be theorized,
 enclosed, encoded-which doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

-HELENE CIXOUS, "The Laugh of the Medusa"

Feminist criticism has gradually shifted its center from revisionary readings to a sustained investigation of literature by women. Showalter starts her essay with the poem of LOUISE BOGAN, "Women” which opens with the lines:

“Women have no wilderness in them,

They are provident instead,

Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts

To eat dusty bread.

Morte D’Arthur: Malory

The one fifteenth century author of the first rank, above referred to, is Sir Thomas Malory (the a is pronounced as in tally). He is probably to be identified with the Sir Thomas Malory who during the wars in France and the civil strife of the Roses that followed was an adherent of the Earls of Warwick and who died in 1471 under sentence of outlawry by the victorious Edward IV. And some passing observations, at least, in his book seem to indicate that if he knew and had shared all the splendor and inspiration of the last years of medieval chivalry, he had experienced also the disappointment and bitterness of defeat and prolonged captivity. Further than this we know of him only that he wrote 'Le Morte D’Arthur' and had finished it by 1467.

Isherwoord

Christopher Isherwood’s home is in “the canyon” on the edge of Santa Monica, California—a quiet bohemian district of stucco houses inhabited mostly by people involved in the arts. It preserves much of the character it must have had thirty years ago when it first became a haven for refugees from the vast sprawl of Los Angeles. But Demon Change is just around the corner. In 1973 Santa Monica is being Miamified. Pallid apartment blocks with factitious names (Highland Glen, Sunset Towers) are rising all around, and the coastline is dominated by fat piles of concrete.

Johnson's Comment on Paradise Lost

Johnson’s critical limitations are most clearly seen in his criticism of Paradise Lost. He was prejudiced against Milton on political grounds. He was allergic to the Republicanism. His argument that the poet had no regular hours for prayer though he made Adam and Eve pray clearly indicated his mind not accepting the indisputable scholarship of Milton. He, with hesitations accepts Paradise lost as an epic though Milton was not the first attempt such he has his own reservation about the grand style of the epic. His criticism that the mixing up of the supernatural and the human cannot be justified as the same happens in every epic.

Puritanism

The leaders of early settles of New England were seeking to build a vigorous and virtuous state. They believed that for this purpose it was essential to give sound instruction to political, social and economic issues and also to convey religious tools for such instructions. But writing merely for the sake of pleasure seemed to them a dangerous waste of time. That’s why their writers left us no novels or drama.