Rousseau

Rousseau uses the development of the arts and sciences as a way of describing the fall of man from a "golden age" of a "state of nature". He explains:

When there is no effect, there is no cause to seek. But here [discussing the arts and science] the effect is certain, the depravity real, and our souls have been corrupted in proportion to the advancement of our sciences and arts toward perfection. [1] 

Therefore, he has drawn a direct link between corruption and the arts and sciences. It seems to me, however, that although he talks of cause and effect, they are quite confused in this work. Powers, writing in 1962, quoted an unnamed American historian who noted:

serious students of [Rousseau's] political philosophy are in complete disagreement as to what he meant. [2]

And Hope Mason is just as blunt:

if we read the Discours without benefit of hindsight it is hard to discern any complete philosophy. [3]

Rousseau's basic point is straightforward: man is corrupt and the arts and sciences have played a role in that corruption. He states in the First Part:

So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being of men in their common life, the arts, literature, and the sciences, less despotic though perhaps more powerful, fling garlands of flowers over the chains which weigh them down. They stifle in men's breasts that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been born; cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilized people. [4]

This suggests that Rousseau believes arts and sciences make conformists of us all. He would go further and use the term 'slaves'. And it is the study of arts and sciences that causes us to be "mean, corrupt and miserable." [5] Therefore, he believes that arts and sciences corrupt morals and they are the direct cause of man’s downfall. In the Discourse, he specifically blames certain sciences:

Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less doubtful of their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues. [6]

The arts also come in for criticism. Without "...useless writers and litterateurs… society would be more peaceful and morals less corrupt." [7]

Therefore, Rousseau is clearly making the point that arts and sciences have had a corrupting influence. They are explicitly the cause of corruption. But later he writes: 

It is thus that the dissolution of morals, the necessary consequence of luxury, brings with it in its turn the corruption of taste. [8]

Now, it appears that luxury is the cause of corruption. Earlier, he wrote:

The waste of time is certainly a great evil; but still greater evils attend upon literature and the arts. One is luxury, produced like them by indolence and vanity. Luxury is seldom unattended by the arts and sciences; and they are always attended by luxury. [9]

This is a very curious passage, in which Rousseau seems to be arguing that both the arts and sciences and luxury are the product of indolence and vanity. Therefore, indolence and vanity now appear to be the cause of corruption, and the advancement of the arts and sciences the effect. Moreover, luxury is also described as being a corrupting influence on arts and sciences. It is therefore both cause and effect.

However, as Powers points out, there is a further contradiction. Rousseau believes that everything is radically dependent on politics. [10] Thus, "the arts and sciences and their relationship to morals could only be indirect." Powers goes on:

In his Discourse on the origins of inequality, he went to the root of the matter: the original difficulty was not the arts and sciences, but was the order of inequality, which they reflect and embellish. [11]

So now it appears that inequality, which is a by-product of politics and which is merely reflected and embellished by arts and sciences, is the cause of corruption.

At the root of this seeming confusion is Rousseau's contention that pride is the real cause of man's downfall. Everything else arises from that. Campbell and Scott note:

Human pride is the source of "all" human learning, and the cause of its corruption. [12]

They continue:

However beautiful the spectacle of the advancement of the sciences may be, Rousseau asks his readers to consider their deleterious effect upon public morals. [13]

And here, as always, Rousseau comes back to his view of civilisation and his central point, that man has fallen from his ideal state and become corrupted:

We cannot reflect on the morality of mankind without contemplating with pleasure the picture of the simplicity which prevailed in the earliest times. [14]

It is important to understand that Rousseau is not talking about a return to a golden age. He is not saying that the "state of nature" is an aspiration and it would be preferable for us to renounce our civilisation and our learning and our self-awareness. That is not possible: the fall has already happened and what has happened cannot be undone.

He says that in becoming civilised we have renounced freedom. Man is innately good, but civilisation forces him into badness. He states: "Nature made man happy and good, but society depraves him and makes him miserable." [15] Powers notes:

He believed that no human faculty was bad by nature. He did believe that amour de soi "is the only force which will make men act. Self-love (amour de soi) which is good and innate, degenerates into pride (amour propre), which is evil and which is acquired." Thus he believed that man, naturally good, becomes bad. [16]

What caused this degeneration of amour de soi into amour propre? Partly, of course, it is the arts and sciences. As Campbell and Scott note:

The sciences investigate the causes of natural phenomena traditionally attributed to divine power, and they corrupt morals by undermining the faith and public-spiritedness upon which Rousseau suggests popular virtue rests. "Science spreads and faith vanishes." The paradigmatic natural science in this regard is physics, which Rousseau specifically identifies as the product of "vain curiosity." [17]

Campbell and Scott also note:

[Rousseau's] remark that such individuals [those who should be allowed to study the sciences] must "feel the strength to walk alone" suggests that it is less their genius than their independence from popular trends and opinion that enables them to pursue the sciences without corruption. [18]

Thus, certain individuals may transcend the dangers of study, but only if they can stay true to their inner beliefs and not be swayed by vanity or pride – playing to the gallery or seeking to impress and become famous. Only a very few can do this. Rousseau concludes his Discourse by saying:

As for us, ordinary men, on whom Heaven has not been pleased to bestow such great talents; as we are not destined to reap such glory, let us remain in our obscurity... Why should we build our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts. [19]

For most of us, we lost our chance to be free when man turned from his state of nature. This was inevitable. Shklar summarises Rousseau's position thus:

By nature men are freed, but left to their own devices they will inevitably enslave each other... the spontaneous march to inequality and oppression in which all men participate. [20]

But Rousseau still appeals to the noble savage in us all. "Let us leave to others the task of instructing mankind in their duty, and confine ourselves to the discharge of our own," he writes. [21]

There is in much of Rousseau's work this conflict between the personal and the public. He himself was fiercely independent. "First of all I want my friends to be my friends, and not my masters,"[22] he wrote. As Shklar notes, "in the end he concluded that his need for personal liberty was such that he was simply not made for civil society."[23] This is instructive, because it goes to the heart of the contradictions in Rousseau. He observed how mankind had to behave, because they had no alternative. To succeed, men conformed. They were motivated by self-interest. Essentially, man was a social animal, and social living led to inequality. Inequality led to pride, which corrupted man.

The noble citizen, however, which as Powers notes was Rousseau's ideal,[24] and not the unattainable noble savage, could live outside such pride and vanity, could withstand the pressures of society. This could only be done, however, because such people were capable of living in themselves. Powers describes Rousseau’s position thus:

The savage lives in himself, the sociable man always outside of himself, unable to live except in the opinions of others. [25]

Rousseau believed civilisation corrupted, and could only corrupt. The only way to avoid it was to seek a completely individual path, but few men were capable of this. The opportunity to create an ideal state of nature was lost and could not be regained.

1. Jean Jacques Rousseau. Discourse on the Sciences and Arts. p 123

2. Richard Howard Powers. Rousseau’s “useless science”: dilemma or paradox. French Historical Studies, Vol. 2, No 4. (Autumn 1962), p 450

3. John Hope Mason. Reading Rousseau’s First Discourse. Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 249, p 251

4. Discourse, p 120

5. Ibid, p 141

6. Ibid, p 130

7. Ibid, p. 131

8. Ibid, p 134

9. Ibid, p 132

10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Confessions.

11. Powers. Op. cit., p 459

12. Sally Howard Campbell and John T. Scott. Rousseau’s politic argument in the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts. American Journal of Political Science, vol 49, No 4. (Oct, 2005), p 822

13. Ibid., p824

14. Discourse. p 134

15. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Dialogues. Paris; Gallimard, 1995 v 1 p 934

16. Powers. Op. cit., p 452

17. Campbell and Scott. Op. cit.., p 824

18. Ibid.

19. Discourse, p 142

20. Judith N. Shklar. Rousseau’s images of authority. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 58, No. 4 (dec 1964), p 919

21. Discourse, p 142

22. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Correspondence generale de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Paris, 1924-1932. Vol III, p 44

23. Shklar, op. cit., p 920

24. Powers. op. cit., p 467

25. Ibid, p 465 

Rime of Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The most supernatural poem of English literature, named The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a psychodrama concerned with the guilt and expiation of ‘a Cain-Like’ figure, the arbitrary ‘Murderer’ of an albatross “made the breeze to blow” which, appears through the fog ‘as it had been a Christian soul.” That is why:

“The mariner gave it biscuits –worms    
And round and round it flew  ……..                          
….. everyday for food or play     
Came to the Mariner……..”

The poem is told to the Wedding Guest by the Mariner “Alone, alone, all, all alone,/ Alone on a wide wide sea!/ And never a saint took pity on/ My soul in agony,” who is

“Like one that hath been stunn'd            
 And is of sense forlorn.”

In this natural setting are set the supernatural incidents. A terrible storm hit and forced the ship southwards. The “storm blast” was “tyrannous and strong” and struck the ship with “overtaking wings”. Then the sailors reached a calm patch of supernatural sea that was “wondrous cold” full of snow and glistering green icebergs” as tall as the ship’s mast:

“And now there came both mist and snow,        
And it grew wondrous cold.”

The sailors were the only living things in this frightening, enclosed world where the ice made terrible groaning sounds that echoed all around.

“The ice was here, the ice was there,    
The ice was all around.”

Coleridge often blends the real and unreal in order to create a supernatural world. Here we see the story at first is given a known, familiar setting but soon it passes into an unreal world. The reader is not disturbed by this smooth transition from the real to the unreal world but indulges himself in the “willing suspension of disbelief”.

From the moment the mariner kills the bird retribution comes in the form of natural phenomena. The wind dies, the sun intensifies and it will not rain. The ocean becomes “revolting”, “rotting” and “thrashing” with “slimy” creatures and sizzling with strange fires. Coleridge depicts tactfully how nature punishes supernaturally for killing its innocent member—before the sun was “bright” but now it has become “the bloody sun” in a “hot and copper sky”:

All in a hot and copper sky,         
The bloody Sun, at noon,            
Right up above the mast did stand,         
No bigger than the Moon.

The nature continues punishing the mariners in supernatural ways. The wind refuses to blow, and the sun’s relentless heat chars the men:

Day after day, day after day,      
We stuck, nor breathe nor motion;         
As idle as a painted ship               
Upon a painted ocean

This hot sun makes the mariners thirsty but they have no drinkable water.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The throats became “unslaked” and “lips baked” under the hot sun.

We could not speak, no more than if     
We had been choked with soot.              

The shipmates, in their sore distress, throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner and in sign they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.

‘Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.’

The suffering becomes even more painful when all his fellow men dropped down one by one and the soul of each passes by him with the sound like that of his arrow that killed the Albatross. “They dropped down one by one.” For seven days and nights the mariner remained alone on the ship:

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

His surroundings- the ship, the ocean, and the creatures within it are “rotting” in the heat and sun, but he is the one who is rotten on the inside.

Only when the mariner is able to appreciate the beauty of the natural world, he is granted the ability to pray. The moment he begins to view the natural world benevolently, his spiritual thirst is quenched. As a sign, the albatross- the burden of sin falls from his neck.

‘The Albatross fell off, and sank               
Like lead into the sea.’  
It finally rains and his thrust is quenched.             
‘My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
My garments all were dank”

The ship suddenly began to move towards the native land of the old sailor. Ultimately the ship reached near the harbor. It sank suddenly and the old sailor was rescued from the disaster. Iin the end “The Game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!” as “Four times fifty living men,/ With never a sigh or groan,/ With heavy thump, a lifeless lump/ They dropp’d down one by one.” Coleridge (also hint at the theme of the poem) clearly reflects his meditative mind when he says;

‘He prayth well, who loveth well              
Both man and bird and beast.’

He prayth best, who loveth best              
All things both great and small  
For the dear God who loveth us               
He made and loveth all.;

Wordsworth’s assertion that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner “contains many delicate touches of passion” is especially notable, given Derrida’s insistence that the concept of “passion” as it relates to a testifying subject implies not only “finitude” but also

“liability ….. imputability, culpability, responsibility” and “an engagement that is assumed in pain and suffering, experience without mastery and this without active subjectivity,”

About it, Derrida would say, only “chaos remains.”

Dr. Faustus

Doctor Faustus

In Tudor Dynasty the `most nearly Satanic tragedy that can be found' is Doctor Faustus tells the story of a certain doctor named `Faustus', meaning `auspicious' becomes an avid follower of the Black Magic and his Temptations go unabated as he desires the famous ‘Hellenic Beauty Helen’ for his company which was unusual for Helen had long been dead. Faustus strikes a deal with Mephistophilis “a servant to great Lucipher” that he will give his soul in exchange for A Kiss from Helen;

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--''[kisses her]''     
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--             
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Mephistophilis explains that Faustus must “buy my service with his soul” by signing a contract:

But Faustus, thou must bequeath it solemnly
And write a deed of gift with thine own blood,
For that security craves great Lucifer.
If thou deny it, I will back to hell.

Subsequently, as Faustus draws blood and prepares to write the contract, Mephistophilis reminds him once more to “Write it in a manner of a deed of gift”. It would seem that this is not a “purchase” at all. As per Lucifer’s deal: “he will spare him four and twenty years, / Letting him live in all voluptuousness,” during which time he will have Mephistophilis as his personal servant “Having thee ever to attend on me”. At the end he will give his soul over to Lucifer as payment and spend the rest of time as one damned to Hell. This deal is to be sealed in Faustus's own blood. After cutting his arm, the wound is divinely healed and the Latin words "Homo, fuge!" (Fly, man!) then appear upon it.

With blank verse and prose, Marlowe sets the story in Wittenburg, Germany with Faustus selling his soul to the devil. At the end of his twenty-four years, Faustus is filled with fear and he becomes remorseful for his past actions, yet this comes too late. Marlowe creates doubt about the freedom of Faustus's will early when Faustus asks the Good Angel if it is too late to repent. The Good Angel replies: "ever too late, if Faustus can repent". The issue is raised again:

What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemn’d t o die?
Thy fatal time doth draw to final end;

When fellow scholars find Faustus the next morning, he is torn limb from limb, with his soul carried off to hell. Moreover, by magnifying his hero's aspirations (never presume to be `great emperor of the world' or strive `to gain a Deity') and sharply curtailing his realization (gains few of his grandiose dreams).

The roots of Doctor Faustus lie deep in the fertile loam of medieval legend. Faustus rejects God, and in doing so, effaces the traditional theological idea that the soul is “on loan” from God, and thus not his to give away. The stories surrounding magicians were typical Magus legends, the hubristic magician, sought to purchase from St Peter the power of the Holy Spirit. St Cyprian, performed many miraculous deeds and was eventually converted, martyred and canonized. Theophilus introduced into the tradition the diabolical blood pact. The entire drama thus occurs within the human psyche. Faustus appreciate Divinity as useless because he feels that all humans commit sin, and thus to have sins punishable by death complicates the logic of Divinity. He dismisses it as "What doctrine call you this? Que sera, sera" (What will be, shall be).

Doctor Faustus adopts and alters the schema of the morality play to its tragic format. The morality plays conclude with the redemption of the often-erring hero, Marlowe's drama ends in a harrowing denouement. Critics suggest that the religious controversies of the period between Catholic/Anglican/Lutheran free will and Calvinist predestination modify the play's morality psychomachia.

The man who earlier exulted, `The emperor shall not live but by my leave', now serves the emperor. In order to make his contract appear less threatening, he convinces himself that hell is only a fable and confounds it in Elysium. When Mephistopheles comes from hell to seize his `glorious soul' Faustus employs fallacious reasoning to convince himself and ignores Mephistophilis’s passionate warning

`to leave these frivolous demands
Which strike a terror in my fainting soul' (I.III.83±84).

Mephistophilis also stress the appearance of Lucifer instead of Christ in answer to Faustus's desperate plea,  `Ah, Christ, my Saviour, | Seek to save distressed Faustus' soul!', which reads, `Help to save distressed Faustus' soul!', as an emblem of the absence of God or Christ and the presence of evil as the controlling force of the play.

Doctor Faustus questions why man is put on the earth. We see in Faustus a man opposing and questioning the order of the cosmos and railing against the confines of human knowledge. While the play shares many of the characteristics of medieval morality plays it cannot be defined solely in this way. Faustus can be seen as a tragic hero who through his thirst for knowledge and his desire to go beyond the accepted wisdom of his time is ultimately destroyed.

Faustus appreciate Divinity as useless because he feels that all humans commit sin, and thus to have sins punishable by death complicates the logic of Divinity. He dismisses it as "What doctrine call you this? Que sera, sera" (What will be, shall be). Marlowe also allows him to confuse opposites and blur distinctions (he sees his necromantic books as ‘heavenly’ and, more damnably, he signs away his soul to Mephistophilis with Christ’s last words on the cross” “Consummatum est,” “It is finished” or “completed.”

“The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,    
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn’ed”

Here Faustus both clings to his cleverness by quoting, out of context, an amorous line from Ovid “Run slowly, slowly, horses of the night”

Doctor Faustus is a Tamburlaine on the intellectual level; his ambition for the ultimate knowledge; and if knowledge for him means power, the same can be said in some degree of the view implicit in the whole Bocanian tradition” But Faustus is not merely a man who seeks the practical fruit of knowledge: symbolizing in his own behavior the story of the Fall of Man through eating of the tree of knowledge. He had had a less aspiring mind he would have been a better man: less imaginative, less interesting, and less daring, he would also have been more virtuous. In the end of the play he cries:

Adders and Serpants, Let me breath a while      
Ugly hell gape not, come not Lucifer,    
I’ll burn my books,—ah, Mephistophilis.”

Here we have the germ of a truly tragic situation—corruptio optima perrima, the corruption of the best becomes the worst. Marlowe’s real difficulty comes when he has to illustrate the kind of knowledge Faustus has obtained by his compact with Mephistophilis and to present the kind of life he is now able to lead. Marlowe was at loss to illustrate superhuman knowledge and power in concrete dramatic situation. Milton, face with  the problem of putting divine wisdom into the mouth of God say what Milton had already been maintaining for some time; Bernard Shaw, presenting in Back to Methusaleh his Ancients who have achieved a wisdom beyond anything yet available to man, puts into their mouths the views that Shah had been long arguing.

Pinjer: Amrita Pritma

One of the first voices portraying the pain of Partition was that of Punjabi poet and fiction writer Amrita Pritam. And for a long time the only feminine voice viewing Partition from a woman’s perspective. Chroniclers of the women’s stories of Partition like Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin were to enter the area nearly four decades later.

What made her first poem after Partition Ajj Akhan Waris Shah Nu… most poignant was the fact that Amrita was eyewitness to the horrors of Partition and also a victim. She was among the thousands who migrated from West Punjab to make their home across the fence. Her two most outstanding works literary works are the Waris Shah poem, penned in winter after the bloody month of August in 1947, and her novel Pinjar,which appeared in the early fifties.

The novel was too radical for its times because the wounds had not yet healed and the communal hatred as still at its peak. Even in those difficult times, Amrita was able to write a novel that saw the situation from the point of view of the other. In fact, it is only recently that a Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar has been able to tell a similar story on celluloid. It is this novel that has brought the ailing 86-year-old writer the La Route des Indes Literary Prize from France for its French translation. Long ago, the novel had been translated by Khushwant Singh and published with the title The Skeleton by Jaico. It was reprinted when Chandra Prakash Dwivedi made it into a feature film in 2002.

Amrita’s partner Imroz says the award came as a surprise because they were unaware of the translation by Denis Matringe. Denis was a French teacher in Lahore who heard someone singing Heer and was inspired to learn Punjabi. He also married a Punjabi girl later. Speaking of this novel, Imroz says: "It was very radical. A Muslim boy abducts a Hindu girl and she chooses to remain with him rather than be rehabilitated in India after Partition. It was a saga of love of a couple thrown in a situation not of their making, but they rise above the situation with love and caring." Imroz reveals that a number of filmmakers toyed with the idea of making a film on it and some contracts were also signed. But each time the project was given up because it was felt that the story would not be palatable to the masses. "It was only when the new century came, did someone dare to film it," Imroz adds.

Amrita is too ill to remark on this surprise award but when Dwivedi’s film was made, she was able to see it at home on a DVD although she was bedridden. I recall her saying, "The most terrible happening of the times was the Partition. I still shiver when I think of those blood-drenched days. I had already spoken of the fate of women in the frenzy in my poetry. After Partition Shahnawaz Khan and Mrinalini Sarabhai were involved in the rehabilitation of abducted girls. I would listen to the stranger than fiction stories that they told me. It was thus that Puro of Pinjar took shape and the novel wrote itself.

Theatre of Abssurd

Source:http://www.ukessays.co.uk/essays/drama/theatre-of-the-absurd.php

Firstly, to substantially answer the question above, it is indeed imperative to present a definition of absurdist theatre by which to draw comparisons from, to successfully evaluate Harold Pinter's The Homecoming as a representative example.

It should initially be brought to the attention of the reader that absurdist theatre in effect does not present a typical definition or strict rules or guidelines from which to conform, for example, a piece of play script to. However, there is an interpretation that has been most famously noted by Martin Esslin in his 'Theatre of the Absurd', from which he puts this term into some context of understanding, influenced from "the French philosopher Albert Camus, in his 'Myth of Sisyphus', written in 1942." (Culik 2000). For example, Esslin in his 'Theatre of the Absurd' comments on the use of the word 'Absurd' describing its original meaning as "'out of harmony' in a musical context." (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) However, he hones in on Camus' use of the word, which is used in the understanding of absurdist theatre that has a completely different notion behind it. For example, Ionesco defines this notion as, "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless." (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) Thus, the most central theme to Absurdist Theatre is "awareness of this lack of purpose in all we do [and how this] produces a state of metaphysical anguish." (Ray 2005)

Furthermore, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the 'Theatre of the Absurd'; the term essentially coined by Martin Esslin in his critical work, as mentioned above; defines the understanding that "The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought." (OED 2010) Esslin continues to comment, in his study of 'Theatre of the Absurd', on the "disorientating quality of [the] plays" (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) that are commonly grouped into the genre of absurd, and how "so many established critics...have condemned the ['absurdist plays'] for [their] lack of plot, development, characterisation, suspense or plain common sense." (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) Specifically Esslin uses Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' as an example to demonstrate that those in society that are "unsophisticated enough t o come to the theatre without any preconceived notions and ready-made expectations" (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) about a performance were thus able to look past the "nonsense or mystification" (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10) of these types of plays and find meaning and understanding in them, rather than their seemingly "impertinent and outrageous imposture" (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10).

In terms of language, the Theatre of the Absurd, "tends toward[s] a radical devaluation of language" (Worthen 2004 p 907 -10), in other words reducing the value of language that logically, plays are so heavily reliant on. However, this is not to say that language is completely disregarded, because in fact it is not, its function is more poignantly used to contradict the action of the character voicing the lines.

In terms of its historical context, Theatre of the Absurd has emanated from the avant-garde movements in art from the period of the 1920s - 30s, originating from Paris. Yet, probably more central to its rise was the traumatic horror experienced from World War II. Furthermore, around this time the beginning of the loss of religious significance and dependence in people's lives highlighted the opposite of purpose and meaning to life, alongside the resonating realisation of the uncertainty of life. As a consequence the Theatre of the Absurd aimed to present an anti- theatre, to reflect as the world was beginning to tear apart, with its moral's, conventions and values, so too must theatre evolve out of its traditionalism and become "surreal, illogical, conflictless and plotless." (Culik 2000). On first appearances Pinter's The Homecoming, seems to fit the theory of the Theatre of the Absurd. It initially presents the reader with an absurd setting, whereby the back wall has been removed. The stage action is juxtaposed against the ridiculous language that seems to be discursive - the character Max, seems to pass aimlessly between subject after subject. It almost satirises how language is the key to communication. However, the dialogue seems ridiculous with the stage action contradicting the words that are said by the characters. For example, Max says to Lenny: "Don't you talk to me like that. Im warning you" (Worthen 2004 p. 764) the understanding of the language implies Max aggressive attitude and embodiment, yet the stage action suggest a complete juxtaposition "(He sits in large arm chair)" (Worthen 2004 p. 764).

Furthermore, the absurd dialogue exchanged by the principle protagonist Max seems to be shocking and the ability to comprehend impossible, thus adhering to the illogical sense instilled in absurdist language. He talks about his wife in a negative and oppressive tone, "it made me sick just to look at her rotten stinking face, she wasn't such a bad bitch." (Worthen 2004 p.764) Lenny's reaction seems to be completely oblivious to his father's statement about his mother. Instead of the words he hears, it's as if he hears irritating noise being expelled from Max's mouth and wants him to be quiet. To add to the absurdity of the two characters we are presented with Max talks about himself in a manner that is bizarre, "your lousy filthy father" (Worthen 2004 p.764). The expression of this senselessness and repetitive discursive trend throughout the whole play creates an incomprehensible illusion that understandably baffles its audiences and readers.

More so, in terms of language, the play adheres to the illogical trend absurdist theatre expresses, through the representation of the characters Teddy and Ruth. They are married, yet Teddy is not fazed in the slightest as his brothers start to have sexual relations with his wife. For example, Lenny says to Joey in front of Teddy, "You didn't get all the way and you've had her up there for two hours!" (Worthen 2004 p782). This ludicrous behaviour stimulates an even more baffling realisation for readers and audiences, as they begin to understand the senselessness of the human condition that Absurdist theatre seeks to express. Furthermore, the incomprehensible expression of language strengthens even more so towards the end of the play. This is where we see the family, excluding Teddy; gravitate towards Teddy's wife Ruth, wanting her to stay in the household. Their objective for her is to turn her into a whore. This may be an act to replace the previous matriarch of the family, Jessie, who was both a mother and a whore. Teddy's distinct separation from the meaning of the dialogue depicts the open abandonment of rational devices, as he decides that it is okay to leave his wife there.

However, in opposition to the statement above, it is easy to see that Pinter's The homecoming does reflect the trends of Absurdist theatre, yet something more new and exciting is emerging that does not just restrict itself to this category/genre. For example, throughout the play we can see the heavy mix of influence from the realist and absurdist genre's that dominate the majority of the play. This juxtaposition reflected in the setting, exposes side by side "everyday domesticity with a subtle undercurrent of animalistic violence" (Gin 2008).

Francis Grin, in his book 'Pinter's Stage, 'A New Genre' argues that if you read Pinter's play without the "already existent framework" (Gin 2008) of realist and absurdist theatre, then you will discover the text for what it truly is, "an entirely new kind of dramaturgy" (Gin 2008). Gin continues to argue that Pinter's play needs "to be looked through an independent framework" (Gin 2008)to discover the unique "'Pinteresque' style of theatre e" (Gin 2008).

In addition Gin's unique insight into this genre, and more specifically Pinter's The Homecoming, allows a more comprehensive understanding to be gained from the seemingly incomprehensible read. For example, Gin clearly see's that "Pinter creates a rhythm and tempo" (Gin 2008) which mimics "the strange patterns of real life dialogue, but allow[ing] the terror...to hit home as the spectator fills the Pinteresque pause with their own subjective imagination." (Gin 2008). It is true that the play is fragmented with what seems to be a burdenful amount of pauses. This in itself does not constitute the play being placed into an absurdist category, but more so into Pinter's very own category. As (Bradshaw 2004) states, "The characters' speech, hesitations, and pauses reveal not only their own alienation and the difficulties they have in communicating but also the many layers of meaning that can be contained in even the most innocuous statements." (Bradshaw 2004)

Theatre Critic Molly Flatt, also has an inspiring perspective on Pinter's play that suggests there is much more to the play than just containing it to two genre's of theatre form (absurdist/realist). She describes it as a dark, "funny and recognizable portrait of 1970s masculinity" (Flatt 2008) until another character Teddy the "prodigal son" (Flatt 2008) returns with his wife Ruth, whom disrupts the stage action from "awkward to disconcertingly bizarre." (Flatt 2008) Indeed this is reflective of the theatre of the absurd with its "naturalistic setting and dialogue" (Flatt 2008) infused with the undercurrent of "dim, bleak [domestic] horror" (Flatt 2008). However its surrealism allows us to "[capture] what is great and wacky and wrong and sincere that we understand what is human." (Flatt 2008) As Pinter himself states that there are many truths that seek to "challenge, recoil, reflect, ignore, tease each other [...and so on]" (Flatt 2008) yet we never truly hold truth in our hands for more than a moment. (Flatt 2008)

In conclusion I think that it is clear Pinter is heavily influenced by the avant-garde and absurdist movements, yet his brilliance in making such weird and wonderful plays does not just lie in these genres, but in something that he has truly made unique and as Gin comments completely created an entirely new dramaturgy. Yes it is clear to see the influences of surrealism, realism and absurdist theatre in his work, especially in The Homecoming, but to what extent it is a representative example of Absurdist Theatre, would be to oversimplify Pinter's work. Therefore, after studying the text it would be indecent not to acknowledge the influence of absurdist theatre, but also not to acknowledge Pinter's the homecoming is "ambivalent in [its] plot, presentation of character...but [are also] works of undeniable power and originality." (Bradshaw 2004).

Bibliography

• Bradshaw, Mike. 2004. Harold Pinter. [Online] (Updated 12th September 2004) Available at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bradsweb/pinter.htm [Accessed 22 January 2010].
• Dr. Culik, Jan. 2000. The Theatre of the Absurd, The West and the East [Online] Available at: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Absurd.htm [Accessed 22 January 2010].
• Flatt, Molly. 2008. The Economist: Surreal Truths in 'The Homecoming'. [Online] (Updated 12th March 2008) Available at: http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/surreal-truths-in-quotthe-homecomingquot [Accessed 22 January 2010].
• Gin, Francis. 2008. Pinter's Stage - A New Genre of Theatre. [Online] Available at: http://www.grin.com/e-book/119986/pinter-s-stage-a-new-genre-of-theatre [Accessed 22 January 2010].
• Ed. Ray, Mohit K. Studies in Literature in English, Volume 10. India: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. 2005.
• Worthen, W.B. The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama Fourth Edition. London: Cengage Learning EMEA. 2004.
• www.oed.com, Oxford University Press, 1989. [Accessed 22 January 2010].

Translation And Its Role In Indian Literature

Questions such as, ‘what is translation…wherein lies its complexity?’ have been asked ever since literature stopped being restricted to one target readership and moved beyond the boundaries of language. The term translation technically connotes the art of recomposing a work in another language without losing its original flavour, or of finding an analogous substitute.

Its complexity lies in it being like the transfer of perfume from one bottle to another. As careful as you are, some fragrance is lost but the challenge remains to capture the essence. All things in nature are subject to change – and so is all cultural matter. Translation is always a shift, not between two languages but between the two types of cultural matter.

India is a linguistic galaxy of unparalleled richness. Few contexts could be better suited than the Indian for a discussion of the processes of translation within a spectacular stellar setting. How does one common ‘idea of India’ make itself available to a Bengali, Tamil or a Marathi in any way save that of translation? Translation provides a cognitive map of India’s linguistic world in all its interrelatedness as well as estrangement. All texts and all readers are both monolingual and multilingual. A text, obviously written literally in one language in a given manifestation faces a multi lingual reader and thus reaches out to a much larger base, unifying experiences and opinions as it expands.

English has to be admitted as a vast reservoir of translation in contemporary India. It may no longer be a colonial language, but it is increasingly a conduit language. This ‘filter language’, as Khubchandani terms it, has today a certain inescapable presence. More English translating have been published in India in recent times than ever before, but our awareness of the need to ensure quality in translation has not heightened the same extent. Who should judge a translation – somebody who can read the original or somebody who cannot? A person who was able to read the language, and enjoyed the original may find no translation satisfactory, whereas someone who cannot is likely to regard readability in English is the prime requisite. It seems unarguable that the only way in which the ideology of ‘unity’ can be explored in a multilingual society like ours is by accepting both the need for, and the problems of, translation.

  

 

The Sanskritised term we currently use for ‘translation’ in many Indian languages is anuvada – which literally means ‘after speech’ so it seems wrong in the first place to discuss it in an ‘Introduction’. It also stands in contrast to anukaran, which implies aping or slavish imitation, but there ought to be a more to the word than just the suggestion that it could involve creative license of a kind?

 

Any discussion of translation leads automatically to the question: who is an ideal translator? The writer himself, or someone who has not been involved in the primary creative art? The task of the translator is to unfreeze the shapes that thought took in one language and refreeze them into another. A translator must take into account rules that are not strictly linguistic but cultural. Translators, even when trying to give us the flavor of the language, are in fact modernizing the source. As far as translators in India are concerned, most Indians who grow up in urban conditions and go to school and college tackle shifts from one language to another so often and so comfortably that translation seems second nature to them.

 

 

TRANSLATION STUDIES

The Pedagogy of Translation by Vanamala Viswanatha

Translation Studies is a young discipline still in the process of mapping its territory. Attempts have been made to define its boundaries and develop its terrain by scholars working in disciplines as varied as Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Culture Studies, Linguistics and Literary Theory.

Viewing translation as a transaction between two languages, the dominant linguistic paradigm has treated it merely as a matter of transfer from the Source Language to the Target Language.

There can be two ways of translating: Transliteration and Transcreation.

Transliteration or literal translation is word-to-word, phrase-to-phrase or sentence-to-sentence carrying over from the Source Text into the Target Text. This means that the words and terminologies would either require exact equivalents in the Target Language or would have to be put as it is into the Target Text. It may be ideal for texts falling under technical registers. But they would prove extremely difficult when done on cultural texts. The aim of the translation is to reproduce meanings of the Source Text and the immediate effect it produces on the native audience for the readers and audience of another culture in whose language the text is to be translated. But, say, every Hindi word cannot have a counterpart in English because of its vast language and cultural differences in certain connotations and structures. Hence, the ‘literal’ translation of cultural/literary works would be like forsaking the duty of a translator.

 

On the other hand, transcreation or cultural translation means a partial or complete freedom to the translator in dealing with the Source Text. The translator has to render the Source Text in a recreated form in the Target Language. It involves reading every word and sentence carefully, but it is not only or simply a literal rendering.

 

Another step in translation is termed as ‘Transfer’. It is the stage in which the analysed material is transferred in the mind of the translator from the Source Text to the Target Text. The final stage is ‘restructuring’ the transferred material. The basic structural elements have to be transferred to the Target Language. It has to be ensured in the process of transformation that the same effect the Source Text had should be achieved for the Target Text for its readers. When the translation produces the same effect as on the original audience then the translation can be considered equivalent to the Source Text.

PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION

The translator has to deal with the problem of finding equivalent words and expressions in the Target Language, which though cannot be substitutes for the expressions in the Source Language, but can come close to it, can raise similar feelings and attitudes in the readers and audiences of the Target Text.

Literary and cultural texts suggest rather than describe meanings. Cultural meanings are very specific and their connotations vary with words in other languages. Therefore, it is really difficult to expect equivalence between the texts of two languages separated by two different cultures. The translator has to interpret and analyse the connotative and suggestive of the Source Text and on the basis of his knowledge of the culture of the Target Text; he has to recreate the meanings in the new language.

Figures of speech, extended metaphors, idioms, proverbs and allegories pose a great challenge to the translator. Even translating dialogues, forms of dressing, different kinds of food can be difficult when it has strong cultural roots. For example, words like ‘saree’, ‘churidar’, ‘pan’, ‘pallu’ cannot have an English counterpart. In India, there is a specific word for every familial relationship. For instance, ‘chacha’, ‘mama’, ‘phupha’, ‘tauji’ are all called ‘uncle’ in English, similarly ‘nana-nani’ and ‘dada-dadi’  are simply ‘grandparents’. Also, the suggested meanings of these relationships can never be translated into any other language.

 

To show how the differences in cultural facts can cause difficulties in the translation of metaphors we may look at the symbolic meanings of certain words in different cultures. ‘Owl’ in English is the symbol of wisdom whereas it symbolizes ‘ill-fortune’ in Persian and is associated to superstitious beliefs in India. Also, ‘pig’, ‘hog’ and ‘swine’ are different words for the same animal but these small variations can create big differences in metaphorical meanings:

Sam is a pig.

Sam is a hog.

Sam is a swine.

The languages which do not have separate words for these different categories would fail to represent the difference between the discoursal value of the above metaphors. Thus, a literal translation may lead to Target Language metaphors with different and sometimes completely opposite discoursal values. 

 

TRANSLATED WRITERS

We are now going to talk about a few writers who have brought out very vividly the different cultures of India through their writing in vernacular languages. The languages we are going to focus upon are Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Tamil and Kannada. It is the voice of this marginalized section writing in vernacular languages, especially of the women regional writers, which needs to be heard. This is possible only through translation, which gives them recognition all over the world.

 

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Tagore was the first Indian Nobel Laureate. He won the Nobel Prize for his translation of the Gitanjali.

His best known works are Gora and Ghare Baire. His works – verse, short stories and novels – are acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism and contemplation. Of Tagore’s prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded indeed he is credited with originating the Bengali language version of the genre. His short stories mostly borrow from the deceptively simple subject matter: common people. The translation of his works into various languages has given people across cultures a glimpse of the world of the Bengali common man.

Given below is Robi Dutta’s translation of his poem ‘Urvashi’:

No mother thou, no daughter thou

Thou art no bride,

O maiden fair and free

O inhabitant of Nandan

Urvasi!

 

GULZAR

Sampooran Singh Kalra better known as Gulzar is an Indian poet, lyricist and director. Gulzar primarily works in Hindi-Urdu and also works in Punjabi, several dialects of Hindi like braj bhasha, khadi boli, Haryanvi and Marwari. Gulzar has received many awards including the Padma Bhushan and the Academy Award for his song "Jai Ho".

He has been widely translated into English and other languages. During the Jaipur Literary Festival, Pawan Varma, an eminent IFS officer who has translated Gulzar’s poetry, said that he faced a difficulty translating phrases like ‘tip tip’ and ‘tap tap’ and Gulzar replied “abhi to humne kabutar ki gutar goon shuru bhi nahi ki hai”.

Sunjoy Shekhar, who has also translated Gulzar calls himself a “smuggler trying to surreptitiously smuggle the feelings evoked by Gulzar’s lyrics across an impermissible, alien wordscape.” To give a flavor of the translation of his poetry, given below is a song of his along with its translation:

 

basa cand kraoD,aoM saalaaoM maoM

saUrja kI Aaga bauJaogaI jaba

AaOr rak, ]D,ogaI saUrja sao

jaba kao[- caaMd na DUbaogaa

AaOr kao[- ja,maIM na ]BarogaI

tba zMDa bauJaa [k kaoyalaa saa

TukD,a yao ja,maIM ka GaUmaogaa

BaTka BaTka

mawma Kiksa~I raoSanaI maoM

maOM saaocata hUM ]sa va@t

Aga,r kaga,ja, po ilaKI hu[- naj,ma

khIM ]D,to ]D,to saUrja maoM igaro

tao saUrja ifr saoo jalanao lagao

 

In a billion years when

The sun’s fire dwindles

And ash blows across its surface

Then the moon will no longer wane

And the land not rise

When like a cold, burnt out piece of coal

This earth revolves

Lost in its gyre

Trailing a dying, sepia glow

I think then

If a poem written on a piece of paper was to waft along

And perchance land on the sun

The sun would ignite again.

 

AMBAI

C. S. Lakshmi was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in 1944. Some of her works - A Purple Sea and In A Forest, A Deer (2006) - have been translated English by Lakshmi Holmström. In 2006, she (along with Lakshmi Holmström) won the Vodafone-Crossword prize. For her contributions to Tamil literature, she received the 2008 Iyal Virudhu. Her work is characterized by her feminism, an eye for detail, and a sense of irony. Exploration of space, silence, coming to terms with one's body or sexuality, and the importance of communication are some of the recurring themes in her works.

 

VIJAYDAN DETHA

Vijaydan Detha also known as Bijji is a noted writer from Rajasthan and a recipient of Padma Shri award(2007). He has also received several other awards such as Sahitya Akademi Award and Sahitya Chudamani Award.

He has more than 800 short stories to his credit, which are translated into English and other languages. He is co-founder of Rupayan Sansthan with late Komal Kothari, an institute that documents Rajasthani folk-lore, arts and music. His literary works include Bataan ri Phulwari (garden of tales), a fourteen volume collection of stories that draws on folk-lore and spoken dialects of Rajasthan. His stories and novels have been adapted for many plays and movies including Habib Tanvir's Charandas Chor and Amol Palekar’s Paheli.

He once said "If you do not want to be a mediocre writer, you should return to your village and write in Rajasthani."

 

SALMA

Born in 1968 in Tamil Nadu, Salma’s first poetry collection shocked conservative society where women are supposed to remain silent. In 2003, Salma along with three other Tamil women poets faced obscenity charges and violent threats. Salma is now head of the panchayat (local level government body) of Thuvarankurichi, near Trichi in Tamil Nadu. The government of Tamil Nadu has appointed her Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Social Welfare Board. 

Her novel, translated as Midnight Tales focuses on the inner world of Muslim women in the conservative society of Tamil Nadu in south India. It gives us an insight into what actually goes on in the households of this section of the society and brings it out very effectively. The novel was also long-listed for the Man Asian Prize of 2007.

 

Translating these texts into more widely spoken languages like Hindi and English has taken their voice to a much wider range of readers.

Read more: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/translation-and-its-role-in-india-english-language-essay.php#ixzz2Z4XcRj4c