Lit.Guruji

  Shakuntala                            -Kalidasa Shakuntala is a romantic play written by Kalidasa. This Play is also titled as “recognition of Shakuntala”. This drama revolves around the character of Shakuntala. She is the embodiment of beauty, virtue and patience. In literature many misogynist writers aspire women to possess these characteristics.      Shakuntala is the daughter of sage Viswamitra and the heavenly dancer Menaka. Menaka gives her  new born baby to Sage Kanva who lives in the forest. Shakuntala grew along with nature in the ashram.   She grew up with a glimmering and heavenly beauty. She was serene and her voice was sweet. She  wore cotton garments and wore flower as ornament.  She was gentle and delicate.  She had two friends  Priyamvada and Anusuya.   Even the birds and animals in the forest admired the beauty of Shakuntala.  She treated deer as her pet animal. One day King Dushyanta enters the forest to poach deer. He injuries a deer with his arrows. Shakunta

  Like an Old Proud King in a Parable A. J.M. Smith The Poem Like an Old Proud King in a Parable was written by the Canadian Poet, A.J.M Smith. This poem appeared in McGill Fortnightly Review in the year 1926. In this poem Smith narrates the story of an Old King who abandons his Kingdom to become a poet. This poem depicts the poetic career of Smith. Smith breaks some of the old poetic conventions and brings novelty into the society. A king is bored to forego the pleasure of the Kingdom. He renounces his kingdom, and leave his flattering courtiers and adoring wife. The king readily sacrifices the existing kingly life and moves to a lonely land, “a meadow in the Northern Stone”. Northern Stone is in the northern parts of Canada, a land of mountain, snow and forest filled with nature. The King rejoices to live his life along the meadow. In the meadow he feels like an uncontrollable swan, “the heart that controlled liked swan”. The King desires to give up his worldly life and aspir

  Alexander Feast or The Power of Music                                                   -John Dryden Alexander Feast or The Power of Music poem was written by John Dryden in the year 1697. Alexander III, the Great is the King of Egypt, and he defeats Darius, the King of Persia. The king attacks the Persian army and captures Persepolis. The King gives a royal feast to rejoice this victory. This poem is about the power of music. He claims that music has got the power to influence human emotion and behavior. It can make you cry, laugh, feel, provoke and shift emotions.               In this poem a bard named Timotheus attends the communal feast of Alexander. Timotheus commences the event with a song. In this song he lionizes Alexander the great. He addresses the King as the son of Olympia and Jove, and worships the king as deity and bloats his pride. The bard next invokes the God of Wine, Bacchus. He describes the beauty of this Roman God. The king gets stimulated by the song s

  Character of Caravaggio in The Skin of a Lion -              Michael Ondaatje In the novel In the Skin of a Lion , Caravaggio appears as a decent thief. He is an Italian Immigrant, who works as a tar man, building of Bridge in Toronto, Canada. Caravaggio is an interesting and amusing man. In this novel a chapter is titled after Caravaggio. The most significant thing to note is even the protagonist, Patrick Lewis is not afforded with this acclaim.                             Caravaggio befriends Patrick Lewis in the Jail. With the help of Lewis, Caravaggio escapes from the  prison. He teaches Patrick the art of “Demarcation”.   After absconding from the prison, he moves in a  train. Then he jumps off from the train to buy turpentine. He meets a boy named Alfred who willing  helps Caravaggio to buy turpentine. Caravaggio confesses the boy about his profession as a thief. But  the boy gifts him with maple syrup spile as a token of love and expresses him to remember his name.  

  Work and Play                   -Ted Hughes   “Work and Play” is a poem written by Ted Hughes. In this poem the poet makes a contrast between shallow and Human. The poet praises the beauty of the bird shallow and scorns at human being for his destructive and serpentine nature. In the first stanza, the poet describes the heavy labor of the shallow in the summer season. He describes shallow as a beautiful bird with radiance feather and energetic flight, “blue dark knot of glimmering voltage”. The poet feels delighted to admire the beauty of nature, but he gets angered towards human being. He expresses his disgust towards human for polluting and destroying nature. He compares human to a serpent riding a car. In Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, a serpent comes to tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. This serpent is a venomous creature and, in this poem, Hughes compares human to a poisonous creature polluting nature.  In the second stanza the poet describes the shape of the bird as “the

                             Siddhartha -                  HERMANN HESSE Siddhartha is a novel published in 1922 by the German writer Herman Hesse. The novel was translated into English in the year 1951. This novel depicts the self – journey of Siddhartha. Siddhartha the son of a Brahmin lives near a river bank along with nature. He was an intelligent boy. He pronounced the word “om” at a very young age. He looked very handsome and the Brahmin girls in the village admired Siddhartha. Govinda was the close friend of Siddhartha. As a young man Siddhartha questioned atman. He was not able to get a proper answer for atman form the teachings of Brahman. So, he decides to join with a new sect of priests called Samanas. With the consent of his father he moves to the Samanas along with Govinda. For three years he follows the preaching’s of Samanas.   He is able to endure the pain and sufferings through meditation. But Siddhartha realizes that through mediation it is impossible to get enl

                     Essay for Stress in English Stress means emphasis . It means some extra force or prominence given to a part of a word while speaking. 1. We pronounce certain words in one breath .   E.g. pen, one, sing, school, bread etc 2 .Some other words we pronounce in two parts or units . Eg.    Present -    pre’sent        Demand -    de’ mand        Conduct –    con’ duct 3 . Some words are pronounced in three or more parts or units . Psychology               -                  Psy’cho’lo’gy Confession               -                  Con’fes’sion Consult                     -                   Con’sult Consultation           -                   Con’sul’ta’tion Contemporaneous -                  Con’tem’por’an’eous Humanitarian          -                   Hu’man’it’ar’ian The part or unit of a word is known as syllable .   The stress may fall on the first syllable or second syllable or third syllable as the case may be. The syllable that rece