Lit.Guruji

                   Vanishing Animals                                  - Gerald Durrell Gerald Durrell (1925 - 1995) was a naturalist, Zookeeper, author and television presenter. He was born at Jamshedpur in India. "Vanishing Animals" is an interesting piece of writing which introduces us to problems of the animals facing the threat of extinction.  Gerald begins the essay calling the Pere David Deer as "refugees" in England. A French Missionary, Father David  discovered the existence of this deer in China. In 1865 the father heard about the existence of a  strange herd of deer in the Imperial Hunting Park, China. This park was guarded by Tartar Soldiers.  Father David managed to enter this park. He was delighted to see a new species which he had never seen in his past. He realized that the deer were strictly protected. He d...

            Duchess of Newcastle                                     - Virginia Woolf Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was a royalist, philosopher, duchess, and a writer. She was a poet, essayist and a pioneer of science fiction. She published her works under her original name, which was rarity during her period.Virginia Woolf described her as “a giant cucumber…noble and Quixotic and high-spirited, as well as crack-brained and bird-witted.” Cavendish’s enemies called her “ Mad Meg.” “I do not like her at all,”  said Samuel Pepys.  Margaret Lucas was born at St. John’s Abbey. She is the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Lucas. Among the eight children of Thomas, Margaret is the youngest one. She belonged to a royal family. She lost her father at the age of two. She was educated at home. She learned the art of dance, music, and needlework. She had an...

                       Soliloquy and Aside  Soliloquy is a secret thought uttered aloud on the stage to acquaint the audience of what is passing in his mind. It is spoken when no other actor is present.This device was long an accepted dramatic convention, especially in the theatre of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The main purpose of a soliloquy is to tell you how they are feeling. For example, in Shakespeare's King Lear, his soliloquy demonstrates to the audience he's going crazy. The Aside is a passing thought uttered aloud by an actor infront of other characters on the stage, who are not supposed to hear it. It is the shortest form of soliloquy. It is as unnatural as the soliloquy.  The soliloquy is used in farce and melodrama till  and end of 19th century. Later both Aside and soliloquy have vanished during the modern drama. The soliloquy has a honoured place in literature. Some of the nobl...

                     Dramatic Irony Types of Irony Dramatic Irony is a form of contrast. It is a situation in which the audience or reader has a better understanding of events than the characters in a story do.  Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean.  Example: In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night the conversation taking place  between the Duke and Viola, disguised  as a page, illustrates the use of verbal irony. Similarly in  As You Like It Rosalind disguised as shepherd, speaks to Orlando her lover, in the Forest of Arden. Disguise is a source of verbal irony.  Irony of situation in which circumstances covey opposite meanings to the characters on the one hand and audience on the other.  An example of situational irony is Macbeth's castle, were Duncan finds pleasure, but the audience is aware about h...

                                      Character is Destiny                                     _ Dr. Radhakrishnan  Dr. Radhakrishnan is a well known philosopher and educationalist. In his essay Character is Destiny he talks about the importance of character in shaping the destiny of a nation. He wishes to develop our nation. Radhakrishnan states that the universities should produce scientists, doctors, engineer etc. At the same instance a country should aspire for great scientists, doctors, engineers with a lot of humanism. Technological development alone cannot uplift a country.  Some scientifically developed countries are torn by strife and they are unable to bring peace, safety and security to their people. This is because of the lack of education preached about humani...

                                    Masque   Saintsbury defines Masque as "a dramatic entertainment in which plot, character and even to a great extent dialogue are subordinated on the one hand the spectacular illustration, and on the other to musical composition". It was a medley of music, and dancing woven around fairy tale, allegory or myth.  Masque was of Italian origin. Later it reached England during 16th century. The English masque occurs in Hall's Chronicle for the year 1512. It was performed at the Kings court. Features of Masque 1.   The characters are deities of classical mythology, nymphs etc. 2. The number of characters is restricted to six. 3. The scenery and costumes are very eleborate. 4. A comic interlude is introduced called the anti-masque. It's Decline  Masque is a expensive form of entertainment. It is presented at court or during festive occasi...

                                 Farce   Farce is an exaggerated form of comedy. Its aim is to provoke hearty  laughter. It belongs to the realm of nonsense, in which the characters a were free from everyday cares and restraints.  Farce comes from a Latin word meaning "to stuff".  The farces were inserted into the main play. Shakespeare's Midnight Summer's Dream and Merry Wives of Windsor has farcial elements. As a separate form of entertainment farce came into a vogue towards the close of 17th century. During 18th century there was a rise in  sentimental comedy  and anti-sentimental comedy. The popularity of farce during this period was not to the peak. Two successful farce during Victorian age are The Private Secretary by Charles Hautry and Charley's Aunt by Brandon. On the modern stage a good farce is to bring fortune for the author.  Eg: George Bernar...

                        Tragi-Comedy Tragi-Comedy is half tragedy and half comedy. Both comedy and tragedy are intermingled harmoniously. Thus Tragi-Comedy became a genre of play that mixed tragic elements into drama that was mainly comic.  A comedy with tragic background is more effective comedy. The wrong done by chief character is corrected at the end. Eg. As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothin g.  Tragic comedy is a complete tragedy at a complication part that is the beginning part and complete comedy at the denouement.  The Rising Action - Tragedy The Falling Action - Comedy The tragicomedy dates back to the Roman dramatist, Plautus. In his Amphitruo, he called his play a " tragico-comoedia". The English form arose in the reign of James I under Italian and Spanish influences. Shakespeare handled the form at the end of his career. Tragic- comedy argument:  Addison claims "one of the most m...

                           Comedy Comedy deals with the light side of life. It evokes laughter. In a comedy the end is a happy one. The atmosphere of comedy is mirthful and light. Shakespeare's comedy "begin unhappily and end happily".   The comic actor wore a light shoe called the sock to show his lower status. They belonged to a lower class.In later literature there were comedies of high society. Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch were Shakespeare's  comedians belonging to higher status.  The purpose of comedy was to correct manners. It purifies the conduct of the audience spiritually and morally. Comedy served to explore the common errors of life. Shakespeare's comedies were written in blank verse.  Eg.  As You Like It. Types of Comedy I)Classical Comedy II)Romantic Comedy  Classical comedy In this type the author follows certain classical rules of ancient Greek and Roman wr...

                         Tragedy   Tragedy deals with the darker side of life. Its aim is to inspire awe and pity. A tragic ends with death or unhappy ending. Greek tragedy deals with the fate characters of high birth or King or Princes. Eg.King Lear, Othello. The falling of a king or the ruin of a great family was more impressive for spectators.  In ancient Greece the tragic hero wore high - heeled boots called buskin to make him tall and majestic. The fall of a king or ruin of a great family is more impressive for the spectators. In later period tragedies dealt with low life Eg. Hardy's novel D'ubervilles.  The atmosphere of tragedy is sombre and serious. Tragedy according to Aristotle "purges the emotions through pity and terror". Shakespeare's tragedy begins happily and ends unhappily. Tragedy aims at giving pleasure. It purifies mind, feelings. For Greek the purpose of tragedy was to evoke C...

CHANGING THEIR SKIES Stories from Africa The Rubbish Dump STEVE CHIMOMBO A storyfrom Malawi, retold by Jennifer Bassett Rubbish is a problem in the rich world. There is too much of it, and people don't know what to do with it. In places like Africa there is less rubbish, because people have less to throw away. An airport rubbish dump is a strange place, a meeting point for rubbish that has travelled a long way. It is aiso a meeting point for Joey and Mazambezi.. . Joey sat on the ground, playing with a small toy car. The car was made out of bits and pieces - lots of old wire, pieces of cardboard, sticks, and the tops of baby-food cans for wheels. Joey was working hard, his hands busily pulling and pushing pieces of wire which were not in the right places. After a mment, he put the car down with a pleased little grunt, and began to sing: The white man is wise He made the aeroplane It's nothing else But determination. His high voice filled the air for a few minutes. T...

THE MADMAN By Chinua Achebe (First Published in the The Insider (Nwankwo-Ifejika), Enugu, 1971 He was drawn to markets and straight roads. Not any tiny neighbourhood market where a handful of garrulous women might gather at sunset to gossip and buy Ogili for the evening's soup, but a huge, engulfing bazaar beckoning people familiar and strange from far and near. And not any dusty, old footpath beginning in this village, and ending in that stream, but broad, black, mysterious highways without beginning or end. After much wandering he had discovered two such markets linked together by such a highway; and so ended his wandering. One market was Afo, the other Eke. The two days between them suited him very well: before setting out for Eke he had ample time to wind up his business properly at Afo. He passed the night there putting right again his hut after a day of defilement by two fat-bottomed market women who said it was their market-stall. At first he had put up a...

ON BEING TIDY  Text   A ny careful observer of my habits would know that I am on the eve of an adventure—a holiday, or a bankruptcy, or a fire, or a voluntary liquidation (whatever that may be), or an elopement, or a duel, or a conspiracy, or—in short, of something out of the normal, something romantic or dangerous, pleasurable or painful, interrupting the calm current of my affairs. Being the end of July, he would probably say: That fellow is on the brink of the holiday fever. He has all the symptoms of the epidemic. Observe his negligent, abstracted manner. Notice his slackness about business—how he just comes and looks in and goes out as though he were a visitor paying a call, or a person who had been left a fortune and didn't care twopence what happened. Observe his clothes, how they are burgeoning into unaccustomed gaiety, even levity. Is not his hat set on at just a shade of a sporting angle? Does not his stick twirl with a hint of irresponsible emotions?...

       Sir Roger De Coverley's Sunday Sir Roger De Coverley's Sunday is an essay from The Spectator written by Joseph Addison. This essay explores Sir Roger's participation and strict discipline maintained by him on Sundays to keep the church morally good and religious. Sir Roger is a fictional  character created by Addison. He is a good church man and has beautified his church with   several quotations from the holy Bible . He gave the church goers a hassock and a common prayer book. He employed an itinerant.  Sir Roger was the master of the church. He maintained strict discipline and good decorum in the church. He did not allow anyone to sleep during the sermon. He waked the dozing people.  Sir Roger had an eccentric nature. During the prayer  Sir Roger also joined the crowd to sing Psalms. But Roger did not sing along with the crowd.  He said ‘Amen’ three or four times. When the crowd was kneeling for prayer Sir Roger sto...

                   Bookshop Memories                                               -George Orwell Bookshop Memories is written by George Orwell in the year 1936. In this essay he shares his experience working as an assistant in a second-hand bookshop.  Orwell begins the essay by breaking down the fantasy of second-hand bookstore as a "paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally."  He reveals the truth concealed behind a second-hand bookshop.  Orwell describes the nature of bookshop customers - first edition snobs, oriental students, vague minded women and "the kind of people who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop". Orwell talks about two types of "pest" who "haunt" such bookshops.  I) Decayed Person - Attempt to sell worthless b...

Satire Satire is unpolished verse. The main aim of satire is to ridicule folly or vice. It provokes laughter and keeps the reader in good humour. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel and Pope’s Rape of the Lock are satires. According to Dryden the true end of satire is the “amendment of vices by correction”. Some of the famous satires in English poetry are Dryden’s – Mac Flecknoe Butler’s – Hudibras Pope’s – Dunciad In Mac Flecknoe, Dryden attacks Shadwell, a former friend turned enemy. Essentials of a Good Satire Satire is an attack on social evil or folly or a person or a group of persons. It is intended to mock at or ridicule not to abuse. It hates sin and not the sinner. Pope’s satires are “waspish, venomous, malignant”. Satire should be forceful and outspoken. Subjects of the satire Each ages had its vices and follies to ridicule. The satire mirrors out the contemporary follies and foibles. For eg. During 14 th century Chaucer and Langland attacked corru...

Ballad Ballad is a short story in verse. It is one of the oldest form in literature. A ballad is sung from village to village with the accompaniment of a harp or a fiddle, by strolling singers or bands of singers. The subjects dealt are adventure,  family disaster, feud, love and war, and life. The story is tragic and fierce with supernatural elements. I) The poem is written in Ballad Measure (abcb). II) The tale opens abruptly without any introduction. III) The Ballad is impersonal in treatment. The writer’s identity or personality is never revealed. IV) The same lines are repeated from stanza to stanza as a refrain. Kinds of Ballad I)  Ballad of Growth or Authentic Ballad:  It is a   Ballad of unknown authorship. This type of ballad is primitive in existence and has grown naturally. Eg: Chevy Chase, The Wife of Usher’s Well. II)   Ballad of Art or Literary Ballad: This kind of ballad as Hudson says is the " literary...

Idyll Idyll derives from the Greek word meaning "a little picture". Idyll in poetry is associated with  a) relative brevity   b) pictorial effect. The poet presents a picture in a few words. Idyll aim at visual presentation of its theme. Eg: 1 . L' Allegero  - Milton (picture of happy life) 2. Line Written in March - William Wordsworth (a spring scene in England). 3. As You Like it - Shakespeare (Pastoral scene) Idyll is an imaginative rendering of a picturesque scene or experience. It is the poetic colouring. The language is carefully choosen to give a pictorial impression. It may be direct or straight forward but creates a image in readers mind. Greek poet Theocritus idylls differed in theme. Town and country life, poet's experiences and themes were the themes. Half of his idylls are pastoral in form and deals with shepherds life in ancient Silicy. Roman poet Virgil adopted the same form in his Eclogues. English Idyll generally followed ...

Beau Tibb his Character and family Beau Tibb his Character and family is an extract from The Citizens of the World written by  Oliver Goldsmith. He is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. These letters are written in the perspective of Lien Chi Altangi, a Chinese philosopher living in London. Goldsmith's essays are humorous. Rickett writes , "He was a poet of talent, a prose man  of genius, a prose man, moreover, of distinctive and original genius". Beau Tibbs is a character in Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," noted for his finery, vanity, and poverty”. He is an elderly man concerned about his dress. Mr. Tibbs is a poor man but he concealed his poverty.  The writer remarks, “Heaven has made him poor”.  He has an eccentric and ridiculous nature. Beau Tibbs is perfect in the art of flattery. His looks were pale, thin and sharp. He wore a broad black ribbon round his neck and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass. He wore a newly wa...

Epic Epic is a long tale written in the form of a verse. In Greek Iliad and Odyssey are two great epics of Homer. In Epic mighty warriors and princes are the leading figure. They have endowed with superhuman qualities. ·        Supernatural and magical elements are present. ·        The language is exalted and noble. Conventions of the epic A) The epic starts with an invocation (prayer) to God. The theme of the poem is stated at the beginning (proposition). ·        Eg. Milton’s Paradise Lost ·        Virgil’s Aeneid ·        Homer’s Iliad. B) The Epic employs certain poetic devices like Homeric Epithet and Homeric Simile. 1.      Homeric Epithet – a term or phrase quite lengthy applied to a person repeatedly. Eg. In Tennyson’s Morte D’ Arthur   “faint Homeric echoes” occurs. 2.    ...

Elegy Elegy is a mourning poem lamenting for the dead. Death became a predominant theme for an Elegy. It was written in the elegiac measure, a couplet composed of a dactylic hexameter followed by dactylic pentameter. Poem written in this metre is ranked as elegy. At modern times theme is given utmost importance and not metre. Elegiac measure is not followed in English verse. The theme of elegy is mournful and sad. Elegy is less spontaneous than the lyric. Dr. Johnson remarked “Where there is leisure for fiction there is little grief”. Examples for Elegy Milton’s Lycidas – mourns at the death of Edward King. Tennyson’s In Memoriam – laments at the death of Arthur Henry Hallam. Shelley’s Adonias – death of Keats The Pastoral Elegy A new kind of elegy was introduced in English poetry. In this kind the poet represented himself as a Shepherd bewailing the loss of a companion. Milton’s Lycidas and Mathew Arnold’s Thyrisis are pastoral elegies. Theocritus poems I...

Sonnet The word Sonnet is derived from the Italian word Sonnetto which means little sound or music. It is a fourteen lined poem expressing a single thought or feeling. Italian Sonnet The Italian Sonnet is also known as Petrarchan Sonnet. It is named after the Italian poet Petrarca. This Sonnet consists of Octave (8lines) and Sestet (6lines) . The rhyme scheme is abba abba, cde cde or cdc dcd. 1.     The octave may be divided into two stanzas called quatrains. 2.     The sestet may be divided into two of three lines each called tercets. 3.     At the end of octave there is a pause or caesura. 4.     Caesura is followed by volta , a turn in thought. The English Sonnet English Sonnet was introduced by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey during the 16 th century. English Sonnet is named after Shakespeare.        English sonnets have...