Lit.Guruji

                        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 monstrous invention that ever entered into poet's thoughts&qu

                           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 writers. Some classical rules are  The Three Unities of Time, Place and Action. Sepa

                         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 Catharsis.  Tragedy can be classified into two ways with r

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? Is t

       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 stood up to count the number of people p