General estimate of ch:14 Biographia Literaria: Coleridge

GENERAL ESTIMATE OF CH:14 BIOGHRAPHIA LITERARIA: COLERIDGE

 * Introduction:-

                           The written monuments of Coleridge’s critical work is contained in 24 chapter of Biographic Literaria (1815-17).In this critical disquision, Coleridge consents himself not only with the practice of criticism, but also, with its theory. In his practical approach to criticism, we get the glimpse of Coleridge the poet; whereas in theoretical discussion, Coleridge the Philosopher came to the center stage.

                            In chapter XIV (14) of Biographic Literaria, Coleridge’s view on nature and function of poetry in discussed in philosophical terms .The poet within Coleridge discusses the difference between poetry and prose, and the immediate function of poetry, whereas the philosopher discusses the difference between poetry and poem. He was the first English writer to insist that every work of art is, by its very nature, an organic whole. At the first step he rules out the  assumption, which, from Horace onwards, had wrought such havoc in critism, that the object of poetry is to instruct; or, as a less extreme from of the heresy had asserted, to make men morally better. 

 * Explanation of Coleridge’s view in ch.14 

     Biographic Literaria:-

Coleridge begins this chapter with his views on two cardinal points of poetry.

• Two cardinal points of poetry :

1          The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of 

        Nature, and……..

2      The power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying with the colors of imagination.

      

• According to him, it was decided that words worth would write poetry dealing with the theme of first cardinal point and the other was to be dealt by him.
• For the first type of poetry, the treatment and subject matter should be, to quote Coleridge,

“The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combing both.”

These are the poetry of Nature

            In such poems, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present themselves.

            In the second type of poetry, the incidents and agents were to be Supernatural. In this sort of poetry, to quote Coleridge, “The excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situation, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being at any time believed himself under Supernatural agency.” Thus with the help of imagination the natural will be dealt supernaturally by the poet and the reader will comprehend it with “willing Suspension of disbelief.”

           

The Lyrical Ballads consists of poems dealing with these two cardinal points. Wherein, the Endeavour of Coleridge was to deal with “Persons and characters Supernatural”, and that of words worth “was to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing in to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us.        

* In defense of words worth’s poetic Creed:-

Coleridge, even though he did not agree with words worth’s views on poetic diction, vindicated his poetic creed in chapter: 14 of Biographic Literary. Coleridge writers in defense to the violent assailant to the, “Language of real Life” adopted by words worth in the lyrical Ballads.

            There had been strong criticism against words worth’s view expressed in preface also              

Coleridge writes in his defense: “Had Mr. Words worth's poems been the silly, the childish things, which they were for a long time describe as being; had they been really distinguished from the composition of other poets merely by manners of language and inamity of thought, had they indeed contended nothing more than what is found in the parodies and pretended initatial of them; euust have sunk at once, a dead weight into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the preface along with them.”

            Thus, Coleridge gives full credit to the genius of words worth.

It does not dean that he agreed with words worth on all points.

            “ With many parts of this preface in the sense attributed to them and which the words undoubtedly seem to authorize, I never concurred; but on the contrary objected to them as erroneous in principle, and as contradictory (in appearance at least) both to other parts of the same preface, and to the author’s own practice in the greater number of the poems themselves. Mr. Words worth in his recent collection has, I find, degraded this prefatory disquisition to the end of his second volume, to be read or not at the reader’s choice.”

* Distinguish between prose and poem:-

·      The poem contains the same elements as a prose the elements as a prose composition.

·      But the difference is between the combination of those elements and objects aimed at in both the composition.

·      If the object of the poet may simply be to facilitate the memory to recollect certain fact, he would make use of certain artificial arrangement of words with the help of meter.

·      As a result composition will be a poem, early because it is distinguished from composition in prose by meteor by rhyme. In this, the lowest sense one might attribute the name of a poem to well known enumeration of the days in the several month;

                        Thirty days hath September,

                        April, June, and November, & C.

      Thus, to Coleridge, mere super addition of meter or rhyme does not make a poem.

He further elucidates his view point by various prose writings and its immediate purpose and ultimate and. In scientific and Historical composition, the immediate purpose is to convey the truth. In the prose works of other kinds, to give pleasure in the immediate purpose and the ultimate and may be to give truth.Thus, the communication of pleasure may be the immediate object of a work note metrically composed.

·      Now the question is “would then the mere super addition of meter, with or without rhyme, entitle these to the name of poem?”

·      To the Coleridge replies that if meter is super added the other part of the composition also must harmonies with it. In order to deserve the name poem each part of the composition, including meter, rhyme, diction and theme must harmony with the wholeness of the composition.

·      Meter should not be added to provide merely a superficial decorative charm. nothing can permently please, which does not contain it self the reason why it is so, and not otherwise. If meter is super added, all other, parts must be made constant with it. They all must harmony with each other.

·      A poem, there for, may be defined as, that species of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species it is discriminated by proposing to it self such delight from the whole, as it compatible with and distinct gratification from each component part.

                         Thus, according to Coleridge, the poem is distinguished from prose compositions by its immediate object. The immediate object of prose is e to give truth and that of poem is to please. He again distinguishes those prose compositions from poem whose object is similar to poem i.e. to please. He calls this poem a legitimate poem and defines it as, “it must be one, the part of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the

Should be carried forward, note nearly or chiply by the mechanical impulse of curiosity or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attraction of the journey itself.” Coleridge puts an end to the age old controversy whether the end of poem is instruction or delight.

* Coleridge views on ‘Imagination’ & ‘Fancy’:-                                                       

    

     
   In chapter XIV of biographia literaria, Coleridge writes “The Imagination then he consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary imagination he holds to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite he was. The secondary Coleridge consider as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible. Yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, event as all objects are essentially fixed and dead”

·       Fancy:-

             

              Fancy, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with but fixities and definite. The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the other order of time and space; and blended with, and modified that empirical phenomenon of the will which he expresses by the word choice. But equally with the ordinary memory it must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association.

·       Imagination:-

               In chapter XIV of the book he calls imagination, a magical and synthetic power, and add, “this power, first put in action by the will and understanding and retained under their remissive, though binding gentle and unnoticed, control, reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general. With the concrete; the idea, with the , image the individual, with the representative, the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar object; a more then usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature: the manner to the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry.”

1.   Primary Imagination:-

It is the power of perceiving the object of sense, both in their parts and as awhole.It is an involuntary act of the mind: the human mind receives impressions and sensations from the out side world, unconsciously and involuntarily, it imposes some sort of order on those impressions, reduces them to shape and size, so that the mind is able to form a clear image of the out side world. It is in this way that clear and coherent perception becomes possible.

2.   Secondary Imagination:-

Secondary imagination which makes artistic creation possible. It is more active and conscious in its working. It requires an effort of the will, volition and conscious afford. It works upon what is perceived by the primary imagination, its raw material is the sensations and impression supplied to it by the primary imagination. By and effort of the will and the intellect, the secondary imagination selects and orders the row material, and reshapes and remodels it into objects of beauty. The external world and steeps then with a glory and dream that never was on sea and land. It is an active agent which,   

 “Dissolves, diffuses, and dissipates, in order to create.”

             

            This secondary imagination is at the root of all poetic activity. It is the power which harmonies and reconciles opposites, and hence Coleridge calls it a magical, synthetic power. This unifying power of the imagination is best seen in the fact that it synthesizes of fuses the various faculties of the soul-perception, intellect, will, emotion and fuses the internal with the external the subjective with the objective, the human mind with external nature, the spiritual with the physical or material, it is through the play of this unifying power that nature is colored by the soul of the poet, and soul of the poet is steeped in nature.

             ‘The identity’ which the post discovers in man and nature results from the synthesizing activity of the secondary imagination.

               Coleridge explains the point by quoting two passages from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. The following lines from this poem serve to illustrate Fancy:

Full gently now she takes him by the hand

Ivory in an lily poisoned in a goal of snow

            “Doubtless,” as sir John Davies observes of the soul (and his words may with slight alteration be applied, and even more appropriately to the poetic Imagination)

Doubtless this could not be, but that she turns

Bodies to spirit by sublimation strange…..

            Finally, Good SENSE is the BODY of poetic genius, FANCY its DRAPERY MOTION its LIFE, and IMAGINATION the SOUL that is every where, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole.

* Originality of Coleridge’s views – comparison with words worth:-

·         Coleridge owed his interest in the study of imagination to Wordsworth.

·         Wordsworth was interested only in the practice of poetry and he considered only the impact of imagination on poetry.

·         Coleridge is the first critic to study the nature of imagination and examine its role in creative activity.

·         Secondly, while words worth uses fancy and Imagination almost as synonyms, Coleridge is the first critic to distinguish between then and define their respective roles. Thirdly, Wordsworth does not distinguish between primary and secondary imagination.

·         Coleridge’s treatment of the subject is, on the whole, characterized by greater depth, penetration and philosophical subtlety.

·         It is his unique contribution to literacy theory.

* Conclusion:-
 To conclude, we may say in his own words, he endeavored ‘to establish the principles of writing rather than to furnish runes about how to pass judgment on what had been written by others.’
 

 Thus, Coleridge is the first English critic who based his literary criticism on philosophical principles. While critics before him had been content to turn a poem inside out and to discourse on its, merits and demerits, Coleridge busied himself with the basic question of “how it came to be there at all.” He was more interested in the creative process that made it, what it was, then in the finished product.

Analysis of selected poems "The Flea" & "The Ecstasy" by John Donne

ANALYSIS OF SELECTED POEMES "THE FLEA" & "THE ECSTASY" BY JOHN DONNE

 

                                                              The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which though deniest me is;

It sucked me first, and how sucks thee,

And in this flee our two bloods mingled be;

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it Woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that, self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

‘Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:

Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

* Introduction of the poem:-

                   

               The Speaker uses the occasion of a flea happing from himself to a young lady as an excuse to argue that the two of them should make love. Since in the flea their blood is mixed together, he says that they have already been made as one in the body of the flea. Besides, the flea pricked her and got what it wanted without having to woo her. The flea’s bite and mingling of their

Bloods is not considered a sin, so why should their lovemaking?

                        In the second stanza the speaker attempts to prevent the woman from killing the flea. He argues that since the flea contains the “Life” of both herself and the speaker, she would be guilt both of suicide and a triple homicide in killing it. The woman in question is obviously not convinced, for in the third stanza she has killed the flea with a fingernail. The speaker then turns this around to point out that, although the flea which contained portion on their lives is dead, neither of them is the weaker for it. If this commingling of bodily fluids can leave no lasting effect, then why does she hesitate to join with him in sexual intimacy? After all, her honor will be equally undiminished.

                                   

 * Analysis of the lines:-

                Donne here makes use of the wit for wit for which he eventually became famous- although in his own day his poetry was often considered too lurid to gain popular notoriety, and little of his earlier poems, “The Flea”, demonstrate his ability to take a controlling metaphor and adapt it to unusual circumstances.

“The Flea” is made up of: -   three nine lines stanza

   Following an aabbccddd rhyme scheme.

                  He beings the poem by asking the Young woman to “Mark this Flea” (line-1) which has bitten and sucked blood from both himself and her. He points out that she has “denied” him something which the flea has not refrained from enjoying: the intimate union of their bodily fluids (in the case, blood).

                  This commonplace occurrence, he argues, “can marriage not be said/A sin, nor loss of maidenhead” (line-5, 6); if this tiny commingling of the two people is not wrong, then how can a greater commingling be considered evil or undesirable?

                 He even points out that the flea is able to enjoy the woman’s essence “before he woo”(Lines-7), the implication being that he need not court the woman in order to enjoy her sexual favors. In the second stanza the poet argues for the life of the flea, as his describe lady has made a move to kill it. He paints the flea as a holy thing: “this flea is you and I, and this/our marriage bed, and marriage temple is” (Line-12, 13)

Note:  Also the reference to the Christian concept of “three lives in one” (Line-10) suggesting that a spiritual marriage temple”, the third being in the trio is not God but a flea.

                  Besides arguing for the sanctity of the flea’s life, the speaker is also arguing that he and the lady  have already by passed the usual vows of fidelity and ceremony of marriage; thus, he pushes toward his point that the two of them have already been joined as one is the flea, so there is no harm in joining their bodies in sexual love here is a hint that he has already attempted to gain the lady’s favors and failed, either through her response or that of her parent:” Though parents grudge, and you”, (Line-14) he say, suggesting that even her opinion does not matter anymore.

                     The flea has already “cloister’d”them within its body’s “walls of jet” (line-15), possibly also suggestive that they are alone together in a dark room. The woman’s disdain for him and his suit because more appropriate as he clamed she is “apt” to kill him (Line-16), following in her habit of killing fleas, but he offers that she should refrain from harming the flea because In so doing she would add suicide (“Let not to that self-murder added be”) (Line-17) by destroying the vessel holding her blood. He fails in his defense of the flea, for she has “purpled” her finger with the flea’s blood by opening of the third stanza. (Line-20)

                       It is a “sudden” but perhaps inevitable betrayal of an innocence being. The woman claims triumph over the lover’s argument responding that neither she nor the man is weaker for her having killed the flea. (Line-23, 24)

     

                        The poet, however, is quick-witted enough to turn her argument back against her: if the death of the flea, which had partaken of just tiny amount of their life-essences, is virtually no problem, despite his pretended fear, then any fear she might have about her loss of honor is equally a “false” fear. The act of physical union would cause virtually no serious harm to her reputation.  That is, as mochas lost to the flea, “just so much honor, when thou yield’s to me, will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee” (Line-26, 27)

* Form of the poem:-

              This poem alternates metrically between lines in iambic tetrameter and lines in iambic pentameter, a 4-5 stress pattern ending with two pentameter lines at the end of each stanza. Thus, the stress pattern in each of the nine-live stanza is 454545455. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is similarly regular, in couplets, with the final line rhyming with the final couplet: AABBCCDDD.

* Conclusion:-

            Although the lover suggest that he is in control and that it is a matter of “when thou yield’st,” some feminist scholars have noted that he is powerless to do anything until the woman makes her decision. He merely utters his words of warming, but she can raise her hand and kill the flea; similarly, she can exercise her power by continuing to deny the man his desires. The Flea could take what it wanted without stopping to woo, but the lover uses no force beyond the force of argument. He has not been successful so far, but we do not know what will happen next.

                      The Ecstasy

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A Pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest

The violet’s reclining head,

Sat we two, one another’s best.

Our hand were firmly cemented

By a fast balm, this thence did spring;

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet

Was all the means to make us one,

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As, ‘twixt two equal armies, Fate

Suspends uncertain victory,

Our souls-which to advance their state,

Were gone out-hung ‘twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,

We like sepulchral statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

And we said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refined,

That he soul’s language understand,

And by good love were grown all mind,

Within convenient distance stood,

He-though he knew not which soul spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same-

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part far purer than he came.

This ecstasy doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love;

We see by this, it was not sex;

We see, we saw not, what did move:

But as all several souls contain

Mixture of things they know not what,

Love these mix’d souls doth mix again,

And makes both one, each this, and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size-

All which before was poor and scant-

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love with one another so

Interlaminates two souls,

That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

Defects of loneliness controls.

We then, who are this new soul, know,

Of what we are composed, and made,

Forth’ atomies of which we grow

Are souls, whom no change can invade.

But, O alas! So long, so far,

Our bodies why do we forbear?

They are ours, though not we; we are

Th’ intelligences, they the spheres.

We own then thanks, because they thus

Did us, to us, at first convey,

Yielded their sences ‘force to us,

Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven’s influenced works not so,

But that it first imprints the air;

For soul into the soul may flow,

Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirit, as like souls as it can;

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtle knot, which makes us man;

So much pure lovers’ souls descend

To affections, and to faculties,

Which since may reach and apprehend,

Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so

Weak men on love reveals may look;

Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,

But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,

Have heard this dialogue of one, Let him still

Mark us, he shall see

Small change when we’re to bodies gone.

* Introduction of the poem:-

            “Ecstasy in Neo-platonic Philosophy was the stat of mind in which the soul, escaping from the body attuned to the vision of God, the one, the absolute:” The term ecstasy denotes the transition to a higher level where absolute truths are apprehensible to us beyond seens, reasoning and intellect. Just as another metaphysical poet, Richard Crashaw, describes spiritual or religious ecstasy in his “Hymm to st Teresa” J weemes asserts that ecstasy  when “The servants of God where taken up in spirit, separate as it were from the body, that they might see some heavenly mystery revealed unto them.”

            In the prescribed poem, the souls of two lovers free themselves from the definite confines of the physical construct of the body and became one physically and spiritually in an ecstatic union of souls.

* Analysis of the stanza:-

• In the opening, Donne is describing the scenery of a river or lakeside bank. He describes himself and another as pillows on a bed as they lie there.
• The second stanza described how their hands were held together and “cemented” with perspiration. He then described beams coming out of their eyes and twisting like thread which holds their eyes together as with a single, double thread.
• The third stanza Donne states that the lovers hands were all they had to make themselves into one, further; he says that the reflections in their eyes were their only way to propagate.
• The four stanza use a metaphor of armies to describe their souls. The two are equal armies and fate keeps victory uncertain, which is like the way the lovers souls are suspended.
• Furthering the army metaphor, stanza five has the souls negotiating as their bodies lie like memorial statues. They remained that way the whole day and said nothing to each other.
• The next stanza postulates whether any man can be so refined in love that he can understand the language of the the soul, and furthermore, if that “good” love of the mind stood at a convenient distance.
• Stanza seven relates that the two souls now speak as one; they may take a concoction and leave that place better off than when they arrived.
• The eighth stanza states that their state of ecstasy “unperplexes” or simplifies thing, and they can see that it was not sex that motivated them.
• The ninth stanza furthers the idea that two lovers are one soul which is mixedo`each a part of the other.
• The next uses a metaphor of a transplanted violet to show how two souls can be interlaminated and how this “new” soul can repair the defects of each of the indivual souls.
• The eleventh stanza again furthers the idea of two souls as one. In it says that the lovers know what they are made of, and that no change can invade them.
• The next stanza asks why the bodies are left out, and it says that although the soul is the intelligence, the bodies are the sphere which controls them, like the celestial spheres.
• Stanza   thirteen thanks the bodies for their service of bringing the soul to be and for yielding their senses. The bodies are not impurities that weaken, but rather alloys that strengthen us.
• The next stanza relates the method of how the body and soul are related. Heavenis influence does not work on man like other things. It imprints the air so that peoples souls may flow out from the body.
• Stanza fifteen tells how our blood works to make “spirits” that can help the body and soul together make us man.
• Stanza sixteen postulates that lover’s souls must give in to affections and wits that our bodies provide. If not, we are likened to a great prince in prison.
• The next stanza says that we turn to our bodies so that weak men may look at them, but that love is true mysteries are grown in the soul. The body is just the souls “book’.
• The last stanza sums up the scene by speculating how they would be regarded by another lover in their “dialogue” of the combined souls. Donne says that this lover will see a small change when their bodies are gone.

* Conclusion:-

               The images in the Ecstasy focus on the relationship of the soul to the body. Donne begins with visual images of water, hands, perspiration and things that are physical in nature. He proposes that two lover’s souls are formed into one and uses metaphors of alloys, celestial spheres and even a violet to make his point. Furthermore, Donne describes the process at work in the body by relating the mechanisms of blood and air. All of the images between lines 13 and 75 relate to the union of the souls, which creates a third soul that transcends the sum of the two. 

 

Analysis of Selected Lines ( The Fakeer of Jungheera) By Henry Derozio

ANALYSIS OF SELECTED LINES (THE FAKEER OF JUNGHEERA) BY HENRY DEROZIO

 

The Fakeer of Jungheera is a work by a Eurasian. The work has remained shrouded under the cover of time for more then a hundred years. It is the scholar’s spirit of inquiry that has opened up a treasure house of literary creation. Left to us by our first Indian English poet Henry Derozio. The work serves as a social document of the time period in which it was writer. The time period of its creation is the years of slavery under the British rule, and the spirit of independence or the longing for Bharatmata’s freedom is clearly visible in the beginning of the poem.

And let the guerdon of my labour be

My fallen country! One kind wish for thee!

A single reading of his poems revels his romantic nature.  His lines breathe the spirit of revolution. His taught advocate social reforms. And it is the rare combination of the spirit of revolution and poetic expressions which renders his poems as holy as the slokas written by the ancient’s sages for

the perfect blend of reality and imagination Derozio does not shut his eyes to the present state of the society which has fallow into the pit of degradation due to superstition, the cast system and the British rule.   

Kits, Shelly, and Byron seem to have influenced Derozio to a considerable extent. He thinks like Byron. He feels like Kits and expressly like Shelly. Some critics believe that he was a blind imitator of these poets. But no other poet could have grasped and worded the true spirit of the India so realistically and poetically to as Derozio did following the foot steps of the romantic poet.

Canto First

Canto first reminds us of the love poems return during the Elizabethan age. The first five lines have the same teachers as the lines penned down by Shakespeare.

Affection are not made for merchandize.-

What will ye give in barter for the heart?

Has this world wealth enough to buy the store

Of hopes, and feelings, which are linked for ever

With woman’s soul?

These lines clearly indicate that Derozio must have come under a strong influence of the Elizabethan poets too. His style and Diction (choice of words) show how successfully Derozio imbedded a set of poetic technique from those poets.

The sun like a golden urn

Where floods of light ever burn,

And fall like blessings fast on earth,

Bringing its beauties brightly forth.

The description of the places bears a strong resemblance with the description given by Coleridge in his incomplete poem ‘kublakhan.’

                                                   Jungheera’s rocks are hoar and steep,

And Ganges’ wave is broad and deep,

………………………………………

………………………………………

Those rocks, the stream’s victorious foes,

Frown darkly proud as on it flows;

Derozio’s scence of musicality is worth nothing. The same pattern changes according to the varying moods of the poem. Some times the music is harsh (cacophony) and sometimes it is very sweet. It can be said that it is not just his choice of words but also his care in organizing these words in and ordered, which produces the same mood as is produced by the words, which make him true poet.

God of this glorious universe! – The sea

Smiles in thy glance, and gladdens in thy ray,

And lifteth up its voice in praise to thee

Giver of good, creator of the day!

* Orchestration in Derozio’s poem:-

Derozio must have had an ear for music. His poems are easy to set to music because of their rhyme and rhythm. ‘Chorus of Brahmuns’ in faker of jungheera states out because of musicality.

Scatter, scatter flowerets round,

Let the tinkling cymbal sound;

Strew the scented orient spice,

Prelude to the sacrifice;

No ear can fail to notice how the mood is created through the repetition of certain sounds. In hymn to the sun the rhyme scheme is ABAB. That means the last word of the first line rhymes with the last word of the third line and the last word of the second line with the last word of the forth line. Derozio’s skill in handling the meter is commendable.

When all is darkness, like the sad soul’s night,

                         And tempests lower like grief upon our hearts,

Affrighted nature sees thy forehead bright,

                         The black storm furls his banner, and departs.

It would not be exaggeration to say that the poem is a fine collage of the poet’s thoughts, music, expression, cultural belief, and the indelible impression the romantics have left on Derozio is specially The Legend of the Shushan remains the reader of the beautiful musical poems produced during Romantic Revival.

And of youth is the time, the joyful time

When visions of bliss are before us;

But alas! When gone, in our sober prime

We sigh for the days flown o’er us.

* Conclusion:-

                     My objective was to discuss the musicality in the poem, the impacts of the Romantics and some other unnoticed fetchers of the beautiful poem. Science, did not intended to discuss the story, I have refrained from narrating the story in prose. I believe that the magic of poetry lies in versification to some extents and paraphrasing a poem kills.

The Augustan Age : General characteristics of age & Salient Features of the Age

  THE AUGUSTAN AGE : GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AGE & SALIENT FEATURES OF THE AGE

 

1)    Introduction : -

The eighteenth century in English literature has been called the Augustan Age, the Neoclassical Age and the Age of Reason. It is (Neoclassical period) also a period of conscious self – awareness – people looked at themselves and kept asking “Am I playing my role correctly ? ”  Augustan literature is a style of English literature product during the resigns of Queen Anne, king George-I, and George-II in the first half of the 18th century and ending a in the 17405 with the deaths of  Pope and Swift (1744 & 1745). It is a literacy epoch that featured the rapid development of the novel an explosion in Satire, the mutation of drama from political satire into melodrama and an evolution toward poetry of persons exploration. In Philosophy, it was an age increasingly dominated by empiricism while in the writings of political – economy it marked the evolution of mercantilism as a formal Philosophy, the development of capitalism, and the triumph of trade.

 

(2)    Historical context : -

    “Augustan” derives from Gorge I’S wishing to be seem as Augustan Caesar. Alexander pope, who had been imitating Horace, wrote an Epistle to Augustus that was to George-II and seemingly endorsed the motion of his age being like that of Augustus, when Poetry become more mannered, politics and satirical than in the era of Julius Caesar.  Later Voltaire and Oliver Goldsmith used the term “Augustan” to refer to the literature of the 1720s and ‘30s. Outside Poetry, however, the Augustan era is generally know by other names. Partially because of the rise of empiricism and partially  due to the self – conscious naming of the age in terms of ancient Rome,  two imprecise labels have been affixed  to the age. One is that it is the age of neoclassicism. The other is that it is the Age of Reason. Both terms have some usefulness, but both also obscure much.

One of the most critical elements of the 18th century was the increasing availability of printed material, both for readers and authors. Farther more, in this age before copyright, pirate editions thereby encouraged Book sellers to increase their shipments to outlying centers like Dublin, which increased, again, awareness across the whole realm.  All types of literature were spread quickly in all directions. News papers not only began, but they multiplied. Establishment, and independent divines were in point, the constant movement of these works helped defuse any one region’s religious homogeneity and fostered emergent latitudinarianism. The latest books of scholarship had “Keys” and “indexes” and “digests” made of them that could popularize, summarize, and explain them to a wide audience. The positive side of the explosion in information was that the 18th century was mackedly more generally educated than the centuries before. Education was less confined to the upper classes than it had been in prior centuries and consequently contributions to science, philosophy, economics, and literature came from all parts of the newly united kingdom.

    There are mainly two types of Historical context in this age and there are as below :

*    Political and religious context.

*    History and literature.

(3)    Prose : -

The essay, satire, and dialogue (in philosophy and religion) thrived in the age, and the English novel was truly began as a serious art form.

Literacy in the early 18th century passed into the working classes, as well as the middle and upper classes.

Further more, literacy was not consigned to men, though rates of female literacy are very difficult to establish.

For those who were literate, circulating libraries in England began in the Augustan period.

Libraries were open to all, but they were mainly associated with female patronage and novel reading.

    There are mainly five types of propose in this age and they are as following :

*    Essay and Journalism

*    Dictionaries and Lexicons

*    Philosophy and religious writing.

*    The novel

*    Satire.

    In propose type there is one most important type and that is “Satire” and the detailed about Satire are as follow :

*    Satire : -

A single name over shows all others in 18th century prose satire : Jonathan Swift. Swift wrote poetry as well as prose, and his satire range over all topics. Critically, Swift’s satire marked the development of prose parody away from simple satire or barlesaue. On the other hand, other satires would argue against a habit, practice, or policy by making fun of its reach or composition or methods.

What Swift did was to combine parody, with its imitation of form and style of another, and satire in prose. Swift’s works would pretend to speak in the voice of on opponent and imitate the style of the opponent and have the parodic work itself be the satire. Swift’s first major satire was “A Tale of a Tub” (1703 – 1706), which introduced an ancients / moderns division that would serve as adistinction between the old and new conception of value. The “moderns” sought trade, empirical science, the individual’s reason above the society’s, while the “ancients” believed in inherent and immanent value of  birth, and the society over the individual’s determination of the good.In Swift’s satire, the moderns come out looking in same and proud of their insonity,  and dismissive of the value of history.In Swift’s most significant satire, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), out biography, allegorge and philosophy mix together in the travels. Thematically, Gulliver’s Travels is a critique of human varity, of pride. Book four depicts the land of the Houyhmhmm a society of horses ruled by pure reason, where humanity itself is portroyed as a group of “yahoos” covered in filth and dominated by base desires. It shows that, indeed, the very desire for reason  may be undesirable, and humans must struggle to be neither shows what happens when reason is unleashed without any consideration of in orality or utility. (I .e. madness, ruin, and starvation).There were other satirists who worked in a less visulent way, who took o bemused pose and only made lighthearted fun. Tom Brown, Ned ward, and Tom Urfey were all satirists in prose and poetry whose works appeared in the early part of the Augustan age. Tom Brown’s most famous work in this vein was Amusements serious and comical, calculated for the Meridian of London (1700).Ned ward’s most memorable work was The London Spy (1704 – 1706). Tom D’Urfey’s  Wit and  Mirth : or pills to purge Melancholy (1719) was another Satire that attempted to offer entertainment rather than a specific bit of political action, in the form of coarse and catchy songs. Particularly after Swift’s success, parodic satire had an attraction for authors throughout the 18th century. Satire was present in all geares during the Augustan period.

Perhaps primarily, satire was a part of political and religious debate. So Omni present and powerful was satire in the Augustan age that more than one literacy history has referred to it as the “Age of Satire” in literature.

 

(4)    Poetry : -

In the Augustan era, poets wrote in direct counter point and direct expansion of one another, with each poet writing Satire when in opposition.There was a great struggle over the nature and role of the postoral in the early part of the century, reflecting two simultaneous movements : the invention of the subjective self as a worthy topic, with the emergence of a priority on individual psychology, against the insistence on all acts of art being performance and public gesture designed for the benefit of society at large. The development seemingly agreed upon by both sides was a gradual adoptation of all forms of poetry from their older uses. Odes would cease to be encomium, ballods cease to be narratives, elegies cease to be sincere memorials, satires no longer be specific entertainments, parodies no longer be performance pieces without sting song no longer be pointed, and the lyric would become a celebration of the individual rather than a lover’s complaint.These developments can be seen as extension of Protestantism, as Max Weber argued, for they represent a gradual increase in the implications of Martin Lather’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers or they can be seen as a growth of the power and assertiveness of the bourgeois and an each of the displacement of the worker from the home in growing industrialization, as Marxisls such as E.P. Thompson have urged. Whatever the prime cause, a largely conservative set of voices urged for a social person and largely emergent voices.The entire Augustan age’s poetry was dominated by Alexander pope. His lines were repeated often enough to lend quite a few clichés and proverbs to modern English usage.There was a great struggle over the nature and real of the pastoral in the early part of the century.Pope later explained that any depictions of shepherds and their mistresses in the pastoral must not be updated shepherds, that they must be icons of the Golden Age : “We are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived than to have been, when the best of men followed the employment.”Pop’s friend John Gay also adopted the pastoral.

Gay, working at pope’s suggestion, wrote a parody of the updated pastoral in the shepherd’s week.

He also imitated the Satires of Javenol with his Trivia.Even the Beggar’s opera, which is a satire of Robert walpole, portroys its characters with compassion : the Villaims have pothetic songs in their own right and are acting out of the exigency rather than boundless evil.Throughout the Augustan era the “updating” of classical poets was a common place. Alexander pope would manage to refer to the king himself in unflattering tones by “Pormitating” Horace in his Epistle to Augustus. Similarly, Samuel Johnson wrote a poem that falls into the Augustan period in his “imitation of Juvenal.”

When this folk – inspired impulse combined with the solitary and individualistic impulse of the churchyard poets, Romanticisa was nearly invitable.

 

(5)    Drama : -

The “Augustan era” is difficult to define chronologically in prose and poetry, but it is very easy to date its end in drawn.The Augustan era’s draw ended definitively in 1737, with the Licensing Act.

Prior to 1737, however, the English stage was changing rapidly from the Restoration comedy and Restoration drama and their noble subject to the quickly developing melodrama.George Lillo and Richard Steele wrote the trend – setting plays of the early Augustan period. The plots are resolved with Christian forgiveness and repentance. Steel’s the Conscious Lovers (1722) hiarges upon hid young hero avoiding fighting a duel. These play set up a new set of values for the stage.

Instead of amusing the audience or inspiring the audience, they sought to instruct the audience and ennoble it. Further, the plays were popular precisely because they seemed to reflect the audience’s own lives and concerns. Joseph Addition also wrote a play, entitled Cato, in 1713.

Cato concerned the Roman Stateinan. As during the Restoration, economics drove the stage in the Augustan period. Under Charles – II Court patronage meant economic success, and therefore the Restoration stage featured plays that would suit the monorch and/or Court.

Thus, there were quite a few plays that were, in fact, not literary that were staged more often than the literary plays. Additionally, opera made its way to England during this period.

Inasmuch as opera combined singing with acting, it was a mixed geare, and this violated all the strictures of neo-classicism. To add insult to injury, the casts and celebrated stars were foreigners, and, as with Farinelli, Castrati. The Satirists saw in opera the non plus ultra of invidiousness. As pope putting Duncan B : “.Joy to choose ! let Division reign : Chronatic tor tortures Soom shall drive Hemhence Break all their nerves, and fritted all Heir Sense   one Trill shall harmonize Joy, grief, and rage, wake the dull Church, and  lull the ronting stage; To the same notes they says shall have, or srore, and all they yawning daughters cry, encor.” Playwrights were therefore in straits.

On the one hand, the playhouses were doing without plays by turning out hack-written pantomimes.

On the other hand, when a Satirical plays appeared, the whig ministry would suppress it.

The playhouses had little choice but to present old plays and pantomime and plays that had no conceivable political content. In other words, William Shokespeare’s reputation grew enormously as his plays saw a quadrupling of performances, and seutilueutal  comedy and melody drama were the only choices.

 

(6)    Political and Economic Complications : -

This was a time of Civil Profitability and Military unrest. Britain was involved in a series of commercial wars against the Dutch, French, Austrians, Spanish and eventually its own American colonists over the lucrative trade opportunities with the New York and with the South Seas.

The Restoration is the time of the great privateer trade and the celebration of British Naval Supreme.

It is time of party politics : the Tories, representing old lauded wealth, conservatism, and the House of Lords, VS. the Whigs, representing fortunes made in trade, the City, and expansionist beliefs.

It was the age of the Almighty proud. Economics were the Argo – Coribbean Slave trade, Colomialis – expansion into India and eventually Australia and the Far East, and the enclosure of public grozing  lauds and anti-poaching laws in communal forests. It’s in this period that “Rule, Brittania !” becomes both the on them and unofficial motto of the realm. Britain is shifting from a kingdom to an empire, and that shift had its costs. The monarchic succession had one major consequence that is still felt.

Anne was a relatively weak ruler, and she was succeeded by a distant cousin who didn’t even speak English. As a result, the prime minister’s position grew increasingly important. Robert walpole officially received the title in 1721 but had held the position for years before – his attitude it best Salulued up by his quotation about parliament, “all those men have their price.” He was succeeded in the position by a series of notable whigs, including pitt the elder and pitt the younger, who successfully pursued a policy of valorizing the moneyed classes. They attempted to question the moral complacency of the whig age, but with inconsistent success.

 

(7)    Rationality and Faith : -

Some people might believe that an Age of Reason would be all age where religious faith was not important, but this was not the case. Obe of the chief reason for founding the Royal Society was an attempt to we science to explain and glorify the wonders of Divine Creation, according to its chorter.

This is the first great age of scientific instrumentation – accurate clocks, the reckoning of longitude, the refineament of the microscope and the telescope – and all were put to work to explain the marvel of the universe. The New Science was seem as explaining to man for the first time how God worked – one common image was of God as a kind of Divine clockmaker, setting all things in order to run perfectly. This was an age when people were obsessed with how the world worked.

Newton’s work on gravity led them to believe that God’s work could be described in mathematical terms. For the first time, they believed that rational explanations could back up faith. – i.e. that reason supported belief. Mathematics was used to explain many of the workings of the world. A famous comment about being a virtuose is this last time from a letter written by frederick the Great of Prussia, (1740 : “Adieu ! must now write to the king of  France, compose a solo for flute, make up a poem for voltaire, other  same accuracy regulations, and do a thousand things !” That’s what you could call a day’s work !Thhe  Architects like chtistopher area were hired to rebuild churches to make them more fashionable. The church of England dominates but there were Toleratian acts and  Methodism was popular, especially in rural areas and among the poor.

 

(8)    Conclusion : -

The proliferation of the printing press, the cheapness of paper, and the rise of literacy and economic status meant that many more people could participate in reading. Literary forms that appealed to wide range of classes were developed in this period, and we get the beginnings of literacy snobbery. Swift coins the terms high-brow and low-brow to reflect the kinds of reading taste he saw developing, and those prejudiced remain into our day. It is the first great age of literary criticism, where essays on the Virtues  Cond Weaknesses) of authors and biographies of major figures begin to dominate.

So you can see where this is a complex age, a difficult age, but a rewarding one to study. In many ways it shaped the literary tastes and values that we have up to the present day.