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Thomas Kyds The Spanish Tragedy established in English literature a form of drama,
called Revenge Tragedy following the tradition of Seneca. Revenge tragedy is called so
because the driving force of action in it is revenge, a Senecan spirit. However revenge here is
not a wild kind of justice but a sacred and solemn duty which may hardly be denied. It is
usually characterized by bloody deeds, intrigue, high melodrama, supernatural horror, violent
imagery, suicide.
At the time of Thomas Kyd, the English society, full of injustice but not getting proper
justice, was in demand to take revenge. Kyd in his tragedy fulfilled the demand of the
audience by bringing revenge motive in drama, and made them satisfied by punishing the
vice, though the avenger committed suicide. Let us now discuss the elements in the play
considered as the elements of revenge tragedy.
At the very first, we are introduced with two ghosts the Ghost of Andrea and Revenge.
Andrea was in love with Bel-imperia, and was killed in a battle by Balthazar, son of
Portuguese viceroy. But it could not be decided where to send his soul to fields of love or
to martial fields, because he was both a lover and a soldier. At last Andreas ghost is taken
back to the human world of the living so that he can see how Andreas murderer, Balthazar
will be punished by Bel-imperia, Andreas beloved. They serve as spectators
Quest for revenge is the principal motive behind the action of revenge tragedy. In this play,
desire for revenge is to be found in the heart of Andreas ghost, of Bel-imperia, of Isabella,
and above all, of Hieronimo. Even Lorenzo and Balthazar desire to take revenge on their
rival, Bel-imperias lover, Horatio. Bel-imiperia cannot warmly respond to Horatios love
because of her quest for revenge:
However, the revenge is not shown as injustice but a sacred and solemn duty.
Vindicta mithi !
Ay, heaven will be revenged of every ill
Nor will they suffer murder unrepaid.
But, he thinks if criminals are allowed more time, they will commit more crimes. So he must
take revenge.
As a characteristic of revenge tragedy, we find, in the account of battle given by the Spanish
General, violent imagery which produces a feeling of sensational and melodramatic horror in
our mind. Some of his account is given below
We find in the Spanish Tragedy a villainous character in the person of Lorenzo, assisted by
Serberine and Pedringano. Even Balthazar associates in his villainous deeds.
Intrigue is characterized by Senecan as well as revenge tragedy. There are powerful intrigues
in the villainous deeds of Lorenzo. Moreover, Villuppo makes an intrigue against Alexandra
who is falsely charged to have killed the prince, Balthazar. He says indicating Alexandra
In The Spanish Tragedy, the action ends with the stage performance of a play-within-a play
which contributes much to the story and flow of the play. In this short play Hieronima enacts
his plan to take revenge on the murderers of his son, Horatio.
Insanity is a characteristic of revenge tragedy. Some characters of the play become insane for
their dearest relations ruthless murder. In this play Isabella becomes insane and She cuts
down the arbour. Again some of Hieronimos activities prove his insanity, partly real partly
intended to ease his taking revenge.
Suicide is another characteristic of a revenge tragedy. Three virtuous characters of the
Spanish Tragedy commit suicide. Isabella becomes insane for her son and commits suicide
Again Bel-imperia and Hieronimo also commit suicide after performing their play-within-a
play.
Above all, a revenge tragedy is marked by gruesomely bloody ending. At the end of The
Spanish Tragedy, we see a lot of bleeding through some murders and suicides. Though there
are some other murders earlier in the play, the ending part is more gruesome. Because the
murders happen simultaneously. The king getting puzzled cries out addressing Hieronimo,
In fine, we see that Thomas Kyd is the pioneer of revenge tragedy following Senecan
tradition, (though Senecan plays were for reading out not for enacting). M.H. Abrams says
regarding revenge tragedy and The Spanish Tragedy,
Thomas Kyds The Spanish Tragedy (1586) established this popular form; its subject is a
murder and the quest for vengeance, and it includes a ghost, insanity, suicide a play- within- a
play, sensational incidents, and a gruesomely bloody ending.
2
The opening is typically Senecan in character. The ghost of Andrea, a Spanish Courtier and
Revenge are introduced at first and they are supposed to watch the development of the play.
They serve as chorus in the typical Senecan style. The Spanish General who relates the death
of don Andrea is the Prologue of the play. The play centers around the Marshal of Spain,
Hieronimo and his son Horatio. Spain and Portugal are at war. In the end, Balthazar, the son
of the Portuguese Viceroy is brought back to Spain as the joint captive of Horatio and
Lorenzo, the Spanish Dukes brothers son (son of the Duke of Castille). To Horatio is
allotted the ransom, to Lorenzo falls the privilege of guarding the political prisoner. Balthazar
falls in love with Lorenzos sister Bel Imperia and he gets the full consent of Lorenzo to the
match. Unfortunately, however, the lady is in love with Horatio. Lorenzo encourages
Balthazar and suggests to him to get rid of Horatio by death. Thus when Bel Imperia and
Horatio make love together in the night in a bower, Lorenzo, Balthazar and two servants
(Serberine and Pedringano) surprise them. They hang Horatio to the tree and decamp with the
lady and she is confined to a room thenceforward. Hearing the outcry, Hieronimo, rushes to
the garden only to find a dead Horatio. For the rest of the play, from the beginning of the
third Act, Hieronimo is occupied with revenge. The first information about the murder
Hieronimo gets from a letter written by Bel Imperia with her blood. This, however,
Hieronimo suspects to be a trap and he attempts to corroborate evidence by consulting her.
Unfortunately, Hieronimo awakens suspicion in Lorenzo and to make the secret surer,
Lorenzo bribes Pedringano to murder Serberine. At the same time, he arranges for a
watchman to arrest Pedringano after the murder. Balthazar is drawn into the matter with a
view to urge the execution of Serberines murderer. Pedringano is murdered. A political
marriage between Balthazar and Bel Imperia is suggested much against the displeasure of Bel
Imperia. Hieronimo plunges into despair as his revenge is delayed. He gets yet one more
information regarding the murder, for Pedringano had written a confession which the
hangman finds in his pocket and delivers to the Marshal. This ratifies the statement of Bel
Imperia in blood and urges him to revenge. However, it is impossible for him to strike at
Balthazar and Lorenzo. In his despair, he contemplates suicide and, like Hamlet, he is
reminded that his enemies will remain unpunished. He hits upon a scheme and he decides to
pretend to be mad and thereby return to the society of Lorenzo and Balthazar. He is egged
onto revenge by Bazulto, another old man bereaved of his son by murder. Meanwhile the
relation between the Spanish Marshal and Lorenzo deteriorates. Lorenzos father (the Duke
of Castille, Don Cyprian) suggests bringing about a reconciliation between Hieronimo and
Lorenzo. Hieronimo cordially agrees to this and feigns to approve of Bel Imperias marriage
with Balthazar. Hieronimo plans to have a play within the play. Bel Imperia and Balthazar are
to be actors in it. Lorenzo suspects no harm because he does not know the interview between
Bel Imperia and Hieronimo. In this interview Bel Imperia chides the delay in revenge.
Isabella, the wife of Hieronimo who has been driven to madness on account of his madness
which she think to be real, commits suicide. The play is enacted in the presence of the
Viceroy of Portugal, the Spanish King, the Duke of Castille, and all the followers who are
closely connected with the action of the play. In the play, real daggers are substituted for
wooden ones. Bel Imperia kills Balthazar and commits suicide. Hieronimo kills Lorenzo and
the play comes to a pause where Hieronimo explains the terrible realism behind all this
seeming action. Castile and the Viceroy learn that their children are dead. The curtain is
drawn aside at the back stage and Horatios corpse is revealed. But after this, Hieronimo kills
the Duke of Castille and commits suicide. The ghost of Andrea and Revenge close the play
with a triumph.
The supernatural elements in The Spanish Tragedy are found in the human impulses these
mainly are Fear and Revenge. Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta contain far more wonderful
blank verse whereas this play does not rise to equal heights. But the verse that is handled by
Kyd is perfectly suitable to the tragedy. Kyd, to a certain extent, uses rhyme and it is modeled
on the original play Teronimo. It is not so mush the verse as the tragic inspiration that
expresses the greatness of the play. Kyds verse is evolved out of the Senecan pattern and of
the other classical plays. If the play Teronimo is also attributed to Kyd, he might well be
called the father of blank verse. A comparative study of Marlowe and Kyd show that Kyd can
scarcely rise to the heights of Marlowe. But in the tragic spirit, he is on a par with the greater
dramatists.
Kyd and the classical Writers: (Boas) The Spanish Tragedy, according to Boas, is not the
work of a poet, nor that of a thinker, but that of a born dramatist. He not only exploited the
technical resources of the contemporary stage, but he borrowed profusely from the classical
tradition. As he was born and bred in London, he was in full possession with the knowledge
of his audience. At the same time he was aware of the classical influences that were in vogue
then. No other Elizabethan play could exhibit more clearly the blending of the national and
the foreign elements than this play. The Senecan machinery used by the authors of Gorboduc
for an academic play, here is used for a tale of elemental human passion the slow and sure
revenge of Hieronimo. The originality of Kyd is seen in his intermingling of strains of poetry
with the Senecan elements.
Induction the ghost of Andrea with Revenge. This is suggested by the opening of Senecas
Thyestes. The first 17 lines of this induction do the job of a classical chorus informing the
audience of the past events. The remaining 60 lines form a narrative of Andreas descent into
the underworld. This is skillfully adapted and condensed from the 6th book of the Aeneid.
Here Kyds blank verse is ineffective by the side of Virgilian hexameter. Still, these lines by a
dying fall produce a cadence and such dying falls in the lines are to be attributed to Kyds
originality. (born of the poignant sense of human tears.)
Throughout Act I, the play is loaded with epic material. Subsequently a third narrative
follows the prologue and this is assigned to Horatio who once again narrates the battle to Bel
Imperia. A fourth is ascribed to Villuppo, who, while narrating, falsely announces the death of
Balthazar at Alexandros hand. The epic model has increased the number of narratives, with
the result that the action is slow moving and dull. The dramatic mechanism gets clumsy.
Certain absurdities arise in the I Act as a result of the classical influence. Thus we see that
before Horatio could narrate the death of Don Andrea, we see Balthazar pleading for the hand
of Bel Imperia.
In Act II, Kyd begins to display more of his dramatic powers than to imitate the classical
models. Horatios character is not developed because his is a short role and too passive.
However, the other characters are drawn very firmly in the second act the lovelorn
sentimental Prince (the double captive) is an admirable contrast to Lorenzo the cold-
blooded villain. In Lorenzo we notice a foreign influence. One finds in him the Machiavellian
politician and statesman. The maxims on which Lorenzo relies are those perverted from
public to private ends. He represents the Italian Renaissance on its sinister side. Even in the
characterization of Bel Imperia, Kyd uses the Senecan stichomythia or the filthy rejoinders.
And these rejoinders make her a heroine of constancy and steadiness. The Second Act is full
of references to the Gods and Goddesses of the Greek myth; particularly Boas draws our
attention to the Marshals pleasant bower with Flora, Cupid, Venus and Mars all of them
must have been instruments of irresistible charm for the Elizabethan audience.
The revenge motif is borrowed in part from the Senecan stage. The Senecan plays were
drawn from the Greek heroic cycles. And the ethics reflected in these plays is of a primitive
type. Such ethics pleased the Elizabethan audience because they were still conscious of the
Viking age which glorified wild justice and revenge. The later Acts concentrate more on the
delay in revenge rather than revenge itself. It is this that makes the play dull in the later half
and the great weakness of the play is found in Kyds failure in an adequate analysis of her
Marshals motive for his delay. It is this that makes the play unworthy of ranking with
hamlet. Inaction or delay only becomes dramatic material when it lays stress on some
disease of character, but Hieronimos delay is mainly due to his ignorance of the murderers. A
second reason for his delay suggested is his suspicion of Bel Imperias designs. Kyds art is
unequal to the handling of so subtle a dramatic problem (Boas) as the procrastination: It
sheds no light on the tumult of the Marshals soul. It is the art of a playwright rather than of
an introspective dramatist.
In his handling of situations, Kyd presses into the surface of his art many classical models
from Seneca. In the closing scenes of the tragedy, however, he introduces something of the
Sophoclean irony. This was considered to be one of eh glories of the Attic stage. In the
handling of this irony, Kyd is a classic in a higher sense than he thought. For, by handling
this, he attained effects that were novel at that time. A number of examples can be given for
this irony. Hieronimos choice of a tragedy to be played; Balthazars ignorance of the
incoming fate; the Kings unconscious applause for the murder of Balthazar by Bel Imperia,
etc It is customary to denounce the Spanish Tragedy as a tissue of Horace because it
abounds not be distinguished from melodrama from a comparative statistics of the number of
deaths on the stage. Any number of murders can be introduced both in melodrama and
tragedy, but it is the tragic spirit that counts more than the number of deaths. Whether there is
any psychological justification for so many murders is a question to be raised. In so far as the
number of murders is not increased just to create horror the tragedy of Kyd can be popular.
But until the close of the Fourth Act, Kyd fully justifies every murder done. His instinct fails
in Act V, for Hieronimo not only commits suicide but also kills the innocent Duke of Castile.
Thus the revenge motive turns to mere massacre in Act V. The situation created by the true
genius of tragedy fails to fructify the expected results in the Fifth Act. It collapses into a
series of blood curdling incidents. This element of sheer savagery is further prolonged in the
epilogue. The ghost of Andrea gloats over the sufferings of his enemies in Hell. Even here
there is a Virgilian influence. At the very end it is suggested that Hieronimos friends and
loved ones are happy in the Elysian fields. Some critics detect the strain of Virgilian music in
this passage.
Before going into details about the Senecan elements it is better we try to discuss something
about Seneca and his life and his ideas. Seneca was a politician in Roman age. However, he
was also a scholar but he was perhaps unlucky in life because in Roman history at a time
when there were too many conspiracies. Court life was always dangerous and Seneca for
most of his life had to deal with many dangers in his life. In fact, his own personal life was
full of tragedies and in the end he was forced to commit suicide because he king suspected
that he was against the king. In Senecan tragedies, we can find many bloodshed and violence.
Horror and super natural elements are also present. As I have already said that he was in
Roman Empire court and that is why he often talked about kings and queens.
The Spanish Tragedy starts with the murder of Don Andrea by Don Balthazar and Don
Andrea was a Spanish noble man. It was a battle between Spain and Portugal and Don
Balthazar was the Portuguese prince. After death Don Andrea went to the second life and
there he met with the character of Revenge. The Revenge promises that he would help
Andrea to take revenge for the unfair death that he suffered. Thus, from the start we can
understand that their will be super natural elements and there will be a lot of bloodshed in this
drama.
The presence of super natural elements is anther Senecan element. In The Spanish Tragedy,
the revenge is a super natural character and he is present though out the drama. In fact, he
talks and speaks like a human being in stead of his super natural elements. He promises to
Andrea and he keeps his promise.
Horatio is the friend of Don Andrea and he was a brave soldier. He showed a lot of bravery
by capturing the Portuguese prince and this way the king of Spain was very happy with him.
Don Andrea was in love with Bel-Imperia and Bel-Imperia was the niece of Spanish king.
Horation came to Bel-Imperia and told her that Andrea was murdered. Bel-Imperia became
very sad and got very angry with Balthazar that he unjustly murdered her lover. However, we
see that Bel-Imperia soon falls in love with Horatio and she think that Horatio was a good
man. Then the two had good relationship. This matter was not like the brother of Bel-Imperia
Lorenzo. Lorenzo was a evil character and he was a Machiavellian character. He understood
that the Portuguese prince had fallen in love with Bel-Imperia. So, he makes even plan and
arranges that Horatio is murdered.
The murder of Horatio makes two persons very angry. However, I should write here that
Lorenzo hires some people to murder Horatio. Then Lorenzo himself thought that if these
two people betrays him in future or reveals that Lorenzo is the main villain. So, he arranges
that these two murderers of Horatio get killed. Thus, we can find that Lorenzo is a very bad
character. Both Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia understand that Lorenzo and Balthazar were the
murderer of Horatio and this matter made them very angry. The mother of Horatio is Isabella
and because of this great loss of the death of her son she becomes mad and she commits
suicide.
Hieronimo makes a plan to get revenge and he seeks the help of Bel-Imperia. Bel-Imperia
happily agrees to help her because Bel-Imperia is also angry for the death of both Don
Andrea and Horatio. In the end, Hieronimo arranges a drama to be staged and this drama is a
drama within a drama. The drama was arranging in a way that Bel-Imperia kills Balthazar
and kills herself. Before that Hieronimo kills Lorenzo and in the end Hieronimo could
commit suicide. So, within a short time the audience can see that four deaths happened in the
stage. Murder and violence is perhaps nothing new in drama. When there is a tragic play,
naturally there will be death and sometimes murder and bloodshed. However, in the dramas
that have Senecan elements like The Spanish Tragedy, violence and bloodshed are in extreme
level. They create horror in the mind of the audience. The people get killed in a short time is
perhaps more melo dramatic than tragic.
It will be unwise to say that The Spanish Tragedy is only a drama about revenge. It is perhaps
more than revenge. There is a question of deniable justice. Don Andrea is murdered unjustly.
Horatio is murdered in a very bad way. Hieronimo wanted to seek justice from the king of
Spain but he could not. The king did not listen to him properly and this matter force
Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia too only become more angry and murdered both Lorenzo and
Balthazar.
Here, I like to say something about political matter. The Spanish Tragedy was written at a
time when Queen Elizabeth was very powerful in England. The British parliament was still
not so powerful and there was no democracy. England was still a monarchy in which the king
or the queen was extremely powerful. Perhaps people like Thomas Kyd understood that if
there is no democracy then justice can never take place. When justice is dependent on the
whim of only one person like the queen or kind then ordinary people would suffer. Horatio
was not an ordinary man. He was the sun of Hieronimo who was the chief Marshal and a very
high positioned officer in the royal court of King of Spain. Still because Horatio was got
killed by the nephew of the king, his father Hieronimo could not get any justice. So, I think
that Thomas Kyd has symbolically staged that democracy is more important if we want to
ensure justice in society.
'I wish a Faire and Fortunate Day, to your Next New-Play ... because such Brave Triumphes
of Poesie, and Elaborate Industry, which my Worthy Friend's Muse hath there set forth,
deserve a Theatre full of the very Muses themselves to be Spectators. To that Faire Day I
wish a Full, Free and Knowing Auditor.'
The 'New-Play' is almost certainly The White Devil. Webster was a 'Friend' to Dekker, his
work does blend 'Poesie' with 'Industry', and his own preface to The White Devil echoes the
above passage. As this preface tells us that the play was acted in winter, the most logical
placing of the first performance is early in 1612.
The play is based on events in recent Italian history, twenty-seven years having passed since
Vittoria Accoramboni's actual death. Her story was of such topical interest that over one
hundred separate accounts of it have survived. None of these coincide exactly with Webster's
version and it is likely that he used a number of sources, the main one being the same as that
found in a newsletter to a German banking house. This has some of the same factual errors as
Webster's play - Giovanni for Virginio, the real name of Brachiano's heir, for example - and it
ignores Brachiano's obesity, and Vittoria's rumoured suicide attempts, as Webster does.
The fact that there are many discrepancies between Webster's and accurate modern versions
of the story is partly due to conflicting sources, but also to the accepted literary convention
which authorised the reshaping of history in order to create a formal unity and a higher, more
general truth than raw history provided. Where Webster appears to have been deliberately
inaccurate one can gain insight into his artistic intentions. For example, he chooses to
magnify the involvement of Francisco de Medici, a minor figure in the sources, in order to
strengthen the revenge element and to provide a vital link between the two main groups in the
play. In the sources Cornelia and Isabella are less than admirable, but Webster gives his play a
greater moral clarity by presenting them as virtuous. He gives shape to the formless chronicle
of the sources by developing the-role of Giovanni who, unhistorically, brings a semblance of
order and justice to the end of the play. By altering the sources, moreover, Webster is able to
complicate our response to what seem straightforward crimes. Vittoria, for example, is
provided with an excuse for adultery by the changing of the virile young husband of the
sources into the foolish and impotent Camillo.
There is a peculiar difficulty involved in tracing sources for this author's work, as Webster is
one of English literature's greatest borrowers, both in extent and in skilfulness of adaptation.
His plays are largely pieced together, in a subtly altered form, from memorable bits of his
reading, which he will have jotted down in what was called a commonplace book'. The result
is that there are innumerable minor sources for a play such as The White Devil, one example
being his borrowing of the details of the papal election scene from A Treatise of the Election
of Popes (1605). Though shocking to some modern readers, plagiarism was accepted by
Webster's contemporaries, as imitation and embellishment of others' work was conventional
and commended.
Without doubt, however, The White Devil is heavily influenced by the conventions of
revenge tragedy. Revenge plays drew on the example of the Roman playwright Seneca (4BC-
AD65), who dramatised some spectacularly violent sequences of crime and revenge, and,
like Webster, combined bloody and treacherous actions with sententious moralising. Part of
the appeal of Seneca's plays for Elizabethans was their guidance on enduring adversity
through fortitude, particularly their presentation of the art of dying well. Such stoicism is a
significant feature of Webster's tragedies also. Seneca grew in popularity because he was
treating a subject, revenge, which was highly contentious at this time. Private revenge, linked
with family honour, was considered by many to be a sacred duty, but this clashed with the
Christian ethic, which placed revenge in God's hands alone.
Revenge plays were often set in Italy, where, it was believed, the most extreme examples
could be found. The writer Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) records that in Italy he 'heard of a box
of the ear that hath been revenged thirtie yeares after'. These words contain the basic revenge
plot (an offence, a period of delay and then revenge) appealing to playwrights because it
solves two great problems: how to begin and how to end a play. The White Devil ends in the
conventional way: the avengers are disguised, they appear in a 'masque' (a surprise entry of
masked revellers), and a figure of authority restores order after the bloody climax. But the
revenge element is not so clearly focused in other areas of the play. Lodovico is the main
agent of revenge but his motivation seems carelessly presented (for example, II.2.32-4); and
the main plotter, Francisco, is a rather shadowy figure who is forgotten by the end of the play.
Revenge conventions are being used but are adapted to suit Webster's purpose.
Webster wished to show both revengers and the victims of revenge as evil, the good
characters being only on the edge of the action, whereas conventionally the victims were
morally inferior. This allowed him to rearrange conventions, for example by making
Flamineo, one of the victims, a malcontent who disguises his nature to avoid suspicion,
which is a role usually taken by the avenger. Both avengers and victims seek the conventional
'perfect' murder, taking pride in their ingenuity:
'I limb'd this night-piece and it was my best' (V.6.297, and cf. 11.2.38) boasts Lodovico.
Both factions employ the conventional method, poison, and one from each side sees the
conventional ghost (although the ghosts do not trigger off the revenge action as was
customary). By making Vittoria, Brachiano and Flamineo more attractive than Francisco and
Lodovico, the avengers, Webster reversed the usual flow of sympathy in earlier revenge
plays. The genre of revenge tragedy provided Webster with a framework and a number of
useful theatrical effects, but he was not attempting to write a revenge play himself, as most of
his attention was paid to the relationship between Brachiano, Vittoria and Flamineo, and the
latters satirical commentary, to which the revenge element is far from being central.
Tragicomedy
The sub-title claims that The White Devil is the tragedy of Brachiano, but many critics have
questioned whether he is the central protagonist, and some have questioned whether the play
is a tragedy at all. It can be argued that Vittoria has the strongest claim for centrality as she
probably is the 'white devil' of the title; or, this play can be seen as one that has no single
hero. In this respect it has been likened to a chronicle, or history play, with which it also
shares other characteristics: in the pageantry of the papal election and trial scenes; in its basis
in historical fact; and in its sequence of separate events in place of a steady build-up to a
single climax. The characters, however, are somewhat too close to being conventional
theatrical types rather than realistic historical figures, to allow the play to fit into this
category. Critics have sought other descriptions to suit a play without a hero, one of the most
appealing of which is the view that it is the tragedy of a society:
'Webster's satirical tragedy looks beyond individuals to the society that shapes them... The
White Devil is not Vittoria Corombona but Renaissance Europe'. (J Lever)
Webster's play certainly does seem to draw general conclusions about the nature of society
and seeks to expose and reform corruption in a harsh way, as we expect of satire, but can the
term 'tragedy' be applied to it? Some critics think not, on the grounds that it lacks the general
gravity of tone which one associates with that term. It is not that the play lacks deadly serious
or highly poignant moments: Cornelia's grief and madness, Brachiano's dying love for
Vittoria, and the latter's defiance at her trial and when facing death, are the stuff of which
tragedy is made. Webster's technique, however, is to continuously undermine such moments
either with satirical commentary (particularly by Flamineo) or with actions which incite
laughter and at times border on farce, for example Flamineo's mock-death. In the words of
one critic, it is 'a form in which comedy and tragedy, the laughable and the appalling, are so
composed that neither is predominant' (J.R. Mulryne) thus it is a tragicomedy.
Such a method is particularly suited to Webster's apparent objective in the play, which is to
show that what seems 'white' (that is, pure and virtuous) may be as black as the 'devil'. The
dominant tone of the play is one of confused uncertainty, as Webster moves us from one
extreme response to its opposite without a breathing space. Such polarisation occurs when we
find ourselves laughing at moments of horror: as when Lodovico, ironically disguised as a
holy man administering last rites, wittily taunts the crazed and dying Brachiano; or when
Brachiano himself jokes about the horrific poisoning of his wife as he watches her death in a
dumb show. Even more striking is the juxtaposition of Flamineo's mock-death with his real
death. An audience finds it hard to take the real death with due seriousness when it so closely
resembles the comic pretend death.
Thus, even death itself, the climax of conventional tragedy, is apparently parodied by
Webster. Flamineo's exaggerated death speeches seem to mock the drawn-out deaths of tragic
heroes:
Throughout the play we come across such comic exaggeration and grotesqueness of both
language and action, even at the potentially most solemn moments. Thus Webster uses the
standard ghosts of tragedy, but they are received mockingly by those whom they are meant to
disturb.This tragicomic technique makes sympathising with personal suffering almost an
impossibility, and as we are distanced from individual characters we become more aware of
an entire society trapped in a 'mist'of uncertainty (see V.6.260).
But passion doesnt come from nowhere, it always, as every emotion, has a source. And in
this play the main source of passion is not anyone else but Vittoria, the femme fatale, the
supposed white devil from the title. It is even said that the title refers to a contemporary
proverb holding that the white devil is worse than the black. Colors are symbolic in this
play, especially black and white, but red also appears in the story when in the middle of the
trial Vittorias white cloak falls down and reveals a red dress. Thus Vittoria is sometimes
referred to as the scarlet woman. But what is more important is how passion leads to the act
of murder , and in the case with Vittoria and her lover Brachiano, it is passion in the sense of
very strong sexual desire that makes Brachiano plot the murders of his wife Isabella and of
Vittorias husband. Thus we can say that Brachianos passion is a violent passion, one that is,
according to Rowland Wymer, nothing more than an aspect of an arrogant, aristocratic will
which recognizes no social or moral impediments to its fulfillment. Thats why when
Isabellas brother and Cardinal Monticelso decide to make Brachiano confess his adulterous
relationship with Vittoria, instead of doing that he and Flamineo arrange to have Isabella and
Camillo murdered. This is more than an explicit indication of how passion can be violent,
dangerous and even leading to death and murder. Moreover it is supposed that Vittoria herself
urged her lover to commit the murders by recounting to him an ambiguous dream that she
had, in which she sees the graves of her husband and his wife.
But passion in The White Devil can be seen not only in the sense of a very strong sexual
desire. It can also come to mean a very strong belief or feeling about something(Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English), and in this meaning it can be none the less dangerous
or violent. When, for example, Isabellas brother Francisco decides to avenge her death, it is
again passion in the sense of a strong desire to do something because you believe in it, and
believe it is right, that is the driving force for committing murder. Not only him, but many, if
not all of the characters in the play, can be seen as behaving in very different ways,
sometimes driven by rational judgments, sometimes- by other, unconscious forces. As Wymer
puts it, the deeper and more pervasive emphasis is on the extreme and unstable mixture of
contrary impulses to be found in the human heart(38) and what achieves the startling and
surprising effect is that virtuous self-control gives way to sudden surges of violence(38).
And this Wymers argument gives support to my observation that passion is what takes
control when self-control is gone, as we can substitute surges of violence with violent
passions and see that it fits more than well. Moreover the author himself supports the
argument that his characters give up reason and surrender to their passions by reducing them
to the level of the animals. Animals and beast are the creatures whose driving force are
instincts and passions, because they dont have, unlike human beings, reason or intelligence,
and therefore act according to what they feel, to what their instincts and passions tell them.
The characters of the play are several times referred to as animals: Vittoria is compared to a
cursed dog let loose at midnight, Brachiano when dying from the poisoned helmet, refers to
people as wolves.
But the themes of passion and revenge are not interconnected only with each other, but also
with the themes of death and corruption or injustice. What we see in The White Devil is a
vicious circle, with one these leading invariably to the other. The story itself begins with
Lodovico claiming that he has been treated unjustly by the court and protesting against the
courts discrimination between aristocrats and himself. Injustice is also seen in the scene with
Vittorias trial where she is found guilty of being a whore despite the fact that there is little
hard evidence of her being involved in the murder, apart from the dream she had and told to
Brachiano. This unfair sentence comes from the fact that her accusers are also her judges. But
injustice often has consequences, and in this play the consequence of injustice takes the form
of personal revenge. Lodovico, who has been in love with Isabella, and Francisco, her
brother, see her death as an unjust act of violence born from adulterous passion and decide to
bring justice themselves and to avenge Isabellas death. Death is another aspect that is all-
pervasive in the play- from the very first arranged murder to the death of almost all characters
in the end of the play. Some critics have even argued that Webster was too concerned with
death, but others argued that it was not so much death itself that Webster wanted to present in
this play, but the art of noble dying( Thomas McAlindon, 45). An example of this is given
by Vittoria and Flamineo, who face their deaths with courage and stoicism. Brachianos
death, on the other hand, is agonizing and horrifying, and it can be seen to serve as a
connection between crime and punishment. Brachiano is seen as the villain of the piece so his
death, which is again an act of revenge, is the most brutal, incorporating physical pain and
spiritual torment, when his murderers reveal to him their identities.
When first staged, the play didnt achieve success, even the opposite- it was a complete
failure, mainly, some argue, because of its sophistication. Indeed Websters The White
Devil presents us with so many themes and aspects at the same time, that it is sometimes
even hard to understand what its main purpose is. Even though it was based on a real-life
story, the play doesnt follow the storyline closely, mainly because Webster used not one, but
many sources. But some argue that he deviates from the real historical event and figures
deliberately, in order to achieve some of his ends, for instance he magnifies the involvement
of some figures so that the revenge element can be put emphasis on. But putting aside these
discrepancies, The White Devil has proved an excellent example of a Jacobean tragedy
making use of some of the most characteristic conventions of the revenge tragedy. We have
an offence, plotting, intrigue, bloody treacherous actions, faked madness, private revenge,
disguise, death, and order restored at the end. And what is more- the play is set in Italy, which
was very characteristic of revenge plays. But no matter what the purpose of Webster was, he
presents us with many themes in order to achieve this purpose, and two of the most evident
ones are the themes of passion and revenge, which together with the themes of injustice and
death form a vicious circle. It is the violent passion of Brachiano for Vittoria that sets all the
tragic events in motion: his passion leads to death, this death leads to revenge which ends
again in death. The chaotic violent passions that blur the mind of almost all the characters of
the play are opposed to the stoic facing of death of some of them. And it is not the underlying
message, but this sensationalism, that grabs the audience.
The conspirators are trapped as well in this discrepancy between desire and reality, though
they are the manipulators of the illusion. They imagine they are more intelligent than the
victims because they know they are making it all up. Captain Face knows he is only Jeremy
the Butler, and Doll knows she is not a lady or the Queen of Fairy. Subtle, however, seems
captivated by his own words and half believes he can create things in mine own great art
(1.1, line77), even though Face keeps reminding him he was a pitiful beggar hanging out at
Pie Corner when he found him. Surly is skeptical, not wanting to participate in the charade: I
would not willingly be gulled. Your stone/ Cannot transmute me (2.1, lines77-78). Yet Surly
gets caught up too, dressing as a Spanish count and playing the part of a hero saving Dame
Pliant so he can marry her. All illusions are stripped away at the end, part of the comic
catharsis for the audience. The desire for truth is thus shown by Jonson to be stronger than the
thousand false desires people reach for. In the end, false desire will be exposed as a mere
dream by the forces of reality.
Self-Deception
Though Face, Subtle, and Doll are running a sting operation, all the characters, including the
crooks, are primarily victimized by their own self-deception. Tribulation Wholesome, the
Anabaptist preacher, uses the brotherhoods money to buy so-called orphans goods
(Mammons property resold) to be turned into gold by the alchemist, thus easing his
conscience that he is engaging in anything illegal or questionable. Subtle knows how to
appeal to these Puritans so they wont feel guilty about trying to get rich. He tells them he
will make gold coins by casting not coining or counterfeiting (3,2m lines 151-152). This
is blatant self-deception in the sect, especially in Ananaiss proclamation that they are above
the law because of their religious vocation: We know no magistrate (3.2, line 149).
A primary means of self-deception is the language the characters use to hide behind. The
Anabaptists speak a holy language of grace and zeal; their names, such as Tribulation
indicate a religious testing, but they merely fool themselves. Mammon believes if he calls
himself the lord of the philosophers stone (4.1, line 121) and speaks of giving gold to
everyone, it is as good as done. Kestrel believes he can be a gentleman with the right insults
and ways of quarreling. He does it so badly when he tries to attack Surly that Surly says, I
must laugh at this (4.7, line 38). Kestrel tries to call Surly a pimp and a trig,/ And an
Amadis de Gaule, or a Don Quixote (4.7, lines 39-40), not really knowing what he is saying.
The characters least self-deceived are Lovewit and Face, and they end up triumphant. They
may not be model citizens, but they are the most open-eyed, knowing their own faults and the
weaknesses of others. Because they have more wit than the others, they survive.
When Lovewit returns and Face sees the game is up, he surrenders gracefully man to man to
his master, Lovewit, who likes the butlers straight approach: Give me but leave to make the
best of my fortune,/ And only pardon me thabuse of your house:/Its all I beg. Ill help you to
a widow (5.3, lines 85-87).
Jonsons strength as a playwright is his realistic examination of the teeming and varied life
around him. He took familiar classic comic characters (the vices) and transposed them to the
familiar types of the London streets of 1610.
The Alchemist (Jonson)
Metaphor Analysis
The stone was also supposed to be a test of purity, for none but the pure could possess it. In
the play it represents the desires people have; it is the answer to whatever they wantriches
or success. Some people like Drugger have small wishes; he wants to improve his business.
Dapper wants to win at cards. Mammon, on the other hand, has very grandiose desires, so
bizarre and unrealistic that they could never and should never be fulfilled, for they are corrupt
and destructive to life. He deludes himself that he will make Doll into a queen and talk to
her, all in gold . . . She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold (4.1, lines 25-29). He
calls himself the lord of the philosophers stone (4.1, line 121). He imagines he already has
everything he wants. Face and Subtle pretend that his sexual sin with Doll disqualifies him by
ruining the projection of the stone in the furnace, but he is already self-condemned by
everything he says and does, obviously entertaining delusions of grandeur. The way Jonson
thus uses the philosophers stone as a symbol is the opposite of what it meant in alchemya
pure substance that could produce pure gold. He uses it instead as a symbol of human greed
and self-deception.
Surly unmasks the actors by himself playing the part of a Spanish count to spy on them. All
the men vie to get a Spanish costume like his to win the widow who thinks she is supposed to
marry a Spanish nobleman, as Subtle tells her she should. Even the owner of the house,
Lovewit, has to dress up as the Spanish noble to marry Dame Pliant. There seems to be no
apology about disguise, as if this is the normal way to operate in the world. The disguise is
taken as the person, everyone taken at face value. The Anabaptists, for instance, look and
speak like religious people but they are like everyone else, greedy at heart for gold and
power. Jonson shows that the world is a theater. The masked will be unmasked at some point,
however. That is the point of the comedy.
Realm of Fairy
There is a lot of reference to the realm of fairy, since Subtle is supposed to be a sort of
magician who can raise spirits and grant wishes and transform objects, like a Prospero figure.
In Act 3, scene 5, the three conspirators create a Fairyland to fleece Dapper. They prepare him
to meet his aunt, the Queen of Fairy, who will give him riches. Subtle disguises himself as the
Priest of Fairy and when they blindfold Dapper, Subtle and Face pretend to be elves pinching
him to make give all that is transitory, (3.5, line 30) namely, his money. Subtle cries, Ti ti,
it ti to ta as elf language (3, 5, line 40). Dapper empties his pockets of coins. Dapper never
learns he is being gulled, not even when he has to stay in a privy for two hours to stay out of
the way of other customers. When Doll, dressed as his aunt, the Fairy Queen, blesses him
with good fortune, he says, I cannot speak for joy (5.4, line 34). He, at least, is transformed
by the charade. The realm of the supernatural is thus a metaphor for gullibility. Those who are
easily duped are those who believe in fairies, spirits, and free gold, and the crooks play on the
beliefs of these greedy simpletons. Jonson equates the sane person as a man of reason.
Fairyland is an illusion.
Animal Imagery
In Renaissance thought, humans were situated between the animal kingdom and the angelic
kingdom. Whenever animal imagery is used in the play, Jonson is indicating subhuman
behavior. Doll calls Face and Subtle my good baboons (1,1, line 163) indicating their
monkey antics as they mock and imitate to fool the victims of their hoaxes. In Act 2, scene 4
the conspirators refer to Mammon as a fish on the line. Face says, I ha given him line, and
now he plays (line 2). Subtle replies, And shall we twitch him? (line 3). They see their
victims as stupid and less than human, though Doll had referred to the crooks themselves as
animals. Jonson thus equates the cozeners with the cozened. When the Anabaptists arrive,
Subtle refers to them as more gudgeons or fish (2. 4. line 19). The character Kestrel bears
the name of an aggressive hawk. He is angry and wants to fight just so he can fit into a group
of fashionable young men. Mammon speaks in nothing but animal images, conveying his
gross thoughts and desire (tongues of carps, lampreys, beards of barbells, unctuous
paps/ Of a fat pregnant sow (2. 2, lines 75-84). He tells Doll they will have long life with the
stone a perpetuity/ Of life and lust (4.1, lines 166-7). This is the opposite of what the
philosophers stone is supposed to do. It sublimes, lifting substance to pure essence, taking
humans up the ladder to more angelic status. The animal imagery thus points out that the
project of transmutation touted by Subtle is a mockery and scam. Both crooks and victims are
busy going down the Great Chain of Being, or the ladder of life, to the animal kingdom
instead of up to heaven.
Alchemist makes an elaborate survey of mans gullibility, the humour thereby represents is
the master passion of greed that manipulates each of the dupes in the play. Pointed out in the
prologue Jonson represents such humours to comic effect to make people realize the
absurdity of their situation in face of foibles and follies.
As in Volpone, Jonson focuses on one humour that is Avarice in Alchemist. It is nothing but
greed for money and gain and the way it dominates all the characters subtly or blatantly.
It is noteworthy that the characters do not show any inclination to hoard money; on the
contrary they are guided by ulterior aims or motives in which money becomes a necessity. In
this way Jonson etches distinctive qualities in the characters.
According to the medieval view, Faustus has a desire for forbidden knowledge. In order to
gain more knowledge than he is entitled to, Faustus makes a contract with Lucifer, which
brings about his damnation. Faustus then learns at the end of the play that supernatural
powers are reserved for the gods and that the person who attempts to handle or deal in
magical powers must face eternal damnation. When we examine the drama from this
standpoint, Faustus deserves his punishment; then the play is not so much a tragedy as it is a
morality play. The ending is an act of justice, when the man who has transgressed against the
natural laws of the universe is justifiably punished. The chorus at the end of the drama re-
emphasizes this position when it admonishes the audience to learn from Faustus' damnation
and not attempt to go beyond the restrictions placed on humanity.
The character of Faustus can also be interpreted from the Renaissance point of view. At the
time of this play, there was a conflict in many people's minds, including Marlowe's, as to
whether or not to accept the medieval or the Renaissance view. The Renaissance had been
disappointed in the effectiveness of medieval knowledge because many scholastic
disputations were merely verbal nonsense. For example, arguments such as how many angels
could stand on the head of a pin dominated many medieval theses. The Renaissance scholars,
however, revived an interest in the classical knowledge of Greece and the humanism of the
past. They became absorbed in the great potential and possibility of humanity.
According to the Renaissance view, Faustus rebels against the limitations of medieval
knowledge and the restriction put upon humankind decreeing that he must accept his place in
the universe without challenging it. Because of his universal desire for enlightenment,
Faustus makes a contract for knowledge and power. His desire, according to the Renaissance,
is to transcend the limitations of humanity and rise to greater achievements and heights. In
the purest sense, Faustus wants to prove that he can become greater than he presently is.
Because of his desire to go beyond human limitations, Faustus is willing to chance damnation
in order to achieve his goals. The tragedy results when a person is condemned to damnation
for noble attempts to go beyond the petty limitations of humanity.
At various times throughout the drama, Faustus does stop and consider his dilemma and
comes to the verge of repentance. He often thinks about repentance, but he consciously
remains aligned with Mephistophilis and Lucifer, and never takes the first steps to obtain
forgiveness.
By the end of the drama, when he is waiting for his damnation, he rationalizes his refusal to
turn to God. Throughout the drama, internal and external forces suggest that Faustus could
have turned to God and could have been forgiven. In the final scene, the scholars want
Faustus to make an attempt to seek the forgiveness of God, but Faustus rationalizes that he
has lived against the dictates of God, and he makes no effort to invoke God's forgiveness until
the appearance of the devils. By then, he can only scream out in agony and horror at his final
fate.
In most of the scenes, Mephistophilis functions as the representative of hell and Lucifer. Only
in a few fleeting moments do we see that Mephistophilis is also experiencing both suffering
and damnation because of his status as a fallen angel. In the third scene, he admits that he is
also tormented by ten thousand hells because he had once tasted the bliss of heaven and now
is in hell with Lucifer and the other fallen angels.
Upon Faustus' insistence to know about the nature of hell, Mephistophilis reveals that it is not
a place, but a condition or state of being. Any place where God is not, is hell. Being deprived
of everlasting bliss is also hell. In other words, heaven is being admitted into the presence of
God, and hell, therefore, is deprivation of the presence of God. This definition of hell
corresponded to the newly founded doctrine of the Anglican church, which had just recently
broken with the Roman Catholic church. But Marlowe also uses a medieval concept of hell
for dramatic purposes. As the devils appear in the final scene and as Faustus contemplates his
eternal damnation, there are strong suggestions and images of a hell consisting of severe
punishment and torment, where ugly devils swarm about and punish the unrepentant sinner.
Faustus also is involved in another servant-master relationship with his pupil Wagner.
Wagner, the inferior student of the masterful doctor, represents the servant who does not
understand either his master or what is happening to him. Wagner tries to emulate Faustus in
many things and to take upon himself all the power that his master displays. In his failure, he
becomes one of the comic devices in the drama. He tries to use the magical powers to get the
clown to serve him, thus establishing another servant-master relationship. On the comic level
then, there is even a greater misuse of power. The comic actions of Wagner show that Faustus'
essential relationship with Mephistophilis carries a more universal significance. Faustus'
actions affects other people, for Wagner tries to imitate his master and only bungles whatever
he does.
Thus, the comic episodes are loosely related to the serious aspects of the drama by this
servant-master relationship in which the actions of the master influence the behavior and
destiny of the servant.
Faustus also is involved in another servant-master relationship with his pupil Wagner.
Wagner, the inferior student of the masterful doctor, represents the servant who does not
understand either his master or what is happening to him. Wagner tries to emulate Faustus in
many things and to take upon himself all the power that his master displays. In his failure, he
becomes one of the comic devices in the drama. He tries to use the magical powers to get the
clown to serve him, thus establishing another servant-master relationship. On the comic level
then, there is even a greater misuse of power. The comic actions of Wagner show that Faustus'
essential relationship with Mephistophilis carries a more universal significance. Faustus'
actions affects other people, for Wagner tries to imitate his master and only bungles whatever
he does.
Thus, the comic episodes are loosely related to the serious aspects of the drama by this
servant-master relationship in which the actions of the master influence the behavior and
destiny of the servant.
Tragic Hero is a literary term and specially applied to tragedy. The term is used for Greek
literature and especially it is associated with great three dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides. Aristotle has broadly defined the term with special reference to Greek Tragedy.
Lets thrash out, what is tragic Hero? What are the characteristic of Tragic Hero? How can we
apply Tragic Hero to Greek Dramas?
The term Tragic Hero is relevant to Modern Hero of the drama. What types of
circumstances do make the character Tragic? The Greek terms like Catharsis, Hamartia,
Anagnorisis, Peripetiea, are deeply rooted in Tragic Hero. Aristotle has broadly defined the
term with special reference to Greek Tragedy.
Dr. Faustus the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's great tragedy can be considered
as a tragic hero similar to the other tragic characters such as Oedipus or Hamlet. Dr. Faustus
who sells his soul to Lucifer in exchange of twenty four years of knowledge ought to have
some special features in order to be considered as a tragic hero. But first of all let me present
Aristotle's definition of a "Tragic hero" and then I will elaborate on each element in relation
to the tragedy of "Dr. Faustus".
The action makes Hero Tragic. So, there should be a mistake or fault. Such a fault is
always portrayed by action not by character. Without action there cannot be a Tragedy in the
life of the character. Tragedy always happens, if the character has any evil, too much
goodness, lack of taking good judgments, pride or over-confidence, etc. So, Tragic Hero
should have certain good and evil qualities. He should have the amalgam of goodness and
badness. Then and then, conflict takes place. Conflict is another side of Tragic Hero.
According to Aristotle, he should have certain kinds of good and bad qualities. M.H. Abrams
remarks:
Doctor Faustus, a talented German scholar at Wittenburg, rails against the limits of human
knowledge. He has learned everything he can learn, or so he thinks, from the conventional
academic disciplines.
By comparing himself with a "studious artisan," Faustus hopes to gain all worldly pleasures
and goods as the fruits of scholarly work. He does not understand, however, that scholars
study for personal enlightenment, not material gain.
All of these things have left him unsatisfied, so now he turns to magic.
Faustus realizes that by practicing the dark arts, he will have supreme power in the
world. This is the turning point in his transition from scholar to sorcerer.
A Good Angle and an Evil Angel arrive, representing Faustus' choice between Christian
conscience and the path to damnation. The former advises him to leave off this pursuit of
magic, and the latter tempts him. From two fellow scholars, Valdes and carnivals Faustus
learns the fundamentals of the black arts. He thrills at the power he will have, and the great
feats he'll perform. He summons the devil Mephistophilis. They flesh out the terms of their
agreement, with Mephostophilis representing Lucifer. Faustus will sell his soul, in exchange
for twenty-four years of power, with Mephistopheles as servant to his every whim.
The chorus indirectly alludes to the myth of Icarus and Daedalus and compares
Faustus to the foolish Icarus. Daedalus and Icarus were father and son, respectively, and
were trapped in the famed labyrinth of Crete. To escape, Daedalus fashioned wings made of
wax and feathers so that they could fly off the island. He warned his son to stay safely
between the ocean and the sun, as the water would weigh down the feathers and drown him
while the sun would melt the wax. Icarus did not heed his father's advice, strayed close to the
sun and plummeted to his death. The chorus compares Faustus to Icarus because he too
foolishly rejects the safe middle ground. Instead, he aspires for things that are not meant for
mortals, and is thus predestined to be doomed.
In a comic relief scene, we learn that Faustus' servant Wagner has gleaned some magic
learning. He uses it to convince Robin the Clown to be his servant.
Before the time comes to sign the contract, Faustus has misgivings, but he puts them
aside. Mephostophilis returns and Faustus signs away his soul, writing with his own blood.
The words "Homo fuge" (Fly, man) appear on his arm, and Faustus is seized by fear.
Mephostophilis distracts him with a dance of devils. Faustus requests a wife, a demand
Mephostophilis denies, but he does give Faustus books full of knowledge.
Some time has passed. Faustus curses Mephostophilis for depriving him of heaven,
although he has seen many wonders. He manages to torment Mephostophilis, he can't digest
mention of God, and the devil flees. The Good and Evil Angel arrives again. The Good Angel
tells him to repent, and the Evil Angel tells him to stick to his wicked ways. Lucifer,
Belzebub, and Mephostophilis return, to intimidate Faustus. He is cowed by them, and agrees
to speak and think no more of God. They delight him with a pageant of the Seven Deadly
Sins, and then Lucifer promises to show Faustus hell. Meanwhile, Robin the Clown has
gotten one of Faustus' magic books. Faustus has explored the heavens and the earth from a
chariot drawn by dragons, and is now flying to Rome, where the feast honoring St. Peter is
about to be celebrated. Mephostophilis and Faustus wait for the Pope, depicted as an
arrogant, decidedly unholy man. They play a series of tricks, by using magic to disguise
themselves and make themselves invisible, before leaving.
Magically reparaling Faustus leg by knight-dealer and betraying him by selling him
a horse made of grass is very comic but seriously depicted.
Such a trivial and ridiculous scene looks like very awkward and exhausted but on
another side it is a slowly and steadily downfall of Dr.Faustus. By presenting such a scene,
the moral intent of Marlowe is that more we take life lightly more we fine our damnation
nearer to us. The title of the play is itself denotes Faustus tragic past that is chronologically
described and horribly winded up. They are also astonished that how a doctorate person
becomes a victim of his own destiny, having much ambition and longing for infinite
knowledge of the entire world.
How does Faustus own circumstances make him tragic? Is more important. The key
fact is that tragic flow makes man tragic. For instance, Hamlets great two soliloquies and
constant delay behind avenging his fathers murder and at last, very few dialogues of Hamlet
to Harotio create empathy among the audience. Dont we find such a great pity towards
Faustus? His soliloquies are also pin pointed. Something that is over-solitary, anguish and
dismal, tears, striving to repent, that only one hour and then half an hour of the midnight
intensify Faustus state of mind. M.H.Abrams observes,
We can say that it is a Moral Frailty of the Character, and we have a proverb,
The Chorus returns to tell us that Faustus returns home, where his vast knowledge of
astronomy and his abilities earn him wide renown. Meanwhile, Robin the Clown has also
learned magic, and uses it to impress his friend Rafe and summon Mephostophilis, who
doesn't seem too happy to be called. At the court of Charles V, Faustus performs illusions that
delight the Emperor. He also humiliates a knight named Benvolio. When Benvolio and his
friends try to avenge the humiliation, Faustus has his devils hurt them and cruelly transform
them, so that horns grow on their heads.
Faustus swindles a Horse-courser, and when the Horse-courser returns, Faustus plays a
frightening trick on him. Faustus then goes off to serve the Duke and Vanholt. Robin the
Clown, his friend Dick, the Horse-courser, and a Carter all meet. They all have been swindled
or hurt by Faustus' magic. They go off to the court of the Duke to settle scores with Faustus.
Faustus entertains the Duke and Duchess with petty illusions, before Robin the Clown and his
band of ruffians arrives. Faustus toys with them, besting them with magic, to the delight of
the Duke and Duchess.
Faustus' twenty-four years are running out. Wagner tells the audience that he thinks
Faustus prepares for death. He has made his will, leaving all to Wagner. But even as death
approaches, Faustus spends his days feasting and drinking with the other students. For the
delight of his fellow scholars, Faustus summons a spirit to take the shape of Helen of Troy.
Later, an Old Man enters, warning Faustus to repent. Faustus opts for pleasure instead, and
asks Mephostophilis to bring Helen of Troy to him, to be his love and comfort during these
last days. Mephostophilis readily agrees. Later, Faustus tells his scholar friends that he is
damned, and that his power came at the price of his soul. Concerned, the Scholars exit,
leaving Faustus to meet his fate. As the hour approaches, Mephostophilis taunts Faustus.
Faustus blames Mephostophilis for his damnation, and the devil proudly takes credit for it.
The Good and Evil Angel arrive, and the Good Angel abandons Faustus. The gates of Hell
open. The Evil Angel taunts Faustus, naming the horrible tortures seen there. The Clock
strikes eleven. Faustus gives a final, frenzied monologue, regretting his choices. At midnight
the devils enter. As Faustus begs God and the devil for mercy, the devils drag him away.
Later, the Scholar friends find Faustus' body, torn to pieces.
Faustus cannot bear the reality. He does not wish to die. He becomes like a madman. There is
a failure of Christianity at the end of the drama because Faustus fails to repent. He cries out
but no one is ready to listen. His moral failure leads him towards the woe-begone condition.
At the end Lucifer damns him forever. The ultimate lesson is that if we try to change our label
from Human being into God, ultimate truth will be a punishment and that is terrible
damnation.
The end of the Faustus is really horrible as well as troublesome for him. Faustus
doubts in gods existence and that is a worst thing for me. Eternal damnation is a result of
suspicion in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Faustus is a tragic common man.
Neither good works nor holiness of life can save a man but only faith, the Grace of God
freely given to the few who are chosen
Again, Salvation is by grace alone through faith. (Encyclopedia of Religion, Voll. 3, P.32).
God elects some few for salvation on the basis of their faith. [According to him, to get
salvation one has to leave all the worldly things. And, one cannot be free of burden or sinless
until he receives the way of Christ who is the only link between man and God and who
sacrifiecd his life for the salvation of human beings. It is also rememberable that Calvinism is
mostly accepted in Puritanism.]
Bunyan was a Puritan non-conformist. From the childhood, Bunyan was mentally
disappointed and doubtful of his salvation, and thought himself a sinner. At his spiritual crisis
at that time, Bunyan got acquainted with the Bedford pastor John Gifford whose religious
discussion made him begin to feel himself one of them chosen by God, and to prepare
himself facing the tests of faith. In the text, The Pilgrims Progress, we get the influence and
hints of all of these facts.
Christian, formerly named Graceless, central figure of this allegory, clothed with rags,
standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house and a great burden upon his
back, reads a book in his hand, symbolising the Bible and becomes conscious of his terrible
condition in the city of destruction, the living place of life without God. His lamenting
expression is What shall I do? Being disregarded of his thought of coming danger his
family members and neighbours, next day, reading that book again, he wants to be saved.
Then, there comes a man named Evangelist representing bringer of good news and preacher
of right way. He shows him a way though the Wicket Gate. So, Christian begins to run
leaving all back and putting his fingers in his ears and crying
Here, this incident allegorically shows a Puritans utter helpessness, but later a spiritual
journey or pilgrimage towards eternal world, since he must leave his worldiness to get
salvation. It also indicates Bunyans incident of early life with Jhon Gifford.
Christian has been able to be free from two persons, Obstinate and Pliable, symbolising two
mental states of human mind, before he comes out of the Slaugh of Despond, the first
trouble in his journey, with the aid of a man called Help.
The Slaugh of Despond is very important here. It represents a hopeless state of despair, doubt
and fear, after ones having realised his sin. So a pilgrimage must overcome it to reach the
way of Christ.
Then, Christian meets Wordly Wiseman who misleads him from the right path. But again he
is directed by Evangelist respresenting Christians own consciousness. Indeed, the intention
of Wordly Wiseman is to divert Christian from his feeling of Puritanism and Calvinism.
At last Wicket Gate is opened for Christian by Good Will. This menas Christ accepted him
into the Christian life. Since Christ himself is the Gate. Good Will is an allegorical figure
standing for devine grace. In short, anyone, wishing to reach the celestial city and to be an
elected one, must make a pilgrimage through the way of Christ.
At the House of Interpreter, Christian becomes spiritually enriched knowing about the
qualities, duties and carefulness of a newly converted Christian by seeing many symbolic
pictures and incidents regarding spiritual things. In fact, Interpreter plays the role of a
preacher of the Bible who interpretes the Gospel to the members of his congregation, as
Gifford did to Bunyan.
When Christian comes near to a cross, representing Christ who sacrificed his life for the
salvation of man, he gets rid of his sin or burden. And by Shining Ones or angles he is
clothed with change of raiment, put a mark on his forehead, and given a roll with a seal upon
it like a certificate which will, later, be proved to be very essential to enter the Celestial City.
Though Christian has already been elected, to get salvation, now he must face the tests of his
deep faith in God through many perilous incidents both physical and spiritual.
Now Christian makes his way disregarding all perils. He arrives at a hill called difficulty near
which there are two lions to test his faith. Then in the valley of Humiliation, he meets a fiend
named Apollyon whose task is to prevent the Pilgrims from going to Celestial City. Christian
defeats him with a sword representing faith. Then he passes the Shadow of Death, symbol
of the dark state of soul or hell.
With a companion named Faithful, representing deep faith in God and salvation, Christian
arrives at the Varity Fair where all the worldly things are sold and which is arranged by
Beelzebub, the Satan and through whose temptation, each Pilgrim has to go. Here the death
sentence is given to faithful who reaches thus the celestial city easity on account of his faith.
And Christian gets released from here. It suggests that each pilgrim has to be released from
the worldy temptations.
In this way, Christian with his friend, Hopeful goes on his journey. They are to cross a river
by themselves. Actually the dept of the river depends totally on their dept of faith. They are
told-
You shall find it deeper or shallower, as you believe in the King of the place
Indeed, there is no alternative save passing the river to reach the celestial city or Heaven. It
reminds us of the Pulsirat in the term of Islam. At last Christian and his friend overcome
their last test of faith and are received in the Celestial City with great respect and dignity.
A question may be raised- what has been fate of those, who have come through the way
without Christs and have lack of faith? The answer is that those like Igrnorance have fallen
into, Hell, even after coming very near to Heaven, having failed to show the entrance
The Pilgrims Progress shows up, of the three spiritual religious the doctrines, Calvinism
which, departing from Augustinism and St Pauls Doctrine of Origine Sin, advoctes the
Doctrine of Elect-
Neither good works nor holliness of life can save a man but only faith, the grace of God
freely givento the few who are chosen
and
That is God elects some few for salvation on the basis of their deep faith in God and Gods
grace. (Puritanism Calvinism)
Themes
Knowledge Gained Through Travel
The Pilgrims Progress demonstrates that knowledge is gained through travel by portraying
Christian and his companions learning from their mistakes on their journey. Pilgrimage
depends on travel, and so a pilgrim must be a voyager prepared to go far and wide. Yet in
Bunyans book, voyage in itself does not make a traveler a pilgrim. The pilgrim must advance
spiritually as he or she advances geographically. The key factor is knowledge, which must
increase as the pilgrim proceeds forward. Christian never makes the same mistake twice or
meets the same foe twice, because he learns from his experiences. Once he experiences the
Slough of Despond, he never needs to be despondent again. Other pilgrims who lack
understanding may advance fairly far, like Heedless and Too-bold, who almost get to the
Celestial City; however, they do not understand what they undergo, and so they only babble
nonsense and talk in their sleep. They are travelers but are not pilgrims because they cannot
verbalize or spiritually grasp what they have been through.
Motifs
Sleep
Sleep represents a symbol that can either be inspirational or paralyzing on a pilgrims journey
toward the Celestial City. Whenever the pilgrims grow sleepy on their journey, danger awaits.
The Enchanted Ground threatens to lull travelers into sleepy forgetfulness of their spiritual
mission and derail their salvation. Indeed the two saddest failed pilgrims that Christiana
meets on her journey are Too-bold and Heedless, who make it to the very outskirts of the
Celestial City only to fall asleep in the deceitful arbor. Their sleep appears more than a
natural failing and seems like a spiritual disaster. When they babble incoherently in their
sleep, their guide explains that they have lost the use of their reason and thus cannot attain
their spiritual goals. Sleep here symbolizes loss of direction and spiritual bankruptcy. But loss
of direction can also be positive, and sleep can spur pilgrims on their spiritual journey. The
narrator has lost his direction in life at the very beginning of the book, but when he falls
asleep, sleep brings him a vision of spiritual improvement. He cannot dream without
sleeping.
The Wilderness
The pilgrims in Bunyans book begin in a city and end in a city, and in between they wander
through huge stretches of wilderness. The wild outdoors frame the journeys they undertake
throughout most of the book. The motif of the wilderness has famous biblical precedents.
Christ spent forty days in the wilderness, and the Israelites wandered through it for forty
years. The uncivilized outdoors symbolize not just solitude but a place of spiritual test, a
place of despair and hardship that strengthens faith. The difference between the biblical
instance of wilderness and Bunyans wilderness lies in their locations. In the Bible,
wilderness is an actual desert, a physical locale. In The Pilgrims Progress, wilderness shines
as a motif of an inward state, except perhaps at the very beginning when the narrator says he
wandered in the wilderness before dreaming of Christian. However, in every example of
wilderness that follows, from the Slough to the hill of Difficulty, the outdoors remains a
symbol of inner struggle, the hard path that the soul must follow every day. When Christian
almost drowns and fails to reach the Celestial City in the end, he recalls his faith in Jesus
Christ and is suddenly filled with renewed strength and hope to reach the Celestial City.
These inner struggles in the wilderness test the pilgrims and separate the spiritually strong
from the weak.
Sensual Pleasure
The Pilgrims Progress portrays sensual pleasure both negatively and positively. In one way
the pleasure of the senses are devalued in the book. Christian and Christiana and her group
hardly express any wish to stop and reflect on their previous lives because an important
journey lies ahead. Examples of sensual pleasure often threaten to thwart the pilgrims
advancement, as when Christianas son enjoys the taste of the devils fruit and then falls sick,
or when Madam Bubble tempts Standfast with sensual pleasures. Bunyan seems to affirm the
basic Puritan attitude toward all pleasures of the flesh, which views the senses as dangerous
diversions for the soul that must be rejected. However, Bunyan actually admits that in the
right circumstances, sensual pleasure can be acceptable and even beneficial for pilgrims.
When the pilgrims stop at the Palace Beautiful, sensual beauty surrounds them, and they eat
tasty food with no danger to their immortal souls. When they rest with the shepherds in the
Delectable Mountains, they are free to hear the birds sing and savor the whole experience.
And finally the Celestial City itself is as a strong affirmation of sensual pleasures, including
fragrant flowers and golden streets. Sensual enjoyment is perfectly acceptable if it is in the
service of spiritual progress.
Symbols
Houses
Pilgrimage means travel and movement, but even the houses in The Pilgrims Progress serve
an important and necessary function for travelers. Certainly many houses in the book are
places of imprisonment; places where movement is denied and salvation rejected. Giant
Despairs Doubting Castle exemplifies a house that thwarts pilgrims movement forward by
holding them hostage. But other houses are necessary way stations in which the pilgrims have
the opportunity not only to take rest and nourishment but also to process the knowledge they
have acquired along the way. Christian needs the house of the Interpreter to learn how to read
his own experience and to interpret what he sees on his journey. Similarly, he needs the
Palace Beautiful not just to relax but also to receive counsel and weapons from the
mistresses. Christian could have continued onward in unending movement, bypassing these
houses. But if he had, he would have missed crucial learning opportunities. Pilgrimage
demands understanding as well as travel. Houses often provide the necessary down time in
which to process the experiences of ones travels and convert them into understanding.
Christians Certificate
Christians certificate, or the roll that he receives from the one of the three Shining Ones after
losing his burden, symbolizes Christians first accomplishment toward salvation. Appearing
right after the burden drops to the ground, the certificate symbolically exchanges that burden
as Christians worldly cares are replaced by a spiritual mission. But the certificate is not a
guarantee that he will enter the Celestial City. As a pilgrim, he can only rely on his own
strength and fortitude to make it that far. Yet if he does arrive there, his certificate symbolizes
his readiness to enter. Significantly it appears to be a written document, a rolled-up
manuscript presumably penned by the Shining Ones that delivered it. Christian never tries to
read it or even to sneak a peek at its message. He reads other written documents, like the
book he holds at the beginning of the narrators dream, but some writing is not for human
viewing or comprehension. The certificate speaks about Christian, yet not to him. His only
duty is to carry the certificate. As such, the certificate symbolizes the nature of every devout
pilgrim, trying as hard as possible, but knowing that much of his or her success relies on
powers beyond individual control and effort.
Gates
Gates test spiritual faith and commitment. To reach the Celestial City, Christian and
Christiana not only have to avoid a number of dangerous creatures and slippery sloughs and
hills, but they must pass through two gates. These gates are important because not just
anyone can pass, as seen with other characters, such as Ignorance. In Part I, when Goodwill
commands the Wicket Gate to allow Christian through, Goodwill lets him pass because
Christian states he is traveling to Mount Zion. Goodwill is a good judge of character and lets
him pass. Many other characters, such as Formalist and Hypocrisy, would not gain entry
because they cheat throughout their journey, as seen when they climb over the wall of
Salvation. Christian also possesses a certificate of entry, which allows him entry to the
Celestial City gates. He has earned his certificate because he maintained a spiritual journey
and did not fall victim to any of the characters who tried to pull him off course. In contrast,
when Christiana approaches the gate leading to the Celestial City, she and her group are
immediately allowed entry after she mentions she is Christians wife. Christians story is so
widely known on the outskirts of the Celestial City that Christiana need only say his name,
and she is allowed in. Without Christians name, the gatekeeper tells them he judges the
pilgrims who seek entry by how they react to his ferocious dog. The two gates leading to and
into the Celestial City represent a new life and journey that not every pilgrim can access.
These gates might also be compared to the gates of heaven. After all, those allowed past the
gates of heaven have been judged before Christ and allowed entry because of the good that
they represent.
The Canonization
BY JOHN DONNE
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honor, or his grace,
Or the king's real, or his stampd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Donne does not lay stress on beauty or rather the aesthetic element in passion. His poems are
sensuous and fantastic. He goes through the whole gamut of passion. Dryden writes: Donne
affects the metaphysics not only in his satires but in his amorous verses where nature only
should reign. He perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy,
when he should engage their hearts and entertain them with the softness of love
Tenderness and sentiment are not the qualities to be found in Donnes poetry. Donne in
Lovers Infinitenesse, pleads with his beloved that she should give him a part of her heart.
After she has given him the part, he demands the whole heart. This is the goal and
consummation of love. He then startles and outrages the expectations of his readers.
Though Donne was influenced by the sixteenth and the seventeenth century poets, yet he did
not tread on the beaten track. His concept of poetry was unconventional. In his poetry,
intellect takes the form, primarily, of wit by which heterogeneous ideas are yoked together by
violence. The seventeenth century poets labeled his poetry as 'strong line poetry', mainly, on
account of his concise expression and his deliberate toughness. In his life, he was never
called a metaphysical poet. After his death, his poetry was re-evaluated and some other
important features were found in it, which won the name of a metaphysical poet for Donne.
"Poetry inspired by a philosophical concept of the universe and the role assigned to human
spirit in the great drama of existence".
This definition is based on the metaphysical poetry of Dante, Goethe and Yeats. So
"metaphysical" is applicable to poetry who is highly philosophical or which touches
philosophy.
Combination of passion and thought characterizes his work. His use of conceit is often witty
and sometimes fantastic. His hyperboles are outrageous and his paradoxes astonishing. He
mixes fact and fancy in a manner which astounds us. He fills his poems with learned and
often obscure illusions besides, some of his poems are metaphysical in literal sense, they are
philosophical and reflective, and they deal with concerns of the spirit or soul.
He does not employ emotionally exciting rhythm. His poetry goes on lower ebb. Even his
love poems do not excite emotions in us. Even in a "Song" while separating, he is logical that
he is not parting for weariness of his beloved.
His speculations and doctrines are beyond common human experience. His ideas are beyond
the understanding of a layman and are a blend of intellect and emotions making his approach
dialectical and scholastic. He asks his beloved in "The Message" to keep his eyes and heart
because they might have learnt certain ills from her, but then, he asks her to give them back
so that he may laugh at her and see her dying when some other proves as false to her as she
has proved to the poet.
Donne was a self-conscious artist, therefore, had a desire to show off his learning. In his love
poetry, he gives illustrations from the remote past. In his divine poems, he gives biblical
references like the Crucification.
His style is highly fantastic, curt and he uses rough words. He rejects the conventional style
which was romantic, soft and diffused.
Paradoxical statements are also found in his poems. In "The Indifferent" Donne describes
constancy in men as vice and ask them:
He deals with the problem of body and soul in "The Anniversarie" of the individual and the
universe in "The Sunne Rising" and of deprivation and actuality in "A Noctrunall". In his
divine poems he talks about the Crucification, ransom, sects / schism, religion, etc.
Donne is a coterie poet. He rejects the Patrarchan tradition of poetry, adopted by the
Elizabethans. The Elizabethan poetry was the product off emotions. He rejected platonic
idealism, elaborate description and ornamentation. He was precise and concentrated in poetry
while the Elizabethan are copious and plentiful in words.
Seventeenth century had four major prerequisites; colloquial in diction, personal in tone,
logical in structure and undecorative and untraditional imagination, which were also present
in Donne.
To conclude, he is more a seventeenth century poet than a metaphysical poet. There are some
features in his poetry which differentiate him e.g. he is a monarch of with and more
colloquial than any other seventeenth century poet. If other seventeenth century poet bring
together emotions and intellect, he defines emotional experience with intellectual parallels
etc. Still he writes in the tradition of the seventeenth century poets.
The Collar
BY GEORGE HERBERT
I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load."
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Child!
And I replied My Lord.
Background:
He was a Churchman of the Anglican Church. And his religious faith had grown and
developed in this Church. He was influenced by it right from his childhood under the benign
guidance of his pious mother and seasoned family chaplains. And long after the complication
of his University graduation, he was ordained and placed over the little church of Bemarton.
Herbert's mind was moulded by religion and by the Anglican Church. As he was brought up
in religious atmosphere and his religious faith is shaped by his pious mother, we see that his
poems are the representations of his sacred mind and thought. His poems are nothing but the
true expression of love towards God and Jesus. As Rose Macaulay says, "Herbert is, in a
sense, the first of the Anglican poets; the first Anglican poet, that is, whose whole expression
and art was coloured by and confined within the walls of his Church."
His poems:
Herbert finds and gets satisfaction writing religious poems. Even the two sonnets that he sent
to his mother when he was only seventeen year's old are the symbol of what kind of poet he
wanted to be. In his after years, he writes divine poems and sees beauty only in God. He is all
for God, his king, whose praise he will sing in a plain, homely language. Even just before his
death he gave a manuscript to one of his friends and the message that he gave is worthy. He
said, "Deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a
picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul before I
could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my master, in whose service I have now found perfect
freedom."
However, Herbert is called the devotional or the religious poet because he deals with such
subjects. The theme of most of his poems is religion. He deals with the soul, God, life after
death, the relation between human spirits and senses and so on. He talks of man's relation to
God, of body to the soul, of the life here and to the life hereafter. In this relation, he often
shows rebellion, reconciliation and the final submission.
Moreover, his poetry is a sequence of religious poems. His motive is always to make the
divine seem original, the secular imitation. He sees the things of daily life in direct relation to
a supernatural order. Heavenly truths are indeed what he looks for in all his poems. There are
many poems in which Herbert devoutly offers his homage to God or Christ, and make
surrender of himself to the Almighty. These are poems of untroubled faith in which the tone is
throughly one of affirmation. "Easter-Wings" is one of such poems. The theme of his poems
is that Paradise was lost through Adam's sin but was regained by Christ's sacrifice. The
underlining idea is that the fall of man is the essential basis of his rise, or in other words if
there is no fall, there can be no flight. Here he says,
"Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore."
His another poem "The Altar", shows his devotion to God and urges to take his broken heart
into his own for his own satisfaction. He shows his devotion saying,
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart.
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy name.
There are some other poems like DISCIPLINE, AFFLICTION, PRAYER etc. in which
Herbert shows his extraordinary love towards God. He praises God in many styles in many of
his poems. As for example "The Temple" is a collection of 169 religious poems out of which
140 have been composed in different patterns of stanza, and out of which 116 patterns have
been used for only single time. It appears that Herbert wanted to employ his skill in God's
praise in as much different forms as possible.
Other poets:
Herbert, John Donne and Vaughan are contemporary poets. Although they are associated with
the metaphysical group, they have some similarities and dissimilarities among them.
However, a comparative discussion with George Herbert and other poets is given below:--
Donne and Herbert :
John Donne ( 1572-1631 ) established what has become known as the Metaphysical style of
poetry which was taken up by later poets like Herbert and Vaughan. Donne developed his
technique writing love poetry, and later adapted it to the writing of religious poetry. George
Herbert's poetry shows that to a large extent he followed the lead offered by Donne, but he
also made contributions which were quite distinct.
But they have some similarities between them. Donne's Holy Sonnet 'Batter my Heart' and
Herbert's 'The Collar' are both poems about the struggle to maintain faith in God. In the
opening line of 'Batter my Heart' Donne writes,
Herbert, showing the influence of Donne, writes in his opening line of 'The Collar':
Both openings are abrupt and dramatic, evoking violent action, and both are delivered in a
personal and colloquial manner.
Herbert and Vaughan :
Henry Vaughan shares Herbert's preoccupation with the relationship between humanity and
God. Both see mankind as restless and constantly seeking a sense of harmony and fulfillment
through contact with God. In
Both poets are conscious of the sinfulness of mankind, but in other respects their attitudes
towards mankind seem to differ.
From the above discussions, it can be said that George Herbert devoted his poetic genius for
the praise of God and the theme of most of his poems is religion that leads us towards
spiritual and moral ideas. And his poems find expressions only in God's praise. So
undoubtedly we can consider George Herbert is a devotional or religious poet.
Bacon as an Essayist
What is an essay? The literary essay is indefinable as a spring day in the wood, but it does
suggest some qualities of an essay like the day itself. The root meaning of the term, essay is
an attempt or trial. Dr. Johnson defined an essay as a loose sally of the mind, an irregular
undigested piece, not a regular and orderly composition. The emphasis is on the informality
of tone and the fact that an essay in not an exhaustive, argumentative disquisition on a theme.
The essay could be objective as well as subjective. In subjective essays, the object is not
important, any subject will do.
It is the writers personality which lends charm to this type of essay. J.J. Lobbanss definition
of the essay as, a short discursive article on any literary, philosophical or social subject,
viewed from a personal or historical standpoint includes all types of essays.
Montaigne and Bacon: The essay as a distinct form was born in the 16th century with
French writer, Montaignes Essays. He frankly confessed that his essays were about himself,
in the sense that they portray him in a number of moods and habits. Bacon borrowed this
form from Montaigne but suited it to his own purpose. Bacon lived in a time and country
where life was both serious and vigorous and he is occupied with serious matters. One can
say that these essays show his egotism in the sense that they show his ideas and thoughts
based on his own experience. But in Bacons essays we dontfind the chatty quality found in
Montaignes or Charles Lambs essays. Emerson is the one modern writer with whom Bacon
may be fairly compared, for their method is much the same. But Hugh Walter rightly says,
With Bacon we enter the world of starkrealities, rational and grave, having no place for
lively humor or conversational ease. But this doesnt detract us from his greatness as an
essayist. To him goes the credit of being the first of English essayists, as he remains, for
sheer mass and weight of genius, the greatest
The form and subject of Bacons purpose: Bacons essays come home to mens business
and bosoms. Bacons essays group themselves round three great principles: (a) Man in
relation to the world and society (b) Man in relation to himself and (c) Man in relation to his
Maker. In all of these categories of his essays he has given variety. Man is the subject of
Bacons essays. This human interest is one reason why his essays are popular and have
universal appeal because human beings are most interested in themselves. For Bacons
purpose, only this form was the most suitable. He developed this genre with his essayistic
qualities. The subject of his essays is varied and bears a wide range. He writes on a variety of
themes such as family life, politics, marriage, friendship, studies, ambition and many others.
Bacon thus proved the capacity of the essay form to be all-inclusive. Later essayists too
proved it so we have political, historical and biographical essays. Bacons intent in writing
essays was a serious one. He intended them to be Counsels Civil and Moral. They were not
written for amusements or leisure time. They do not have the personal element that make
Lambs essays too charming. In this differs from Montaigne too. Bacon gives opinions and
never speaks of himself. He speaks like a statesman or a moralist, not like a street boy. Bacon
is concerned in most of his essays with ethical qualities of men and with political matters and
thought it clear that he admires moral and intellectual truth, he is practical and rather
opportunistic in the advice he offers. He doesnt expect his reader to aspire to a high standard
of morality; he simply approaches to him with practical and worldly didacticism. His essays
have historical significance, too, for they were written for a particular group of men to offer
them guidance that they must rise in the world and do good to the state. His essays are brief
as any essay should be. He is not lightly dealing with important topics. He deals with all
essay topics seriously even if they are unimportant. As he writes about gardens, but
authoritatively and in a dignified manner, not humorously and subjectively like Lamb or
Montaigne. A man who wants to achieve worldly and material success and popularity could
easily find very useful principle here in Bacons essays. The readers interest is held by the
historical and literary allusions tinged with Greek and Latin references.
Style: His essays are also important from stylistic point of view, too. To Bacon must go the
credit, not only of introducing a new literary form into England but also that he developed a
style which is marked for its pitch and pregnancy in the communication of thought. It was the
first style set in England which later traveled to the age of Addison, Steele and Swift. He
discovered the value of brief, crisp and firmly-knitted sentences of a type hitherto unfamiliar
in English. He also rejected the elaborate euphuistic style overcrowded with imagery and
conceits. The most important characteristic of his style, that which gives the essays the
position of a classic in English Language is the terseness of expression and epigrammatic
force. He has an unraveled ability of packing his thoughts into the smallest possible space.
The essays may be described as one critic says, Infinite riches in a little room. (Give
sentential examples from his essays). Bacon was a man of the renaissance and in his essays;
we find a characteristic of his age: the use of figurative language. Similes and Metaphors and
striking comparisons are found in his essays. The scholars love of learning is evidenced by
the frequent use of quotations and allusions in the essays. What is most important regarding
his contribution is the terseness and epigrammatic quality of his essays.
Conclusion: Bacons essays are a proof of his strength of mind, intellect and knowledge.
They are packed with remarkable sagacity and insight, shrewd and profound observation. He
showed for the first time with (along with Hooker) that English was as capable as Greek or
Latin of serving the highest purposes of language. Sercombe and Allen say, Trite as the
subjects are familiar as the treatment of those who know the Essays, the reader is seldom
unrewarded by a sensation of novelty, so multitudinous are the face of Bacons thoughts.
John Freeman says, The intellectual spend-thrift is the true essayist. As one of the worlds
epoch-making books, Bacons essays have done much to mould and direct the character of
many individuals. The brevity of these essays has been recommendation to readers with
limited leisure. They have become a classic of the English Language and they owe this
position, not to their subject-matter, but to their style.
Bacons prose style includes a number of features common to the Elizabethans and the
Jacobeans:
1) The of Bacon remains for the main part aphoristic. These are a terseness of expression and
epigrammatic brevity in the essays of Bacon. In fact, the essays of Bacon have to be read
slowly because of the compact and condensed thought. There are a number of lines, which
are read like proverbs. As for example we can quote the essay Of Truth. In this essay Bacon
says A lie faces God and shrinks pleasure. These sentences show that Bacon is a man of
practical wisdom.
2) This aphoristic style always depends on the device of balance and antithesis. In the essay
Of Studies. Bacon says, Studies serve for ornament and for ability In the essay Of Studies he
says Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. He scrupulously
presents the advantages and the disadvantages of a particular issue. In the essay Of Mavriage
and Single life. Bacon says that an unmarried man is a good friend, good master and good
servant, but he is unreliable as a good citizen. In Of Parents and Children Bacon says that
children sweeten labour lent they make misfortune bitterer; they increase the care of life but
they mitigate the remembrance of death. This sort of weighing and balancing makes his style
antithetical.
3) In Bacons style there is an over luxuriance of figures of speech. Bacon is a past master of
simile and metaphor. The fact is that Bacons mind was wonderfully quick in perceiving
analogies of ass types. His similes and metaphors are telling. They strike, they charm and
sometimes they thrill. As for example in the essay Of Truth Bacon writes: A mixture of
falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver which may make the metal work better, but it
debaseth it. In Of Study he says: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and
some few to be chewed and digested.
4) Bacon is a master of rhetoric and pithy sentences in his essays. Indeed, the secu of Bacons
strength lies in his conciseness. We ignored the unnecessary conceits and over crowded
imagery of the Enthusiast; but he knew, how to high up his thought with well-placed figures
and give to it an imaginative glow and charm when required.
Bacons style was suited for all occasions. His prose style was eminently fitted for such
dignified subjects as Truth, Atheism and Love and also such ordinary subjects as Marriage
and single life and gardening.The adaptability to the subject matter was a characteristic
quality of his writings.
To conclude we may say that Bacons style is compact yet polished and indeed some of its
conciseness is due to the skillful adaptation of Latin idiom and phrase. But its wealth of
metaphor is characteristically Elizabethan and reflects the exuberance of the Renaissance. No
man in English literature is so fertile in pregnant and pithy comparisons. Bacon set up a new
method of prose writing, which was at once easy, simple, graceful, rhetorical, musical and
condensed.
He shows an extraordinary insight regarding the problems that men face in life. But his
wisdom is only practical and not moral. Alexander Pope has given the following remarks
about Bacon in his epic:
There is some basic truth in this contention. One cannot deny his wisdom, his observation,
intellect and genius. Bacon was a very complex and enigmatic character. The dichotomy of
moral values what one finds in his essays was to be found in his character, too. Compton-
Rickett says, He had a great brain, not a great soul. He wanted to serve humanity with
through the expansion of usable knowledge. He was aware that no headway could be made
in this world without adopting certain mean ways. He was a product of the Renaissance with
composite qualities such as wisdom, meanness and brightness. Bacon was a man of the
Renaissance and that was an age which tried to explore to the full, the opportunities
of mind and body afforded to man. The term, Renaissance means Re-birth or
more generally the Revival of Learning. It was a series of events by which Europe
passed from Medieval to a Modern Civilization. In this age, there was a new spirit of
inquiry, of criticism and of passionate scientific inventions. Literature of that age
was chiefly marked by this spirit and Bacons essays have several features that show
the spirit of Renaissance. A very important writer of the Italian Renaissance was
Machiavelli whose opportunistic philosophy sacrificed high ethical ideals in the interest of
achieving material progress. Man is an individual and an end in himself and this
sense of individualism gave rise to the feeling that he must know how to get on in this
world. The revival of classical learning and the study of ancient Greek and Roman Literature
and history was a hallmark of the Renaissance. The spirit of learning is very much in the
essays of Bacon. There are many allusions to ancient history and the references to
classical mythology are all evidence of the typical Renaissance culture. Latin writers
such as Seneca and Virgil and Lucian have frequently been drawn. His love of
learning is portrayed in his essay Of Studies and he substantiates his arguments in his
essay, Of Friendship with instances from history. Blake on reading the essays of Bacon is
supposed to have remarked that they were good advice for Satans Kingdom. Now, a
Satans Kingdom naturally implies a state of affairs in which morality has no place or
in which actions are governed by a complete lack of principles. To some extent, it is
indeed undeniable that Bacons advice incorporates a certain cool disregard for high
moral ideals. The actual fact is that in Bacons essays, one find dichotomy of values, the
essays present a strange complexity and contradiction of wisdom and values. In order
to understand the real meaning of his essays, it is imperative to understand the
underlying purpose of his writing. Man was the subject of most
literature and man is the subject of Bacons essays too. Thus the wisdom
that Bacon shows in his essays is regulated by the practical consideration. It is frankly
utilitarian. This does not mean that the essays dont contain ethical or
philosophical values, they do, but the overall hallmark of his essays is practical use.
Wisdom, Meanness and Brightness: To a religious-minded man like Blake, advice such as
what Bacon offers in his essays must indeed have been shocking. Blake would regard any
utilitarian advice as opposite to Gods ways, but Bacon was not so particular, for he a man of
the Renaissance. It is easy to assume that Bacons wisdom was cynical because many of his
advice calmly ignores ethical standards and seems to imply that nothing succeeds like
success. Bacon is utilitarian, but he is so because he realized that the vast majority of the
people in the world are guided by this attitude and success for them has only one meaning
the material success. His essays reflect the profound wisdom of his mind, his brightness is
ascertained by his vast knowledge and literary and classical allusions made in his works, his
meanness does not deal with his money. He was reputed to be a very generous man. He was
mean because he showed a surprising lack of principle in promoting his selfish interests.
Philosopher cum moralist: At least two of his essays present him as entertaining deep
regard for high sentiments and the sanctity of truth. Of Truth speaks of truth, love and fair
dealings in high terms. Here he is a philosopher who advocates the pursuit of truth. He is also
a moralist when he says that mans mind should turn upon the poles of truth. Falsehood
debases man despite his material gains and success. Bacon advocates man to follow a path of
truth and truthfulness. Similarly, his essay Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature is on a
purely moral plane. He counsels goodness, charity and benevolence and there is a clear
condemnation of evil. There are some essays in which he puts a number of moral precepts,
not ignoring prudential aspects. When we come to Bacons essays dealing with subjects such
as love, marriage, family life and parents and children, we are struck by the cold and
unemotional treatment of topics what could easily admit an emotional approach. Prudence
governs marriage, love and friendship. Love is an emotion, not fit for life according to Bacon.
As a philosopher, he takes a balanced view of every thing, weighs the pros and cons of every
issue, presents different aspects of the picture and counsels moderation. This is a rationalists
approach and it preludes emotion and feeling. The essays are a handbook of practical
wisdom. Each essay is a collection of suggestion and guideline for a man of action. His
essays lack coherence and logical sequence, otherwise a quality in a standard essay. But his
essays are unity of ideas.
Conclusion: But it has to be pointed out that Bacon is not a moral idealist. He does not
preach morality, but not ideal morality. The kind of morality he teaches is tinged with what is
called worldliness. We might even say that the guiding principle is expediency. Yet one
cannot say that Bacon is amoral or immoral in his advice. In every issue, he balances the
advantage and disadvantage. Even within the utilitarian code, there is a code of conduct a
morality that is perhaps as high as is easily practicable in the world as we know it. His essays
embody the wisdom and philosophy and morality of a clear-eyed realist who knows quite
well that men should be and but also knew what they actually were. Bacon is undoubtedly a
man whose morality is greater than the average mans, but it is not of the highest order. The
pursuit of good and right are important but not if it proves too costly in worldly terms. His
advice is neither for Satans Kingdom nor for Gods, but for the Kingdom of man.
As its title suggests, the bulk of Burton's text is devoted to cataloguing the many variants,
manifestations, and causes of the mental "disease" Melancholy; but before Burton begins his
dissection of the anatomy of melancholy, he first embarks upon a more general discussion of
overall cognitive functioning, believing it "not impertinent to make a brief digression of the
anatomy of the body and faculties of the soul, for better understanding of that which is to
follow." This digression, which appears in Partition I, Section I, Members 1 and 2 of the text,
provides a detailed analysis of human cognitive processes and of their physiological (and
sometimes neurological, in Burton's own terminology,) basis.
The Model:
Burton's model of human cognition is a mix of philosophizing about the qualitative nature of
consciousness and attempts to identify the physiological mechanisms responsible for carrying
out the various cognitive processes of which humans are capable. At the heart of Burton's
cognitive model is a conception of the mind and body as a total organism. While he does at
times gesture towards an historically familiar mind/body dualism, the primary focus of his
anatomy is a discussion of the physiology of thought. (see the Discussion below for a more
detailed discussion of Burton's dualism.) As such, he begins his anatomy of the mind with an
anatomy of the body. Relying on the systems of Laurentius and Hippocrates, Burton asserts
that everything that is contained within the human body is composed of either a Spirit or a
Humour. In his definition of Spirits, however, he sets the stage for a type of theorizing about
the nature of thought and consciousness in which the Greeks themselves did not engage.
According to Burton, "Spirit is a most subtle vapour, which is expressed from the blood [but
is not actually blood itself, which is a Humour] and the instrument of the soul, to perform all
his actions; a common tie or medium betwixt the body and the soul" (129). This belief is, in
itself, not radical; but Burton goes on to explain exactly where in the body Spirits are
produced, thereby anchoring the soul in the body in a way which is historically unique.
According to Burton there are three types of Spirits--Natural, Vital, and Animal--originating
in the liver, heart, and brain respectively. The liver produces the Natural which are carried
through the body by veins; the heart converts the Natural spirits into Vital spirits and
transports these through the body via the arteries; and the brain converts the Vital spirits into
Animal spirits and diffuses them "by the nerves, to the subordinate members, giv[ing] sense
and motion to them all." The nerves themselves are "membranes without, and full of marrow
within; they proceed from the brain, and carry the animal spirits for sense and motion" (129).
Burton goes on to distinguish between two types of nerves: Soft and Hard. Soft nerves, he
claims, serve the seven senses, while the harder nerves "serve for the motion of the inner
parts proceeding from the marrow in the back" (130).
After a not so brief description of the exact functioning of the harder nerves and of all the
internal organs which they control, Burton begins to lay out the beginnings of a rudimentary
model of human cognition which is based in physiology. According to Burton, "in the upper
region serving the animal faculties [the head], the chief organ is the brain, which is a soft,
marowish, and white substance, engendered of the purest part of seed and spirits, included by
many skins" (134), divided into several parts, each with a unique function. The "fore part
hath many concavities distinguished by certain ventricles, which are the receptacles of the
spirits, brought hither by the arteries from the heart, and are there refined to a more heavenly
nature, to perform the actions of the soul. Of these ventricles there be three -right, left, and
middle. The right and left answer to Primera parte Anatomy of Melancholy their site, and
beget animal spirits; if they be any way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles,
moreover, are held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a common
concourse and cavity of them both and hath two passages, the one to receive pituita, and the
other extends itself to the fourth creek: in this they place imagination and cogitation ...The
fourth creek behind the head is common to the cerebel or little brain, and marrow of the
backbone, the last, and most solid of all the rest, which receives the animal spirits from the
other ventricles, and conveys them to the marrow in the back, and is the place where they say
the memory is seated" (135).
As for the soul itself, which is 'infused' into the fore part of the brain, Burton claims that "We
can understand all things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend" (135); however, this
does not prevent from theorizing both about its nature and about the details of how it
performs its work. According to Burton, the soul is divided into three principle faculties:
'vegetal', 'sensitive' and 'rational'. The vegetal soul is "a substancial act of an organical body,
by which it is nourished, augmented, and begets another like unto itself' (135). It does not
include the conscious impulses to engage in these activities, but rather the subconscious
impulses which, for example, tell the stomach to digest. The sensible soul is "an act of an
organical body, by which it lives, hath sense, appetite, judgment, breath, and motion" (137).
This faculty of the soul is seated in the fore part of the brain and is divided into two distinct
functions -'apprehending' and 'moving'. "By the apprehensive power we perceive the species
of sensible things, present or absent, and retain them as wax doth a seal. By the moving the
body is outwardly carried from place to place [conscious movement, as opposed to the
unconscious movement brought on by the vegetal soul]" (137), including all of the appetites
which stimulate bodily movement.
The apprehensive sensible soul is further divided into two parts -outward and inward. The
outward senses include the five senses ("to which you may add Scaliger's sixth sense of
titillations"); and the inward senses are common sense, phantasy (or imagination), and
memory. "Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of
things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense" (139). Of the three, "common
sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects"
(139). Phantasy or Imagination, which is located "in the middle cell of the brain" is "an inner
sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things
present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making things new
of his own" (139). And memory "lays up all the species which the senses have brought in,
and records them as a good register, that they may be forth-coming when they are called for
by phantasy and reason."
The last remaining faculty of the soul is the Rational. The rational soul is a type of oversoul
which contains both of the other faculties of the soul -the vegetal and the sensible- and
performs its function via mediation between them (similar to Freud's superego). It is "the first
substancial act of a natural , human, organical body, by which a man lives, perceives, and
understands, freely doing all things, and with election" (144). The Rational Soul is divided
into two chief parts, "differing in office only, not in essence" (144): The Understanding and
the Will. The Understanding is the most complex of these two components of the Rational
Soul. It is "a power of the soul, by which we perceive, know, remember, and judge, as well
singulars as universals, having certain innate notices or beginnings of arts, a reflecting action,
by which it judgeth of his own doings, and examines them. It is hardwired with innate
knowledge of God, good and evil -"Synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an
innate bait, and doth signify a conversation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature,
to know good or evil" (145)- but it contains no innate conceptions of objects upon which to
exercise this innate knowledge. "The object first moving the Understanding is some sensible
thing" (144). "There is nothing in the understanding which was not first in the sense" (145).
Discussion:
Burton's model sets the stage for mainstream European thinking about cognition in the
following three centuries both conceptually and lexically. Anatomy of Melancholy introduces
several key terms which remain dominant in models of cognition through the Victorian era.
The most significant of these are: 1) Phantasy or Imagination as that function of the psyche
which engages in some way in thinking about thoughts; 2) Reflection, a more abstract and
less specific ability to think about thoughts made present to the mind via the senses; 3) the
Senses, being those physiological mechanisms responsible for bringing thoughts into the
mind; and 4) Understanding, the ability to recognize universalities. The definitions of and
functions attributed to these various aspects of human thought vary greatly over time;
however, as categories of conceptualizing human cognition these terms remain lexically and
conceptually dominant for the following three centuries. In addition, also introduces the
concept of Active and Passive functions of the human psyche. This division becomes
extremely important by the time we get to John Locke in 1690, who borrows much from
Burton's model and terminology.
The most striking difference between Burton's model of cognition and the canonical ones
which follow him is the nature of the mind/body dualism which is inherent in his model.
Burton's model does ultimately rely on the influence and presence of a "soul" which can not
be explained by way of an anatomy of the brain. As such, he appears to be stuck in a dualist
crisis in which the ultimate source of humanity exists outside of the physical. But is never
willing to make this concession, and both the language which he uses in developing his
model and discussing the attributes of the soul and the overall tone of the Anatomy, suggest
that Burton conceived of his dualist dilemma in a manner which was significantly different
than most of his contemporaries or followers. He does say of the soul that "we can understand
all things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend" (135); but it would be a mistake to
perceive Burton's acknowledged lack of understanding as anything other than a lack of
understanding --i.e., as a sign of a belief that it lies outside of the realm of the physical.
Burton seems rather to have believed that the soul was rooted in the material, but that man
simply lacked the tools or ability to recognize the actual mechanisms of this rooting.
Nowhere in the text does he claim that the soul is non-material; but he is everywhere trying to
locate it in the in body.
Burton's explanations of exactly how the soul springs from material body are ultimately
unconvincing in two important ways (other than his obvious biological and medical
inaccuracies.) First, in the face of the detailed descriptions which he provides of other bodily
and cognitive function, his sparse descriptions of the soul are rhetorically unconvincing.
Second, those references to the anatomy of the soul which are present are conceptually vague
and unclear. There are, however, two passages in particular which, if read looking backwards
through the filter of 18th and 19th century cognitive theories (a practice which is admittedly
tenuous) begin to shed some light on Burton's overall conception of an anatomical soul. In
the books opening paragraph, Burton defines man as a "Microcosm ...created in God's own
Image." Later while discussing the nature of the highest faculties of the soul, he claims that
"synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an innate habit" (145). These two
statements, combined with various comments which Burton makes throughout the text about
the presence of innate tendencies being genetically programmed into the brain and body,
suggest that he conceived of the soul as being hardwired into the brain, so to speak. Like the
Romantic conception of the individual as both the center and the circumference
simultaneously -the whole in the part- Burton seems to be arguing that man is built, at least
with regards to brain function, literally in the image of God. Any traces of a mind/body
dualism which appear in the work dissolve in the face of this model. The dualist crisis
becomes a crisis of understanding rather than one of existence. While this problem is only
rudimentally drawn out in Burton's text, his terms of engagement set the stage for the major
treatments of dualism which will follow in the next three centuries -particularly the later
British Skeptics.
Robert Burton (15771640) was one of the most prolific essayists of the 17th century.
He published only one book; yet that book, The Anatomy of Melancholy, was his lifes work.
Nor did that single volume cramp the range of his style, which flowed, he wrote in his
preface, now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then
remiss, as the present subject required, or as at that time I was affected. Burtons claims for
the variety of his style are not exaggerated. The title of the work suggests a twofold
narrowness of focus, yet Burton somehow escapes the confines of both types of
narrowness.
The first restriction is a structural one suggested by Anatomy: an anatomy is both analytical
and synthetic, distinguishing a thing into its constituent parts, and highlighting relationships
of each to each and each to the whole. Such a genre suggests a clinical, scientific style, which
Burton supplies where necessary: The upper of the hypochondries, in whose right side is the
liver, the left the spleen; from which is denominated hypochondriacal melancholy. Yet
within each of the compartments of the anatomy Burton feels free to indulge a more personal,
subjective style, echoing his preface, wherein he urges the reader not to read his book, for
Tis not worth the reading and thou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself.
Further freedom comes from the nature of anatomy: interconnecting all aspects of
melancholy not only allows but requires Burton to touch on a variety of subtopics.
The limitation of the major topic presents the second restriction, one of content. Yet in
Burtons treatment, to write about melancholy is to write about the human condition, the
subject of all great writing. To discuss melancholy is to discuss war, love, religion,
imagination, sorrow, fear, or virtually any other essential element of human nature.
Within the rigid structure of the anatomy Burton has imbedded essays on topics as manifold
as Montaignes or Bacons.
While Burtons style may vary from scientific to personal, one element is constant: his prose
is macaronic, playing Latin off against English. To some extent, this is true of almost all
Jacobean prose: Latin intrudes more or less naturally in the works of educated writers of all
European languages in the 17th century. Yet what is remarkable about Burtons Latinity is
that it confines itself to parenthetical quotations and, sometimes, to word order: it has
comparatively little effect on his diction. The Latinate inkhorn terms so prevalent in the
writings of his contemporaries appear much less frequently in Burtons, and those that do
tend to be personal favorites used habitually rather than nonce-words. For every constringe,
clancular, or calamistrate in Burtons prose, we find half a dozen Anglo-Saxon colloquialisms
such as gubber-tushed, fuzzled, or dizzard. The native vocabulary increases his verbal range,
as English, in his century as in ours, has by far the largest vocabulary of any European
language: to confine oneself to Latinate diction, even with inkhorn neologisms, is to narrow
ones range severely in comparison to English. Burtons sentence structure also tends to be
less Latinate than that of many contemporaries; rarely subordinating, his clauses and phrases
tend to progress by apposition or accretion.
Structurally Burtons style illustrates the early 17th-century reaction to the Elizabethan
imitations of Ciceros Latin style. Ciceronian prose triumphed in the periodic sentence,
lengthy constructions filled out by subordinate clauses and balanced antitheses. Burton and
many of his contemporaries (particularly John Donne in his sermons, and Sir Thomas
Browne) imitated the contrasting Silver Age style of Seneca and Tacitus, characterized by
epigrammatic concision. The epigrammatic unit of Burtons Senecan style, however, was
usually the clause, not the sentence, making his sentences as long as any Ciceronian period,
but less symmetrical. The lack of balance and parallelism created the illusion of spontaneity;
parallelism is obviously an artistic choice, whereas a Burtonian list or parenthesis sounds like
a sudden outburst.
The impression of spontaneity and colloquialism in Burtons prose is all the more delightful
for its ironic context: The Anatomy of Melancholy is a bookworms distillation of a long life
spent in libraries. The word anatomy suggests a logical order which this particular anatomy
demonstrates only on the surface, in its table of contents and chapter headings. Within an
individual topic, which can often be considered a separate essay, Burtons organizing
principle seems to be not logical connection but rather free association. One anecdote
suggests another, tangentially related, which suggests another, related more to the second than
the first, so that a section might end quite a distance from its starting point. This syntactical
looseness makes Burtons prose sound quite modern to many 20th-century critics.
Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be accessory to your putting the ladies out of
countenance with your senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by
you, and when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been
severe.
8.The women in these plays were very emancipated and bold and independent, unlike the
heroines of the Sentimental dramas.
9.The institution of marriage was always held to ridicule. Both husbands and wives openly
expressed their dissatisfaction of their spouses:
MRS. MAR. I have done hating 'em, and am now come to despise 'em; the next thing I have
to do is eternally to forget 'em.
10. These plays were mainly intended for the elegant and sophisticated audiences of London
city. Hence the characters were almost always from the upper class society of London.
11. These plays portrayed the lifestyle of the idle rich of London city very realistically. Lady
Wishfort wakes late in the day and cannot dress without the help of her servant Foible. Peg
another servant remarks:
Lord, madam, your ladyship is so impatient.--I cannot come at the paint, madam: Mrs. Foible
has locked it up, and carried the key with her.
12. The plays were mildly satirical-the playwright could not afford to hurt his upper class
audience. Congreve remarks in his 'prologue' with tongue in cheek irony:
The society depicted in The Way of the World is the upper class fashionable society of
London. The action of the play takes place in three places. The first is the chocolate House
which was used for socializing and entertainment during the Restoration. The second is St
Jamess Park in London where the upper class people walked before dinner. Witwould says,
Well all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being there.
The third is the house of Lady Wishfort, an aristocratic woman.
Most of the male and female characters of the play are cultured, talented, formal, artificial,
fashionable, depraved, cold and courtly. Their qualities are actually a part of Restoration
age culture.
The Restoration period was an age of loose morals and, and was devoid of moral values. The
Way of the World contains this current through the illicit love and adulterous relations e.g.
relation between Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, between Mirabell, the hero, and Mrs. Fainal.
Mirabell married Mrs. Fainall off to Fainal, being afraid of her being pregnant. Fainalls illicit
relationship with Mrs. Marwood having been exposed, Fainall faces the situation fearlessly
and shamelessly:
If it must all come out, why let them know it; its but the way of the world.
Even Mrs. Marwood and Lady Wishfort secretly loved Mirabell.
Unhappy conjugal life can be treated as another characteristic of the time which is expressed
through the relation between Mr. and Mrs. Fainall. One of them feels uneasy in the presence
of another. Mrs. Fainall expresses her uneasiness in St Jamess park in the presence of her
husband-
He turned sort upon me unaware, and had almost overcome me.
The Way of The World also exposes the worldliness and greed of the young men of the time.
Mercenary motives led them to seek rich heiresses in marriage Mr. Fainall marries Mrs.
Fainall, a widow, for her property. Mirabell does not want to marry Millament without her
property.
This mercenary tendency led them to intrigue which was the order of the day in social and
domestic life. Mirabell, in order to obtain Milament with her whole legacy, pretends to woo
Lady Wishfort. He marries his servant to Wishforts maid and sends his servant as Sir Roland
to Lady Wishfort so that the servant can make a marriage contact with the lady. By this
intrigue, Mirabell makes Lady Wishfort agree
Upon condition that she consents to [his] marriage with her niece,
And surrender[s] the moiety of her fortune in her possession.
Even Sir Wilfull, an exception to other characters of the play, joins the web of intrigues in the
play. Moreover, Fainall makes the legacy-conflict deeper through his cruel condition to Lady
Wishfort.
In The Way of The World, we are acquainted with the vanities, affectations and fashions of
the time. Mirrabell satirically remarks in the proviso scene on womens fondness of wearing
masks, going to the theatre with or without their husbands knowledge, idle gossip, slandering
the absent friends etc. In her contact with Mirabell, Millament proves her habit of late rising,
contemplation in solitude general laziness etc. She says,
Ill ye abed in a morning as long as I please.
Mirabell also ridicules pregnant womens wearing tight dresses in order to maintain their
figure which can actually deform their children. Moreover, intelligent women like Millament
allowed a crowd of admirers to a school of fools to gather around them in order to show their
demand and worth. Millaments vanity is revealed in causing her lover pain to have a sense of
power:
Ones cruelty is ones power.
Above all, Lady Wishfort, a higher class fashionable lady, seeks a husband in her age of fifty
five. Mirabell ridicules her saying,
The good lady would marry anything that resembled a men.
And the make up and dressing up of women of the society is expressed in the speech of the
footman about Lady Wishfort of the house-
I can not swear to her face in a morning, before she is dressed.
The upper class people could give up anything only to maintain/save the family name and
fame. Lady Wishfort wants to conceal the scandal of her daughter by any means. She says,
Ill compound, Ill give up all, myself and my all, my niece and her all- anything, everything
for composition.
The Way of The World brings before us witty Restoration ladies and gentlemen even their
servants and fools are witty. As a result, the dialogue is throughout witty which is something
unrealistic.. Therefore the play, like other plays of its kind, is called an artificial comedy.
In this play, Witwould and Petulant are presented as fops and false wits, the so-called fine
gentlemen. Their pastime is to accompany ladies and passing vulgar remarks at them. They
are Millaments suitors for fashions sake. Their air and activities amuse us. Sir Wilfull,
Witwoulds brother, calls Witwould, the fashions a fool; and youre a fop, dear brother.
Petulant hires women to come and ask for him at the chocolate house. Fainall says about his
purpose,
This is in order to have something to brag of the next-time he makes Court to Millament,
and swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.
From Footmans speech we know about frequent changing of servants in that society. Asked
by Willfull about how long he is here, the Footman replies,
A week sir: longer than anybody in the house, except my ladys woman.
The city dwellers do not want to relate themselves with their country relations. Witwould
pretends not to know his half- brother Wilfull, and comments,
tis not modish to know relations in town.
The discussion above makes it very much clear that The Way of the World presents a faithful
picture of the manners of the restoration and the eighteenth century social picture. The
presentation is full of comedy and satire. Thus the play is a good example of restoration
comedy of manners.
A comedy is usually a light, rather amusing, play that deals with contemporary life and
manners. Such a drama often has a satirical slant, but ends happily. Among the many sub-
genre under comedy, we find the comedy of manners, which originated in France with
Molir's "Les Precieuses ridicules" (1658). Molir saw this comic form as a way to correct
social absurdities.
The definition of comedy and the background of the Restoration Comedy helps to explain the
themes that run throughout these plays. One of the major themes is marriage and the game of
love. However, if marriage is a mirror of society, the couples in the plays show something
very dark and sinister about order. Many critiques of marriage that we see in the play are
devastating, but the game of love is not much more hopeful. Although the endings are happy
and the man invariably gets the woman (or at least that is the implication), we see marriages
without love and love affairs that are rebellious breaks with tradition.
However, as we look at the Restoration comedies that range from William Wycherley's play,
"The Country Wife" (1675) to William Congreve's play, "The Way of the World" (1700), and
further than that if we look at Aphra Behn's comedy of intrigue, "The Rover" (1702) and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan's sentimental comedy, "The School for Scandal" (1777), which fall
near the same period, we see how dramatically society has progressed. A dramatic change, in
moral attitudes about marriage and love, has taken place.
In Wycherley's "Country Wife," the marriage between Margery and Bud Pinchwife represents
a hostile marriage between an old (or older man) and a young woman -- a May/December
marriage. The Pinchwifes are the focal point of the play, at least as couples go, and her affair
with Horner only adds to the humor of the play. Horner runs around cuckolding all of the
husbands, while he pretends to be a eunuch. This pretension brings the women swarming to
him. He is a master at the game of love, though he is emotionally impotent. He cannot love,
which makes him an interesting character for analysis. The relationships in the play are
dominated by jealousy or cuckoldry, with the exception of the gay couple -- Alithea and
Harcourt, but they are really pretty boring.
The element of jealousy in marriage seems to be especially prevalent in the play. In Act IV,
scene ii., Mr. Pinchwife says, in an aside, "So, 'tis plain she loves him, yet she has not love
enough to make her conceal it from me; but the sight of him will increase her aversion for me
and love for him, and that love instruct her how to deceive me and satisfy him, all idiot as she
is." He insults her, not to her face of course, but he's serious. He wants her to be stupid, not
able to deceive him. But even in her obvious innocence, he doesn't believe she is innocent. To
him, every woman came out of nature's hands "plain, open, silly, and fit for slaves, as she and
Heaven intended 'em." As he says, "No woman can be forced. " But he also says, in another
aside, "Why should women have more invention in love than men? It can only be because
they have more desires, more soliciting passions, more lust and more of the devil."
Mr. Pinchwife isn't especially bright, but in his jealousy, he becomes a dangerous character.
He becomes passionate in his mad ravings, thinking Margery had conspired to cuckold him.
Little did he know that he was correct, but if he had known the truth, he would have killed
her in his madness. As it is, when she disobeys him, he says, "Once more write as I'd have
you, and question it not, or I will spoil thy writing with this. [Holding up the penknife.] I will
stab out those eyes that cause my mischief." He doesn't ever hit her or stab her in the play
(such actions wouldn't make a very good comedy), but Mr. Pinchwife continually locks
Margery in the closet, calls her names, and in all other ways, acts like a complete jerk (to put
it nicely). Because of his abusive nature, Margery's affair is not a surprise. In fact, it is
accepted as a social norm, along with Horner's promiscuity. At the end, the whole scene with
Margery learning to lie is also taking in stride because the idea has already been set up when
Mr. Pinchwife voiced his fears that if she loved Horner more, she would conceal it from him.
And with that, social order is restored.
he theme of restoration of order in love and marriage continues in Etherege's "Man of Mode"
(1676). Dorimant and Harriet are the two who are most immersed in the game of love.
Although it seems evident the couple are destined to be together, an obstacle is place in
Dorimant's way in the form of Harriet's mother, Mrs. Woodville, who has made arrangements
for her to marry Young Bellair, a young gentleman who already has his eye on Emilia.
Threatened with disinheritment, Young Bellair and Harriet agree to pretend to accept the idea,
while Harriet and Dorimant go at it in their battle of wits, which is reminiscent of
Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedict in "Much Ado About Nothing".
An element of tragedy is added to the whole equation as Mrs. Loveit comes into the picture,
breaking her fans and acting hysterically. The fans, which were supposed to hide a flush of
passion or embarrassment, no longer offer her any protection. She is defenseless against
Dorimant's cruel words and the all too realistic facts of life; there can be no doubt that she is a
tragic side effect of the game of love. Having long since lost interest in her, Dorimant
continues to lead her on, giving her hope, but leaving her in despair. In the end, her
unrequited love only brings her ridicule, teaching society that if you are going to play at the
game of love, you'd better be prepared to get hurt. Indeed, Loveit comes to the realization that
"There's nothing but falsehood and impertinence in this world. All men are villains or fools,"
before she parades out.
By the end of the play, we see one marriage, as expected, but it is between Young Bellair and
Emilia, who broke with tradition by marrying secretly, without Old Bellair's consent. But in a
comedy, all must be forgiven, so Old Bellair forgives him. While Harriet sinks into a
depressing mood, thinking of her lonely house in the country and the poignant noise of the
rooks--"kaw, kaw, kaw," Dorimant admits his love to her, saying "The first time I saw you,
you left me with the pangs of love upon me; and this day my soul has quite given up her
liberty."
Heroic or Epic poems, according to Maynard Meck, are poems like theOdyssey, the Aeneid,
and Paradise Lost dealing with man in his exalted aspects. Their action is weighty, their
personages are dignified and their style is elevated.
The Iliad, for example, deals with the tough and prolonged battle between the Greek and the
Trojan Heroes, while the Odyssey describes the adventures of Odysseus, one of the Greek
kings in the war of Troy. Similarly, Virgils Aeneid deals with the adventures of Aeneas and
ends with the heros finding his divinely ordained destiny as the founder of the Roman
Empire. Milton Paradise Lost represents the fall of the rebellious angles from Paradise and
justifies the ways of God to man. In all the epics, gods and daemons, take active part in
human affairs and guide the destiny of their chosen participants. The mock-epic is a poetic
form which uses the epic structure but on a miniature scale and has a subject that is mean and
trivial. The purpose of the mock-epic or mock-heroic poem is satirical. The writer makes the
subject look ridiculous by placing it in a framework entirely inappropriate to its importance.
Popes description of the Rape of the Lock as a mock-heroic poem misled some readers into
thinking that the comic attack was intended against heroic-poetry. In fact, a mock-heroic
poem is not a satire on poetry itself, but the target of the attack may be a person or persons,
an institution or institutions or the whole society. The subject of such a poem is trivial or
unimportant, but the treatment of the subject is heroic or epic and such exaggeration of the
trivial naturally arouses laughter. The pleasure of the poem, as Ian Jack points out, ensues
from comparing small men to giants and making pygmies of them in the process. A mock-
epic parodies the epic in the sense of which Dr. Johnson described parody as a kind of
writing in which the word of an author or his thoughts are taken and by a light change are
adapted to some new purpose. Pope was fully conscious of his intentions to make The Rape
of the Lock a mock-epic poem is evident from the title he has given it. Homers Iliad which
describes the events arising out of Helens elopement with a Trojan prince, Paris and the
subsequent war between the Greeks and the Trojans can be appropriately described as a poem
dealing with the Rape of Helen. That is how the Greeks took this whole episode. The title
of Popes poem, The Rape of the Lock is thus a parody of the Iliad in this sense; for in this
poem, the mighty contest ensues from the rape or assault on the lock of Belindas hair. The
Rape of the Lock parodies the serious epics not only in it title but also in the overall structure.
The poem is divided into five cantos like the five acts of a drama. At the beginning, there is a
statement of purpose and invocation to the Muse as in a serious epic. Homer, for example,
begins his Iliad thus: chilles wrath to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered
heavenly goddess sing Virgil declares in Aenied that Of arms and man I sing Milton starts
his epic Of mans first disobedience to and to justify the ways of God to man Pope imitate
these conventions when he declares in his poem.
What dire offence from amrous causes springs what mighty contests arise from trivial
things I sing this verse to Caryll Muse!
is due This evn Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
It is through these words that we understand that the beginning is like that of most epics.
Subsequent events of the poem parody the epic structure in the similar way. The opening
invocation, the description of the heroines toilet, the journey to Hampton Court , the game
of ombre magnified into a pitched battle all lead up to the moment when the peer produces
the fatal pair of scissors, but the action of the mortals was not enough. Pope knew that in true
epics the affairs of men were aided or thwarted by the Heavenly Powers. He, therefore, added
the bodies of the supernatural beings sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders as agents
in the story. The gods of the epic are heroic beings, but popes deities are tiny. Pope describes
the diminutive gods of the poem as the light militia of the lower sky. Belinda screams
like the Homeric poems and dashed like the characters of the great epics, but she is a mere
slip of a girl. This is the ironic contrast. We find a battle drawn to combat like the Greek
warriors. But it is only a game of cards on a dressing table. We find a supernatural being who
threatens his inferiors with torture. But it is a Sylph, not Jove. The poem contains parodies of
Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Spenser and Miltonas well as reminiscences of Catallus, Ovid and the
Bible. There are several instances of Burlesque-treatment. There is Belindas voyage
toHampton Court which suggests the voyage of Aeneas up to the Tiber in Virgil. There is a
coffee party which is a parody of the meals frequency described in Homer. The combat at the
end recalls the fighting which is found anywhere in the ancient epics. The Cave of Spleen is a
parody of an allegorical picture, examples of which may be found in poets like Spenser. Just
before the cutting of the lock, when Ariel searches out the close recess of the virgins
thoughts. There he finds an earthly lover lurking in her heart, and Pope tells us that Ariel
retires with a sigh, resigned to fate. This situation echoes the moment in Paradise Lost when
after the fall of Adam and Eve, the Angles of God retire mute and sad to heaven. The angles
could have protected Adam and Even against Satan, but mans own free choice of will they
are as helpless as Ariel and his comrades are in the face of Belindas free choice of earthly
lover. An outstanding mock-heroic in the poem is the comparison between arming of an epic
hero and Belindas dressing herself and using cosmetics in order to kill. Pope describes a
society-lady in terms that would suit the arming of a warrior like Achilles. The Rape of the
Lock is a poem ridiculing the fashionable world of Popes day. But there are several
occasions when we feel that the epic world of homer and Virgil has in this poem been scaled
down, wittily and affectionately, to admit the coffee-table and the fashionable ladys bed-
chamber.
Supernatural Machinery: In all epics, god and daemons, whether pagan or Christian,
participate in the action side by side with the human agents. In an epic poem, as Le Bossu had
emphasized, the machine crowns the whole work Pope, therefore, gives a mock dignity to
the action of the Rape of the Lock by the use of machinery of sylphs and gnomes. Taken from
the Rosicrucian cult, which Bayle had described as the sect of mountebanks, the sylphs and
gnomes reduce the divine and demonic agents of an epic poem to their diminutive status.
Unlike the deities of the epics, who act guardian agents of the epic heroes, Belindas guardian
sylph, Ariel is an ineffectual/airy being who deserts her at the most critical moment. The
supernatural machinery of the poem thus provides a gentle mockery of the epic deities and
increases the charm of the poem as a mock-heroic.
The Epic Style: Within this framework, The Rape of the Lock contains many allusions to
Homer, Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare. Ariels description of the metamorphosis of a prudish
woman into a sylph
What time would spare, from steel receives it dates And moments like men submit to fate!
Steel coud the labour of the gods destroy,
And strike to dust the imperial towrs of Troy
The rhetoric style is the same that occurs in epic poetry. The Mock-heroic effect is produced
by the context which emphasizes that the invincible steel referred to here is the steel of the
pair of scissors with which the Baron cuts off Belindas lock.
The use of the periphrases two-edged weapon, glittering Forfex and the fatal engine for
a tiny pair of scissors.
Collateral of the Great with the Little: A mock-epic or mock-heroic in the Augustan sense
of the term in itself is an example of the collation of the great with the little. In the Rape of
the Lock, Pope frequently juxtaposes the heroic with the trivial to produce the mock-epic
effect. The very opening couplet juxtaposes Mighty contest with trivial things. Elsewhere,
Pope achieves this effect by reducing the great to the level of the trivial.
In these three couplets, chastity is equated with frail China jar honor with new brocade,
rayer with a masquerade, heart with a necklace. The effect of this collation is highly
amusing and startling. The confusion of values which informs Belindas world could not have
been presented in a way better than this juxtaposing of the great with the little.
Conclusion: All these devices make The Rape of the Lock a highly subtle and complex
mock-epic. Drydens Mac Flecknoe appears rather simple and straightforward when
compared with Popes poem. In the Rape of the Lock, however, satire is mixed with genuine
charm which surrounds Belinda, Is central figure. Pope does not deny the charm and glamour
and the artificial world she presides over. In her barge overThames, she is genuinely
fascinated fascinating and remains so in the rest of the poem. It is only when one notices that
this brilliance and gaiety are at the expense of something much more important that they
appear to be trivial and hollow. Belindas description in the second Canto is both a genuine
admiration for her beauty and charm and a mild criticism of her pride and coquetry.
The Rape of the Lock is a nearly perfect example of its genre, the genre of the mock-epic not
only because it parodies the epic conventions and devices throughout, but also because it
provides a highly amusing drama of its own rights. The greatness of the poem is due to
Popes genius as well as to the care and pains he took in a different form. The balance
between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity is as nicely trimmed as the balance of
power in Europe. The little is made great and the great little. You hardly know whether to
laugh or weep. It is the triumph of insignificance of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of
the mock-heroic.
The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of
mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one of the most serious of literary forms; it
had been applied, in the classical period, to the lofty subject matter of love and war, and,
more recently, by Milton, to the intricacies of the Christian faith. The strategy of Popes
mock-epic is not to mock the form itself, but to mock his society in its very failure to rise to
epic standards, exposing its pettiness by casting it against the grandeur of the traditional epic
subjects and the bravery and fortitude of epic heroes: Popes mock-heroic treatment in The
Rape of the Lock underscores the ridiculousness of a society in which values have lost all
proportion, and the trivial is handled with the gravity and solemnity that ought to be accorded
to truly important issues. The society on display in this poem is one that fails to distinguish
between things that matter and things that do not. The poem mocks the men it portrays by
showing them as unworthy of a form that suited a more heroic culture. Thus the mock-epic
resembles the epic in that its central concerns are serious and often moral, but the fact that the
approach must now be satirical rather than earnest is symptomatic of how far the culture has
fallen.
Popes use of the mock-epic genre is intricate and exhaustive. The Rape of the Lock is a poem
in which every element of the contemporary scene conjures up some image from epic
tradition or the classical world view, and the pieces are wrought together with a cleverness
and expertise that makes the poem surprising and delightful. Popes transformations are
numerous, striking, and loaded with moral implications. The great battles of epic become
bouts of gambling and flirtatious tiffs. The great, if capricious, Greek and Roman gods are
converted into a relatively undifferentiated army of basically ineffectual sprites. Cosmetics,
clothing, and jewelry substitute for armor and weapons, and the rituals of religious sacrifice
are transplanted to the dressing room and the altar of love.
The verse form of The Rape of the Lock is the heroic couplet; Pope still reigns as the
uncontested master of the form. The heroic couplet consists of rhymed pairs of iambic
pentameter lines (lines of ten syllables each, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables).
Popes couplets do not fall into strict iambs, however, flowering instead with a rich rhythmic
variation that keeps the highly regular meter from becoming heavy or tedious. Pope
distributes his sentences, with their resolutely parallel grammar, across the lines and half-
lines of the poem in a way that enhances the judicious quality of his ideas. Moreover, the
inherent balance of the couplet form is strikingly well suited to a subject matter that draws on
comparisons and contrasts: the form invites configurations in which two ideas or
circumstances are balanced, measured, or compared against one another. It is thus perfect for
the evaluative, moralizing premise of the poem, particularly in the hands of this brilliant poet.
John Dryden, an English poet who was born at Northamptonshire in August 9, 1631 was
known as the founder of English literary criticism and the formulator of a new style of poetic
expression which is called heroic couplet (Wheatly, 1972: 5). Satire was his new style of
poetic forms. Harmsworth (1972) defines that satire is a literary work intended to arouse
ridicule, contempt or disgust at abuses and follies of a man and his institutions. It aims at the
correction of malpractices by inspiring both indignation and laughter with a mixture of
criticism and wit. One of the famous satiric poems of Dryden is MacFlecknoe. This poem
treats its subject, Thomas Shadwell, with irony and ridicule.
As an English poet, John Dryden is classified as classic writer. At a glance, Drydens poems,
when compared to romantic verses, found lacking that love of nature. His verses are
commonly simple. He loved to apply intellectual approach. Brower (1959) comments him
that the whole account of poetic composition indicates clearly that Dryden sought for
intellectual strength and rational precision in form. This indication is found as well in
MacFlecknoe. In this poem the impression of Dryden as a bold satirist is found. About the
poem (MacFlecknoe) Oliver Gold Smith in his article The Beauties of English Poetry (1967),
as it is quoted by Wheatly writes:
The severenity of this satire, and the excellence of its versification give it a distinguished rank
in this species of composition. At present, an ordinary reader would scarcely suppose that
Shadwell, who is here meant by MacFlecknoe, was worth being chastised, and that Dryden,
descending to such game, was like an eagle stooping to catch flies. The truth however is,
Shadwell at one time held divided reputation with this great poet. Every age produces its
fashionable dances, who, by following the transcient topic or humor of the day, supply
talkative ignorance with materials for conversation. (Wheatly, 1967: 161).
Earl of Shaftesbury used the terror attending the Popish Plot (the period of 1678- 1680) to
secure his political ends. (Wheatly. 1972). This period was known as the quarrel between
Charles and James for the kingship. Shaftesbury tried to bring James to trial with the
accusation for religious non-conformity. Even he brought armed followers to the Parliament
at Oxford. For his actions which were against the crown, he was sent to the Tower, accused of
high treason.
Meanwhile the Whig grand jury rejected the charge and Shaftesbury was released. Upon this
release Shaftesburys followers struck a medal in his honour. John Dryden, then, criticized
Shaftesbury in his satirical poem entitled The Medal. This latest poem provoked Drydens
opponent, Thomas Shadwell to write The Medal of John Bayes as the answer for the satire.
Thomas Shadwell was formerly Drydens close friend. Their enmity was much caused by
literary dispute. It was believed that Mac Flecknoe was an answer toward Shadwells The
Medal of John Bayes.
Richard Flecknoe (1600 -1678) was Shadwell Patron in poetry. Flecknoe was a verse writer
who got many criticisms because of his poetical weaknesses. Andrew Marwell called Richard
Flecknoe an English priest at Rome, while Dryden named him a Prince of Dullness. Richard
Flecknoe as a prince of dullness had to prepare the way for his son, MacFleknoe, who was
believed by Dryden to be a true son of unrelieved darkness and stupidity (Wheatly,1971).
Understanding this historical and political situation will provide clearer way of understanding
the content of MacFlecknoe.
tis resolvd; for nature pleads that he Should only rule, who most resembles me: Sh..alone
my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his tender years. Sh..alone of all my sons,
is he
In the above lines Dryden abbreviates the complete name, Shadwell, as Sh.. The lines will
be in perfect rhythm of iambic pentameter style if the name is completed with the two
syllables, Shadwell. Dryden mocks Shadwell for he had got Flecknoes crown of dullness.
In further lines Flecknoe explains that Shadwell has to be his successor because he is very
weak in his poetic expression.
In MacFlecknoe everything is regarded upside down. The same thing happens to literary
world. Shadwell, the worst poet who uses tautologies becomes the successor to the throne of
dullness. Compared to Heywood, Shirley and Flecknoe, Shadwell is the worst poet who
inherits the crown of dullness.
Flecknoe supports Shadwell to be his successor by a certain reason. For him, Shadwell is
comparable to ancient Greek musician in Greek mythology whose name was Arion. It was
told that in a ship some sailors threatened Arion to play lyre. He jumped into the sea where
dolphins carried him safely to shore. Flecknoe has a great hope for Shadwells future as
Dryden writes: here stopped the good old sire, and wept for joy/ In silent raptures of the
hopeful boy.
Dryden describes that Flecknoe has ever entered the nursery, a London theatre for boys and
girls to study drama. In that place, the name of Simpkin, a representation of a bad poet, is
noted as the member of the nursery. At this place, Flecknoe designs Shadwells throne,
The above quotation indicates that Dryden mentions one name, Decker. In fact, he was not a
famous dramatist as he was under the power of James I. To continue mocking him Dryden
mentions several of Shadwells adaptation of Moliers (a French writer) lAvare as Psyche
and the Miser.
In the same time when Flecknoe had chosen Shadwell as his successor, this information
spread out fast. Preparation for the coronation was made. Mockingly Dryden describes,
instead of carpets there are piles of the limbs of mangled poets. Unknown authors emerge
from their hidden place. Flecknoe is on the throne. Shadwell vows to uphold the dullness so
successfully maintained by Flecknoe:
Flecknoe as a king crowns Shadwell as the heir. The King holds a copy of Loves Kingdom, a
weak tragic-comedy of Flecknoe had ever written. The play is as weak as Shadwells Psyche.
He asks Shadwell to inherit his dullness, and people support him by crying Amen. In his
speech Flecknoe advises Shadwell to advance his ignorance. Dryden writes:
.. my son, advance
still in new impudence, new ignorance, Success let others teach, learn thou from me, Pangs
without birth, and fruitless industry. Let Virtuosos in five years writt:
Father Flecknoe as mentioned above refers to Flek noe either as a priest or a king father
of Shadwell. The blood relationsh ip between Shadwell and Flecknoe is only fictitious.
According to Dryden it will be naturally better for Shadwell just to follow Flecknoe who is
weak in art than imitating Johnsons art greatness.
Conclusion
MacFlecknoe is a satiric poem which becomes the corner-stone of Dryden success in his
poetic career. It strengthened his position as a successful poet in his lifetime. Both as a poem
and a satire MacFlecknoe was created in good and effective English. Dryden is consistent in
his style. His consistence is seen in the application of poetic pattern namely heroic couplet. In
the whole poem the poet exploits the weakness of his opponent, either Flecknoe ot Shadwell,
in a mock and humorous manner.
Dryden in MacFlecknoe shows his being consistence in applying his poetic style. This style,
heroic couplet, had its own position in English literary history. This poetic style had been
adapted by several poets who lived after him. Something which is specific in MacFlecknoe is
its substance that underlines the humor of Drydens attack on Shadwell.
The political situation in his lifetime, especially the idea to settle the succession of the state,
made Dryden becoming bored. He did not enjoy thinking about political justice. With his
keenness he reflected his thought either about political situation or literary condition in
MacFlecknoe. This poem is a satirical
The Schoolboy
From Songs of Experience
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
'The Schoolboy' features six stanzas, each comprising five lines. In the first stanza,
a complex structure is established which exerts a powerful influence over the rest
of the poem. Consisting of a small set of determining factors, this structure lays the
ground work for two key metaphors, both of which manifest fully in subsequent
stanzas. The natural world is clearly a source of inspiration for Blake, and features
such as animals and plants - "birds" and "trees" in line 2 - are selected as vehicles
to represent the figure of the child in later stanzas. The first stanza stands slightly
apart from the others as its primary concern is to establish a backcloth portraying
an idyllic pastoral scene where man lives in harmony with his natural environment
on a beneficially reciprocal basis: "the skylark sings with me" (line 4).
Metaphor is very important in 'The Schoolboy', and in the third and fourth stanzas,
the bird and plant vehicles that were established in stanza I effectively come forth.
Blake chooses not to portray the schoolroom's children in a conventionally
figurative manner, instead substituting any literal description with symbols from
nature. The use of metaphor is evident with the word "drooping" in stanza III,
where it evokes the image of a dying plant, yet it is more obvious in stanza IV
where the child is likened to an encaged bird. It is arguable that Blake views the act
of learning as consisting of two sides. The first of these is receptivity, the other
expression. In stanza III he questions how a child is able to learn anything in such
an environment: "Nor in my book can I take delight", while in the following stanza
he shows how their natural self-expression is stifled, "Sit in a cage and sing?"
The last two stanzas show how a brutal education system has damaged the child. In
stanza V Blake indicates that he isn't opposed to all authority figures by appealing
to the child's parents to pay heed to his warnings (line 1). The poem conjures up
some bleak images and ends on a fearful warning, "When the blasts of winter
appear?" However when viewed in its entirety it would appear that Blake isn't
opposed to education - in the third stanza he talks of taking delight in a book - and
the overall impression conveyed is a proposal of a new kind of learning based
around nature rather than the schoolroom.
The Chimney Sweeper present in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are
heart wrenching pieces of poetry written by Blake to shed light upon the oppression that the
underage children went through just so that the greedy so-called upper class members of the
society and their money-hungry parents who sold them off could exploit their innocence and
labor to suit their needs. In the Songs of Innocence, this major social issue has been perceived
through the eyes of a little boy who takes every misery that his inflicted upon him in his
stride with the hopes of a better tomorrow. This little boy is unaware of the gross injustice
being done to him. The Songs of Experience is the darker twin of the Songs of Innocence. In
this dark version, there is an underline of protest and the sense of being wronged is
predominant in the speech of the little boy as he now realizes the unfairness of the society
which has taken his innocence from him to exploit his labor to meet their selfish demands.
The Chimney Sweeper Songs of Innocence Analysis will give the readers a peek into the
miserable lives of the little kids who had to work as chimney sweepers. The speaker tells us
that after his mother died he was sold off by his father so that his child-labor could be used to
make some money. During those days, little children were in demand for the job of sweeping
chimneys in England as they could climb up chimneys easily and clean them by removing all
the soot and dust. The father of this little child well aware of the money which he could get
by sacrificing his sons childhood sold him off. The kid was sold at an age when he could not
even say sweep properly. He had to move around the city looking for houses that needed
chimneys to get cleaned. This means that the kid was sold off at a fairly young age when he
had not even learnt to speak properly. At the time of his life when he was supposed to play
and get educated, this small child spent his days sweeping chimneys and at the end of the day
he was not even given a comfortable place to sleep in but had to rest on the bags of soot that
he would collect. This gives us an idea of the very miserable conditions and the cruel
deprivations that these little kids had to survive in. By sketching this horrifying picture, Blake
wants to give rise to a sense of protest in our hearts against the oppression of the poor
children by the rich.
The speaker had a fellow friend named Tom Dacre who was inconsolable because of he was
not being able to keep up with the ill-treatment. During those days it was a popular belief that
curly hair seeped a childs energies which is why worker kids with curly hair had to get their
heads shaved so that they could yield more productivity. Tom who had curly hair was also
made to go through the pain of losing his beautiful white hair. The speaker tries to comfort
Tom by telling him that now that he has got his hair shaved he never has to worry about
getting them dirty. This innocence of the speaker and Tom makes our hearts go out for these
kids who were made to go through hell but had to live with it because they did not have the
power to complain. Here shaving of the kids head implies the infringement of the beauty that
a small child is supposed to be gifted with.
After being soothed by the speaker, Tom goes to sleep and sees a dream. In that dream he
sees all his friends who are as young as him locked up in black coffins. Here black coffins
refers to the pre-mature death which many of these chimney sweepers met when they were
still kids because of the harmful exposure to soot and dust at all hours which damaged their
lungs and often caused cancer. There were many kids who would lose their lives because they
would accidently get burnt while sweeping chimneys. Next Tom sees that an angel comes and
unlocks those coffins. Tom and his friends are set free who run down lush greenery to go and
wash their soiled bodies covered with soot in the river. The angel here symbolizes the little
kids hope for a better tomorrow. Their optimism urges them to believe that one day their
miseries will end. The green plains refers to prosperity and wash in a river means that the
children are being relieved of the all the hard work they are forced to perform everyday while
sweeping chimneys. The kids after taking this bath of emancipation were white again and
were shining as bright as the sun. This means that freeing these kids from their miseries
would promise them a great future and give them a chance to prosper. The kids are shown
playing with the wind and clouds which means that their innocence and childhood that was
captured because of their exploitation has been returned to them. This angel asks Tom to be a
good boy as that would make him the Son of God which will end all his suffering. Here we
see how the kid helplessly hopes in his dream that God will bring an end to his pain. By
adding this aspect to Toms dream, Blake also wants to shed light upon the blind faith on
religion and Providence which never amounted to any good as little kids were made to suffer
by the hands of their cruel and selfish employers. It is worth noticing that the angel is just a
fragment of the childs dream and might not exist at all. It just might be something that the
kids optimism created to urge him through his dark days.
When the little kid rises from his dream the next day he again has to gather his brushes and
tools to set out for work but this time he does not feel too bleak and helpless because of his
inspiring dream from the last night. The little child holds on to the comforting thought that he
will soon win Gods favor and that will take him away from his world of perennial angst.
Here we again get to see the innocence of the child who blindly invests his hopes in God
completely unaware that the evil forces of the society are much stronger than his prayers of
redemption.
The Chimney Sweeper analysis of the Songs of Experience version of the poem will add
depth to a readers understanding as this poem shows the pitiable condition of the exploited
kids from a mature viewpoint where the speaker is no longer an innocent child but someone
who has learnt about the harsh ways of the world the hard way and feels resentment towards
this system of the society where little kids have to shed their innocence to work for the ones
who enjoy a high rung in the social ladder.
The poem opens with the image of a little kid who is described as a little black thing as he
is covered from head to toe in soot because of his job as a chimney sweeper. His soiled
appearance is in stark contrast to the white snow around him. White stands for purity whereas
black stands for sin. With the aim of this contrast Blake wants to show that attacking that
childs purity is no less than a heinous sin. When the child is asked where his parents are he
says that they have gone to pray in the Church. This is a direct attack upon such parents who
sell off their kids so that they can derive monetary benefits out of that transaction. It is a
shame that such parents can go to the Gods house to pray in spite of being such sinners while
their kids moves from one house to another cleaning chimneys. The child has a lot of
resentment bottled in his heart against his parents so he says that they pushed him into this
world of misery and pain as his innocence and childhood gave him more happiness than he
deserved. Now innocence is a luxury that he no longer has because his present life which is
riddled with rough strife teaches him to sing the notes of woe. This means that being
carried so far away from his childhood into a world where he has to work as a chimney
sweeper makes the childs life insufferable.
The child says that just because he has accepted the harshness of his life everyone thinks that
they have not done him any wrong as he seems apparently content with the way things are
because he still plays and sings. The poet then sheds light upon the cruelty of such parents
and employers who let little children work and made it justifiable by posing as if that
exploitation did not inflict any harm upon the children. The line where the child tells that
these people go and pray in churches and praise their king gives us an indication that God and
even the King are conspirators in this felony of ruining the little childs innocence and
snatching away his childhood.
With the last two lines Blake decries such a social system and the institutions of the Church
and kingship as it does nothing for the betterment of these little children. Instead of helping
them, the church actually discriminates against them by not letting them enter their premises.
By doing this the Church sins as much as the parents and employers of these unfortunate
children. God, the Church and the King are as equally responsible for building hell for these
children which is a matter of great sadness as their job should be to save these children from
their suffering. This strengthens the voice of protest which these two poems infuse in our
hearts.
It is worth noticing that God has been shown in two completely different lights in these two
versions of The Chimney Sweeper. In the Innocence version he is shown as the poor childs
only hope of redemption and freedom from his suffering whereas in the Experience version
he has been portrayed as a conspirator against the childs innocence as he lets the child suffer
so much. The Innocence version is optimistic whereas the Experience version is dark and
realistic where the child is shown to suffer from hopelessness. Although in contrast with one
another, a perfect pairing of these two versions of the poem is very essential for the proper
understanding of the theme of the poem which is to uncover the hypocrisy of the Church and
the King and the cruelty of such childrens parents and employers while shedding light upon
the childs misery at the same time. One version creates an impact and weakens the heart of
the readers through its innocent take on the social injustice whereas the other version gives
rise to a surge of protest against these evil agencies which exploit little children. No one view
is correct as one is incomplete without the other. In spite of being contradictory, these two
different takes are complementary which is why a balance in understanding of the two as a
single orchestrated unit is necessary for the poem to produce the desired effect on the readers.
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Elegy is one of the greatest and finest of Gray's poems and marks a stage in the
development of his poetic genius. It reveals a growing democratic sentiment and romantic
mood of the poet. Instead of confining himself to the saloons, coffee houses or the
fashionable society of the town, Gray undertakes in this poem to deal with the life of the
rustic people of the village, to present the 'short and simple annals of the poor'. Wit its
lyricism, its treatment of nature, its melancholic mood and its emotional and imaginative
vigour, the Elegy reveals a romantic spirit and marks a shift from the neoclassical poetry of
the Augustan age, towards the Romantic poetry of the coming age. It is essentially
transitional in character and ushers in the era of romanticism.
Originality: Despite its treatment of common themes and sentiments, the poem is not totally
devoid of originality. Dr. Johnson acknowledges the originality of the four stanzas beginning
'yet even these bones'. Gray's originality and individual talent may be seen in his condensed
expression of great ideas in highly quotable phrases like " Full many a flower blush to die
unseen" and "On some fond breast the parting soul relies". Herbert W Starr points out "
probably no other poem of the same length has contributed so many famous phrases to our
language." Gray's originality also lies in the fact that he raised the voice of democratic
sympathy much before the French or the American revolution, aiming at the ideas of liberty,
equality, and fraternity, had taken place. He may be said to have inspired the democratic
sentiments of Wordsworth who, much later, wrote about poor rustics like Michael, the leech
gatherer and the wagoner. Carl J Webber remarks "Thomas Gray is the pioneer literary
spokesman for the ordinary man, the patron saint of the unknown soldier... . Gray's rude
forefathers were also the forefathers of Wordsworth's Wagoner, Michael and Peterbell."
Gray's originality also lies in his treatment of the non fulfillment of the desires of common
man and the non utilisation of his powers and talents because of lack of proper opportunities.
The poem may be called an elegy on the premature death of the talents and energies of the
poor. Another mark of Gray's originality is, that instead of addressing it to the rich, great or
privileged men, he addresses this poem about common man to common men and seeks to
elicit a sympathetic response for their common lot. The adoption of the elegiac quatrain in
place of the conventional heroic couplet and the novel use of abstract personifications also
reveal Gray's originality.
Humanity & Democratic Sentiments: The Elegy is remarkable for its humanity and its
concern for the lot of common human beings on this earth. It may be put alongwith Keats's
Ode to a Nightingale, which deals with the lot of man on this earth. Although it hints at the
inevitability of the end of all human glory and the futility of power, wealth, ambition and
pride, it is mainly concerned with the destiny of the common man and seems to lament the
loss and waste of so much talent and energy of the poor because of lack of opportunity. A
note of exultation may also be found in Gray's view that if poverty proved hinderance in the
way of the advancement of the common rustic people, it also restrained them from doing evil
and practising violence to gain material ends.
The democratic note may be found in the poem in the form of idea of equality and
helplessness of both the rich and the poor before death. Death is a great leveller. If it deprives
the poor of the opportunities ton rise, it also mercilessly snatches the power and the glory of
the rich. Both alike await the inevitable hour of death and both feel helpless to do anything.
The vanity of human wishes and aspirations has been nicely pointed out in the poem. The
distinction between the lives of the rich and the poor is thus obliterated by death.
Melancholic Note: The Elegy is characterised by a melancholic note. The dominant mood of
the poem is one of gloom and sadness. The shadow of death hovers throughout the poem and
the regret over the frustration of human efforts and hopes is inherent in its tone. The opening
scene of the poem is steeped in melancholy and the musings on human destiny in the later
parts are also of melancholic nature. The description of the rustic poet also gives a gloomy
picture of his life. Thus, the whole atmosphere and mood of the poem is tinged with
melancholy. According to W V Moody and R M Lovett the Elegy "is the finest flower of that
literature of melancholy Which Gray may be said to be haunted by a Hamlet like melancholy
and sense of frustration. The thirty two stanzas of the poem embody almost all the emotions
and reflections that a man commonly feels in the presence of death.
Unlike the neo classical poetry, the Elegy deals with the poet's personal feelings and reflects
his own mood like romantic poetry. In the original draft of the poem, consisting of twenty
two stanzas, quantity of personal references was less than what it is in the expanded version.
Moral Tone: The Elegy is didactic in nature and seeks to convey certain morals about human
life. Gray exhorts the proud and ambitious people not to laugh at the simple life and obscure
destiny of the poor. He tells them that they are much like the poor that they also have to die
one day and leave all their glory, wealth and luxuries in this world. The poem lays emphasis
on the transitoriness of all human glory and the emptiness of all boasts of power and wealth.
It also points out the inevitability of death. Gray seems to impress upon us the idea that being
poor is not altogether a matter of misfortune. The poor are fortunate in that they do not have
to shut the gates of mercy on their fellow beings as the great men have to do.
Technical Beauties: The Elegy is remarkable for its simplicity of expression, and Gray says in
it plainly what he has to say. There is nothing in the poem which can be called extraordinary
but there is what I A Richards terms "that triumph of an exquisitely adjusted tone." The poet
gives a perfect expression to his feelings and sentiments. Several critics tend to criticise
the Elegy on account of its common places and truisms. These common places are good and
have what Graham Hough believes to be 'their compulsive force'. In them, Gray has
generalised his personal views and reflections. According to Hough "they are compelling
because they are not only what they first appear, majestic statements about the common lot:
they are also the solution of Gray's personal problem, and perhaps the only one possible in his
day."
The Elegy possesses qualities like the stately measure of its verse, and the wonderful felicity
and perfection of its style. It contains the neoclassical qualities like allusiveness, alliteration,
personification and a dignified manner. TheElegy has not the delicate shadowiness of 'Ode to
Evening' and its monumental style and weight of thinking seem beyond Collins. The verse of
the Elegy is polished and musical and has a haunting quality.
The reflections on life and death make the Elegy a philosophical poem but it is also a sort of
dramatic monologue in which the speaker has addressed imaginary readers or listeners. The
poem is a formalised composition and has a rhetorical condensed expression. Historically
speaking, the Elegy marks a shift from the neo classicism of the 18th century to the
romanticism of the early 19th century. It foreshadows the romantic poetry of Burns,
Wordsworth, Shelley and others.
Despite its melancholic tone and its harping on the transitoriness of human glory, it would be
difficult to agree with Lyly Glazier's view about the Elegy that "the net effect of the whole
poem is negative and fatalistic." We may find the positive effect of the poem in the fact that it
does not glorify death. It lays emphasis on a desire for immortality signified by the desire to
be remembered or to perpetuate human by memorials.
It presents a faithful account of the human condition on this earth, and if that condition turns
out to be gloomy, Gray is not to be blamed for this. To him goes the credit for pointing out
not only the obscurity of life of the poor, but also their good luck in having escaped, through
death, the acts of cruelty and violence that they might have committed had they lived longer.
The Elegy is certainly a great poem. Its universal appeal, its humanity and its broader concern
with the human condition are as much contributive to its greatness as its poetic merits.
Different factors may be said responsible for its greatness. To conclude it may suffice to
quote Douglas Bush who has nicely summed up its greatness, he remarks, "one obvious
reason is power of style which makes almost every line an example of 'what oft was thought
but never so well expressed.' Images, though generalised, can be nonetheless evocative. The
antitheses are more than antitheses; they are a succession of dynamic and ironic contrast
between ways and views of life. And all this inward force comes from a full sensibility
working under precise control. In its combination of personal attachment and involvement, as
well as in its generalise texture, the Elegy is in some sense an 18th century Lycidas."
The form and structure of the whole work enhanced Swift's purpose, as did the specific
metaphors in each of the four voyages. Firstly, Swift went to great pains to present Gulliver's
Travels in the genuine, standard form of the popular travelogues of the time. Gulliver, the
reader is told, was a seaman, first in the capacity of a ship's surgeon, then as the captain of
several ships. Swift creates a realistic framework by incorporating nautical jargon, descriptive
detail that is related in a "factual, ship's-log" style, and repeated claims by Gulliver, in his
narrative, "to relate plain matter(s) of fact in the simplest manner and style." This framework
provides a sense of realism and versimilitude that contrasts sharply with the fantastic nature
of the tales, and establishes the first ironic layer of The Travels. As Tuveson points out (58),
"In Gulliver's Travels there is a constant shuttling back and forth between real and unreal,
normal and absurd...until our standards of credulity are so relaxed that we are ready to buy a
pig in a poke." The four books of the Travels are also presented in a parallel way so that
voyages 1 and 2 focus on criticism of various aspects of English society at the time, and man
within this society, while voyages 3 and 4 are more preoccupied with human nature itself,
(Downie, 281). However, all of these elements overlap, and with each voyage, Gulliver, and
thus the reader, is treated not only to differing but ever deepening views of human nature that
climax in Gulliver's epiphany when he identifies himself with the detestable Yahoos. As such,
the overall structure also works like a spiral leading to a center of self-realization. Or, as
Tuveson puts it, Swift's satire shifts from "foreign to domestic scenes, from institutions to
individuals, from mankind to man, from others to ourselves," (62).
The choice of metaphor in each voyage serves more particularly the various points of Swift's
satiric vision. "The effect of reducing the scale of life in Lilliput is to strip human affairs of
their self-imposed grandeur. Rank, politics, international war, lose all of their significance.
This particicualr idea is continued in the second voyage, not in the picture of the
Brobdingnagians, but in Gulliver himself, who is now a Lilliputian," (Eddy, 149). And where
the Liiliputians highlight the pettiness of human pride and pretensions, the relative size of the
Brobdingnagians, who do exemplify some positive qualities, also highlights the grossness of
the human form and habits, thus satirizing pride in the human form and appearance. In the
voyage to Laputa, the actual device of a floating island that drifts along above the rest of the
world metaphorically represents Swift's point that an excess of speculative reasoning can also
be negative by cutting one off from the practical realities of life which, in the end, doesn't
serve learning or society (Downie, 282). And in the relation of the activities of the Grand
Academy of Lagado, Swift satirizes the dangers and wastefulness of pride in human reason
uninformed by common sense. The final choice of the Houyhnhnms as the representatives of
perfect reason unimpeded by irrationality or excessive emotion serves a dual role for Swift's
satire. The absurdity of a domestic animal exhibiting more "humanity" than humans throws
light on the defects of human nature in the form of the Yahoo, who look and act like humans
stripped of higher reason. Gulliver and the reader are forced to evaluate such behavior from a
vantage point outside of man that makes it both shocking and revelatory, (Tuveson, 62). The
pride in human nature as superior when compared to a "bestial" nature is satirized sharply.
However, the Houyhnhnms are not an ideal of human nature either. Swift uses them to show
how reason uninformed by love, compassion, and empathy is also an inadequate method to
deal with the myriad aspects of the human situation.
Within this framework, very little of human social behavior, pretensions, or societal
institutions escape the deflating punctures of Swift's arrows. Ewald states that, "As a satire,
the main purpose of Gulliver's Travels is to show certain shortcomings in 18th century
English society..." (151). Much of the first voyage lampoons court intrigue and the arbitrary
fickleness of court favor, (Eddy, 110). The rank and favor of the Lilliputian ministers being
dependent on how high they can jump over a rope literally illustrates this figurative point.
Gulliver himself falls out of favor because he does not pander to the King's thirst for power.
The two political parties being differentiated by the height of their heels points out how little
substantive difference there was between Whig and Tory, (or today between Democrat and
Republican), and similarly, the religious differences about whether the Host was flesh or
symbol is reduced to the petty quarrel between the Big-Endians and the Small-Endians. Swift
also highlights the pretensions of politics by informing the reader of some of the laudable and
novel ideals and practices of Lilliputian society such as rewarding those who obey the law,
holding a breach of trust as the highest offense, and punishing false accusors and ingratitude,
but shows that, like humans, even the Lilliputians do not live up to their own standards when
they exhibit ingratitude for Gulliver's help and accuse him of high treason, (Downie, 278).
Of course, the perspective shifts in the second voyage, where Gulliver finds himself in the
same relation to the Brobdingnagians as the Lilliputians were to him, which not only leads to
some different kinds of satiric insights, but many which are sightly darker in tone. Most of
the social and political criticism occurs in Chapters six and seven. Gulliver describes
European civilization to Brobdingnag's King, including England's political and legal
institutions and how they work, as well as some of the personal habits of the ruling class. Yet,
even though Gulliver subsequently confesses to the reader that he cast this information in the
most favorable light, the King still deduces that every strata of society and political power is
infested with rampant corruption and dismissively concludes "the bulk of your natives to be
the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
surface of the earth." This echoes a basic message of the first voyage but the attack here is
more direct and corrosive. The relative size of the Brobdingnagians adds a physical
dimension to the King's judgment and enhances its veracity. Also, "all the transactions of life,
all passion, and all social amenities, which involve the body, lose their respectability in
Brobdingnag," (Eddy, 150), from Gulliver's description of the odious breast to his viewing of
a public execution. In contrast, Brobdingnagian society has many things to recommend it
such as excellence "in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics," although Gulliver
ironically laments that these are only applied to the practical aspects of life and not used for
abstractions. However, much of Swift's political writings indicate that he, like the
Brobdingnagians, favored a conception of government and society based on common-sense,
(Lock, 132-134). The supreme moment of ironical criticism of European civilization occurs
in Chapter seven when, after offering the secret of gun powder to the King and his
subsequent horrified refusal, Gulliver declares the King to possess "narrow principles and
short views!" Of course, mankind would never be so short-sighted as to turn away from
learning a new method of injuring, torturing, or killing one's fellows! Aside from this sharp
comment on human nature, Swift is also alluding to the eagerness with which European
nations would leap at such an offer as an aid to waging war against their neighbors.
The main focus of social criticism in the voyage to Laputa is on intellectuals, such as
scholars, philosophers, and scientists, who often get lost in theoretical abstractions and
conceptions to the exclusion of the more pragmatic aspects of life, in direct contrast to the
practical Brobdingnagians. Many critics feel Swift was satirizing "the strange experiments of
the scientists of the Royal Society," but may also have been warning his readers against "the
political projectors and speculators of the time," (Davis 149-150). The Laputians excel at
theoretical mathematics, but they can't build houses where the walls are straight and the
corners are square. Instead, they constantly worry about when the sun will burn out and
whether a comet will collide with the earth. This misuse of reason is hilariously elaborated on
in Chapters five and six, where the various experiments occuring at the Grand Academy of
Lagado are described. Of course, the point is highlighted as Gulliver professes his sincere
admiration for such projects as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers and building houses
from the roof down. The satire in Voyage three attacks both the deficiency of common sense
and the consequences of corrupt judgment (Quintana, 317).
Most of the criticism in the Voyage to the Houyhnhnms is directed at human nature itself,
although the trend to more particular targets begun in the third voyage is continued with
glancing, but increasingly direct blows to the subjects of war, (destruction clothed in the
pretext of valour and patriotism), lawyers, (social parasites who measure their worth by their
excellence at deception and therefore, actually inhibit justice), and money, (the greed of a few
is fed by the labor and poverty of the many, as well as the relative uselessness and corruption
of these priveleged few). In addition, Swift makes some very cogent observations on
imperialism in the concluding chapter which point out the arrogance and self deception of
European nations when they claim to civilize, through brutality and oppression, groups of
indigenous people who were often mild and harmless. Of course, as Swift implies, the real
goal of imperialism is greed. The most ironic point occurs when the author disclaims that this
attack on imperialist countries does not include Britain, which history shows was equally as
brutal as its European rivals and, in many cases, even more so, considering its Empire
became at one time the largest of any European country. What I found most interesting was
how many critics took this disclaimer seriously as an expression of the author's patriotism,
(Ewald, 143-144, Bullitt, 64). It seems obvious that Swift is making the point that Gulliver's
naive patriotism, the last remnant of identification he has with his own kind, is misplaced and
it is Swift's final, palpable hit.
The main object of the satire in Gulliver's Travels is human nature itself, specifically Man's
pride as it manifests in "pettiness, grossness, rational absurdity, and animality," (Tuveson,
57). Gulliver's character, as a satirical device, serves Swift's ends by being both a mouthpiece
for some of Swift's ideals and criticisms and as an illustration of them (Ewald, 138-9); Thus,
critiques on human nature are made through Gulliver's observations as well as through
Gulliver's own transformation from a "naive individual...into a wise and skeptical
misanthrope," (Ibid.,142).
Chapter seven of the first Voyage, where Gulliver is informed that he is about to be indicted
for high treason by the Lilliputian Court, provides the most bitter satiric attack on hypocrisy,
ingratitude, and cruelty (Tuveson, 75), yet Gulliver, and the reader, are able to distance
themselves from these qualities by concluding that though these tiny creatures are aping
human behavior, they are still not human. In the second voyage, both the human pride in
physical appearance is attacked through Gulliver's perspective of the Brobdingnagians, and
Gulliver's own pride in himself and his country is reduced to ridiculousness as Gulliver
becomes the object of comic satire (Ibid., 76). Gulliver's offer of the secret of gunpowder
only underscores that he is a typical member of his race. From Gulliver's theme of the
excellence of mankind, begun in Chapter six, the episode concludes "with the shocking
demonstration of what man's inhumanity is capable of" (Ibid., 78).
One of the most interesting comments on the human condition is the description of the
immortal Struldbrugs in Voyage Three. Swift's treatment of the subject of immortality is
characteristically practical and down to earth. What would it really be like to live in
perpetuity? His answer: A living death. The main problem is that the human body ages and is
not a fit vessel to house a perpetual consciousness. In relating this episode, Swift affirms with
cutting precision that we have much in common with the rest of earth's creatures; any
superior reason we may possess, and the pride we take in it, does not exempt us from the
natural laws of physical death and regeneration. In Book Three, Swift not only shows the
possible perversions of reason in the doings at the Academy of Lagado, but also shows its
limitations in shielding us from the natural consequences of physical life. Here, he implies the
importance of a moral structure to human life; reason is not enough and immortality would
only make things worse.
Yet on the surface, Book four seems to argue that reason is the one quality, when properly
developed, that can elevate man to his ultimate potential. But ironically it is the horse-like
Houyhnhnms that possess this perfect development of reason, whereas the Yahoos, whom
Gulliver most resembles, are primitive and bestial. I agree with Ewald that Voyage four
contains Swift's clearest attack on human pride (154). Indeed, the quality of reason only
enables humans "to aggravate their natural corruptions and to acquire new ones which Nature
had not intended." Even a dispassionate view of human history would find it difficult to
dispute this conclusion. Whereas the attacks on human nature in the first three Voyages deal
with actions that are symptomatic of man's nature-"the corrosive satire of the last voyage is
concerned with the springs and causes of action" (Tuveson, 80), in other words, the essence
of man. As such, the satire directed against the pretensions of court, political corruption, and
the excesses of speculative reasoning may divert and disturb Gulliver, and the reader, but it is
possible to distance oneself from the attacks. But the object of the satiric attack in the last
voyage is man himself: it is Gulliver and the reader. Here, "Swift is attacking the Yahoo in
each of us" (Ibid., 81).
Human nature is cut into two parts: The Houyhnhnms possess reason and benevolence, and
selfish appetites and brutish awareness are left for the Yahoos. The microscopic analysis of
the human form that took place in the second voyage is now used to analyze the defects of
man's moral nature, and it is pride that prevents man from recognizing his flaws and dealing
with them. When Gulliver experiences the shock of recognition that he, too, is a Yahoo,
Gulliver passes from being a "perfect example a character acting in ignorance of his
condition" to experiencing "a terrifying insight into evil (which) is accompanied by all the
bitterness of a profound disillusionment" (Bullitt, 61, 65). Yet, I agree with many of the
critics who say that though Gulliver makes the mistake of identifying himself completely
with the Yahoos, Swift and the reader do not (Ibid., 65). "For the truth, as we are meant to
realize, is that man is neither irrational physicality like the Yahoos nor passionless rationality
like the Houyhnhnms" (Ibid.) but are something in between. We are meant to be repulsed by
the chilling calmness with which the Houyhnhnms accept death as described in Chapter nine
as much as we are by the selfishness of the Yahoos, and it is clear Swift does not present
Gulliver's comic and absurd withdrawal from people as a viable solution. Instead, Swift
wants us to be shocked out of the pride that allows us to deceive ourselves into thinking man
is completely virtuous when he is not by experiencing, with Gulliver, our own limitations
without making Gulliver's final mistake. The solution to the human dilemma is not so simple
as Gulliver's rejection of humanity, and Swift's final success, in terms of stimulating
response, is that, after masterfully dissecting and presenting the problem, he leaves the
application of his lessons to "the judicious reader."
For many critics, Gulliver's Travels "is in a sense, a tragic work...in that it is the picture of
man's collapse before his corrupt nature, and of his defiance in face of the collapse" (Dobree,
447). Yet, obviously Swift felt that humbling human pride, enabling a more honest self-
assessment, was absolutely vital to addressing the suffering and injustice so prevalent in
human life. Contrary to many who label Swift a misanthropist, only a man who cared deeply
about humanity could have produced a work like Gulliver's Travels. Weilding the scalpel of
satire, Swift cuts through our self-deception to our pride, the source of our moral denial and
inertia. As we travel with Gulliver through the voyages, Swift brilliantly peels away our
pretensions, layer by layer, until he shows us what we are and challenges us, intensely and
urgently, to be better. In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift continues to vex the world so that
it might awaken to the fact that humankind needs saving, but it has to save itself.
They bury their dead with their head directly downwards because they hold an opinion that
after eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again.
Gullivers account of the annoyance of the Empress of Lilliput on extinguishing fire in her
apartment is Swifts satirical way of describing Queen Annes annoyance with him on writing
A Tale of a Tub. Swifts satire becomes amusing when Gulliver speaks of the conflict
between the Big Endians and the Little Endians. In this account Swift is ridiculing the
conflicts between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. High Heel and Low Heel
represent Whig and Tory two political parties in England.
In the second voyage to Brobdingnag, there is a general satire on human body, human talents
and human limitations. Gulliver gives us his reaction to the coarseness and ugliness of human
body. When Gulliver gives an account, to the King of Brobdingnag, of the life in his own
country, the trade, the wars, the conflicts in religion, the political parties, the king remarks
that the history of Gulliver's country seems to be a series of conspiracies, rebellions, murders,
revolutions and banishments etc. Kind condemns the fatal use of gunpowder and the books
written on the act of governing. King mocks at the human race of which Gulliver is the agent.
The most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
surface of the earth.
Swift here ridicules human pride and pretension. The sight is, indeed, horrible and disgusting.
Among the beggars is a woman with a cancer in her breast.
It stood prominent six feet, and could not be less than sixteen in circumference spots and
pimples that nothing could appear more nauseous.
There is a man with a huge tumor in his neck; another beggar has wooden legs. But the most
hateful sight is that of the lice crawling on their clothes. This description reinforces Swift
views of the ugliness and foulness of the human body.
In the third voyage to Laputa, there is a satire on human intellect, human mind and on
science, philosophy and mathematics. However, his satire is not very bitter. We are greatly
amused by the useless experiments and researches, which are going on at the academy of
Projectors in Lugado. Here scientists wants to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers, to convert
human excrement into its original food, to build house from the roof downward to the
foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs and to produce books on various subjects by the use
of machine without having to exert ones brain.
Their heads were inclined either to the right or to the left, one of their eyes turned inward,
and the other directly up to Zenith.
Swift amuses us by making a fun of the people whose sole interests are music and geometry.
Swift here ridicules scientists, academics, planers, intellectual, in fact, all people who
proceed, only according to theory which are useless when they come to actual practice. He
satirizes historian and literary critics though Gullivers interviews with the ghosts of famous
dead. The point f satire is that historian often distorts facts and literary critics often
misinterpret great authors like Homer and Aristotle.
In the fourth voyage to Houyhnhnms, there is a bitter poignant satire on human moral
shortcomings. Voyage contains some of the most corrosive and offensive satire on mankind.
The description of the Yahoos given to us by Gulliver is regrettable.
Yet I confess I never say any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I
came near them, the more hateful they grew.
By contrast, the Houyhnhnms are noble and benevolent horses who are governed by reason
and lead an ordered life. It is, indeed, a bitter criticism on the human race to be compared by
the Houyhnhnms. The satire deepens when Gulliver gives an account, to the master
Houyhnhnms, of the events in his country. He tells him that war in European countries was
sometimes due to the ambition of kings and sometimes due to the corruption of the ministers.
He speaks of the numerous deadly weapons, employed by European nations for destructive
purposes. Many people in his country ruin themselves by drinking, gambling and debauchery
and many are guilty of murders, theft, robbery, forgery and rape. The master speaks of the
Yahoos love of shinning stones, their gluttony and their weakness for liquor. The master also
speaks of the lascivious behaviour of the female Yahoos. By contrast, the Houyhnhnms are
excellent beings.
Here was neither physician to destroy my body not lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer
to watch my words and actions here were no backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen,
house-breakers politicians, wits murderers, robbers no cheating shop-keeper or
mechanics, no pride, vanity or affectation.
They hold meetings at which the difficulties of their population are discussed and solved.
They regulate their population and do not indulge in sexual intercourse merely for pleasure.
Swifts purpose here is to attribute to horses certain qualities which would normally be
expected in human beings but which are actually lacking in them. Gullivers reaction o
Houyhnhnms fills him so much admiration for them and with so much hatred and disgust for
human beings that he has no desire even to return to his family.
Thus we see that Gullivers Travels is a great piece of art containing social satire in it.
Every satirist is at heart a reformist. Swift, also, wants to reform the society by pinpointing
the vices and shortcoming in it. And he very successfully satirizes on political tactics,
physical awkwardness, intellectual fallacies and moral shortcomings.
political-satire-in-gullivers-travels
Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is a pure piece of satire where he satirizes party politics, religious
differences, and western Culture as a whole in ways still relevant to today's world. But what
we find mostly after reading "Book-1" is that it is an allegorical representation of English
politics. In where Swift depicts the total political corruption beginning from 16th century and
ending with 18th century.
One of the forms of political satire is embodied in the first culture that is met by Gulliver. In
Gulliver's first adventure, he begins on a ship that runs aground on a submerged rock. He
swims to land, and when he awakens, he finds himself tied down to the ground, and
surrounded by tiny people, the Lilliputians. "Irony is present from the start in the
simultaneous recreation of Gulliver as giant and prisoner" (Reilly 167). Gulliver is surprised
"at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who dare venture to mount and walk upon my
body" (I.i.16). The Lilliputians are the embodiment of England of the time period. The
Lilliputians are small people who control Gulliver through means of threats. "...when in an
instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged into my left hand, which pricked my like so
many needles; and besides they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe"
(Swift, 24). England was a small country that had Europe (represented by Gulliver) and many
other parts of the world under their control.
Gulliver encounters the ridiculous nature of war. His first encounter of war is in the form of a
dispute over the way to eat an egg. A former king took the right of personal preference away
from his people by telling them to eat the egg from the small end instead of the large end.
Swift relates this trait to the situations where a dominant ruler oppresses nations. It also
shows how a simple, ridiculous act can bring forth war. The fight continues through
generations, soon the people continued to fight without really understanding why. Some of
the people resisted, and they found refuge in Blefuscu, and "for six and thirty moons past" the
two sides have been at war (I.iv.48). For Swift, Lilliput is analogous to England, and Blefuscu
to France. With this event of the story Swift satirizes the needless bickering and fighting
between the two nations.
Also vehicles of Swift's satire were the peculiar customs of the nation of Lilliput. The
methods of selecting people for public office in Lilliput are very different from that of any
other nation, or rather, would appear to be so at first. In order to be chosen, a man must "rope
dance" to the best of his abilities; the best rope dancer receives the higher office. this
diversion is only practiced by those persons who are candidates for great employments and
high favour at court. While no nation of Europe in Swift's time followed such an absurd
practice, they did not choose public officers on skill, but rather on how well the candidate
could line the right pockets with money.
Gulliver also tells of their custom of burying "their dead with their heads directly
downwards...The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice
still continues" (I.vi.60). At this point in the story, Gulliver has not yet realized that by seeing
the absurdity of the Lilliputians' traditions, that he might see the absurdity in European ones.
With this Swift satirizes the conditions of Europe.
Again in the same passage, we get Flimnap. According to Swift: Flimnap, the treasure is
allowed to cut a caper on the strait rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the
whole Empire" Here Swift's model for Flimnap , the most dexterous of the rope dancers, was
Robert Walpole, the leader of the Whig and an extremely witty politician. His official
position was like that of treasurers.
"The capering on a tight rope symbolizes Walpole's dexterity in parliamentary tactics and
political intrigues (C.H. Firth, book - Political significance of Gulliver's Travels)
Again in the chapter 3 the kings cushions represents the Duchess of Kendal, One of George
is mistresses, whom Walpole was believed to have bribed in order to return in power in
1721. Thus, Swift was particularly antipathetic towards the Duchess and enjoyed satirizing
Walpole because during his time political corruption reached the highest peak-
"Walpole's regime (i.e. systems of Government) was full of more political corruption."
(Professor M. Shamsuddin, Swift,s moral satire)
Again in chapter 4 , book 1, swift also narrates the folly of the religious war between Lilliput
and Blefuscu to immediate European politics- there ( in Lilliput) have been two struggling
parties in this Empire, under the name of Tramecksan and Slamecksan, from the high and low
heels on their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves."
Here two Lilliputians parties stand for English political parties. The high heels represent
Tories, the low heels Whigs. These two massacre the English soil both politically and by
religion. In Swift's voice- "we computed the Tramecksan , or High heels , to exceed us in
number; but the power wholly on our side" refers to the succession of Whigs in 1714 (i.e. the
Hanoverian succession) though the Tories were large in number. Here, it should be mentioned
that at first Swift was Whig and later joined the Tory. Again the king was sympathetic to the
Whigs. He used them to support Hanover against France and appointed them to official
positions to strengthen his position against the House of Lords. Thus the Lilliputians empire,
who is George i, wears low heels which is censured by Swift.
Therefore, we can say, religion was a political issue during Swift's time. Owing to a minor
religious issue there caused a serious conflict and it also results in the division of the nation
into two political groups. Many lives were taken and many kings were to lose their power
even their life was taken.
In the concluding part, we can say that Swifts Gullivers Travels is a satirical work. Here he
shows the problems , oddities etc of life.
Addison as an Essayist
Addison, regarded as one of the greatest prose stylists in English literary history, and the founder of
modern English essay and modern English prose, was the pioneer of a style that was very simple,
lucid, natural, moderate, free from extravagant expression, and called middle style. It is a style of
straightness, without any obscurities, ambiguities, complexities, or superfluities. He perfected
English prose as an instrument for the expression of social thought. Moreover, Addison, as an
essayist, is often seen as a moralist, a preacher, a philosopher and critic, and also a humorist. In this
writing we will discuss with reference from Addisons The Spectator essays.
Dr. Johnson for the first time mentioned Addisons style to be middle style. He says well-
His prose is the model of the middle style; familiar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious: on
grave subjects not formal; on light occasions not groveling, but without scrupulosity, and exact
without apparent elaborations; and always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or
painted words or pointed sentences.
Actually, he is clear, fluent and understandable in what he wants to say.
Clearness and lucidity of expression is the most striking feature of Addisons style. There is no
complexity or obscurity or difficulty in his expression. Even, a very long sentence can express clear
ideas at the very first sight or reading. For example,
sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing psalms, half a minute after the rest of the
congregation have done with it; sometimes when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he
pronounces amen three or more times to the same prayer, and sometimes stands up when everybody
else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing. (Sir
Roger at Church)
Here, more than one idea regarding Sir Rogers humorous activities is expressed with the help of
many comas and semicolons. But each of the ideas is expressed clearly without any haziness.
However, Addison is also very expert, when situation demands, in using short sentences-
As soon as the sermon is finished, no body presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the Church.
(Sir Roger at Church)
Again, Addison also writes many compact and succinct sentences having quotable quality like those
of Bacon. For example
In this case, therefore, it is not religion that sours a mans temper, But it is his temper that sours his
religion.
(Uncharitable Judgment)
Humour is one of the most notable qualities of Addisons style. Addisons humour is mainly ironical
and satirical and sometimes funny. It is not harsh or bitter but gentle, genial and civilized with a view
to correcting the society out of its follies and foibles. We can mention an example from the essay, Sir
Roger at Church-
As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer
nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for it by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at
sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees anybody else
nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servants to them.
Here, the humorous irony towards Sir Rogers eccentricities is notable.
Addisons style is not highly figurative. Fanciful similes and metaphors are not found in his writings.
Rather, when he thinks that his use of figurative language would be more useful and effective, only
then he uses them. Such as:
and his coachman has the looks of a privy councillor
(Sir Roger at Home)
Here, by the looks of a privy councilor, Addison wants to reveal the coachmans serious and wise
looks with a touch of humour. Again
A sermon repeated after this manner, is like the composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful
actor.
(Sir Roger at Home)
Addison uses many allusions, anecdotes, references. Additionally, most of his essays are headed by
quotations from classical or modern authors and these quotations are very apt to the subjects of the
essays. For example, Sir Roger at Church begins with the motto from Pythagoras
First, in obedience to thy countrys rites,
Worship th immortal God
Apparently, it seems that Addison is not laborious in his expression and word selection as the reader is
not to pay any labour to read and understand his writings. But, actually Addison was extremely
fastidious in his choice of words and laborious by polished and balanced hphrases. Here lies his
difference from other prose writers. In fact, most of the prose of Milton, Bacon and Lamb demands
simplified version and explanation. On the other hand, Addison himself is a simplified version.
Addisons style is near to the language of conversation, but not to the informal conversational style of
Montaige. Sometimes, it seems that Addison is talking with the reader. Such as the speaker, the
Spectator, that is, Addison is telling that
As I was walking with him [Sir Roger] last night, he asked me how I liked the good man [the
Chaplain] whom I have just now mentioned, and without saying for an answer, told me, that he was
afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table. (Sir
Roger at Home)
That is in the midst of the description of talking about the chaplain between the speaker and Sir
Roger, the writer as well as speaker tells us whom he has just mentioned in previous paragraph.
In fine, we cannot but admit Addisons great service to English prose as well as English literature. He
showed a perfect English prose style to a large extent, and freed it from extravagances and excesses of
eighteenth century writers, and brought in it clearness, lucidity and exactness. Indeed, we can end the
discussion with Dr. Johnsons tribute, regarded as classic, to it
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentations,
must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
A TOUR,
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while 120
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 130
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our chearful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind 140
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget 150
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. 160
Imagination: Where the eighteenth century poets used to put emphasis much on wit, the romantic
poets used to put emphasis on imagination. Wordsworth uses imagination so that the common things
could be made to look strange and beautiful through the play of imagination. In his famous Intimation
Ode", it seems to his as to the child "the earth, and every common sight" seemed "apparelled in
celestial light". Here he says,
Moreover, in this poem, we find a sequence of picture through his use of imagery. Through his
imagination he says,
Similarly, in the poem, Tintern Abbey, the poet sees the river, the stream, steep and lofty cliffs
through his imaginative eyes. He was enthusiastically charmed at the joyful sound of the rolling river.
Here he says,
Once again
Do I behold those steep and lofty cliffs
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect
The landscape with quiet of the sky".
In this poem, the poet seems that the nature has a healing power. Even the recollection of nature
soothes the poet's troubled heart. The poet can feel the existance of nature through imagination even
when he is away from her. He says,
Nature: Wordsworth is especially regarded as a poet of nature. In most of the poems of Wordsworth
nature is constructed as both a healing entity and a teacher or moral guardian. Nature is considered in
his poems as a living personality. He is a true worshiper of nature: nature's devotee or high priest. The
critic Cazamian says, "to Wordsworth, nature appears is a formative influence superior to any other,
the educator of senses or mind alike, the shower in our hearts of the deep laden seeds of our feelings
and beliefs". He dwells with great satisfaction, on the prospects of spending his time in groves and
valleys and on the banks of streams that will lull him to rest with their soft murmur.
For Wordsworth, nature is a healer and he ascribes healing properties to Nature in Tintern Abbey .
This is a fairly obvious conclusion drawn from his reference to "tranquil restoration" that his memory of
the Wye offered him in lonely rooms and mid the din/Of towns and cities"
Wordsworth says nature "never did betray the heart that loved her".
Subjectivity: Subjectivity is the key note of Romantic poetry. He expresses his personal thoughts,
feelings through his poems. In Ode: Intimation of Immortality the poet expresses his own/personal
feelings. Here he says that he can't see the celestial light anymore which he used to see in his
childhood. He says,
Nature becomes all in all to the poet. The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion. Nature was
his beloved. He loved only the sensuous beauty of nature. He has also a philosophy of nature.
Pantheism and mysticism: Pantheism and mysticism are almost interrelated factors in the Nature
poetry of the Romantic period. Wordsworth conceives of a spiritual power running through all natural
objects- the " presence that disturbs me with the low of elevated thoughts" whose dwelling is the light
of setting suns, the rolling ocean. the living air, the blue sky, and the mind of man (Tintern Abbey)
Humanism: The romantic poets had sincere love for man or rather the spirit of man. Wordsworth had
a superabundant enthusiasm for humanity. He was deeply interested in the simple village folk and the
peasant who live in contact with nature. Wordsworth showed admiration for the ideals that inspired the
French Revolution. Emphasis in individual freedom is another semantic characteristic. Wordsworth
laments for the loss of power, freedom and virtue of human soul.
Lyricism: Wordsworth is famous for simple fiction, bereft of artificialities and falsity of emotion. His
"Lyrical Ballads" signifies his contention that poetry is the "history or science of feelings"
In the concluding part, it can be said that Wordsworth was a protagonist in the Romantic Movement
which was at once a revolt and a revival. He shows the positive aspects of Romanticism with its
emphasis on imagination, feeling, emotion, human dignity and significance of Nature
Three young men are walking together to a wedding, when one of them is detained by a grizzled
old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands that the Mariner let go of him, and the
Mariner obeys. But the young man is transfixed by the ancient Mariners glittering eye and can
do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a
ship out of his native harborbelow the kirk, below the hill, / Below the lighthouse topand into
a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the
Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself
from the Mariners story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm
rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land of mist
and snow, where ice, mast-high, came floating by; the ship was hemmed inside this maze of
ice. But then the sailors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship,
the ice cracked and split, and a wind from the south propelled the ship out of the frigid regions,
into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross followed behind it, a symbol of good luck to the
sailors. A pained look crosses the Mariners face, and the Wedding-Guest asks him, Why lookst
thou so? The Mariner confesses that he shot and killed the Albatross with his crossbow.
At first, the other sailors were furious with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the
breezes blow. But when the fog lifted soon afterward, the sailors decided that the bird had
actually brought not the breezes but the fog; they now congratulated the Mariner on his deed.
The wind pushed the ship into a silent sea where the sailors were quickly stranded; the winds
died down, and the ship was As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean. The ocean
thickened, and the men had no water to drink; as if the sea were rotting, slimy creatures crawled
out of it and walked across the surface. At night, the water burned green, blue, and white with
death fire. Some of the sailors dreamed that a spirit, nine fathoms deep, followed them beneath
the ship from the land of mist and snow. The sailors blamed the Mariner for their plight and hung
the corpse of the Albatross around his neck like a cross.
A weary time passed; the sailors became so parched, their mouths so dry, that they were unable
to speak. But one day, gazing westward, the Mariner saw a tiny speck on the horizon. It resolved
into a ship, moving toward them. Too dry-mouthed to speak out and inform the other sailors, the
Mariner bit down on his arm; sucking the blood, he was able to moisten his tongue enough to cry
out, A sail! a sail! The sailors smiled, believing they were saved. But as the ship neared, they
saw that it was a ghostly, skeletal hull of a ship and that its crew included two figures: Death and
the Night-mare Life-in-Death, who takes the form of a pale woman with golden locks and red lips,
and thicks mans blood with cold. Death and Life-in-Death began to throw dice, and the woman
won, whereupon she whistled three times, causing the sun to sink to the horizon, the stars to
instantly emerge. As the moon rose, chased by a single star, the sailors dropped dead one by
oneall except the Mariner, whom each sailor cursed with his eye before dying. The souls of
the dead men leapt from their bodies and rushed by the Mariner.
The Wedding-Guest declares that he fears the Mariner, with his glittering eye and his skinny
hand. The Mariner reassures the Wedding-Guest that there is no need for dread; he was not
among the men who died, and he is a living man, not a ghost. Alone on the ship, surrounded by
two hundred corpses, the Mariner was surrounded by the slimy sea and the slimy creatures that
crawled across its surface. He tried to pray but was deterred by a wicked whisper that made his
heart as dry as dust. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of the dead men, each of who
glared at him with the malice of their final curse. For seven days and seven nights the Mariner
endured the sight, and yet he was unable to die. At last the moon rose, casting the great shadow
of the ship across the waters; where the ships shadow touched the waters, they burned red. The
great water snakes moved through the silvery moonlight, glittering; blue, green, and black, the
snakes coiled and swam and became beautiful in the Mariners eyes. He blessed the beautiful
creatures in his heart; at that moment, he found himself able to pray, and the corpse of the
Albatross fell from his neck, sinking like lead into the sea.
Form
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is written in loose, short ballad stanzas usually either four or
six lines long but, occasionally, as many as nine lines long. The meter is also somewhat loose,
but odd lines are generally tetrameter, while even lines are generally trimeter. (There are
exceptions: In a five-line stanza, for instance, lines one, three, and four are likely to have four
accented syllablestetrameterwhile lines two and five have three accented syllables.) The
rhymes generally alternate in an ABAB or ABABAB scheme, though again there are many
exceptions; the nine-line stanza in Part III, for instance, rhymes AABCCBDDB. Many stanzas
include couplets in this wayfive-line stanzas, for example, are rhymed ABCCB, often with an
internal rhyme in the first line, or ABAAB, without the internal rhyme.
Commentary
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is unique among Coleridges important works unique in its
intentionally archaic language (Eftsoons his hand drops he), its length, its bizarre moral
narrative, its strange scholarly notes printed in small type in the margins, its thematic ambiguity,
and the long Latin epigraph that begins it, concerning the multitude of unclassifiable invisible
creatures that inhabit the world. Its peculiarities make it quite atypical of its era; it has little in
common with other Romantic works. Rather, the scholarly notes, the epigraph, and the archaic
language combine to produce the impression (intended by Coleridge, no doubt) that the Rime
is a ballad of ancient times (like Sir Patrick Spence, which appears in Dejection: An Ode),
reprinted with explanatory notes for a new audience.
But the explanatory notes complicate, rather than clarify, the poem as a whole; while there are
times that they explain some unarticulated action, there are also times that they interpret the
material of the poem in a way that seems at odds with, or irrelevant to, the poem itself. For
instance, in Part II, we find a note regarding the spirit that followed the ship nine fathoms deep:
one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning
whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be
consulted. What might Coleridge mean by introducing such figures as the Platonic
Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, into the poem, as marginalia, and by implying that the
verse itself should be interpreted through him?
This is a question that has puzzled scholars since the first publication of the poem in this form.
(Interestingly, the original version of the Rime, in the 1 7 9 7 edition of Lyrical Ballads, did not
include the side notes.) There is certainly an element of humor in Coleridges scholarly glosses
a bit of parody aimed at the writers of serious glosses of this type; such phrases as Platonic
Constantinopolitan seem consciously silly. It can be argued that the glosses are simply an
amusing irrelevancy designed to make the poem seem archaic and that the truly important text is
the poem itselfin its complicated, often Christian symbolism, in its moral lesson (that all
creatures great and small were created by God and should be loved, from the Albatross to the
slimy snakes in the rotting ocean) and in its characters.
If one accepts this argument, one is faced with the task of discovering the key to Coleridges
symbolism: what does the Albatross represent, what do the spirits represent, and so forth. Critics
have made many ingenious attempts to do just that and have found in the Rime a number of
interesting readings, ranging from Christian parable to political allegory. But these interpretations
are dampened by the fact that none of them (with the possible exception of the Christian reading,
much of which is certainly intended by the poem) seems essential to the story itself. One can
accept these interpretations of the poem only if one disregards the glosses almost completely.
A more interesting, though still questionable, reading of the poem maintains that Coleridge
intended it as a commentary on the ways in which people interpret the lessons of the past and
the ways in which the past is, to a large extent, simply unknowable. By filling his archaic ballad
with elaborate symbolism that cannot be deciphered in any single, definitive way and then
framing that symbolism with side notes that pick at it and offer a highly theoretical spiritual-
scientific interpretation of its classifications, Coleridge creates tension between the ambiguous
poem and the unambiguous-but-ridiculous notes, exposing a gulf between the old poem and
the new attempt to understand it. The message would be that, though certain moral lessons
from the past are still comprehensiblehe liveth best who loveth best is not hard to understand
other aspects of its narratives are less easily grasped.
In any event, this first segment of the poem takes the Mariner through the worst of his trials and
shows, in action, the lesson that will be explicitly articulated in the second segment. The Mariner
kills the Albatross in bad faith, subjecting himself to the hostility of the forces that govern the
universe (the very un-Christian-seeming spirit beneath the sea and the horrible Life-in-Death). It
is unclear how these forces are meant to relate to one anotherwhether the Life-in-Death is in
league with the submerged spirit or whether their simultaneous appearance is simply a
coincidence.
After earning his curse, the Mariner is able to gain access to the favor of Godable to regain his
ability to prayonly by realizing that the monsters around him are beautiful in Gods eyes and
that he should love them as he should have loved the Albatross. In the final three books of the
poem, the Mariners encounter with a Hermit will spell out this message explicitly, and the reader
will learn why the Mariner has stopped the Wedding-Guest to tell him this story.
Coleridge is remembered not only as a poet but also as a critic and a philosopher. He lived a period
where science, religion and politics were at variance. As a scholar, he aimed at bringing them into
unity.Biographia Literaria is a remarkable work of Coleridges literary criticism. In this work he has
anticipated the modern philosophical and psychological criticism of the arts. He also defined the
nature of Wordsworths poetry.
The Aids of Reflection is Coleridges most profound philosophical work. It had a wide popularity in
the nineteenth century. In this work he attempted to distinguish between understanding which gives us
a known of the ordinary world and reason which guide us towards the ultimate spiritual truths.
Besides these considerable contributions to criticism and philosophy, his contributions in poetry are
most memorable . His notable poetic works are The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and Christabel.
Coleridge would have liked to have been himself such a poet, gathering the meaning of life as he saw
it. Within Coleridge there was a strange territory of memory and dream, of strange birds, Phantom
ships, Arctic seas, caverns, the sounds of unearthy instruments and haunted figures. He imagined a
world beyond the control of reason in where magic reigned.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Coleridges chief contribution to the Lyrical Ballads. It was
published in 1798. It is possibly one of the worlds masterpieces. When we go through the poem, it
introduces us to a supernatural realm, with a phantom ship, a crew of dead men, the overhanging
curse of the albatross, the polar spirit, and the magic breeze. Though it presents a supernatural world
before us, it nevertheless manages to create a sense of absolute reality concerning these manifest
absurdities. All the mechanisms of the poem such as its meter, rhyme, and melody are perfect. Some
of its description of the lonely sea have never been equaled to any others. In this poem Coleridge
attached a lesson at the end of the narrative where all moves in weird and unexpected sequence.
Kula Khan is a dream picture of the populous Orient. It, though sometimes considered as a fragment,
is best considered as complete poem and almost as a definition of the magical elements in Coleridges
poetry. The whole poem came to Coleridge one morning when he had fallen asleep and upon
awakening he began to write hastily. He was interrupted after fifty-four lines were written, and never
finished the poem.
Christabel is also a fragment work. It was planned as the story of a pure young girl who fell under the
spell of a sorcerer, in the shape of the woman Geraldine. It is full of a strange melody, and contains
many passages of exquisite poetry.
Coleridges poems are far removed from the gravity and high seriousness of Spenser, Milton or
Wordsworth. Much modern poetry has followed Coleridge in this manner, removing verse from its
older and more normal purposes
His Books
MY days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
Go, Valentine
Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid
In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.
The first stanza of the poem describes the physical appearance of the woman. Byron starts the
poem with the phrase She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry
skies;.(1-2) Here, the poet creates an image of a dark, clear sky with twinkling stars, and
make a contrast between brightness and darkness. This contrast could mean diverse things,
such as black hair and white skin, or deep, black eyes and clear, white parts of the
eyes. The image created by this contrast represents the cloth the woman is wearing; a black
dress with sparkles on it. In the next line, And all thats best of dark and bright/ Meet in her
aspect and her eyes:,(3-4) we see how the opposite characteristics of darkness and brightness
mentioned in previous lines reappear to mingle and create a wonderful harmony. In the last
two lines of this stanza, we see another contrast in imagery. The darkness and brightness from
lines above have mellowed(5) to become a tender light,(5) and this gets contrasted with
the expression gaudy day,(6) which inheres a negative connotation of excessiveness. Thus,
the woman that the poet is praising is in great balance. Opposites meet in the woman to
create a calm, soft image.
The second stanza of She Walks in Beauty continues to praise the womans appearance, but
starting from line 11, the poet extends this external beauty onto the womans personality. In
the phrase Had half impaired the nameless grace,(8) the poet tells us that the womans face
is in such a perfect portion that just a slight change would damage it. From the expression
half impaired, we could once again draw out two significant meanings. First, it could mean
that although the balance is destroyed, the beauty will still be half marvelous because it is
only half impaired. Or, if we focus on the notion of imperfection when something is in
half, the poet might be emphasizing the current, greatly balanced status of the womans
appearance which should not be destroyed. The expression nameless grace(8) is also
significant. By adding the word nameless in front of the word grace, the poet enlarged
the womans beauty and greatness, thereby suggesting it as something so priceless that cant
be defined nor expressed as a name. We could also understand that the woman has a black
hair from the expression Which waves in every raven tress,.(9) Compared with
conventional qualities of beauty during the time when Byron wrote this poem, black hair
which this woman has is extraordinary. This distinctiveness amplifies the womans beauty, as
she distinguishes herself from others. Lastly, in the last two lines, Where thoughts serenely
sweet express/ How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.,(11-12) we start to see how the
womans inner beauty is reflected in her appearance. Dwelling-place,(12) which is where
the mind and the spirit belong, is also sweet and pure. With this perfect inner quality added to
her external beauty, the woman becomes more perfect as she possesses beauty inside out.
The last stanza also talks both about the womans inner and outer characteristics. Her cheek
and her smiles are beautiful. In the phrases days in goodness spent,(16) mind at
peace,(17) and heat whose love is innocent,(18) we understand that the womans inner
thoughts are also as pure and graceful just as her appearance. As in previous stanzas, he once
again shows the theme of this poem, which is the womans physical beauty along with her
internal beauty.
Now, lets go on to analyzing the form of She Walks in Beauty. This poem takes the form of
ABABAB-CDCDCD-EFEFEF, each line composed of an iambic tetrameter. Different with
forms of sonnets which usually have an explosion at the ending part of the poem, She
Walks in Beauty carries on the ABABAB pattern all throughout the poem, making the
poem organized as the harmonious woman. Added to this, the great use of simple rhymes
creates a soft atmosphere, seemingly portraying the nature of the woman. Also, the repetition
of the unstressed-stressed words gives us a soft, stepping rhythm. Just as the poet had
described in the first two lines how pleasantly the woman walks in her dress, it gives a
walking-like rhythm and a flow to the overall poem. It is interesting to see how this regular
rhythm of unstressed-stressed pattern changes in line 4and the word Meet(4) gets
stressed, emphasizing how the contrasting values of darkness and brightness meet in the
woman and creates a harmony.
Next, lets look at the five major poetic mechanisms Byron used in this poem. First, the poet
uses personification such as smiles that win(15) and heart whose love is innocent,(18) to
vividly describe the womans soft smiles and pure heart. Second, there is a use of synesthesia
in the expression tender light.(5) Mixture of a visual sense and a tactile sense amplifies the
image of softness that the woman possesses. Third, use of similes and metaphors in parts
like the night,(1) nameless grace / which waves in every raven trees,(8-9) the poet
compares grace(8), the quality of the woman, to an observable phenomenon raven
trees(9) and makes the portray more clear. Fourth, Byron also uses metonymies like
smiles(15) to represent the woman, and heaven(6) to represent god. Lastly, to give
the poem a smooth flow, the poet uses alliteration in parts such as cloudless climes,(2)
starry skies,(2) day denies,(6) and serenely sweet.(11) These intended usages of words
contribute also in deepening the meaning of the words. We could associate the sound of
starry skies,(2) represented by the sound s, with the womans skirt dragging on the
ground, and the sound of d in day denies,(6) with the feeling of denial and rejection.
To summarize, the overall tone of She Walks in Beauty is soft and calm, quite different with
the image we have about poet, Lord Byron. Perhaps this extreme contrast between the lovely
poem and the author who have lived a dissipated lifestyle makes the poem touches us
stronger. We could vividly feel how strong Byrons admiration of the woman was. Use of soft
and simple languages rather than heavy, intellectual words is also significant, as it
demonstrates the pure, easily noticeable beauty of the woman. The woman portrayed in this
poem must have been truly beautiful to catch Byrons attention at once, and make him write
such a vivid poem.
Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos was written in 1810. Although there are
many elements for analysis in Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos it is a brief
poem by Byron, especially when compared to the epic length of Don Juan, but it is perhaps
the most representative of Byrons incorporation of neoclassical elements in his poetry. Byron
clearly situates the poem Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos in a specific
temporal period, which sets up a initial contrast between an idealized past and the wretched
present in which he wrote. The speaker is a degenerate modern wretch (l. 5) who thinks
Ive done a feat today (l. 6), comparing himself against the figures of the past. The speaker
appeals to a fair Venus (l. 4) and refers to the gods of the ancient past. Upon closer
inspection, however, the comparison is not so idealized after all. The speaker finds the story
of the old hero doubtful (l. 7) and concludes that it is difficult to discern who fared the
best (l. 7), himself or the old hero, for the old hero drownd and the speaker has the
ague (l. 8). The speakers recollection of the idealized past has served to challenge that past
as an idyllic, heroic period, though the speaker makes it clear that men still strive, if vainly, to
perform heroic deeds as an effort to prove their love.
She Walks in Beauty was written in 1814 and represents a dramatic shift in tone compared
to Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos. The ideal beauty of the ages has
changed little, but there is not a single direct reference to any classic beauties of the past, nor
are there comparisons. Instead, the woman who walks in beauty in the poem by Byron, She
Walks in Beauty is judged only on her own merits. It is not only her positive qualities that
are extolled, though. In addition, Byron alludes that the woman has a shadow side, which also
appeals to him and which he finds worthy of mention. In fact, the poem opens with the poet
comparing this beauty to a cloudless night with stars, and he openly shares that all thats
best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes (ll. 3-4). This beauty, then, is no
ordinary romantic female figure. Instead, she is complex and multi-faceted, and Byron is
unafraid to search for the beautiful beyond the surface. As a matter of fact, the womans
superficial physical beauty seems to be secondary to other kinds of beauty: her nameless
grace (l. 8), her pure thoughts, and her peacefulness and innocence are all important
characteristics the poet considers worth mentioning to the reader. This version of beauty in
She Walks in Beauty is distinct from other romantic poems in the same period, though
there are romantic elements. The nature imagery, of course, is one of the most important
romantic characteristics that is found in all three of the Byron poems being analyzed here.
Finally, Don Juan: Canto I was composed in 1822, the year of the poets death. An
extraordinarily lengthy poem that Byron had not finished by the time of his death, it is the
most complex of the three poems analyzed here and the most sophisticated in terms of the
complicated interplay of neoclassical and romantic elements. First of all, the most obvious
neoclassical characteristic is Byrons choice of a subject, Don Juan himself. This subject
evokes a period of chivalrous knighthood in which men prove their love for worthy ladies.
Byrons voice is hardly veiled in the poem, and as Canto the First opens, he clearly explains
his reason for selecting Don Juan as his subject: I want a hero: an uncommon want/When
every year and month sends forth a new one/Till/The age discovers he is not the true one:
/Ill therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan. (ll. 1-6). In this clearly articulated
stanza, Byron explains that there is no contemporary hero worthy of an epic meditationI
condemn none/But cant find any in the present age fit for my poem. (ll. 13-15) and so
he is compelled to reach into the past for an archetypal hero figure. He does not make any
false claims about how he will treat this hero, however. Byrons wit and sense of humor are at
their sharpest in Don Juan, and he is unsparing in his treatment of the old hero.
Byron also explains in the opening stanzas of the Canto that he will be telling an
unconventional tale, warning the reader that he will introduce his own poetic style in the
interpretation of the traditional Don Juan narrative. He does not ask for apology; his
statement is simply intended to inform the reader about his approach, signaling that the
usual method [is] not mine (l. 25). Across the span of this long poem, Byron nestles various
moral lessons that are intended to convey both classical and romantic ideals. Among these
lessons are: The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone (l. 502), Even innocence itself has
many a wile/And will not dare to trust itself with truth (ll. 574-575), and Love, then, but
love within its proper limits (l. 641). Byron thus defends love as the highest aspiration
Men have all these resources, we but one,/To love again, and be again undone (ll. 1551-
1552)but also acknowledges, unlike the other romantic poets, that love has its limits and
difficulties. Thus, the reader observes how the neoclassical figure of Don Juan is appropriated
by Byron to render a message that one might interpret as a reaction against the full embrace
of the romantics position.
Lord Byron is often classified as a romantic poet, and this classification is not inaccurate, but
it is not wholly correct, either. By incorporating significant and recognizable ideas and
images from earlier periods, Byron explored and either admitted or contested their
conclusions and their symbolic meaning, and applied his own interpretations as a way of
responding to the unrestrained emotional passion of his romantic contemporaries. Byron was
not simply a transitional figure who stood on the border between neoclassicism and
romanticism; rather, he blended both genres to craft a style that was his own. An examination
of three of his poems, Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos, She Walks in
Beauty, and Don Juan: Canto I, helps the reader to comprehend how these ideas developed
and crystallized over the course of his poetic career. These poems bridge the neoclassical and
romantic ideologies by putting them into conversation and opposition with one another.
Ode to Autumn
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease; 10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Ode to a Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Introduction:
John Keats was one of the Trio-younger romantic poets v/s Shelley, Byron
and himself. His odes are the most touching. He blossomed early and died young. Keats is
noted for the indulging luxuriance of his imagery, but at the same time, he developed self-
discipline in both feelings and craftsmanship. Keats believed in the importance of Sensation,
but for him, Sensation was the path of the knowledge of reality. All of his odes stand apart as
the best of all with its Sensuousness and richness of imagination. It is the most perfect and
shortest that is Ode to autumn. Other he wrote ode on Grecian Urn, Ode to Psyche,And
many like ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, and many.
Sensuousness :
Sensuousness is the unparallel quality of Keats poetic genius. He is the poet
of Sense and their delight, He gratified that the five human senses- touch, taste, smell, sight
and hearing. He is also a great lover of beauty. His mingling of love with beauty is become
universal with this line:
The odes, which represent the great sensuous picture like in Ode on
Melancholy, Ode on Grecian Urn, Ode to Nightingale, Ode to Fancy, Ode to autumn also
contain sensuous picture.
Every beauty that flowers have scant form stillness, coolness the next
colouring is summed up in the next the lovers lie with lips that touch not but which have not
at the same time bidden forever. We have more sensuous imagery when Keats describes the
superior beauty of psyche as compared with Venus and Vesper. A little later in the poem we
are given pictures of a forest, mountains, streams, birds, breezes and dryads lulled to sleep on
the moss.
One of the most exquisitely sensuous pictures comes exquisitely sensuous
picture comes at the end where we see a bright torch burning in the casement to make it
possible for cupid to enter the temple in order to make love to psyche.
In the Ode on Melancholy, again, we have several sensuous pictures. There is the
rain failing from a cloud above and reviving the drooping flowers below and covering the
green hill in an April shroud. There is the morning rose; there are the colours produced by
the sunlight playing on wet sand; and there is the wealth of globed peonies. And then there
is another exquisitely sensuous picture.
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
The Ode on a Grecian Urn contains a series of sensuous picturespassionate men and gods
chasing reluctant maidens, the flute-players playing their ecstatic music, the fair youth trying
to kiss his beloved, the happy branches of the tree enjoying an everlasting spring, etc. The
ecstasy of the passion of love and of youth is beautifully depicted in the following lines:
More happy love! more happy happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting, and for ever young.
The Ode to a Nightingale is one of the finest examples of Keatss rich sensuousness. The
lines in which the poet expresses of passionate desire for some Provencal wine or the red
wine from the fountain of the Muses appeal to both our senses of smell and taste:
These lines bring before us a delightful picture of Provence with its fun and frolic, merry-
making, drinking and dancing. Similarly the beaker full of the sparkling, blushful Hippocrene
is highly pleasing. Then there is the magnificent picture of the moon shining in the sky and
surrounded by stars. The rich feast of flowers described in the stanza that follows is one of
the outstanding beauties of the poem. Flowers, soft incense, the fruit trees, the white
hawthorn, the eglantine, the fast-fading violets, the coming musk-roseall this is a delight
for our senses.
In the Ode to Autumn, the charm of the season has been described with all its sensuous
appeal. The whole landscape is made to appear fresh and scented. There is great
concentration in each line of the opening stanza. There is a rich texture of sensuous
awareness in the poem and the poet surrenders himself to the mood of the sense.
Each line is like the branch of a fruit tree laden with fruit to the breaking point. The scenery,
the fruits and flowers and the honey all these appeal to our senses of seeing and the gourds.
The hazels with their kernel, the bees suggesting honey all these appeal for our sense of taste
and smell.
Thus, Keats always selects the objects of his description and imagery with a keen
eye on their sensuous appeal. This sensuousness is the principal charm of his poetry.
Sometimes this sensuousness deteriorates into sensuality. In other words, Keats often shows a
tendency to dwell too much upon the charms of the feminine body and refers to the lips,
checks, and breasts a little more than is necessary. In Ode to Autumn, the traditional form of
address is maintained and the whole ode celebrates the beauty of nature through excellent
images. The pictorial quality of the ode is unequalled stop ford. Its beauty and its the
consolation of the beauty is of the soul
Keats conception of beauty was not merely abstract but beauty personified its the objects of
nature. He compares a eulogy of the season autumn with all its peculiar colour, smells,
sounds and the tastes. The sensuousness of the poem depends on the minuteness of detail.
Keats compares autumn to a gleaner and says,
It is his sense impressions that kindled his imagination which makes him realize the great
principle that
Conclusion:
Keats is more poet of sensuousness than a poet of contemplation. It is his senses which
revealed him the beauty of things, the beauty of universe from the stars of the sky to the
flowers of the wood. Keats pictorial senses are not vague or suggestive but made definite
with the wealth of artistic details. Every stanza, Every line is full with sensuous beauty. No
other poet except Shakespeare could show such a mastery of language and felicity of
sensuousness .
The eighteenth century was known, among other possessions, as the neo-Classical Age of
Reason. Thinkers admired all things Classical, from architecture to literature, and logical
thinking was highly prized. Broadly speaking, Romanticism was a reaction against neo-
Classicism. Writers and artists of the Romantic period considered that reason and logical
thinking were all very well, but that these things did not value the emotional side of human
responses highly enough. In modern terms, they might have said that the importance of the
right hand-side of the brain, which deals with emotions, had been ignored. For instance, the
writer, printer and painter William Blake (1757-1827) despised the clinical Classicism which
was filling the new Royal Academy under the auspices of its founder, Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-92), finding there no place for the imagination. In a famous painting of Sir Isaac
Newton, Blake shows the great scientist absorbed in a calculation but apparently unaware
both of his own natural nakedness and of the beauty of the world symbolized by the
wonderfully colored rock upon which he is sitting. The second generation of Romantic poets,
Keats, Shelley and Lord Byron were also revolutionaries. All grew up under a repressive,
reactionary Tory government which had been quick to point out what power to the people
had led to in France. Shelleys crusade in the name of liberty led him to fall out with his
father, an MP and minor baronet, and to be expelled from Oxford University for writing The
Necessity of Atheism (1811), a deliberately provocative pamphlet given that in those days
most dons were churchmen. In 1818 he exiled himself for good, settling in Italy. From there,
upon hearing of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 when troops attacked a gathering of 60,000
Manchester civilians meeting to hear speeches advocating parliamentary reform, he wrote
The Mask of Anarchy, arguably the most vicious satirical poem ever written. No publisher
dared to print it until after the 1832 Reform Act, and long after Shelleys death. And although
Keats is, on the face of it, the least political of these three poets, it is surprising for us to find
out that his experiments with meter were seen as a challenge to the social order, and that this
is one of the reasons why right-wing critics attacked his work.
The second generations Romantic Poets are slightly different in their thoughts. They are very
much pessimistic and melancholic to observe the bad influence of the French Revolution. The
groups which it has become usual to use in distinguishing and classifying 'movements' in
literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have
taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of
them so hopelessly as the category is the second generation Romantic Poets.
Many scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of "Lyrical Ballads"
by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in 1798. The volume contained some of the
best-known works from these two poets including Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey." Of course,
other Literary scholars place the start for the Romantic period much earlier (around 1785),
since Robert Burns's Poems (1786), William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" (1789), Mary
Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women," and other works already
demonstrate that a change has taken place in political thought and literary expression.
Other "first generation" Romantic writers include: Charles Lamb, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter
Scott. A discussion of the period is also somewhat more complicated, since there was a
"second generation" of Romantics (made up of poets Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John
Keats). Of course, the main members of this second generation though geniuses died
young and were outlived by the first generation of Romantics. Of course, Mary Shelley
still famous for "Frankenstein" (1818) was also a member of this "second generation" of
Romantics. While there is some disagreement about when the period began, the general
consensus is... the Romantic period ended with the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837, and
the beginning of the Victorian Period. So, here we are in the Romantic era. We stumble upon
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats on the heels of the neoclassical era. We saw
amazing wit and satire (with Pope and Swift) as a part of the last age, but the Romantic
Period dawned with a different poetic in the air. In the backdrop of those new Romantic
writers, penning their way into literary history, we are on the cusp the Industrial Revolution
and writers were affected by the French Revolution. William Hazlit, who published a book
called "The Spirit of the Age," says that the Wordsworth school of poetry "had its origin in
the French Revolution... It was a time of promise, a renewal of the world and of letters."
Instead of embracing politics as writers of some other eras might have (and indeed some
writers of the Romantic era did) the Romantics turned to Nature for self-fulfillment. They
were turning away from the values and ideas of the previous era, embracing new ways of
expressing their imagination and feelings. Instead of a concentration on "head," the
intellectual focus of reason, they preferred to rely on the self, in the radical idea of individual
freedom. Instead of striving for perfection, the Romantics preferred "the glory of the
imperfect."
John Keats:
Keatss sentiment of Nature is simpler than that of other romantics. He remains absolutely
influenced by the Pantheism of Wordsworth and P. B. Shelley. It was his instinct to love and
interpret Nature more for her own sake, and less for the sake of the sympathy which the
human mind can read into her with its own workings and aspirations. Keats is the poet of
senses, and he loves Nature because of her sensual appeal, her appeal to the sense of sight,
the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of touch.
Both men were great lovers of nature, and an abundance of their poetry is filled with nature
and the mysterious magnificence it holds. Their attitudes towards the Nature are slightly
difference. P. B. Shelley treats the natural objects as the supreme elements of inspiring him.
Natural elements are successfully glorified by Shelley. He worships Nature and wants some
of power from nature to enrich his poetical power to transmit his message to the people in
this older world. On the other hand Keats treats nature as an observer, as a traveler. He finds
interest to appreciate the physical beauty of Nature. Both writers happened to compose poems
concerning autumn in the year of 1819, and although the two pieces contain similar traits of
the Romantic period, they differ from each other in several ways as well. Keats' poem "To
Autumn" and Shelley's poem "Ode to the West Wind" both contain potent and vivacious
words about the season and both include similar metaphors involving autumn. However, the
feelings each writer express in their pieces vary greatly from each other, and Keats and
Shelley address nature in their poems with different intentions as well. Shelley and Keats
exhibit their genius for rich energized word use within these two poems wonderfully. Also,
interesting similarities between the two pieces are some of the metaphors the poets
implement. Hair is a subject both writers explored as a metaphor for nature. Shelley, in "Ode
to the West Wind," claims the wind is "like the bright hair uplifted from the head/ Of some
fierce Maenad," while Keats views autumn as "sitting careless on a granary floor,/ Thy hair
soft-lifted by the winnowing wind." Hair, often used in poetry metaphorically, tends to
symbolize feminine beauty and strength; in this case, both poets make use of the subject of
hair when describing certain aspects of nature. The speakers in these two poems also express
their thoughts on the portent of the coming spring. In the final couplet of Shelley's poem, the
speaker asks, "Oh wind,/ if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" The speaker in Keats'
poem inquires, "Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?" Both poets look upon
autumn as an indication of the coming season which is opposite of autumn. The subjects of
seeds and budding plants are also touched upon within the two pieces. Autumn is when, as
Shelley writes, "the winged seeds" are placed in their "dark wintry bed" and "lie cold and
low." And Keats writes that autumn is the time when the hazel shells are "plump with a sweet
kernel; to set budding more." These similarities between the two pieces are interesting;
however there are many differences in the poems as well. Keats and Shelley express different
emotions about the fall season. Shelley looks at autumn as being wild and fierce while Keats
has a more gentle view of the season. Shelley perceives autumn as an annual death, calling it
"Thou dirge/Of the dying year," and he uses words such as "corpse" and sepulchre" in the
poem. He also employs words such as "hectic" and "tameless", and looks upon the autumn
horizon as being "the locks of the approaching storm." Also, he claims the autumn winds are
where "black rain and fire and hail will burst." Lines such as this reveal the speaker's attitude
that autumn is a ferocious and reckless season bearing morbid portence of the coming winter.
On the other hand, Keats fills his poem with lighter words such as "mellow," "sweet,"
"patient," and "soft." The speaker of this poem looks out upon the landscape and hears the
"full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn," and listens as the "gathering swallows twitter
in the skies." These lines indicate a much softer and more amiable emotion felt by the
speaker; sentiments quite opposite to those felt in "Ode to the West Wind." Another great
difference in these poems is the intentions of the poets themselves. Shelley, in his thirst for
being known, wants to attain power like the wind has. He asks of the wind, "Be thou, Spirit
fierce,/ My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!" He pleads for it to move his thoughts "over
the universe/ Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth," and to "scatter, as from an
unextinguished hearth/ Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind." Shelley's more
ambitious approach to the weather differs from Keats, who merely enjoys the season for what
it holds and asks nothing from it. Keats thoroughly enjoys the "stubble-plains with rosy hue,"
and listening as "the red-breast whistles from a garden-croft." Although both writers examine
the autumn season, each express different intentions in the poems they have written. Shelley's
"Ode to the West Wind" and Keats' "To Autumn" have striking similarities when it comes to
their rich metaphors; however, the poems differ in almost every other sense. Shelley holds a
much more savage notion about the season, while Keats looks upon autumn as being soft and
gentle. Shelley's ambitions are expressed in his piece, while Keats only reflects the beauty of
what he sees. Both writers display their own unique talent as poets, deserving their titles as
being two of the greatest Romantic writers of the period.
02) Imagination
Imagination is one of the striking characteristics of Romantic Poets. P. B. Shelley's poem "To
a Skylark" and John Keats's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" are both centered on nature in the
form of birds. Both poems are classified as Romantic and have certain poetic elements in
common, but in addition both poems have differences in style and in theme that differentiate
them clearly. Both poets are spurred to react and to write because of their encounter with a
bird. Shelley is addressing the bird that excites his interest more directly, while Keats turns to
reverie because of the song of the nightingale more than the nightingale itself. In the latter
case, the song of the poet has a different tone from the song of the bird--the joy of the bird
becomes a contemplative song for the poet. Each poet begins with the reality of the bird or its
song and then uses that as a beginning point for aesthetic and philosophic speculation.
P. B. Shelley:
If the West Wind was Shelley's first convincing attempt to articulate an aesthetic philosophy
through metaphors of nature, the skylark is his greatest natural metaphor for pure poetic
expression, the "harmonious madness" of pure inspiration. The skylark's song issues from a
state of purified existence, a Wordsworthian notion of complete unity with Heaven through
nature; its song is motivated by the joy of that uncomplicated purity of being, and is unmixed
with any hint of melancholy or of the bittersweet, as human joy so often is. The skylark's
unimpeded song rains down upon the world, surpassing every other beauty, inspiring
metaphor and making the speaker believe that the bird is not a mortal bird at all, but a
"Spirit," a "sprite," a "poet hidden / In the light of thought."
In that sense, the skylark is almost an exact twin of the bird in Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale";
both represent pure expression through their songs, and like the skylark, the nightingale "wast
not born for death." But while the nightingale is a bird of darkness, invisible in the shadowy
forest glades, the skylark is a bird of daylight, invisible in the deep bright blue of the sky. The
nightingale inspires Keats to feel "a drowsy numbness" of happiness that is also like pain, and
that makes him think of death; the skylark inspires Shelley to feel a frantic, rapturous joy that
has no part of pain. To Keats, human joy and sadness are inextricably linked, as he explains at
length in the final stanza of the "Ode on Melancholy." But the skylark sings free of all human
error and complexity, and while listening to his song, the poet feels free of those things, too.
Structurally and linguistically, this poem is almost unique among Shelley's works; its strange
form of stanza, with four compact lines and one very long line, and its lilting, songlike
diction ("profuse strains of unpremeditated art") work to create the effect of spontaneous
poetic expression flowing musically and naturally from the poet's mind. Structurally, each
stanza tends to make a single, quick point about the skylark, or to look at it in a sudden, brief
new light; still, the poem does flow, and gradually advances the mini-narrative of the speaker
watching the skylark flying higher and higher into the sky, and envying its untrammeled
inspiration--which, if he were to capture it in words, would cause the world to listen.
John Keats:
With "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats's speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of the
themes of creative expression and the mortality of human life. In this ode, the transience of
life and the tragedy of old age ("where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, / Where youth
grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies") is set against the eternal renewal of the nightingale's
fluid music ("Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!"). The speaker reprises the
"drowsy numbness" he experienced in "Ode on Indolence," but where in "Indolence" that
numbness was a sign of disconnection from experience, in "Nightingale" it is a sign of too
full a connection: "being too happy in thine happiness," as the speaker tells the nightingale.
Hearing the song of the nightingale, the speaker longs to flee the human world and join the
bird. His first thought is to reach the bird's state through alcohol--in the second stanza, he
longs for a "draught of vintage" to transport him out of himself. But after his meditation in
the third stanza on the transience of life, he rejects the idea of being "charioted by Bacchus
and his pards" (Bacchus was the Roman god of wine and was supposed to have been carried
by a chariot pulled by leopards) and chooses instead to embrace, for the first time since he
refused to follow the figures in "Indolence," "the viewless wings of Poesy."
The rapture of poetic inspiration matches the endless creative rapture of the nightingale's
music and lets the speaker, in stanzas five through seven, imagine himself with the bird in the
darkened forest. The ecstatic music even encourages the speaker to embrace the idea of
dying, of painlessly succumbing to death while enraptured by the nightingale's music and
never experiencing any further pain or disappointment. But when his meditation causes him
to utter the word "forlorn," he comes back to himself, recognizing his fancy for what it is--an
imagined escape from the inescapable ("Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is
fam'd to do, deceiving elf"). As the nightingale flies away, the intensity of the speaker's
experience has left him shaken, unable to remember whether he is awake or asleep. In
"Indolence," the speaker rejected all artistic effort. In "Psyche," he was willing to embrace the
creative imagination, but only for its own internal pleasures. But in the nightingale's song, he
finds a form of outward expression that translates the work of the imagination into the outside
world, and this is the discovery that compels him to embrace Poesy's "viewless wings" at last.
The "art" of the nightingale is endlessly changeable and renewable; it is music without
record, existing only in a perpetual present. As befits his celebration of music, the speaker's
language, sensually rich though it is, serves to suppress the sense of sight in favor of the other
senses. He can imagine the light of the moon, "But here there is no light"; he knows he is
surrounded by flowers, but he "cannot see what flowers" are at his feet. This suppression will
find its match in "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which is in many ways a companion poem to "Ode
to a Nightingale." In the later poem, the speaker will finally confront a created art-object not
subject to any of the limitations of time; in "Nightingale," he has achieved creative
expression and has placed his faith in it, but that expression--the nightingale's song--is
spontaneous and without physical manifestation.
03) Idealism
Idealism is the very much common characteristics especially in second generation Romantic
Poets. Romantic idealism favored this hermeneutic and phenomenological outlook on life. At
this juncture, we want here to address and emphasize the question of the poems inspiration
by the natural phenomenon, the luminous star.
P. B. Shelley:
Among the great Romantics whose poetry, in the early nineteenth century, forms one of the
most glorious chapters in the whole of English Literature, no one perhaps was inspired by a
purer and loftier idealism than P. B. Shelley. Shelleys is divided by three sub categories:
Revolutionary Idealism
Religious Idealism
Erotic Idealism
John Keats:
The hush of natural objects opens quite
To the core: and every secret essence there
Reveals the elements of good and fair
Making him see, where Learning hath no light.
With regard to Romantic idealism, there are undoubtedly elements here that show Keatss
enthusiasm for nature. Even if Keatss conception of nature has affinities with spirituality as
discerned in the works of Romantics like William Wordsworth (17701850), Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (17721834) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822), the intention of this write-up
is not primarily the fullness of spiritual experience in nature. Nature plays a vital role in the
understanding of his aesthetic ambitions and achievements. Though there are a number of
characteristic features in Keatss poetry which affiliate with Coleridge and Wordsworth, his
nature-consciousness will be seen to take a slightly different turn. Keatss poetry and prose
show proof of certain monistic traits common in the two elder poets, justifying the assertion
that he can be discussed within the mainstream of Romantic idealism with regard to nature,
even if he does not handle the matter in a like manner.
It can be argued equally that his poetry lends credence to apprehend nature from an organics
viewpoint. Yet, his eco-poetics, as we intend to analyze, does not place priority on the
visionary and transcendental and, therefore, the dominant spiritual dimension of nature is not
like that of his elder colleagues, for it tends to reduce nature primarily within the confines of
his aesthetic quest rather than brood over it fundamentally as a universal force or the basis of
his spiritual longings.
04) Revolution
M.H. Abrams wrote, "The Romantic period was eminently an age obsessed with fact of
violent change". Especially the second generations Romantic Poets are the pioneer to revolt
against society, religion and state.
P. B. Shelley:
Shelley resembles Byron in his thorough-going revolt against society, but he is totally unlike
Byron in several important respects. His first impulse was an unselfish love for his fellow-
men, with an aggressive eagerness for martyrdom in their behalf; his nature was unusually,
even abnormally, fine and sensitive; and his poetic quality was a delicate and ethereal
lyricism unsurpassed in the literature of the world. In both his life and his poetry his visionary
reforming zeal and his superb lyric instinct are inextricably intertwined. Shelley was the most
politically active of the Romantic poets. While attempting to instigate reform in Ireland in
1812-13, he wrote to William Godwin, author of Political Justice. (Note also Godwin's
connections with Wordsworth and Coleridge.) Shelley's pure idealism led him to take extreme
positions, which hurt the feasibility of his attempts at reform.
By 1816 he had mostly given up these politics in favor of the study and writing of poetry; his
Queen Mab later became popular among the Chartists. The longest-lasting effects of his
extreme views were the fact that he met and eloped with William Godwin's brilliant daughter
Mary, abandoned his wife, and was eventually forced to leave England. Even far away in
Italy, however, he was incensed by the Peterloo massacre and wrote The Mask of Anarchy in
response to it. He also turned into an attack on George IV his translation of Sophocles,
Oedipus Tyrannus; or Swellfoot the Tyrant.
John Keats:
Keats was neither rebel nor Utopian dreamer. As the modern seemed to him to be hard, cold,
and prosaic, he habitually sought an imaginative escape from it. Not like Shelley into the
future land of promise, but into the past of Greek mythology, as in Endymion, Lamia, and the
fragmentary Hyperion.
05) Symbolism
P. B. Shelley:
Shelley uses symbolism successfully in his famous sonnet Ozymandias. Nothing, in this
world is immortal. Even things that are cast in stone, can be one day undone; that things may
fall and crumble there; forgotten one by one. It has been said time after time for as long as
most anyone can recall, a small saying that says nothing is cast in stone. This poem is just
another example that unlike something cast in stone, nature will always conquer over all
despite the way that mankind may think.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley tells us the same thing in the poem 'Ozymandias' through both
exquisite wording and beautiful imagery. The poem is a genius work about strength and the
fall of false greatness, told from the eyes of a traveler who encounters an elderly stranger. In
the poem the stranger tells him about the fall of a great kingdom that had thought itself
unbeatable by even time. The author uses the image of a statue as a symbol for this kingdom.
The image of a broken stone man, which has been beaten down by nature and time plays as
an example for many things. The reader learned throughout the poem that not only did time
and nature beat this great kingdom, but also they themselves did it during their struggle to be
great.
The image of two trunkless legs still planted and slowly being covered by the sand is, in a
way, exposing how mankind thinks. Men often believe they are unstoppable even by nature
and time, often comparing the elements to other men, believing that the best surpasses even
their power.
In another line the writer refers to the face of the statue, left fallen in the sand, its lips curled
in a look of cold and cruel command. This is a play on the way that mankind is by nature.
Mankind is a race that spends all it's time rushing about, using commands and war to strive
for survival. It is a common belief that he who is strongest will outlive them all. In this poem
the writer shows that this is almost always outlived. Weather they are beaten by time, the
elements, or themselves, the strongest kingdom will always crumble.
The words written on the statues base are said in a beautiful passionate queue, "My name is
Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" In this passage the
writer says that the sculptor of this piece knew all to well, that even the strongest army will
fall with time, look and despair that man is not eternal. The sculptor leaves a morbid example
to all who would wander upon his works to look around and see what has become of
greatness. It is, in a way, telling the reader that greatness is short lived, and that nothing is
forever.
The last lines are a beautiful expression of the fallen city, which lie in the sand about the
pieces of the broken statue. Crumbled and dead, the sands stretch on still, holding the vast
proof that forever is not so long a time in the eyes of the world and that life will continue on
even after the walls have crumbled. It is this poem that sets a perfect example that mankind
does not give credit to the strength that comes with time and the forces of nature, and will
often put so much time into becoming the best and most powerful that they lose sight on life,
becoming nothing more than a fallen king. Perhaps the writer hoped to express a greater
understanding of the tragedy of greatness, or even express the value of life over the conquest
of power.
John Keats:
In Ode to a Nightingale one can discern the consciousness of the use of nature, symbolized
in the bird and its melodious song, not only for poetic composition, but also for advancing the
poets philosophical speculations. Both bird and song represent natural beauty, the poetic
expression of the non-verbal song signaling the harmony of nature. Apart from the ecstasy
that the birds song generates, the unseen but vivid pictorial description of the surrounding
landscape adds to the bliss and serenity of the atmosphere:
To put it in other words, the song seems to engender a phenomenological process of self-
transformation or a psychological metamorphosis that enhances a deep desire for the eternal
and unalterable through death. Yet the poet submits to a stoical fortitude, apparently
emphasizing the material and sensuous realm of existence rather than the struggle to maintain
a permanent and idealistic state. This has often been problematical as imaginative failure, or
as a characteristic Keatsian trademark of ambivalence between reality and imaginative
illusion.
06) Melancholy
Second generations Romantic Poets were Melancholic according to the bad effect of French
Revolution. Their desires did not come true and their endeavor to the Ideal world remained in
their dream. So they were very much frustrated and possessed agony to the real world order.
P. B. Shelley:
He is one of the greatest, successful Melancholic in his age. It is this unsatisfied desire, this
almost painful yearning with its recurring disappointment and disillusionment, which is at the
root of Shelleys melancholy. His most famous and powerful lines, reveals the melancholy,
are in Ode to the West Wind:
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
His melancholy is thus vital to his poetry. It may be said that his music is the product of his
genius and his melancholy. His melancholy is what the world seems to like best as:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts.
John Keats:
In the poem "Ode on Melancholy," Keats takes a sinister look at the human condition. The
idea that all human pleasures are susceptible to pain, or do inevitably lead to pain, is a
disturbing thought. Keats comments on the miserable power of melancholy, especially how it
thrives on what is beatiful and desirable and turns it into its opposite.
In this passage, there seems to be an emphasis on lost hope. There seems to be this idea that
true happiness is either ephemeral or unreachable. For example, Keats writes above about
"Joy...Bidding adeui" and Pleasure Turning to poison." Keats seems to be saying that
happiness is a temptation which people are tragically prone to dream about, an illusion upon
which is unrealistic.
From the Renaissance to the nineteenth century Greece was a primary object of myth-makers'
attentions, its history as well as its mythology fodder for the imagination. These two poets
were deeply influenced by the Greek literature. Shelley wrote Hellas, which is the ancient
name of Greece. Keats was also influenced by Hellenism, while P. B. Shelley was influenced
by Platonism.
John Keats:
Shelley expressed the opinion that Keats was a Greek. Indeed, Keats was unmistakably a
representative of Greek thought, in a sense in which Wordsworth and Coleridge and even
Shelley were not. The Greek spirit came to Keats through literature, through sculpture, and
through an innate tendency, and it is under Hellenic influence as a rule that he gives of his
best. Keats has contrived to talk about the gods much as they might have been supposed to
speak. The world of Greek paganism lives again in his verse, with all its frank sensuousness
and joy of life, and with all its mysticism. Keats looks back and lives again in the time:
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire. ---Ode to Psyche
P. B. Shelley:
Shelley's Platonic leanings are well known. Plato thought that the supreme power in the
universe was the Spirit of beauty. Shelley borrowed this conception from Plato and developed
it in his metaphysical poem: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Intellectual Beauty is omni potent
and man must worship it.
The favorite Greek conceit of pre-existence in many earlier lives may frequently be found in
other poems besides the "Prometheus Unbound" quoted in part II of our series.
The last stanza of ""The Cloud," is Shelly's Platonic symbol of human life:
I am the daughter of earth and water And the nursling of the sky I pass through the pores of
the ocean and shores I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The
pavilion of heaven is bare And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up
the blue dome of air I silently laugh at my own cenotaph And out of the caverns of rain Like a
child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
John Keats:
Keats is called the poet of beauty or some critics address him as the worshiper of beauty.
Keatss notion of beauty and truth is highly inclusive. That is, it blends all lifes experiences
or apprehensions, negative or positive, into a holistic vision. Art and nature, therefore, are
seen as therapeutic in function. Keats was considerably influenced by Spenser and was, like
the latter, a passionate lover of beauty in all its forms and manifestation. This passion for
beauty constitutes his aestheticism. Beauty, indeed, was his pole-star, beauty in Nature, in
woman, and in art. He writes and defines beauty:
A think of beauty is joy for ever
In John Keats, we have a remarkable contrast both with Byron and Shelley. He knows
nothing of Byrons stormy spirit of antagonism to the existing order of things and he had no
sympathy with Shelleys humanitarian real and passion for reforming the world. But Keats
likes and worships beauty. In his Ode on a Grecian Urn, he expresses some powerful lines
about his thoughts of beauty. This ode contains the most discussed two lines in all of Keats's
poetry:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The exact meaning of those lines is disputed by everyone; no less a critic than TS Eliot
considered them a blight upon an otherwise beautiful poem. Scholars have been unable to
agree to whom the last thirteen lines of the poem are addressed. Arguments can be made for
any of the four most obvious possibilities, -poet to reader, urn to reader, poet to urn, poet to
figures on the urn. The issue is further confused by the change in quotation marks between
the original manuscript copy of the ode and the 1820 published edition.
P. B. Shelley:
Shelley expresses love as one of the God-like phenomena in human life and beauty is the
intellectual beauty to him. We find the clear idea of Shelleys love and beauty through Hymn
to the Intellectual Beauty. The poem's process is doubly figurative or associative, in that, once
the poet abstracts the metaphor of the Spirit from the particulars of natural beauty, he then
explains the workings of this Spirit by comparing it back to the very particulars of natural
beauty from which it was abstracted in the first place: "Thy light alone, like mist o'er
mountains driven"; "Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart..." This is an inspired
technique, for it enables Shelley to illustrate the stunning experience of natural beauty time
and again as the poem progresses, but to push the particulars into the background, so that the
focus of the poem is always on the Spirit, the abstract intellectual ideal that the speaker
claims to serve.
Of course Shelley's atheism is a famous part of his philosophical stance, so it may seem
strange that he has written a hymn of any kind. He addresses that strangeness in the third
stanza, when he declares that names such as "Demon, Ghost, and Heaven" are merely the
record of attempts by sages to explain the effect of the Spirit of Beauty--but that the effect has
never been explained by any "voice from some sublimer world." The Spirit of Beauty that the
poet worships is not supernatural; it is a part of the world. It is not an independent entity; it is
a responsive capability within the poet's own mind.
If the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" is not among Shelley's very greatest poems, it is only
because its project falls short of the poet's extraordinary powers; simply drawing the abstract
ideal of his own experience of beauty and declaring his fidelity to that ideal seems too simple
a task for Shelley. His most important statements on natural beauty and on aesthetics will take
into account a more complicated idea of his own connection to nature as an expressive artist
and a poet, as we shall see in "To a Skylark" and "Ode to the West Wind." Nevertheless, the
"Hymn" remains an important poem from the early period of Shelley's maturity. It shows him
working to incorporate Wordsworthian ideas of nature, in some ways the most important
theme of early Romanticism, into his own poetic project, and, by connecting his idea of
beauty to his idea of human religion, making that theme explicitly his own.
09) Diction
One of the most distinct attributes of the Romantic writers Percy Bysshe Shelley and John
Keats is their gift of using both lush and tactile words within their poetry.
P. B. Shelley:
Shelley uses terza rima in his Ode to the West Wind. Terza rima utilizes three-line stanzas,
which combine iambic meter with a propulsive rhyme scheme. Within each stanza, the first
and third lines rhyme, the middle line having a different end sound; the end sound of this
middle line then rhymes with the first and third lines of the next stanza. The rhyme scheme
thus runs aba bcb cdc ded efe, and so forth. Shelley's Ode to the West Wind (1820)
instances one of the finest uses of terza rima in an English-language poem:
John Keats:
Influenced by Greek literature, he applied those Classical characteristics of his poetry; Keats
is one of the great word painters in English Literature. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" follows the
same ode-stanza structure as the "Ode on Melancholy," though it varies more the rhyme
scheme of the last three lines of each stanza. Each of the five stanzas in "Grecian Urn" is ten
lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter, and divided into a two part
rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven lines of each stanza
follow an ABABCDE rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the CDE sounds do not
follow the same order. In stanza one, lines seven through ten are rhymed DCE; in stanza two,
CED; in stanzas three and four, CDE; and in stanza five, DCE, just as in stanza one. As in
other odes (especially "Autumn" and "Melancholy"), the two-part rhyme scheme (the first
part made of AB rhymes, the second of CDE rhymes) creates the sense of a two-part thematic
structure as well. The first four lines of each stanza roughly define the subject of the stanza,
and the last six roughly explicate or develop it. (As in other odes, this is only a general rule,
true of some stanzas more than others; stanzas such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme
and thematic structure closely at all.).
John Keats:
The odes explore and develop the same themes, partake of many of the same approaches and
images, and, ordered in a certain way, exhibit an unmistakable psychological development.
This is not to say that the poems do not stand on their own--they do, magnificently; one of the
greatest felicities of the sequence is that it can be entered at any point, viewed wholly or
partially from any perspective, and still proves moving and rewarding to read. There has been
a great deal of critical debate over how to treat the voices that speak the poems--are they
meant to be read as though a single person speaks them all, or did Keats invent a different
persona for each ode?
There is no right answer to the question, but it is possible that the question itself is wrong:
The consciousness at work in each of the odes is unmistakably Keats's own. Of course, the
poems are not explicitly autobiographical (it is unlikely that all the events really happened to
Keats), but given their sincerity and their shared frame of thematic reference, there is no
reason to think that they do not come from the same part of Keats's mind--that is to say, that
they are not all told by the same part of Keats's reflected self. In that sense, there is no harm
in treating the odes a sequence of utterances told in the same voice. The psychological
progress from "Ode on Indolence" to "To Autumn" is intimately personal, and a great deal of
that intimacy is lost if one begins to imagine that the odes are spoken by a sequence of
fictional characters. When you think of "the speaker" of these poems, think of Keats as he
would have imagined himself while writing them. As you trace the speaker's trajectory from
the numb drowsiness of "Indolence" to the quiet wisdom of "Autumn," try to hear the voice
develop and change under the guidance of Keats's extraordinary language.
P. B. Shelley:
The wispy, fluid terza rima of "Ode to the West Wind" finds Shelley taking a long thematic
leap beyond the scope of "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," and incorporating his own art into
his meditation on beauty and the natural world. Shelley invokes the wind magically,
describing its power and its role as both "destroyer and preserver," and asks the wind to
sweep him out of his torpor "as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!" In the fifth section, the poet then
takes a remarkable turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the expressive
capacity that drives "dead thoughts" like "withered leaves" over the universe, to "quicken a
new birth"--that is, to quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor
for a "spring" of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or morality--all the things
Shelley hoped his art could help to bring about in the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to
be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty,
which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the
trees. The thematic implication is significant: whereas the older generation of Romantic poets
viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic experience, the younger generation largely
viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic experience. In this poem, Shelley explicitly
links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to express his ideas
about the power, import, quality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic expression.
Conclusion
To an extent, the intensity of feeling emphasized by Romanticism meant that the movement
was always associated with youth, and because Byron, Keats, and Shelley died young (and
never had the opportunity to sink into conservatism and complacency as Wordsworth did),
they have attained iconic status as the representative tragic Romantic artists. Shelley's life and
his poetry certainly support such an understanding, but it is important not to indulge in
stereotypes to the extent that they obscure a poet's individual character. Shelley's joy, his
magnanimity, his faith in humanity, and his optimism are unique among the Romantics; his
expression of those feelings makes him one of the early nineteenth century's most significant
writers in English. Shelley is regarded as a major English Romantic poet. His foremost
works, including Prometheus Unbound, Adonais, The Revolt of Islam, and The Triumph of
Life, are recognized as leading expressions of radical thought written during the Romantic
age, while his odes and shorter lyrics are often considered among the greatest in the English
language. In addition, his essay A Defence of Poetry is highly valued as a statement on the
moral importance of poetry and of poets, whom he calls the unacknowledged legislators of
the world. While Shelley's significance to English literature is today widely acknowledged,
he was one of the most controversial literary figures of the early nineteenth century. Keats
was one of the most important figures of early nineteenth-century Romanticism, a movement
that espoused the sanctity of emotion and imagination, and privileged the beauty of the
natural world. Many of the ideas and themes evident in Keats's great odes are quintessentially
Romantic concerns: the beauty of nature, the relation between imagination and creativity, the
response of the passions to beauty and suffering, and the transience of human life in time.
The sumptuous sensory language in which the odes are written, their idealistic concern for
beauty and truth, and their expressive agony in the face of death are all Romantic
preoccupations--though at the same time, they are all uniquely Keats's.
In the "Ode to The West Wind" Shelley is seen as a rebel and he wants revolution. He desires
a social change and the West Wind is to his symbol of change. This poem, written in iambic
pentameter, begins with three stanzas describing the wind's effects upon earth, air and ocean.
The last two stanzas are Shelley speaking directly to the wind, asking for its power, to life
him like a leaf, or a cloud and make him his companion in its wanderings. He asks the wind
to take his thoughts and spread them all over the world so that the youth are awoken with his
ideas.
In the first stanza of this poem, Shelley says that the West Wind drives away the last sign of
life in trees and also helps to rejuvenate the world by allowing the seeds to grow in the
spring. In this way the West Wind acts as a destroyer and preserver. Shelley says, Wild
spirit, which art moving everywhere;/ Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!" Actually the
West Wind acts as a driving force for change and rejuvenation in the human and natural
world. And it is the symbol of revolution. Shelley begins his poem by addressing the Wild
West Wind. He quickly introduces the theme of death and compares the dead leaves to ghosts.
The imagery of "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" makes the reader aware that Shelley is
addressing more than a pile of leaves. His claustrophobic mood becomes evident when he
talks of the wintry bed and
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low/ Each like a corpse within its grave, until/
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow"
Although the West Wind symbolizes his own personality and in the middle of the poem he
seems somehow pessimistic when he says, "Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!/ I fall upon
the thorns of life! I bleed!", at the end of the poem he is seen very much optimistic when he
say that his revolutionary ideas must bring a change and the new order will be established.
The wind blows through the jungle and produces music out to the dead leaves. Shelley
requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may
create a revolution in the hearts of men . He wants the Wind to scatter his revolutionary
message in the world, just as it scatters cries and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts
may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire men. He tells
the Wind to take message to sleeping world, that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind.
After bed days come good days. Here he says, " If winter comes , can spring be far behind?"
We also find Shelleys revolutionary zeal in ode To A Skylark. According to Shelley, the
bird, Skylark, that pours spontaneous melody from heaven and sours higher and higher can
never be a bird. It is for the poet, a joyful spirit that begins its upward flight at sunrise and
becomes invisible at evening like the stars of the sky that become invisible in day light.
Moreover, it is compared with the beans of the moon whose presence is rather felt than seen.
It's a heavenly bird and by singing it spreads its influence through the world.
In the opening stanza, the bind is seen as a "blithe spirit" that "pourest thy full heart/ In
profuse strains of unpremeditated art." The words "Pourest thy full heart" mean that the bird
pours out its heart in song and with "In profuse strains of unpremeditated art", Shelley refers
to the spontaneous flow of music which comes from the Skylark. There is nothing artificial in
its music, it overflows profusely from its heart. And Shelley says as a spirit of revolution it
spreads it revolutionary message as the moon spreads its beam. He says,
As in the beginning of the poem, the poet says the bird is a heavenly bird and it is a joyful
spirit, its life is not sorrowful like that of human being. The life of human being is full of
sorrow, suffering and it is rare to find ecstasy without pain. Our happiness is often mapped by
memories of part affections and sorrows, and the painful uncertainly of what is to come in the
future. Man is a creature that looks "before and after". He is subject to weariness and satiety,
so that he can never enjoy happiness perennially. But the Skylark knows on satiety. It is the
very embodiment of perennial delight, ever fresh and full of west and unwearied in its
enjoyment of happiness. Human life, on the other hand, is subject to recurrent spells of
frustration and pain. As he say,
So the poet wants to experience half the gaiety of the bird and them he would sing wit such
excellent poetic ecstasy via the people of the world listen to him. He says,
In the concluding part it can be said that Shelley is a true revolutionary poet whose message
bears the ideas of revolution
Fielding's portrayal of the English social life is reinforced by the large canvas of
representatives selected from every facets of society. The study of different characters
enabled the writer to explore all the unpleasant aspects of life of his time.
Fielding's exploration begins with his survey on the nature and temperament of women of his
time. Women of all classes were snobbish and amorous to some extent. The sensuality of
women is reflected at its best through the representatives like Lady Booby, Mrs. Slipslop and
Betty. Lady Booby feels greatly attracted by Josephs manliness and personality and seeks in
vain to evoke his sexual response to gratify her sensual appetite. Mrs. Slipslop also follows
her mistress path and tries to win Joseph as a lover. Even Betty, the sympathetic maid also
falls in love with Joseph and seeks in vain to have sexual gratification from him. All these
amorous intentions show a fair picture of the amoral side of the 18th century society.
The society that Fielding portrays in Joseph Andrews is extremely inhuman, callous,
indifferent, uncharitable and narcissistic. The insensitive hardness of this society is clearly
exposed in the stagecoach episode. The passengers, who are unwilling to allow Joseph into
the coach on various excuses, show up their selfish and affected/artificial mentality. At that
time Joseph was in a pitiable condition; he was badly wounded and was almost naked. So, he
was badly in need of sympathy or help from others. Some passengers show some sympathy
for him but decline to spare him a garment to cover his naked body. The only person who
shows some genuine heartfelt sympathy is the poor coachman, who offers his own coat to the
wretched fellow. Here Fielding shows the contrast between the attitude of the rich passengers
and that of the poor coachman. Fielding tries to show us that there is a greater spirit of charity
in the poor than in the rich. The incident gives ample scope to Fielding for satirising the
pretences and affectations of an essentially inhuman society.
In addition to that, Mrs. Tow-wouse, the wife of the innkeeper, passes a comment on the
wounded Joseph. Such comment exposes her wretched hospitality and extra-materialistic
attitude towards him while Mr. Tow-wouse is willing to help him. The comment reads that:
I know a poor wretch, but what the Devil have we to do with poor wretches? (P 72)
Fielding also provides some glimpses of the chaotic, greedy, opportunistic and insincere sides
of the 18th century society. The chaotic side is exposed by the robbery incident. It is also
revealed by the incident in which a villain attempts to rape Fanny. Human greed is exposed
by the characters of the surgeons and the clergymen. The surgeons were extremely selfish and
money minded. They refused to treat patients who were unable to pay fees. The clergymen of
the time were the most selfish and materialistic. Apart from them, there are also opportunists
who take advantages of others' unfavourable situations to gratify their personal desires. For
example, the squire who is fond of hunting hares, tries to satisfy his lustful desire for Fanny
taking advantages of her poor condition. The insincerity of the society is revealed by the
depiction of the justices, who were as dishonest as the clergymen and the squires. Justice
Frolick, for instance, goes out of his way to send Joseph and Fanny to prison, only to satisfy a
whim of Lady Booby.
Another social evil in the novel depicted by Fielding is vanity of the higher social class. It
makes them totally blind that they are almost unable to find any good in the poor. One of the
proudest women of the novel is Pamela who soon after marrying Mr. Booby changes herself
radically when his bother Joseph tells that she is equal to Fanny but Pamela with much
fictitious vanity replies that:
In brief, Joseph Andrews is a fine social document that represents an inclusive picture of
the 18the century English society. The novel directs its satire not only against particular
individuals but also against the follies and vices of the entire society.
Austen portrays the social issue of women being confined to the home and just exactly how
it affects women. One example of the treatment of women is seen in Anne's younger sister
Mary Musgrove. In the same time frame that Captain Wentworth is expected to dine at
Uppercross, Mary's eldest son has a nasty fall, injuring his spine. At first, neither Mary nor
her husband Charles are willing to leave their son to dine with Wentworth; however, as
Charles begins to see how much better the boy is doing, he starts feeling the desire to go and
meet Wentworth. Mary is very put out by the idea of Charles leaving her with the boy. But
Charles argues that it is more of a woman's responsibility to remain at home with the boy
rather than a father's responsibility, as we see in the narrator's lines, "This was quite a female
case, and it would be highly absurd in him, who could be of no use at home, to shut himself
up" (Ch. 7). Since Mary is reminded of her place at home with the boy, we see that Austen is
showing us how in general women in her society were treated as inferior and taught that
their proper place is to be shut up at home.
Even Anne, later, brings up the emotional consequences that being confined to the
home has upon women. Later in the story, Captain Harville is distressed because Captain
Benwick has decided to marry Louisa Musgrove after Benwick has grieved for so many years
over losing his love, Harville's sister, due to illness while he was away at war, and says that
his sister would not have so soon forgotten Benwick and fallen in love with another man.
Anne, deeply feeling her own pains over her own lost love, replies that "it would not be in the
nature of any woman who truly loved" to so quickly forget the man she loves (Ch. 23). This
starts a debate about the fickleness of women, which the male poets and writers proclaim, and
who has the strongest feelings, men or women. One of Anne's replies is that women certainly
can't forget the men they love as soon as men forget the women. She further claims, "We
cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us" (Ch.
23). Hence, this passage says a great deal about the treatment of women, particularly how
male poets and writers misjudge them and how being confined to the home can weigh heavily
on a woman's emotional state, just like it did Anne's.
Two of the plays strands are of particular importance, both about bringing lovers together.
There are two sets of lovers: One couple, Hastings and Constance Neville, have been in love
for some time, but their hopes are thwarted by Mrs. Hardcastles insistence that Constance
marry her son, Tony Lumpkin. The only recourse appears to be eloping, a scheme that Tony
happily aids and abets. The other couple, Marlow and Kate Hardcastle, is brought together by
an arrangement between their respective fathers, Sir Charles and Mr. Hardcastle, as a way of
confirming their friendship. Here, the problem is the awkward shyness of the young Marlow
upon meeting ladies. Knowing that the shyness evaporates when he confronts a woman of
lower station, Kate literally stoops to conquer. Both strands of the play are thus deftly
resolved: The elopement becomes unnecessary once Tony is revealed to be of age and free to
reject Constance, and the marriage of Kate and Marlow can take place, now that Marlows
eyes are open to the truth.
All this might seem contrived were it not for the comic ironies and misunderstandings among
the characters and the grace and wit with which Goldsmith portrays them. She Stoops to
Conquer is very much a group play, as there is no protagonist in the usual sense. Tony
provides most of the machinations that propel the plot. Kate brings Marlow to a crucial
realization, and he suffers more than anyone from the mistaken identities and false
assumptions. However, none of these characters is really central. Instead, together they draw
parallels and contrasts between marriages, not only the two that come to pass but also the one
of the Hardcastles and, for that matter, the fact of Tonys opting out of any marriage.
This charming play has entertained audiences since its first performance at Covent Garden in
London in 1773, a time when sentimental comedies dominated the English stage, and had
done so since Sir Richard Steeles The Conscious Lovers (pb. 1723) in 1722 had provided
what its author called, a pleasure too exquisite for laughter. These are plays calculated to
inspire tears in the eyes of audiences as they witness love overcoming all obstacles.
Goldsmith and Sir Richard Brinsley Sheridan had declared war on such insipid drama, calling
for a return to laughing comedy by producing pamphlets, articles, and plays, including some
of the best comedies of the century: Sheridans The Rivals (pr., pb. 1775) and The School for
Scandal (pr. 1777, pb. 1780) and Goldsmiths The Good Natured Man (pr., pb. 1768) and She
Stoops to Conquer.
Goldsmith died in 1774, one year after She Stoops to Conquer was first performed, thus
leaving no other plays. Despite his position against sentimental comedy, She Stoops to
Conquer has a gentle and amiable tone. It promotes the idea of honest humility and does so
with humane good humor. These values, too, are typical of the eighteenth century, which
exalted feeling and intuition and grace in opposition to the severe rationalism of the previous
century.
Goldsmith was haunted by poverty and was irritable and envious; he also had a great wit, was
generous, and had an essentially lovable natureall of these contradictory characteristics are
reflected in his writings. Hopelessly impractical, especially in money matters, he wrote with
genius and Irish liveliness in many different forms and left a legacy of at least four
masterpieces. He was forced to plod away as a literary hack, trying to survive in Londons
Grub Street literary world. He did editorial work for booksellers, wrote essays and criticism,
and gradually gained a modest reputation. The Citizen of the World (1762; first published
in The Public Ledger, 1760-1761), a collection of fictional letters, brought him even more
recognition for their charm, grace, humor, and good sense.
Although this success somewhat eased the pinch of poverty, Goldsmith continued to find it
necessary to write pamphlets and miscellaneous journalism. A philosophic poem, The
Traveller: Or, A Prospect of Society (1764), brought high praise from Samuel Johnson, and
the book of poems, The Deserted Village (1770), was a wide success. In 1766, The Vicar of
Wakefield, written to pay the rent, brought Goldsmith fame as a novelist, but his money
troubles continued. She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmiths second comedy, received a flattering
public response, but the financial returns paid off only a fraction of his huge debts.
Johnson saw this first performance and remarked, I know of no comedy for many years that
has answered so much the great end of comedymaking an audience merry. One may well
agree and say that one or two comedies of the time might be considered superior, but none is
merrier. Certainly, it reflects Goldsmiths own rich and genial personality.
In short, we say that sentimental drama growing out of an assumption of the essential
goodness of man, incorporated moral lessons by both precept and example, portrayed easy
reformation of wrongdoers, and placed great emphasis on pity and self-sacrifice.
At the very first, Sheridan informs us about the sentimental heroine of the play through the
dialogue between Coachman and Fag. She is so wealthy that if she wanted she could pay the
entire national debt as easily as Fag can pay his washerwomans bill. Yet she is so sentimental
that she has an odd taste. She is, Fog says
A lady of a very singular taste: a lady who likes him [Beverley] better as a half-pay ensign
than if she knew he was son and heir to Sir Anthony Absolute, a baronet of three thousand a
year.
Moreover she does not change her notion to marry, without her anti consent, a low paid man
even after knowing the penalty of losing her property. She deliberately makes a quarrel with
her lover just for pleasure and making fun, because lovers always quarrel in sentimental
novels. She says,
I wrote a little to myself, to inform myself that Beverly was at that time paying his address
to another woman.
Furthermore, when she discovers that there will be no elopement, she is sullen and quite
prepared to break off her engagement. Actually, Sheridan has ridiculed Lydias funny, absurd
and sentimental notions and activities. Lydia cries out-
When I thought we were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable I had projected one of
the most sentimental elopements! . So amiable a ladder of ropes! Scotch parson
such paragraphs in newspapers! Oh, I shall die with disappointment!
There are of course some sentimental and over sentimental scenes in The Rivals, but they are
actually parody of sentimentality. If we examine the scenes of Faulkland-Julia, we will
understand the writers intention to laugh at the sentimental comedy of the time. Absolute
describes Faulkland as the most teasing, captious, incorrigible, lover, having in his head a
confounded farrago of doubts, fears, hope, wishes.
When separated from Julia, Faulkland feels excessive solicitude. If it rains, he feels afraid,
lest some shower should have chilled her delicate body. He is anxious that the adversity of
weather would affect her body.
We notice another absurd sentimentality regarding the mental situation of two lovers
separated from each other. Having heard from Acres that Julia is in good position even in
absence from him, he becomes angry and thinks that she does not love him really. He says
that -
A little trifling indisposition is not an unnatural consequence of absence from those we
love.
Sentimental drama contains characters who dissect relationships excessively with other
people, who have a tendency of self-abnegation, who are concerned with the feelings of
others that they suppress their own desires. Sheridan has injected these characteristics in
Faulkland in order to ridicule sentimental drama. Faulk land blames and degrades him when
thinking of and waiting for Julie in her dressing-room. He thinks,
I am ever ungenerously fretful and madly capricious! I am conscious of it yet I can not
correct myself!
But while talking, he tries to find out the root of her love relation to him. He says,
Search your heart, Julia; perhaps what you have mistaken for love is but the warm effusion
of a too thankful heart.
When she asks what quality she is to love him for, he picks up the word:
To regard me for any quality of mind or understanding were only to esteem me;
Nor does he want to accept the idea that it is true love if she loves him for his handsome
appearance or for her fathers promise.
Julia also shows an excessive sentimentality in her love affair. Lydia rightly calls her slave
to Faulk land. She says
Yet have you .. Been a slave to the caprice, the whim, the jealousy of this ungrateful
Faulkland who will ever delay assuming the right of a husband, while you suffer him to be
equally imperious as a lover.
But Julia sentimentally describes him as generous, proud and noble, and says that even if she
had not been in love with him before, she would have loved her only for saving her life in
water and for his being a good swimmer. Here Sheridan attacks her sentimentality through
Lydia who surprises if a water-spaniel would have saved her! And who comments
I should never think of giving my heart to a man because he could swim!
Moreover, in stead of Faulklands suspecting her love again and again she abjectly surrenders
to him and takes the initiative for reconciliation with him. Actually her over sentimental
activities do not resemble to those of normal girls.
There are also some other characters who serve Sheridans anti-sentimental purpose. Mrs
Malaprop, a widow, is looking for another husband. But she does not allow Lydia love. Lydia
says
Since she has discovered her own frailty, she is become more suspicious of mine.
Her name has become a word in the language for her ludicrous misuse of word, especially
for one resembling it. Sir Lucius is insistent on fighting duels. Though he does not want to
fight duel for his sentiment, dueling itself is treated in an anti-sentimental way. There is Bob
Acress, awkward and good-natured, who has developed an odd kind of a new method of
swearing. Captain Jack Absolute shows simple common sense. He pretends to be low paid
Ensign Beverley to cater Lydias weird romantic notion. But he intends to marry her only
under all proper auspices. Yet Sheridan shows: when they meet, they both justify the family
name.
From the above discussion, we have seen that Sheridans The Rivals ridicules and attacks the
sentimental comedies. Therefore it is an anti-sentimental comedy, as Allardyce Nicoll says,
in the main, the comedy presents a direct challenge to the sentimentalists. But he adds that
in the Julia-Faulkland portions, there are evident features of Cumberland style. (British
Drama) Nettleton also comments
Like Goldsmith, Sheridan could not at once rid himself wholly of the contagion of the
sentimentality which he attacked consciously or not, he allowed the Faulkland under plot to
retain, in some measure, the conventional phrasing of sentimental drama. (English Drama of
the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century)
But we can say, if he had retained the convention to sentimental drama, what was his
necessity to revolt against it? Actually, he exaggerates the sentimentality of some characters
just to mock at the sentimental tradition.
The most amusing scenes in the play are those in which Captain Absolute comesface to
face with his father, Sir Anthony. Sir Anthony is portrayed as a self-willed, dictatorial kind of
father who demands implicit obedience from his son. He threatens to disinherit his son, to
disown his son in case his son does not carry out his wishes. Sir Anthony in his own prime of
life was a gay fellow.
Sheridan also makes us laugh at some of the contemporary fashions. When Bob Acres comes
to Bath, he decides to discard his country clothes and to dress himself according to the
fashion prevailing in the city. Then he tries to practice some French dancing steps and
discovers to his disappointment that his are true-born English legs which can never learn
French dancing steps. He is also fond of swearing and has developed a new way of swearing.
We find him swearing, by Gods balls and barrels, by Gods bullets and blades, by
Gods levels and aims and so on. Then there is a satirical treatment of dueling. The manner
in which Sir Lucius instigates Acres to send a challenge to Beverley is most amusing. Sir
Lucius gives the following argument absurdly in favour of Acres sending a challenge to
Beverley:
Can a man commit a more heinous offence against another than to fall in love with the
same woman?
The portrayal of Sir Lucius is also satirical. Sir Lucius is an Irishman, easily duped by the
maid-servant Lucy, who tells him that the love-letters which she brings for him have been
sent by the seventeen-year old niece of Mrs. Malaprop. This wrong impression ultimately
leads him to challenge Captain Absolute to a duel and the manner in which Sir Lucius picks
up a quarrel with Captain Absolute is itself very funny.
The portrayal of Lydia's tough old aunt is also satirical. We laugh at the contradiction in
this elderly woman who puts restrictions on her niece, while herselffalling in love with a tall
Irish baronet and writing letters to him under the assumed name of Delia. Beverleys
description of Mrs. Malaprop as an old weather-beaten, she-dragon is most amusing.
One of the most striking features of The Rivals is witty dialogue. The manner in which
Sir Anthony snubs and scolds his son for disobeying his wishes, the manner in which
Captain Absolute deals with Mrs. Malaprop when he meets her first, Sir Lucius manner of
dealing with Acres when he instructs Acres in the rules of dueling is also witty.
Humorous and farcical situations are also generally found in a comedy of manner. Captain
Absolutes disguising himself as Ensign Beverley and then unmasking himself when finally
he has to face Lydia in his true character are such situations. Then there are two more farcical
situations. One is that in which Captain Absolute tricks his father into believing that his is
going to make up his quarrel with Lydia when his is actually going to fight a duel. The
second is when David shouts to SirAnthony to stop Absolute because there is going to be
fight, murder, bloodshed and so on.
Instead of moral sentiments, Sheridan gives quick and witty dialogues, fast moving actions
with its highly comic situations and above all the absence of any serious complication or
conflict. Right from the beginning to the end, the play sends the audience into peals of
laughter. The criticism that elements of sentimentality have penetrated into the play is based
on misunderstanding.
Charles Lamb, an English writer is best known for his essays. Although he wrote poems and
books, he is mainly known as an essayist. E.V.Lucas, his principal biographer, has called him
the most loved figure in English Literature.
Charles Lamb in his Essays of Elia, uses the pseudonym of Elia. Dream Children: A Reverie,
is an essay from this collection which was published in the form of a book, this was later
followed by the second volume titled Last Essays to Elia. Lambs writing style by nature is
very romantic.
The Essays are very personal, as they are somewhat fictionalized stories of himself. It tells us
of what his life would have been had he made different decisions in his life. In his essays, he
mentions his family members often with different names. In Dream Children: A Reverie, he
fanatisizes his life, had he married his beloved Ann Simmons, who he calls Alice W. in the
Elia essays.
Lamb is chiefly remembered for his Elia essays, which are celebrated for their witty and
ironic treatment of everyday subjects. The Elia essays are characterized by Lambs personal
tone, narrative ease, and wealth of literary allusions. Never didactic, the essays treat ordinary
subjects in a nostalgic, fanciful way by combining humor, pathos, and a sophisticated irony
ranging from gentle to scathing.
Lamb conjures up humour and pathos in his Elian essays. Although Dream Children begins
on a merry note, the dark side of life soon forces itself upon Lambs attention and the comic
attitude gives way to melancholy at the end of the essay. Throughout the essay Lamb presents
his children in such a way that we never guess that they are merely fragments of his
imagination their movements, their reactions, and their expressions are all realistic. It is
only at the end of the essay that we realize that the entire episode with his children is a
merely a daydream. We are awakened by a painful realization of the facts.
The essay, Dreams Children in itself is quite melancholy as most romantic essays are. In it,
Lamb reminisces his childhood by telling his children stories of when he was younger. The
subject of death is mentioned very often. The fictionalized Charles Lamb, the father, tells his
children stories of their deceased great- grand mother Field. He mentions that, they recently
had heard of the horrifying ballad of the Babes in the Wood. He also tells them stories of his
deceased older brother John L. and how he misses him.
His essays are allusive, which is peculiar to romantic essays. Lamb, rambles throughout the
narratives with ease and is able to return to the point. He often does it in his writings. This
allusive quality is seen in Dream Children when he begins talking of his grandmother Field
,he then rambles to talk of the house she worked in, and later to talk about the mantel piece
carving of the Babes in the Wood. He also makes use of parentheses, which gives us an
insight to the characters stream of consciousness. The parentheses in, Dream Children, mostly
show us the observations of the father, which tell us more about the childrens expressions for
dramatic emphasis.
Lambs essays are highly evocative, and the reader feels empathy towards the characters. This
is a characteristic quality of the Romantic Essayists. In Dream Children, the narrator
comments on how similar the daughters face is to the mother and he cant tell which of the
two is in front of him, but only in the end do we realize that the entire story was just a
fragment of his imagination.
His essays have a reflective quality; he talks about his schooling days in Christs Hospital in
the essay, Christs Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago wherein he speaks of himself in the
third person as L. Rosemund Gray is another essay in which he reflects upon his feelings
for Ann Simmons as the titular character and how their relationship doesnt go too far due to
Miss Gray passing away.
To conclude we can see that Lambs essays are very personal. They possess humour and
pathos like most romantic works of literature. Lamb is also praised for his allusive quality
which is noted by many literary critics. And above all he is highly evocative, a quality
possessed by all Romantic writers.
It has well been said that the essay took a wrong turn in the hands of Bacon. For two centuries after
Bacon the essay in England went on gravitating towards the original conception held by Montaigne,
but it was only in the hands of the romantic essayists of the early nineteenth century that it became
wholly personal, light, and lyrical in nature. From then onwards it has seen no essential change. The
position of Lamb among these romantic essayists is the most eminent. In fact, he has often been called
the prince of all the essayists England has so far produced. Hugh Walker calls him the essayist par
excellence who should be taken as a model. It is from the essays of Lamb that we often derive our very
definition of the essay, and it is with reference to his essays as a criterion of excellence that we
evaluate the achievement and merit of a given essayist. Familiarity with Lamb as a man enhances for a
reader the charm of his essays. And he is certainly the mostcharming of all English essay. We may not
find in him the massive genius of Bacon, or the ethereal flights (O altitude) of Thomas Browne, or the
brilliant lucidity of Addison, or the ponderous energy of Dr. Johnson, but none excels him in the
ability to charm the reader or to catch him in the plexus of his own personality.
His Self-revelation:
What strikes one particularly about Lamb as an essayist is his persistent readiness to reveal
his everything to the reader. The evolution of the essay from Bacon to Lamb lies primarily in its shift
from
(i) objectivity to subjectivity, and
Hazlitt as an Essayist
Introduction:
Though we are mighty fine fellows now-a-days we cannot write like Hazlitt, thus spoke R. L.
Stevenson who himself aped Hazlitt most sedulouslywith advantage to himself. Hazlitts place
among English essayists is very high, though few critics have placed him above Lamb. In some respect
in fact, Hazlitt easily beats Lamb into the second place. His catholicity, zest for life, and vivid and
copious expression full of glowing images are his assets.
Whereas Lamb has certainly a more romantic imagination, Hazlitt combines his imagination with a
searching intellect. As Hugh Walker points out, for wealth of intellect and imagination and for
nervous English he [Hazlitt] is the rival of the greatest.
The Variety of His Interests:
However hard may we avoid it, a comparison between Lamb and Hazlitt becomes inevitable
on numerous occasions. Take the variety of their interests. David Daiches observes in this context:
The range of subjects in Hazlitts essays is greater than in Lambs: he could write on painting as well
as literature, on a prize fight, on natural landscape, on going a journey, on coffee-house politician as
well as on more formal topics such as Miltons sonnets, Sir Joshua ReynoldsDiscourses, and the fear
of death. Like a bee he sucks playfully the nectar of all the flowers that nature proffers him. He is full
of gusto andthejoie de vivre as no other writer is. Books, nature, society and the affairs of men-all
enchant him. Lamb also loves to live and be merry (in spite of the stark tragedy of his life), but Hazlitt,
like Chaucers Franklin, is Epicurus own son. He loves books as a connoisseur, but he refuses to
pour all his love and attention upon them. Towards his last years he, in fact, grew extremely critical of
all books and the bookish attitude which they often give rise to. At a place he remarks that he must be
a poor creature indeed whose practical convictions do not in almost all cases outrun his deliberate
understanding.
Though Hazlitt has an abundant zest for life and what it has to offer him yet by no means can
he be considered as devoid of a keen sense of discrimination. He has no patience with the mediocre
and the middling but has an almost instinctive judgment to choose the best from the second-best. His
literary criticism is nothing but the product of the practical application of this sense of judgment to the
field of literature. He has strong likes and dislikes, and though he often offends against taste and is
swayed by prejudices and personal convictions yet, on the whole, his basic sanity and perception as a
critic of life and literature cannot be gainsaid. For once he showed bad taste-when he fell in love with a
travern jilt whose trickery led him to pour out his heart in Liber Amoris, which was rightly
condemned by his contemporaries as kitchen stuff. Well did he sum up the activity of his life and the
variety of his interests in these words: So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at
pictures, going to play, hearing thinking, or writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one
thing to make me happy; but wanting that have wanted everything.
Hazlitts Philosopbic Bent:
The inclusion of thinking among the activities ofhis life by Hazlitt, as we find in the words
just quoted, is quite apt He was a thinker as Lamb was not. Lamb made essays mostly out of his own
reminiscences, of emotions recollected in tranquility. But Hazlitt, in spite of his occasional
extravagant verbal sprees, thought hard like a philosopher. He himself once observed: I endeavour to
recollect all I have ever observed or thought upon a subject and to express it as nearly as I can. If not
a philosopher, Lamb at least was not a fool, though often he pretended to be one. But, as a critic puts
it, though Lamb frequently donned the cap and the bells, he was more than a jester; even his jokes
had kernels of wisdom. Embedded in Lambs whim-whams and capricious buffoonery lay a very
sound core of wisdom. Even then, Lamb was not given to philosophical speculation. On the other
hand,Hazlitts essays, to quote Ian Jack, are the work of a man trained in philosophical speculation.
Hazlitt was well read in all 1he important philosophers such as Bacon, Locke and Hume, all of whom
influenced his thought quite considerably. Ian Jack maintains: He moves among abstract ideas with
an ease and familiarity that contrast oddly with Lamb. Lamb wrote on chimney-sweepers, the South
Sea House, weddings, and whist: Hazlitt wrote On Reason and Imagination, On Egotism, On the
Past and Future. His essays are more serious than Lambs or serious in a different sense. Interested as
he is in the essay as a form he is more interested in the truth which he is pursuing. He was a man of
letters in the comprehensive sense in which Johnson and Coleridge were men of letters. With his
philosophical bent of mind Hazlitt is to Lamb as Shelley is to Keats.
Self-revelation:
As an essayist Hazlitt is not of the school of Addison or Dr. Johnson but of such writers as
Montaigne (the father of the essay) and his own contemporary Lamb who used the essay as a vehicle
for self-revelation. It is said that the perfect egotist is the perfect essayist. After reading an essay our
knowledge about the life and personality of the writer is expected to increase. What Montaigne said
about the collection of his essays could be justly said by Lamb or Hazlitt about his-I myself am the
subject of my book. In the history of English literature the strongly personal note was struck by
Wordsworth whosemagnum opus, The Prelude, offered to the reader the story of the development of
his own mind. It can be said that Wordsworth made himself the hero of his epic-like poem. Hazlitt
indeed learnt a lot from Wordsworth and his French idol Rousseau who in his Confessions came out
with the story of his own life with rank sentimentalism combined with aggressive garrulousness of self
assertiveness. It is really paradoxical that a peremptory egotist like Hazlitt should criticise
Wordsworth and Byron for their egotism! His own Liber Amoris is a tasteless record of his
erotomania, something worse than is conceivable.
But in his essay his indulgence in autobiography is always for the better, as it adds to them an
intimate colour. His habit, says a critic, of introducing personal matter into his essays gives
frequently a pleasant and intimate flavour to his writing, and the readers interest in the written
matter is nonetheless because of the interesting glimpses afforded of the writers personality. Many of
Hazlitts essays-like Lambs-are so many bits of autobiography by piecing which together we can arrive
at a fairly authentic and fairly complete picture of his life and personality. Even as a literary critic he
reveals himself. Such essays as My First Acquaintance with Poets, On the Pleasures of Painting,
On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, On a Sun Dial, Of Persons One would Wish to have
Seen, and Farewell to Essay-Writing are like so many chapters from his unwritten autobiography.
He stands fully revealed in his essays. He tells us frankly about his father, his love of painting, his
enjoyment of walking, his literary taste, his appreciation of nature, his political affiliations, and his
epicureanism. No facet of his personality remains obscure. He does not mystify the reader like Lamb
nor does he wear any impenetrable mask. What he puts forward in his essays is his real self, for
whatever it is worth.
Quite a few of his essays are built around reminiscences not, however, without the mortar of
hard philosophic thinking. As a typical romantic he casts a wistful glance on the realm of the past and
illuminates many of its demesnes with the glow of his restrospective imagination. Like Lamb,
maintains Samuel C. Chew, he relied upon the impressions of former years. Passionate retrospection
is prevalent note in his essays. Hazlitt himself observes in his essay On the Feeling of Immortality in
Youth that he has turned for consolation to the past, gathering up the fragments of my early
recollections and putting them into a form that might live.
It is interesting to see how Hazlitt makes every subject a peg to hang his personality on.
Consider his essay Indian Jugglers. He starts, as expected, with a vivid description of some of the
jugglers usual feats, such as swallowing a sword and keeping six wooden balls in the air at the same
time. But that is all. After it Hazlitt himself occupies the stage, shoving the juggler aside. He compares
his own intellectual dexterity with the jugglers physical one and awards him the palm. It is all self-
examination. We do not find the juggler anywhere near the conclusion which is smothered in self-pity
and despair.
Self-pity and Bitterness:
This recurrent note of self-pity is a feature which distinguishes Lamb from Hazlitt. Lambs life
was as pathetic jeremiad as Hazlitts. Frustrated ambitions and an unenviable emotional career
marked Lambs life as they did Hazlitts. But Hazlitt grew coarse, peevish, and bitter, as Lamb never
did. Hazlitt is, according to Moody and Lovett, indeed in many ways quite the opposite of Charles
Lamb, being somewhat coarse and boisterous where Lamb is refined and subtle : often harsh and
repellent where Lamb is gentle and winning. One after another Hazlitt quarrelled and broke with all
his intimates including Lamb himself. In his essay Pleasure of Hating he truly remarks : I have
quarrelled with almost all of my old friends. Presumably owing to his suspicious and touchy
temperament he could not get along with either of the women he married. His last words are,
however, quite unlike him-Well, Ive had a happy life. He was not a Spartan or a Stoic, nor like Lamb
did he smile away his blues. He was quite often in tantrums. Comparing Lamb and Hazlitt in this
respect, Joseph Warren Beach observes in A History of English Literature edited by Hardin Craig:
Lamb is a writer for old and young; Hazlitt for those whom life has saddened, and sobered, and who
do not mind a touch of cynicism.
Style:
In considering the style of Hazlitts essays, once again a reference to Lamb will be_rewarding.
Whereas Lambs style is individual, Hazlitts is representative. Hazlitt has a manner but no
mannerisms. Lamb, on the other hand, had his idiosyncrasies the chief of which was to mystify the
reader. Lamb wrote a deliberately archaic English reminiscent of the seventeenth-century prose
writers like Fuller and Sir Thomas Browne. We, of course, agree with Compton-Rickettthat Lambs
style was not a physical but a chemical mixture, and that though he took the elements of his style from
others yet the blending was his own. Even then it has to be admitted that Lamb as a stylist is no
model. His English falls outside the natural tradition of English prose. Lamb, as Ian Jack puts it, is
the worst of models, whereas Hazlitt is an admirable model. Hazlitt himself was critical of Lambs
archaisms and frequent lack of lucidity. Of all the essays of Lamb he quite characteristically singled
out Mrs. Battles Opinions on Whist as the best, because, as he, put it, it was the most free from
obsolete allusions and turns of expression. His own style is a real model of what is often called the
familiar style. He is seldom sublime or high-strung, but he is as seldom vulgar or commonplace.
Naturalness, gusto, vividness, and a certain copiousness are the hallmarks of his style. He hates
padding and circumlocution, but quite often in his characteristic way he indulges in repeating over
and over again the same idea by constantly varying the figure. All the blows strike the same spot, but
the last blow goes home. Describing this tendency a critic says: for a time the thought seems not to
move. It is thrown into the air like balls by a juggler, and we watch reflections of it, and are thrilled
and excited to pleasure in watching.
According to Samuel C. Chew, Hazlitt stands between the eighteenth century (for terse
clarity) and Macaulay (for force and conciseness). Yet, says the same critic, as a stylist he
commands a wider range. My First Acquaintance with Poets is as lyrically reminiscent as anything of
Lambs; On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth is imposingly ornate without dependence upon
archaisms; On Going to a Fight, a theme which invited the use of slang, is loyal .to pure English, yet
nonetheless virile for its purity, the Farewell to Essay Writing is charged with romantic emotionality
Whatever the style or subject, it is Hazlitts own. Like his favourite Montaigne he could assure the
reader that his was un livre de bonne foi. Ian Jack also points out that Hazlitt varied his style (like
any writer worth his salt) according to the demands of the subject and the occasion. The same critic
observes: Sometimes he reminds us of the character writers of the seventeenth century, sometimes
of Locke, sometimes of Burke. Even within a single essay there may be a marked contrast of style as
there is between the matter-of-fact opening and the lyrical climax of On My First Acquaintance with
Poets.
A word in the end about Hazlitts plethoric use of quotations. Lamb is also very fond of
quoting snatches from writers (mostly poets), but Hazlitt outdoes Lamb many times over. We cannot
say that he was in the habit of thinking within inverted commas, but certainly his over use of
quotations cannot be defended. For one tiling, most of his quotations are misquotations. He quotes
generally from memory, and quite often wrenches what he quotes off its context. Some of these
quotations are happy no doubt, but as many or even more, strike one as standing out too much. We
may conclude with a quotation ourselves-the last sentence of Ian Jacks very admirable discussion of
Hazlitt in English Literature 1815-1832 (Oxford History of English Literature) -One of his few faults
is that he makes rather too much use of quotation.
King Lear is a tragedy divided between two concurrent and interwoven plots, those of
Gloucester and Lear respectively. The beginnings of Lears tragic demise are rooted in his
division of the Kingdom. We encounter a King, arrogant enough to believe that he can retire
from temporal power while maintaining the trappings of a King. In dividing his estate on the
basis of quantifying love, Lear makes a grave error that soon leads to an injustice. While
those that flatter Lear with their glib and oily art (Goneril and Regan) are rewarded
Cordelias honesty is vilified and she is disowned, thou my sometime daughter. Lears
naivety is not his only fault. Until he is overcome by madness, it is his pride that mars his
actions. This is clearly displayed by his bouts of rage, darkness and devils and his
insistence on maintaining a retinue. Shakespeare manages to manipulate the audience into
viewing Lears maintaining a debauched string of knights as reasonable, O, reason not the
need. However his unwillingness to oblige can be interpreted as hubris. His faults (pride and
naivety) and misdeeds (treatment of Cordelia) are gradually brought to account through his
minds slow decay. King Lear is Shakespeares only play that delves into the workings of the
human mind and how it can, like Lears kingdom, decay. Some would argue that the madness
that overcomes Lear is, in a sense, a form of Justice i.e. his unjust actions are being punished
by a, possibly, divine force. However, I would argue that from Shakespeares portrayal of
what it means to be mad, no misdeeds, however appalling, warrant such a punishment. The
way in which Shakespeare uses the pseudo madness of Edgar in tandem with the suffering of
Lear and the Fool creates a scene that is excruciating to behold, The tempest in my mind.
This is later repeated on a heightened level when Lear appears [crowned with flowers] and
the deterioration of his mental state has reached the point where he his delusional and a
ruined piece of nature. Those that would argue that his madness is Just would argue the
same for his death but as Kent says he hath endured so long. Though Lear grows as a
human being, in that he learns compassion, it must stressed that he does so amidst mental
anguish and that to grow in such a way makes the outcome of the play no less unjust. The
way in which, through his use of language, Shakespeare weights the audiences sympathy
towards Lear yet makes him suffer, snatches away the one love of his life and finally snatches
away his own life leads the audience to conclude that there is no Justice.
Having answered the question whether Lears injustices are benevolently righted, attention
can turn to the deeds of others. When Cordelia is asked to quantify her love for her father and
replies, Nothing, my Lord, it is not clear as to what the reaction of the audience should be.
On the one hand, we feel as sense of empathy, as to be asked such a question is ridiculous and
to be punished for her answer still more so but on the other, her plainness is arrogant. The
question was the whim of her father but she turns it into a question of morality. However,
Cordelia remains throughout the play, essentially a good character. This goodness is seen by
her pleas in the first Act, Love our father well and her abhorrence of the unnatural
actions of her sisters in the final Act, was this face to be opposed against the warring
winds?. Therefore, how is it Just that the good, those that love, those that show compassion
are slain? It is not.
The desire for power is an intrinsic part of the evil or unjust deeds of those that either seek it
or attempt to consolidate it. Goneril and Regan have always coveted power and we can see
this by Regans reply to Lears, I gave you all; And in good time you gave it and though
both sisters behave with filial ingratitude, the evils of the two are different. While Goneril
is controlling and is at all times fighting for power and dominance, Regan is presented as a
sadist. Her pleasure in the suffering of Gloucester, one side will mock another-thother too.
suggests that hers is the greater of the too evils. Ultimately both sisters (forces of evil and
injustice) die through their struggle for control of the state and of Edmund but there is no
indication that this is true retribution, other than Albanys observation that this judgement of
the heavens that makes us tremble fills us not with pity. Those that shy away from power
suffer far more than those that seek it, for example Richard II, Marc Antony and King Lear- it
is a Shakespearean theme. Therefore, while those that commit evil do die, they do not suffer
to the extent that the good protagonists do. As Judgement is always a matter of balance, on
balance, the deaths of the two sisters is in no way Just when put into the context of the play as
a whole.
Before analysing the effect Edmund has on the dispensation of Justice it is worth mentioning
whether Justice is served in regards to Albany and Cornwall. While Cornwalls role in the
designs of his wife are active (his torture of Gloucester), those of Albany in regards to his are
almost entirely passive. Cornwalls death and Albanys remorse, Let sorrow split my heart if
ever I did hate thee or thy father stand as irrelevant in comparison when placed next to the
greater evils of their wives. For those that would argue Justice in Cornwalls death it is worth
remembering that the force of good that kills Cornwall, the servant, is himself slain for his
actions. If those that do good suffer, then there is clearly no Justice in their actions.
Edmund is another who seeks power and in so doing commits acts of evil; he betrays first his
stepbrother then his own father and finally orders the murder of Cordelia. His treatment of
Edgar and Gloucester are portrayed to the audience as deplorable via the their suffering,
Edgar as Poor Tom and blinded Gloucester. He is an administrator of Justice in so far as it
is he who orders the death of Cordelia but because his dispensation is not benevolent it can
hardly be seen as Just. On the edge of death he appears to genuinely whish to do some Just
action, I pant for life. Some good I mean to do but whether this is true or not, Cordelia still
dies.
Within King Lear, Shakespeare raises the question of whether there is such a thing as divine
Justice. Though it has already been proven that the mortals of King Lears world take Justice
into their own hands in the play, the sentences are never morally just. Throughout the play,
the protagonists repeatedly call upon the Gods to intervene when there is suffering or an
injustice. When his daughters mistreat him, Lear swears by Apollo and Hecate and
Gloucester firmly believes that As flies to wonton boys are we to the gods;/ They kill us for
their sport. Though there are repeated references to either pagan gods or a Christian God and
repeated calls for them to alleviate suffering, at no time is there an answer. The presence of
suffering within the play is a clear example of the injustices within it. There is firstly the
suffering of the mind endured by Lear, then there is the physical suffering endured by so
many else and finally there is the presence of cosmic suffering, houseless poverty. King
Lear is remarkable in that it questions all three forms of suffering and in so doing addresses
the injustices of the world but as with all of his plays he does not answer questions, he simply
challenges the status quo, so distribution should undo excess. While the unresolved
problem of poverty and cosmic suffering hints at injustice it is the silence of the Gods when
suffering is present that leads the audience to dispel the belief that there is cosmic justice in
King Lear. This is epitomised when Edgar calls on Gloucester to pray that the right may
thrive- in the world of King Lear they never do.
While it is never clarified whether there are divine forces at work within the play, if one
assumes that there are, then the forces are malevolent because they leave matters of Justice in
the hands of power hungry mortals and ignore the pleas of the good and the weak. If the
forces of Justice are purely human then one is still left with the same conclusion: as the weak
do not oercome the strong, as the right do not thrive and as suffering remains, there is
clearly no sense of Justice in the world of King Lear.
Humor is not the essence of comedy, but only one of its most useful and
natural elements. (Langer, 1953, p. 346)
Forest of Arden; the characters are closer to nature and resolve their
difficulties away from the obstacles. In Twelfth Night obstacles are
internal: Orsinos love for Olivia is unrequited because she has sworn to
mourn for seven years, so neither can achieve reciprocal love. Illyria, in a
state of melancholy, caused by the characters, requires new characters to
free it: Viola and Sebastian, shipwrecked, unexpectedly find themselves
within the unusual surroundings of
He/she is not behaving like the standard lover; this spikes the interest of
Olivia. After the ladies in waiting leave Viola as Cesario tries again, this
time Olivia mocks the convention:O, I have read it. It is heresy. Have you
no more to say? (I. v. ll.201) The formal convention established by both is
mocked. Cesario/Viola during this scene speaks with two voices one a man
and the other a woman. When speaking as a man he says:Good Madam
let me see your face. (I. v. 11. 202)Olivia replies when unveiled:Look you
sir, such a one I was this present. Ist not well done? (I. v. ll. 206)
In other words, you should not die without having children (and thus sex
with me perhaps?). Viola would have been played by a teenage boy
establishing an androgynous appeal to Orsino and Olivia. Olivia, like Viola
and Orsino, faces a barrier to her love: differing social status and Cesarios
gender. Viola causes both Orsino and Olivia to transform themselves: from
being melancholy and introspective to generous and kind. By the end of
the play, the rebirth of these characters is complete: when both attain,
apparently, the reciprocal love they desire. The situation is improbable,
comedy allows this suspension of belief. The setting allows the foolishness
of love to fully express itself and appear comic to the audience.
(Saccio,1999)
other obstacles. Orsino and Olivia create internal obstacles; they assume
the mantles of romantic lover and grieving Lady. Viola because of her
disguise becomes an obstacle to her own fulfilment. The outwardly comic
fool, Feste, displays a degree of tired cynicism on occasion: for example in
the final song: a mocking of these artificial marriages: Olivia and Orsino
would rather have married each others spouses. The humiliation of
Malvoli and his subsequent incarceration, as a lunatic, is totally out of
proportion to his transgression. This sub text gives the play a darker edge
than is outwardly apparent from the frivolity and implausibility of the
setting, suggesting darker undercurrents. (Leggatt, 1974, pp. 221 254)
The ambiguity of sexual attraction due to the comic cross dressing of Viola
blurs gender boundaries. Allowing consideration of sexual and emotional
possibilities normally repressed by strict rules imposed by the old
society. Shakespeare uses comedy to do this. The imposed barriers, of the
old society, prevent Orsino and Olivia enjoying full expression of their
repressed homosexuality. Biological limitations, and economic necessities,
conspire against Orsino and Olivia internally: sexual attraction normally
leads to marriage and financial consequences and must, even in the
new society, be a cross gender union. However, in a romantic comedy,
set in the carefree magical region of Illyria, when it always seems to be a
holiday, barriers to these attractions are removed. There is confusion in
the old society concerning sexuality. The freedom and carefree nature of
a festival makes everything seem possible. So, temporarily at least, the
audience see sexual love unrestricted by the old society rules of gender
and status, before heterosexual conformity is re-imposed at the end of the
play. Northrop Fryes three-stage dynamic of comedy is evident here:
deadlocked and unproductive social pressures transform to a freedom
facilitated by comedy prior to nature and convention returning to an
acceptable normality. Olivia and Viola attain their desires. Malvolio and
Orsino do not. Orsino fails in his courtship of Olivia and his desire for
Cesario thwarted by virtue of the fact that he is female. Sebastian, Toby
and Orsino acquiesce to the role of object of female desire (Dympna,
2001, p. 138). Both Olivia and Orsino do not achieve the original objects of
their desire. Olivias marriage to Sebastian and Orsinos to Viola, diverts
attention away from the homosexual attraction that both exhibit to their
respective partners earlier in the play
The city would be portrayed as confined, busy, and crowded, leaving little room for its
inhabitants to create themselves or subvert the societal and gender assumptions in place. The
forest, however, would leave room enough for both imagination and physical freedom,
allowing the characters to most easily enter the theater and act freely in order to gain control
of themselves. For example, in the forest, all Rosalind must do is expel her gender by cross-
dressing and acting as a man in order to obtain what she wantsshe is easily able to grasp
the power that the city caused to evade her . There would be collections of trees surrounding
the actors to demonstrate how the characters are surrounded by the forest, and would mimic a
natural stage In the city, characters would be confined to small rooms that are cluttered and
stuffy, or dark side streets that stifle each character Celia underscores the feeling of freedom
that is gained from leaving the city and entering the forest when she says Now go we in
content/ To liberty and not to banishment (I.iii.140).
Furthermore, in the next scene, the Duke demonstrates the freedom achievable in Arden
Forest when he expounds upon his new life in the forest in Act II when he says Hath not old
custom made this life more sweet/Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods/ More
free from peril than the envious court? (II.i.3).
However, Arden Forest cannot be portrayed as too perfect, as the audience would question
why the characters decide to go back to the city at the end. The forests setting must convey a
realm of healing, rather than an Eden on Earth.
At different times in the play, Rosalind must carry herself in different manners. The director
of the play could use the accommodating language and situations Shakespeare has given
them by directing Ryan to act differently when using her body language when she is cross
dressed and when she is not. Rosalind is a strong character no matter what gender she is
masquerading as. However, when Rosalind is herself, her language must be eloquent and
powerful but still feminine in foundation. An important facet to consider as a director is the
case of Rosalinds costume and disguise. The disguise must not be noticeable by Orlando, but
must be recognizable by the audience to achieve farce. Furthermore, though Rosalind is
dressed in a mans garb, the transparency of her character must also be apparent so that the
audience may be able to note the flickering shifts from female Rosalind to male Rosalind.
Rosalind is a more assertive female than Orlando is an assertive male, which is exaggerated
by her cross dressing and would be overstated by the actors playing their respective roles in
the way they deliver lines and by their body language. For instance, in the third act during the
third scene, Rosalind and Orlando interact as she, dressed as her male counterpart Ganymede,
convinces Orlando that she will cure him of his love. Because she is parading as a boy in her
late teens, Rosalind must act like one and begin to strut across the stage, portraying
boastfulness and arrogance. The director could instruct Ryan to make these attempts at
manliness seem awkward and contrived in order to remind the audience that Rosalind is
pretending to be a man and that this act is not innate. The comedy resides in the fact that the
audience knows that these awkward actions are a result of Rosalinds farce and attempted
imitation. The characters in the play, such as Orlando, who are confused by Rosalinds
mishaps, attribute her awkwardness to the fact that she is portrayed as a young boy
attempting a charade as an adult male. As long as the director ensures that Rosalinds
mistakes are accidental and a result of her overzealous performance, the audience will find
humor in the way that other characters so easily cast these glaring mistakes off to the
side. When the audience first meets Orlando, he is unequipped to handle the immediate
attraction he feels towards Rosalind and, much like his predecessor
Romeo, goes on a wild an adolescent tangent, proclaiming sweeping generalities on the state
of love. Those who do not truly understand love do everything in their power to exploit it in
hopes of convincing both themselves and anyone who will listen of their genuineness, like
Orlando. Rosalind, however, is not as immature and ignorant as Orlando and recognizes both
of their hopeless devotion as both a vice and a virtue. Without Rosalinds astuteness and wit,
they both could have very well ended up dead having followed their juvenile intuitions
without any consideration for mitigating factors, such as Romeo and Juliet. But, Rosalind is
educated enough to take this blind devotion of Orlando and nurture it into an actual
relationship that leaves all parties involvedincluding societyhappy. When staging this
play, the director can expound upon Shakespeares challenge to societys expectations of
gender roles in the Elizabethan era. By staging an overly effeminate Orlando and displaying
his evolution into manhood by changing the way the actor carries him across the stage and
delivers his lines throughout his lessons with Ganymede, As You Like It can lend itself to
demonstrate womens ability to gain power at the sacrifice of her gender and how gender
roles are a mirror of individual expectations which build an entire society on
gender expectations.
Discuss The Winter's Tale as a tragi-comedy.
The Winter's Tale is a romance. The play belongs to the fourth phase of
Shakesheare dramatic career. The plays of this period
include Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Cymbelineand The Tempest. These
plays are also described by certain critics as tragi-comedies. They bring in
a new concept of drama or romance different from Shakespeare's earlier
comedies or even tragedies. Shakespeare composed these plays in forties
at a mature age in serene surroundings of his native place Stratford.
The beautiful pastoral scene (Act IV) in The Winter 's Tale with the sheep-
shearing festival with graceful innocent Perdita as hostess serving, singing
and dancing withshepherds and shepherdesses are reminiscent of
rural England. In these plays Shakespeare gives full vent to his fancy of
logic, unities or natural causation. Arthur Symons writes, "The Winter's
Tale is a typical romantic drama. The winter's dream when nights
are longest, constructed in defiance of probabilites which it rids over
happily. It has all the licence and it has all the charm of a fairy- tale...".
There are unbelievable incidents, super-naturalism, but the drama is
delightful.
Subject Matter
Blasphemy
Improbabilities
Anachronisms
Romantic atmosphere
Geographical inaccuracies are there. But the new imaginative locale in the
play the sea-coast, pastoral scene, the sheep-shearing feast and dancing,
singing of young shepherdess Perdita and others shepherd girls and boys
provide romantic atmosphere in the comic part of the play in last two acts
(IV & V).
Supernaturalism
Romance of Love
The Winter's Tale is a romance. It begins with love of two friends Leontes
and Polixenes and the love of Leontes and his Queen, Hermione. They
have a promising son in Mamillius and Hermione is
pregnant and expecting a child. Polixenes is enjoying the hospitality of his
friend for nine months. Mad jealousy of Leontes makes the play tragic. He
suspects his wife and charges her of adultery with Polixenes and the child
in her as a bastard of Polixenes. However, the time passes. On the coast
of Bohemia a beautiful pastoral scene with a lovely love scene between
Florizel and
Conclusion
To sum up, the play is a mixture of realism and romance. It has been
correctly called Romance. Tragi-comedy is also a fit label for it. The
first three Acts of The Winter's Tale are serious and tragic, while the last
two Acts contain such different elements as a pastoral romance, songs,
humour, roguery, and the re-union of long-separated individuals. The
mixture of sorrow, suffering, romance, humour, reunion, and forgiveness
in the play justifies the label tragi-comedy for it. These different aspects of
the play may be examined under the following heads: tragic elements,
romantic elements, comic elements, and the happy ending.
The play begins with a mysterious note that engenders a sense of gloom among the readers.
Soon the play opens we come to know that the Duke wants to leave the country but he does
not state why and where he will go. The social condition of the city suburbs where Mrs.
Overdone and Pompey live shocks the reader. Mrs. Overdone is a prostitute living an
inhuman existence for want of customers due to war, plague, gallows and poverty. The illegal
legal steps taken by the deputy duke to demolish the brothels of the city suburbs keeping
those of the city intact gives us an impression of the partial attitude of the new ruler. The
sudden arrest of Claudio and his death penalty not only shock the people but also terrify them
of the probable future cruelties to be done by Angelo, the new ruler of the country. Angelo
has revived the old defunct laws of the country to check peoples tendency of committing
corruption and vices, and Claudio has become the first scapegoat of the newly revived old
defunct laws. He is arrested and awarded death penalty because of making a young maiden
pregnant without marrying her. According to the text, like Claudio, others also committed
such crimes in the past, but they were not punished. Claudio is the first man to be punished to
death for making an unmarried woman pregnant. Thus the beginning of the play presents the
decayed condition of Viennese society: the country is infested with sexual vices and rules and
laws of the country are violated by all and sundry and Angelos effort of bettering this
condition by checking such offences, instead of making us hopeful, terrifies us with his stern,
partial and unsympathetic attitude.
The play, in fact, begins with the death news of Claudio and the tragic tension created by the
fear of his being executed soon does not lessen, rather increases every minute. Isabellas
relentless efforts of convincing Angelo that he should show mercy and thus save her brothers
life are pathetic. She tries to soften the heart of Angelo by putting forward logical arguments
and the reader or the audience waits in tension with stop of breath expecting that Isabella
should succeed. But we are terribly shocked when we see the deputy duke feels attracted to
Isabellas beauty and proposes to her to satisfy his sexual lust if she wants to save her
brothers life. Angelo is regarded as an angel by all and this is why the Duke entrusted him
with the sacred duty of ruling the country in his absence. But now this angels beast-like
behavior with Isabella deepens the tragic environment of the play. Later, his seducing
Mariana taking her for Isabella is shocking and surprises the reader beyond limit. Yet the fear
of Claudios execution is not gone and Isabellas tragedy heightens when she finds her
deceived by Angelo. The drama reaches almost the level of a tragedy when Angelo violates
his promise made to Isabella and issues an order to the hangman to put Claudio to death, and
the drama is a complete tragedy when the hangman persuaded by the disguised Duke beheads
a dead man and sends the head of the dead man to Angelo for his satisfaction that Claudio is
put to death as per his order. The drama could have been a fine tragedy if it had ended with
the beheading of the dead man at the end of Act IV. Moreover, the beheading of a living man
is gruesome and the beheading of a dead man is not only more terrific and more gruesome
but also unethical even though it is done to save a life. The audience is completely stunned
and horrified when Act IV ends with the beheading of the dead prisoner.
The Dukes helping the hangman to behead the dead man is as illegal and sinful as Angelos
violation of both the legal code and the moral code by ordering to put Claudio to death and by
proposing to Isabella to satisfy his sexual lust to save her brothers life as well as by seducing
Mariana taking her for Isabella. The actions of both the Duke and Angelo equally shock and
surprise the reader. Further like Claudio, the Duke contributes to the sordidness of the play.
We find several flaws and fallings in him. The entire plot of this play consists of a series of
machinations by him. At the beginning of the play we find him telling lies to Angelo and
Escalus that he is going abroad, but he lowers himself in our estimate when we find him
staying in Vienna in disguise of a friar surveying how Angelo is ruling the country. This
disguise of the Duke is something Machiavellian. His suggestion to Mariana to satisfy
Angelos sexual lust in disguise of Isabella is equally disappointing and immoral. The Dukes
flaws do not end here. His telling a cruel lie to Isabella that her brother is beheaded and that
his head is sent to Angelo not only surprises the reader but also heightens Isabellas tragic
condition beyond her capacity to bear. This lie is as hideous, cruel and obnoxious as Angelos
moral depravity.
Claudios moral degradation is not limited only to making a young unmarried woman
pregnant. His mercenary motive in his affair with his beloved is unethical and reveals the bad
side of his character. His despicability reaches the height when he tells his sister Isabella to
agree to satisfy Angelos sexual lust to save his life. We lose words to estimate this despicable
man who tries to prostitute his own sister for his interest.
The play is further darkened by Isabellas and Marianas roles. Isabella is only outwardly a
good woman. Like the Duke she is also Machiavellian. Like the Duke she unhesitantly adopts
unscrupulous means to get the desired done. She agrees to satisfy Angelos sexual lust but
sends in her place Mariana to do the same with Angelo. She saves her virginity at the cost of
Marianas. The reader is further shocked at her silence when the Duke proposes to marry her
although she is training to be a nun.
Mariana uses her chastity as a bait to entrap her former lover Angelo and thus to force him to
marry her. This is obviously a mischievous plan which cannot be supported on any moral
standard.
Lucio is another morally depraved character which reveals the dark side of Viennese society.
Considering all these aspects of the play we can say that Measure for Measure is truly a dark
comedy. From the beginning to the end of the play a tragic vein engulfs the audience. Though
the play is a comedy, the tragic tension ensued by Claudios death sentence dominates the
total plot of the play. The audience instead of being entertained by mirth and comic wit and
humour sits brooding over the sad fate of Claudio showing sympathy to his sad plight and
watching Isabella running like a mad to save her brothers life. The audiences reaction to
what happens in the play is like what they feel in the case of a tragedy.
The play Measure for Measure is called the problem play, because it gives rise to many
questions about the characters, themes and other issues which remain very problematic to the
very end.The main characters of the play have the contrasting values in their personality,the
theme of the play measure for measure has not been equally applied to all,and the play also
touches upon some social,poletical and moral problems.
Problematic characters
In his book, Shakespeare and his Predecessors (1896), F.S. Boas calls All's Well that End's
Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida, as Shakespeare's problem
plays,because it presents as heroes or heroines characters who are seriously flawed in some
way and, thus, problematical for audiences used to applauding and identifying with flawless
heroes and heroines. For example, the duke is fair and justbut weak. Claudio grovels for his
life. Mariana loves Angelo in spite of his egregious behavior. Isabella is admirable for her
virtue but censurable for her coldness.
Problematic themes
Today, most critics agree that Measure for Measure has earned its designation as a "problem
play"both because it leaves us with moral issues which remain ambiguous to the end and
because it refuses to be neatly classified. The resolution of the themes and debates seems
inadequate and, in the final act, the deliverance of justice and completion one expects does
not occur. Other definitions have been proposed since, however all center around the issue
that these plays cannot be easily assigned to the traditional categories of comedy or tragedy.
A problem play reveals a perplexing and distressing complication in human life, which is
presented in a spirit of high seriousness. The problem is usually one involving human
conduct, as to which there are no fixed and immutable laws. Since human life is complex,
problem plays, although structured similarly, are also complex and diversified in nature.
Shakespeare, who masterfully depicted life's complications in his plays, wrote several dramas
that are considered problem plays.
The main problem in the play deals with justice and mercy. Angelo must decide the fate of
Claudio, and condemns him to death. Isabella must decide whether it is more important to
save a life or save a soul. She justifies her action through her Christian belief of salvation,
refuses to accept Angelo's sinful proposition, thereby committing her brother to death and
saving her soul. At the end of the play, Isabella becomes the symbol of mercy when she
pleads for Angelo, the man who tried to seduce her and who condemned her brother. In a
similar fashion, the Duke also reveals his mercy when he pardons Claudio, Lucio, and
Angelo; their "punishment" is only to get married and be a good husbands." The Duke feels
he hands out appropriate justice based on the nature of the crime, measure for measure.
Shakespeare, in fact, seems to be pleading for a more humane and less literal interpretation of
the law in Measure for Measure.
It is called problem play also for the fact that the literary form of the play cant be easily
defined. It shows life to be complicated and exposes the worse sides of human existence. The
problem plays have neither the humor of the comedies nor the redemption of the tragedies.
Like a comedy, Measure for Measure ends in multiple marriages but not with unqualified joy.
There is no feel good factor to Measure. It ends in irresolution rather than with songs or
dances.
Most critics have argued that the play is a comedy because of its happy ending. However, it is
not called a romantic comedy since there is no spirit of adventure or joyous abandon, which
are the hallmarks of the romantic comedies. Here, intellect rather than imagination drive the
action of the play. And in the end, it is rather a dark comedy, where there are glimpses into
the oppressive gloom of the prison and the oppressive deceit of the human heart. Measure for
Measure is a drama of ideas, and it is the ideas that are the problems. At the spiritual level,
excessive zeal is corrupted to pride, and cloistered virtue subordinates charity to chastity.
It is definitely difficult to categorize Measure for Measure. At best, it is probably called a
tragicomedy, since the play offers a tragic theme but with a happy closure.
Measure for Measure has been classified a problem play by many scholars, partly due to
Shakespeares prowess in confronting the problems plaguing society. Definitely in Measure
for Measure, there is discussion of political corruption, sexual politics, hypocrisy (and)
meaty social issues.
In view of the overriding importance of religion and the spiritual life in early seventeenth-
century England, and in view of the control exerted over both religion and morality by the
State in this era when Parliament actually debated the death penalty for premarital sex, it is
easy to see how Measure for Measure might capture its audience's interest. One such issue is
the division of opinion about the role of government in shaping the morality of citizens. For
those who regard such governmental action as intrusive, the duke may seem intolerably
meddlesome in his interference in the lives of his people; for those who want government to
act in the defense of conventional morality, the duke may be understood as properly exerting
himself to impose standards of moral behavior on his people.
There are two worlds to this play: worlds of nuns and brothel madams, strict officials and
perverse prisoners, moral severity and tawdriness. Measure for Measure concentrates on
these opposing worlds and their intersections: the places where the subversive underbelly of
Vienna touches the ethically austere surface. As the play goes on you realize that there are
lines connecting these two worlds, tendrils that never really were broken, Manganello said.
Each of the worlds encodes the other one.
Because of its peculiar transitions between disquieting subject matter and bouts of jolly
jesting, Measure for Measure is also considered a problem play in the sense that its
difficult to perform. But its no problem for this production: The jarring shifts only serve to
highlight the actors' abilities and Shakespeares craftsmanship in emphasizing the main
themes.
Modern readers associate the sonnet form with romantic love and with good
reason: the first sonnets written in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy
celebrated the poets feelings for their beloveds and their patrons. These sonnets
were addressed to stylized, lionized women and dedicated to wealthy noblemen,
who supported poets with money and other gifts, usually in return for lofty praise
in print. Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets to Mr. W. H., and the identity of
this man remains unknown. He dedicated an earlier set of poems, Venus and
Adonisand Rape of Lucrece, to Henry Wriothesly, earl of Southampton, but its
not known what Wriothesly gave him for this honor. In contrast to tradition,
Shakespeare addressed most of his sonnets to an unnamed young man, possibly
Wriothesly. Addressing sonnets to a young man was unique in Elizabethan
England. Furthermore, Shakespeare used his sonnets to explore different types of
love between the young man and the speaker, the young man and the dark lady,
and the dark lady and the speaker. In his sequence, the speaker expresses
passionate concern for the young man, praises his beauty, and articulates what
we would now call homosexual desire. The woman of Shakespeares sonnets, the
so-called dark lady, is earthy, sexual, and faithlesscharacteristics in direct
opposition to lovers described in other sonnet sequences, including Astrophil and
Stella, by Sir Philip Sidney, a contemporary of Shakespeare, who were praised for
their angelic demeanor, virginity, and steadfastness. Several sonnets also probe
the nature of love, comparing the idealized love found in poems with the messy,
complicated love found in real life.
In Shakespeares sonnets, falling in love can have painful emotional and physical
consequences. Sonnets127152, addressed to the so-called dark lady, express a
more overtly erotic and physical love than the sonnets addressed to the young
man. But many sonnets warn readers about the dangers of lust and love.
According to some poems, lust causes us to mistake sexual desire for true love,
and love itself causes us to lose our powers of perception. Several sonnets warn
about the dangers of lust, claiming that it turns humans savage, extreme, rude,
cruel (4), as in Sonnet 129. The final two sonnets of Shakespeares sequence
obliquely imply that lust leads to venereal disease. According to the conventions
of romance, the sexual act, or making love, expresses the deep feeling
between two people. In his sonnets, however, Shakespeare portrays making love
not as a romantic expression of sentiment but as a base physical need with the
potential for horrible consequences.
To express the depth of their feelings, poets frequently employ hyperbolic terms
to describe the objects of their affections. Traditionally, sonnets transform
women into the most glorious creatures to walk the earth, whereas patrons
become the noblest and bravest men the world has ever known. Shakespeare
makes fun of the convention by contrasting an idealized woman with a real
woman. In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare directly engagesand skewersclichd
concepts of beauty. The speaker explains that his lover, the dark lady, has wires
for hair, bad breath, dull cleavage, a heavy step, and pale lips. He concludes by
saying that he loves her all the more precisely because he loves her and not
some idealized, false version. Real love, the sonnet implies, begins when we
accept our lovers for what they are as well as what they are not. Other sonnets
explain that because anyone can use artful means to make himself or herself
more attractive, no one is really beautiful anymore. Thus, since anyone can
become beautiful, calling someone beautiful is no longer much of a compliment.
Motifs
Through art, nature and beauty overcome time. Several sonnets use the seasons
to symbolize the passage of time and to show that everything in naturefrom
plants to peopleis mortal. But nature creates beauty, which poets capture and
render immortal in their verse. Sonnet 106 portrays the speaker reading poems
from the past and recognizing his beloveds beauty portrayed therein. The
speaker then suggests that these earlier poets were prophesizing the future
beauty of the young man by describing the beauty of their contemporaries. In
other words, past poets described the beautiful people of their day and, like
Shakespeares speaker, perhaps urged these beautiful people to procreate and
so on, through the poetic ages, until the birth of the young man portrayed in
Shakespeares sonnets. In this waythat is, as beautiful people of one
generation produce more beautiful people in the subsequent generation and as
all this beauty is written about by poetsnature, art, and beauty triumph over
time.
Growing older and dying are inescapable aspects of the human condition, but
Shakespeares sonnets give suggestions for halting the progress toward death.
Shakespeares speaker spends a lot of time trying to convince the young man to
cheat death by having children. In Sonnets 117, the speaker argues that the
young man is too beautiful to die without leaving behind his replica, and the idea
that the young man has a duty to procreate becomes the dominant motif of the
first several sonnets. In Sonnet 3, the speaker continues his urgent prodding and
concludes, Die single and thine image dies with thee (14). The speakers words
arent just the flirtatious ramblings of a smitten man: Elizabethan England was
rife with disease, and early death was common. Producing children guaranteed
the continuation of the species. Therefore, falling in love has a social benefit, a
benefit indirectly stressed by Shakespeares sonnets. We might die, but our
childrenand the human raceshall live on.
Symbols
Flowers and trees appear throughout the sonnets to illustrate the passage of
time, the transience of life, the aging process, and beauty. Rich, lush foliage
symbolizes youth, whereas barren trees symbolize old age and death, often in
the same poem, as in Sonnet 12. Traditionally, roses signify romantic love, a
symbol Shakespeare employs in the sonnets, discussing their attractiveness and
fragrance in relation to the young man. Sometimes Shakespeare compares
flowers and weeds to contrast beauty and ugliness. In these comparisons,
marred, rotten flowers are worse than weedsthat is, beauty that turns rotten
from bad character is worse than initial ugliness. Giddy with love, elsewhere the
speaker compares blooming flowers to the beauty of the young man, concluding
in Sonnets 98 and 99 that flowers received their bloom and smell from him. The
sheer ridiculousness of this statementflowers smell sweet for chemical and
biological reasonsunderscores the hyperbole and exaggeration that plague
typical sonnets.
Stars
Shakespeare uses stars to stand in for fate, a common poetic trope, but also to
explore the nature of free will. Many sonneteers resort to employing fate,
symbolized by the stars, to prove that their love is permanent and predestined.
In contrast, Shakespeares speaker claims that he relies on his eyes, rather than
on the hands of fate, to make decisions. Using his eyes, the speaker reads that
the young mans good fortune and beauty shall pass to his children, should he
have them. During Shakespeares time, people generally believed in astrology,
even as scholars were making great gains in astronomy and cosmology, a
metaphysical system for ordering the universe. According to Elizabethan
astrology, a cosmic order determined the place of everything in the universe,
from planets and stars to people. Although humans had some free will, the
heavenly spheres, with the help of God, predetermined fate. In Shakespeares
Sonnet 25, the speaker acknowledges that he has been unlucky in the stars but
lucky in love, thereby removing his happiness from the heavenly bodies and
transposing it onto the human body of his beloved.
While no four sonnets taken individually can adequately represent all of the richness and
complexity of the entire sequence, these particular few16, 55, 81, and 107deal
thoroughly with the different aspects of immortality with which Shakespeare concerned
himself. Linked further by the motifs of the monument and the eyes of others, they bear a
strong resemblance to each other while addressing and clarifying different points of
Shakespeares argument.
The idea of immortality enters into the sequence from the very beginning, when the first
quatrain of sonnet 1 asserts that increase allows beauty to avoid death. The seventeen
sonnets that follow share the theme of reproduction, stressing the inevitability of decay with
time and reasoning that children provide a defense against it. The last line of sonnet 15
contains the first reference to writing, appearing as an alternative, if secondary, path to
immortality, and the presence of the speaker himself, the I of the poems, announces itself.
The emergence of the speaker as a thinking, acting entity casts the issue of immortality in an
entirely different light, since it introduces a new agenda on the part of our narrator, who had
hitherto remained fairly passive. Over the course of the next few sonnets, new themes are
developed: mortality remains as inevitable and horrifying as ever, but the key to being
remembered becomes firmly linked to the poems themselves and the speakers abilities as
opposed to reproduction.
What begins in sonnet 15 with I engraft you new is immediately picked up and developed
in the next poem. Sonnet 16 crucially documents the surfacing of the narrator by comparing
the relative success of reproduction and writing as agents of preservation in the face of time.
At a first glance it would seem that Shakespeare sides against poetry in this comparison, but
the syntax and logic of his argument actually go a great way to set up what becomes his
contention for the rest of the sequence. The key lies in the ambiguity of the third quatrain,
whose content and syntax struggle against one another:
The first obstacle to a clear reading arises in line 9, which requires a syntactical correction on
the part of the reader, placing repair as the main verb of the sentence and lines of life as
the subjectthe other three lines are subordinate clauses. A first reading, however, might
interpret the first line as the lines of life which repair life, a construction which
immediately breaks down, undermining the overtones of repair.
A second ambiguity surrounds the pupil pen of the tenth line. While a thorough
understanding of the sentence as a whole asserts the inability of the pen to succeed in
preserving the objects memory, the construction of lines 11 and 12 suggest an entirely
opposite meaning. Taking the eleventh line as an inserted clause allows the reader the
possibility of forming a syntactically correct sentence while leaving it out entirely, and this
new sentence excludes the flimsy negation of can. Ultimately, this reading does not hold
up, but neither can the positive construction of the sentence be ignored. As Stephen Booth
puts it, the thrust of the syntax and that of the substance and context pull against each other.
A reader grasps the logically available statement he expects to hear, but it is wrapped in a
syntax that suggests an opposite position.
Amid this very tension the speaker lays the foundation for his argument. Having already
established the desirability of immortality, he sets out next to bind it inextricably to his act of
writing. The early sonnets argue that being remembered even after death is important for its
own sake; the narrator, speaking candidly, would perhaps argue that immortality is important
because that is what the poet can offer. The tone of the sonnets throughout the sequence is
that of a supplicant; the speaker variously advises, urges, pleads with, remonstrates, and
chides the object, never in control but always seeking to guide. Poetry, in supplying the object
with the promise of eternal life, thus provides the speaker with a means of evening the power
balance between them.
The sonnets following number 16 reiterate and expand the power of the written word, and
while the speaker remains ostensibly in the background, he never fails to remind us that his
great gift of eternal life in memory is only possible because he, the I, possesses it and is
willing to devote it to his object. Sonnets 55 and 81 are perfect examples of the speakers
two-part strategy: first to establish the significance of writing as a defense against mortality,
and second to subtly promote the speaker himself as the giver of immortality. The
inescapability of death is brought out in sonnet 55 through the prolific use of words that mean
living and the conspicuous absence of any literal use of the word. Even the third lines
claim that you shall shine more bright in these contents brings to mind the image of a
coffin. All that the speaker places in the path of death, and all oblivious enmity is the poem
itself, which, while it may survive Mars sword and wars fire, is still a fragile message. This
reminder of the vulnerability of paper would seem to undermine the poems assertion that
these praises shall still find room / Even in the eyes of all posterity, but it actually succeeds
in strengthening the argument, heightening the worth of the poem itself. That words can
outlast statues and monuments is merely a tribute to their author, who may as well be
performing a miracle.
Sonnet 81 is rather more heavy-handed in its treatment of the I. The first eight lines set up a
series of opposing parallels in which the object is accorded immortal life while the speaker is
condemned to be forgotten. However, the inclusion of so many references to the speaker puts
him as much in the minds of readers as the object, contrary to the content of the lines. The
last six lines change the direction of the sonnet; whereas the speaker and the object are
initially juxtaposed within the opposing parallels, they become literally united through the
verse itself and the promise that it holds to prolong life. The construction of the third quatrain
equates my gentle verse with your being through the notion of future generations reading
themthe one is syntactically indistinguishable from the other. Line 13 contains the logical
union of speaker and object, again linked significantly by the poets power to grant
immortality: You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen. The conclusions found at the end
of this sonnet, like the repetition of the I in the first part, completely contradict the
speakers opening claims regarding the longevity of his own memory.
These three sonnets so far have revealed the utility of immortality as a concept to the speaker,
and how he uses it to acquire worth in the eyes of the object. The sonnet sequence contains
many examples of this strategy, but it also includes numerous variations on it. In the later
parts of the sequence, these differences seem to reflect a change in the relationship between
speaker and object. For example, in tone and symbolism sonnet 107 bears a striking
resemblance to others of the sonnets, but one crucial distinction sets it apart: the speaker, not
the object, is preserved in the poem.
The first eight lines are full of shadowy references to future stability in the wake of an
uncertain time, but the language is far from reassuring. In one reading, the first quatrain
seems to say that the poets love, while thought to have been quelled, still endures, and the
insistence on legal terms to express this sentiment calls into question the ability of law and
society to regulate the relationships between people. The next four lines all indicate that a
difficult time has come to an end, but they do so in a confused manner that leaves doubt as to
the reality of that situation:
Each of these lines could be interpreted either positively or negatively; endured could mean
either survived or capitulated, and the incertainties may alternately have been resolved
or gained the upper hand. Depending on which meaning of mock the reader takes, the
second line could mean that the sad augers were never fulfilled, or that they have been
repeated, and while olive branches are a traditional symbol for peace, in this case peace
proclaims olives, an unexpectedly backwards phrasing.
Line 9 affirms the positive version of these lines by describing the time as balmy, but the
doubtful overtones cannot be ignored, nor do they disappear from the final quatrain. While
the speaker seems to proclaim his victory over death, this announcement itself takes on an
almost desperate tone. Death subscribes to him with the drops of line 9, and whether this
means that Death submits or signs his name to him is unclear. That these same drops make
his love look fresh suggests that he means ink and describes his poetry, which is ironic
given that he intends to evade death by living in this poor rhyme. The poem is thus both the
symbol of Deaths mark upon him and his means of living in spite of him.
The object, to whom the sonnet returns in the couplet, is conspicuously left out of this
interchange with Death, and told instead that he must find his monument in this. The tone
of these last lines is more abruptalmost to the point of being rudethan is generally used
to address the object; no longer is he granted immortality through the words of the poet, since
this time the speaker has reserved that advantage for himself. This therefore probably does
not refer to the poem itself, but rather to the speakers situation in lines 9-12, which becomes
a monument to the object because it represents the speakers devotion to him.
This sonnet treats the idea of immortality differently than do the others, and the object
receives a different understanding as well. The shift found here reconstitutes the relationship
between the poet and his love, setting the writer above his object, who has lost his chance at
eternal life through poetry. Exactly what event might be reflected in this sonnet is debatable,
but the profound uncertainties explicit in it, together with the bitterness of the tone, suggest
that the speaker did not welcome the change.
Other sonnets in the sequence document similar shifts, many of them centering on the same
idea of immortality, and the power of the writer to grant it. Numbers 71-74 vividly describe
the unpleasantness of earthly death and decay, while urging the object to forget the poet who
praises him; the juxtaposition suggests instead that the poet very much wishes to be
remembered, and hopes that his writing will serve as a reminder to the object. Sonnet 65
picks up the themes shared by 55, stressing the grim presence of mortality in life and calling
his work a miracle that overcomes time. In 122 the speaker seems to lament his fall from
favor, and here he admits that his power of remembrance is not infinite, saying that the
memory of the object remains with him Beyond all date evn to eternity / Or at the least
so long as brain and heart / Have faculty by nature to subsist. He has not abandoned the idea
of immortality, but having lost his love, he no longer speaks enthusiastically of the fame he
has to offer.
The whole history of the relationship between the narrator of the sonnets and the object of his
affection is laid out over the course of the sequence, and the changes that take place are
reflected in how the speaker discusses and uses the concept of eternal life. To the poet,
immortality becomes an important asset, because he believes his writings will confer respect
and renown on the subject he chooses. In competing for the love of another, this ability lends
him a powerful advantage, and as a consequence many of the sonnets deal with the theme of
death and mortality and the capability of words to preserve memory.
Shakespeare is such a poet and dramatist of the world who has been edited and
criticized by hundreds of editors and critics Dr. Samuel Johnson is one of them.
But among the literary criticisms about Shakespeare, Johnsons edition was
notable chiefly for its sensible interpretations and critical evaluations of
Shakespeare as a literary artist. As a true critic in his Preface to Shakespeare,
Johnson has pointed out Shakespeares merits or excellences as well as demerits.
Let us now discuss Shakespeares merits as stated by Johnson.
Shakespeares greatness lies in the fact that he is the poet of nature. Jonson
says,
Shakespeare is, above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of
nature, the poet that holds up to the reader a faithful mirror of human nature.
His writings represent the general nature, because he knows Nothing can
please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.
Therefore his characters are the genuine progeny of common humanity. In
the writing of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of
Shakespeare it is commonly a species. Thus Johnson indicates the universal
aspects of Shakespeares writings.
Johnson defends Shakespeare for his mingling of the tragic and comic elements
in his plays on grounds of realism exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature.
Because, Shakespeare's plays express the course of the world, in which the loss
of one is the gain of another, in which at the same time, the reveler is hasting to
his wine, and the mourner burying his friends,(in which the malignity of one is
sometimes defeated by the floric of another; and many mischiefs and many
benefits are done and hindered without design.)
In his Preface to Shakespeare, Dr. Samuel Johnson brings out the excellences
first, then he turns to his demerits. Johnson does not consider him a faultless
dramatist- even he takes the faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any
other merit. That is Shakespeares faults are serious enough to overwhelm the
merits if they had only belonged to other dramatists. Discussion of
Shakespeares demerits will better show the merits of Shakespeare .
Here we can not agree with Johnson. He himself called Shakespeare a poet of
nature. But now he can not come out of the tradition of his age- explicit
moralizing or didacticism. Actually, Shakespeare gives us a picture of life as
whatever he sees. Didacticism which is expected from a true artist can not be a
basic condition of art. Thus here we see Johnsons dualism in evaluating
Shakespeare.
Shakespeares plot construction has also faults. According to Johnson, the plots
are often loosely formed and carelessly pursued. He omits opportunities of
instructing or delighting which the development of the plot provides to him."
Moreover, in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected.
This charge is, to some extent true. The readers loose dramatic interest in the
second half of Julius Caesar. But The Merchant of Venice shows a perfect sense of
plot construction.
Shakespeares another faults in the eye of Johnson is his over fondness for
quibbles. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world
and was content to lose it. But to say Johnson here sacrifices his strong
common sense for the sake of an eloquent metaphor.
Shakespeare's comic dialogue is often coarse. The gentlemen and the ladies in
comic scenes,. show little delicacy or rafinement and are hardly to be
distinguised from the clowns.
His tragic plays become worse in proportion to the labour he spends on them.
His narration shows an undue pomp of diction and unnecessary verbiage and
repetition.
What he does best, he soon ceases to do. He no sooner begins to arouse the
readers sympathy than he counteracts himself.
PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare is such a poet and dramatist of the world who has been edited and
criticized by hundreds of editors and critics Dr. Samuel Johnson is one of them.
But among the literary criticisms about Shakespeare, Johnsons edition was
notable chiefly for its sensible interpretations and critical evaluations
of Shakespeare as a literary artist. As a true critic in his Preface
to Shakespeare, Johnson has pointed out Shakespeares merits or excellences as
well as demerits. Let us now discuss Shakespeares merits as stated by Johnson.
Shakespeares greatness lies in the fact that he is the poet of nature. Jonson
says,
Shakespeare is, above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of
nature, the poet that holds up to the reader a faithful mirror of human nature.
His writings represent the general nature, because he knows Nothing can
please many, and please long, but just representations of general
nature. Therefore his characters are the genuine progeny of common
humanity. In the writing of other poets a character is too often an individual; in
those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species. Thus Johnson indicates
the universal aspects of Shakespeares writings.
Shakespeares dialogue is often so evidently determined by the incident which
produces it, and pursued with so much ease and simplicity, that it seems
scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent
selection out of common conversation and common occurrences".
Shakespeare's treatment of love proves his following realism. Dramatists in
general give an excessive importance to the theme of love. But to
Shakespeare love is only one of many passions, and as it has no great influence
upon the sum of life. In Shakespeares Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar, love
interest hardly has any place.
The Lotus-Eaters
Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
In this kind of poem a single person, who is apparently not the poet, utters the entire poem in
a specific situation at a critical moment.
This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people, but we know of the
presence of the audience and its reaction from the clues in the utterance of the speaker.
Robert Browning is well known for his dramatic monologues. His My Last Duchess,
Andrea del Sarto, Fra Lippo Lippi, Tennysons Ulysses and Tittonus, T.S Eliots The
Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock are some of the best known dramatic monologues. Tennyson
like another Victorian genius Robert Browing is good at composing dramatic monologues.
His well known poem Ulysses is an excellent example of dramatic monologue in which he
adopts a classical hero Ulysses or Odysseus as the main character for his work. Here he tries
to focus on the adventurous as well as knowledge seeking spirit of Ulysses. But the
philosophy of life given through the mouth of Ulysses is actually Tennysons own
philosophy.
In the poem Ulysses, Ulysses is supposed to be speaking and expressing his thoughts and
feelings to the silent listeners. He is standing before the royal palace of Ithaca and speaks
before the mariners, who had been his fellow sojourners during his long journey to Troy. The
monologue begins with his cynical remarks towards life. .
Ulysses, the man of nimble wit, is not satisfied with his life among his subjects, who are
unaware of his heroic mould. His aged wife ( Penelope) also cannot understand his heroic
soul. But his intention is not clear until he says.
Here by the word travel he means the journey which he made to rescue Helen from Paris
and the perilous journey after the destruction of Troy. But he refuses to take rest and is
determined to take a life of adventure to the very end. He compares life to a cup of wine. Just
a man drinks till he has reached the sediment at the bottom, Ulysses also will taste all aspects
of life without leaving anything behind. Through these words, Ulysses insatiable passion for
knowledge is expressed. He is the man who can never take rest from the pursuit of
knowledge.
Ulysses has become old but it is the knowledge and experience which he has gathered so long
urges him on even in the old age to sail in quest of knowledge. He knows that a life spent in
idleness is no life at all. Just a sword losses its polish and gets rusty when if is kept out of use
for longtime, so also vigor and energy will be dulled and blunted if we do not exercise then
always. He is perfectly aware that knowledge is vast and unlimited and our life on earth is too
short to learn everything. Even a number of lives taken together would be too short for
gaining all knowledge. So far he is concerned he has a single life to live. And of this single
life too a greater part has already been spent. Only a few years of life are left to him. Hence
he is determined to make the best of every moment of the remaining years of his life. To him
an hour spent in some profitable work means an hour saved from the silence of death.
But the monologue of Ulysses reaches to the point of climax, when he inspires his sailors and
makes on appeal to them to enter upon a life of exploration with great courage. He says
Ulysses knows that he and his sailors, being old are nearer death, but he has not given up
hope and believes that old men also can earn great glory and achieve great deeds. So, he
inspires his sailors to achieve some great deeds even in their old age before thy die. The paths
of knowledge may be full of dangers, but he is strongly determined. And finally he makes a
noble resolution to carry on his quest. He is not upset by the passing away of his youth and
bodily strength. He knows that even old age cannot rob great men of their courage, bravery
and other spiritual qualities. Therefore, he asks his sailors to show the same courage that they
had in youth. He reminds then that everyone of them is brave and strong willed, everyone of
them knows how to labor, how to struggle hard and how to pursue a great aim. Everyone of
them will tough out any bad situation and never bow his head before hardships or troubles.
Thus, by the monologue Tennyson portrays the character of Ulysses. His portrayal of the
character Ulysses deserves huge appreciation for there is a consonantal movement of thought,
pervading the character Ulysses from beginning to the end. Every word Uttered by Ulysses
helps to constitute the idea that life is short and knowledge is unlimited, so we must not stop
from pursuing knowledge.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what's best for men?
Are you---poor, sick, old ere your time---
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.
VIII.
IX.
X.
My Last Duchess
FERRARA.
A dramatic monologue usually includes all or a few of the following elements: a fiction
speaker and audience, a symbolic setting, Talismanic props, dramatic gestures, an emphasis
on speakers subjectivity, a focus on dramatics, problematics of irony or non-irony and
involved readers role playing. Browning presents all these ingredients in the most appealing
and fascinating platter, My Last Duchess being his all time masterpiece when it came to
dramatic monologues.
A tension between sympathy and judgement, a power play between amazement and a sense
of morality are among the striking features of dramatic monologue. M.W. MacCallum had
observed in this regard, But in every instancethe object (of the dramatic monologue) is to
give facts from within. A certain dramatic understanding of the person speaking, which
implies a certain dramatic sympathy with him, is not only essential, but the final cause of the
whole species. In My Last Duchess, the dukes egregious villainy makes especially
apparent the split between moral judgement and our actual feeling for him. The poem carries
to the limit an effect peculiarly the genius of the dramatic monologue i.e. the effect created by
the tension between sympathy and moral judgement. Browning delighted in making a case
for the apparently immoral position, and the dramatic monologue, since it requires sympathy
for the speaker as a condition of reading the poem, is an excellent vehicle for the impossible
case. The combination of villain and aesthete in the Duke creates an especially strong tension,
and Browning exploits the combination to the fullest. The utter outrageousness of the Duke
makes condemnation the least interesting response, certainly not the response that can
account for the poems success. What interests us more than the Dukes wickedness is his
immense attractiveness. His conviction of matchless superiority, his intelligence and bland
amorality, his poise, his taste for art, his manners high handed aristocratic manners that
break the ordinary rules and assert the Dukes superiority when he is being most solicitous of
the envoy, waiving their difference of rank; these qualities overwhelm the envoy, causing him
apparently to suspend judgement of the Duke, for he raises no demur. The reader is no less
overwhelmed. We suspend moral judgement because we prefer to participate in the dukes
power and freedom, in his hard core of character fiercely loyal to itself. Moral judgement, as
Robert Langbaum argues, is in fact important as the thing to be suspended, as a measure of
the price we pay for the privilege of appreciating to the fullest this extraordinary man
It is because the Duke determines the arrangement and relative subordination of the parts that
the poem means what it does. The duchess goodness shines through the Dukes utterance, he
makes no attempt to conceal it, so preoccupied is he with his own standard of judgement and
so oblivious of the worlds. Thus the duchesss case is subordinated to the Dukes, the novelty
and complexity of which engages our attention. We are busy trying to understand the man
who can combine the connoisseurs pride in the ladys beauty with a pride that caused him to
murder the lady rather than tell her in what way she displeased him, for in that would be
some stooping; and I choose/ Never to stoop. The dukes paradoxical nature is fully revealed
when, having boasted how at his command the Duchesss life was extinguished, he turns back
to the portrait to admire of all things its life-likeness, There she stands/ As if alive. This
occurs ten lines from the end, and we might suppose that we have by now taken the dukes
measure. But the next ten lines produce a series of shocks that outstrip each time our
understanding of the Duke, and keep us panting after revelation with no opportunity to
consolidate our impression of him for moral judgement. For it is at this point that we learn to
whom he has been talking, and he goes on to talk about dowry, even allowing himself to
murmur the hypocritical assurance that the new bride herself and not the dowry is of course
his object. Here, one side of the dukes nature is stretched as far as it can go; the dazzling
figure threatens to decline into paltriness admitting moral judgement, when Browning
retrieves it with two brilliant strokes. First, there is the lordly waiving of ranks privilege as
the duke and the envoy are about to proceed downstairs, and then there is a perfect all-
revealing gesture of the last two and half lines when the Duke stops to show off yet another
object in his collection. The lines bring all the parts of the poem into final combination with
just the relative values that constitute the poems meaning. The nobleman does not hurry on
his way to business, the connoisseur cannot resist showing off yet another precious object, the
possessive egoist counts up his possessions, even as he moves towards the acquirement of a
new possession, a well dowered bride and most important, the last duchess is seen in final
perspective. She takes her place in one of a line of objects in an art collection; her sad story
becomes the cicerones anecdote lending piquancy to the portrait. The duke has taken from
her what he wants, her beauty and thrown the life away and we watch in awe as he proceeds
to take what he wants from the envoy and by implication form the new duchess. Such a will
undeflected by ordinary compunctions, calls into question and lingers as the poems haunting
after note: the Dukes sanity.
The Duke grows to his full stature because we allow him to have is way with us; we sub-
ordinate all other considerations to the business of understanding him. To take the full
measure of the dukes distinction, we must be less concerned to condemn than to appreciate
the triumphant transition by which he ignores clean out of existence any judgement of his
story that the envoy might have presumed to invent. By the exquisite timing the dukes delay
over Neptune, he tries once more the envoys already sorely tried patience, and as he teases
the reader too by delaying for a lordly whim, the poems conclusion. This willingness of the
reader to understand the duke, even to sympathize with him as a necessary condition of
reading the poem, is the key to the poems form.
Moreover, the Italian Renaissance setting of My last Duchess helps to suspend moral
judgement of the duke, since we partly at least take a historical view; we accept the
combination of taste and villainy with taste and manners as a phenomenon of the Renaissance
and the old aristocratic order in general. We cannot, however, entirely, historicize our moral
judgement in this poem, because the dukes crime is too egregious to support historical
generalization. More important therefore, for the suspension of moral judgement is our
psychologising attitude our willingness to take up the dukes view of events purely for the
sake of understanding him, the more outrageous his view the more illuminating for us the
psychological revelation.
It is thus, clear that arguments cannot make the case in a Dramatic Monologue but only
passion, power, strength of will and intellect, just those existential virtues which are
independent of logical and moral correctness and are therefore, best made out through
sympathy and when clearly separated from, even opposed to, the other virtues. Brownings
contemporaries accuse him of perversity as they found it necessary to sympathize with his
reprehensible characters. But Brownings perversity is intellectual and moral in the sense that
most of his characters have taken up positions through a perfectly normal act of will.
The typical speaker of a Browning monologue is aggressive, often threatening, nearly always
superior intellectually or socially to the auditor, a typically eloquent rhetorician who has
complete control over what he speaks. Yet, such absolute control puts the listener on guard.
The Dukes subtlety makes the listener and the reader look for hidden motives and purposes.
The Dukes great care about what he says suggests that there is something behind the speech
that he is determined not to reveal. And the assumption is that what is hidden is hidden for a
reason. The Dukes care with words, calling for an equal attention to those words on the
listeners part, places a new stress on interpretation. Language must be examined and studied
to uncover the meaning it carries. Brownings obsession with languages function as the
medium of interaction with men links him to the Victorian novelists, a world independent of
the speaker is created in the process in which his words are interpreted by others, often in
ways he never intended. The confrontation between selves implied in such a process is never
far from the surface in a dramatic monologue. The auditor is a threat because he might break
through the words offered by the duke to an interpretation that locates the dukes attitudes and
actions within an entirely different context. The dukes monologue creates a world, like the
lie in which everything is ordered completely in relation to the sensibilities and desires of the
speaker. But the listener might not accept the offered world as valid. Brownings speakers
hence manifest a veiled hostility towards their listeners. While the Duke tries to close in on
one interpretation of the Duchesss spot of joy, justifying his annihilation of her, his
language contains within it entirely contrary suggestion, which the listener or reader may
uncover. The poem, therefore, has a metapoetic quality to it. The main device it uses to
address its own status as an interpretative form is irony. And irony is the key trope of internal
differentiation. Irony involves distancing language from itself. Thus, reading the monologue
often means reading the language of the poem against itself turning its rhetoric inside out to
glimpse what the speaker may, unconsciously or not, be trying to conceal from view.
Browning works to undermine his speakers control over the interpretation of his words, and
this undermining function is a crucial element in establishing the readers relation with
Brownings own art.
The attempt to evade the reality of the other as an active agent is an interesting feature that is
seen throughout the monologue. The duchesss vitality, that spot of joy on her cheek that
offends the duke so much when she is alive, makes her portrait a striking one. The duke can
enjoy the blush when it exists within his control. The static thing, the work of art can be
controlled in way, the living person cannot be. The logic of dehumanization is ultimately, the
logic of murder. The other who cannot be manipulated must be murdered or else the other
will destroy the world the speaker has constructed. The only way to keep reality within ones
control, to prevent its creation by an intersubjective process that transcends the self, is to be
alone in the world or to surround oneself with completely passive others. But the speaker
even while viewing the other as a threat, needs the other. The speakers constructed world
lacks substance if others are not witnesses to it. A total escape from social reality is
unsatisfying. Brownings speakers want a world that is entirely self-made but also peopled.
The murdered duchess remains in the dukes world as a portrait, a semblance of another who
shares his world with him. But we assume that the satisfaction offered by these inanimate
objects cannot be long-lasting. We learn of the last duchess and her fate during the dukes
search for a new duchess, a new witness to his world. The duke needs a living witness to his
world, even while fearing one, and his monologue is aimed at protecting himself beforehand
from too much vitality in that witness. The poems auditor, the envoy is also a witness to the
dukes world, one whom the duke treats most carefully. The selfs lack of power, its inability
to create reality entirely on its own, is obliquely acknowledged in this fear of the other.
My Last Duchess thus, revolves around the attempt to control the other and reality itself by
transforming life into art. Again and again in Brownings poems, art and life are presented as
distinct, with art seen as a wilful human construction in contrast to a reality that transcends
individual control. Reality proves threatening because contact with it might require altering
and abandoning the constructions of imagination.
Interestingly, the ironic structure of the monologue is built primarily on a strict notion of
over-determination, but opens out to a more mystical acknowledgement of the indeterminacy.
Browning directs us as readers towards uncovering a finite set of causes that determine the
speakers words and actions. The assumption is that the speaker himself can never be in
control of or aware of all these causes, and that the listener or reader will at times, recognize
causes the speaker cannot or does not wish to acknowledge. The irony here is close to
dramatic irony: the audience (reader) enjoys a position of superior knowledge relative to the
actor (speaker). While the speaker is not entirely in control of the meaning of his actions and
utterances, there is a true meaning to those actions, a meaning that is accessible to another.
Eg. Various reasons of love are given by the duke for killing the duchess, but an explanation
of that love as a response to the threat of the other can only be supplied by the reader.
However, its not just dramatic irony, Brownings Duke is also seen as a theatrical producer, as
established by M.David Shaw. The duke is staging a show for the envoy by drawing and
closing curtains and speaking rhetorically. George Monteiro remarked, Virtually a libretto,
the dukes monologue sustains a central metaphor of drama and performance. He begins his
play with a curtain and sees himself in dramatic light. His gestures convey an involvement in
a drama of social pretension, of ceremonious posturing, play acting and verbal artifice.
The poem takes one of the central pre-occupations of romantic aesthetics to their potentially
most devastating ends. If Romanticism redefined the perception of the world through the
active projection of the individual will so that the subject creates the object through say the
faculty of the imagination then it may well follow that the subject is in jeopardy of
hallucinating reality. Overemphasis on the self can as we see here, lead to annihilation of the
other, as is seen in case of the Duke ending the Duchesss life. Thus, in his dramatic
monologues, Browning explores the ultimate limits of execution of individual will and
independence of action.
In his essay on Sympathy versus Judgement, Langbaum argues that the duke reveals his
identity accidently. However, Rader observes that the Duke reveals himself with deliberate
calculation, for a specific purpose. Where Langbaum sees the Dukes motives exposed by
chance, Rader considers them wholly purposeful. Why, then, has the dukes speech led to
such entirely opposing conclusions. It is here the Tuckers criticism comes in. He helpfully
sifts the debate from the rights and wrongs of the dukes empirical character on to issues of
language and representation. Although critics recognize the disparity between statement and
meaning, it is what is betrayed that keeps them in dispute. Tucker performs a reconciliation
act here; he begins by noting the internal division within the dukes speech. On one hand,
they express modesty, attempting to control the impression made upon the envoy. On the
other, given their recurrence, they suggest the Dukes discomfort or even paranoia. The Duke
seems to be wrestling with a language whose power to signify is troublingly greater than his
own. Tucker is able to tease out the Dukes considerable discursive unease. The Duke begins
to cast doubt on the values he eposes, almost in spite of himself/ As he discloses more about
his last Duchess (sounding chilling as though she was one of a series), her portrait lovingly
executed by Fra Pandolf, and her sudden death, the wider gap opens between intention and
meaning.My Last Duchess, draws attention to a disjunction between verbal skill and
intent or will. It concentrates on exposing competing interpretations between the Duchesss
will and his skill to represent his intentions and its skill in doing the same. His rhetorical
discomfiture deepens considerably when he reveals himself unable to decode the intentions of
others. All the characters in the short history he adumbrates himself, the Duchess and Fra
Pandolf have desires and demands that he chooses to regard in a damagingly restrictive
manner.
In the end, it can be said that Browning uses the familiar techniques and requirements of a
dramatic monologue in the most peculiar and exploratory fashion to yield an unfamiliar and
unheard of art product that was to glorify his legacy for generations to come.
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Explore how Matthew Arnold uses language to give us insights into the life of modern
man in Dover Beach.
The life of modern mankind is presented very negatively and ignorantly by Matthew Arnold
in the poem Dover Beach by the fact that religious faith evanesce with the Industrial
Revolution. Arnold creates the image of the dark future for the people without unwavering
faith or religion.
Modern men are bastardised with the thought that new the Industrial Revolution will give
them advantage over nature. This thought of gaining superiority made humans arrogant by
which this appearance is broken by the reality of natures dominance. People also seem
ignorant with the wishful thought. These pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling are
completely powerless and are thrown around by the waves that move these pebbles at ease.
Arnold uses pebbles as a metaphor for humans to show the inferiority in comparison to
nature. The ignorance of humans is emphasised by the historical allusion to Peloponnesian
War. In the dark, soldiers could not differentiate between their own army and the opponents;
and so they killed their own soldiers. This is used by the poet to show the stupidity of modern
man throwing away the religion which was everything to people before the Industrial
Revolution; something to believe and rely on when people prayed. However, this old belief is
thrown away and Arnold sees it as a very nave decision.
The Industrial Revolution gave the source of arrogance and confidence which took place
among the Western countries. This revolution was revolutionary itself; humans could mass
produce, with improved quality, and at ease. These machineries became the limbs of human
society. What came with the industrial revolution was the idea of realism. People could nearly
produce goods to near-original standards, all thanks to improved technologies and science,
and hence began to doubt the existence of God and supernatural beings. Realism contrasts the
theology which is all about belief without questioning that God exists; and people believed it
before the times of the machineries. It gave people hope and modesty under the mighty
existence of God. However both hope and modesty disappeared with the Industrial
Revolution which Arnold laments for. Bitterness is suggested when Arnold exclaims Ah,
love to show that in this changing world, one can only rely on the partner, and be trustful and
true. Sarcasm is used to describe the modern world as a land of dreams as there is no more
hope for the world, as there is no more faith.
As the poem proceeds, the transition of mood is noticeable as the grief of the loss of faith
extends to a sense of resignation towards the end and having a sarcastic, sour approach to the
issue. The tremulous cadence slow helps to convey the gradual process of the wane of
doctrine which adds to the idea that the change of peoples lives is almost unnoticeable. This
gradual process hurts Arnold because people are caught unaware of the changes taking place
and so do not think it is particularly wrong and sinful. Arnold presents his sorrow with the
historical allusion to Sophocles who, was a Greek playwright, had heard the sound of waves
crashing as the eternal note of sadness. The sadness of the mankind turning away from
religious beliefs is a parallel to the melancholy withdrawing roarretreating of the
waves. Before the development of science and technology, people had truly believed in the
religion and thought that they were in total control of god. The metaphor Sea of Faith which
presents the religious faith people have, used to be full and round Earths shore but now is
retreating down the vast edges which shows the decreasing religious beliefs. Arnold
points out that, without faith, humans are naked and have no protection and defence which
reflects the vulnerability of man and their lives.
With carefully chosen words, Arnold presents the uncertainty of the future of humans. The
new industrialised world seems so various, so beautiful, so new but it is again a mere
appearance. The reality is that this mechanic, stiff world will have neither joy, nor love, nor
light because this mechanics cannot feel love, hence no joy, and no vision as humans need
love and the warm characteristics of humanity. It is thus deducible that the future will have no
certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain which are the essentialities of humans. Humans can
only survive the harsh world when everybody believes and trusts each other, and this will be
broken with the introduction of industrialisation. This change of the world will bring
confused alarms on struggle and flight which creates an imagery of a darkling plain; a
dark vision for humans. Furthermore, the turbid ebb and flow shows the cloudy, uncertain
future of ebb and flow which is the repetitive cycles of nature. Can humans only survive
when they make harmony with the nature, and to go against the natural cycles can only mean
extinction of humans. The cliffs of England gleams and glimmers; gleams and glimmers
have a sense of shakiness, precariousness and unknown which echoes the uncertain modern
man. Also the alliteration of g and m creates a stuttering tone which adds to the idea of
uncertainty. This imagery portrays the withering away of cliffs as a decline of religious
beliefs and whatsmore, deterioration of the Earth itself as humans exploit resources out of the
Earth which the modern development enabled men to do.
The flaws of modernism and realism are expressed in this poem. The flow of the poem is cut
off by uses of caesura which is a parallel to the imperfect modern world. Arnold gives a hint
that modernization of the world will have some flaws which will inevitably bring loss of faith
and result in loss of equilibrium. In science, there is no hope; everything is measured out and
exact. Hence in the modern world reality there can be no hope as it looks vain. Again, Arnold
sympathises with the loss of hope in reality. In a different sense, the calm, naturalistic
description of a beach at night in the first stanza is the appearance which contrasts to the
reality that is sad, unhopeful, retreating and tremulous.
Human beings are inferior over nature and the spiritual beliefs as to an extent that people
cannot control anything. The abandonment of the doctrine of religion with the help of the
Industrial Revolution is only a vain act against the power-overwhelming nature. Religion and
faith should remain in humanity and ignoring it should result in the uncertainty and
vulnerability of modern man.
Thanks to the revival in recent times of genuine critical interest in Victorian Poetry,
which was under a cloud for some decades, Matthew Arnold's Poetry has begun to attract
considerable sophisticated critical attention. His is in some respects the most readily
appealing Victorian poetic voice, although it is not certainly the strongest. Although his
Scholar-Gipsy, with which this paper is concerned, luckily has never lacked admiring
readers, it is only of late that it has been close-read by many with particular attention to its
theme, image, and structural integrity, and its relevance to the present-day reader. 1 The poem
is about a certain spiritual crisis, a crisis of faith, experienced by Matthew Arnold and many
other sensitive minds of the Victorian period. One of the major causes for the crisis was the
retreat of traditional religious faith and belief, resulting in a dizzy feeling of uncertainty and
fluctuation regarding the meaning and significance of life, a stifling sense of living in a
spiritual vacuum, of loneliness and nostalgia. This, in fact, was a constant preoccupation of
Arnold, and in poem after poem, the most famous being Dover Beach, he returned to the
theme of the withdrawing roar of the Sea of Faith. If in Dover Beach he is concerned
mainly with his personal and subjective experience of the crisis, in The Scholar-Gipsy, it
may be said, he is preoccupied with his experience as well as that of his generation.
To write poetry in the context of his times, Arnold felt, was not easy. As one who not
only set a very high value on poetry, (Later in life he was to assert that poetry would
increasingly take the place of religion), but also who believed that poetry was his true
vocation, he felt that the times were unpoetical, that is, unpropitious for the writing of
poetry. This feeling was shared by other important poets of the age also. For, not only the
material to be turned into poetry was found to be intractable but the poet himself had to
function and find his destiny in an alien and disintegrating environment, which inevitably
made poetic exploration and communication extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible.
In the absence of a community of belief and of a unifying reference for the religious, cultural
and social life of man, the poet was driven to be a lonely artist functioning in isolation, and to
address himself to a society for which poetry did not seem to matter. Further, Arnold realised
that his poetry, to be true to his sensibility, had to be different from that of the great Romantic
predecessors, in spite of his admiration for them, especially for Wordsworth and Keats.
Sceptical as he was, he could not share the confident faith of the Romantic poets in
imagination and intuition. Instead, while conserving jealously his own moderate poetic
ardour, he had to hold fast to his own rudder as poet, and devise for his poems appropriate
poetic strategies, sometimes drawn from the Romantic and Classical traditions alike. These
factors largely explain the form and structure of The Scholar-Gipsy. which seems an
amalgam of different poetic modes. Though classified by Arnold himself as an elegyand
Arnolds temper was always at home in the elegiacthe poem has for its components
landscape description, narration, romantic dream vision in a pastoral landscape, elegiac
argument, and finally epic simile. This fact has to be borne in mind while examining the
different parts of the poem and the different functions they are made to serve. Arnold exhibits
considerable skill in structuring them into a unified poem.
The next section of the poem begins with a verse paraphrase of Glanvils account of
the Scholar-Gipsy. The poems indebtedness to Glanvils version is only nominal. For Arnold
it is only a devise to initiate his elegiac meditation on the contemporary spiritual crisis, which
is the real argument of the poem. While he seems merely to retell here in verse Clanvils
prose account, he introduces some significant changes into it. Arnold makes his Scholar a
person of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain. While he is allowed to retain his
interest in magical powers, he has to wait for heaven-sent moments to acquire the gipsy art.
Then, unlike Glanvils Scholar, who is accepted as one of the gipsy crew, Arnolds Scholar is
very much a solitary, isolated from his fellow human beings including the gipsies even from
the start, and he is seen only by rare glimpses pensive and tongue-tied, his gipsy dress only
emphasising his isolation. As the poem develops the image of the Scholar undergoes further
and important changes, so that he becomes a wholly new creation. What Arnold does is to
adopt and recreate Glanvils Scholar-Gipsy myth to suit his aesthetic and ethical needs.
Therefore our understanding of the poems meaning depends mainly upon our grasp of
Arnolds fashioning of this myth, and his attitude to his creation, The Scholar-Gipsy.
Taking a very slender hint from Glanvils story, Arnold next makes his Scholar
wander in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and follows him in a dream vision (which at once
recall. Keats following the Nightingale in his Nightingale Ode) through all the seasons of
the year. In his lone wanderings, David L. Eggenschwiler observes, the Scholar is seen
usually by maidens, shepherds, children, or mowers and his typical actionstrailing his
fingers in a cool stream or listening to nightingalesare more appropriate to a pastoral
character than to Glanvils Scholar... What Arnold is attempting to do here is to fuse
together, as a part of his poetic strategy, the arcadian world of classical pastoral poetry and
the romantic dream vision. The idyllic countryside through which the Scholar wanders and
quests is very vividly and feelingly described. As a participant in his own willed dream the
poet follows eagerly every movement of the shy and elusive scholar. His eagerness in
following the Scholar suggests that he not only feels a strong sense of kinship with him but
even tends to identify himself with him. What impells him to do so is made clear in the
immediately following sections of the poem. However, even before the poet is able to
establish such an identity the dream vision snaps, and he is tolled back to the realisation that
it is after all a day-dream deliberately indulged in, and that the Scholar-Gipsy as a mortal
must have died long ago and been buried in an obscure grave.
When the poet says in stanza 14 (which marks a transition) after the dream vision, that
the Scholar-Gipsy must have gone the way of all flesh, it seems as though he is repudiating
the dream vision, its protagonist and its substance. It is on a similar note that Keats
Nightingale Ode. closes. But in Arnolds poem, whose objective is different, the Scholar,
after a fleeting return to mortality, is resurrected and given not just a new lease of life but
immortality. This is done by recreating him on a different plane, without rejecting the essence
of the dream vision. In this new phase of the Scholar-Gipsys career, some new traits are
introduced into his personality without any loss to his essential pastoral character already
established. The shy, wandering Scholar is now viewed at close quarters by the poet. From
now on he is seen in complete contrast to the men of the modern world. As a representative
of his times and spokesman for his society, the poet presents an elaborate account of their
predicament. He sees his society as spiritually sick and debilitated, his contemporaries and
himself as benumbed and paralysed creatures, incapable of any decision or action or even
strong feelings, yet fluctuating idly without term or scope, and feebly striving not knowing
for what. In total contrast the Scholar-Gipsy and his world appear healthy and vigorous.
Unlike the vacillating Victorians, who in spite of their anxiety to believe in something are
only light half-believers of casual creeds, the Scholar is now seen to have
one aim, onebusiness, one desire and unconquerable hope which is the reason for his
immortal lot. He is now endowed with unclouded joy and glad perennial youth.
Whereas in the dream vision he appears very much of a passive quester, patiently awaiting
the spark from heaven to fall, now he becomes an active seeker, and a symbol of spiritual
health and activity, not affected by place and time.
At this stage in his meditation it becomes poignantly clear to the poet that his desire to
become the Scholar-Gipsy and his efforts in that direction are of no avail. For such single-
eyed devotion and steadfastness of purpose as possessed by the Scholar seems well-nigh
impossible of achievement in the poets milieu. As his contemplation of the Scholar sharpens
his awareness of the predicament of his own times, it also drives home to him that he and the
Scholar have to part ways lest this strange disease of modern life should incurably infect
the Gipsy-Scholar too. This two-fold awareness makes him appeal to the Scholar to flee all
contact from men like him. Commenting on this situation in the poem, A. E. Dyson
says:.....Arnold never commits himself to the gipsy..but..he is aware of him all the time
as the embodiment of an illusion. His argument implies that in asking the Scholar to flee,
Arnold in effect rejects him, But, in his attempt to impose a Positivist interpretation on the
poem Dyson disregards totally the evolution of the image of the Scholar-Gipsy in the poem,
how from a quasi-legendary figure he grows into an enduring and valid symbol of necessary
qualities, which are difficult of achievement in modern times and therefore all the more
desirable. Had Arnold really regarded the Scholar as the embodiment of an illusion, he
would not certainly have used the same symbolic figure in his later poem Thyrsis, which
begins where The Scholar-Gipsy ends. It is to be noticed that the Scholar and the poet
remain distinct from each other.
This section, which presents the poets encounter with his own times, is far from
satisfactory as poetry. In his searching analysis of the poem, A. Dwight Culler draws attention
to the remarkable alteration in the language of this section, to the fact that it is starkly,
almost bleakly, abstract in contrast to the beautifully imaginative language or the pastoral
section of the poem. Conceding that poetically it is a debasement, he still rather strangely
maintains that one ought not to expect poetic language and lush imagery of nature from
an account of life which is itself colourless and sick, arid and barren. That Arnold cannot
indulge his fancy here and that an appropriate change or idiom is necessary consistent with
the dialectic of the poem should be readily obvious. But the relevant question here is not
whether the language used is poetic or not, but whether it is adequate to Arnolds poetic
purpose, that is, to present a convincing picture of his society in terms of appropriate image
and metaphor and to enable the reader to get a feel of its complex spiritual condition so that
he can share the poets sense of urgency, anguish and helplessness regarding it. Even though
Arnold does employ images of ill-health and disease in this long section, and some of the
memorable phrases of the poem such as this strange disease of modern life and light half-
believers or casual creeds come from it, he seems unequal to his task. To appreciate the
point made here, one may contrast this section with the relevant portions of The Waste
Land of T. S. Eliot, which also explores a similar territory of experience as Arnolds poem
does. By juxtaposing the contrasted worlds, the Scholars and his own, Arnold seems to have
hoped that the reader would make the best of it.
With the long-tailed simile with which the poem concludes, an altogether new
element is introduced into the poem. However, as the earlier lines on Dido (St. 21) anticipate
this long passage or classical allusion and myth, the reader is not altogether taken by surprise.
It is not only one of the most sustained of epic similes ever attempted by Arnold, but it is one
of the most poetic passages in the entire range of his poetry. His creative powers, which
seemed to flag and falter in the preceding section, now are energetically restored. As he
conjures up in the simile a panoramic view of the ancient world, there is a triumphant return
to the earlier sensuously rich and expressive idiom. Yet this simile has remained the most
controversial part of the poem. A good deal of scholarly ingenuity has gone into its
explication, It raises many questions regarding its meaning and significance, and its relation
to the rest of the poem. The surface meaning of the simile, however, is clear. The Scholar-
Gipsy is asked to flee al the Tyrian trader did as soon as he espied the new masters of the
waves intruding on his ancient home. The similarity between the Scholar and the Tyrian is
at once apparent. But it is equally apparent that there is only a contrast between the confident,
energetic, and enterprising young Greeks who master the seas and the timorous and
unfixed Victorians who hesitate and falter life away. It will not help to see an analogy
between the young Greeks and the smock-frocked boors from whom the Scholar flees (St.
6). For it also implies a parallel between the boors and the sick and fatigued Victorians.
There seems to be nothing in the poem to establish a one-to-one correspondence with all the
details of this long-tailed simile. Further, like all such similes, this one too develops into an
elaborate and autonomous world-picture which has to be contemplated initially for its own
sake before its meaning and function in the poem can be thought of.
According to Andrew Farmer, the simile merely repeats the feelings of the first
section in different terms: something fresh to set against the strange disease of modern life.
Arnold, it is contended, allows himself the indulgence of an elaborate picture; but as it
yields good poetry one hardly regrets it. However, Wilson Knight and Dwight Culler,
among others, see in the simile a resolution of the tension generated earlier in the poem. They
also find that Arnold here suggests a cure for the contemporary malaise. For Wilson Knight,
the Tyrian trader symbolizes oriental powers, and such qualities are to be found in the
Scholar-Gipsy himself. The critic sees the poems total meaning as striving towards a fusion
of the two traditions, Western and Eastern. Dwight Cullers exegesis of the simile is rather
elaborate, and one can only refer to some of his conclusions here. He finds rich allusiveness
in the passage, and discovers in it the transmission of the traditional spiritual wisdom of the
East to the spiritually sick West. For him Didos conflict with Aeneas, alluded to earlier in the
poem, represents the heroic conflict between East and West, of which the Scholar-Gipsys
conflict with the world is a modern variant. Pointing out that Arnold was interested in the
role of the Phoenician as a transmitter of ancient culture, he maintains that Arnold makes
this point in terms of this smile. Finally he assents that, contrary to the complaint in some
quarters, Arnolds hero does impart his knowledge to the world and this is what is meant by
the last line of the poem.
Fascinating as all this is, it is pertinent to ask: whether all this really emerges
poetically from the poetic context? Whether this complex meaning is really made actual to
the reader? Does not the critic seem to read into the passage a meaning he would like to find
in it? Is not such intricate allusiveness rather foreign to Arnolds poetic practice? Judging by
the poem as it is, it is very much doubtful whether Arnold ever suggests in it a way out of the
spiritual crisis and thereby resolve the tension. For, the Scholar-Gipsy holds his attention,
ultimately because he has one aim, one business, one desire, perennial youth and gladness,
and not because he finds any knowledge, although it is very much time that he is sent on a
quest for it. It is to be noted that Arnold is not able to be more specific than saying vaguely
that the Scholar is waiting for the heaven-sent moment to catch the spark from heaven.
Unable to find a tangible goal for the quest, his own as well as that of the Scholarfor nothing
seems to be in sightArnold has to be content with finding the right temper and frame of
mind to endure and live through the present difficulty and uncertainty. In other words, having
set out to find an epistemological solution, the poet is able to find, in the context of the poem,
only a psychological and moral solution. The pastoral machinery, as he uses it in the poem,
enables him to suggest the validity of such a solution. To find, therefore, a place for
the Bhagavad Gita in the concluding simile, as Dwight Culler seems to do, is rather
farfetched. This is not to deny at all Arnolds enthusiasm for this Indian philosophical classic,
or his respect for oriental wisdom. He was so deeply impressed by the Gita that he even
chose to recommend it to his friend Clough, who too was a troubled soul like him. One
imagines that it could have certainly shown a possible way out of the Victorian spiritual
crisis. Probably the spirit of simultaneous involvement and detachment in all actions that
the Gita emphasizes, specially appealed to Arnold. But nevertheless, there is little warrant in
The Scholar-Gipsy to induct the Gita into it. Very little of the robust spirit of the Gita gets
assimilated into Arnolds poem which is closer to the stoical.
If the concluding passage of the poem, then, does neither resolve tension created by
the earlier sections, nor suggest a cure or knowledge or an integrated ideal even obliquely,
as maintained in this paper, what then is its function, its justification in the poem? How does
it fit into the imaginative scheme of the poem? At the end of his criticism of the
contemporary crisis, the poet realises that there is no cure for it except a moral and
psychological one for the present. His frantic appeal to the Scholar to flee amply shows how
desperate his situation is. Had the poem been closed at this point, it would have been abrupt,
and marred the poems construction, its structural integrity. Because it would have only a
beginning and a middle, but no end. Therefore to give the poem an end, a formal close, so
that it becomes an aesthetically satisfying whole, and to induce in himself and the reader a
measure of calm of mind after so much of turbulence, the poet introduces this deliberately
elaborate simile. (To appreciate its specific function one may contrast it with the much shorter
simile with which Dover Beach concludes.) By pressing into service all his artistic
resources and by an effort of his creative imagination Arnold conjures up a lovely and
compelling picture of the world of classical antiquity, richly suggestive in its visual details,
into which he transports himself and the reader. Since the situation in the simile has at its
heart a conflict and a quest, it does not take away the readers attention from the central
issues of the poem. There is also the consolation of hope implied, since the Tyrian in the
simile reaches at long last the Iberian coast. By a deliberate change of mood, then, the tension
of the poem is only temporarily resolved. And the poem ends on a note of objective calm.
There is a certain obvious functional similarity between the opening and concluding sections
of the poem, with this difference that the opening stanzas induce a mood of subjective
withdrawal necessary for the poets meditation, while the concluding passage induces in him
a mood of objective calm and thus enables him to pull himself away from the brink of
suicidal despair.
D G rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was only 18 when he wrote "The Blessed Damozel" in
1847. The poem went through many subsequent revisions, and it was not until
1871 that Rossetti began to work on a visual rendering of the poem. As a double
work of art the pictorial version acts as a visual interpretation of his words. The
first four stanzas of "The Blessed Damozel" are also written on the base of the
frame, which Rossetti designed."The Blessed Damozel" tells the beautiful yet
tragic tale of how two lovers are separated by the death of the Damozel and how
she wishes to enter paradise, but only with her beloved by her side. Rossetti
takes this theme of separated lovers that are to be rejoined in heaven from
Dante'sVita Nuova, a continual source of inspiration. Rossetti divides the painting
into two sections with a principal canvas on top and a narrower predella canvas
beneath a style reminiscent of Italian Renaissance altarpieces. The upper part
shows the Damozel in Heaven, leaning over the golden bar or "barrier,"
surrounded by angels and flowers. She holds three lilies in her hands and stars
encircle her flowing red hair. She gazes longingly down towards her beloved,
depicted on Earth with grass and trees, in the lower predella. His hands are
clasped above his head, emphasizing his plea and his state as a prisoner on
Earth. The painting directly corresponds to the first verse of the poem:
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
The painter's choices and inclusion of detail also connect with his descriptive
stanzas and illustrate the overall mood of the poem. "The Blessed Damozel"
contains three different vantage points: that of the the Damozel's from heaven,
the lover's from his memories and fantasies, and the lover's from his current
consciousness. This last voice is indicated by parentheses, which separate the
lover's earthly thoughts from the Damozel's reflective musings. By painting the
Damozel on the upper portion and her beloved on the lower, Rossetti clearly
demonstrates this spatial separation. He also emphasizes the fact that while this
separation does not allow them to be together physically, it cannot keep them
apart in their thoughts. In lines 37-42, the Damozel observes,
Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.
Here the Damozel questions why she cannot be with her beloved in Heaven
when all others are with their loves. "Have I not prayed in Heaven? on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd? / Are not two prayers a perfect strength?" she
asks. Rossetti paints other ethereal lovers in various forms of embrace behind
her, using warm, luminous tones to create a vision of idealized love in a glorious
Heaven. However, this inclusion also contrasts and highlights the Damozel's
unhappy and tragic situation. He also distinguishes this depiction of Heaven by
using darker muted greens and browns to paint Earth. Throughout the poem, the
Damozel dreams of the day when she and her beloved will be reunited and
present themselves before God. In lines 125-132, the Damozel describes how her
ideal love will be approved:
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.
'There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.'
Despite her hopes and prayers, the Damozel eventually realizes that she cannot
be with her beloved until the right time comes and that she shall be
enteringHeaven without him. The Damozel "laid her face between her hands,
And wept" while her lover on Earth "hears her tears." They remain apart, yet
together in their hearts, separated by the two worlds. As a member of the PRB,
Rossetti did not focus on biblical or typological symbolism with the intensity of
William Holman Hunt. While "The Blessed Damozel" includes obvious references
to biblical imagery, such as the allusion to God and Mother Mary, Rossetti does
not seem to be as interested in religious symbolism in his painting. Instead, he
creates a dreamy vision of Heaven full of angels, flowers and lovers but one
that still separates the two tragic lovers. In his painting, Rossetti seems to utilize
the Damozel's place in Heaven and her concerns with God's grace in order to
emphasize and glorify the spiritual depths of the feminine soul.
The founding member of the PRB, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is known for his works of art as
well as his poetry which according to his most thersitical critic at the time, Robert Buchanan,
belonged to the The Fleshy School due to its amative and erotic nature. Writing about
Rossetti after the publication of his collected poems, Buchanan yirred: In petticoats or
pantaloons, in modern times of in the middle ages, he is just Mr Rossetti, a fleshy person,
with nothing particular to tell us or teach us But Rossetti did have something to teach us
by making his poetic work a critical mirror reflecting the image back to the reader and
thereby inviting him to trace aspects of his own experiences and perceptions in the verses a
technique which was quite new in Victorian England.
In 1859 Rossetti met a prostitute by the name of Fanny Cornforth with whom he remained
involved for the rest of his life. He captured her in the painting Bocca Baciata, and later
reworked a poem in her honour called Jenny which offers a libertine meditation on a sleeping
beauty, a woman whom Rossetti describes as being fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea. The
concupiscent language and the imagery it evokes makes the poem highly provocative,
particularly when Rossetti talks about the homage of the dim boudoir and the realms of
lovesilver-shrined in shadowy grove. Interestingly, the poem reads both as a sensuous
admonition and a love letter, subtly merged into one. The speaker points out a marked
difference between himself and the woman, through the following observation: This room of
yours, my Jenny, looks/A change from mine so full of books/Whose serried ranks hold fast,
forsooth/So many captive hours of youth, and later uses the literary reference as a subtext
for the human soul which too can be opened and closed as a book thus making the speaker
realise that reading is an exercise for the damned. Subsequently the reading of the poem itself
makes the reader guilty of indiscretion by association. The subject matter is similar in The
Portrait, another poem in celebration of a woman most likely Rossettis wife. The poem
examines the relationship between the artist and his work and probes the connection between
the man, his sense of self and his art. Rossetti uses the mythological story of Narcissus to
convey the idea that the artist is attached to his art as much as to the person depicted and
thereby himself, when he says: In painting her I shrind her face, immortalising it, but also
himself by doing so and While hopes and aims long lost with her/Stand round her image
side by side/Like tombs of pilgrims that have died/About the Holy Sepulchre, the image
remains.
Rossetti was first and foremost a painter his poetic endeavours came a little later in life and
almost didnt materialise at all. In 1849 Rossetti was introduced to a young woman by the
name of Elizabeth Lizzie Siddal, who posed for several painters including Walter Deverell
and Hunt before modelling exclusively for Rossetti. The two fell in love but Rossettis
growing acclaim and casual infidelities put a strain on the relationship and Lizzies health. In
May 1860, Rossetti set off to visit her in Hastings and came to the belief that the two should
marry. The couples connubial life was incredibly complicated, made more so by Lizzies
deepening depression due to a stillbirth, insomnia, neuralgia and a growing dependence on
laudanum. Lizzie died, on 11th February 1862, of an overdose. Compelled by contrition
Rossetti buried his manuscript of poems with her and it later had to be retrieved at the
suggestion of Rossettis agent Charles Agustus Howell. In his biography, Rossetti, His Life
and Works, Evelyn Waugh writes about the exhumation, and Rossettis role in the process,
saying: He permitted and assisted in the preliminary formalities necessary for the recovery
of the manuscript of his poemsThis took place at night, under Howells supervision, and
while it was being done Rossetti sat alone at the house of a friend in a fever of conflicting
emotions. A fire was lighted by the grave and the coffin opened. It is said that the body was
not unduly disfigured, but that some of the hair came away with the book. The guilt plagued
Rossetti for the rest of his life.
There were three key women in Rossettis life: his wife, Cornforth and Jane Burden, later
Jane Morris by marriage to Rossettis friend William Morris. All three featured both in
Rossettis art and poetry. Lizzie was the heavenly lady with the ethereal face and long,
auburn hair, the embodiment of Beatrice in the painting. She was the divine beauty of the
soul and personified Rossettis belief in the salvific nature of romantic love. Cornforth was
another great influence on the poet. Legend has it that he met Cornforth in 1856 while she
was standing on a street corner in Strand cracking nuts with her teeth. He was attracted to her
blond yellow-harvest hair and her voluptuous carnality; she therefore came to represent the
sinful image of the woman ripe and venal. She liberated Rossetti form the idea of virginal
muliebrity, instead offering him a release and sexual satisfaction. The last of the women in
Rossettis artistic demimonde is Jane Burden Morris. According to some historians, Burden
Morris served as a nexus for all of Rossettis fantasies. The two met in Oxford in 1857 when
she posed as a model for Rossettis Oxford Union murals. She later married Morris, but
continued to pose for Rossetti and was his muse from 1866 until his death. Rossetti once
wrote of Burden Morris: Beauty like hers is genius. Their illicit affair, which ceased
eventually due to scandal, left Rossetti in adverse mental health. The break, and the fact that
he could no longer see Burden Morris, precipitated Rossettis chloral hydrate abuse, turning
him into an image of a tortured artist but more accurately into a mentally ill addict. Rossettis
wellbeing was further debilitated by Buchanans critique of his poetry and representations of
him as a sybaritic reprobate. This together with Rossetti deteriorating eyesight, chronic fear
of blindness, several suicide attempts and indulgence in drugs led to the poets in 1882. The
official cause being a stroke and kidney failure.
Rossettis most famous poetical works are his sonnets, most of which are of romantic nature.
In his metonymy love symbolises sexuality and physical relations, death mortality and
religious anxieties. This is particularly true of the poems in The House of Life collection,
such as Last Fire when Rossetti alludes to copulation saying: Love, through your spirit and
mine what summer eve/Now glows with glory of all things possessd or in the poem Life in
Love when he names love-for-woman as the sole purpose of life: Not in thy body is thy life
at all/But in this ladys lips and hands and eyes/Through these she yields the life that
vivifies. Rossettis poems are nothing short of masterful, if not in subject matter repetitive
if interesting then certainly in technique. This is, in part, due to his ability to take the
monadic representation of the repressed and lovelorn female and turn it into a vivid image.
His muses, all puritanically pale with breasts the size of fine-china teacups and faces so
beautifully pristine theyd make those of Grecian goddesses seem like portraits of Dorian
Gray, are highly sexualised and liberated from the oppressive contemporary values. It is
perhaps no wonder that his poetry is considered a beacon of lyric eroticism, and somewhat
ironically iconic of the Victorian age.
One of Rossettis most acclaimed poems, The Blessed Damozel, encompasses all the
elements that typify his work, down to his greatest influence the Italian poet Dante. Rossetti
wrote The Blessed Damozel at the age of 19 but emendated it for the remainder of his life.
The poem combines Rossettis preoccupation with women, religious references, and his most
important and evolving interpretation of the Dantean legacy. The Blessed Damozel is
considered to be is Rossettis single most important work. The poem contains Catholic, and in
particular medieval, frills, picking up on the modish enthusiasm for the Gothic and for the
revival of interest in Arthurian mythology, which appears throughout Rossettis work. It
relays the story of two lovers divided by death, and their hope to be reunited in heaven.
Rossettis approach is strongly eroticised in the treatment of his subject, but also highly
romanticised and idealistic. The poet cited Edgar Allan Poes The Raven as one of his
influences when working on The Blessed Damozel. In a letter to his friend Hall Caine,
Rossetti wrote: I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the
lover on earth, and so I determined to reverse the conditions, and give utterance to the
yearning of the loved one in heaven. By todays standards The Blessed Damozel is
somewhat bromidic and dated in its depictions of love as deathless and the hand in hand
journey to dreams kingdom. It is, however, striking. And, theres a misty realism over the
ideal, especially in the closing lines when Rossetti says: Her eyes prayed, and she smild/(I
saw her smile.) But soon their path/Was vague in distant spheres/And then she cast her arms
along/The golden barriers/And laid her face/between her hands/And wept. (I heard her
tears), which connotes a steadfast realisation of mortality and the proverbial wall between
life and death.
The members of the Brotherhood intended to sweep away the dust of traditionalised sophistication
which had been accumulating over the centuries in the field of painting. They abjured all unrealistic
methods and exalted photographic representationalism.
Rossetti and some other members of P.R.B. were both painters and poets. It was natural,
therefore, for the new movement to make itself felt in the field of poetry also. In poetry, too, the
movement came in the form of a revolt against tradition-the poetic tradition of Tennyson. The poetry
of Tennyson and other representative Victorians was felt by the brethren to be too academic and too
much concerned with contemporary social problems. They believed in art for arts sake and
therefore scorned to soil the wings of their Muse by letting her fly too near the earth. Among the major
Pre-Raphaelite poets are Rossetti himself, Morris, and Swinburne. It is impossible to discuss the
works of all of them as if they were of apiece. Each one of these poets has his own individuality, and
the poetry of each has itself varying shades from page to page. Nevertheless, we can discover some
common links which run through the bulk of the work of all. Of all the Pre-Raphaelites, D. G. Rossetti
is, to use Compton-Ricketts words, the most distinguished representative.
Revolt against Tradition:
Rossetti rebelled both in painting and poetry against the set academic traditions. In poetry he
departed from the tradition which considered poetry to be a criticism of life and which required it to
be full of high seriousness. Unlike Tennyson Rossetti deals with no socio-political problems of the
day. He refuses to take congnizance of the distressing and pressing .problems of his age, and leaves it
to Tennyson and Arnold to worry their heads over the contemporary conflict between Science and
Faith. Rossettis cult is the cult of art and beauty. It is perhaps only in Jenny that he seems willing to
look at a contemporary (rather universal) problem-that of prostitution. But even there he prescribes
no remedies. His treatment of prostitution is rather diagnostic than prophylactic. He, like other Pre-
Raphaelites, loves to dwell in a dream-world of his own.
His Medievalism:
This dream-world is mostly provided by the Middle Ages. The medievalism of the Pre-
Raphaelites had a subtle something which individualised it. A critic observes: The return of this
school as to a medievalism different from the tentative and scrappy medievalism of Percy, from the
genial but slightly superficial medievalism of Scott, and even from the more exact but narrow and
distinctly conventional medievalism of Tennyson. As a medievalist, says Compton-Rickett,
Rossetti is obviously in congenial surrounding, for the mingled warp of sensuousness and
supersensuousness, so characteristic of the Middle Ages, suited to a nicety his peculiar genius. Many
of his poems recapture the mystery, splendour, and beauty of the Middle Ages. The romantic
medievalists before Rossetti-Scott, Keats, and Coleridge-were fascinated for different reasons.
Rossettis interest in the Middle Ages was due to all these reasons. Witness Compton-Ricketts
opinion: The human elements of old romance were finely apprehended by Scott and William Morris;
the sensuous elements attracted Keats; the mystic elements inspired Coleridge. But no one poet has
gathered up all these elements in the way that Rossetti has done.
Sense of Mystery:
Two of these three diverse elements need elaboration. They are:-
(i) mysticism; and
(ii) sensuousness.
To begin with, let us take mysticism, which we will treat in the sense of suggestion of
mystery rather than a spiritual creed exalting transcendentalism or intuition. In his ability to create a
sense of mystery, Rossetti sometimes approaches Coleridge himself. Take, for example, the following
stanza from The Blessed Damozel:
The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf and now
She spoke through the still weather;
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.
Consider, again, the following lines from Sister Helen:
Here high up in the balcony,
Sister Helen,
The moon flies face to face with me;
Outside its merry in the winds wake,
Sister Helen,
In the shaken trees the chill stars shake,
Hush, heard you a horse tread as you spoke;
Little brother?
Rightly does Compton-Rickett point out: Coleridge alone could match the haunting mystery
of lines like these. Again consider the very opening lines which, with a question, the answer, and the
refrain create a sense of sinister mystery:
Why did you melt your waxen men,
Sister Helen?
To-day is the third since you began.
The time was long, yet the time ran,
Little brother.
O Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!
For instances of Rossettis successful attempts at creating a sense of mystery, consider also the
following lines:
Words whose silence wastes and kills.
Girt in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star,
The spacious vigil of the stars.
Devotion to Detail:
The Pre-Raphaelites, as a rule, bothered more about the particular than about the general.
Both in their painting and poetry we come across a persistent tendency to dwell scrupulously on each
and every detail however insignificant by itself. They do not wield a broad and hurried brush, but love
to linger, Spenser-like, on details. Of course, for faithfulness of representation, fidelity to details is
necessary. However, sometimes this over-concern for details degenerates into a mannerism, though as
often it also strikes the reader with a forceful, concrete effect. In a word, this tendency to overprize
minor details is open to two dangers as follows:
(i) It may involve, as Samuel C. Chew avers, the sacrifice of central emphasis.
(ii) It may not serve any functional purpose at all. Consider in this context the following stanza from My
Sisters Sleep. The detailed and very concrete picturing of the moon arrests the attention of the reader
at once, but the poem would not have suffered functionally without it
Without, there was a cold moon up,
Of winter radiance sheer and thin;
The hollow halo it was in
Was like an icy crystal cup.
But quite often Rossettis attention to details is functional as well as felicitous. It may be
pointed out that, even before Rossetti, quite a few poets such as
Tennyson (Mariana), Coleridge (Christabel)and Keats The Eve of St. Mark) had shown this tendency
to linger pn simpleiand minute details. Spenser was perhaps the pioneer in this field. So Rossetti and
other Pre-Raphaelites were just cultivating a tendency which was already there-though not in the
same intensity.
In painting, the details are only of the visual kind, but in poetry they may be auditory as well.
Rossetti in his poetry gives importance to both auditory and visual details. Consider some examples.
First, the closing lines of A Last Confession (written after the manner of Brownings dramatic
monologues [ike My Last Duchess):
She had a mouth
Made to bring death to life-the underlip
Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself;
Her face was pearly pale.
Again, note the visual details in the very first stanza of his first important poem The Blessed Damozel:
The blessed Damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven...
She had three lilies in her hand
And the stars in her hair were seven.
The following lines from Jenny picture the young prostitute sleeping with her head on the
speaker's knee :
Why, Jenny, you 're asleep at last!
Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast-
So young and soft and tired; so fair,
With chin thus nestled in your hair,
Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue
As if some sky of dreams shone through!
As an illustration of the abundance of auditory details see the following lines from My Sister's Sleep:
Twelve struck; the sound, by dwindling years
Heard in each hour, crept off, and then
The ruffled silence spread again,
Like water that a pebble stirs.
Our mother rose from where she sat;
Her needles, as she laid them down,
Met lightly, and her silken gown
Settled; no other noise than that.
Sensuousness:
The accumulation of such sensory details make for sensuousness which has come to be
recognized as one of the fundamental characteristics of all Pre-Raphaelite poetry. Rossetti, like several
other members-of the "P.R.B.", was a painter as well as a poet. It is not inexplicable, therefore, that he
treated poetry as if it were painting. Compton-Rickett observes: "That the pictorial element is more
insistent in Rossetti than in Keats is obviously due to the fact that Rossetti's outlook on the world is
essentially that of the painter. He thinks and feel in pigments." Too much of "thinking and feeling in
pigments" can also lead him to some defects. The two major defects are :
(i) Indulgence in over-decoration,
(ii) When related to the human body, the impression of sensuality or voluptuousness may be created.
We will consider the second under the next sub-head. Let us here give some examples of the
Rossetti's overwrought pictorialness which first pleases but then cloys the reader. The following
illustrative lines are from The Bride's Prelude:
The belt was silver, and the clasp
Of lozenged arm-bearings;
A world of mirrored tints minute
The rippling sunshine wrought into't,
That flushed her hand and warmed her foot.
Or. again:
Deep in the sun-searched growths, the dragonfly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.
Compton-Rickett observes that "like Keats, he is carried away at times by his [intensity of
sense impressions] into an ultra-opulence of illustration that weakens his work as an artist. When
Rossetti shuns this ultra-opulence he can execute excellent pictorial effects-such asthe following
(in Jenny):
your fair face I see
Reflected lying on my knee,
Where teems with first foreshadowing
Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings:
And on your bosom all night worn
Yesterdays rose now droops alone,
But dies not yet this summer morn.
Fleshly:
As said above, Rossettis sensuousness often takes the shape of voluptuousness when it comes
to dwell upon the beauties of the human body. The Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Swinburne, exulted
in the graces of the feminine body, and thus scandalised the prudish Victorians. Buchanan attacked
Pre-Raphaelite poetry as the fleshly school of poetry-even though later he withdrew his charge. In
some Rossetti poems such as Tory Town and many sonnets in The House of Life, we do come across
fleshly details, even though he is much less candid than Swinburne. Even in Jenny he strikes the
voluptuous note in the lines following:
Why Jenny, as I watch you there,
For all your wealth of loosened hair,
Your silk ungirdled and unlac d
And warm sweets open to the waist,
All golden in the lamplight gleam.
Rossetti was three quarters Italian; and he treated passion fundamentally as a hot-blooded
Italian rather than a hoity-toity Englishman. Italy has been a land of eroticism peopled by seasoned
voluptuaries since times immemorial. There is in Rossetti a frank admission of passion and its
sensuous, even sensual, contours. But he is seldom coarse or ribald. All the sensuous details of the
body and passion are artistically delivered with considerable finesse which cushions any shock which
the sensibility of the reader might be otherwise subject to.
Moreover, to quote Compton-Rickett, senses were for Rosetti sacramental emblems of the
spirit. The sensuous and the spiritual often merge and mingle in his pictures. He can well say:
The soul I know not from thy body, nor
Thee from myself, neither our love from God-
When- he is too voluptuous he tries to spiritualise everything, as he does in the following lines
from Tory Town, where the parenthetical refrain is used as a vaguely spiritualising device:
Heavenborn Helen, Spartas queen.
(O Troy Town!)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
The sun and moon of the hearts desire.
All Loves lordship lay between.
Metre and Music:
Pre-Raphaelite poetry is rich not only in pictorial quality but also in the musical. The trouble
is that some Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Swinburne, go to excess in both. Rossettis poetry is a model
of well-manipulated music, neither too rich nor too austere. He does not, indulge in alliteration and
onomatopoeia to the extent as Swinburne does. Rossetti was a successful metrical artist and he
effectively made use of many stanzaic forms of his own invention. His use of various ballad measures
is also very happy.
After all, as David Riede has demonstrated, when Dante Rossetti prepared hisPoems of
1870 for publication, the most extensive and "the most important revisions were designed to
eliminate any impression of religious faith in his book" ("Erasing the Art-Catholic" 50). In
1847 Rossetti had forwarded a number of these poems, later heavily revised, to William Bell
Scott as a group entitled Songs of the Art Catholic. (Some, including "My Sister's Sleep" and
"The Blessed Damozell" were published under the Pre-Raphaelite imprimatur in The Germ.)
The success of Rossetti's alterations to these early drafts and the revised poems' resulting
compatibility with the work of Swinburne [64/65] and Morris is affirmed by Courthope's
typical assertion that all three poets either "quietly avow" or "passionately profess" atheism,
"not as the supplanter of superstition, but as the rival of Christianity" (63; see also J. C.
Shairp's even more vitriolic attack, on similar grounds, in "Aesthetic Poetry.").
Such a conclusion is distant indeed from Ruskin's insistence, during his 1853 Edinburgh
lectures, that the Pre-Raphaelites were in the process of rehabilitating contemporary art,
restoring it to the heights of spirituality and truth that characterized painting during the late
medieval period and the early Renaissance. With the single exception of work by the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood (PR.B.), he asserted,
the great and broad fact which distinguishes modern art from old art ... [is] that all ancient art
was religious, and all modern art isprofane.... That is to say, religion was its first object;
private luxury or pleasure its second.... [For] all modem art . . . private luxury or pleasure is
its first object; religion its second.... Anything which makes religion its second object, makes
religion no object. God . . . will not put up with ... a second place.... He who makes religion
his first object, makes it his whole object: he has no other work in the world than God's work.
(WJR, 12:135)
The clear implication of Ruskin's remarks is that, in pursuing absolute truth to nature
and to historical details, the Pre-Raphaelite painters were God's apostles. Two years earlier,
before meeting any of the brethren, Ruskin had written his first letter concerning Pre-
Raphaelitism to the Times (the letter is dated 13 May 1851 (WJR, 12.319-23).). Like many
early viewers of works by members of the PR.B., he went so far as to suspect them of
"Romanist and Tractarian tendencies." Had Ruskin read the second number of The
Germ (February 1850), his suspicions might have been reinforced by certain ambiguities in F.
G.Stephens's brief essay, "The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art." Searching for
models that the P.R.B., as a new and aspiring school of "historical painters," might follow,
Stephens found precedent only in the early Italian painters who possessed "a feeling which,
exaggerated and its object mistaken by them, though still held holy and pure, was the cause of
the retirement of many of their greatest men from the world to the monastery." Of course,
Stephens insisted (the example of James Collinson was not yet available to him), "the modern
artist does not retire to monasteries, or practice discipline; but he may show his participation
in the same high feeling by a firm attachment to truth in every point of representation.... By a
determination to represent the thing and the whole of the thing, by training himself to the
deepest observation of its fact and de[66/67] tail, enabling himself to reproduce, as far as
possible, nature herself, the painter will best evince his share of faith" (Sambrook, 58).
In such passages, readers like Ruskin might well see as much of a leaning toward "old"
religious belief and modes of expression (in the Tractarian vein) as toward the new and
diametrically opposed, historical perspectives on religious understanding inaugurated by
the Higher Criticism. Whichever view of Pre-Raphaelitism a reader or viewer adopted, the
inalterable fact remained that most early PRB pictures were occupied with what William
Michael Rossetti termed "Christian Art Design" or the "sacred picture" (Fredeman, P.R.B.
Journal, 9, 13. See Sussman, Fact, chapter 4, for a full discussion of scripture as history
among the Pre-Raphaelites.).
The transition from the sacramentalism of Pre-Raphaelite painting, poetry, and aesthetic
theory during the period 1848-53 to the aestheticism of the second generation of Pre-
Raphaelite poets hinges upon the avant-garde techniques and habits of mind adopted by both
generations. As Herbert Sussman has observed, the early brotherhood "effort to restore ... the
authentic tradition in sacred art" required "a rejection of the artistic tradition offered by
established institutions." But, "once the religious motivations dissolved, the sense of
opposition remained, to be passed on through Rossetti to Morris, Swinburne, and the
aesthetic movement" (Fact, 55). With these historical matters dear, then, Christina Rossetti
can be seen not only as the "Jael who led [the Pre-Raphaelite] hosts to Victory" with the
recognition accorded her 1862 volume of poems, but also as the poet who, in the pervasive
Tractarian tendencies of her poetry, remained true to the topoi, the habits of mind, and the
ostensibly sacramental aesthetics of first-generation Pre-Raphaelitism.
As we have already seen, of course, Rossetti's work has much in common with the later
poetry of her brother, Morris, and Swinburne. Yet in addition to its careful attention to the
details of nature, its highly sensory images used to accomplish noumenal effects, and its
preoccupation with betrayed or disappointed love her poetry's use of symbolism and
typology, its medievalism, its employment of dream visions, and its preoccupation with
suffering and with visionary idealities as a relief from suffering allow readers to perceive her
poetry as simultaneously Pre-Raphaelite and Tractarian. Through analysis of Rossetti's
devotional poetry, we can, in fact, begin to understand some previously underemphasized
connections between Pre-Raphaelite and Tractarian aesthetics.[67/68]
Image : Wiki
In spite of his marionette characterization and improbable plot, The Importance of Being
Earnest reveals the genuine quality of high comedy in its creation of truly romantic word in
which everything is parable, somewhat like, Puck - led world of A Midsummer Nights
Dream. The play has indeed the nature of a fantasy where seriousness to be abandons for
flamboyant frivolity, all anxieties for the sake of food, Algernon does when his beloved
Cecily abandons him. An air of innocence pervades the whole play and the tale since desires
for the innocent eyes of a child looking at the multi - hued world where everything is
probable and nothing improbable. It is as if were a day dream where neither truth non lie,
neither good nor evil has any impact.
The Importance of Being Earnest may have been castigated for its frivolous wit, but often
times these flippant witticisms take on the note of genuine wisdom - a quality germane to true
comedy. When Algernon declares that the emergence of romance is uncertainty , he is hinting
the very unconventional psychological reality about man being in love with only that which
he does not normally achieve or attain , for at the least he does not feel very secure about . In
contrast to the usual adage that marriages are made in heaven ", he declares that divorced
are made in heaven ", implying thereby many marriages in those days, born out of societal
convenience and aristocratic status, actually make marriages a bondage, a slavery. Such
suggests of wisdom abound in the play.
Satiric vision, it is said, is the most important aspect of high comedy. Although the casual
reader or audience may not be able to perceive the satire beneath the fickleness, The
perceptive would realize that concealed within the triviality and fantasy is seriousness and
satire as John Hankins pointed out in " Wilde as a dramatist, paradoxical as it may sound in
the case of so merry and lighthearted play , The Importance of Being Earnest is artistically
the most serious work that Wilde produced for the theatre." Through the irresponsible
statement of the aristocratic classes , it is the aristocrat themselves . Who are being attacked?
Their speeches reveal their inner emptiness and the follies of the decadent society of the late
19th century. At the same time, somewhat like Shaw himself the dramatist heaps scorn on
such hallowed institutions as marriage, birth, baptism, romance, love and perhaps human life
itself.
Wilde himself might have called this play a trivial comedy for serious people ", but this
playful comment conceals the greater truth that the play is a revelation of the triviality of
seriousness. It is of such a profound if iconoclastic truth, the force attends the status of
comedy.
The Importance of Being Earnest, as originally written, was a four-act play ; but the producer,
George Alexander, who was also to play one of the two leading male parts, asked the author
to reduce it to three acts. This was done, and it is the three-act version that has been printed
and played ever since, though the four-act version is still in existence. There is no doubt that
the three-act version was an improvement on the four-act original, though the exclusion of
Mr. Grisby, a solicitors clerk, who went down to the country to serve a writ of attachment on
the fictitious Ernest Worthing was unfortunate as his appearance was only a very short one
and affected a good deal of the subsequent dialogue in the play
The Importance of Being Earnest was produced at the St. Jamess Theatre on theevening of
the 14th February, 1893, and was received with great enthusiasm and rapturous delight by
both the audience and the critics. With this play, Wilde had conquered London after a long
struggle, and had now reached the summit of his success as a writer. Actor-managers
everywhere now began to besiege him with requests to write more plays for them. He had,
indeed, several plots for plays running in his head but suddenly, four days after the first night
of The Importance of Being Earnest,something happened which not only put all thought of
work out of his mind for the time being but eventually led to his trial on a charge of
homosexuality and to his conviction and a sentence of two years in prison.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of dialogue with little action. The plot of this
play is rather thin and flimsy. It is true that as many as three marriages materialize by the time
the play comes to an end, that the mystery of Jack Worthings parentage is cleared up, and
that Algernon attempts the role of Jack Worthings fictitious younger brother. But that is
about the entire plot of the play. It is by no means a spectacular or even a substantial plot.
Very little happens in the play, though there is abundant or copious conversation. The chef
interest of the play arises from the conversation or the dialogue. It is what the characters say
that matters and not what they do, because they do very little except talk.
The dialogue of this play is full of humour, wit, paradoxical twists, and epigrams. The play is
replete with verbal sallies, quips, and repartees. The wit is clever, brilliant, scintillating and
highly entertaining. We find humour in Algernons masquerade and in the satirical portrait of
Dr. Chasuble. Epigrams, shafts of wit, and paradoxical twists come from almost each of the
characters. For instance, Algernon gives a witty turn to some of the well-known sayings.
Thus the saying Marriages are made in heaven is amended by him as : Divorces are made
in heaven. The saying that two is company and three is none undergoes a change and takes
the following shape : In married life three is company and two is none, which has a
naughty implication. One of Algernons wittiest statements is this : The only way to behave
to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. All
these observations have an epigrammatic quality. Algernon shows his talent for paradox
when, instead of using the phrase washing ones dirty linen in public, he speaks of
washing ones clean linen in public, and when he says that truth is never pure and simple.
Jack is also a witty man. Speaking to Algernon, he says : Soave aunts are tall, some aunts
are not tall. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt. Gwendolen
contributes to the play a fair number of remarks which are paradoxical and witty. Here are
some of those remarks :
(l) The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. (2) Algy, you always adopt a
strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not old enough to do that. (3) If you are not
too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
Cecily makes a witty and paradoxical remark when she says Whenever one has anything
unpleasant to say, one should always be candid. Here is another such remark from her :
When one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals.
Lady Bracknell too overflows with wit. Examples of her wit are her remarks about Mr.
Bunbury, her disapproval of the modern sympathy with invalids, and her description of
Jacks kneeling to Gwendolen as a semi-recumbent, indecorous posture. The following
remark by Lady Bracknell is paradoxical :
A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, can hardly be expected to reside in
the country.
Miss Prism, too, gives evidence of a sense of humour and a capacity to make witty
observations. Her remarks about Jacks (imaginary) younger brother amuse us greatly. Here is
a specimen of her wit : No married man is ever attractive except to his wife. In fact, this
play was written to provide an opportunity to a number of witty characters to display their
mental ingenuity in making remarks which make an audience roar with laughter. In this
connection it must be pointed out that the witty remarks, observations, and paradoxes have
been put into the play with a fine sense of dramatic form, and not flung into the play as
brilliant irrelevances.
The Importance of Being Earnest is far from being a realistic play. In fact, it is completely
divorced from the realities of life. It is a play in which artificiality is exploited for
artificialitys sake, in which the absurd assumes complete command. Most of the situations
in the play are so absurd as to be incredible ; nor are the characters convincing. What can be
more absurd than a governess putting, in a fit of absent-mindedness, a baby into a hand-bag
and depositing the hand-bag in a railway cloak-room ? Why the police could not trace the
absconding governess and why the loss of the baby was treated rather casually by Lord and
Lady Bracknell are questions which naturally arise in our minds but to which there are no
satisfactory answers. The manner in which Gwendolen responds to Jacks nervous and
incomplete declaration of love touches the very limits of farce. Hardly Las Jack told her that
he admires her more than he admires any other girl when she bursts into the following,
wholly improbable, speech
Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had
been more remonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before
I met you I was far from indifferent to you. We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an
age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines,
and has reached the provincial pulpits, 1 am told ; and my ideal has always been to love some
one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence.
The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was
destined to love you.
Which woman, howsoever advanced or emancipated, would talk like that when a gentleman
has barely indicated his inclination towards her? And the infatuation with the name Ernest is
utterly ununderstandable. But even the limits of farce are crossed when we learn about
Cecilys passion for Algernon whom she has never met or seen but only heard about.
Gwendolen merely anticipated that she would fall in love with a man having the name
Ernest ; but Cecily actually falls passionately in love with Ernest on the basis of his name and
the accounts she has heard about him. This particular absurdity in Cecilys behaviour is
surpassed when she begins writing letters from Ernest to herself and when subsequently she
gets engaged to him in her imagination, going to the length of buying a ring in his name. And
as for her infatuation with the name Ernest, this is what Cecily says to her lover :
You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love
some one whose name was Ernest.
Here are two clever ladies in the play, equally infatuated with the name Ernest, and both
responding with amazing promptness and a rare energy to the declarations of love from their
lovers.
Another absurdity in the play is Jacks invention of a younger brother, the invention having
been prompted by the need of providing some basis for his frequent visits to London.
Algernons invention of an ailing friend by the name of Mr. Bunbury is a parallel absurdity.
(The parallelism in the play is, of course, to be noted. Cecilys ready and whole-hearted
response to Algernons declaration of love is parallel to Gwendolens similar response to
Jack, while Algernons Bunburying is parallel to Jacks invention of a fictitious younger
brother. Likewise, Algernons intention to be re-christened and to acquire the name of Ernest
is parallel to an identical desire on Jacks part). But the absurdities have got to be accepted in
order that we may enjoy the wit of the play. Again, the characters of Lady Bracknell, Dr.
Chasuble, and Miss Prism are more in the nature of caricatures than attempts at realistic
portrayal. But within the orbit of their incredibility they are delightfully real people.
The author called this play a trivial comedy for serious people. This in itself is a witty anus
paradoxical description of the play. If the play is a comedy, how can serious people be
interested in it ? Serious people would be interested in serious matters and not in things which
appeal to the comic sense. And if this play is trivial, besides being a comedy, how can it
attract even the most casual attention or notice of serious people ? Furthermore, a comedy
which derives its whole value from the originality and the brilliance of its wit cannot be
called trivial. The word trivial has been used either from a feeling of modesty on the
authors part or in an ironical sensemost probably for the latter reason.
Food For Serious, Thought In the Play
As for the play being _meant for serious people, the idea seems to be that it is expected to
make even serious people laugh because of its wit. Or, was the author merely having a dig at
the serious people and coaxing them into seeing it on the stage in order that they may derive
from it some food for thought ? It pleased Wilde to pose as a trifler ; but she was a trifler
who was capable of thinking, and there is often a wonderful suggestiveness in his lightest
banter and in his wildest paradox. Several examples may be given from this play of remarks
which have a serious point. The excessive consumption of wine by servants at parties at
Algernons flat is a complaint which all bachelors will share. Again, Algernon voices a well-
established fact that, strictly speaking, romance ends when a proposal of marriage has been
accepted, and accepted readily. Algernon is right also when he speaks of English society
suffering from the corruption which is depicted in French drama That relatives are tedious
people is another observation which contains a large measure of truth. Besides, the portrayal
of Lady Bracknell is an indirect attack on social snobbery and class-consciousness. The
portrayal of Dr. Chasuble exposes the ignorance, hypocrisy, and mercenary motives of certain
members of the clergy. The play also poses the problem as to how Jack should have been
treated by society if he had really been an illegitimate and abandoned child. Gwendolen, no
doubt, finds Jacks history to be exciting, but Lady Bracknell rejects him summarily and it is
she who is the true representative o society. Indeed, there is much food for thought in this
play for serious people, and the author has made it quite delectable, too, by his wit.
There is a pun involved in the use of the word Ernest (which is a name) and the word
Earnest (which means serious-minded). The title of the play is The Importance of Being
Earnest, which means that, in order to marry the woman one loves, one must have the name
Ernest and that, furthermore, one must be earnest (that is, really anxious and keen) to marry
her. Jack and Algernon can be accepted as husbands on the condition that they possess the
name Ernest, but also on the further condition that they are really keen to marry the girls with
whom they are in love. Thus there is the importance of having the name Ernest and of
being earnest. This pun makes the title of the play quite amusing, and therefore serves to
indicate the comic quality of the whole play.
In the very beginning of the play, a romantic picture is set. Raina, a romantic girl, stands on
her balcony to enjoy the beauty of the Bulgarian night. When Raina is told by her mother
Catherine that Rainas fiancee Sergius who has gone in the battle-field has made a heroic
cavalry charge and has won a splendid victory against the Serbians, Raina becomes very
excited and tells her mother that her romantic ideas about war have proved true.
Afterwards, when Sergius returns from the battlefield, Raina adoringly calls him her hero
and king. Sergius also addresses Raina as his queen and his inspiration. So, both Raina
and Sergius are living in a world of higher love. Their idea about war is also romantic.
However, Rainas romantic outlook of life changes with the appearance of Bluntschli. After
winning the battle, Bulgarian cavalry are now in search of the Serbian fugitives. Bluntschli, a
Serbian fugitive, enters into Rainas bedchamber in order to take shelter there. In the
conversation with Raina, Bluntschli exposes the real fact about Surgiusscavalry charge.
Bluntschli tells Raina that the charge ordered by Sergius could be suicidal for them if the
Serbian army had right kind of ammunition in their machine-guns. So, Sergius should not be
awarded for the charge, rather he should be court-martialed for the blunder. Bluntschli also
exposes the real fact of soldiering to Raina. He says that the duty of a soldier is to live as long
as he can. He says that nine out of ten soldiers are fools and that experienced soldiers carry
chocolates in their pockets while young and inexperienced soldiers carry only weapons. This
remark of Bluntschli comes as a shock to Rainas romantic notion of soldiering and war.
Before meeting Blunstchli, Raina thought that to be a soldier was something great, but now
after hearing the real facts from Bluntschli, she is totally surprised.
Sergiuss romantic notion of war also changes when he faces the harsh reality of life. He has
won a great victory for the Bulgarians, but he is not promoted to a higher rank. All these days
he thought that a soldiers duty was to fight and attack enemies in all circumstances, but now
he learns that soldiering is a trade like any other trade. It is not heroism but a cowards act of
attacking enemies when the enemies are weak and keeping away from enemies when the
enemies are strong.
Again Sergiuss romantic concept of love is shattered when he comes to know that Raina to
whom he was engaged and who considered him to be the god of her soul and body has made
love to Bluntschli behind his back. Similarly, Sergius is not an honest man either as far as
higher love is concerned. He has also made love with Louka, the maid-servant, behind
Rainas back. When Raina discovers this fact, her romantic notion of higher love is shattered,
and Bluntschlis practical ideas attract her more than the high talks of Sergius. In this way, the
romantic view of love and soldiering is exposed and ridiculed by Shaw.
In order to achieve his anti-romantic purpose, George Bernard Shaw has taken the help of
exaggeration of reality. A fugitive soldier may demand food when he is starving, but it is hard
to believe that he would demand chocolate. In this play, Bluntschli demands chocolate from
Raina when he returns from battle field after three days. Again, a higher class person like
Sergius usually marries a higher class woman like Raina but in this case, he is agreed to
marry Louka, the maid servant of Rainas family.
In conclusion, we can say that the play Arms and the Man which opens with a romantic
setting is obviously an anti-romantic comedy. Georges Bernard Shaw has excellently exposed
and ridiculed the romantic notions of love, war and marriage in this play.
The play opens with a romantic view of war held by the Bulgarians, especially the young
Raina and Sergius. They will learn from experience and their lessons from Bluntschli that war
is not glorious.
Raina and Sergius have learned their ideas of war from books. They speak of knights and
ladies and the combat of honor between equals. Sergius says that war is like a tournament
(Act II, p. 31). His idea of leading the victorious cavalry charge was a mistake from the point
of view of modern warfare, for horses cannot override cannon and guns. Sergius resigns from
the regiment, disillusioned that the other soldiers do not take him seriously. He refuses to play
the modern game of war; it is for a tradesman, he complains (Act II, p. 29).
Catherine Petkoff is even more locked into an old-fashioned conception of war and
patriotism. She is upset when peace is declared and asks her husband if he couldnt have
annexed Serbia and made Prince Alexander Emperor of the Balkans (Act II, p. 24). Major
Petkoff explains they would have had to subdue Austria first (the allies of the Serbs).
Catherine has no idea what war is or what it costs. Her ideas are as flimsy as Rainas. The two
women are excited as they hear about the victory at Slivnitza and that Sergius is a hero.
Catherine wants to worship Sergius and tries to persuade her husband about his promotion.
Major Petkoff remarks that Sergius will not be promoted because everyone knows he is rash
and incompetent.
Bluntschli tries to shock Raina into reality by reminding her that if the Bulgarians find him in
her room, they will butcher him before her eyes. There will be blood everywhere. He appeals
to the mother in her by asking for a place to sleep and food to eat. He admits he is frightened
for he has had no sleep in three days. At this point, she heroically makes an effort to save
him.
The Bulgarians are shown as nave about war. Major Petkoff admits that neither the
Bulgarians nor Serbs knew anything about war until their officers (the Austrians for the
Serbs, and the Russians for the Bulgarians) taught them. Petkoff says, thered have been no
war without them (Act II, p. 29). Russia and Austria were considered Great Powers, more
advanced and powerful countries that exerted a political influence on lesser powers. They
jumped into the border dispute between Serbia and Bulgaria because they were worried about
the balance of power. The Serbs and Bulgarians had once been friends. Neither were
experienced with modern warfare.
As a professional soldier, the Swiss mercenary, Bluntschli, is the last word to his Bulgarian
friends on the sober reality of war. He describes the soldiers point of view of how to stay
alive by carrying more food than ammunition, and by avoiding the front lines. He beats
Major Petkoff at horsetrading. Bluntschli is scorned at first because of his middle-class
notions of war, but his practical knowledge of how to move troops and keep them supplied is
soon appreciated by Sergius and Petkoff. Bluntschli as a Swiss Republican has modern
democratic ideas that contrast sharply to the older feudal ideas of aristocracy held by the
Bulgarians. They are used to a society of privilege and class stratification. They are
impressed, however, by Bluntschlis modern power, knowledge and wealth. Unlike them, he
holds no lingering feuds after the war, but is more interested in managing his hotels. Business
can be a force of economic stability across national boundaries, more powerful than war. He
is ready to sign on Nicola, a former enemy, as one of his managers.
Raina lives in a make-believe world, and she is aware of it, though she believes it is a more
noble world than the one other people live in: the world is really a glorious world for women
who can see its glory and men who can act its romance (Act I, p. 4). She and Sergius declare
one another knight and lady, an example of the higher love (Act II, p. 31). Raina is always
found posing, dreaming, or making a dramatic entrance. Her mother and father note her
uncanny ability to come into a room at the right moment: Yes, she listens for it, Catherine
says (Act II, p. 28). Life for Raina is what she picks up at the opera season in Bucharest.
Extending sanctuary to an enemy was in the opera she saw, and so she saves Bluntschlis life.
Both Raina and Sergius find it fatiguing to keep up their higher love. Each of them is a secret
realist at heart. Shaw makes the case for love being simple and real. Louka and Bluntschli are
the antidote both romantic characters need. Bluntschlis ability to do away with romantic
nonsense with common sense is good comedy and underscores Shaws animosity towards
Victorian melodrama, which gave audiences a distorted view of life.
Class Prejudice
The tension of class rivalry is present throughout the play. Shaw treats it playfully, though it
is a serious topic for him as a socialist dedicated to doing away with class injustice.
The Bulgarian society is pictured as a primitive holdover of the feudal class structure that
Europe was slowly doing away with. England, for instance, was dealing at the turn of the
century when Shaw was writing, with melting class distinctions. The working classes had
gained the vote and the right to education. Improvement of slums, improvement of factory
conditions, and greater representation of the lower classes in government signaled the
democratic reform going on in advanced countries. In addition, it was a time of the rising
power of the middle class, with the entrepreneurial spirit reigning as the force of the future.
Bluntschli represents the middle-class business spirit of Europe; the Petkoffs are the
aristocratic great landowners of the past; Nicola and Louka represent the old peasantry, bound
to the land and landowners.
In the Bulgaria Shaw portrays, the higher classes hold the lower classes in subjugation
through power, fear, and custom. Nicola warns Louka that the Petkoffs could destroy her if
she defies them: you dont know the power such high people have over the like of you and
me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them (Act II, p. 22). Nicola is cunning, but
he accepts being the scapegoat of the family because they pay him off. He has dreams of
rising out of his position as Louka does. He will buy a shop in Sofia to be independent, but
even then I shall always be dependent on the good will of the family (Act II, p. 22). She
accuses him of selling his manhood for 30 levas (Act III, p. 55) and swears that Youll
never put the soul of a servant into me (Act II, p. 23).
Loukas ambition is higher than Nicolas: she wants to marry into the aristocracy. She plays
on Sergiuss sense of rebellious individualism to get him to defy social convention. She
shows him that underneath his noble rhetoric, they are both human and made of the same
clay (Act II, p. 35). Nicola gives Louka lessons on how to change classes through her
thinking and actions. He teaches her to stop wearing false hair and make-up, to trim her nails
and keep her hands clean. He tells her a lady must act as if she will get her own way. He lies
to Sergius and says that Louka has been reading in the library, trying to get education above
her station.
Sergius himself points out that class discrimination spills over into military life. Both the
upper and lower classes fight the enemy with equal courage. The poor soldiers, however, fear
their own upper class officers who can keep them in their place: they put up with insults and
blows (Act III, p. 58).
Norma Helmer is the best illustration of the illusioned woman who lives in a society where
the male oppresses the female and reduces to a mere doll or plaything. Nora Helmer is that
doll living in her fake doll house, which reinforces the fragile idea of a stable family living
under a patriarchal and traditional roof. One can argue that Nora Helmer and the other female
figures portrayed in A Dolls House are the best models of the second sex or the other
that the French revolutionary writer Simone de Beauvoir discussed in her essay, The Second
Sex. De Beauvoir argues that throughout history, woman has been viewed as a hindrance or
a prison. Aristotle also said, The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities.
We should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness. Woman is
always depicted as secondary to man. She does not exist as an entity by herself but as the
Other.
In her husbands eyes, Nora is nothing but a silly squirrel, a little skylark, a song bird
or a cute scatterbrain whose thoughts are nonsensical and typical to any other womans.
Since her childhood, Nora has been regarded as the other by her father. Then, her father
handed her to her husband who treated her like a valued possession. This is best depicted by
Noras self-realization and awakening towards the end of the play: When I lived at home
with Daddy, he fed me all his opinions, until they became my opinions. Or if they didnt, I
kept quiet about it because I knew he wouldnt have liked it. He used to call me his doll-
child, and he played with me the way I used to play with my dolls. And when Daddy
handed me over to you. You arranged everything according to your taste, and I adapted my
taste to yours Now, looking back, I feel as if Ive lived a beggars lifefrom hand to
mouth.
Ibsens depiction of the weak and docile woman brings to mind the 18th century
revolutionary writer Mary Wollstonecraft who argues in her essay, A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, that women are taught since their infancy to have the softness of temper,
outward obedience, scrupulous attention. Once accompanied by the gift of beauty, these
attributes will ensure them the protection of man. This is echoed very loudly in Torvalds
words, Poor little frightened songbirdRest assured; my wings are broad enough to shelter
you. How lovely and secure our home, Nora. A sanctuary for you. Ill keep you here like a
hunted dove Ive rescued unhurt from the hawks talons. For a man theres something
intensely reassuring and pleasurable about knowing that hes forgiven his wifeand that hes
forgiven her sincerely, with all his heart. Its as if she becomes somehow doubly his
possession, as if hes allowed her to be reborn, so that in some way she becomes both his wife
and his child. Moreover, Mary Wollstonecraft stresses that man tries to secure the good
conduct of a woman by reducing her to a state of innocence and childhood. She states,
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is
but a civil term of weakness. This is very evident in Torvalds treating Nora as a child. He
forbids her to eat macaroons; he makes her dance for him, dress up and recite for him. On the
other hand, not only Nora is treated as a spoiled child but also as a sexual object that her
husband fantasizes about. At parties, he keeps away and steals glances at her eventually
pretending that theyre secretly engaged. When its time to go, he puts her shawl around her
shoulders and pretends that she is his young bride. He fantasizes that they are just arriving
from their wedding and are alone for the first time together. He is so possessive about her to
the extent that he refuses to share Nora with female friends, like Mrs. Linde. Here, Nora
becomes what Michel Foucault calls a docile body regulated by the norms of cultural life.
Thus towards the end of the play, Nora realizes that it is time that she regained her status as
being the One after a long time of submission, which established her role as the Other.
As Simone de Beauvoir has stressed, Nora has been taught not to take but to receive. She has
gained only what her husband and father have been willing to grant her. In this sense, Noras
domestic life in such a patriarchal society is just a reflection of the middle class women of her
time that De Beauvoir depicted vividly in her essay. They live dispersed among the males,
attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain
menfathers or husbandsmore firmly than they are to other women. If they belong to the
bourgeoisie, they feel solidarity with men of that class, not with proletarian women. Noras
biggest fear is her husband hearing that she had forged her fathers signature to get the loan,
which she needed to travel to Italy. Her motives were absolutely selfless because that trip
saved her sick husbands life. Nora knew that the revelation would have put her husbands
reputation at stake, but she felt deep inside that her husband would sacrifice his reputation to
defend her as soon as he came to know that she did that to save his life. That feeling
tormented her to the extent that she contemplated suicide. She is not worth her husbands
nobility! She is not even good enough to be a mother! Didnt her husband tell her that all
young criminals have had dishonest mothers because its usually the mothers
responsibility? Despite her great sacrifice driven by her love for her husband, Nora agrees
that she is a bad influence on her children. She even decides to isolate herself from her kids
and let the nursemaid take care of them fully. We can hear her saying to herself, Corrupt my
children. Poison my home. Its not true. It could never be true. This proves to us that Nora is
very pleased with her role as the Other.
Yet, the doll house is shattered as well as Noras illusion. The doll finally recognizes that her
role has been nothing but the Other. She is aware that it is she who agreed to the definition
of the One and the Other. Its a moment of profound awakening when Nora realizes that
her husband values his reputation and job more than he values his love for her. Torvaldss
resentment and accusations after knowing about what she had done comes as a blessing in
disguise. We hear Torvald telling her, For all these years, for eight years now, youve been
my pride and joy, and now I find youre a hypocrite and a liar, and worse, worse than thata
criminal! The whole thing is an abyss of ugliness! You ought to be ashamed. Simone de
Beauvoir says that if the woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the
essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about the change. But here we tell De
Beauvoir that Nora is willing to bring about the change. The harsh reality smacks her in the
face; a wave of disillusionment wakes her up. She decides bravely to abandon her family to
escape the restrictive confines of the patriarchal society she lives in. She is resolved to go out
into the world and gain real experience. She is determined to think out everything for herself
and be able to make her own decisions.
After all that has been said, we conclude that the woman figure/body in A Dolls House is
reduced, as Susan Bordo believes, to a text of culture on which all cultural aspects of
gender difference are reinforced. That is, the female ideology is supported and reinforced by
the social structure in which women have little social, political, or economic power. The
women figures in A Dolls House are depicted as socially and psychologically dependent on
men in the institution of marriage and motherhood. In addition to Nora, we have the character
of Mrs. Linde who was forced to break up with her fianc and marry another man who could
support her, her mother, and two brothers. We also come across the character of the nurse
who had to give up her child conceived outside the wedlock in order to keep her job.
From a different standpoint, one can argue that A Dolls House carries some aspects of the
Marxist Ideology regarding the conflicts taking place at that time, not only regarding the male
and female relationship, but also financial relations. The Helmer household belongs to the
bourgeoisie class that wasnt born as aristocrats, but ascended to social and financial
wellbeing through employment and education. Hence, A Dolls House portrays the stubborn
class pride of saving face and preserving ones reputation. In the play, Torvald Helmer, who is
a bank manager, confesses that one of the reasons that made him fire Krogstad, one of his
employees, was that he was a former schoolmate and still insists on calling him by his first
name in front of the other employees at the bank. This embarrasses Torvald and makes him
uncomfortable. We also have the character of Mrs. Linde who had to marry someone she
didnt love in order to escape poverty, and later, after his death, had to work non-stop
workdays. She feels all alone and hollow, working for herself. Mrs. Linde is the best example
of the working class person who tastes the bitterness of a materialistic life being reduced to
the value of a mere commodity and a producer of labor power.
Furthermore, it can be debated that the male-female relationship in A Dolls House is based
on a Master-Slave ideology which Friedrich Hegel, the great Enlightenment theorist, started.
The relationship between Torvald and Helmer evolves according to a Master-Slave
relationship. Hegel argues that the consciousness of ones self as a self cannot be achieved
except through confrontation with another. Both Nora and her husband Torvald recognized
their dependency on each other and that self-consciousness led to Noras awakening in the
end. Thus, Noras character self was made through the dialectical special interrelationship
between her and her husband on one side and between her and the patriarchal society on the
other. Hegel says that the self through supersession, receives back its own self, because, by
superseding its otherness, it again becomes equal to itself; but secondly, it equally gives the
other self-consciousness back again to itself, for it saw itself in the other, but superseded this
being of itself in the other and thus lets the other again go free. First Nora acknowledges
Torvald as her master and she dutifully assumes her role as the slave who is dependent on her
master. After the confrontation, Nora realizes the masters dependency on her which leads her
to supersede him and be free of him.
I also noticed that we can trace the roots of Ibsens A Dolls House in PlatosAllegory of
Cave. Noras life with her husband is an illusion, and their marriage is a masquerade. As she
confronts Torvald, she says, Our house has never been anything but a playroom. I have been
your doll-wife, just as I was daddys doll-child when I was at home. My children as well,
theyve been my dolls. I used to enjoy it when you played games with me, just as they
enjoyed it when I played games with them. Thats all our marriage has been, Torvald. Thus,
her life in the doll house was like the life of the people chained in the cave. What she saw was
not the true reality, but the shadow of reality. She was content with her role as the subservient
female whose fate was determined by that of her husband. She also never questioned her
inferior predetermined position in the relationship. This is evidenced in her complete
confidence in hiding the truth about borrowing money in order to save Torvalds health.
About that she told Mrs. Linde, it would be a terrible blow to Torvalds masculine self-
esteem; hed find it so painful and humiliating to think that he owed me something. It would
completely unbalance our relationship. It would be the end of our beautiful, happy home.
Thus, Nora emerges from that cave that showed her the distorted reality. Upon realizing her
value in her husbands life, the true reality dazzles her like the bright sun. She realizes that
she has been living with a stranger for eight years; she becomes aware of the crippling society
that she is living in. Therefore, she decides to leave the dark cave and embrace the luminous
freedom that she grants herself.
A Dolls House is a revolutionary play that exposes the defects of the Victorian patriarchal
society. It is the triumph of the woman over all hindrances whether social, masculine, or
economic. Once I finished reading the play, I was left in a reflective state. I thought about the
universality of the woman figure portrayed in Ibsens play. Now, about 130 years after the
publication of A Dolls House, many women still face the same circumstances that Nora
faced. For instance, todays women working in the same capacity as men make about 72
cents compared to a dollar for men. Additionally, many women face discrimination in the
workplace and in life in general. Many professions remain dominated by men in a day when
women are more than capable of physically handling the job. Despite all their social,
political, and career advancement, some women still feel emotionally crippled as their
destinies are tied to that of the patriarchal society. The rise in the number of women suffering
from anorexia and bulimia nowadays is an evidence of the emotional oppression that women
are subjected to. Susan Bordo believes that social norms of beauty, motherhood, absence or
presence of sexual modesty position the woman in a struggle with the prevailing social
images and conventions.
I believe that before anything else, Im a human being, just as much of as you areor at
least Im going to try to turn myself into one, Nora tells Torvald in a moment of self-
realization. This has been the womans quest throughout history. Nora Helmer in A Dolls
House triumphs over all obstacles and finally recognizes her duty towards herself which had
always been neglected. Yet, many more women still continue to shatter the collars of gender
anxiety and enslavement placed by the masculine world around their necks.
Deception
The reason why there is such a gap between appearance and reality is that the characters are
engaged in various sorts of deception. Often, this is to enable them to enjoy acceptance or
approval by others and society in general. Nora deceives Torvald about the loan and hides her
own strength, even lying to him about trivial matters such as eating sweets, because she
intuits that he cannot tolerate the truth about their marriage. Torvald in return deceives Nora
and himself when he claims, with apparent sincerity, that if he would take upon himself any
burden that fell upon Nora. His claim appears to arise from his poor self-knowledge and
tendency to fantasize about his and Nora's life together. Dr Rank pretends to Torvald that
nothing is amiss with his health because Torvald cannot deal with anything disagreeable, such
as death.
Women could not conduct business or control their own money, for which they needed the
authorization of the man who 'owned' them - husband, brother or father. Moreover, they were
not educated for responsibility. Nora falls foul of both injustices, by taking out a loan without
the authority of her husband or father, and by believing, out of ignorance of the world, that
she could get away with forging a signature.
In a sense, single women like Mrs Linde were freer than married ones, in that they had a right
to the money they earned and did not have to hand it over to the man of the family. But the
employment open to women was restricted and poorly paid, as we see in Mrs Linde's case:
there was clerical work, teaching or domestic service. Also, women's work was grindingly
dull, and likely to leave an intelligent woman like Mrs Linde "empty" inside.
Marriage was a trap in another sense, too. Though divorce was available, it carried such a
social stigma (not just for the woman, but also for her husband and family) that few women
saw it as an option. This is why Torvald would rather have a pretend marriage, for the sake of
appearances, than a divorce or an amicable parting.
The female characters of Nora, Mrs Linde and the Nurse all have to sacrifice themselves to
be accepted, or even to survive. Nora not only sacrifices herself in borrowing money to save
Torvald, but she loses the children she undoubtedly loves when she decides to pursue her own
identity. Mrs Linde sacrifices the true love of her life, Krogstad, and marries a man she does
not love in order to support her dependent relatives. The Nurse has to give up her own child
to look after other people's in order to survive financially. What is more, she sees herself as
lucky to get her lowly job, since she has committed the sin of having a child out of wedlock.
In Ibsen's time, women who had illegitimate babies were stigmatized, while the men
responsible often escaped censure.
Ibsen does not suggest solutions to what was called "the women question," his aim being
rather to shine a spotlight on problems that few were willing to talk about. He left the task of
finding answers to others.
Letters
In a society in which difficult or 'taboo' topics were not discussed openly, much of the truth in
A Doll's House is conveyed via letters and cards. Examples are Krogstad's letter to Torvald
revealing the facts of Nora's loan; his subsequent letter retracting his threats and enclosing
her bond; and Dr Rank's discreet visiting cards, marked only with a black cross, announcing
his death.
Torvald defines his life by what society finds acceptable and respectable. He is more
concerned about the attractive appearance of his wife and home than he is about his wife's
happiness. When she tries to convince him to keep Krogstad in his job, his main concern is
what the bank employees will think of him if they believe he has been influenced by his wife.
And even after he has rejected Nora, he wants her to remain under his roof to preserve the
image of a respectable marriage.
Much of Krogstad's life has been affected by society's moral standards. He spent some time in
disgrace after committing an "indiscretion," and resorts to blackmail in an attempt to keep his
job as a mark of respectability. His threat of blackmail gains its power from the immense
authority that individuals vested in society's moral standards: if nobody cared much what
society thought, then Krogstad could tell all and no one would be harmed.
Nora begins the play fulfilling a role that society prescribed for women - that of dutiful wife
and mother. Her role is restricted to such activities as creating a beautiful home, meeting the
needs of her husband and children, and singing and dancing prettily and seductively for her
husband. Ibsen does not suggest that there is anything inherently wrong with such duties, but
he does point out the dangers of having an individual's life defined by society in a way that
ignores their personal identity and journey. In leaving Torvald and her children, she will
outrage society and stigmatize herself. This is a terrible price to have to pay for self-
fulfillment, but inevitable, given that society and the individual are so much at cross-
purposes. Society wishes to preserve the status quo, whereas self-fulfillment often means
pushing and breaking boundaries.
Money
The nineteenth century saw huge social and economic changes. Society shifted from a largely
rural agricultural community of 'landed gentry' and land workers, to urban communities based
on manufacturing. More than ever before, what defined one's place in society was one's
ability to make and control money. Those who controlled the money were the bankers and
lawyers, like Torvald. They were almost invariably male. Their ability to control money
enabled them to control others' lives, including defining morals. Torvald, because of his
position at the bank, can afford to sit in moral judgment on Krogstad and Mrs Linde, and
decide which of them should be allowed a job.
The first interactions we see between Nora and Torvald are about money; she knows that if
she behaves in a certain subservient way, Torvald will give her more money. She later uses
similar manipulations on Dr Rank, drawing attention to the way in which women in an
unequal society tend to barter sexual favors in return for money.
Torvald teases Nora about being a spendthrift: this is his way of displaying his dominance
over her, since he who controls the money controls the relationship. Nora's attempt to take
partial control of the money in their marriage by taking out the loan ends in disaster, as
Torvald feels morally shamed by her action. It has put him at the mercy of Krogstad and, it is
implied, compromised his standing as a man and a moral member of society.
Morality
The theme of morality relates closely to that of the individual and society, in that society
defines the suffocating moral climate that A Doll's House satirizes. Nora begins to question
society's morals when she realizes how it would criminalize her for forging her father's
signature, an action that she believes to be morally acceptable in the circumstances, if legally
reprehensible. The most heroic action of her life, her sacrifice to save her husband's life,
becomes an unforgivable crime in the eyes of society and its dutiful representative, Torvald. It
is not surprising that part of her journey of self-discovery at the play's end is to consist of
finding out "who is right, the world or I."
Before Ibsen revolutionized drama through his embrace of realism, many plays contained a
character with the role of 'moral foil', a commentator on the actions of others. Ibsen partially
subverts the notion of the 'moral foil' in the characters of Dr Rank and Mrs Linde. They arrive
in the play at the same time, which alerts us to the fact that they share a dramatic purpose. To
some extent, they are truth-bringers in the false setup of the Helmer marriage. Mrs Linde
decides not to persuade Krogstad to recall his letter, as she believes it is time the Helmers
faced the truth about their marriage. And Dr Rank talks to Nora as the intelligent person she
is, not as the silly doll-child that Torvald prefers. But these characters turn out to be as fallible
and morally compromised as most people are in real life. Mrs Linde has betrayed her true
love, Krogstad, by marrying another man for money and security, an act which has left her
"empty." And Dr Rank is not entirely the selfless friend to Torvald that he first appears to be:
he visits because he is in love with Nora.
Inheritance
Nineteenth-century breakthroughs in genetic science led to a growing interest in inherited
disease and traits. A Doll's House contains several references to the idea that both physical
disease and moral traits are passed down through generations. Torvald, after he reads
Krogstad's first letter and rejects Nora, forbids her from bringing up their children as he
thinks she will taint them morally. She herself is already convinced of this and has begun to
distance herself from them. Torvald believes that Krogstad's children will be poisoned by
their father's moral crimes. Dr Rank has inherited tuberculosis of the spine, the disease that
kills him, from his father, who led a promiscuous life and contracted venereal disease.
Some critics see Torvald as another doll in the doll's house. They point out that he is as restricted by his chose
Little squirrel/skylark/songbird
These are all pet names of Torvald's for Nora that emphasize that he does not see her as an equal. He believes
Symbols:
Nora's fancy dress costume Torvald chooses Nora's fancy dress costume, a Neapolitan fisher-girl's dress tha
Mrs Linde who decides that Nora and Torvald must be made to face the truth about Nora's secret. She believe
The Tarantella
The Tarantella was a wild southern Italian dance, generally danced by a couple or line of couples. The dance
In this light, it is significant that Torvald tells Nora to practice the Tarantella while he shuts himself away in h
deadly poison. Depending on how we wish to interpret this symbolism, the poison may be the threat posed by
Light
Light is most often used to symbolize Nora's state of awareness. After Torvald claims to be man enough to tak
Light also appears to symbolize hope and spiritual redemption when Dr Rank is talking in code to Nora abou
Christmas tree
In Norway, Christmas is an important family celebration, but the focus of the festivities and the opening of pr
keeping Krogstad in his job, she draws his attention to how pretty the flowers on the tree look.
By Christmas Day, the tree is stripped of its ornaments and its candles have burnt out (a link with the symbol
In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy use of coincidence implies that he shares Aristotle's
belief that the plot is important in the creation of a tragedy. In much the same way as
Aristotle, Hardy attaches special importance to the three elements of the plot in a tragedy: the
reversal, the recognition, and the final suffering. He unites the events in The Mayor of
Casterbridge with these elements to portray the "paradoxical rise and fall" (Seymour-Smith
20) of former hay-trusser and corn-factor/local political leader Michael Henchard. The basic
structure of the plot in the novel "with its emphasis upon the single protagonist and upon the
course of the hero's downfall, is patently Aristotelian" (Kramer 70). In The Mayor of
Casterbridge, Hardy follows the rise and fall of Michael Henchard, a poor itinerant
agricultural worker who gains both fortune and respect upon becoming the mayor of
Casterbridge. Unfortunately, the consequences of his past transgressions contribute to the
tragic decline in Henchard's material, social and familial welfare.
In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the arrival of the Messenger from Corinth initiates the tragic
reversal of the protagonist. The Messenger, ironically attempting to help Oedipus by telling
him that the Corinthian royal couple, Polybus and Merope, were not his real parents, creates
the opposite effect; he provides the crucial piece of information that will reveal that Oedipus
has fulfilled the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi by killing his father and marrying his
mother. In Hardy's novel, Mrs Goodenough, the furmity woman from the opening chapter,
enacts a function similar to that of the Corinthian Messenger in Oedipus the King. The return
of the furmity woman and her dramatic revelation in court plays a vital role in hastening
Henchard's decline. Mrs. Goodenough exposes Henchard's shameful secret: the sale of his
wife Susan and their child, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor for five guineas two decades earlier.
Her declaration results in Henchard's social and financial ruin, as
the amends he had made in after life were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act
. . . On that day almost at that minute he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and
began to descend rapidly on the other side. [Hardy 291]
Although at the point at which Susan and her grownup daughter enter the town he is the most
influential man in Casterbridge, the revelation of the wife-sale destroys his public reputation
as his financial difficulties compel Henchard to declare bankruptcy; simultaneously disgraced
and ruined, he soon becomes a social outcast. The furmity woman's accusation initiates the
tragic reversal in The Mayor of Casterbridge; however, the reversal is complete only when
Donald Farfrae becomes the new mayor. At this point in the plot, Henchard has lost his
reputation as a worthy and honourable citizen, his political and fiscal capital, and the
opportunity to marry the heiress Lucetta Templeman. Henchard, suffering from poverty and
loneliness, finds himself again at the bottom of fortune's wheel, while Farfrae now occupies a
station at the top.
The connection between the reversal and recognition scenes in the plots of both Oedipus the
King and The Mayor of Casterbridge is essential in each writer's development of an
Aristotelian tragedy. In both literary works, the reversal leads directly to the recognition.
Specifically, Oedipus discovers his true identity only after combining details from the stories
of both the Messenger and the Herdsman; through interrogating these tale-tellers and their
stories and then integrating these stories, he pieces together a coherent narrative that contains
the essential knowledge he previously lacked and acted in ignorance of. Similarly, in The
Mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard's recognition of his true circumstances occurs following the
visit of the Royal Personage (presumably, Prince Albert) to Casterbridge. During the state
visit of the Royal Personage, Henchard attempts to conduct himself for the last time in the
role of mayor. Instead of choosing to occupy the role of a mere onlooker, meeting the royal
visitor among the crowd of townspeople, Henchard, dressed in his "fretted and weather-
beaten garments of bygone years" (Hardy 339), attempts to greet the visitor on behalf of the
city. His "eccentric behaviour" (Kramer 81) merely represents a desperate attempt to regain
some of the dignity previously accorded to him as mayor. Only after the confrontation
between Farfrae and himself in the loft does Henchard fully recognize his loss of his status.
He can no longer identify himself as the mayor of Casterbridge, nor can he expect to receive
the same privileges that he once enjoyed. With this realization, Henchard "finally
acknowledges the overthrow of his own 'reign'" (Kramer 85) as the Mayor of Casterbridge.
Henchard's insight and recognition of his current circumstance set into action his final
suffering.
The protagonists in both Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of
Casterbridge experience their final suffering following the reversal and the recognition scene.
In an Aristotelian tragedy, the suffering of the protagonist is irreversible: Oedipus' self-
blinding, prompted by Jocasta's suicide, cannot be reversed he is bound forever to suffer in
self-imposed darkness. Similarly, Henchard experiences a final suffering in The Mayor of
Casterbridge. Henchard suffers through more than one death in the novel. Long before his
physical death, Henchard dies in reputation and public esteem, no longer a man of wealth and
power when his time as mayor ends. The moment of his final suffering, however, occurs after
he experiences the loss of his step-daughter, Elizabeth-Jane.
Immediately following the recognition, Hardy notes that a great change comes over Henchard
regarding Elizabeth-Jane:
[I]n the midst of his gloom [Elizabeth-Jane] seemed to him as a pin-point of light . . . and for
the first time, he had a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own, if she would
only continue to love him. [361]
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must contain the presence of a tragic hero: "a leader in his
society who mistakenly brings about his own downfall because of some error in a judgement
or innate flaw" (Banks ix). Both Oedipus of Thebes and Michael Henchard of Casterbridge
satisfy many Aristotelian requirements of the tragic hero. Thomas Hardy's novel records
Henchard's rise and fall, revealing him at the outset as an ambitious, proud, and impulsive
hay-trusser who (between chapters, and outside the narrative, as it were) "rises from shameful
obscurity to the mayoralty" (Chapman 148). Early in the novel, Henchard is at the height of
his prosperity and resides at the top of fortune's wheel. He is well liked and highly esteemed
by the townspeople of Casterbridge. Consequently, Henchard position in society is high
enough for his fall to be considered tragic.
In Aristotelian tragedies, the tragic hero causes his (or her) own downfall through the
operation of some innate flaw or hamartia. Often the protagonist of a tragedy suffers from
hubris, or excessive pride. The essence of the tragic hero, however, is that their very nature
compels "them to take actions the least advantageous to them" (Kramer 16) despite
possessing free will. For example, Teiresias adequately warns Oedipus not to pursue the
investigation of Laius's death, but Oedipus, too stubborn to listen, continues his search for the
king's murderer. He becomes the instrument of his own destruction because his pride prevents
him from paying heed to the prophet Tieresias's advice. Similarly, Henchard's attributes such
as his "pride, his impulsive nature and his ambition are exactly the conditions [that cause] his
downfall and his destruction" (Gatrell 84). His character traits and his subsequent reaction to
certain circumstances lead to his financial ruin, and to the destruction of his relationships
with the others about whom he cares most.
In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy unites Michael Henchard's tragic fall with his excessive
pride, his impulsive nature and his ambition to succeed. Throughout the novel, Henchard
makes many mistakes: he fails to maintain his wealth, his social position and his relationships
with those who care for him. His jealousy of Farfrae causes "him to lose both a faithful
employee and a good friend" (Kramer 86). Henchard's pride cannot accept the fact that
Farfrae has become more popular then he among the townspeople of Casterbridge.
Furthermore, he feels threatened by Farfrae's sudden success; thus, he dismisses Farfrae.
Donald Farfrae's dismissal leads to a drawn-out business competition between the two corn-
factors that strips Henchard of his personal possessions, his public favour as mayor, and the
two women in his life: Lucetta Templeman and Elizabeth-Jane Newson.
Michael Henchard's excessive pride not only destroys his relationship with Donald Farfrae,
but it also causes him to alienate Elizabeth-Jane. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard's
"discovery that [Elizabeth-Jane] is not his daughter" (Paterson 99) wounds his fatherly pride;
as a consequence of this knowledge, his treatment of Elizabeth-Jane changes dramatically. He
becomes very cold toward her and even avoids addressing her by name. Hardy notes that
"Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presence of this girl not his own, whenever he
encountered her" (Hardy 203). Consequently, Elizabeth-Jane eventually moves in with
Lucetta and this separation further weakens Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane's already strained
relationship. Henchard's relationship with Lucetta suffers as well. He is too proud to visit
Lucetta when his stepdaughter is present, in addition, his pride prevents him from accepting
Lucetta's invitation for a private meeting. His recurring absent disheartens Lucetta, who "no
longer [bares toward] Henchard all that warm allegiance which had characterized her in their
first acquaintance" (Hardy 226). Subsequently, she marries Donald Farfrae instead,
rationalizing that Henchard's conduct at Weydon-Prioirs negates his elibility as a socially
accepotable husband.
In an Aristotelian tragedy, the most important element in the audience's response, catharsis,
depends upon the emotional effect of the literary work. Despite being classified as a novel,
Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge evokes both the feeling of pity and fear in
response to Michael Henchard's suffering. Henchard is a man "who reacts to circumstances
according to his character a man ready to absorb greater opposition than he receives, and
then laying himself open, willing to accept full blame for what unexpectedly happens"
(Kramer 90). For instance, Henchard refuses to defend himself against Elizabeth-Jane's
accusation regarding his deception of Newson; he does "not sufficiently value himself to
lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate argument" (Hardy 402). Furthermore,
Henchard seeks out his own punishment because he is determined to shoulder the burden of
his own mistakes. Even in death, he is punishing himself for his past misdeeds. An example is
the closing lines of Henchard's will where he asks ?that no man remember" (Hardy 409) him.
In The Mayor of Casterbridge the more Henchard condemns and punishes himself for his past
transgressions, the more sympathy and pity the reader feels for him.
In addition to evoking readers' sympathy and pity, Thomas Hardy also arouses their sense of
fear. The destruction of harmony in the novel following Henchard's tragic fall affects the lives
of those around him, such as Farfrae, Lucetta, and Elizabeth-Jane. These individuals are
witnesses to the repercussions of Henchard's actions and are also subject to suffer from his
transgressions. For instance, the reader fears for Farfrae's life immediately following "the
battle of physical strength" (Kramer 86) between himself and Henchard. Hardy uses the
reader's uncertainty regarding Farfrae's fate to instill the emotion of fear. Like the bull,
Henchard?s nature is self-destructive. His death at the end of the novel is tragic, yet it also
alleviates the reader's anxiety. Subsequently, Hardy succeeds in creating a cathartic
experience.
In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy creates "the most valid and meaningful modern revival
and adaptation" (Seymour-Smith 23) of an Aristotelian tragedy. Hardy combines the elements
of plot and the presence of a tragic hero to induce a cathartic experience at the end of the
novel. The Mayor of Casterbridge exhibits many similarities with Sophocles' Oedipus the
King in that each literary work recounts and dramatizes the rise and subsequent fall in fortune
of the tragic hero through the operation of some innate character flaw. Although Thomas
Hardy's novel is not a drama, it does satisfy many requirements for an Aristotelian tragedy.
Thomas Hardy skilfully follows the classical design of a tragedy and, in doing so, his novel
The Mayor of Casterbridge stands independently as an exceptional piece of nineteenth-
century literature.
Wow, that's some complicated storytelling. Why not just create a traditional villain? Why
should so much potential good and so much potential evil be wrapped up in one character?
Well, because that's how people are in real life! Hardy wanted to write a novel that reflected
the psychological realities he saw in everyday people. Let's take a closer look at Henchard to
see how Hardy developed the complexities of his main character to make him both
sympathetic and deeply flawed.
A Universal Every-Man?
The novel opens with a detailed description of Michael Henchard and his wife, Susan, as they
walk along the road looking for work:
The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in profile a facial
angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. [. . .] His measured springless walk
was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the desultory shamble of the general
labourer; while in the turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical
indifference, personal to himself, showing itself even in the regularly interchanging fustian
folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along. (1.2)
Henchard isn't named yet at this point: the narrator just calls him "the man" and, later, "the
hay-trusser." In fact, we don't learn his name until later in the chapter, when Susan calls him
"Mike." We don't hear his last name until the second chapter, when Henchard swears his oath
to give up alcohol.
That's a pretty strange way to introduce the main character, isn't it? But it goes along with the
title: the novel isn't called "Michael Henchard," it's called The Mayor of Casterbridge: The
Life and Death of a Man of Character. Even in the title of the novel, he's just "a Man" and
"the Mayor."
Why should Hardy wait so long to name his main character? Take another look at that
opening description for some possible answers. Hardy seems like he wants "the man" to
appear universal he could be anyone. He isn't named, and Hardy compares him to some
general "types." He has "the walk of a skilled countryman" as opposed to the shuffling,
"desultory shamble of the general labourer." We're also not given any back story about him at
all. All we find out is that Henchard got married to Susan before the start of the novel, when
he was about 18 years old. We don't know where he came from or what his parents were like
or anything. He really could be anyone.
But even as Hardy emphasizes how anonymous, and therefore how universal, "the man" is in
this opening description, he points out characteristics that are unique about him. His "dogged
and cynical indifference" is "personal to himself." So right from the start, Hardy characterizes
"the man" as both universal and unique. Seems like a contradiction, right? Well, it isn't the
only one in Henchard's character.
One of the characteristics that make Henchard unique is his reliance on superstition. This is
one of the major differences between Henchard and Farfrae, who is the most practical, literal-
minded person in the book. Henchard is very in tune with nature and the natural world, and
also to events that seem somehow symbolic to him. His sensitivity to these things is both a
strength and a flaw. His appreciation for music can sometimes be a comfort to him, but his
over-sensitivity can sometimes lead him to see insults where none were intended. Henchard's
superstition first comes up when he swears his oath never to drink again:
But first he resolved to register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn before: and to
do it properly he required a fit place and imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this
man's beliefs. (2.7)
To say that Henchard's spirituality is "fetishistic" isn't necessarily a bad thing; it just means
that he tends to place a lot of symbolic weight on objects. He's in tune with nature and the
earth and physical things in general. He sees patterns and guesses at divine meaning
in everyday coincidences. For example, when Lucetta asks to see him to get her letters back,
she proposes meeting him at the Casterbridge Ring, the old Roman amphitheater at the edge
of town. This is the same place where he'd been reunited with Susan. It's just a coincidence
Lucetta didn't know he'd met Susan there but Henchard sees a pattern and assumes it has
some kind of deeper importance:
Lucetta had unwittingly backed up her entreaty by the strongest argument she could have
used outside words, with this man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her figure in the
midst of the huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress, her attitude of hope and
appeal [. . .] strongly revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who had
stood there in bygone days. (35.20)
Henchard is a passionate guy, and the smallest thing can cause those passions to bubble to the
surface. Music, for example, can easily call up his emotions:
With Henchard music was of regal power. The merest trumpet or organ tone was enough to
move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him. But fate had ordained that he should
be unable to call up this Divine spirit in his need.(41.52)
His sensitivity to music has a tragic element to it: music moves him deeply, but he's not
musical himself. He doesn't sing and never learned a musical instrument. And since he lived
in the days before the iPod or even the radio, the only time he hears music is in church or at
public concerts. Music would have been a good, healthy outlet for Henchard's pent-up
emotions, but he's not like Farfrae, who is able to express every passing mood by singing,
whistling, humming, or dancing. Because Henchard is not musical and can't express his
emotions by singing, he ends up keeping them all pent up.
But that doesn't mean that his passions hidden to other characters and to the reader.
Everything he feels is visible in his face, which is often described with the colors red and
black. He has a dark complexion, with dark hair and eyes, and he flushes easily when he's
angry or upset. (Check out the "Symbols" section for more on the novel's use of red and
black.) His face is described as a "thin" mask that covers his personality. It's so thin that it's
easy to see what is happening underneath the surface:
On the one hand, Henchard's quick temper is obviously a major flaw. It's the reason he sold
his wife, lost his friendship with Farfrae, and sent Elizabeth-Jane away. On the other hand, at
least his temper is easy to see. He's not like Lucetta, who hides what she's feeling and
disguises her true self with fancy clothes and makeup. Henchard might have a terrible temper
and too little self-control, but at least he's honest about it.
He realizes, for example, that all of his personal losses are at least partly his own fault:
Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth all had gone from him, one after one, either by his fault
or by his misfortune.(41.51)
And that might be one answer to how Hardy manages to make the reader care about a guy as
deeply flawed as Henchard: for all his faults, he's at least honest with himself and others. His
defects seem to be so deeply ingrained in his personality that he couldn't change them even if
he wanted to. When he screws up and things go badly for him, he eventually recognizes that
it's his own fault, even if he blames everyone around him at first.
And to counterbalance that terrible temper of his, Henchard is also very fair-minded. Think
about the scene in which he challenges Farfrae to a fight to the death. Henchard is a lot taller
and stronger than Farfrae, so he fights him with one hand tied behind his back to even things
out. When he has to declare bankruptcy, he is completely honest and open with the bankers
and doesn't hold back a single dime. When he swears the oath to avoid alcohol for twenty
years, he keeps it to the very day, in spite of all the temptations to break it.
The narrator wants readers to pity Henchard even as they recognize his flaws. Is he
successful? How sorry do you feel for Henchard by the end? Are you able to get past his
lengthy list of personality flaws to appreciate the good things about him?
One of the main characters in Wuthering Heights is the fiendish Heathcliff. An orphan
despised since his birth, Heathcliff grows up to become a sadistic, cruel, vengeful and
immoral man. He is often reffered to as ?like the devil? or as ?evil?, and this is certainly the
way he acts. His intense yet destroyed passion towards Catherine Earnshaw causes him to
despise all members of the Linton family of Thrushcross Grange, and he schemes to destroy
them in numerous ways. A horrible person, Heathcliff abuses Isabelle, Edgar Lintons sister,
by using her infatuation as a tool of revenge towards the Lintons, he constantly and savagly
attacks Linton, his own dying son, and even his tenant, Mr. Lockwood, cannot escape his
cruelty. The way Bronte writes the novel, many comparisons can be seen between Heathcliffs
character and the actual house in which he grew up, Wuthering Heights. This house is a
dark, ?bleak?, unpleasant place situated on a high, windy crest on the moors. Yet not only is
the atmosphere of Wuthering Heights similar to that of Heathcliff, but both are also
physically described in a similar way. The house is described as ?grotesque?, with ?
strong...narrow windows...deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large, jutting
stones? (page 4). This is similar to many descriptions of Heathcliffs personal appearance,
his ?savage? face is illustrated as having "brows lowering, the eyes deep set and
singular...black eyes withdrawn so suspiciously under their brow" (page 93). His dark,
immoral attitude is enhanced by his personal physical description, which is similar to that of
the actual house, as well as by the described influence of his surroundings. This characters
temprement is not only shown through the way he is personally portrayed, but also through
the setting in which he is shown.
Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent culture, refinement, convention, and
cultivation.
Thrushcross Grange, in contrast to the bleak exposed farmhouse on the heights, is situated in
the valley with none of the grim features of Heathcliff?s home. Opposite of Wuthering
Heights, Thrushcross Grange is filled with light and warmth. "Unlike Wuthering Heights, it is
elegant and comfortable...a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson covered chairs
and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold?." Thrushcross Grange is the
appropriate home of the children of the calm. The atmosphere of Thrushcross Grange
illustrates the link the inhabitants have with the upper-class Victorian lifestyle. Although the
Linton?s appearance was often shallow, appearances were kept up for their friends and their
social standing. While Wuthering Heights was always full of activity, sometimes to the point
of chaos, life at the Grange always seemed placid. Linton?s existence here at Thrushcross
Grange was as "different from Heathcliff?s ?as moonbeam from lightning, or frost from
fire?." The Linton?s often portrayed themselves as shallow, arrogant people, but life here was
much more jovial than the inmates of Wuthering Heights lives were.
Quite a contrast to Heathcliff's malevolent character is the warm and gentle Edgar Linton,
one whose personality befits that of his dwelling, Thrushcross Grange. a "beautiful, splendid
place"(89), around which "the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks
are all brim full"(171). Raised in a loving family and comfortable house, Edgar has become a
well respected, dignified gentleman in the neighborhood and a "kind master"(131) to Ellen
Dean. The Grange, in which all is orderly and pleasant, symbolizes the civilized and
kindhearted Edgar. Instead of quarreling with Catherine, Edgar treats her with the utmost
patience and affection, resolving to marry her despite witnessing her tyrannical conduct
towards Ellen. Moreover, he regards those around him with kindness and hospitality--he even
takes pity upon Linton, when others think of him as "the worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip
that ever struggled into his teens"(275). The Grange holds elegant objects--"crimson-covered
chairs and tables", a "pure white ceiling bordered with gold" and", a shower of glass
drops"(89); similarly, Edgar handles his affairs with grace. Edgar is as gentle and gracious as
the Grange, and he lives and dies a generous soul in the Grange,
Lastly, Catherine Earnshaw, who has spent her lifetime partly at the Heights and partly at the
Grange, displays herself similar in temperament to the atmospheres of both houses. Ellen
describes Catherine as being a wayward, quarrelsome girl, her temper matching the
"[seasons] of steady rain"(193) at the Heights; yet "she [has] the bonniest eye, the sweetest
smile, and lightest foot in the parish"(83), pleasant qualities much like the Grange. She is
capable of being extremely disagreeable and selfish, evident when she lavishes her love on
Heathcliff despite her husband's sorrow. Yet, Catherine is also capable of gentleness and
kindness--Ellen describes this trait during her narration to Mr. Lockwood: "She [seems]
almost over fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister, she [shows] plenty of affection"(131).
Like the Grange, Catherine often evinces warmth in her own feminine sense of tenderness,
and she strives to be polite and civilized; but like the Heights, Catherine can be stormy and
almost violently ardent at times. This trait is exemplified when, after a quarrel with Heathcliff
and Edgar, she resolves to "dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her
teeth, so that [one] might fancy she would crash them to splinters"(157). Clearly, Catherine is
a character combining that which is most pleasant and wonderful of Thrushcross Grange,
with the harmful and turbulent characteristics of Wuthering Heights.
Without a doubt, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, along with the people who
dwell in them, represent two entirely contrasting mentalities and states of mind: one of
unrestrained passion and dark broodiness, the other of politely refined affection and soft
tenderness. Heathcliff's love for Catherine is tinged with danger and violence; Edgar loves
Catherine with gracious tranquility, and Catherine returns affection to each of them
accordingly. The Grange is a symbol of civilization, warmth, and goodness; the Heights is a
symbol of wildness, cruelty, and evil. Such utter difference between the environments and
climates of the two households symbolizes the distinction between the temperaments of their
inhabitants. Not surprisingly, this contrast results in the pain, anguish, and discontent suffered
by the protagonists; yet ultimately, the violent passion that is like the howling winds of
Wuthering Heights and the tender love that reminds one the sweet air at Thrushcross Grange
come together, through the marriage of Catherine and Heathcliff's respective offspring, never
to separate again. Through extensive descriptions of the characters' dwellings and its
surroundings, Bronte helps the reader gain insight into these characters.
Themes
The Destructiveness of a Love That Never Changes
Catherine and Heathcliffs passion for one another seems to be the center ofWuthering
Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the
novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novels plot. As
she tells Catherine and Heathcliffs story, Nelly criticizes both of them harshly, condemning
their passion as immoral, but this passion is obviously one of the most compelling and
memorable aspects of the book. It is not easy to decide whether Bront intends the reader to
condemn these lovers as blameworthy or to idealize them as romantic heroes whose love
transcends social norms and conventional morality. The book is actually structured around
two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel centering on the love between Catherine
and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second half features the developing love between
young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring
peace and order to Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the
two love stories contribute to the readers understanding of why each ends the way it does.
The most important feature of young Catherine and Haretons love story is that it involves
growth and change. Early in the novel Hareton seems irredeemably brutal, savage, and
illiterate, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read.
When young Catherine first meets Hareton he seems completely alien to her world, yet her
attitude also evolves from contempt to love. Catherine and Heathcliffs love, on the other
hand, is rooted in their childhood and is marked by the refusal to change. In choosing to
marry Edgar, Catherine seeks a more genteel life, but she refuses to adapt to her role as wife,
either by sacrificing Heathcliff or embracing Edgar. In Chapter XII she suggests to Nelly that
the years since she was twelve years old and her father died have been like a blank to her, and
she longs to return to the moors of her childhood. Heathcliff, for his part, possesses a
seemingly superhuman ability to maintain the same attitude and to nurse the same grudges
over many years.
Moreover, Catherine and Heathcliffs love is based on their shared perception that they are
identical. Catherine declares, famously, I am Heathcliff, while Heathcliff, upon Catherines
death, wails that he cannot live without his soul, meaning Catherine. Their love denies
difference, and is strangely asexual. The two do not kiss in dark corners or arrange secret
trysts, as adulterers do. Given that Catherine and Heathcliffs love is based upon their refusal
to change over time or embrace difference in others, it is fitting that the disastrous problems
of their generation are overcome not by some climactic reversal, but simply by the inexorable
passage of time, and the rise of a new and distinct generation. Ultimately, Wuthering
Heights presents a vision of life as a process of change, and celebrates this process over and
against the romantic intensity of its principal characters.
The Precariousness of Social Class
As members of the gentry, the Earnshaws and the Lintons occupy a somewhat precarious
place within the hierarchy of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British society. At
the top of British society was the royalty, followed by the aristocracy, then by the gentry, and
then by the lower classes, who made up the vast majority of the population. Although the
gentry, or upper middle class, possessed servants and often large estates, they held a
nonetheless fragile social position. The social status of aristocrats was a formal and settled
matter, because aristocrats had official titles. Members of the gentry, however, held no titles,
and their status was thus subject to change. A man might see himself as a gentleman but find,
to his embarrassment, that his neighbors did not share this view. A discussion of whether or
not a man was really a gentleman would consider such questions as how much land he
owned, how many tenants and servants he had, how he spoke, whether he kept horses and a
carriage, and whether his money came from land or tradegentlemen scorned banking and
commercial activities.
Considerations of class status often crucially inform the characters motivations in Wuthering
Heights. Catherines decision to marry Edgar so that she will be the greatest woman of the
neighborhood is only the most obvious example. The Lintons are relatively firm in their
gentry status but nonetheless take great pains to prove this status through their behaviors. The
Earnshaws, on the other hand, rest on much shakier ground socially. They do not have a
carriage, they have less land, and their house, as Lockwood remarks with great puzzlement,
resembles that of a homely, northern farmer and not that of a gentleman. The shifting
nature of social status is demonstrated most strikingly in Heathcliffs trajectory from
homeless waif to young gentleman-by-adoption to common laborer to gentleman again
(although the status-conscious Lockwood remarks that Heathcliff is only a gentleman in
dress and manners).
Biographical Information
Apart from his occupation as a poet and critic, Arnold earned a reputation during his lifetime
as one of his age's most knowledgeable and influential advocates for educational reform in
England. Born the eldest son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, a headmaster of Rugby and generally
acknowledged as the innovator of the modern public school system in England, Arnold was
inculcated with a liberal attitude toward education from an early age. During his formative
years and as a student at Oxford, he embraced the reform-minded ideas of social thinker John
Henry Newman. In 1851 at the age of thirty, Arnold was appointed Her Majesty's Inspector of
Schools, a post he held for the next thirty-five years. In his role as inspector, Arnold became
intimately familiar with the disadvantages and inequalities inherent in the educational system
from the favored aristocratic upper class to the ignored and impoverished lower class.
Moreover, in his official capacity Arnold toured numerous schools and universities on the
Continent which had already undergone extensive educational reforms. His comparative
experiences at home and abroad yielded such essays as The Popular Education of France,
with Notices of That of Holland and Switzerland (1861), A French Eton, or Middle-Class
Education and the State (1864), and Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868), all of
which influenced the ideas which found expression in Culture and Anarchy.Despite his best
efforts to influence Parliament to initiate sweeping educational reform, it was not until Arnold
appealed to the altruistic intellectual members of the English middle class with Culture and
Anarchy that he began to gain a groundswell of support for his cause. Ultimately, Arnold's
proposals and arguments contributed to the passage of the Elementary Education Act of 1870
which mandated that a state-run public educational program should replace the current
private system of learning in England.
Although Arnold does not create specific fictional characters to express his ideas in Culture
and Anarchy, he does infuse his essays with a narrative persona that can best be described as
a Socratic figure. This sagacious mentor serves as a thematic link between each of the
chapters, underscoring the importance of self-knowledge in order to fully engage the concept
of pursuing human perfection. This mentor also identifies and classifies three groups of
people who comprise contemporary English society. The first group is the Barbarians, or the
aristocratic segment of society who are so involved with their archaic traditions and gluttony
that they have lost touch with the rest of society for which they were once responsible. The
second groupfor whom Arnold's persona reserves his most scornful criticismis the
Philistines, or the selfish and materialistic middle class who have been gulled into a torpid
state of puritanical self-centeredness by nonconforming religious sects. The third group is the
Populace, or the disenfranchised, poverty-stricken lower class who have been let down by the
negligent Barbarians and greedy Philistines. For Arnold, the Populace represents the most
malleable, and the most deserving, social class to be elevated out of anarchy through the
pursuit of culture.
Major Themes
Arnold introduces the principal themes of Culture and Anarchy directly in the essay's title.
Culture involves an active personal quest to forsake egocentricity, prejudice, and narrow-
mindedness and to embrace an equally balanced development of all human talents in the
pursuit of flawlessness. It is a process of self-discipline which initiates a metamorphosis from
self-interest to conscientiousness and an enlightened understanding of one's singular
obligation to an all-inclusive utopian society. According to Stefan Collini, culture is an ideal
of human life, a standard of excellence and fullness for the development of our capacities,
aesthetic, intellectual, and moral. By contrast, anarchy represents the absence of a guiding
principle in one's life which prevents one from striving to attain perfection. This lack of
purpose manifests itself in such social and religious defects as laissez faire commercialism
and puritanical hypocrisy. For Arnold, the myopic emphasis on egocentric self-assertion has a
devastating impact on providing for the needs of the community; indeed, it can only lead to a
future of increased anarchy as the rapidly evolving modern democracy secures the
enfranchisement of the middle and lower classes without instilling in them the need for
culture. Inherent in Arnold's argument is the idea of Hebraism versus Hellenism. Hebraism
represents the actions of people who are either ignorant or resistant to the idea of culture.
Hebraists subscribe to a strict, narrow-minded method of moral conduct and self-control
which does not allow them to visualize a utopian future of belonging to an enlightened
community. Conversely, Hellenism signifies the open-minded, spontaneous exploration of
classical ideas and their application to contemporary society. Indeed, Arnold believes that the
ideals promulgated by such philosophers as Plato and Socrates can help resolve the moral and
ethical problems resulting from the bitter conflict between society, politics, and religion in
Victorian England. As serious as Arnold's message is, he elects to employ the device of irony
to reveal his philosophical points to his readers. Through irony, satire, and urbane humor, the
author deftly entertains his readers with examples of educational travesties, he wittily exposes
the enemies of reform and culture, and he beguiles his readers with self-deprecating humor in
order to endear them to his ideas.
Critical Reception
Since its publication in 1869, literary scholars have generally regarded Culture and
Anarchy as a masterpiece of social criticism. While it is true that Arnold wrote his essay in
response to specific Victorian issues, commentators have since examined the work for its
relevance to universal ethical questions and social issues in subsequent generations. Several
twentieth-century critics have analyzed how Arnold employed the device of social criticism
to advocate his particular brand of humanism. William E. Buckler has discussed Arnold's role
as a classical moralist who believes that a truly conscious approach to life is its own reward
while also facilitating personal growth. Other late-twentieth-century commentators such as
Steven Marcus, John Gross, and Samuel Lipman have all endorsed Arnold's relevance to
modern society with varying degrees of support. Marcus has asserted that the philosophical
ideas in Culture and Anarchy resonate with modern concerns about culture and education just
as they did during the author's time, pointing out that it is important to remember that a
universal standard of excellence exists to which all reformers, philosophers, and critical
thinkers should aspire. Lipman has added that [there] can be little doubt that Arnold's great
value to us today is not as a philosopher of community or of society, let alone of the state; his
great value to us is as a lonely spokesman for the individual's search for an inward culture.
Other critics have challenged the claim that there is a timeless quality to Arnold's humanistic
philosophy. Maurice Cowling has questioned the ability of Arnold's ideas to translate from
the Victorian age to the modern day, particularly noting that the religious politics are
strikingly different between the two periods. Vincent P. Pecora has examined Culture and
Anarchy in light of Arnold's conspicuously absent thoughts on race relations as a factor in
elevating one's level of culture, concluding that it is a fundamental flaw that cannot be
ignored. Surveying the critical controversy surrounding Culture and Anarchy, Linda Ray Pratt
has suggested that it stems from misunderstanding Arnold. According to Pratt, [the] tension
between Arnold's vocabulary, which has often taken on different connotations for today's
readers, and the basic humaneness of his of his social vision is one reason for the confusion
about his ideas.