This is my booklet of Assignments.

1. 2020
Assignments
Semester 1 to 4
Ruchita Kankrecha
[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME]

2. Table of Contents
Renaissance literature .................................................................................................................. 4
Relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet................................................................................. 4
INTRODUCTION:.................................................................................................................... 4
HAMLET AS A PROTAGONIST CHARACTER IN THE PLAY:........................................................... 5
Ophelia’s characters in the Hamlet:........................................................................................ 6
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPHELIA AND HAMLET: ...................................................................6
The Neo-Classical Literature..........................................................................................................7
Gulliver’s Travels as Utopian or dystopian fiction........................................................................7
INTRODUCTION:.................................................................................................................... 7
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AS UTOPIAN OR DYSTOPIAN FICTION...................................................... 8
CONCLUSION:..................................................................................................................... 10
Literary Theory and Criticism- Western Poetics-1.......................................................................... 11
Biographia Literaria Chapter 14 ............................................................................................... 11
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................... 11
TWO CARDINAL POINTS OF POETRY :.................................................................................... 11
Different between poem and prose :.................................................................................... 12
IMAGINATION:.................................................................................................................... 12
CONCLUSION:..................................................................................................................... 14
Indian Writing in English[Pre-Independence]............................................................................... 15
Raja Rao's Contributionin Indian Renaissance.......................................................................... 15
INTRODUCTION:.................................................................................................................. 15
DEFINITION OF RENAISSANCE: ............................................................................................. 16
Raja Rammohan Roy as social reformer:............................................................................... 16
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY – BRAHMA SAMAJ : ......................................................................... 16
Raja Rammohan roy as educational reformer :...................................................................... 17
Religious Contributions by Raja Rammohan roy :................................................................... 18
BRAHMASAMAJAFTER RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY :................................................................... 18
Conclusion :........................................................................................................................ 18
Romantic Literature................................................................................................................ 19
Characteristics of Coleridge’s Poetry........................................................................................ 19
Introduction:....................................................................................................................... 19
About Coleridge : ................................................................................................................ 19
Characteristics of Coleridge’s poetry:.................................................................................... 20

3. Conclusion:......................................................................................................................... 22
Victorian Literature..................................................................................................................... 23
Tennyson and Browning: Characteristics of poetry.................................................................... 23
Introduction:....................................................................................................................... 23
Victorian poetry :................................................................................................................ 24
1. Alfred Lord Tennyson ( 1809-92) :............................................................................. 24
2. Robert Browning( 1812-1889) :................................................................................ 26
Conclusion :........................................................................................................................ 28
Literary Criticism........................................................................................................................ 28
Northrop Frye: The Archetypal Criticism................................................................................... 28
Northrop Frye :................................................................................................................... 28
What is Archetypal Criticism :............................................................................................... 28
Relation of criticism and religion: ......................................................................................... 29
Myth of literature:............................................................................................................... 29
Mythos grid :....................................................................................................................... 29
Genres and Seasons :........................................................................................................... 30
Archetypal other Genres :.................................................................................................... 30
Conclusion :........................................................................................................................ 32
Cultural Studies.......................................................................................................................... 33
Myth and meaning by Levi-Strauss........................................................................................... 33
AboutAuthor :.................................................................................................................... 33
About his book :.................................................................................................................. 33
- The Meeting of Myth and Science :................................................................................. 34
What is Myth?..................................................................................................................... 34
Meeting between myth and Science :................................................................................... 34
Science has only two ways of proceeding :............................................................................ 35
Modernist Literature................................................................................................................... 36
To The Lighthouse - Modern Interpretations............................................................................ 36
What is Modernism : ........................................................................................................... 36
A modernist interpretation of ‘To the Lighthouse ‘:............................................................... 38
American Literature.................................................................................................................... 40
American Dream and Existentialismin The old man and the Sea................................................ 40
Introduction :...................................................................................................................... 40
Old man and the sea :.......................................................................................................... 41

4. Existentialism in the old man and the sea:.................................................................................... 42
American Dream : ............................................................................................................... 42
Conclusion :........................................................................................................................ 43
Postcolonial Literature................................................................................................................ 44
Imagery Homelands By Salman Rushdie................................................................................... 44
Introduction:....................................................................................................................... 44
Imperialism:........................................................................................................................ 44
Michel Foucault’s Theory Power and Knowledge:.................................................................. 45
Imaginary Homeland by Salma Rushdie: ............................................................................... 45
The Idea of Home:............................................................................................................... 47
Imaginary Homeland :.......................................................................................................... 47
ELT – English Language Teaching................................................................................................. 49
Second Language Acquisition................................................................................................... 49
Introduction:....................................................................................................................... 49
SLA: Second language Acquisition:........................................................................................ 50
About Stephen Krashen : ..................................................................................................... 50
Difference between Acquisition andleaning : ....................................................................... 51
How do you acquire the language?....................................................................................... 52
What is Hypothesis?............................................................................................................ 52
Research:............................................................................................................................ 53
Product-oriented research :................................................................................................. 53
Process-oriented research :.................................................................................................. 53
Some disadvantages of this concept:.................................................................................... 54
Conclusion :........................................................................................................................ 54
The New Literature..................................................................................................................... 55
The sense of anending............................................................................................................ 55
Mass Communication and Media Studies..................................................................................... 57
Title: Cinema and Society ........................................................................................................ 57
Abstracts............................................................................................................................ 57
The birth of film industry in India ......................................................................................... 59
Representation of educational system in Indian cinema ........................................................ 59
Hichki:................................................................................................................................ 59
Hindi medium..................................................................................................................... 60
Tare Zameen Par................................................................................................................. 61

5. Super 30: ............................................................................................................................ 62
Impact of Cinema in society................................................................................................. 62
Renaissance literature
Relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet
INTRODUCTION:
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-
Avon on 23rd April 1564 and His father William
was a successful local businessman and his mother
Mary was the daughter of a landowner. William
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and 37 plays. These
short poems, deal with issues such as lost love
and His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his
formidable skill with language and words.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:”
The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English
language and have been translated into various languages and He was rare as a play-write for
excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment
with an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost romantic in quality.
“This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!”
Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

6. His plays have retained an enduring appeal throughout history and the world and Some of his
most popular plays are
Henry V
Macbeth
Hamlet
Othello
Twelfth Night
Romeo and Juliet
King Lear
One famous dialogue from as you like it is,
“All the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts…”
As You Like It, Act II
William Shakespeare’s famous quote is,
“Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of
inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated
deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to
his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands
alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of
the two glorysmitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton’s his compeer, not rival.”
HAMLET AS A PROTAGONIST CHARACTER IN THE PLAY:
Hamlet was a Prince of Denmark and the protagonist. In
the play Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late
King Hamlet and the nephew of the present king,
Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical and
full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for his
mother’s sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young
man who has studied at the University of Wittenberg,
Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times
prone to rash and impulsive acts.
He is particularly drawn to difficult questions or
questions that cannot be answered with any certainty
amd Faced many difficulties that his uncle murdered his
father evidence that any other character in a play would
believe. Hamlet becomes obsessed with proving his
uncle’s guilt before trying to act. The standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is simply

7. unacceptable to him. He is equally plagued with questions about the afterlife, about the
wisdom of suicide, about what happens to bodies after they die—the list is extensive. His
famous dialogue in the play was
"To be or not to be that is the question"
Ophelia’s characters in the Hamlet:
She was Polonius’s daughter and a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in
love. Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl who obeys her father and her brother,
Laertes. She always Dependent on men to tell her how to behave and she gives in to
Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness and death. she remains
maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid the flower
garlands she had gathered. She is also important character in the play. Ophelia’s sung one
song and that song was
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead;
Go to thy deathbed;
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll.
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God 'a'mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' we' you.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPHELIA AND HAMLET:
Ophelia's brother tries to save the future of her sister
which shows his love for Ophelia but On the other hand
hamlet's love for Ophelia throughout the entire play is
foggy. Hamlet tells Ophelia that he loves her but then
also says that he doesn't love her. The reason he did that
could be because he knows someone was watching their
conversation. He thinks that it is her father Polonius who
is keeping eye on them and planning to do something.
On the other hand when Hamlet tells Ophelia to go to the
nuns and it shows how much love and care he has for
Ophelia. But he doesn't want to bring the child in the
world because things are not going right. Hamlet

8. insanity makes some people think that he is crazy because of the rejection of his love for
Ophelia.
Unfortunately for Ophelia she ends up being a victim of the larger circumstances of the
Hamlet's life. He treated her weirdly when he visited her room and he treats her very rudely
when they speak in Act 3. These two scenes though are Hamlet's attempts to "put an antic
disposition on" and act crazy in an attempt to throw off Claudius and assure himself of
Claudius's guilt. Hamlet's focus on his revenge was primary, and he must do what he must to
convince everyone that he had lost his mind. That was why he told Ophelia that he never
loved her and that she should get herself to a nunnery. Those words are harsh, but necessary.
Hamlet was suspicious of being spied on and probably recognizes that Ophelia is being used
as "bait," so he said harsh things to her.
Hamlet reveals what is probably his true feelings when he stands at her funeral. He was
devastated that Ophelia has died and likely recognizes that his treatment of her and his killing
her father are probably to blame for her death. He boldly declares that he loved Ophelia and
that "forty thousand brothers could not (with all their quantity of love) make up my sum." He
said that he wishes he could be dead along with her. Even though Hamlet had an audience
here, he is speaking in verse and probably speaking from the heart in that moment. It was a
sad ending to what could have been a promising relationship. It all links to one of the central
themes of the play which was appearance versus reality. There are so many instances in the
Play where characters believe one thing but behave in an outwardly very different way
because it suits their purposes. Hamlet's feelings for Ophelia serve as an excellent example of
that.
The Neo-Classical Literature
Gulliver’s Travels as Utopian or dystopian fiction
INTRODUCTION:
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin. He was an satirist, essayist, and poet. He loved the land
of his birth. His famous works are
1.A Tale of a Tub (1704)
2.An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712) 3.Gulliver's Travels (1726)
4.A Modest Proposal (1729).

9. Swift's first major prose work is "A Tale of a Tub". demonstrates many of the themes and
stylistic techniques. He would employ in his later work. It is at once wildly playful and funny
while being pointed and harshly critical of its targets and In its main thread. the Tale
recounts the exploits of three sons. It is a representing the main threads of Christianity who
receive a bequest from their father of a coat each, with the added instructions to make no
alterations whatsoever. Swift was a prolific writer and notable for his satires. The most recent
collection of his prose works comprises fourteen volumes. A recent edition of his complete
poetry is 953 pages long.
One edition of his correspondence fills three volumes. He was a master of two styles of satire
and his two famous styles are
1.the Horatian and
2.Juvenalian styles.
His famous literary work is Gulliver’s Travels published in 1726. Gulliver Travels is apart
from it’s great merit as classic for children, is a satire on human nature. Swift posed as a
cynic and a misanthrope. His satire was harsh and bitter and he was steadfast in his concern
for humanity or he was honest as critic. Like all good satires the principle aim of Gulliver’s
Travels is to instruct and he wants to correct through ridicule. Gulliver Travels exposes with
intensity the ugliness of human nature and the vices of conceit, pride or cruelty.
Gulliver's Travels is an adventure story and the story involving several voyages of Lemuel
Gulliver who is protagonist of the story. He was went on several unknown islands living
with people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviours or philosophies. but after each
adventure, somehow he was able to return to his home in England where he recovers from
these unusual experiences and then sets out again on a new voyage. In the story there are four
voyages.
1. A Voyage to Lilliput :
2. A Voyage to Brobdingnag
3. A Voyage to Laputa
4.A Voyage to the country of the Houyhnhums
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AS UTOPIAN OR DYSTOPIAN FICTION
The term ‘Utopia’ has come to be synonymous with an ideal society. This term first used by
Thomas More in his work UTOPIA (1516) and in this book he set out the vision of an ideal
society. Plato’s REPUBLIC is considered a model of an ideal community. The Utopian
community is perforce an imaginary. In an Utopian society the community holds privilege
over the individual or conformity is an imperative. Dystopia was convinced of as the opposite
of utopia. Utopia represents a moral land which can never exist in the real world and in this
way Utopian places reflect wishes of the authors which can never come true. To name but a
few are the realization of democracy and human rights or they try to improved medical care
or nature conversation. Plato in his Utopia tried to give the idea of an ideal government based
on the standards of the time. In his Republic, Plato depicted a state in which the rulers are
philosophers, goods and women are communally owned, slavery is taken for granted, and the
breeding of children is controlled on eugenic lines. An important element to mention is the
letters that Gulliver sent to his cousin. In Gulliver’s Travels, the notion of estrangement can
be traced in all four books without difficulty. The first book depicts the journey to Lilliput

10. and The little mans themselves create the estranged effect as well as the setting of their land
with small trees and a village with small houses:
"When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a
more entertaining prospect. The country around appeared like a continued garden, and the
enclosed fields, which were generally forty feet square, resembled so many beds of flowers.
These fields were intermingled with woods of half a sang, and the tallest trees, as I could
judge, appeared to be seven feet high. I viewed the town on my left hand, which looked like
the painted scene of a city in a theater. "
“Gulliver's Travels can be seen as Utopian in its refusal to concede that the ideal society
can exist in the real world. As in Utopia, a seemingly ideal society can only be imagined far
from English shores”.
So Gulliver’s Travels can be read from the perspective of Utopian or we can also read from
dystopian fiction as Lemuel Gulliver journeys from one voyage or one imaginary island
community to author. A similar analysis can be for book two, where Gulliver on his second
voyage to “Brobdingnag” meets the “Giants”. The setting again has been estranged by the
thought of giant men and giant landscape and towns But the notion of novum can’t be
concluded from it as it again consists of similar social structures. As for scientific matters,
again there are no significant scientific elements to be discussed. Overall both books one and
two fail to be considered as a science fiction work. He also examine the social and political
structure in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and land of the Houyhnhums. The last voyage, the
land if the Houyhnhums seems almost utopian but here again swift exposes a world where
reason prevails in its perfection. Lilliput is populated by little people and they are scarcely
distinguishable from one another. They are from a mass of humanity with no distinguishing
features.
The Laputan community is a dystopia which relies on it’s Island subjects living below it for
sustenance. The people of the floating Island are peculiarly shaped. The scientists of their
good academy of Lagado are engaged in pointless experiments. The new land Gulliver visits
in his third voyage are even more nightmarish because it becomes evident to him that among
the polite and generous people. Gulliver describes them as the “Most mortifying sight” and
“Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness in
proportion to their number of years, which is not to described. “
The country of the land Houyhnhums comes closest to being an utopia. The horses are the
master. Gulliver described as “Orderly and rational” and “Acute and judicious. “ their
purpose in life is to cultivate reason and be governed by it. Friendship came naturally to the
Houyhnhums. Original lines from book are,
“If the censure of Yahoos could any way affect me, I should have great reason to complain
that some of them are so bold as to think my book of travels a mere fiction out of my own
brain, and have gone so far as to drop hints that the Houyhnhums and Yahoos have no
more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia.”
The pragmatic society of Houyhnhnms is directed towards an idealistic organization,
relationships and the general system of any civilized entity amd It is not entirely clear if Swift
managed to accomplish the task of bringing this Utopian model successfully or not. One
thing is for sure that out of this maze of conceptual imaginary worlds he managed to bring in
the sights some negative aspects by playing and bringing the opposites as facts. Swift tried to

11. introduce the reader with the new ideas rooted in the ancient Greece and thus fulfilling his
intellectual duty.
They are also practiced decency and civility. On the other hand the servants of the
Houyhnhums are the detestable Yahoos and are described by Gulliver as “abominable”
creatures. Gulliver is so taken up with the virtues of the inimitable Houyhnhums. They have
great difficulty adjusting with his family and his life in England when he returns there. He
feels alienated there and spent most of his time with the horses in his stable because they
resemble his former master.
CONCLUSION:
So that it is interesting to note that in Gulliver’s description of England, its people and
institutions, England is too emerge as a dystopia, an unpleasant, violent and corrupt society
which does not practice what is preaches. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels gives some
important aspects of science fiction genre in its use of the estrangement technique and the use
of utopia and dystopia in its context. But overall the thing that brings this satire close to
science fiction is the way it makes the readers think and The epistemological questions that
are raised in this book among our realization of social faults and the depiction of man in
several conditions with its strengths and weakness both in body and mind, all lead to a
“cognition” that are promised by a good science fiction story. Gulliver’s Travels does not fall
completely in to the genre of science fiction, but it could have been one of the main
inspirations and predecessors of this genre.

12. Literary Theory and Criticism-WesternPoetics-1
Biographia Literaria Chapter 14
INTRODUCTION
Biographia Literaria chapter – XIV is a very famous work of literature. It was written by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was poet of romantic era. He was an best English poet,
philosopher and critic. He was a founder of the romantic era in England and close to his best
friend William Wordsworth. His some notable works are
1. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
2. Frost at midnight
3. Kubla Khan
His most prominent and interesting work of literature was “Biographia Literaria” and it was
published – 1815 to 1817. It is a critical work of S. T Coleridge and this work is divided in to
24 chapters. This is not simple work but hard to understand. He wrote this work for
explaining his own narrative style of poetry. In chapter XIV of Biographic Literaria,
Coleridge’s view on nature and function of poetry in discussed in philosophical terms and
The poet within Coleridge discusses the difference between poetry and prose and the
immediate function of poetry. whereas the philosopher discusses the difference between
poetry and poem. He was the English writer to insist that every work of art is by its very
nature or an organic whole. At the first step he rules out the assumption, which from Horace
onwards, had wrought such have in criticism , that the object of poetry is to instruct or as a
less extreme from of the heresy had asserted, to make men morally better.
TWO CARDINAL POINTS OF POETRY :
Coleridge started this chapter with two important cardinal points of poetry.
1. The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of
nature
2. The power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying with the colours of imagination.
So, through this two cardinal points he wants to say that words worth would write poetry
dealing with the theme of first point.

13. “ The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moon- light or sun set
diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of
combining both. These are the poetry of nature”
In the second type of poetry the incidents or situations were to be supernatural. “The Lyrical
Ballads” dealing with two cardinal points.
Different between poem and prose :
Simply people think that poem is something which written by the use of meter, rhyme and
diction. And prose is written in a simple way like no meter and rhyme. Meter should be
chosen based on the content. Before the invention of printing and before the introduction of
writing meter especially alliterative meter, an independent value as assisting the recollection.
The element of meter owe their existence to a state of increased excitement The poem
contains the same elements as a prose composition. But we can find some different between
poem and prose. In simple words we can say that,
“Poem means arrangements of the words”
IMAGINATION:
In chapter XIV of the book he talk about imagination which is known as a magical and
synthetic power, and add, “this power, first put in action by the will and understanding and
retained under their remissive, though binding gentle and unnoticed, control, reveals itself in
the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference;
of the general. With the concrete; the idea, with the , image the individual, with the
representative, the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar object; a more then
usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-
possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and
harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature: the manner to the
matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry.” There are two types
of imagination.
1. Primarily imagination and
2. Secondly imagination.
1. Primary Imagination:-
It is the power of perceiving the object of sense. Both in their parts and as a whole.It is an
involuntary act of the mind. the human mind receives impressions and sensations from the
out side world, unconsciously and involuntarily, it imposes some sort of order on those
impressions, reduces them to shape and size, so that the mind is able to form a clear image of
the out side world. It is in this way that clear and coherent perception becomes possible.
2. Secondary Imagination:-

14. Secondary imagination which makes artistic creation possible and It is more active and
conscious in its working but it requires an effort of the will, volition and conscious afford. It
works upon what is perceived by the primary imagination and its raw material is the
sensations and impression supplied to it by the primary imagination. By the effort of the will
and the intellect, the secondary imagination selects and orders the row material and reshapes
and remodels it into objects of beauty. The external world and steeps then with a glory and
dream that never was on sea and land. It is an active agent which,
“Dissolves, diffuses, and dissipates, in order to create.”
Difference of object in prose and poem:
Prose and poem contains same elements but compositions are different. The main difference
is ‘Object’ between poem and prose. There are two types of objects.
1. Immediate object
2. Ultimate object
In the poem the immediate object is ‘Pleasure’ and in prose the immediate object is ‘Truth’.
The best example is
“ Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November. “
Any poem which reveals truth has the aim of permanent pleasure.
Difference between poetry and poem :
In the last section of the chapter, Coleridge considers to distinguish poem from Coleridge
points out that,
“Poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and even without the contradistinction
objects of a poem “
So in simple language we can say that poetry is the use of words to evoke a writer’s feelings
and thoughts, and poem is the arrangement of the words. Poetry as poetry is essentially ideal
that it avoid and excludes all accident that it’s apparent individuality if rank, character and
occupation must be representative if class. The persons of poetry must be clothed with
generic attributes. With the common attributes of class and not with such as one gifted
individual might possibly possess but such as from his situation it is most probable
beforehand that he would possess. “MICHAEL” is best example. Common language cannot
be used for all types of poetry. Now do we expect people of higher rank gain pleasure from
works of rustic life. Poetry should also have representations of superior people as well. Poetry
should be a combination of both representations. A poem uses symbols and stanzas that have
sentences. There are types of poem like sonnets, ode, epic, narrative, Lyrical etc...
“Poetry is defined as a literary from if art “
Poetry is the process of creating a literary using metaphor and symbols. John Shaw Cross
writes,

15. “ This distinction between ‘Poetry’ and ‘poem’ is not clear and in stead of defining
poetry. He proceeds to describe a poet and from the poet he proceeds to enumerate the
characteristics of the imagination. “
So that we can say that without imagination poem or poetry is not possible. When you go
along and observe or imagine or try to write poetry at that time you may create your own
poetry. It is not easy to write poem or poetry. Imagination is important in poem or poetry.
Higher people may enjoy common poetry for three reasons,
1. For feeling realistic
2. Natural representation
3. Sense of superiority.
So common people will only talk about their region. But that is not the entire reality.
Common men are everywhere not just in village. Common language will have less
vocabulary and rustic people have less experience. So certain things can only be
communicated in superior language. Truth just like language cannot be generalised.
CONCLUSION:
So, Coleridge is the first English critic. He was interested in the creative writing. He gave
many important points in poem, poetry and prose. And he also noticed that most of poets
write in a very simple way. They are not using certain things.
“When a poem or a part of poem shall be adduced which is evidently important in the
figures or contexture of it’s style then and not than till than can I hold this theory to be
either plausible or practicable.”

16. Indian Writing in English[Pre-Independence]
Raja Rao's Contribution in Indian Renaissance
INTRODUCTION:
“ success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to carry on that
counts “
- Winston Churchill
The 19th century is very important period in history of Indian renaissance. It was a period
during which English educated Indians were determined to reform Indian culture, society and
religion and English educated Indians sought inspiration from Vedas and Upanishad. They
were also influenced by Western thoughts like Hindu leaders Raja Rammohan roy,
Rabindranath Tagore, Keshav Chandra Sen, M. G. Rande, Atmaram Pandurangan, Swami
Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and many others Hindu leaders. They condemned
evils and abuse. In professor S. Radhakrishna’s words,
“ The baby’s voice now becomes an echo, his life is a question, his soul or brain, and his free
a slave to things. “
The movement towards this goal is called as,
‘The Indian renaissance movement ‘
To prepare to ground for nationalism. Raja Ram Mohan Roy is considered as the pioneer of
modern Indian Renaissance for the remarkable reforms he brought in the 18th and 19th
century India. Among his efforts, the abolition of the brutal and inhuman Sati Pratha was the
most prominent. His efforts were also instrumental in eradicating the purdah system and child
marriage. In 1828, Ram Mohan Roy formed the Brahmo Samaj, uniting the Bhramos in
Calcutta, a group of people, who had no faith in idol-worship and were against the caste
restrictions. The title 'Raja' was bestowed upon him by the Mughal emperor Akbar II, in
1831. Roy visited England as an ambassador of the Mughal King to ensure that Bentick's
regulation banning the practice of Sati was not overturned. He died of meningitis in 1833
while residing in Bristol, England.

17. DEFINITION OF RENAISSANCE:
Renaissance means,
“ Rebirth, Reawakening, and Intellectual Awareness “
But cultural Awakening and Cultural revivalism are different terms which are used for
renaissance in history. After thirteenth century, under the changing condition of the time,
“ Man tries to discover the man and the world. “
So, It was like awakening to the true realities about the nature and man and this awakening is
referred to as renaissance. Renaissance is French word which means to wake again from a
sleep. Some authorities have called it rebirth. So we can say that,
“ It was an Intellectual, Liberal and cultural movement and it is not a political movement.
“
Raja Rammohan Roy as social reformer:
During the late 18th century the society in Bengal was burdened with a host of evil customs
and regulations. Elaborate rituals and strict moral codes were enforced which were largely
modified, and badly interpreted ancient traditions. Practices like child marriage polygamy
and Sati were prevalent that affected women in the society and The most brutal among these
customs was the Sati Pratha. The custom involved self-immolation of widows at their
husband’s funeral pyre. While the custom in its original form gave choice to the women to do
so, it gradually evolved to be a mandatory custom especially for Brahmin and higher caste
families. Young girls were married to much older men, in return for dowry, so that these men
could have the supposed karmic benefits from their wives’ sacrifice as Sati. More often than
not the women did not volunteer for such brutality and had to be forced or even drugged to
comply.
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY – BRAHMA SAMAJ :
Raja Rammohan Roy is famous leader of Indian renaissance. He was born in 1774 in an
orthodox Bengali Hindu family at a place called ‘Radharpura’. His father was employed in
the kingdom of a local nawab. He studied Sanskrit literature, Hindu philosophy and Arabic.
He made a deep study of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. He was employed in
English East India company and he was in pursuit of a comparative study of different
religions.
In 1817, Rammohan roy started “ The Atmiya Samaj “ in culctutta were he preached against
social events like the cast system, sati pratha, child marriage and untouchability and he also
attacked ideal worship and polytheism.
In 1829, Rammohan found the “ Brahma Samaj” in culctutta. The Brahma Samaj stood on
the twin pillars of human reason, Vedas and Upanishad. He wanted to restore Hinduism to

18. the position of ancient glory, a society with no cast, no child marriage, no untouchability etc.
He was told that,
“ I am not Hindu, nor a mussalman, nor a Christian. “
In the brahma Samaj raja Rammohan roy adopted “ The best practice of all religious. “ He
believed in the lofty ideal of Christianity and Islam. He also wrote the book called ‘ the
precept of Jesus’. He thus stood for a synthesis of the east and the west.
“ Raja Rammohan roy was a champion of the cause of women”.
He encouraged women’s education and even he encouraged widow remarriage. He was in
favour of English education and western science and he opened the Anglo Hindu colleges and
Vedanta colleges were both Indian and western subjects were thought. So that we can say
that,
“ The Brahmo Samaj is the social order of the Brahmo religion”.
Raja Rammohan roy had a deep love for his country and his people and he was a champion of
liberty.
“ He was the brightest star in the Indian sky in 19th century “.
And he was rightly called
“ The father of modern India”.
He was died in 1833 at ‘ Bristol’ in England. He published two journals,
“ The samband Koumudi “
“ The Mirat-ull-akbar”
So that we can say that,
“ Raja Rammohan roy was a social reformer who also wanted to bring religious reform”.
Raja Rammohan roy as educational reformer :
Ram Mohan Roy was educated in traditional languages like Sanskrit and Persian. He came
across English much later in life and learned the language to get better employment with the
British But a voracious reader, he devoured English literature and journals, extracting as
much knowledge as he could and He realised that while traditional texts like Vedas,
Upanishads and Quran provided him with much reverence for philosophy, his knowledge was
lacking in scientific and rational education. He advocated the introduction of an English
Education System in the country teaching scientific subjects like Mathematics, Physics,
Chemistry and even Botany. He paved the way to revolutionizing education system in India
by establishing Hindu College in 1817 along with David Hare which later went on to become
one of the best educational institutions in the country producing some of the best minds in
India. His efforts to combine true to the roots theological doctrines along with modern
rational lessons saw him establish the Anglo-Vedic School in 1822 followed by the Vedanta
College in 1826.

19. Religious Contributions by Raja Rammohan roy :
Ram Mohan Roy vehemently opposed the unnecessary ceremonialism and the idolatry
advocate by priests. So that He had studied religious scriptures of different religions and
advocated the fact that Hindu Scriptures like Upanishads upheld the concept of monotheism.
This began his quest for a religious revolution to introduce the doctrines of ancient Vedic
scriptures true to their essence. He founded the Atmiya Sabha in 1928, nd the first meeting of
this new-found religion as held on August 20 that year. The Atmiya Sabha reorganised itself
into the Brahma Sabha, a precursor organisation of the Brahmo Samaj. The primary facets of
this new movement were monotheism, independence from the scriptures and renouncing the
caste system. Brahmo religious practices were stripped bare of the Hindu ceremonialism and
were set up following the Christian or Islamic prayer practices. With time, the Brahma Samaj
became a strong progressive force to drive social reforms in Bengal, especially women
education.
BRAHMASAMAJ AFTER RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY :
Rabindranath tagor and later keshav Chandra Sen are the two famous leaders of brhama
Samaj after raja ram Mohan roy. But the reaching of Raja Rammohan roy was continued.
Later on Rabindranath tagor and his followers broke away and established the “Adi brahma
Samaj”
Conclusion :
So that we can say that Raja Rammohan roy give important part in the Indian English
literature.

20. Romantic Literature
Characteristics of Coleridge’s Poetry
“Water, Water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink “
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Introduction:
The dates of Romantic period of literature are not precise. The term ‘Romantic’ was itself
not widely used after the period. The period begins in 1798. In this period we can see the two
famous poets publication – Wordsworth and Coleridge of their Lyrical Ballads. These years
show literary and political events. The Romantic period was an era in which a literary
revolution took place alongside social and economic revolutions. In some histories of
literature the Romantic period is called the “The age of Revolutions’. In this period the nation
was transformed from an agricultural country to an industrial one. In this period we can see
many changes like power and wealth were transferred from the landholding aristocracy to the
large – scale employers of modern industrial communities and an old population of rural farm
laborers became a new class of urban industrial laborers. So this new class called the working
class. We can also see the effects of French Revolution. The Romantic age in literature is
often constructed with the classical or Augustan age which preceded it.
About Coleridge :
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the great poet, philosopher, and literary critic. He loved
to point out to his mother inefficiencies in the person’s knowledge. He started reading at the
age of five and he has completed reading Bible and Arabian Nights. He was also influenced
by other writers who were living in his period. He met Charles Lamb when he visited
London. After meeting with Charles Lamb, Lamb wrote one Essay ‘The Essay of Elia’. Then
he met Robert Southey who is another fellow Romantic poet. With Southey he started to

21. build a Utopian Society for which he Named ‘Panties of Crecy’. But it was Failure. After that
he met William Wordsworth and became best friends. With Wordsworth he started to write
his first poetry collection and the collection of poetry was published as ‘Lyrical Ballads ‘.
Coleridge has also started paper which is called ‘Friend ‘ and this paper devoted to truth and
liberty. He suffered from various diseases and he took Opium as a painkiller. Opium help him
to feel the painless and he became an Opium addict. He wrote amazing poems.He was the
founder of romantic movement in England with his one of the friend William Wordsworth.
About his poetry :
His best poems are
1. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
2. Kubla Khan
3. Christabel
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem which is celebrated as a literary classic and
there’s wonderful lines in the poem. Kubla Khan was inspired from an Opium dream that he
had. Coleridge also written a play ‘Osorio’ But he changed the title ‘Remorse’. Original play
was ‘Osorio’. In Lyrical Ballad, Coleridge specifically considered four poems namely
1. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
2. Foster mother Tale
3. Nightingale
4. Dungeon
He also wrote one essay called ‘Biographia Literaria ‘ and some other critical essay talking
about his own theory. His theory like
1. Imagination and fancy
2. Primary and secondary imagination
3. Willingly suspension of disbelief
He also wrote ‘Hexes’ on Shakespeare. In this, he critically analze Shakespeare play and
poems.
Characteristics of Coleridge’s poetry:
1.Mystery and supernaturalism :
His poetry is intensely imaginative. It exploits the weird, the supernatural and the obscure.
The very center of Coleridge’s imagination lies in his faculty of evoking the mystery of
things. Coleridge wrote in ‘Biographia Literaria’:
“It was agreed that my endeavour should he directed to person and character, supernatural or
at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human nature and a
semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing
suspension of disbelief for the movement which constitute poetic faith. “

22. It was with this idea in mind that he compo ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ‘ a poem
found entirely on supernaturalism, ‘Christabel ‘and ‘Kubla Khan’, the two poetic fragments
deal with supernatural element. The supernatural element in his poetry is remarkable for
physiological interest, dramatic truth and realism. Coleridge himself said that,
“The incidents and agents were to be in part at least supernatural ;and the excellent aimed
at was to consist in the interesting of the affection by the dramatic truth of such emotions,
as would naturally accompany such emotions, supposing them real.”
Supernaturalism in his poetry is neither a presentation of horror by external devices, nor a
mere exhibition of the effects of the supernatural on human conduct and behavior, but it is an
exploration of what pater calls ‘Soul lore’, the deepest emotion of the soul are explored by
the experience of the supernatural.
Secondly, the incite and emotions arising from them are so full of human interest that they
acquire a dramatic truth and produce ‘a suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic
faith’.
Thirdly, the supernatural appear psychologically real. Coleridge’s three best poems – Rime of
the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla khan are the finest examples of his superb use of
supernatural. Pater remarks :
“It is this finer fruit of his more delicate psychology, that Coleridge infuses into
romantic adventure, which itself was then a new or revived thing in English language. “
2.Love of nature :
Love of nature is very important characteristic in all poetry. Like all romantic poets Coleridge
loved Nature and he loved nature for own sake. His love took almost the form of reverent
worship, for he saw behind all the phenomena of nature the veiled presence of God. Nature
alive in God, and each of her forms, - the flower or the river or the mountain, informed by a
distinct spirit, had a distinct life of its own. This idea forms the basis of ‘The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner ‘ where the guilty Mariner is punished by the avenging spirits and of nature
changed. It is our own thought that make nature to us. It is in our thought that we give form to
external objects. In ‘Ode to Dejection’ he says :
“O Lady! We receive what we give
And in our life does nature live. “
Coleridge’s nature poetry is conspicuous for subtle and minute observation of the scenic
beauty of nature. He painted the outward forms of nature with “a degree of delicacy to which
neither Wordsworth himself nor perhaps any other worshipper of nature, Keats expected, ever
quite attained “. He had a sense of colour, comparable to that of Keats in poetry and turned in
painting. For example,
1.The thin grey cloud is spread on high.
2.The one red leaf, the last of its clan
3.The leval sunshine glimmers with green light.
Symons writes that,
“With him colour us melted in atmosphere which shines like fire through a crystal. It is
liquid colour, the dew on flowers or a mist of rain in bright sunshine. “
4.Dreaminess :

23. Coleridge’s imagination faculty was at its height when he escaped from reality into a mystic
world of dreams. It was out of such dreams that he conceived Ancient Mariner, Christabel
and Kubla Khan. The quality that gives them their poetic distinction is their twilight
vagueness, in which everything is seen thorough a haze as a sort of projection from a dream –
land. Kubla Khan is all a melody and wonder, and it was out of the stuff of dreams that this
wonderful poem was concerned and wrought.
5.Coleridge’s material art :
As a gifted poetical artist Coleridge is most musical. No. Poet has ever excelled him in the
witchery of music. According to Symons,
“He is always a singer and shows a grater sensitiveness to music than any English poet,
expect Milton.”
Music comes spontaneously and naturally to Coleridge. He used various devices to create
music.
First, he creates music by the skilful use of vowel sounds.
Secondly, word and phrases instinctively selected for their sound value are so placed that
that they not only create music in the lines where they occur, but contribute to the entire
symphony of the preceding and succeeding lines.
Thirdly, he skilful handles the meter.
Coleridge deftly employed the old ballad metre. He imparted a lyric intensity and dramatic
force to it in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan. He reproduced
the homely diction of medieval balladry with a skill greater than that of Scott. For Example,
“Day after day, day after day
We stuck…….
Alone, alone, all, all, alone
Alone on a wide, wide sea. “
Conclusion:
So, Coleridge considered as a best romantic poet. We can see that through his works and his
poetry includes all the characteristics of Romantic period.

24. VictorianLiterature
Tennyson and Browning: Characteristics of poetry
“I cannot rest from travel : I will drink
Life to the less : 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;”
(Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson)
Introduction:
In the history of English literature, there are many periods likes the age of Elizabethan, The
puritan age, The age of restoration, 18th century literature, The age of Romantic, The
Victorian age and 20th century literature. So all age has their own characteristics and writer or
poets. I would like to talk about the age Victorian and poets like Tennyson and Browning.
This period is also known as ‘The age of Queen Victoria’.
Brief Introduction about Victorian age :
The term ‘Victorian age’ is often used to cover the whole of the nineteenth century. The
Victorian age started in during the reign of Queen Victoria and the age Victorian is one of the
most remarkable period in the history of England. Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837,
at a time when the monarchy as an institution was not particularly popular but after
something the monarch assumed a grater symbolic important. A history of the Victoria age
records a period of Economic expansion and rapid change and it was an era of Material
influence, political consciousness, industrial and Mechanical progress, social unrest,
Education expansion and many other things that are important for their nation.
“The Victorian period is also known as an era of peace. “
Literary features of the Victorian age :
1. Morality
2. The revolt

25. 3. Intellectual development
4. The new Education
5. International influences
6. The achievement of the age
Victorian poetry :
Poetry written in England during the reign of Queen Victoria referred as Victorian poetry.
The poet of this period are known for their interest in verbal embellishment mystical,
interrogation and brooding Skepticism. In this age there were many poets. Included, two
major poets are
1. Alfred Lord Tennyson
2. Robert Browning
some minor poets like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Matthew
Arnold, Edward Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow etc.
1. Alfred Lord Tennyson ( 1809-92) :
Lord Tennyson is the representative poet of the Victorian age. His poetic activity extended
over sixty years. In his life he faces many problems. Circumstances of his family was not
good. ‘poems chiefly Lyrical’ ( 1830) is a collection of poems which are immature in poetic
excellent and are remarkable for pictorial effects. ‘Poems ‘ (1833) which contain such
memorable poems as
1. The Lady of Shallott
2. Oenone
3. The Lotos Eaters and
4. The places of Art, marks a decided advance in Tennyson’s poetic art.
He also produced two volumes in 1842. The first volume consists mostly of revised version
of poems which had already been published. The second volume consists of entirely new
poems as Morte D’ Arthur, Ulysses, and Locksley. “The Princess” (1847) poem Written in
Blank verse and contain some beautiful lyrics and the poem deals with the them of ‘the new
woman’. In ‘Memoriam’, an elegy on the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, contains
meditations of life and death. Some of other poems like Maud and other Poems (1855) and
Enoch Arden and other poems (1855) did not add anything remarkable to his poetic art.
In 1859, 1869, and 1889 he issued a series of The Ldylls of the king which deals with the
them of King Arthur and The Round Table. His other works which are also important are
‘Locksley Hall Sixty Years After’ (1886) and ‘The Death of Bonone’ (1892).
Characteristics of Tennyson poetry :
Alfred Lord Tennyson was the best poet of the Victorian England. As W. J. Long remarks :

26. “For nearly half a century Tennyson was not only a man and a poet, he was a voice, the
voice of a whole people, expressing in exquisite melody their doubts and their faith, their
griefs and their triumphs. In the wonderful variety of his verse he suggests all the qualities
of England’s greatest poets. “
Tennyson has carved for himself a permanent place in English poetry due to the following
characteristics.
1. The representative poet of the age :
His poetry is the most comprehensive representation of the spirit of the age. Stopford Brooke
remarked :
“For more than sixty years he lived close to the present life of England, as far as he
was capable of comprehending and sympathising with its movements; and he inwove what
he felt concerning it into his poetry. “
His poetry gave the Victorian what they desired. In all his poetry we can find feelings and
tendencies like Moderation in politics, refined culture, religion liberalism, attachment to
ancient institutions etc.
Tennyson is the most complete representative of the Victorian spirit of compromise. As
regards sex problems, the main object of the Victorian was to discover some middle course
between the unbridled licentiousness of previous ages and the complete negation of the
function and purpose of nature. ‘The Miller’s Daughter’ is a story of married love, which
Byron and Shelley could not envision.
He was not opposed to progress and development but he believed in slow and orderly
development.
“The old order changeth Yielding place to new
And God fulfils himself in many ways
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. “
2. Religionand Science:
Religion and Science which stood in antagonism to each other, found an important place in
his poetry. Tennyson tried to Evolve a compromise between Religion and Science. He
propounded a via media between the materialistic Science of his day and dogmatic
Christianity. He looked essential. He felt that science was both fruitful and important for
progress. So he told his generation that the true religious man was the man of action. He told
them :
“Their lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe men, than in half the creeds. “
He represents the Victorian spirit of compromise between science and religion when he
writes :
“Let knowledge grow from more and more
But more of reverence in us dwell. “
3. His Sense of low:

27. The dominant note in Tennyson’s poetry is his sense of law. The thing which impressed him
most is the spectacle of order in the universe. He bestowed highest praise on England because
she is
“A land of settled government
A land of old and just renown
Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent. “
W. J. Long writes :
“Law implies a source, a method, an object. Tennyson, after facing his doubts honestly
find this law even in the sorrows and losses of humanity. He gives this law a personal and
infinite source and find the supreme purpose of all law to be a revelation of divine love. “
4. His nature poetry :
Tennyson’s nature poetry bears the impact of contemporary science. It is seen in the
minuteness and exactness of his observations. He saw nature with the eye of the science and
his landscape painting shows that he was endowed with the exactitude of the botanist and the
delicate sensibility of the artist. Nature for him is always a background for reflecting some
human emotion. His native poetry is intellectual and world of nature is the world of
‘Imaginative scientific man ‘, who has an eye for beauty and a heart to feel it.
5. Poetic craftsmanship :
Tennyson was a great and gifted poetic craftsman. His essentially the artist. His poetic style
shows remarkable flexibility, which in every kind of poetry – the song, the idyll, the dramatic
monologue, the dialect poem etc. He formed a poetic style of his own, of quite faultless
precision – musical, simple and lucid. Tennyson’s method is to seize upon appropriate
details, dress them in appropriate and musical phrases and thus to throw a glistening image
before the reader’s eye.
2. Robert Browning ( 1812-1889) :
Robert Browning was a versatile poet whose poetry is conspicuous for Optimism and he was
influenced by Shelley and Browning. His earlier work ‘Pauline’ appeared in 1833. It was
followed by ‘Paracelsus’ which reveals the poet’s faith in love and God. It is dramatic in
form but lyric in spirit. ‘Sordello’ ( 1840) is an obscure work on the relationship between art
and life. ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ ( 1846) is Collation of dramatic and miscellaneous
poems.’ Dramatic Lyrics’ (1846) exhibits versatility of Browning’s poetic genius :
tenderness in ‘Evelyn Hope’, passion in ’A Gondola’, subtlety in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’,
Intellectual brilliant in ‘My Last Duchess’, etc. His last volume ‘Asolando’ was published in
1899.
Characteristics of Browning’s Poetry :
Browning is an original poet and his poetry is remarkable for the following characteristics :

28. 1. His message or Optimism :
There is nothing doubtful, nothing pessimistic in the whole range of his poetry. He is a poet
of hope and joy. His Optimism was a result of experience. Browning’s firm faith in the
existence of god, who is all pervading, behind and all powerful, is the main source of his
Optimism. In Pippa Passes he sings :
“God is in his Heaven
All is right with the world. “
Browning is a singer of the joys of life. The worldly pleasure, wisely used, are instrument to
the mind, as food is an instrument to the body. There should be harmony and balance
between the soul and the flesh. They supplement each other. In Rabbi Ben Ezra he condemn
the opposition between the soul and the flesh:
“Let us cry ‘All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, nor
Then flesh helps soul. “
Browning believes that the present earthly life is a probation for the life to come and we
should face the trials and difficulties during the probationary period with courage.
2. Browning as the singer of love :
Browning is an ardent singer of the glory of love. He is the poet wedded to love and his love
poetry is realistic and intellectual.
“Browning’s love poetry is the finest in the world because it does not talk about
raptures and ideals and gates of heaven. “
All love poems of Browning wheatear dealing with cases of successful love or failure in love
end on a note of optimism and triumph. He treats love as a philosophic principle which
harmonise and unifies all beings. It is the moral ideal towards which man must strive to
advance:
“O world, as god has made it all is beauty,
And knowing this love, and love is dusty. “
3. Browning as the writer of Dramatic Monologues :
Browning is a gifted poetic artist. His artistic principle is that a poet should under no
circumstances, sacrifice sense to sound. Hence, he often seems to be careless to music and
melody. But when sense and sound combine as they often do in his poetry, he is able to
achieve a music more melodious and sweet, then cam even be possible for those who care for
sound alone. Browning was great metrical artist and he invented a large variety of verse from
and used them with consummate skill.
4. Browning’s Obscurity :
Obscurity is a serious drawback in Browning ‘s poetry. Extreme compression and
condensation of style also contribute to his Obscurity. His style is often telegraphic and
inverted contributions abound. His stupendous learning and fondness for Latin quotations and
expressions further complicate matters. He wrote with great rapidity and rush. The language

29. at his command was poor instrument to render effectively and with the same speed the
thoughts and ideas that flashed through his mind.
Browning’s conversation and realistic style influenced modern poets.
Conclusion :
So they are good poets of Victorian age. Browning had a remarkable sense of historical and
Tennyson is the poet of human nature in its noble, common and loving forms.
Literary Criticism
Northrop Frye: The Archetypal Criticism
Northrop Frye :
Herman Northrop Frye was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist. He was considered
one of the most influential of the 20th century.Frye gained international fame with his first
book Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William
Blake but it was the 'Anatomy Of Criticism' that firmly established him as one of the most
brilliant and influential of modern critic. Like other modern critics from I. A. Richards
onwards he is impatient with the confusions and contradiction of most extent literary
criticism. Frye argues, is the recurrence with various degrees of 'displacement' of certain
archetypes in literature of all periods and cultures. This theory is expounded with
characteristics lucidity, economy and with in 'The Archetypes of Literature'. Frye's work has
aroused considerable controversy. So he was one of the best critic.
What is Archetypal Criticism :
Frye’s defination ,
“In literary criticism the term archetype denotes narrative designs patterns of action,
characters types, them and the images that recurring a wide variety of work of literature.
And as well as in myth, dreams and even social rituals.”
Such recurrent items are often claimed to be the result of elemental in a literary work evokes
a profound response from the attentive reader. An important antecedent of literary theory of
the archetype was the treatment of myth by group of comparative anthropologists at
Cambridge University, especially James G. Frazer whose ‘The golden bough’ identified
elemental patterns of myth and ritual.
Frye did not follow the other two major names in the field of criticism based on archetypes
and His views were not connected to anthropology and psychoanalysis as were those of

30. Frazer and Jung. Frye shows no concern to the origin of the archetypes or All he states is that
the archetypes make the concepts of the universe better understandable for the human beings.
The archetypes develop in accordance to ‘human needs and concerns’ which makes them
proper for human life.
Frye did not follow the other two major names in the field of criticism based on archetypes
and His views were not connected to anthropology and psychoanalysis as were those of
Frazer and Jung. Frye shows no concern to the origin of the archetypes or All he states is that
the archetypes make the concepts of the universe better understandable for the human beings.
The archetypes develop in accordance to ‘human needs and concerns’ which makes them
proper for human life.
Relation of criticism and religion:
The relation of criticism and religion when they deals with the same documents, it is more
complicated. In criticism, or as in history, the division is always treated as a human artifact.
God for the critic, whether he find him in one of the best book written by Milton paradise lost
or in bible. This is a character in human story. For the critic all epiphanies mental phenomena
closely associated in their origin with dreams. Art deals not with the real but with the
conceivable and criticism.
Myth of literature:
We have identified the central myth of literature in narrative aspects, the quest myth. This
central myth as a pattern of meaning also like we have to start with working of the
subconscious. Where the epiphany originates, in others words in the dream. The importance
of the god and hero in the myth lies on the fact that much such characters who are conceived
on human likeness and have power over nature. It is this community which the hero regularly
enters in his apotheosis. This gives us our central pattern of archetypal images, the vision of
innocence which sees the world in terms of total human of the unfallen world or heaven in
religion.
Mythos grid :
In this literary universe, four radical mythoi.
There are two basic categories in Frye’s framework
1.comedic and
2. tragic
Each category is further subdivided into two categories,
1. comedy and
2. romance for the comedic; tragedy and satire for the tragic.

31. Though he is dismissive of Frazer, Frye uses the seasons in his archetypal literature. Each
season is aligned with a literary genre like
1. comedy with spring
2.romance with summer
3. tragedy with autumn and
4. satire with winter.
1. Romance and summer are paired together because summer is the culmination of life in the
seasonal calendar, and the romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph, usually a
marriage.
2. Autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre
because it is known for the “fall” or demise of the protagonist.
3. Satire is metonymized with winter on the grounds that satire is a “dark” genre. Satire is a
disillusioned and mocking form of the three other genres. It is noted for its darkness,
dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure.
4.Comedy is aligned with spring because the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of
the hero, revival and resurrection. As we know that spring symbolizes the defeat of winter
and darkness.
Genres and Seasons :
There are two major categories
1. comedic, further subdivided into comedy and romance
2. tragic, further subdivided into tragedy and satire.
He has also identified a connection between various seasons and the different literary genres.
He associates comedy to the season of spring, tragedy to autumn, satire with winter and
romance to summer and he has also identified logic for this association. Comedy is basically
about the birth and revival of the hero as spring is symbolic of victory over winter. Tragedy is
associated to the downfall of the protagonist as autumn suggests the demise of the seasonal
calendar and Satire depends on mockery and is concerned to insignificance of the hero. That
is why it has been associated to winter, which symbolizes the absence of productivity.
Similarly, summer refers to conclusion of the seasonal calendar as romance usually ends with
an achievement, most commonly in the form of marriage.
Archetypal other Genres :

32. Frye also advocates a difference in the way a symbol is interpreted in connection with
different genres. In the schema that he suggests for this purpose, he identifies five different
spheres
1.namely
2.human
3.animal
4vegetation
5.mineral and
6.water.
1. Humans : humans in comedic work for fulfilment of wishes, in tragic it acts in a tyrannical
way leading to isolation and downfall. The comedic human world is representative of wish-
fulfilment of wishes. In contrast, the tragic human world is of isolation, tyranny, and the
fallen hero.
2. Animals : In the comedic genres are docile and pastoral. For example sheep. while
animals are predatory and hunters in the tragic. For example wolves. Animals are gentle and
pastoral in comedic while predatory in tragic.
3. Vegetation : For the realm of vegetation, the comedic is pastoral but also represented by
gardens, parks, roses and lotuses. And tragic, vegetation is of a wild forest, or as being
barren.
4. Mineral : Cities, temples, or precious stones represent the comedic mineral realm. The
tragic mineral realm is noted for being a desert, ruins, or “of sinister geometrical images”.
5. Water : The water realm is represented by rivers in the comedic. With the tragic, the seas,
and especially floods, signify the water sphere.
So, the same spheres are to be interpreted in different ways and to the different effects in case
of the comedic and the tragic works, respectively.
Situation or symbols :
Situation and symbol is very important to find some kind of archetype. Situation like,
1. The quest :
The characters search for something whether consciously or unconsciously. We see this in
their act, thoughts, belief are centered around the goal of finishing this search. For example,
in hairy ape we can see the quest for his own identity.
2. The Task :
Task play a significant role in our life. This demotes to a probably superhuman act that must
be skilful in order to fulfill the crucial goal.
3. Water :

33. Water is required to life and development; it normally emerges as a birth or rebirth symbol. It
is also strong life power. Symbolizes creation, purification and salvation also fruitfulness and
development.
4. Sun :
It stands for creative energy like fire, thinking, illumination, knowledge, spiritual wisdom,
faithfulness, dawn etc. Rising sun stands for birth, creation, explanation. While setting sun
stands for death.
Symbols in colours like,
- Colours:
In our life, we believe that colour is very important in some rituals amd in some things which
are important in your life. So in arcytypaes we can find some colours like,
1.Black :
As we know that black colour is not good when you do some good work according to our
thinking. This is the symbol of gloom, disorder, mystery, the anonymous, before existence,
death, the lifeless, evil.
2.Red :
Red colour is the symbol of blood, sacrifice, cruel enthusiasm, chaos, dawn, birth, fire,
sentiment, wounds, death, feeling.
3. Green :
Green colour is symbol of hope, development, greed, Earth, fruitfulness, feeling, vegetation,
water, nature, kindness.
4.White :
White colour is the symbol of light, spotlessness, harmony, purity, goodness, Spirit, morality,
creative power, spiritual thinking.
5. Orange :
Orange colour is the symbol of fire, pride, ambition, selfishness, Venus.
6. Yellow :
Yellow colour is the symbol of enlightenment and wisdom.
Conclusion :

34. So, this is not only elementary but grossly over simplified just as our inductive approach to
the archetype was a mere hunch. There are very interesting points.
Cultural Studies
Myth and meaning by Levi-Strauss
About Author :
CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS was a leading social anthropologist. He was Born in 1908 and he
was revered as the father of modern anthropology.
He was author of Myth and Meaning. He died in Paris in 2009.He held the chair of Social
Anthropology at the Collège de France. He received numerous honors from universities and
institutions throughout the world and has been called, alongside James George Frazer and
Franz Boas, the "father of modern anthropology".Lévi-Strauss has identified the
historiographical problems that are encountered when attempting to study mythology and oral
cultures.
About his book :
Myth and Meaning is very interesting book. In this book we can find five main chapters.
1. The meeting of myth and science
2. 'primitive' thinking and the 'Civilized' mind
3. Harelips and twin : the splitting of myth
4. When myth become history
5. Myth and music.
In this book he Cracking the Code of Culture, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Tristes
Tropiques, Totemism, The Savage Mind, The Raw and the Cooked, From Honey to Ashes,
and Structural Anthropology. The author explicates a little of his notion of science and its
relationship to anthropological and structural analysis of myth. Ever since the rise of science
and the scientific method in the seventeenth century, we have rejected mythology as the
product of superstitious and primitive minds. Only now are we coming to a fuller

35. appreciation of the nature and role of myth in human history. In these five lectures originally
prepared for Canadian radio, Claude Lévi-Strauss offers, in brief summations, the insights of
a lifetime spent interpreting myths and trying to discover their significance for human
understanding. The first chapter begins with the discussion of the historical split between
Mythology and Science. In his book, Myth and Meaning Lévi-Strauss presents a personalized
narrative from his anthropological perspective of how and why humanity uses mythology to
not only gain understandings about themselves and the world, but also to maintain an
understanding of their history both as individuals and as members of a larger social network.
Myth and Meaning consists of Lévi-Strauss personally responding to questions asked by an
interviewer on topics ranging from The Meeting of Myth and Science to Primitive Thinking
and the Civilized Mind to When Myth Becomes History. In this work Lévi-Strauss draws a
much needed distinction between historical events, events that have happened in the past, and
the meaning that these historical events possess. So, Lévi-Strauss presents,
“A new understanding of mythology by arguing that myth is a language used by
individuals in order to understand themselves and their place in the world.”
In this assignment, I would like to talk about his first and very interesting chapter, “The
Meeting of Myth and Science”.
- The Meeting of Myth and Science :
What is Myth?
First of all what is myth? So myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early
history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving
supernatural beings or events. The word myth derives from the Greek mythos which has a
range of meanings from “word,” through “saying” and “story,” to “fiction”. The
unquestioned validity of mythos can be contrasted with logos, the word whose validity or
truth can be argued and demonstrated. Because myths narrate fantastic events with no attempt
at proof, it is sometimes assumed that they are simply stories with no factual basis, and the
word has become a synonym for falsehood or, at best, misconception. In the study of religion
it is important to distinguish between myths and stories that are merely untrue.
Meeting between myth and Science :
The gap between science and mythical thought for the sake of finding a convenient name.
With Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and the others, it was necessary for science to build itself up
against the old generation of mythical and mystical thought. It was thought that science could
only exist by turning its back the world of the senses. The sensory was a delusive world
whereas the real world was a world of mathematical properties which could only be grasped
by the intellect and which was entirely at odds with the false testimony of the senses. Now,
he said that contemporary science is tending to overcome this gap and that more and more the

36. sense data are being reintegrated into scientific exploration as something which has a
meeting, which has truth and which can be explained.
For example, there was in philosophy from the time of the Greeks to the Eighteenth and even
the nineteenth century and there still is to some extent, a treman, the idea of the time, the
ideas of the circle. There were two classical theories :
1. As a tabula rasa with nothing in it in the beginning. Everything comes from experience. It is
from seeing a lot of round objects.
2. Classical theory goes back to plato, whi claimed that such ideas of the circle are perfect.
Science has only two ways of proceeding :
1. It is either reductionist
2. Or structuralist
It is reductionist when it is possible to find out that very complex phenomenon on one level
can be reduced to simpler phenomenon on other levels. For instance there is a lot in life
which can be reduced to physicochemical processes which explain a part but not all.
Mythical stories are seem, arbitrary, meaningless, absurd, yet nevertheless they seem to
reappear all over the world. A ‘fanciful’ creation of the mind in one place would be unique.
You would not find the same creation in a completely different place. There is something
very curious in semantics, that the word ‘meaning’ is probably in the whole language. What
does ‘to mean’ mean?. He try to say that there has been a divorce, a necessary between
scientific thought and what He called the logic of the concrete that is the respect for and the
use of the data of the sense. We are witnessing the movement when this divorce will perhaps
be overcome or reversed because modern science seems to be able to make progress not only
in its own traditional line but still within the same narrow channel.
In this chapter, he may be subjected to the criticism of being called ‘Scientific’ or kind of
blind believer in science who holds that science is able to solve absolutely all problems well.
He certainly don’t believe that because he cannot conceive that a day will come when science
will be complete and achieved. There will always be new problems and the exactly at the
same pace as science is able to solve problems which were deemed philosophical a dozen
years or a century ago. So there will appear new problems which had not hitherto been not
perceived as such. There will always be a gap between the answer science is able to give us
and the new question which this answer will raise. Science will never gives us all the
answers.
The relevance of this chapter and its argument in cultural studies is something to be taken
note of. Cultural studies, time and again has aimed at bringing the marginalized and mass
cultures to the forefront. This particular chapter and its ending argument i.e science cannot
give all the answers, can be well understood when we take into consideration those cultures
and people who in Strauss in words are 'without writing'.

37. Modernist Literature
To The Lighthouse - Modern Interpretations
What is Modernism :
When we read the difference period between current and movements, at that time the literary
historian hopes to create some order in the overwhelming abundance of literary text. With
European literature the term ‘period’ has been preferred and the description of progressive
period of Classicism, romanticism, realism and symbolism. In twentieth century literature we
can find currents and movements such as, futurism, expressionism and surrealism. Modern
literature gives us the current characteristics and current is considered as a distinctive feature
of the period.
Much early twentieth century literature falls within Futurism, expressionism and surrealism.
In middle 1970 century, the awareness has grown that important authors such as T. S. Eliot,
Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, James Joyce, Marcel Proust etc. All are
different writers and they are not thinking about spontaneity and one-sidedness as the
futurists and the surrealist authors did. All are the modern authors and represent the real
world in their literature and all are intellectual and to be capable of writing manifestos and
convening press conferences. For example when we read T. S. Eliot and his work, we comes
to know that in his work he represents the real world in which he was lived. Like in ‘The
Waste Land’ he talk about one of the major theme ‘life is death and death is life’ and he talk
about life, birth and rebirth. According to T. S. Eliot,
“Poetry should be express the intricacy and complexity of life and hence poetry in the
modern age was bound to be complex”
Modern authors had made a considerable contribution to European literature between the two
world war. During this movements or period we can find the writers of fiction and criticism
rather than as poets. According to Harry Levin,

38. “Modernism belonged to the past and had given way to the documentary realism, to the
Existentialist novel and after the second world war to the writing of the angry young men
in England and the beat generation in America “
“The contrast between modernist and their postmodern critics marked the end of
modernism. “
Stephen Spender talk about the difference between ‘The contemporary and the modern. ‘
when we read about Stephen spender or his poetry, many of his poems are pure and they are
detached from the everyday things of the world. So the modernist writers writers are more
interested in knowing new things. T. S. Eliot said in his Essay,“tradition and individual
talents” that,
“Writers should represent the pastness of the past and its present “.
When you want to talk about new things first you have to talk about past because knowing
the past is important. It is not important that you have to represent the past in your work but
to sometimes to represent the present you have to talk about the past things.
Modern writers are interested in the various ways in which knowledge of the world can be
transmitted but the actual transfer of knowledge as something of secondary importance. We
can find many hypothesis. The modernist present their intellectual hypotheses in arguments.
Modernist emphasis the value of the intellectual consideration and reconsideration.
According to Virginia Woolf,
“Nothing seemed to have marge, they all sat separate and the whole of the effort of
merging and flowing and creating rested on her”.
Some critic did not see the modernism in Virginia Woolf’s work like,
“To the Lighthouse” (1927)
“Mrs. Dalloway” (1925)
“The Waves” (1931)
Several interpretation of Woolf’s work have been based on symbolic and realist principles.
Some critic believed that a symbolic and realist interpretation of the novel is not possible but
we would like to defend the position that the Spender’s code expressed in ‘To the
Lighthouse’ is modernist one. When we read, we comes to know that several aspects of the
text which remain problematic in a symbolist or realist reading. For example, the structure of
the novel, the meaning of the second part “Time Passes” and the death of Mrs. Ramsay or
fragmentary description of the character. Many critics talk about the Decoding system. The
first critic who talked about this system is William Empson and he assume that,
"Virginia Woolf’s fiction is wrapped in symbols, but he finds the symbolism elusive,
which leads him to wish. "
In 1973 James Naremore interpreted Virginia Woolf’s fiction by means of Psychoanalytical
decoding system.In To the Lighthouse, James signalled a sexual symbolic in ‘Window’ and
‘lighthouse’, but it may doubted whether female or male are obligatory connections of the
words.

39. A modernist interpretation of ‘To the Lighthouse ‘:
In the novel, there is a great difference between the time of narration and narrated time. As
we know that the book is divided into three main parts.
1. The window
2. Time passes
3. The Lighthouse
The first part covers less than half a day, second part cover a period of roughly ten years and
the last part about half a day. In part one and two not much happen but in second part a war
has been going on. In the novel, the term ‘event’ used in narratology to describe the transition
of one state of things to another. The event in the novel are not restricted to action and in a
superficial way, the fabula of the novel can be summarised as follows,
1. James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs. Ramsay wishes to go lighthouse, but his
mother just give him the hope because she knows that Mr. Ramsay never give them
permission to visit
2. Mrs. Ramsay finds a substitute satisfaction in educating her children and entertaining
her Guests. Guests are, Charles Tansley, a bookish intellectual, Lily Briscoe, A painter with
post impressionist and Mr Carmichael who is an elderly poet.
Time passes relates the event of the long period that intervenes between part one and third.
This part including the death of Mrs. Ramsay, pure and Andrew. Andrew Ramsay died as a
soldier in France. During these days the house from where the lighthouse can be seen, remain
uninhabited for several summers and falls into considerable disrepair. So the third part ‘The
Lighthouse’ describe the presence of Mr. Ramsay, Cam, James, Mr Carmichael, Lily Briscoe,
Nancy in the house.Mrs. Ramsay sets out for the trip to the lighthouse.
In part two, time passes has been difficult to interpret. Arnold Bennett considered that the
second part is not good and it a failure. The semantic world of to the lighthouse is
characterised by the dichotomy event versus moment and this opposition is reflected in the
trichotomy of the novel. Like the first part talk about several personal experiences including
moments of vision, second part include many events and the last part again several strictly
personal experiences. The third part, time passes, deals with death, decay and material
conditions or it is contrast with the first and third part.
Part one and three not only talk anout the personal experiences but also the difficulty of
sharing these with others. Arnold Bennett said that the death of Mrs. Ramsay ‘cuts the book
in two’. The physical death of Mrs. Ramsay is a condition for her spiritual presence in the
consciousness of Mr. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. It is very interesting to understand the
physical distance as a condition of understanding the plays a part also in the relation between
Mr. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. When Mr. Ramsay go to Lighthouse at that time Lily realises
that her feelings towards him are changing.
“Her feelings for Mr. Ramsay changed as he sailed further and further across the day. “
The main theme of the novel is the urge towards communication which will always remain
indirect and imperfect but which can at best materialise in a situation of detachment and
freedom.
William Empson has called the lighthouse a symbol of Mrs. Ramsay
The text provides ample support for identifying Mrs. Ramsay with the lighthouse.Mrs.
Ramsay sees herself as a ‘Wedge-shaped core of Darkness’. This core of darkness could go

40. anywhere, for no one saw it. There was freedom, there was peace. Lily Briscoe sees Mrs.
Ramsay in forms that resemble the lighthouse.
The relationship between Mr and Mrs. Ramsay, the indemnificationof Mr. Ramsay with the
lighthouse and the role of antagonist which Lily Briscoe takes over from Mrs. Ramsay these
lead towards a very complicated ending. We observed above that the growing geographical
distance between Mr. Ramsay and Lily paradoxically enhances the possibility of contact
between them. When Mr. Ramsay has reached the point of not asking anything at that time,
Lily Briscoe realises that, whatever she had wanted to give him, when he left her that
morning, she had given him at last’. Lily becomes a substitute for Mrs. Ramsay but Mrs.
Ramsay can be identified with the lighthouse. After her death, Mrs. Ramsay is in two
different places. Lily feels curiously divided as if one part of her were drawn out there. This
kind of duplication results from the provisionalityof the point of view of the character and is
in agreement with the modernist code.
So the character in to the lighthouse serve to exemplify a hypothesis, a thought, or an idea
and do not conform to Psychoanalytical laws. There is relatively little psychological
development in the character but albeit in a rather indecisive way.

41. AmericanLiterature
American Dream and Existentialism in The old man and the Sea
“Every day is a new day,
It is better to be lucky.
But I would rather be exact,
Then when luck comes you are
Ready “
Introduction :
‘The old man and the sea’ is one of the best novel written by Earnest Hemingway. He was an
American short story writer, Journalist, Novelist and also sport man. When we read his
works, we can find some common themes such as, love, war, wilderness, struggle, and loss
etc. He also won the noble prize in literature in 1954. His famous works are,
1. To have and have not (1937)
2. The sun also rises (1926)
3. The old man and the sea (1952)
4. Adventure of a young man (1962)
In 1930s, were filled with writing and adventure and as Hemingway hunted in Africa and
fished in the gulf stream near to Cuba. He also reported on the Spanish Civil war for the
North American Newspaper Alliance. The mid 1030s, Hemingway began gathering material
for the old man and the sea. The other parts which is edited by Charles Scribner were later
published in 1970 as Islands in the stream and the old man and the sea won the Pulitzer prize
in 1952. After two years Hemingway also awarded the Nobel prize for literature. After some
times, he approached his sixties and his health began deteriorating. He suffered from

42. hypertension, depression and paranoia and committed suicide in 1961. So he is remembered
as one of the great stylistic innovator of the modern American Literature.
Old man and the sea :
The old man and the sea is best novella which is published in 1952. This is the story of one
old fisherman Santiago and his struggle against Marline. In this novella, there were following
characters.
1. Santiago – a man with will power
2. Marlin – symbol of great achievement or opportunity
3. Manolin– little boy
The story as a depiction of the author’s real life experience. Hemingway was an fisherman
himself had caught his shore of Marline and witnessed shark attack at his prize. In the novella
we can find Following symbols.
1. The sea – the environment controls the lives of people, novel as an example of
naturalism, man was most able to prove himself worthy in Isolation.
2. The Mast – one of the religious symbolism, the torn of the mast lost harpoon – loss of
power
3. Lions – a common symbol of pride which he value so much
4. Religious symbolism – Santiago as a god like figure, he suffers greatly but does
nothing to help anyone. He is on receiving end of help from the boy. Santiago credit
himself with an ability to triumph over adversity through a combination of will and
intelligence.
5. Dimaggio – a model against which Santiago Judges himself.
The old man and the sea is the story of Santiago who is an agian Cuba fisherman man and
who alone in his life or in boat faces the most difficult fight against an big fish Marlin. As we
know that he is old and everything about him is old expect his eyes and they were cheerful
and undefeated. Santiago has lost his fisherman’s identity or luck and he had gone eight –
four days without catching fish. Manolin’s parents called him to join another boat but still he
believed that his old man is good man and he has ability to prove himself. The other
fisherman make fun of Santiago but old man himself remain hopeful and undefeated. Every
day 7he struggled a lot to prove himself. The boy still loves Santiago and help him a lot. The
boy bring him food and clothing. When they meet, Santiago and Manolintalked about
Baseball and the important player of the period, the DiMaggio. The old man also tells him
about his past life and when he sleep, he dreams of being young again like the Manolin and
seeing lions on the beaches in the evening. Old man’s boy is old but still strong. One day he
decide to go and he find one big fish Marlin – two feet longer than the skiff. Just think what
will we do when we find this kind of big fish. We will stop or runs away. May be we will go
back. But old man remembers his younger days when he arm wrestled a man in a Casablanca
tavern. So to catch this fish Santiago struggle a lot but never defeated. In last he came back
with the skeleton of Marlin.
“Those who live the struggle and exhibit special process are Hemingway’s heroes.
Those who don’t are depicted as failures and weeklings”

43. Existentialism in the old man and the sea:
Existentialism studies about our existence. Why we all are here or what are we doing here?
This kind of question Existentialist ask or study. Why do we exist or in this world in which
we know that death certain. Our life is very uncertain but death is certain. Still we keep on
living or going. When we want to see this we have to read the myth of Sisyphus. We all in
hope that we will get the meaning but it is not possible. So to live life we all are doing
something. In waiting for goat by Samuel Beckett, we can see that Vladimir and Estragon
both are waiting and while waiting they are doing some activities like changing the caps,
questions and answers etc. So they have hope that god will come. Existential says that we are
waiting for death. Death will definitely come but when we don’t know. So we all are born
here to do something or maybe something not. We can only wait for death but we are not
doing this. While waiting we are doing something we are achieving something in our life.
While waiting we all are doing something. All human actions are meaninglessness or
pointless even we are doing in the hope of one thing which is certain is death. As we believe
that death is the medium to be free and that’s why we all are waiting for death. So to wait is
to exist. Throughyour entire existence you are continuously waiting for something which is
certain is death. If you accept death as it is than it may create negative attitude but we have to
see it objectively. You should keep on working. Wait for something positively not negatively.
So you like waiting and all the experience. Be like a Sisyphus. One you start working, you
like it.
In old man and the sea we can see the life of old man (Santiago).So the old man gives us
positive existential attitude. He is keep on going even after he is not getting anything or able
to catch the fish and still hr keep on going. When he see the marlin, at that time he is not
stopping but keep going because he knows that in life if you want to achieve something than
this is the best time to achieve. He think that I will go with marlin and his this positive
attitude proves him right. If he will think that marlin never come and why should I wait than
many we go back but he knows that marlin will come.
American Dream :
Throughout the history, American people believe that we are great and they are living with
the American dream. They have hope or belief that America is the best place to live and they
are believe that we will provide all the necessary thinks to people. American dreams began
after American independence movement. In America there were party like Liberalist and they
decided that we will prove that our nation is best or greatest nation of the world. In Moby
Dick or in The old man and the sea we can find this dream. Romantic age in American
movement is full of this American dreams. There are cases where the Romantics and the
critics have try to break this American dream idea. They are saying that American dream is
just an illusion and we should not completely blind by this kind of think. After all this is just
an dream and it is an illusory concept. If you want to build the nation, you can build it and
you don’t need any dreams. You can do this by your hard work and skills. You are binding
other for your illusory dream.
In the old man and the sea, the marlin signifies this American dream. So marlin is American
dream which old man wants to achieve. So the hope which embodies the American dream is