TTM's Guidance for Studying English Literature

Special Issue on the Art, Artists and Crafts of Bankura

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Tue, 24 May 2011 09:46:00 +0000

Chitrolekha International Magazine on Art and Design
An Online Magazine Dedicated to Exploring the Language of Beauty
ISSN 2231– 4822
Available at www.chitrolekha.com
The district of Bankura in West Bengal, facing the world with its arid and stony landscapes, is surprisingly a fertile ground of arts and crafts with a rich cultural heritage. It boasts of a musical tradition of high order with Bishnupur Gharana (school), beautiful original architecture and sculpture, stunning traditional crafts, exquisite textile products, folk art and a number of world famous artists. But at the same time, it is very sad to note that the present condition is a very depressing and languishing one. A holistic approach to the problems is urgently required to save and revive the traditions. In our next issue, a Special Issue on the Arts and Crafts of Bankura, we want explore these rich cultural traditions with a view to presenting a comprehensive critical and descriptive collection of articles, essays and reports, which we hope, would provide multidimensional perspectives to the interested persons, agencies and organizations for a better appreciation of the arts and crafts and for any action plan taken towards a revival. A bit of hope that inspires and encourage us to this direction is that we live in a new century which will surely show us some ways with its own kind of instrumentalities and technologies in networked condition.
With this, we seek descriptive and/or analytical writings along with surveys and interviews on the areas stated below. We are, however, open to suggestions for inclusion of any topic on the theme.
Topics/areas:
Architecture of Bankura
Sculpture of Bankura
Textile (Baluchari, Jamdani and Sonamukhi silk)
Metal Crafts (Dokra Metal, Bell Metal etc)
Traditional Handicrafts (terracotta, Dashabatar Tas, conch-shell crafts, wood crafts, bamboo crafts, Patochitro etc)
Folk Art/Craft
Crafts by Women (Alpona, Kantha, embroidery)
Great Artists from Bankura (Jamini Roy, Ramkinkar Beij)
Word-limit: Minimum 800 words and maximum 5000 words.
Images: copyright free images are essential. Minimum three images (800 pixels minimum on the largest side) required.
Style: MLA
Contact: Sreecheta Mukherjee (Editor), email- editor@chitrolekha.com
Website: www.chitrolekha.com
Submission Deadline: June 30, 2011

Call for Papers: "A Living Presence": Tagore Today

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:08:00 +0000

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
ISSN 0975-2935 ● www.rupkatha.com

Call for Papers

Special Issue, October, 2010 (Vol 2 No 4)

"A Living Presence": Tagore Today

THE THEME

Rabindranath Tagore's amazing career fulfilled several roles—litterateur, creative artist, pedagogue, social and political theorist, rural reconstructionist, entrepreneur and a major global thinker. Widely travelled, Rabindranath interacted with the foremost global visionaries, offering ideas that combined ethics and economics, artistic creativity, translation, literature and art, critiques of violence, nationalism and any curtailment of personal freedom. Tagore's legacy continues to engage us as we stepped into 150 years of his birth, especially forcing us to reexamine our perspectives in more recent disciplines like environmental sciences, alternative education practices, social work, historiography, rural reconstruction and of course globalisation studies. This volume seeks to explore the range of Tagore's ideas by bringing together interdisciplinary articles that evaluate the relevance of Tagore's literature and ideas in the context of the 21st century.

TOPICS

I. CRITICISM

i. Tagore's Literature and Literary Criticism

ii. Tagore and the Visual Arts

iii. Tagore and Music

II. PERSPECTIVE

I. Tagore as Educator

II. Tagore the Environmentalist

III. Tagore the Reformer

IV. Tagore the traveller

V. Tagore, the nation and Globalization

VI. Interactions with Tagore

VII. The philosophy of Tagore

III. CREATIVE

i. (If possible, we will publish some of Tagore’s paintings/drawings/sketches).

ii. We encourage independent translations of Tagore's texts. Creative literature inspired on Tagore, paintings inspired by his work or portraits are also encouraged.

IV. BOOK REVIEW

i. Reviews of Books on Tagore not older than two years

CONTACT

Email: editor@rupkatha.com
Please visit http://rupkatha.com/submissionguidelines.php for submission guidelines.

DEADLINE OF SUBMISSION: SEPTEMBER 30, 2010.

***Please forward this to teachers, scholars and enthusiasts***

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:03:00 +0000

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities

ISSN: 0975-2935
http://www.rupkatha.com/
Call for Papers
Revisiting Latin American Literature and Arts: Special Issue dedicated to the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence

On the occasion of the bicentennial of Mexican Independence, we are dedicating this Special Issue (Vol 2, No 3) of Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in humanities (ISSN 0975-2935) on Latin American literature and arts, including those of Mexico in particular.
We invite articles and book reviews on the following broad areas:

1. General Topics:
i. Discussion of the evolution of Latin American culture, literature and arts;
ii. Analysis of trends-old and/or new-that can be marked for a better understanding of cultural facts;
iii. Theories and meta-theories for Latin American literature and arts;
iv. Latin American literature and arts on the digital world;

2. Particular Topics:
i. Discussion of particular Latin American authors;
ii. Analysis of particular text/s for unearthing new themes;
iii. Discussion of particular Latin American visual artist/s and their art works in new light;
3. Art Works:
Contemporary Latin American artists are invited to submit their art works as JPG files (1024 pixel on the longest side) along with a bio-note and short description about the making of the works.

4. Book Reviews: We also invite reviews of books of/on Latin American authors and culture.

Please note that we are open to the suggestion of inclusion of any topic not listed above. We can also be contacted for any editorial help.

SUBMISION DEADLINE: 15TH JULY, 2010.
Email: editor@rupkatha.com
Please visit www.rupkatha.com for submission guidelines.

Exile Literature and the Diasporic Indian Writer

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:08:00 +0000

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

By Amit Shankar Saha

The essay takes a holistic view of the word “exile” to encompass a range of displaced existence. It illustrates through John Simpson’s The Oxford Book of Exile the various forms of exiles. The essay then goes on to show that diasporic Indian writing is in some sense also a part of exile literature. By exemplifying writers both from the old Indian diaspora of indentured labourers and the modern Indian diaspora of IT technocrats, it shows that despite peculiarities there is an inherent exilic state in all dislocated lives whether it be voluntary or involuntary migration. More importantly, a broad survey of the contributions of the second generation of the modern Indian diaspora in the field of Indian writing in English depict certain shift in concerns in comparison to the previous generation and thereby it widens the field of exile literature.

Read the full article>> http://rupkatha.com/exileliteraturethediasporicindianwriters.php

Giving the Lie: Ingenuity in Subaltern Resistance in Premchand’s Short Story ‘The Shroud’

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:52:00 +0000

By Somdev Banik

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

It is not always that the subaltern cannot speak, though their authentic representation is often more pronounced in the regional literatures, rather than in Indian Writings in English. The subaltern in Premchand’s story ‘The Shroud’ not only resists the forces of exploitation, but subverts dominant social mores and traditions to gain an advantage over the master class, forcing them to shell out money which they wouldn’t have otherwise in ordinary circumstances. This glory of victory is attenuated by the realization that the subaltern in turn is also an exploiter of the woman in the family, who in life and death is used for sustaining self-interests of the males of the family.

Read the full article>> www.rupkatha.com/premchandshortstorytheshroud.php

Representation of Indigenous Women in Contemporary Aboriginal Short Stories of Australia and India: A Study in Convergences and Divergences

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:47:00 +0000

By Indranil Acharya

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

This paper tries to review and reassess the tribal situation with special reference to the tribal women in India and Australia. It is an attempt to locate the ‘Aboriginal woman’ question in the context of women’s movement in both countries. In Australia the women’s movement, on the whole, has not been successful in incorporating Aboriginal women into its concerns and activities. Relations with Aboriginal women have constituted a problem with the women’s movement. Despite many differences in socio-cultural set up the stories of Anil Gharai and those of Australian Aboriginal writers share many common traits and cut across cultural differences. It establishes the theory of pan-aboriginality that exists in countries that possess a sizeable population of indigenous people.

Read the full article>> http://rupkatha.com/aboriginalshortstories.php

Aesthetics of Indian Feminist Theatre

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:43:00 +0000

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

Anita Singh

This study addresses a number of Indian feminist plays (both by men and women) that were written and performed in the last century and early years in this century. The paper focus specifically on Indian theatre because of its long established theatre tradition that goes back to 1st century B.C. Ironically in such a country there were hardly any women dramatist to speak of before 19th century. At the core, the belief of a Feminist theatre is in the efficacy of theatre as a tool for conscientization, for critiquing social disparities and for self exploration and expression. Feminist theatre is a source of empowerment; it enables women to speak out. It is at the intersection of art, activism and social relevance and sees theatre as an instrument of real change in women’s lives. It is an exploration of women’s own unique idiom, their own form, their language and ways of communication. It is a challenge to the established notions of theatre.

Read the full article>> http://rupkatha.com/aestheticsindianfeministtheatre.php

Rabindranath Tagore’s English Prose: “Some Qualities of Permanence”

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:41:00 +0000

By Fakrul Alam

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

This paper explores the enduring qualities of Rabindranath Tagore’s English prose and puts forward the thesis that not only the Gitanjali poems but also many other of his English writings attained “some qualities of permanence” almost wholly because of his artistic skills. In addition to the strength of his ideas and the intensity of his feelings, the main reason why his prose works found an appreciative audience for a long time in the west can often be attributed to his adroit use of the English language in his letters, lectures, essays and speeches and his ability to adjust his style in accordance with the occasion, the audience, the genre and the subject matter. Without the impact the English prose writings have had, Tagore’s international reputation would not have survived thus far. Indeed, the enduring popularity of a work such as Nationalism tells us quite clearly that while as far as his argument is concerned there is a lot that is still relevant for the world in Tagore’s English writings, they should still appeal to us also because of his eloquence and writing skills.

Read the Full article >> http://rupkatha.com/rabindranathtagoreenglishprose.php

Finding the Voice of the Peasant: Agriculture, Neocolonialism and Mulk Raj Anand’s Punjab Trilogy

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:37:00 +0000

By Jonathan Highfield

Abstract from Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2

Mulk Raj Anand’s Punjab trilogy–The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940), and The Sword and the Sickle (1942)–speaks directly to the destruction of traditional agricultural systems under colonial rule and the absorption of the agricultural goods and human labor of India into a global economic system. The Punjab trilogy traces the life of a character searching for another India, an India free of oppression, misery, and classism. Lalu Singh looks at the situation in the Punjab from an ever-widening orbit, only to recognize that global movements devalue the very people they purport to help. In the end he rejects theory for action, returning to the peasant society he fled as a youth. His decision has resonance in the twenty-first century as formerly colonized regions face the neocolonial onslaught of biopiracy and genetic trait control technologies.

Read the full Article>> http://rupkatha.com/mulkrajanandspunjabtrilogy.php

The Noble Savage and the Civilised Brute: Nature and the Subaltern Angst in Swarup Dutta’s Machh Master (The Expert Angler)

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Parallel reading of history from the subaltern point of view is not only possible, but it also often proves to be revealing. It often unearths a new discourse, which challenges the canonized history or even subverts it. This paper offers a reading of a recent Bhasa (Bangla) novel Machh Master (The Expert Angler) where the Naxalite Movement that rocked Bengal in the sixties, has been narrated and analysed from the viewpoint of one dalit subaltern. The novel attempts to create a binary between this ‘uncorrupted’ world/mode of existence and the civilized, sophisticated, intellectual, but essentially ‘corrupted’ urban world. In this natural savage world and its eco-system, the urban, elitist Naxalite movement turns out to be nothing but an imposition and an intrusion. At the end, disillusioned Neul detaches himself from this movement, goes back to, and embraces Nature in a desperate bid to get back his pre-lapserian mode of existence. Neel, chief agent of the Naxalite movement, too is influenced by these children of Mother Nature, and undergoes a transformation. This paper explores this interesting role of Nature in this new reading of the history of mankind.

Read the full article>> www.rupkatha.com/swarupduttamachhmaster.php

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2009

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:44:00 +0000

CONTENTS		PDF Pages
Editorial PHP Version \| PDF Version		101-102
CRITICISM
“The Noble Savage and the Civilised Brute: Nature and the Subaltern Angst in Swarup Dutta’s Machh Master (The Expert Angler) Sajalkumar Bhattacharya PHP Version \| PDF Version		103-114
Finding the voice of the Peasant: Agriculture, Neocolonialism and Mulk Raj Anand’s Punjab trilogy Jonathan Highfield PHP Version \| PDF Version		115-133
Rabindranath Tagore’s English Prose: “Some Qualities of Permanence” Fakrul Alam PHP Version \| PDF Version		134-149
Aesthetics of Indian Feminist Theatre Anita Singh PHP Version \| PDF Version		150-170
Representation of Indigenous Women in Contemporary Aboriginal Short Stories of Australia and India: A Study in Convergences and Divergences Indranil Acharya PHP Version \| PDF Version		171-179
Giving the Lie: Ingenuity in Subaltern Resistance in Premchand’s short story ‘The Shroud’ Somdev Banik PHP Version \| PDF Version		180-185
PERSPECTIVE
Exile Literature and the Diasporic Indian Writer Amit Shankar Saha PHP Version \| PDF Version		186-196
CREATIVE
Painting and Illustrations Soumitra Mondal PHP Version \| PDF Version		197-200
BOOK REVIEW
Book Review: Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai ed. Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary History Jaydeep Rishi PHP Version \| PDF Version	201-204
About the Contributors PHP Version \| PDF Version	205-207

New Call for Vol 2, No 1

Visual Arts in the 21^st Century

In the wake of the digital revolution and globalisation policies the whole world is witnessing formation of certain conditions which are having and will continue to have tremendous impact on the production, reproduction, access, dissemination and appreciation of visual arts. While the old art forms and artworks are being revisited and reproduced in wholly new ways and for a variety of purposes, new types in the forms of digital arts are surfacing not only on the internet but also every place of our visual culture. The place and workplace of the artist also has undergone a radical change. The artists are themselves very keen to define their position globally as the web makes it possible, and along this they are also ready to take up social and political challenges (as always was the case).

Like convergence in all other fields, in the sphere of visual arts we are also witnessing a convergence of all the art forms in the case of computer games. With 2D video games giving way to highly complex PC games, we find attempts at accommodating real-life 3D experiences and complex situations into the digitally recreated virtual reality. In combination with the web a professional team of experts has been able to create virtual worlds, where millions of people—irrespective of age, gender, class, caste and race—have started ‘living’. This kind of converged art is allowing the reader/player/resident the highest ever freedom not only to enter the ‘text’ but also to modify and manipulate it up to a certain limit.

Keeping in mind this kind of situation we are inviting critical writings on a variety of areas. While we are open to the suggestion from the writers for the inclusion of any particular area, for their convenience we are giving below a list of probable areas for submission:

i. Aesthetics of digital arts

ii. Aesthetics of photography

iii. Aesthetics of website design

iv. Our visual culture—sociology/psychology of the need for the visual

v. Sociology of the reproduction of old art forms and art objects

vi. 21^st century artist and the digital technology

vii. Video and Cinema on the Web

viii. Artist and the global politics

ix. Viewers as users

x. Gender and visual arts today

xi. Focus on any artist/tradition from new perspective

xii. Open Access and Fair Use Policies and Visual arts

For submission of critical writings, please send:
* Completed article (3000-5000 words)
* Abstract (100-200 words)
* 3 to 5 Keywords
* Brief CV
For submission of creative works, please send:
* Analytical Description of Works (2000-3000 words)
* Maximum 5 images in JPG format, at least 800 pixels wide or tall.
* Abstract (100 words)
* 3 to 5 Keywords
* Brief CV

Website address: www.rupkatha.com
Visit to know more about the journal and the submission process: http://www.rupkatha.com/submissionguidelines.php
Please send submissions and queries to: editor@rupkatha.com
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: December 31, 2009

The inaugural issue of Rupkatha Journal

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:12:00 +0000

The inaugural issue of Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (Summer Issue, Number 1, 2009) has been published. Please visit the journal and send your suggestions for improvement. The next issue will be a special one on on visual arts.

http://rupkatha.com/issue0109.php

Please refer the journal to to your friends, colleagues and students.

Privacy Policy

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:11:00 +0000

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Significance of Joseph Conrad's Lagoon: the Theme of Crime, Retribution, Love, Guilt

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:16:00 +0000

Joseph Conrad entered English literature as a foreigner who told fantastic stories about ‘strange’ people living in exotic places situated in the well-defined territory of the British Empire. He began writing exclusively for the English people and touched on the very soft corner of their aesthetic sensibility, which had an age-old thirst for the ‘strange’ or ‘alien’, associated with the Orient. To some extent this determined the nature of his works, especially the earlier ones. People back in England not only relished the accounts of ‘strange’ landscapes and natural world, but also they wanted to know more about the ‘strange’ accounts of lives of people living in an ‘alien’ culture. The short story The Lagoon—which was one of the earliest ones, may be said to represent those typical aspects of Conrad’s art. The greatness of his art lies in making the natural setting contribute to the more general and graver aspects of human life, the moral ambivalence of man in the grip of passion and in the face of danger. In fact, The Lagoon, in its treatment of the theme of betrayal, remorse and retribution, may be said to have anticipated Conrad’s almost obsessive preoccupation with the theme of guilt-shame-guilt cycle in his subsequent mature works like Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness. The title of the story, “The Lagoon” alludes to the confined ways of life, caught up in the history of its own past. That Conrad took a lot of care in writing this short story is evident at the outset from his description of the natural surroundings. The emphasis on the stillness prevailing in the natural world appropriately prepares the reader for a world inhabited by a man and a woman with a terrible history. Just like the waves of the lagoon, which has been estranged from the sea, time has got locked up in the guilt-shame cycle and has stopped running for the man and the woman. It is to be noted that inertia in nature disturbs the mental balance of both the Malay and the reader as both are going to “enter the portals of land from which the very memory of motion had forever departed.” Appropriately enough, the setting of the sun here is made to mimic symbolically the impending death of Diamelen. For, along with this, Arsat’s hopes and dreams are also going to end suddenly. In this, the world of pastoral retreat—the lagoon, is made to reflect his inner state. As the evening settles down with darkness all over the world, Arsat’s dark history begins to unfold. His confession becomes necessary as he finds himself caught up in the guilt-shame-guilt cycle. He knows that, “A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!” As the confession begins, it becomes more and more evident that the story is dominated by strange power of violence. Arsat and his brother took part as unwilling members of the kingdom, once ruled by their race, and waited for opportunity to come. Their total endeavour was, however, disrupted by Arsat’s look at Diamelen who inspired love in his heart. It was his brother who encouraged him and made arrangement for the elopement. Love is admittedly a possessive instinct, but in Arsat’s case it had been cruelly selfish too—so selfish that he had not hesitated to leave his brother behind at the hands of his enemies who killed him. Now his heart is heavy with the thoughts of his sin of betrayal. He finds himself caught up in guilt-shame-guilt cycle, in which the thought of past guilt produces shame, which, in turn, produces guilt in a cyclic process and gives birth to a complex in the guilty person’s mind. Perhaps he looks towards Diamelen’s death as a kind of way of release from the cycle; for, with herdeath he loses the thing, for which he had betrayed his brother, and feels punished. That is why with the sunrise he can see his destiny clearly: he understands that the root of all lies with the malevolent reign of the Ruler. But this does not release him from his past history, and he takes an oath of avenging his brother’s death, which is also an act of self-annihilation. Though the sun shines in nature, the sun of his life is extinguished for him forever. The significance of human existence in this world remains as mysterious as ever: “He stood lonely in the searching sunshine; and he looked beyond the great light of a cloudless day into the darkness of a world of illusions.”

Fitment Table for Fixation in UGC 6th Pay commission for College and University Teachers

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Fitment Tables in 6th Pay commission for College and University Teachers has yet not been officially published. But Dr.Akhilesh Kumar Kulshreshtha, Retd Reader and Head of Mathematics Deptt, D.B.S.College Kanpur, has posted fitment tables for university teachers on Scribe.com. He says that he prepared the tables in accordance with “the notification No.1-32/2006-U.II/U I(!) of HRD ministry dated 31-12-2008” and “and grade fixation memo of central government F.No.1/1/2008-IC DATED 30-8-2008”. One can download the table from the following URL:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12684300/Fitment-Tables-for-University-Teachers

Another post on UGC fitment tables for ICAR Scientists Revised Pay Scales carries various comments along with the tables. The page can be accessed by following the URL:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Revised-ICAR-Scientists-Pay-Scales

Publish your scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journal. Click here>>

Variations in English Prosody

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:31:00 +0000

There are a few variations in English prosody. For the convenience of the readers I explain those briefly below:

Spondee: When both the syllables are accented, the foot is called spondee.

Ere ha'lf / my day's / in this / da'rk wo'rld / and wi'de

Pyrrhic: When both the syllables are unaccented, the foot is called pyrrhic.

Ere ha'lf / my day's / in this / da'rk wo'rld / and wi'de

Catalectic: If at the end of a trochaic line, there is only an accented syllable, it is presumed that an unaccented syllable has been dropped. In this case the foot is called catalectic.

A'll the / jo'ys that / ble'ss thee.

Swee't-er/ fa'r may/ be'.

Acephalous: If in the beginning of an iambic line, there is only one accented syllable, it is presumed that an unaccented syllable has been dropped. In this case the foot is called acephalous.

Ha'te/-ful i's/ the da'rk/ blue sky'.

Hypermetrical: If at the end of an iambic line, there is only an unaccented syllable, it is presumed that the syllable is extra. In this case the line is called extra-metrical or hypermetrical.

He a'te/ himse'lf / the ri'nd / and pa'r / -ing.

University Wits

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:03:00 +0000

During the 16^th century English drama settled into a regular entertainment. The stage offered massive opportunities for the dramatists, but it remained in a state of chaos. In the 1580s group of playwrights, who had their education either from Oxford or Cambridge, stepped into the theatre as professional playwrights and reformed it for once and all. They are known as University Wits. The group includes—John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe. With their professionalism, while they rescued English drama from the medieval mire of religion, they also paved the way for Shakespeare.

John Lyly was the leader of the group. His receptive mind was hospitable to the more delicate graces of literature. In a series of witty comedies –Campaspe, Sapho and Phao, Endymion, Midas he addressed Elizabeth in delicate flattery praising by turn the charms of the chastity of the woman, the chastity of the virgin, the majority of the queen. It was Lyly who was largely responsible for the first elaboration of romantic sentiment.

Lyly wrote in Euphuistic prose, artificial in structure and language, but refined in manner, witty and graceful. Lyly’s plays with their sparkle and courtly air the first artistic plays. They made ready the way for Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It.

Like Lyly, George Peele he flattered Elizabeth in his graceful pastoral, The arraignment of Paris. He used the same ornate manner in his scripture drama The Love of David and Fair Bathsabe in which he followed closely the Bible record. In his play Edward I, he turned to national history. He parodied the romanticists in The Old Wive’s Tale. By far the most original of the peoples’ plays was The Old Wive’s Tale which has a perfect charm of romantic humour.

Robert Greene was a member of both the universities. He tried an imitation entitled Alphonsus after Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. His second play was written with Lodge and entitled The Looking Glass for London and England. It is a mixture of elements from the moralities and modern Elizabethan satire. Then there followed Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and James IV. With Greene, we find a dramatic form in which realism and idealism meet.

Thomas Lodge was educated at Oxford. He was a facile writer and in a quick succession wrote two plays The Wounds of Civil War and A Looking Glass for London and England. But he is better known as the writer of euphuistic prose romance Rosalynde, the source for Shakespeare’s As You Like It. another University Wit, Thomas Nash is known for his Summers Last Will and Testament and The Unfortunate Traveller.

Among Shakespeare’s predecessors, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe occupy a permanent place. They were both influenced by Seneca, at the same time contributed something of their own towards the development of English tragedy. Though Kyd does not seem to have any of the universities, his contribution to drama is intrinsically as well as historically important. His Spanish Tragedy established itself as a lasting genre in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre in the form of revenge tragedy. [The central motive in the drama is the revenge of Hieronimo for the murder of his son, Horatio. The play is a well constructed; and Seneca’s ghosts and revenge themes have freely been borrowed.] He wrote forceful and capable dialogue. He also presented in the hero a new type of vacillating tragic hero.

At the time of Marlowe’s arrival upon the English stage, the English drama was in a chaotic stage. It needed a great genius who could give the drama its shape, direction and stability. And this was fulfilled by Marlowe. In the first place, he raised the subject matter to a higher level. He provided heroic subjects which appealed to his imagination. In his person the spirit of Renaissance—boundless passion or knowledge, power and beauty was incarnated. His heroes are Tamberlaine, Dr. Faustus, Barabas, embodying passion for world conquest, knowledge and wealth respectively. He gave life and reality to these characters. In the next place , he gave the approval of his authority on the blank verse of the classical school and put aside the old rhyming lines of the Romantic or native drama, “ jigging veins of Rhyming mother-wits”, as he says in the Prologue to Tamburlaine.

Marlowe also added to the conception of tragedy. He broke, partly with medieval conception in which tragedy was the fall of a great man. With him, as later with Shakespeare, tragedy results in catastrophe from some overweening feature of weakness of strength in the character himself. Here we see the medieval conception of the royalty of tragedy being supplanted by the Renaissance ideal of individual worth—virtu. Marlovian heroes are all governed by this virtu which leads them to ultimate tragedy.

Marlowe was a great poet. His poetry raises crude medieval drama to the realm of high tragedy. The poignantly pathetic death scene of Faustus, the scene of King Edward at Kenilworth castle and the rapturous cry over the dying zenocrate remain permanently in the mind of the reader.

Analysis of Bacon’s Essay "Of Friendship"

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:23:00 +0000

As a pragmatic and as an empirical thinker Bacon followed two fundamental Renaissance principles—Sepantia or search for knowledge and Eloquentia, the art of rhetoric. This explains, to some extent, the impassioned presentation of his ideas and views and the aphoristic style of his writing. But the essay Of Friendship is stylistically somewhat different in that it contains passionate and flattering statements along with profuse analogies and examples to support or explain his arguments perhaps because this essay was occasioned by the request of his friend Toby Matthew.

Bacon begins the essay by invoking the classical authorities on basic human nature. First, he refers to Aristotle’s view in Politics: Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. According to Aristotle, a man by nature and behaviour may be degraded to such an extent that he may be called unfit for society. Again, he may be so self-sufficient that he may not need society. In the first case, he resembles a wild beast and in the second, he resembles gods. Here it should be pointed out that Bacon is not ruling out the value of solitude; in fact, he is reserving solitude for higher kind of life, which is possible for a few great men like Epimenides, Numa, Empedocles, Apollonius and some Christian saints. Here too Bacon is following Aristotelian view on solitude as expressed in Ethics, where Aristotle prefers a contemplative life to an active life:

“It is the highest kind of life, it can be enjoyed uninterruptedly for the greatest length of time...”

Bacon’s logic is that those who live in society should enjoy the bliss of friendship for more than one reason. First of all, friendship is necessary for maintaining good mental health by controlling and regulating the passions of the mind. In other words, Bacon here speaks of the therapeutic use of friendship though which one can lighten the heart by revealing the pent-up feelings and emotions: sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, advice and the like.

Then in order to justify the value of friendship, Bacon points out the practice of friendship on the highest social level. He informs us that the kings and princes, in order to make friends, would raise some persons who would be fit for friendship. Then Bacon tries to glorify friendship by translating the Roman term for friendship, Participes curarum, which means ‘sharers of their cares’. He gives instances of raising of men as friends from the Roman history: Sylla and Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar and Antonius, Augustus and Agrippa, Tiberius Caesar and Sejanus, Septimius Severus and Plautianus. Bacon also refers to what Comineus wrote of Duke Charles the Hardy’s deterioration of his mental faculty just because of his reserve and loneliness and extends his judgement to the case of Comineus’ second master, Louis XI. The point which Bacon strongly wants to assert is that friendship functions for a man in a double yet paradoxically contrary manner: “...it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs”.

The second fruit of friendship, according to Bacon, is beneficial for the clarity of understanding. If a man has got a faithful friend, he can be consulted to clarify the confusions of the mind. He calls the counsel of a friend, citing Heraclitus, “drier and purer” than that a man gives himself out of self love, which clouds his judgement. Bacon then counsel of this sort into two kinds: “the one concerning manners and the other concerning business.” A friend’s constructive criticism of the other friend’s behaviour helps him more than a book of morality. In the matter of conducting practical business, Bacon thinks, a true friend’s advice can also be helpful in undertaking a venture or averting a danger.

Finally, Bacon speaks of the last fruit of friendship, which is manifold in the sense that there are so many things in life, which can be fulfilled only with the help of a friend. In fact, at a rare moment Bacon gets emotional and quotes classical maxim that “a friend is another self”. His point is that a man may have many a desire, which may not be realized in his life-time, but if he has got a true friend, his unfulfilled desire will be taken care of by his friend. Not only this, a friend, unlike the near and dear ones and enemies, can talk to him on equal terms whenever situation demands. Keeping all these things, Bacon concludes that if a man does not have a friend, he may well leave this world. That is to say, he is not fit for the human society to live in.

On Rabindranath Tagore Essay Modern Poetry

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:40:00 +0000

In the wake of the rise of a new art movement in Europe and Bengal as well, Rabindranath Tagore’s essay Modern Poetry, in particular, is a defence of the older literary tradition in the vein of Romanticism. In general it is a critique on aesthetics in order to justify that the value of a literary product lies in its universality of appeal. Tagore’s spiritual nexus with the Romantics is a thing he himself admits; Burns, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats were so many champions of the individualistic modes just as Tagore was. On the face of it the cry of the “modern English poets” for impersonal objectivity in art in the likeness of science leaves him annoyed. He has a deep loathing for any argument which should insist on a deliberate jerking-away from the tradition and convention, and which should narrow down the range of modernism to a fastidious stripping about all illusions of life. For, Tagore is at pains to show that the tradition cannot be totally aborted and the universal truth about poetry or poetic beauty cannot be subverted or improved upon.

But Tagore wrote the essay Modern Poetry before the advent of what is termed as ‘Modernism’ in the 20^th century literary criticism. The specific features signified by the term vary with the user, but almost all writers agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional bases not only of western art, but also of western culture, in general. Tagore’s vision, therefore, was great enough to recognise the fundamental features of the so-called ‘modernism’. He begins the essay with an understanding that the term ‘modernism’ is semantically mobile. Modernity in normal usage is something that progresses in company with and at the speed of the years; in this sense, “the last year’s modern is not this year’s”. So he explains the illusive nature of the implications of the term:

“it is not so much a question of time as of temperament. Most rivers after flowing straight take a sudden twist or turn. When literature does that, that turn may be called modern.”

In this way, the poetry of the Romantics of the Victorians must have seemed ‘modern’ respectively to their contemporaries, just as that of the Avant-garde’s is. But Tagore’s is inflamed at their attitude of reacting against the imaginary and illusive world of the poetry of yesteryears deliberately and violently. Here Tagore thought-process runs in parallel with F.R. Leavis, who in New Bearing in English Poetry observes that the poetry of the last decades of the 19^th century was preoccupied with the creation of dream-world, and that new poetry wanted to shatter that dream-world.

But Tagore affirms that illusions cannot be given up completely. When the violent realists are all set to keep wooing the proportions of science, they are only changing the variety of those illusions. Again, Tagore’s Romantic heritage pops up when he puts a rhetorical question:

“Does not Beauty become bankrupt when divested of the veil which reveals rather than conceals?”

The ‘veil’ is a Shelleyan metaphor which comes naturally to Tagore. Moreover, he notes a touch of arrogance in the modernists’ attitude, as if it has become a fashion. Such a self-conscious ‘modernism’ is clearly revealed, he thinks, in a poet’s deliberate anticlimactic juxtaposition of the frog and Apollo. Tagore excerpts a few lines from a modern poet to show he self-conscious modernism of that poet, who, intoxicated, gives an irreverent fare-well to the ‘beauty’ of the by-gone days:

“You are beautiful and faded

Like an old opera tune...

......................................

My vigour is a new-minted penny

Which I cast at your feet.”

To reinforce his point, Tagore refers to Ezra Pound’s A Study of Aesthetics, where a boy shows incredible lack of discrimination by applying the epithet ‘beautiful’ first to a girl and then to the neatly arranged fish on the riverbank. Tagore argues, if it is being loyal to the reality by distorting the reality in the way of ugliness, they apply the same illusive dye simply of an opposite kind.

The fact is that the “present day literature” has ‘accepted the creed of modernity” consciously and it is this consciousness that makes Eliot a modern rather than Robert Bridges. Tagore quotes extensively from Eliot’s Preludes a number of images which convey a sense of squalor ugliness of modern urban life in which men and women are subject to suffer. Such images Tagore observes, do not suggest that the poet is taking a perverse delight in ugliness, but they reflect the poet’s distaste for the dung-gathering world evidently. But Tagore’s ability to rise above his Romantic bias and overcome his natural antipathy towards the modernists’ preoccupation with the unconventional and anti-Romantic is reflected in his allusion to the lines from Eliot’s Preludes, which suggest, however, fleeting notions of beauty and immortality even in the midst of tawdriness:

“I am moved by the fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.”

At this point Tagore comes to grant that even in the midst of so-called modernism there can be vision which is modern, not in its violence against tradition, but in the truest sense of the term. That is to say, it can evoke feelings in man, which are universal and invariable in a particular phase of civilisation. For, as Tagore says, “in this muddy world one must look at mud with open eyes, and accept it”. Though in this poem, impersonality could not be maintained, Tagore considers Eliot a modern poet, perhaps because he has his own personal appreciation for Eliot, who does not give up the attitude that one must look upon the universe as a whole.

Finally Tagore goes on to reinforce his point that “pure modernism...consists in an impersonal and matter-of-fact manner”, by the example of a Chinese poet Li-Po, who wrote more than a thousand years ago. According to Tagore, Li-Po is a modern poet, not in respect of time or age, but in virtue of his vision of “universe with freshly opened eyes”.

In fine, as an artist Tagore adhered to the Upanishadic doctrine of the fundamental principles of life—Truth, Beauty and Goodness—which made it unnecessary for him to adopt a violent and insolent attitude in art.

The Theme of Shelley's Ode to the West wind

editor@rupkatha.com (Tarun Tapas Mukherjee) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:36:00 +0000

The poem “Ode to the West Wind” directly conforms to Shelley’s poetic creed. Poetry, Shelley writes in “A Defence of Poetry”, “…awakens and enlarges the mind by rendering it the receptable of a thousand unapprehended combination of thought. Poetry lifts its veil from the hidden beauty of the world.” Consistent with this theory of poetic creation, Shelley’s Romanticism is filled with “vehement feelings, ecstatic, mournful, passionate, desperate or fiercely indignant”. Sometimes he makes a sudden turn of the theme and talks about himself just like the movements in Beethoven’s symphonies. It is in this that he is unique among the Romantics—looking for a better world of liberty, equality and fraternity in his idealistic project of life. For this, he is seen to be pessimistic about the present but highly optimistic about the future to come.

The Romantic poets made frequent use of the wind as a soothing symbol. But in Shelley’s treatment it is not a “correspondent breeze”; it is rather ferocious in its energy. M.H. Abrams says “because of the ferocity the wind becomes a vast impersonal force, which the poet needs as a symbol of both destruction and creation”. Herein lies the importance of the wind as the metaphor for revolutionary social change.

In the very first stanza West Wind appears with an accumulated force–a “breath of Autumn’s being”—to blow away the dead leaves. Shelley compares the West Wind to a magician because, just as a powerful magician drives away ghosts, the wind performs same kind of operation by sweeping away the dead things in autumnal nature by remaining itself invisible. The phrase “pestilence-stricken multitude” here, on the surface level, refers to the leaves, which are decomposing on the ground. But symbolically the ‘multitudes’ refers to the entire human society, which, the poet thinks, in a state of degeneration.

“…O thou

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wing’d seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave.”

The West Wind carries the seeds with wing-like devices down to the ground where those remain dormant. During spring, however, when Zephyr, the warm and gentle wind will blow across the land, the seeds, shooting forth from the ground, will grow into plants. Here Shelley seems to have a very swift vision of the spring. He sees that just as with the onset of spring shepherds go out with their flocks of sheep for tending on the green field, the gentle breeze similarly causes the buds to bloom and carry the fragrances from one place to another. The West Wind moves with a terrific force and makes massacre of all that stand in its way. But it takes care to preserve the seeds under the soil so as to ensure a resurrection in the world of nature with the advent of the spring. In this way, the West Wind becomes both a “destroyer and preserver”.

In the second stanza the wind changes its field of operation; it is set in air, in the “steep sky”. The West Wind, while operating in the sky, moves along with all its might, Shelley imagines, just as the stream of a river. In so doing it forces accumulated clouds—right from the surface of the ocean up to the sky—to disintegrate. The Wind performs this kind of function by forcing the clouds to—just as it the leaves of the trees to fall off. Shelley here may be referring to the scientific fact that clouds are created in the sky out of the evaporation of water from the surface of the water bodies on earth. But in the immediate context of the poem, he must have observed the clouds to have been accumulated right from the surface of the ocean up to the great heights of the sky. That is why he imagines the clouds as the inter-connected boughs of the ocean and the sky. Shelley compares the clouds ravaged by the power of the wind to the uplifted hair of a Maenad in order to convey the sense that the West Wind operates possessed by some supernatural force.

In the European seasonal cycle, autumn is the season which stands just before winter, at the end of which a year closes. So before the coming of winter West Wind passes over earth destroying the old degenerate things and making horrible sounds. The howling of the wind is, therefore, imagined by the poet to be the dirge or the funeral song for the closing year. Shelley here addresses the clouds, accumulated from the surface of the ocean up to the great heights of the sky, as “angels of rain and lightning” because they obviously indicate that rain and lightning are approaching soon.

By the expression “the dome of a vast sepulchre” Shelley here refers to the closing night which will serve as the dome of a vast tomb, in which the closing year will be buried. The accumulated water vapors also make the roof over the dying year and the atmosphere seems to be solid because of thick layers of dense clouds. The point is that Wind operates with the same and single point agenda: it destroys the dead and preserves the living.

In the third stanza the realm of the ruling West Wind is the sea, both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and both the surface and the vegetation beneath. Shelley here has personified the Mediterranean, which perhaps in its sleep is dreaming of destruction of the palaces. During summer the Mediterranean and the Roman palaces and, the towers which remain submerged, are all quiet as if they seem to be sleeping because no storms appear to ruffle the surface of the sea in that season. But the wind agitates the sea and the palaces seem to quiver on account of the tremendous motion of the waves. This may be easily taken for allusions to Shelley’s hope for political change in Italy, for the collapse of the kings and kingdoms. Shelley here must have tried to bring home a political philosophy. The old palaces and towers symbolize corrupt, degenerate and old power, old order and institutions. All these should be destroyed, the poet dreams along with the sea, in order to make way for new beginning.

As the scene shifts to the Atlantic, “the somnolent summer yields to the ruthless autumn”. The reader is taken not only to the Atlantic, where its smooth surface has turned into a deep waves, but under it, where woods and foliage are forced to dispossess themselves of foliage upon hearing the Wind’s voice.

The fourth stanza begins, as pointed out by Michael Ferver somewhat the way Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” begins, by briefly recapitulating the themes of the first three movements. Now, the Wind is seen in the fourth stanza in relation to the poet himself:

“If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee.”

As an idealist and as an extremely sensitive soul, Shelley was in much distress to see mankind exploited and being dehumanized by the corrupt, degenerate and old political powers and institutions. He wanted to see mankind reach an ideal state of life based on fraternity, equality and democracy. And that is why he was seeking revolution, which he refers to as his “sore need”. Shelley erupts in Romantic agony,

“Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”

The poet wants to preach the words of revolution to mankind. But he knows that lacks the energy to do so. In order to acquire the strength and speed of the West Wind, he wants to be a piece of cloud, a leaf and a wave. The poet now remembers that in his boyhood he was full of energy and vigor, and as such that he would not refrain himself from competing with the cloudlets borne away in the sky by the wind. But now he lacks the energy to do so and that is why he seeks to be invaded by the fierce wind so that he may be supplied with energy and inspiration. Again, Shelley here thinks of himself as having accumulated the degenerate habits and ideas. In order to be refreshed and reinvigorated, the poet invites or rather prays to the Wind to invade his self. He wants this also with the intention of acquiring some of the fierce energy of the wind in this process. The West Wind comes into being during autumn with its predestined function of destroying the old and degenerate, thereby paving the way for the new. As it is destructive, its processes are bound to have certain sad implications. But destruction is also a necessary prelude to a new awakening, which implies sweetness.

He longs to be invaded by the fierce spirit of the Wind and cleaves with it to become,

“…through my lips to unawaken’d earth The trumpet of my prophecy!”

At last he is optimistic of the future and closes the poem with a prophecy:

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

It becomes clear that the poet invokes the example of the operations of the west wind in nature because, in turn, he wants to spread his message of resurrection through this poem and other poems he plans to compose. In other words, an evidence of a natural phenomenon in nature turns out to be a poetic inspiration for him.