Fantastic Duo - Wordsworth and Coleridge

Hello Readers!

Literature, when considered as hobby or passion, makes good friends. In English literature, we find many duo and trio of people who became good friends and they also have worked together. In the age of Romanticism or 19th century literature, we find two duos, who are none other than Jane Austen - Mary Shelley and William Wordsworth - Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

At the department of English, many new learning methods are accepted. Through the audio visual presentation, students can learn things tremendous fast. In order to understand the present topic, we have made a video with the guidance of Prof. Vaidehi Hariyani madam. As part of group activity, students were told to make pair of two and assigned to make either a video/audio clip/blog for this thinking activity.

Here is the video I've made.

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

* Transcript of the video

WW : Hello Samuel, How are you ?

SC    : Hello William, I'm fine, thank you. Nice to meet you!

WW : After a long time we've met.

SC    : Yes of  course, it's been a long time.

WW : Since we both are connected with English literature, what kind of literature you've produced ?

SC    : I've worked on a poem "The Rime of Ancient Mariner" which became the famous poem of the collection Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798. Do you remember ?

WW  : Yes, I remember. It was our first collection of poems and your poem was the first one. I;ve also published some poems like, "Mad Mother", "Idiot Boy", and "We are Seven" etc.

SC    : In the year 1816, I've written a dreamlike poem Kubla Khan, and in 1817, I've also written an essay on literary criticism, "Biographia Literaria"

WW  : The publication of Lyrical Ballads was considered as a start of English Romantic Movement.

SC     : That is true. It was happened just after the French Revolution.

WW  : I have given a famous definition of poetry and it is, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, it takes it's origin from emotion, recollected in tranquility".

SC    : Yes, I've heard of it, but my poems differ from yours in many ways.

WW : Yes, my poems presented the common and simple life of peasants and shepherds, much more connected with relations between man and nature.

SC   : I have introduced some elements of supernatural mysteries in my poetry, and my aim to write poetry was to give them a semblance of truth.

WW : I've given my poetry the aim of giving ordinary things, the charm of novelty. "The Daffodils" is the example of it.

SC   : In my poem "Kubla Khan" I've included the motif of nature, specifically water elements. Some high poetic sense makes my poetry a bit difficult for people to understand.

WW : Poetry is my life. I have my soul in all of my works.

SC : Our friendship is the remarkable duo in the English literature. We will be remembered ages together.

WW : Thank You!

SC : Thank You, Nice to meet you !

Criticism - Study of Poems

Hello Readers!

20 Nov to 28 Nov '19

Here I've mentioned some of the poems which I studied during the discussion of paper, Literary Theory & Criticism. In Unit 1, with the context of  New Criticism, and the four lenses of doing criticism. Mimetic Criticism, Expressive criticism, Pragmatic criticism and Objective criticism. The application of these four types of criticism was underwent on the following poems. During the discussion, there were some reference poems also which are also mentioned here. Later on, the essay of T. S. Eliot - "Tradition and Individual Talent", was also discussed through the examples of various poems.

* Brahma by Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

* Pippa Passes, verse by Robert Browning

The year’s at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his heaven—

All's right with the world!

__________________________

* Aftermath by Meena Kandasamy

(to consuming six glasses of orange juice)

the next morning in school during your
english exam you take permission to go to
the toilet where you throw up all the white
and creamy breakfast milk. only it tastes
sour and looks like bits of maggoty curd.
weeks later, you get to know two things
one of which will change your life for ever.
first, you scored the highest in the english
exam. second, you became a gossip item.
you still don’t know what affects you more.

because of your boldness and brashness
and bunking classes your ulcerated vomit
is taken for morning sickness. the sourness
extends when you hear hushed whispers
passing around. girls younger than you,
point at you and speak such banal secrets.
in staff-rooms, and in ungainly corridors
teachers chatter of your child, so vividly
imagined in the backdrop of your really
empty womb. slander is a slaughterhouse.

even best-friends seek answers as the
rumours inflame. your anger is mistaken
to be toward a crude imagined lover who
disowned you. you know the nauseous
truth of your thighs: you are virgin. But
evidence will not be revenge, for, so many
smoky eyes implore you to supplicate, to
admit alleged truths. impeaching faces lay
down rules: don’t shout or scream, but
swallow the shame. next, confess the sin.

sin yes they will shred your innocent life to
that yes you may fume or froth or boil or
simmer yes you are their staple soup they
need you just this way yes your fury takes
its toll annihilating you not them yes anger
and hatred seethe in your untamed tresses
yes you know how gossip chokes even the
tethered dreams yes something breaks in
you yes dear yes you start the brute search
for sleeping pills and chaste suicide ideas.

(First published in Cerebrations)
_________________________________

* An Introduction by Kamala Das
(With the reference of the blog: http://academicsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/07/an-introduction-kamala-das.html)

I don't know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don't write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don't
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank Pitifully.

Then … I wore a shirt and my
Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.
Don't play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love… I met a man, loved him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him... the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me... the oceans' tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.
_______________________________

* Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, click the title to read full poem.
_______________________________

* Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
_______________________________

* Remembrance by Emily Bronte

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,

Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,

Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

Over the mountains, on that northern shore,

Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover

Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,

From those brown hills, have melted into spring:

Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers

After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,

While the world's tide is bearing me along;

Other desires and other hopes beset me,

Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven,

No second morn has ever shone for me;

All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,

All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,

And even Despair was powerless to destroy,

Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion—

Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,

Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,

How could I seek the empty world again?
________________________________________

* Ozymandias by P. B. Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

__________________________

* Eklaivan by Meena Kandasamy

This note comes as a consolation:

You can do a lot of things

With your left hand.

Besides, fascist Dronacharyas warrant

Left-handed treatment.

Also,

You don't need your right thumb,

To pull a trigger or hurl a bomb.

_________________________

* Massacre of the Innocents by Meena Kandasamy

indra, chief vedic deity and

inspirational hate-monger.

indra, who went to work

inside diti's womb, afraid

she would mother the other,

the demons...

indra who butchered

her fetus into forty-nine bits,

so that, as the legend goes, they

were reborn as wailing winds.

indra. indra. narindra.

the hindu god of war.

herod merely chopped up male kids

in bethlehem, hitler only gassed

jewish infants in germany, and

the peacekeepers just dipped

tamil babies in boiling tar

in eelam...

but indra indra narendra alone

perfected this science of slaughter,

killing children of the other

before they were even

born.

indra. indra. narendra.

the genocidal god of gods.

_____________________

* From Mrs Tiresias by Carol Ann Duffy click the title to read full poem

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* Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy. Click the title to read full poem

___________________________

* હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની! by કૃષ્ણ દવે (કટાક્ષ કાવ્ય)

તમને જરૂર છે ટેકાની ભાઇ મારા

અમને જરૂર છે કેશની (રોકડા ની) !

હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !

છ મહિના હાલે તો ગંગાજી નાહ્યા

આ વર્ષોની વાર્તાયું મેલો

સાત પેઢી નિરાંતે બેસીને ખાય

બસ એટલો જ ભરવો છે થેલો

દો’વા દે ત્યાં લગી જ

આરતીયું ઊતરે છે

કાળી ડિબાંગ આ ભેંશની

હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !

ફાઇલોના પારેવા ઘૂં ઘૂં કરે છે

હવે ચોકમાં દાણા તો નાખો

ગમ્મે તે કામ કરો

અમને ક્યાં વાંધો છે ?

પણ આપણા પચાસ ટકા રાખો

ચૂલે બળેલ કૈંક ડોશીયુંનાં નામ પર

આપી દ્યો એજન્સી ગેસની

હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !

દેકારા, પડકારા, હોબાળા, રોજેરોજ

વાગે છે નીત નવાં ઢોલ

જેને જે સોંપાશે એવો ને એવો

અહીં અદ્દલ ભજવશે ઇ રોલ

નાટકની કંપનીયું – ઇર્ષ્યા કરે ને –

ભલે આપણે ત્યાં ભજવાતા વેશની

હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !

____________________________

* Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher by Nissim Ezekiel

To force the pace and never to be still

Is not the way of those who study birds

Or women. The best poets wait for words.

The hunt is not an exercise of will

But patient love relaxing on a hill

To note the movement of a timid wing;

Until the one who knows that she is loved

No longer waits but risks surrendering -

In this the poet finds his moral proved

Who never spoke before his spirit moved.

_____________________________

* Bamiyan Buddha by Praveen Gadhavi

I had left
Leaving gold, gems, pleasures
Of life
Keeping Rahul weeping
And Yashodhara sleeping

I had left
Kicking silver glasses of
Wine

Death
I wanted to be formless

Now, you see
Both are blind by birth
Those who are chisleing
My statues and
Decorating with
Golden ornaments
And those who are
Destroying my statues.
_______________________

* Buddha Purnima by Praveen Gadhavi

(Full Moon day of Buddha's birthday)
There was an
Underground atomic blast on
Buddha's birthday-a day of
Full Moon

Buddha laughed!

What a proper time!
What an auspicious day!

Buddha laughed!

At whom ?

There was a laughter on his
Lips and tears in his
Eyes
He was dumb that day.

See,
Buddha laughed!

Thank You!