Modernist Poems - Identifying Modernist Metaphors

Hello Readers!

Have you ever observed a retro wall clock which has pendulum ? Yes, it keeps on swinging from left to right, right to left. Each oscillation occur with precision and sharpness. We have heard that history repeats itself. Events which are recorded in past is echoed somewhere sometimes in current time also. Modernist literature and the events which are recorded in it, is evidently repeating themselves. Poetry and verse find such voice in the modern age. Here we shall bring out the modernist metaphors from selected poems.

https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2016/06/modernist-poems-activity-identify_25.html

(1) The Embankment by T. E. Hulme

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

Star-eaten blanket, gold heels, hard pavement are some of the modern metaphors. It can be said that machination and industries had impoverished the laymen. The voice is heard from some deprived and needy person who wishes to have blanket to wrap up it's body. Hard pavement can also be seen as footpath in which every class of people, rich, poor, working people walk and find their way to somewhere.

(2) Darkness by Joseph Campbell

Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

Darkness and boghole can be seen as modern metaphor in this poem. The speaker might be watching a reflection of a star in the surface of a boghole.

(3) Image by Edward Storer

Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

Metaphors: pyre of loneliness, drought

(4) In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Faces in the crowd, petals, black bough can be the modern metaphors.

(5) The Pool by Hilda Doolittle

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

Sea-fish, net, banded are metaphors.

(6) Insouciance Richard Aldington

In and out of the dreary trenches,
Trudging cheerily under the stars,
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves.

They fly away like white-winged doves.

Metaphors: trenches, white winged doves

(7) Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

Metaphors : damp souls, faces, aimless smile, 

(8) The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Metaphors: wheel, chickens

(9) Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Metaphors: jar, wilderness

(10) l(a by E. E. Cummings

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

l(a leaf falls)oneliness.  This is very short and one line poem. Still it tells two major metaphors such as loneliness and fall. Here loneliness can be seen as lack of empathy. In modern scenario it is seen that relations are full of plasticity. Human touch is now losing the ground and machines are found everywhere. Perhaps the metaphor of fall might be regarding the fall of humanity. Oneliness is indicating something about individuality. In a way, the tone of poem seems tragic.

Thank You!

20th Century English Literature - General Characteristics

Hello Readers!

History repeats itself and time records the events through its lenses of zeitgeist. The historical sense leads one to study the succeeding ages. One has to have historical sense even to understand the simple words and images of literature. Metaphorical way of writing always makes a reader curious to know more about the age and its culture. Here we shall see a remarkable age of literature: Modern Age or 20th Century Literature.

20th Century was much of the upheavals of the time. With the hammer of critical thought and rationale, the age happened to find newer means of social and literary concerns than the previous age. All, that had been sharply practiced in the Victorian Age, was turned topsy-turvy in the Modern Age. Didacticism and staunch Victorian practices were losing the ground. The impact of World Wars was much more than a mere scar to the age but a wakening slap for social reformations. Life was to start in an extremist levels of modernity and then it had to come down towards postmodernist days. The roots of such fervour lied in the rebelliousness of people. The thought of "make it new" itself evidently establishes the disgusts and boredom of the rigidity of Victorian thought. A change, which historians might have recorded, in cultural practices, intelligence of people, critical ability to think was aptly found in this age.

Historical Aspects of the age

1. World War I (1914 - 1918) WW II (1939 - 1945)

The combatant nations of these wars were majorly considered as “centre of the world”. But the imperialistic temperaments led them to a blindness which, then never recovered to see the disastrous consequences of these two World Wars. History evidently puts a remark on the nuclear attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would be now easy to assume that how the common people might have suffered and what the societal changes had gone through.

2. Industrial Revolution.

Though it took place in 19th century but the echoes of this revolution reflected in the 20th century. Society witnessed a drastic change in class demarcation. Those who were landowners, those who had plenty of room to invest their excessive amount of money, became factory owners and those who were hardworking and enthusiastic became the workers of these factories. Assembly line brought a smiling curve in the economy of Europe and United States, but on the parallel, it killed the craftsmanship of individual. Machination became prominent centre and skillful people submerged in the periphery. This led to unemployment and then somehow created anarchy among the masses. Rich became more rich and poor became more poor. The three "M" are worth considering here. M for Muscle power, M for Mind power and M for Money power. Senselessness sprouted through the seeds of excessive materialistic lifestyle. The money mindedness is reflected in Arthur Miller's play "All My Sons". Colonial aspects are also found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

3. Spiritual/Religious Questioning

The modern age also brought dilemma and confusion in the belief system of people. It seemed that money became more mightier than the divine; which was thought in the previous Victorian age. Some isms also found in reference of asking about spirituality that is Existentialism. To quote few lines. . .

To some, the voice of Darwin in The Descent of Man sounded more credible and more authoritative that the voice of God in the book of Genesis. (The Setting - A. C. Ward)

More scientific temperaments were being established and convincingly the constructive arguments also gave some wind to the thought. Victorian orthodoxy was losing a ground. The horrific war experience made people think about one another and live life with spiritual thought.

Literary Characteristics

Literature rightly mirrored the changes of society in it's texts. Nations were looking for the classics and masterpieces of authors which found much acceptance in the modern age than the previous age.  In the early stage of the century the practice of depicting mythical narratives in newer ways was still in in continuation. Ulysses by James Joyce is an example of it. Writings about futuristic events were much celebrated. 1984 by George Orwell and Animal Farm stand at the doorstep of the modern age which welcomes the reader to the newer aspects like monotony in human life, bureaucratic mindset of controlling people, and continuous surveillance. The metaphor of animals is rightly used by Orwell... All animals are equal but some are more equal. Canons of literature were steadily changing from the stereotypes to something newer ones. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and H. G. Wells' The Time Machine drew the futuristic caricature which was much ahead of their time. Lost generation which emerged a class of society in the 20th century also found it's voice in works of Gustav Flaubert. Gothic element, which was already much celebrated by the publication of Frankenstein, also resurrected in the 20th century. Edgar Allan Poe penned much of the darkest of the human psyche and viciousness in his short stories like Black Cat. The audience was still demanding some more entertaining literature which resulted in the creation of devilish fiction like Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. T. S. Eliot also marked its timeless presence by the penning his wide ranging poem The Waste Land. It majorly talked about sexual perversion and spiritual degradation. D. H. Lawrence's books were banned due to extremity of sexuality. Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne set a question of individual free choice. Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway oiled to the motivational thought for upcoming generation. The undercurrents of human nature like Oedipus and Electra complexes find the narration in pen of Eugenie O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra. Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse made an evident contribution in the psychological movement called Stream of Consciousness. 

Furthering the genre of poetry, Robert Frost, John Masefield, Rupert Brook, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot made noteworthy contribution to literature.

The later part of the age came up with many artistic movements such as Surrealism, Dadaism, Imagism, Vorticism, Cubism, Expressionism, Individualism etc.

In a nutshell, 20th century was an age of social unrest, progression as well as regression, freedom as well as captivity in terms of machination. The age carried the time, the time which recorded much larger portion of the events and zeitgeist of modernity. No other age in the history of English literature carried this much diversity in thought and in its texts.

References;

Ward, Alfred Charles. Twentieth-Century English Literature: 1901-1960. 1966.

Long, William J. English Literature. AITBS India, 2015.

Thank You.

Deconstructive Reading of Literary Works

Hello Readers!

        In literary criticism, there are many theories and concepts to dig deeper, which helps in better and insightful reading of any literature. New Criticism introduced many modern theories such as structuralism and post structuralism, psycho-linguistics, psychoanalysis, reader response theory and many others. Jacques Derrida, a post-structuralist critic, is considered as the father of deconstruction theory, who quoted that,

"Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique."

In this blog, we shall see how a poem can be read deconstructively. 

These are some blogs which can be helpful to understand the concept of structuralism and post-structuralism. Here are two links to get to know more about deconstruction.

https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2015/03/deconstruction-and-derrida.html

https://rohitvyas98.blogspot.com/2020/01/derrida-deconstruction.html

Dr. Dilip Barad sir has explained one poem with this concept on YouTube.

To explore the topic, Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is taken here for deconstructive reading.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Source:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45087/sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day

        One of the key concepts to read this sonnet is to examine the otherness of its words and meanings, because for deconstructive reading of the poem one should first do verbal reading of a poem. Without going towards emotional side or any subjective side of the poem. Deconstruction deals with language, its words and meaning. If one digs deeper in the theory, one can find that there are many meanings of a single word, and the very activity of searching for meanings is the deconstruction of work.

Note: While reading the poem keep asking this question to yourself  'who is celebrating whom?' or 'what is being celebrated?'

One after the following let's raise some questions against the poem and try to find the following.

##   Binary Oppositions   ##

How to read Binaries? The term which is more privileged should be kept at left hand side and terms which are under privileged should be put at right hand side. See the setup below.

1. Human Beings | Nature

2. Life | Death

        As the general reading of the sonnet seems to centralize the element of nature, and human beings or here, beloved seems to be in the less privileged side of the binary. But as the sonnet unfolds it is just the opposite. Human beings at the center because the poet wants to compare the beauty of the beloved with nature, and the poet makes high remarks on the beloved beauty and justifies the human beauty more than nature. It seems that the poet has forgotten the reality of life. The sonnet has so well celebrated beauty of beloved that the concept of death seems to be kept unprivileged.(line 11) How human poetry or work of art can give life to anybody?(line 14) The last line of the sonnet has kept hold of one binary which is life opp. death, and questioned the element of human's being immortal by a mere work of art or poetry.

##   Free Play/Undecidability of Meanings   ##

Is there any word/s that convey more than one meanings?

        Yes, there are many. shake, buds, fair, possessions, complexions, temperate, rough winds, ... These are some of the words which carry various meanings with other contexts also. Finding the exact meaning of the words may lead to the otherness of meanings. And then mostly endless journey of finding meanings of meanings begins. These words raise some question in mind, for instance, what is the use of the word possession here in the sonnet ? What does the poet want to say by that word? Is it in context of human abilities to control something or overpower the nature? Nature which has already been marginalized in the poem also has some attributions in the sonnet which clearly suggest that human agency has underestimated nature as an entity. Such words are untrimmed, rough winds, too hot the eye of heaven etc.

##   Hegemony & Subjectivity   ##

        The use of word I makes one think that for whom this sonnet is written after all ? Is poet praising himself as a lover and possessing powers to control the beloved's beauty and nature? What if the poet dies during the creation of the sonnet? or to be less criticizing and less deconstructive, What if the poet fails to write a sonnet for her beloved? If failed, will his beloved's beauty be eternal ever? The implied meanings of power struggles to be more privileged is shown here as male dominated society has been doing since ages, it generates threats to the beloved that if the poet write a sonnet, only then the beauty will be eternal, otherwise not.

        In a nut shell the poem leaves us with lot of questions, deconstructions starts happening by just raising such questions and the reader naturally turns deconstructive to read the poem against itself.

        All the parameters used above to do deconstructive reading of the sonnet has conveyed the quote mentioned above, that language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique. We have now seen that how language leads us to the otherness of meanings and that how words and binaries play within the poem with potential of deconstruction by itself.

* Impressions/feedback of learning experience from TED-Ed platform.

        Being a global learner, one can come across many online learning platforms such as Flinnt, Wiki Educator, Coursera, Khan Academy, edX, Moodle, and enrich their knowledge. Every digital learning platform carries some specifications in it. Similarly TED-Ed also is one of the widely used and accepted learning platforms. But still it seems that its under development but still this newly emerging platform provides good learning experience. Starting from video resources to discussion forum and taking multiple choice tests, its very learner friendly and easygoing platform. Moreover TED has its own massive video database from which many educators register themselves in TED-Ed. Many educators first generate their content on YouTube and then create courses on TED-Ed.

        Rather than copying anything from web, one online review about TED-Ed is worth reading. It gives very detailed information about how to use this platform also. Click the link below.

https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/ted-ed

        Here is the link of one of the assignment which is generated on TED-Ed by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Click the link below.

https://ed.ted.com/on/r9V6IJiO

        It was indeed a good experience learning this topic of criticism in the platform of TED-Ed. The content was made in very lucid and easy way so that learners can actively grasp the crux part of content, other sections such as Think, Did deeper were very useful in testing the analytical skills and learning.

Here are some glimpses of the TED-Ed assignment created by Dr. Dilip Barad sir.

Watch Video

Think and take small quiz

Dig Deeper and read resources

        We might be knowing about learning from nuggets. These digital platforms serve such nuggets from which we can learn very effectively. TED-Ed can be very useful in future if it is used by the teachers from schools and colleges also.

        One more remarkable thing for TED Ed is it encourages students to be future ready. Future ready in the sense it helps students to create their own TED style videos for future reference, so that they can also inspire people or may become educators also.

        Expecting the best out of the world never goes in vain. In this CoViD-19 pandemic students can join, engage and create something on their own in the field of education. It's the right time to be Glocal, which is Global + Local. It will be blissful for all the learners around the world.

If you are interested in doing more in deconstructive reading, you can apply and practice it on some more poems then...

1. Just Poems (Click Here)

2. Study of Poems (Click Here)

Reference:

Belsey, Catherine, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press

Thank You!

Assignment 8 - Technoculture and Risk Society

Hello Readers!

This assignment is a part of internal evaluation of student's academic activity in the Department of English, MK Bhavnagar University. Here is my assignment.

Name: Rohit Vyas
Class: Semester 2
Roll No: 21
PG Enrolment Number: 2069108420200041
E-mail: rohitvyas277@gmail.com
Course: M.A. English, at Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University
Paper 8 – Cultural Studies, Unit
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad

Technoculture and Risk Society

Introduction

          ‘Cultural studies’ is a branch of academics which undergoes various kinds of cultures and societies. It began in early 1960s in Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (BCCCS). Stuart Hall and other cultural critics were pioneers of cultural studies. The way it moves further, it covers larger discourses and subjects like anthropology, structuralism, and post structuralism, post colonialism,

We live in Risk Society

Risk has become integral part of our lifestyle. Each and every work we do, we are threatened by several risks. For instance we take the incident of drinking water. We are much aware of its cleanliness and purity but still we fear to drink that water confidently because in our subconscious minds we have the risk factors which work endlessly.

Ulrich Beck propounded the influential ‘risk society’ in thesis in Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992) and later works (1995, 1997). Risk, Beck inform us, is not real, risks are about 'becoming-real'. As soon as risks become real, they cease being risks, and become, instead disasters. (If one may engage in an aside for the purpose of illustration, India's famed batting line-up, all the way to number six, always carries the risk of collapse. When it happens in the field, then it is not risk any more: it is a national catastrophe.) (Nayar 79)

As Beck has explained that risk is what is imaginary but still has the capacity to become real. It is like cause and effect chain. The benefits of anything are highlighted and then the other product comes up with the hazards and risks of consuming it.

Just like Beck has given the example of cricket match, one can take the risk of fire as an example. In a forest, there is a risk of fire, because two branches can cross sometime and the fire may light. If this happens, the risk becomes real, and it applies somewhere else. So the risk factor works as transformative pattern.

There are first world countries, second world countries and third world countries. All countries strive for expending on defense and border protection.

Techno-culture

Technology has become integral part of our life style. When it comes to the mediums of communications or mode of transport such as cars, trains, buses, aircrafts and other vehicles that include technology have become the most important part of life. Smart phones with latest and fast processors are considered as luxury nowadays. In our day to day conversation we use many words such as delete, send, receive, forward which are terms of communication. In the world of technology it has become necessary to cop up with updated information. With maximum consumption of technology it forms technoculture. The more people use technology, more words will be introduced and people will make them part of life and thus the culture will take place. In a nut shell, the culture which includes active participation of technology forms technoculutre.

To quote a few lines from the text, technoculture is mentioned as follows

… Risks then get displaced to other ‘sites’: future disasters. Thus risks are potential disasters. While it is not necessary to run the entire debate about risk society here, it may be useful to pay attention to one particular arena where the risk thesis appears most relevant: technoculture. We live in an increasingly technologized world. Global capitalism – the immediate geopolitical context of our nation-states – runs on the engines of information and communication technologies. Our everyday life – from shopping to education – depends heavily on technology, with greater or lesser degrees of both efficiency and necessity. (Nayar 79)

In this era of information explosion, we are continuously given bits and pieces of information, which we don't even require. While using internet, one receives a bunch of advertisements. This overflow of ads sometimes make one think critically that what kind of consumerist and capitalist society we live in!

The other connecting example of risk and technology is the anti-virus software. There are some anti-malware software also that guarantees the security and safety of the computer from bugs and viruses. But the risk of getting virus is still there. Even after having protection software it happens. Thus we demand more powerful and assured protection software. Similarly in the field of defense, everything now gets controlled by technology and computers. Even UAV – Unarmed Ariel Vehicles are used in war nowadays. After the attack of 9/11, countries have become more alert and proactive in the use of technology in defense only for the protection of their boundaries. Such protections include anti-ballistic missiles, and supersonic fighter jets. Protection also becomes risk and the story goes on and on.

Risk Society and Market

Marketing has its own fundamentals other than humanity as discourse. From the production of commodity to the delivery to the consumers, it is loaded with psychic theories. Keeping people in fear and making money from that risk is now trending strategy in market. For example, there are soap companies which sell their soaps by frightening us with germs and bacteria, various diseases. And in competition other soap brands will try to degrade other brands to sell their own. Further, the whole new narrative comes in the gossips at the evening while enjoying tea and snacks. It can be said that our daily practices and activities define the culture and society. Our constant negligence for seeking the authenticity of information and truth make us puppets of power. We submit the reigns of our thinking and free will to power by ourselves. It is acceptable that risk has become part of life nowadays but still we are unable to identify the intensity of risks. To think deeply, by doing everything we are putting ourselves in a risk zone, by walking on footpath, traveling on vehicles, taking bus, train or flight.

          Market conditions are also a good study in today’s time. But we shall stress upon only risk factors and market situations. There are many types of markets such as advertisement market, commodity market, stock markets etc.

Stock market and advertisement field are full of risks in which brands and companies strive for high rates and TRPs. If any television program is powered by a particular brand, then during that show that brand will promote its product only. Other companies and brands suffer for publicity. The same goes with stock market. Due to high price of oil and other basic crude items such as gold and silver, or sometimes due to the crucial decisions of governments which may directly affect the economy of the country – India for instance, there comes a crisis on the stocks of companies. Within few minutes, billions and trillions of currency transactions happen among companies. And interestingly, stock market of India has an appropriate symbol of bull and a popular phrase “bulls and bears” for ups and downs of shares. This clears the risk element in market.

Advertisements

In today’s era of technology and communication hardly anyone will be there who might not know anything about advertisements. Ranging from print media to digital media, pages and programs are full of advertisements. Through these ads, companies do bombardment of various sign and symbols. As it is known that a picture is worth than a thousand words. Companies use various cautionary symbols that make us alert of some hazards and threats. This visualization of risk becomes stronger in consumers mind and they get convinced to buy a particular product.

         It takes patience and constant awareness to make a right decision. In today’s time, one gets confused in making choices. One can take a pause and start thinking rationally that why and how power works on the mass.

Solutions

Will will find a way – Ulrich Beck also gave the solution to this never ending process of risk – solution pendulum swing. He explained that one has to read power against power. One should always think to have the alternative of power and authority. By quoting the following words,

“Beck’s solution to the autopoietic risk culture (where a system generates risk and its possible solution within itself) is to find political potential outside the government. We need to open up intrasystematic closures. Politics must be about being able to communicate between systems – something that is becoming increasingly impossible today. Thus the complete indifference of the government to any criticism – witness with ease with which governments get out of such accusations by appointing, with a complete lack of transparency, a commission of inquiry, or simply refusing comment in India – is a mark of autopoiesis of the political system. The representatives of the people are no more accountable to the people. They refer only to each other in debates that are increasingly disconnected from the opinions/criticisms/demands of the people. It is this autopoiesis that causes people who withdraw from politics as a system that has ‘closed’ itself.” (Nayar 81)

Conclusion

Right from the childhood we are taught to be careful with each and every thing, which is also a pre conditioning of minds. Time and again the use of technology has increased and so did the risk. Through this written assignment it is attempted all the important aspects of techno culture and risk theory be covered up.

Works Cited

Nayar, Pramod K. An Introductin to Cultural Studies. 2nd. New Delhi: Viva Books, 2016.

Assignment 7 - Literary Terms: An Overview

Hello Readers!

This assignment is a part of internal evaluation of student's academic activity in the Department of English, MK Bhavnagar University. Here is my assignment.

Name: Rohit Vyas
Class: Semester 2
Roll No: 21
PG Enrolment Number: 2069108420200041
E-mail: rohitvyas277@gmail.com
Course: M.A. English, at Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University
Paper 7 – Literary Theory & Criticism - 2, Unit 4
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad

Literary Terms – An Overview

Introduction

We all know the answer of the question what is literature. But in literature, there are several techniques and styles which are followed by many authors which style and techniques called literary terms. These terms play the role of foundational brick in farming of literature. If any example is taken such as poems on death, there will be many literary terms which may be used in that poem. Every literature contains a tone and mood. Such as William Shakespeare has written Tragedies. Now the word ‘tragedy’ is also a literary term. Any literature becomes very easy to understand with one gets to know the basic literary terms.

In this assignment it is discussed that how literary terms can be helpful in writing literature also. They are of good help in many ways. They expand our knowledge and make us read literature in multi-dimensional ways. One matter or incident which is described in a particular way can be seen differently also. Let’s have an overview on some of the key terms of literature.

What creative writers do?

If a creative writer’s mind is potent enough to generate thought with flow, then the literature will become rich with new and innovative ideas. The creative writers – in which one may include writers of any creative genre of literature such as novel, short stories, poems etc – pen down their imaginations, metaphors and stories and make their presence in the said age. They stimulate their thoughts and experience the philosophical and sensible connection within their surroundings. For instance, Charles Dickens from the Victorian age saw poverty and raw lifestyle. Lived experience is reflected in his writing.

What critics and theorists do?

Taking such beautiful creation of literature in hand, critics and theorists sit down to analyze the work of art. It can be seen by comparing the jobs of doctors and physicians. They understand the human body parts and anatomy, so the critics and theorists also do. For better understanding of literature, they open up every element of knowledge from the literature and try to give their own hypothesis and argument in accordance to their understanding. They also try to see one literature with applying multiple branches of knowledge such as psychology, sociology, etc.

Similarly for better understanding of literature, critics have brought out some common terms which can be applied in many other literatures also. They’ve simplified various terms in their dictionaries. Here are the basic literary terms which commonly used in various manners in literature.

Archetypes – In literary criticism, the term archetype denotes narrative designs, patterns of actions, character types, themes, and images that recur in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams, and even social rituals. Such recurrent items are often claimed to be the result of elemental and universal patterns in the human psyche, whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the attentive reader because he or she shares the psychic archetypes expressed by the author. (Abrams and Harpham 18)

In various ways critics have explained this term in their works. Psychologically, Carl Jung has worked describes archetypes of human personality.

Bildungsroman – It is the German term which signifies “novel of formation” or “novel of education”. Majorly such novels are majorly concerned with the development of the protagonist’s mind and character through passage from childhood with various experiences – majorly a spiritual crisis – to maturity. This type of novels began in Germany with K. P. Moritz’s Anton Reiser (1785-90) and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795-96). It includes Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861), George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847), Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (1915), Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924). (Abrams and Harpham 255)

Post colonialism – The critical analysis of the history, culture, literature and modes of discourse that are specific to the former colonies of England, Spain, France, and other European imperial powers. These studies have focused especially on the Third World countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean islands, and South America. (Abrams and Harpham 305-6)

This definition makes us think in easy way that one may easily state that post colonialism is a study of literature which was produced after the end of colonization of the Third World countries. Postcolonial studies denies the narratives which are majorly ‘master narratives’, generally given by West. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin stress what they term the hybridization of colonial languages and cultures.

“A major element in the postcolonial agenda is to disestablish Eurocentric norms of literary and artistic values and to expand the literary canon to include colonial and postcolonial writers. In the United States and Britain, there is an increasingly successful movement to include in the standard academic curricula, the brilliant and innovative novels, poems, and plays by such postcolonial writers in the English language as the Africans Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, the Caribbean islanders V. S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott, and the authors from the Indian subcontinent G. V. Desani and Salman Rushdie”. (Abrams and Harpham 307)

As a research and subject matter of the studies, post colonialism emerged as a deep discourse of national interests. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak coined the term Subaltern with reference to studying the otherness of the colonized people. It derives from the Latin terms, sub as ‘under’ and alter means ‘other’. The term itself speaks about

Post modernism – “The term postmodernism is often applied to the literature and art after World War II (1939-45), when the effects of Western morale of the First World War were greatly exacerbated by the experience of Nazi totalitarianism and mass extermination, the threat of total destruction by the atomic bomb, the progressive devastation of the natural environment, and the ominous fact of overpopulation.” (Abrams and Harpham 227)

For instance one seeks to study post modernism, what works one will require to read? Or one may ask that what one should watch? Because postmodernism does not only contains literature to study but also films, newspaper cartoons and popular music.

Jean Francois Lyotard, Fredrick Jameson and Jean Baudrillard were postmodernist critics. Postmodernism finds its foundations in theories of Michel Foucault and Hebermas. By the publication of the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, postmodern literature had reached its peak.

“Many of the works of postmodern literature–by Jorge Louis Borges, Samuel Backett, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, Roland Barthes, and many others–so blend literary genres, cultural stylistic levels, the serious and playful, that they resist  classification according to traditional literary rubrics. And these literary anomalies are paralleled in other arts by phenomena like pop art, op art, the musical compositions of John Cage, and the films of Jean-Luc Godard and other directors.” (Abrams and Harpham 228)

New Historicism – This term is rather a cultural term than a literary term or critical one. So it can be better understood by cultural context. But before we move further let’s get to know about how it is defined. It has much to do with their practitioners rather than it’s wordily meanings. Stephen Greenblatt has coined the term new historicism.

"If the 1970s could be called the Age of Deconstruction," writes Joseph Litvak, "some hypothetical survey of late twentieth-century criticism might well characterize the 1980s as marking the Return to History, or perhaps the Recovery of the Referent" (120). Michael Warner phrases new historicism's motto as, "The text is historical, and history is textual" (5). Frederic Jameson insisted, "Always historicize!" (The Political Unconscious 9). (Guerin, Labor and Morgan 282-3)

            “The concepts, themes, and procedures of new historicist criticism took shape in the late 1970s and early 1980s, most prominently in writings by scholars of the English Renaissance”. (Abrams and Harpham 248)

Conclusion – The study of criticism and literary terms help us better understand various parts of literature. It gives us in-depth view of discourses. Some specific terms are focused for better detailed understanding. This assignment is majorly focused upon the cultural terms which are in much use in literature.

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 11th. Delhi: Cengage Learning, 2015.

Culler, Jonathan. Literatry Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Ney York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handboook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th. New York: OUP, 2005.

Literary Terms. 1 June 2015. Web. <https://literaryterms.net>.