Julius Caesar Tragic Hero Essay
QUESTION 2
This is a perplexing question to which there is no simple answer. In the same way that Shakespeare titled a play The Merchant of Venice, when the merchant, Antonio, is not the primary character in the play; in Julius Caesar, Caesar is not primary to the action that continues throughout the play. In both of these plays, however, the title character (in this case, Caesar) serves as the catalyst for action that is central to the play.As for Brutus, the term "hero" can be misleading. We tend to think of a hero as someone who swoops in and saves the day, someone we would like to emulate. A super-hero is a good example of this sort of hero. However, if you consider the definition of tragic hero as it was described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in hisPoetics, then we have a very different definition of "hero."As defined by Enotes, a tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. The modern use of the term usually involves the notion that such an hero makes an error in his actions that leads to his or her downfall.. . .Aristotle . . is quite clear in his pronouncement that the hero's misfortune is not brought about "by vice and depravity but by some error of judgment." In fact, in Aristotle's Poetics it is …show more content…
imperative that the tragic hero be noble.And so, if we use the above definition, then the tragic hero is the main character, a noble man, who, through an error in judgement, causes his own downfall. Brutus does fit this description. He is in the play from first to last (many would argue that he is the play's main character) and is the author of his own downfall through his decision to join the Conspiracy against Caesar for "the good of Rome." This error in judgement causes his demise.Caesar also causes his own downfall, in a way, by deciding to go to the Senate against all the warnings not to. However, he cannot be considered the main character in a play in which he dies in the Third Act. And yet, there is no doubt that the question "Who is the protagonist of Julius Caesar?" is one that continues to be debated about this play, and there are no cut and dried answers.For more on tragic heroes, Brutus and Caesar, and which characters might be considered as a protagonist of this play.Although the play Julius Caesar is known as Julius Caesar, the main character is Brutus, and Brutus can't really be called a "hero", yes he joined the conspiracy aqnd plotted against Caesar for the betterment of Rome, but he isn't really a hero for he has killed his friend and had been manipulated by Cassius, who had no intention regarding the betterment of Rome, but because Cassius had a personal reason ;
Cassius:
I was born free as Caesar, so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.(105)
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,(110)
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow. So indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.(115)
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas our great ancestor
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber(120)
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,(125)
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.(130) while Brutus was focused on killing his dearest Caesar for the betterment of Rome, he thought that the conspirators had the same intention too, as we see from Cassius, the whole conspiracy was just selfish for they feared Caesar's overpowerment if he got the crown and thought more about themselves than about Rome. so Brutus being manipulated is not hero-ism.and also we see in scene ii that Brutus had more internal conflict ; thus we conclude that the play "Julius Caesar" is all about Brutus and his emotions, thoughts, actions, etc.
Also there is this quote :
BRUTUS
With this I depart- that, as I slew my ... best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, whenit shall please my country to need my death. (3.2.44)
Thought: Can you ever draw a line between the ultimate sacrifice for your country and just giving too much where it’s not needed? For Caesar’s ambition, which maybe didn’t even exist, Rome loses some of its best men, and the hope of a republic. Hence ,tragedy concerns itself with the downfall of a protagonist (or the tragic hero) that suffers crushing defeat or death. Brutus certainly fits in as the protagonist of Julius Caesar and the tragic hero. Since Brutus was one of the main characters of the play, it would be obvious that he would be the tragic hero of the play as well. The downfall of the protagonist occurs through a tragic flaw of the protagonist. Brutus’ tragic flaw was making bad judgments. For example, he let Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral, he let Antony live and also he marched to Phillipi. Since the Romans liked Brutus, they thought that if he killed Caesar, then he had a good reason for it. However, if Brutus had not let Antony speak at the funeral, the people would not have turned against him and the other conspirators.
QUESTION 4
Undoubtedly, the first name in English literature is that of an Elizabethan poet and dramatist― William Shakespeare― whose skill in transforming human character and action into art created a world of unforgettable people, phrases and incredible situations. He is considered to be the master of human psychology and employs several agencies to heighten the dramatic actions in his plays. The supernatural elements and superstitions in ‘Julius Caesar’ have been introduced to reflect the prevailing social beliefs and taboos, and to cater to the crude taste of the groundlings. The people living in the age of Shakespeare believed in black magic and supernatural appearances. They believed that the ghost, witches and fairies actively interfered in human affairs and controlled the destiny and actions of man. This belief was shared by even the most learned man of 16th century. The dramatist has made use of this belief in his plays for a dramatic purpose and with miraculous results. The introduction of the supernatural in his plays adds an element of mystery and deeper moral significance to the drama. It stands as a symbol of mysterious relationship existing between the world of matter and the world of spirit. He has very successfully employed it in his many plays. The supernatural machinery plays an important role in the plays like ‘Hamlet’, ‘Macbeth’, ‘Cymbeline’ and does it most effectively in ‘Julius Caesar’. In ‘Macbeth’, it intensifies human action. In this play the supernatural agency does not originate any course of action. It quickens the impulse which is already in the mind of the hero― Macbeth. But in ‘Julius Caesar’, the ghost of Caesar gives a definite shape and intensifies some elements always present in the mind of Brutus.
The supernatural elements in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" are very significant because they impress upon the contemporary Elizabethan audience the importance of the Divine Right of Kings. According to this theory of royal absolutism the King was the representative of God himself on earth. The same principle is evident in all of Shakespeare's history plays and "Macbeth." Similarly, since Julius Caesar was the Roman Emperor he was also God's representative on earth and any treasonous act against him is foreshadowed and accompanied by bizarre supernatural happenings.
Secondly, Shakespeare has included supernatural elements in "Julius Caesar" to create an awesome effect in the minds of his contemporary audience by taking advantage of their superstitious beliefs in the supernatural. Some of the important examples of the supernatural in the play are:
In Act I Sc.3 Casca and Cicero meet on a Roman street in the evening. The weather is terrible and a storm is raging and both the heaven and the earth seem to have been shaken by the Gods above leading Casca to remark:
"Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction."
Cicero immediately asks him what other terrible sights he has seen and Casca lists out for him all the weird things seen by him. Two of the most striking 'supernatural' events described by Casca are (1) the slave who was completely insensible to his hand blazing away like twenty torches burning together and not being scorched at all and (2) the nocturnal owl hooting and shrieking in the market place at noon.
1. "A common slave--you know him well by sight--
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd."
2. "And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking."
Calpurnia, Caesar's wife appears only once in the play in Act II Sc.2. She is presented as a very troubled and anxious lady deeply concerned about the safety of her husband. She pleads with Caesar not to go to the Senate because there have been reports of very bizarre happenings in Rome and she herself has had a terrible dream. Just then Decius arrives to accompany him to the Senate, and Caesar narrates to him Calpurnia's dream and tells him that he won't be coming to the senate:
"Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home;
She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood, and many lusty Romans
Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
And evils imminent, and on her knee
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home today."
Calpurnia foresaw in her dream the assasination of Julius Caesar. She saw in her dream the statue of Julius Caesar being transformed into a fountain from which spouted not water, but blood and the Roman citizens smilingly washing their hands in his blood. he supernatural events in Julius Caesar are very much part of ancient literature. The Romans were very aware of supernatural events such as prodigies and omens. They believed that the gods communicated with them through these. We can say that they were like signaling mechanisms with the divine. This might seem strange to modern readers, but it is only in the west and only recently that people shied away from the supernatural. Even in Shakespeare's time, people had very strong beliefs in the supernatural. So, I would say that these supernatural events fit right in the narrative and also fit into the culture of readers with perhaps the exception of modern times.
QUESTION 3
All My Sons takes place in a small American town in August, a few years after World War II. The events of the play occur on a single set, the back yard of the Keller home, where a tree has recently been torn down by a storm. The Kellers are solidly middle-class and have a working-class background. They are not rich, but they are financially comfortable, and there is a sense throughout the play that they worked hard to reach this state of stability.
The important events in All My Sons have already transpired. The only action that occurs within the time frame of the narrative is the revelation of certain facts about the past, and it is important to track how the revelations change the relationships among the characters as well as their own self-definition. Arthur Miller carefully controls the flow of information rather than focusing on plot and action. Thus the play, influenced by the work of the playwright Ibsen, is paced by the slow revelation of facts. In the first act, not much is said that is unknown to the characters, but it is all new to the audience. Miller takes his time revealing the background information to the audience by having the characters obliquely refer to Larry and to his disappearance again and again, until all the necessary information has been revealed through natural dialog. The explanation of Keller's and Steve's business during the war, and the ensuing scandal, is similarly revealed through insinuation and association. The first reference to Steve's incarceration occurs when Ann says that her mother and father will probably live together again "when he gets out." This does not mean much to the audience until Frank asks about Steve's parole. Therefore, Ann's estrangement from her father and the community's hostility and curiosity towards the man are established before the audience knows exactly where Steve is and how he got there. Miller's manipulation of the background information heightens the anticipation and the curiosity of the audience.
Again, very little new information is presented to the characters in this act. Chris reveals his intentions to marry Ann to his father, Ann learns of Chris's feelings of guilt for surviving the war and coming home to a successful business, and Mother learns that Ann has not exactly been waiting for Larry all these years. Yet Miller's skillful and carefully planned withholding of the characters' backgrounds prevents the first act from feeling like forty minutes of exposition--which, in function, it actually is. The slow pace of the first act also allows the horror of the crime to seep into the atmosphere, imbuing the audience with a sense that this idyllic, placid community has been injected with a slow poison.
In addition, as in many plays and written works, Miller's choices in establishing the relationships in this fashion allow him to closely manipulate the audience's inferences and judgments about each character. (The effect is not unlike that of F. Scott Fitzgerald'sThe Great Gatsby , in which the first-person narrator, speaking after the events of the narrative, slowly reveals Daisy Buchanan's character to the reader.) Yet Arthur Miller did not have the narrative tools of the novel at his disposal like Fitzgerald did. A playwright mainly employs dialogue. Therefore, readers and viewers should pay careful attention to the ways that Miller sets up the necessary details about each character and their relationships. Keller's insistence that Steve was not a murderer, and Chris's strong belief that patching those cracked airplane heads was morally reprehensible, are not just foreshadowing. They are essential elements of each character's personal trajectory, and these elements express the principal concept of the play: the past has an enduring influence on the present which never quite goes away. Fitzgerald's work leaves the reader with the message that one "can't repeat the past," and Miller's adds the caveat that one cannot ignore the past either.
The first act also illustrates the tensions between the characters that will rise to the surface in the second and third acts. The Kellers seem like a happy family at first; it is even remarked that Chris is the rare sort of person who truly loves his parents. But there is resentment beneath the surface of their contented existence, resentment that reflects more than just grief at the loss of a son. Larry was clearly the favored of the Keller boys. Keller compares Larry's business sense to Chris's lack of it, and Chris complains that he has always played second fiddle to Larry in the eyes of his parents and of Ann, who was first betrothed to Larry. The family sometimes implies bitterness that Chris, not Larry, was the son who survived the war. Chris is too idealistic, too soft about business. Like Michael Corleone in Mario Puzo's The Godfather , Chris returned from the war with a new idealism that will not permit him to condone his father's shadier business practices. And like Vito Corleone, Keller believes that his actions are legitimate if he acts for the sake of his family. In the end, like Michael Corleone, Chris must compromise his values in order to protect his father and his own family.
Mother's insecurities are expressed through her obsessive delusions about her dead son. She is anxious, suspicious of Ann, and highly superstitious. She cannot handle her husband's casual "jail" game with the neighborhood children, because there is something weighing on her conscience. Jail has been a real specter in this family. When Keller responds to her worries with "what have I got to hide?" we see the first clue that he does have something to hide after all--and Mother knows all about it--and it makes her sick with worry.
Ann is more of a simple character, serving the purpose of the plot but not actually a focus of the plot herself.
All My Sons is the story of the Kellers, so we do not see much of Ann's reaction to the realization that her father was largely innocent after all. She functions in this act as a catalyst, a femme fatale in the literal sense, the woman who brings destruction to the false calm of the Kellers' life by churning up a past that some of the family, in some ways, has tried to ignore. She and George have their own family drama, but Miller keeps a tight focus, so Ann's and George's story is not the subject of this play except inasmuch as their disgust for their father heightens the tension between another son and a father who might be
guilty.
QUESTION 1
History of Drama
In early ages, people used to communicate without using words. They also performed some sort of ritualistic communication to protect themselves from animals. Then gradually they started to put language in and started to do some sort of performances for their own amusement. This kept on evolving and took the face of the type of performances we see now days.
ORIGINS OF ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA Theater was born in Attica, an Ionic region of Greece. It originated from the ceremonial orgies of Dionysos but soon enough its fields of interest spread to various myths along with historic facts. As ancient drama was an institution of Democracy, the great tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides as well as the comedian Aristophanes elevated public debate and political criticism to a level of aesthetic achievement. Euripides and the ethologist Menandros, in the thriving years of Alexandria and later on during the Roman domination, reached a beau ideal level and through the Romans managed to form Western Theater, from Renascence and thereafter.DRAMA FESTIVALSThe plays were presented at festivals in honor of Dionysus, including the Great Dionysia at Athens, held in the spring the Rural Dionysia, held in the winter and the Lenaea, also held in the winter following the Rural Dionysia. The works of only three poets, selected in competition, were performed. In addition to three tragic plays (a trilogy) each poet had to present a satyr play - a farcical, often bawdy parody of the gods and their myths. Later, comedy, which developed in the mid-5th century BC, was also presented. The oldest extant comedies are by Aristophanes. They have a highly formal structure thought to be derived from ancient fertility rites. The humor consists of a mixture of satirical attacks on contemporary public figures, bawdy, scatological jokes, and seemingly sacrilegious parodies of the gods. By the 4th century BC comedy had supplanted tragedy as the dominant form.ANCIENT THEATERSThe form of the Greek physical theater evolved over two centuries interestingly, the permanent stone theaters that survive today as ruins were not built until the 4th century BC - that is, after the classical period of playwriting. The open-air theaters may have consisted of an orchestra - a flat circular area used for choral dances
The Romans introduced drama to England, during the medieval period. A number of auditoriums were constructed for the performance of the art form, when it came to the country. Mummers' plays, associated with the Morris dance, became a popular form of street theatre during the period. The performances were based on the old stories of Saint George, Robin Hood and Dragon. The artists moved from town to town, to perform these folk tales. They were given money and hospitality, in return for their performance. The mystery and morality plays, performed during medieval period - at religious festivals, carried the Christian theme. English Renaissance
The English Renaissance, a cultural and artistic movement in England country that lasted from 16th to early-17th century, paved the way for the dominance of drama in the country. Queen Elizabeth I ruled during the period, when great poetry and drama were produced. The renowned playwrights of this time included William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster. The dramatists wrote plays based on themes like history, comedy and tragedy. While most of the playwrights specialized in only one of the themes, Shakespeare emerged as an artist who produced plays based on all the three themes. You may have heard that the tradition of Indian drama is very old. It goes back to the Sanskrit drama of ancient India and encompasses contemporary Indian theatre in Hindi, English, and the regional languages. Modern Indian drama is influenced not only by classical drama or local folk forms but also by western theatre, following the establishment of British rule in India. Had considerable influence on the British stage. In the earlier
The English Drama which is at present has become a highly developed form of entertainment had its origin in the church. The drama of Greece and Rome had considerable influence on the English , people could not go to anything like a modern theatre-the theatre came to them in the shape of ministrel or the gleeman who went from one house to another of whom we hear in early song and story. The major events of Christ’s life were enacted by priests in the church. These plays enjoyed great popularity. The origins of English drama date from the eleventh century and it has its roots in the religious instincts of humankind. In the beginning ,in the Dark ages the Church was hostile to drama. It was later that the Church brought drama into utilization to preach and teach the truth of religion to the illiterate masses.
American Drama began in the American colonies in the 17th century and has continued developing to the present. The American Drama of the 18th and 19th centuries mostly had British influence on it. In fact until 1910 the New York city language and the ready availability of British influence on it. American Drama began to diverge from British Drama around the 1830’s. Critics claim that American Drama was born only at the end of the World War 1 in 1920’s. Realism dominated both comedies and tragedies even in the 20th century and the as the century advanced , American Drama took up broader issues of race gender , sexuality and death.
Much of modern day African drama has its origins in ritualistic music and dance that commonly expressed extreme emotions such as passion, love and terror. Tribes would act out imitations of things that they wanted to happen. For instance if they wanted to kill an enemy, they would imitate the process among the tribe.
The widespread belief in Sympathetic Magic meant that such imitations took place with the genuine belief that it would enable it to happen in real life. Dance and song was a central part of religious and magical ritual.
As well as anticipatory performances such as this, there were also reactionary dramatic occasions, for instance the celebration of a notable event or a commemoration. Again, re-enactment was crucial with great attention to detail paid to make sure that the acting was as faithful as possible.
As many African countries celebrated the end of colonization and the gaining of independence in the 20th century, the celebration of the past and attempts to reclaim and celebrate the country's cultural heritage became a crucial part of the move towards cultural autonomy. This meant that the ritualistic dramatic performances of the past were explored and celebrated once more.
QUESTION 6
Gray worked on this poem from 1742 to 1750. Like Lycidas, it is a memorial to actual people, but a reflection on much more. In the poem, Gray makes the point that there is inherent nobility in all people, but that difficult circumstances prevent those talents from being manifested. He speculates about the potential leaders, poets, and musicians who may have died in obscurity and been buried there. At various stages of composition, the poem had several different endings. Critics do not agree about the merits of the differing versions. Some critics approve of the additional lines; others spoke of the new stanzas and the epitaph as "a tin kettle tied to the poem's tail. The poem now ends with the epitaph which sums up the poet's own life and beliefs.
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Beginning with the eighth of the alternately rhymed decasyllabic quatrains, Gray contrasts the simplicity and virtue of the stalwart English yeomanry of the past with the vain, boastful present. The ambitious of the growing age of industrialism should not mock their "useful toil," nor cloud over their ‘'homely joys," nor hear a recitation of their "short and simple annals" with disdain. The lesson that their humble graveyard teaches is that whether life is blessedly simple, as it was for these rustics, or adorned with "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,/ And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave," the fact is that "the inevitable hour" awaits. To be sure, the grave is the terminus of the "paths of glory," but for the paths of the humble as well. The fact that no impressive memorials marked their resting places, nor "pealing anthems'‘ of funerals in "long-drawn alisle and fretted vault" does not matter. These displays of earth's glories make their honorees no less dead:
Can storied urn or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?"
Gray then conjectures what losses may have occurred to art and science because these rural folk never could avail themselves of the opportunities that those of greater advantage could. Perhaps a would-be clergyman, with "heart once pregnant with celestial fire," or a potential great political leader with hands "the rod of empire might have sway'd," or poet who might have "wak'd to extasy the living lyre" lies in the cemetery. But their careers were stanched by the dual forces of ignorance and poverty. Knowledge did not reveal to them "her ample page" laden with the "rich with the spoils of time," while "chill penury" disabled their creative spirits. As a result, their geniuses went to the grave unblossomed, just as (in a reference to Lycidas)
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to lush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
With a sense of futility, Gray notes that all life's endeavors, whether positive or negative, are rendered useless by the shadow of the tomb. To be sure, some "village Hampden" (that is, a benefactor of the people) or "mute inglorious Milton" may have been stifled by rural poverty and inaccessibility, but likewise a potential dictator (Gray was a Tory) such as Cromwell may have been saved from shedding "his country's blood." Here is the poetic consolation, not only for the dead but the living, conservative poet; destiny has shut off from them the very avenues of advancement associated with the oligarchy of 18th century England, so that none of their rank will ever be glutted with "th' applause of listening senates," nor will they ever read their histories in the chronicles of the nation. Gray's Tory position, then, used here almost to justify their poverty, is that destiny confined not only their "growing virtues" but "their crimes confin'd" as well. From their ranks no one will "wade through slaughter to a throne," or open eyes of mercy on humankind. In the most often quoted (or misquoted) line in the poem, Gray says that their aspirations never deviated very much from the quietude that lies "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." Instead, they adhered to the "cool sequester'd vale of life."
Turning his attention to the unsophisticated memorial stones in the cemetery, Gray notes the "uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculptures" which call from the sentimental passerby the "passing tribute of a sigh." The scriptural texts which adorn them "teach the moralist to die," yet even these simple memorials call for us, the living, to see that we still share in their humanity: "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,/ Ev'n in our ashes live their wanted fires."
In the conclusion of the poem, Gray recognizes that as he contemplates the efforts, hapless as they may be, of these rustics to insure some kind of earthly immortality through their tombstones, he is giving voice to his own impulse toward immortality. Neoclassical decorum demands, however, that he remove himself from the poetic expression; therefore, he conjures up a persona, one who "mindful of the unhonor'd dead" did their "artful tale relate." And "hoary-headed swain" will tell the "kindred spirit" passer-by that this poet could in times past be seen meeting the sun at early dawning, wandering through the forests and by the brook all day: "Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlom,/ Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love." But mortality claimed him at last. The passer-by is asked to read the epitaph of this "youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown." The stressing of both human knowledge and piety suggests Gray's own image of himself. "Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,/ And Melancholy mark'd him for her own." Large in kindness as well as holiness, this self-projection of the poet lies (as eventually Gray would be buried beside his mother in the Stokes Poges churchyard) trusting not in human endeavor but in "the bosom of his Father and his God." In such terms, he agrees with both Pope in The Essay on Man and Johnson in The Vanity of Human Wishes.
Many critics point out how the poem conveys so perfectly what others have always felt. Its reflections on fame, obscurity, ambition, and destiny tend to sound as if they have always been written in stone
QUESTION 5
John Donne, whose poetic reputation languished before he was rediscovered in the early part of the twentieth century, is remembered today as the leading exponent of a style of verse known as “metaphysical poetry,” which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. (Other great metaphysical poets include Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, and George Herbert.) Metaphysical poetry typically employs unusual verse forms, complex figures of speech applied to elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits, and learned themes discussed according to eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning. Donne’s poetry exhibits each of these characteristics. His jarring, unusual meters; his proclivity for abstract puns and double entendres; his often bizarre metaphors (in one poem he compares love to a carnivorous fish; in another he pleads with God to make him pure by raping him); and his process of oblique reasoning are all characteristic traits of the metaphysicals, unified in Donne as in no other poet.
Donne is valuable not simply as a representative writer but also as a highly unique one. He was a man of contradictions: As a minister in the Anglican Church, Donne possessed a deep spirituality that informed his writing throughout his life; but as a man, Donne possessed a carnal lust for life, sensation, and experience. He is both a great religious poet and a great erotic poet, and perhaps no other writer (with the possible exception of Herbert) strove as hard to unify and express such incongruous, mutually discordant passions. In his best poems, Donne mixes the discourses of the physical and the spiritual; over the course of his career, Donne gave sublime expression to both realms.
His conflicting proclivities often cause Donne to contradict himself. (For example, in one poem he writes, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Yet in another, he writes, “Death I recant, and say, unsaid by me / Whate’er hath slipped, that might diminish thee.”) However, his contradictions are representative of the powerful contrary forces at work in his poetry and in his soul, rather than of sloppy thinking or inconsistency. Donne, who lived a generation after Shakespeare, took advantage of his divided nature to become the greatest metaphysical poet of the seventeenth century; among the poets of inner conflict, he is one of the greatest of all time.
QUESTION 8
John Keats', "To Autumn", and Percy Shelley's, "Ode to the West Wind", are both poems that use the Romantic element of nature to describe human feelings. They use the seasons to portray their views of life. Though both use seasons as their metaphor, both apply it with different terms. Though P. B. Shelley and John Keats were mutual friends, but they have possessed the diversified qualities in their creativity. These two are the greatest contributors of English Literature, though their life cycle were very short. Their comparison is also less with each other, while each is very much similar in thoughts, imagination, creation and also their lifetime.
Attitude towards the Nature
P. B. Shelley:
Whereas older Romantic poets looked at nature as a realm of communion with pure existence and with a truth preceding human experience, the later Romantics looked at nature primarily as a realm of overwhelming beauty and aesthetic pleasure. While Wordsworth and Coleridge often write about nature in itself, Shelley tends to invoke nature as a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression.
John Keats:
Keats’s sentiment of Nature is simpler than that of other romantics. He remains absolutely influenced by the Pantheism of Wordsworth and P. B. Shelley. It was his instinct to love and interpret Nature more for her own sake, and less for the sake of the sympathy which the human mind can read into her with its own workings and aspirations. Keats is the poet of senses, and he loves Nature because of her sensual appeal, her appeal to the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of touch.
Keats poem uses autumn to portray the mind and life of man. Life is viewed as the process of aging, decay, and death. The first stanza there is a sense of ripeness as fall is beginning to approach, and Summer is ending. Under the "maturing sun" indicates nature at its full bloom. Keats sees summer as his climactic time of life. By the second stanza, Keats has reached his "last oozings," or his last moments of summer, which he views as the climactic time of his life. Autumn is beginning to arrive and winter, or death, is approaching soon after. The last stanza asks, "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they"" Or, where are Keats' carefree younger days? He says, "barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day," he is resisting the death he sees approaching. The poem is relates nature to the closure of the season, while it is the closure of the author's life.
Shelley uses the wind in his poem as a spirit, and concentrates on the aspect that the wind causes death or darkness. In the first two stanzas of the poem, there are comparisons of "dead leaves" to "ghosts" and "winged seeds" to dead bodies that "lie cold and low... within its grave." The author comes to associate the season of autumn with these dismal, violent thoughts. He sees the Autumn season of a time of aging, and of a "dying year." As the poem progresses, Shelley starts describing images of peace and serenity. He talks about the "blue Mediterranean" and "summer dreams." By the final stanzas of the poem, Shelley, wants to use the winds evil power to create a new beginning. "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new rebirth!" He feels that good can come through evil, therefore, respects the wind changing him.
As mentioned above, both Romantic poets used the season of Autumn to portray the seasons of life. Though as seen through the works, they interpreted the outcome differently. Keats' poem spoke of aging and death, whereas Shelley's spoke of rebirth and rejuvenation.
QUESTION 7
Mock-heroic is a term used to describe poems which use a very grand and formal style to describe a common or trivial subject for which this style is not appropriate. This leads to a comic effect since the style of the poem is mismatched with the subject.
For example:
A poem with a hero who does battle with monsters (such as Beowulf) is heroic, and can also be epic if it is sufficiently long
A poem in which the central character is not brave or does not have genuine adventures, such as some parts of Byron's Don Juan (1819-24), is mock-heroic.
STYLE
The style of the mock-heroic poem follows that of the epic closely, particularly in its use of embellished, formal language and elevated vocabulary. However, the mock-heroic poem will exaggerate to the point of bathos, and is likely to produce a comic effect.
Alexander Pope's long poem The Rape of the Lock (1712-14) is a mock-epic which is also mock-heroic. The poem tells of the pilfering of a lock of hair and parodies the kidnapping of HELEN OF TROY in The Iliad. The poem also mocks the gods, making them seem petty and quarrelsome
Pope's epic The Dunciad (1729) is mock-heroic in style, describing the goddess Dulness and her take-over of England. The poem opens with an epic invocation and mocks the tediousness that Pope sees developing in Britain. The Rape of the Lock is a humorous indictment of the vanities and idleness of 18th-century high society. Basing his poem on a real incident among families of his acquaintance, Pope intended his verses to cool hot tempers and to encourage his friends to laugh at their own folly.The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one of the most serious of literary forms; it had been applied, in the classical period, to the lofty subject matter of love and war, and, more recently, by Milton, to the intricacies of the Christian faith. The strategy of Pope’s mock-epic is not to mock the form itself, but to mock his society in its very failure to rise to epic standards, exposing its pettiness by casting it against the grandeur of the traditional epic subjects and the bravery and fortitude of epic heroes: Pope’s mock-heroic treatment in The Rape of the Lock underscores the ridiculousness of a society in which values have lost all proportion, and the trivial is handled with the gravity and solemnity that ought to be accorded to truly important issues. The society on display in this poem is one that fails to distinguish between things that matter and things that do not. The poem mocks the men it portrays by showing them as unworthy of a form that suited a more heroic culture. Thus the mock-epic resembles the epic in that its central concerns are serious and often moral, but the fact that the approach must now be satirical rather than earnest is symptomatic of how far the culture has fallen.
Pope’s use of the mock-epic genre is intricate and exhaustive.The Rape of the Lock is a poem in which every element of the contemporary scene conjures up some image from epic tradition or the classical world view, and the pieces are wrought together with a cleverness and expertise that makes the poem surprising and delightful. Pope’s transformations are numerous, striking, and loaded with moral implications. The great battles of epic become bouts of gambling and flirtatious tiffs. The great, if capricious, Greek and Roman gods are converted into a relatively undifferentiated army of basically ineffectual sprites. Cosmetics, clothing, and jewelry substitute for armor and weapons, and the rituals of religious sacrifice are transplanted to the dressing room and the altar of love.
The verse form of The Rape of the Lock is the heroic couplet; Pope still reigns as the uncontested master of the form. The heroic couplet consists of rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter lines (lines of ten syllables each, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables). Pope’s couplets do not fall into strict iambs, however, flowering instead with a rich rhythmic variation that keeps the highly regular meter from becoming heavy or tedious. Pope distributes his sentences, with their resolutely parallel grammar, across the lines and half-lines of the poem in a way that enhances the judicious quality of his ideas. Moreover, the inherent balance of the couplet form is strikingly well suited to a subject matter that draws on comparisons and contrasts: the form invites configurations in which two ideas or circumstances are balanced, measured, or compared against one another. It is thus perfect for the evaluative, moralizing premise of the poem, particularly in the hands of this brilliant poet.
QUESTION 1
Your father lies five whole fathoms below.
His bones have turned to coral now.
His eyes have turned to pearls.
There’s nothing left of him,
His bones have been changed into corals and eyes into pearls due to sea – change process. Nothings of his parts of the body have been destroyed. But his whole body has changed the sea into something valuable and strange. It also means means to say than life does not die but changes to other forms. Death is nothing but just a medium of changing life from one form to another. Life after death is permanent whereas life itself is ephemeral.
QUESTION 2
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
All this lousy shepherding going on is even worse when you add to it the fact that the sheep are already being attacked by wolves on a daily basis. Of course these lame shepherds don't even say anything about it.
Peter also says that some "two-handed engine" is ready to "smite" or cut down these bad shepherds for good. Once this "engine" smites them, he will "smite no more," because the job is done.
"Privy" means "clandestine," "secret," or "stealthy."
Some critics think that the "wolf" is a reference to the Roman Catholic Church, which Milton, a radical Protestant, hated. Yep, hated.
Nobody really knows what that "two-handed engine" is, and there are about as many speculations as there are lines in the poem. Some think that it refers to the sword in the book of revelations, which represents the word of God. But it could also be a reference to just about any other sword that appears in the Bible – and there are a fair few, friends.
Whatever that sword represents, it's ready to do some damage. We might think of this as Milton assuring his readers that the unworthy members of the clergy in England will pay the price for their corruption eventually. And his 1645 preface reminds us that they totally did.
It has been known for twenty years that the etymology for the title of Milton's poem "Lycidas" derives from the Greek for wolf cub, transliterated as "lykideus" (Forester). This fact has not made it into any edition of that poem that I am aware of. It is only slightly surprising, then, that there has been no critical discussion of the relevance of wolves to Milton's poem. The ambiguity of the association between Edward King and wolves is similar to the inherently ambiguous association of Apollo with wolves. Apollo has a number of epithets that link him with wolves. Lykegenes, or "born of a wolf," appears in Book 4 of The Iliad (Rouse 50). Lykeios, or the alternate spel ling Lykios, can mean, variously, the Lycian god as wolf slayer or simply the god of light. And the stories about Apollo and his relationship with wolves are equally various. He is associated with wolves when they are beneficial animals as well as when they are a threat to society. The Delphians recognize Apollo in the wolf that killed the robber of his temple and led them up Mt. Parnassus to their stolen gold (Pausanias 10.14.443). But Apollo is also a killer of wolves. He is a protector of flocks, just as Edward King the shepherd would be. When Milton adds to his header for this poem in his 1645 collection, he appears to be making a straightforward statement: "And by association foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their height
This is a perplexing question to which there is no simple answer. In the same way that Shakespeare titled a play The Merchant of Venice, when the merchant, Antonio, is not the primary character in the play; in Julius Caesar, Caesar is not primary to the action that continues throughout the play. In both of these plays, however, the title character (in this case, Caesar) serves as the catalyst for action that is central to the play.As for Brutus, the term "hero" can be misleading. We tend to think of a hero as someone who swoops in and saves the day, someone we would like to emulate. A super-hero is a good example of this sort of hero. However, if you consider the definition of tragic hero as it was described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in hisPoetics, then we have a very different definition of "hero."As defined by Enotes, a tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. The modern use of the term usually involves the notion that such an hero makes an error in his actions that leads to his or her downfall.. . .Aristotle . . is quite clear in his pronouncement that the hero's misfortune is not brought about "by vice and depravity but by some error of judgment." In fact, in Aristotle's Poetics it is …show more content…
imperative that the tragic hero be noble.And so, if we use the above definition, then the tragic hero is the main character, a noble man, who, through an error in judgement, causes his own downfall. Brutus does fit this description. He is in the play from first to last (many would argue that he is the play's main character) and is the author of his own downfall through his decision to join the Conspiracy against Caesar for "the good of Rome." This error in judgement causes his demise.Caesar also causes his own downfall, in a way, by deciding to go to the Senate against all the warnings not to. However, he cannot be considered the main character in a play in which he dies in the Third Act. And yet, there is no doubt that the question "Who is the protagonist of Julius Caesar?" is one that continues to be debated about this play, and there are no cut and dried answers.For more on tragic heroes, Brutus and Caesar, and which characters might be considered as a protagonist of this play.Although the play Julius Caesar is known as Julius Caesar, the main character is Brutus, and Brutus can't really be called a "hero", yes he joined the conspiracy aqnd plotted against Caesar for the betterment of Rome, but he isn't really a hero for he has killed his friend and had been manipulated by Cassius, who had no intention regarding the betterment of Rome, but because Cassius had a personal reason ;
Cassius:
I was born free as Caesar, so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.(105)
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,(110)
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow. So indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.(115)
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas our great ancestor
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber(120)
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,(125)
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.(130) while Brutus was focused on killing his dearest Caesar for the betterment of Rome, he thought that the conspirators had the same intention too, as we see from Cassius, the whole conspiracy was just selfish for they feared Caesar's overpowerment if he got the crown and thought more about themselves than about Rome. so Brutus being manipulated is not hero-ism.and also we see in scene ii that Brutus had more internal conflict ; thus we conclude that the play "Julius Caesar" is all about Brutus and his emotions, thoughts, actions, etc.
Also there is this quote :
BRUTUS
With this I depart- that, as I slew my ... best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, whenit shall please my country to need my death. (3.2.44)
Thought: Can you ever draw a line between the ultimate sacrifice for your country and just giving too much where it’s not needed? For Caesar’s ambition, which maybe didn’t even exist, Rome loses some of its best men, and the hope of a republic. Hence ,tragedy concerns itself with the downfall of a protagonist (or the tragic hero) that suffers crushing defeat or death. Brutus certainly fits in as the protagonist of Julius Caesar and the tragic hero. Since Brutus was one of the main characters of the play, it would be obvious that he would be the tragic hero of the play as well. The downfall of the protagonist occurs through a tragic flaw of the protagonist. Brutus’ tragic flaw was making bad judgments. For example, he let Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral, he let Antony live and also he marched to Phillipi. Since the Romans liked Brutus, they thought that if he killed Caesar, then he had a good reason for it. However, if Brutus had not let Antony speak at the funeral, the people would not have turned against him and the other conspirators.
QUESTION 4
Undoubtedly, the first name in English literature is that of an Elizabethan poet and dramatist― William Shakespeare― whose skill in transforming human character and action into art created a world of unforgettable people, phrases and incredible situations. He is considered to be the master of human psychology and employs several agencies to heighten the dramatic actions in his plays. The supernatural elements and superstitions in ‘Julius Caesar’ have been introduced to reflect the prevailing social beliefs and taboos, and to cater to the crude taste of the groundlings. The people living in the age of Shakespeare believed in black magic and supernatural appearances. They believed that the ghost, witches and fairies actively interfered in human affairs and controlled the destiny and actions of man. This belief was shared by even the most learned man of 16th century. The dramatist has made use of this belief in his plays for a dramatic purpose and with miraculous results. The introduction of the supernatural in his plays adds an element of mystery and deeper moral significance to the drama. It stands as a symbol of mysterious relationship existing between the world of matter and the world of spirit. He has very successfully employed it in his many plays. The supernatural machinery plays an important role in the plays like ‘Hamlet’, ‘Macbeth’, ‘Cymbeline’ and does it most effectively in ‘Julius Caesar’. In ‘Macbeth’, it intensifies human action. In this play the supernatural agency does not originate any course of action. It quickens the impulse which is already in the mind of the hero― Macbeth. But in ‘Julius Caesar’, the ghost of Caesar gives a definite shape and intensifies some elements always present in the mind of Brutus.
The supernatural elements in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" are very significant because they impress upon the contemporary Elizabethan audience the importance of the Divine Right of Kings. According to this theory of royal absolutism the King was the representative of God himself on earth. The same principle is evident in all of Shakespeare's history plays and "Macbeth." Similarly, since Julius Caesar was the Roman Emperor he was also God's representative on earth and any treasonous act against him is foreshadowed and accompanied by bizarre supernatural happenings.
Secondly, Shakespeare has included supernatural elements in "Julius Caesar" to create an awesome effect in the minds of his contemporary audience by taking advantage of their superstitious beliefs in the supernatural. Some of the important examples of the supernatural in the play are:
In Act I Sc.3 Casca and Cicero meet on a Roman street in the evening. The weather is terrible and a storm is raging and both the heaven and the earth seem to have been shaken by the Gods above leading Casca to remark:
"Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction."
Cicero immediately asks him what other terrible sights he has seen and Casca lists out for him all the weird things seen by him. Two of the most striking 'supernatural' events described by Casca are (1) the slave who was completely insensible to his hand blazing away like twenty torches burning together and not being scorched at all and (2) the nocturnal owl hooting and shrieking in the market place at noon.
1. "A common slave--you know him well by sight--
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd."
2. "And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking."
Calpurnia, Caesar's wife appears only once in the play in Act II Sc.2. She is presented as a very troubled and anxious lady deeply concerned about the safety of her husband. She pleads with Caesar not to go to the Senate because there have been reports of very bizarre happenings in Rome and she herself has had a terrible dream. Just then Decius arrives to accompany him to the Senate, and Caesar narrates to him Calpurnia's dream and tells him that he won't be coming to the senate:
"Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home;
She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood, and many lusty Romans
Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
And evils imminent, and on her knee
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home today."
Calpurnia foresaw in her dream the assasination of Julius Caesar. She saw in her dream the statue of Julius Caesar being transformed into a fountain from which spouted not water, but blood and the Roman citizens smilingly washing their hands in his blood. he supernatural events in Julius Caesar are very much part of ancient literature. The Romans were very aware of supernatural events such as prodigies and omens. They believed that the gods communicated with them through these. We can say that they were like signaling mechanisms with the divine. This might seem strange to modern readers, but it is only in the west and only recently that people shied away from the supernatural. Even in Shakespeare's time, people had very strong beliefs in the supernatural. So, I would say that these supernatural events fit right in the narrative and also fit into the culture of readers with perhaps the exception of modern times.
QUESTION 3
All My Sons takes place in a small American town in August, a few years after World War II. The events of the play occur on a single set, the back yard of the Keller home, where a tree has recently been torn down by a storm. The Kellers are solidly middle-class and have a working-class background. They are not rich, but they are financially comfortable, and there is a sense throughout the play that they worked hard to reach this state of stability.
The important events in All My Sons have already transpired. The only action that occurs within the time frame of the narrative is the revelation of certain facts about the past, and it is important to track how the revelations change the relationships among the characters as well as their own self-definition. Arthur Miller carefully controls the flow of information rather than focusing on plot and action. Thus the play, influenced by the work of the playwright Ibsen, is paced by the slow revelation of facts. In the first act, not much is said that is unknown to the characters, but it is all new to the audience. Miller takes his time revealing the background information to the audience by having the characters obliquely refer to Larry and to his disappearance again and again, until all the necessary information has been revealed through natural dialog. The explanation of Keller's and Steve's business during the war, and the ensuing scandal, is similarly revealed through insinuation and association. The first reference to Steve's incarceration occurs when Ann says that her mother and father will probably live together again "when he gets out." This does not mean much to the audience until Frank asks about Steve's parole. Therefore, Ann's estrangement from her father and the community's hostility and curiosity towards the man are established before the audience knows exactly where Steve is and how he got there. Miller's manipulation of the background information heightens the anticipation and the curiosity of the audience.
Again, very little new information is presented to the characters in this act. Chris reveals his intentions to marry Ann to his father, Ann learns of Chris's feelings of guilt for surviving the war and coming home to a successful business, and Mother learns that Ann has not exactly been waiting for Larry all these years. Yet Miller's skillful and carefully planned withholding of the characters' backgrounds prevents the first act from feeling like forty minutes of exposition--which, in function, it actually is. The slow pace of the first act also allows the horror of the crime to seep into the atmosphere, imbuing the audience with a sense that this idyllic, placid community has been injected with a slow poison.
In addition, as in many plays and written works, Miller's choices in establishing the relationships in this fashion allow him to closely manipulate the audience's inferences and judgments about each character. (The effect is not unlike that of F. Scott Fitzgerald'sThe Great Gatsby , in which the first-person narrator, speaking after the events of the narrative, slowly reveals Daisy Buchanan's character to the reader.) Yet Arthur Miller did not have the narrative tools of the novel at his disposal like Fitzgerald did. A playwright mainly employs dialogue. Therefore, readers and viewers should pay careful attention to the ways that Miller sets up the necessary details about each character and their relationships. Keller's insistence that Steve was not a murderer, and Chris's strong belief that patching those cracked airplane heads was morally reprehensible, are not just foreshadowing. They are essential elements of each character's personal trajectory, and these elements express the principal concept of the play: the past has an enduring influence on the present which never quite goes away. Fitzgerald's work leaves the reader with the message that one "can't repeat the past," and Miller's adds the caveat that one cannot ignore the past either.
The first act also illustrates the tensions between the characters that will rise to the surface in the second and third acts. The Kellers seem like a happy family at first; it is even remarked that Chris is the rare sort of person who truly loves his parents. But there is resentment beneath the surface of their contented existence, resentment that reflects more than just grief at the loss of a son. Larry was clearly the favored of the Keller boys. Keller compares Larry's business sense to Chris's lack of it, and Chris complains that he has always played second fiddle to Larry in the eyes of his parents and of Ann, who was first betrothed to Larry. The family sometimes implies bitterness that Chris, not Larry, was the son who survived the war. Chris is too idealistic, too soft about business. Like Michael Corleone in Mario Puzo's The Godfather , Chris returned from the war with a new idealism that will not permit him to condone his father's shadier business practices. And like Vito Corleone, Keller believes that his actions are legitimate if he acts for the sake of his family. In the end, like Michael Corleone, Chris must compromise his values in order to protect his father and his own family.
Mother's insecurities are expressed through her obsessive delusions about her dead son. She is anxious, suspicious of Ann, and highly superstitious. She cannot handle her husband's casual "jail" game with the neighborhood children, because there is something weighing on her conscience. Jail has been a real specter in this family. When Keller responds to her worries with "what have I got to hide?" we see the first clue that he does have something to hide after all--and Mother knows all about it--and it makes her sick with worry.
Ann is more of a simple character, serving the purpose of the plot but not actually a focus of the plot herself.
All My Sons is the story of the Kellers, so we do not see much of Ann's reaction to the realization that her father was largely innocent after all. She functions in this act as a catalyst, a femme fatale in the literal sense, the woman who brings destruction to the false calm of the Kellers' life by churning up a past that some of the family, in some ways, has tried to ignore. She and George have their own family drama, but Miller keeps a tight focus, so Ann's and George's story is not the subject of this play except inasmuch as their disgust for their father heightens the tension between another son and a father who might be
guilty.
QUESTION 1
History of Drama
In early ages, people used to communicate without using words. They also performed some sort of ritualistic communication to protect themselves from animals. Then gradually they started to put language in and started to do some sort of performances for their own amusement. This kept on evolving and took the face of the type of performances we see now days.
ORIGINS OF ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA Theater was born in Attica, an Ionic region of Greece. It originated from the ceremonial orgies of Dionysos but soon enough its fields of interest spread to various myths along with historic facts. As ancient drama was an institution of Democracy, the great tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides as well as the comedian Aristophanes elevated public debate and political criticism to a level of aesthetic achievement. Euripides and the ethologist Menandros, in the thriving years of Alexandria and later on during the Roman domination, reached a beau ideal level and through the Romans managed to form Western Theater, from Renascence and thereafter.DRAMA FESTIVALSThe plays were presented at festivals in honor of Dionysus, including the Great Dionysia at Athens, held in the spring the Rural Dionysia, held in the winter and the Lenaea, also held in the winter following the Rural Dionysia. The works of only three poets, selected in competition, were performed. In addition to three tragic plays (a trilogy) each poet had to present a satyr play - a farcical, often bawdy parody of the gods and their myths. Later, comedy, which developed in the mid-5th century BC, was also presented. The oldest extant comedies are by Aristophanes. They have a highly formal structure thought to be derived from ancient fertility rites. The humor consists of a mixture of satirical attacks on contemporary public figures, bawdy, scatological jokes, and seemingly sacrilegious parodies of the gods. By the 4th century BC comedy had supplanted tragedy as the dominant form.ANCIENT THEATERSThe form of the Greek physical theater evolved over two centuries interestingly, the permanent stone theaters that survive today as ruins were not built until the 4th century BC - that is, after the classical period of playwriting. The open-air theaters may have consisted of an orchestra - a flat circular area used for choral dances
The Romans introduced drama to England, during the medieval period. A number of auditoriums were constructed for the performance of the art form, when it came to the country. Mummers' plays, associated with the Morris dance, became a popular form of street theatre during the period. The performances were based on the old stories of Saint George, Robin Hood and Dragon. The artists moved from town to town, to perform these folk tales. They were given money and hospitality, in return for their performance. The mystery and morality plays, performed during medieval period - at religious festivals, carried the Christian theme. English Renaissance
The English Renaissance, a cultural and artistic movement in England country that lasted from 16th to early-17th century, paved the way for the dominance of drama in the country. Queen Elizabeth I ruled during the period, when great poetry and drama were produced. The renowned playwrights of this time included William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster. The dramatists wrote plays based on themes like history, comedy and tragedy. While most of the playwrights specialized in only one of the themes, Shakespeare emerged as an artist who produced plays based on all the three themes. You may have heard that the tradition of Indian drama is very old. It goes back to the Sanskrit drama of ancient India and encompasses contemporary Indian theatre in Hindi, English, and the regional languages. Modern Indian drama is influenced not only by classical drama or local folk forms but also by western theatre, following the establishment of British rule in India. Had considerable influence on the British stage. In the earlier
The English Drama which is at present has become a highly developed form of entertainment had its origin in the church. The drama of Greece and Rome had considerable influence on the English , people could not go to anything like a modern theatre-the theatre came to them in the shape of ministrel or the gleeman who went from one house to another of whom we hear in early song and story. The major events of Christ’s life were enacted by priests in the church. These plays enjoyed great popularity. The origins of English drama date from the eleventh century and it has its roots in the religious instincts of humankind. In the beginning ,in the Dark ages the Church was hostile to drama. It was later that the Church brought drama into utilization to preach and teach the truth of religion to the illiterate masses.
American Drama began in the American colonies in the 17th century and has continued developing to the present. The American Drama of the 18th and 19th centuries mostly had British influence on it. In fact until 1910 the New York city language and the ready availability of British influence on it. American Drama began to diverge from British Drama around the 1830’s. Critics claim that American Drama was born only at the end of the World War 1 in 1920’s. Realism dominated both comedies and tragedies even in the 20th century and the as the century advanced , American Drama took up broader issues of race gender , sexuality and death.
Much of modern day African drama has its origins in ritualistic music and dance that commonly expressed extreme emotions such as passion, love and terror. Tribes would act out imitations of things that they wanted to happen. For instance if they wanted to kill an enemy, they would imitate the process among the tribe.
The widespread belief in Sympathetic Magic meant that such imitations took place with the genuine belief that it would enable it to happen in real life. Dance and song was a central part of religious and magical ritual.
As well as anticipatory performances such as this, there were also reactionary dramatic occasions, for instance the celebration of a notable event or a commemoration. Again, re-enactment was crucial with great attention to detail paid to make sure that the acting was as faithful as possible.
As many African countries celebrated the end of colonization and the gaining of independence in the 20th century, the celebration of the past and attempts to reclaim and celebrate the country's cultural heritage became a crucial part of the move towards cultural autonomy. This meant that the ritualistic dramatic performances of the past were explored and celebrated once more.
QUESTION 6
Gray worked on this poem from 1742 to 1750. Like Lycidas, it is a memorial to actual people, but a reflection on much more. In the poem, Gray makes the point that there is inherent nobility in all people, but that difficult circumstances prevent those talents from being manifested. He speculates about the potential leaders, poets, and musicians who may have died in obscurity and been buried there. At various stages of composition, the poem had several different endings. Critics do not agree about the merits of the differing versions. Some critics approve of the additional lines; others spoke of the new stanzas and the epitaph as "a tin kettle tied to the poem's tail. The poem now ends with the epitaph which sums up the poet's own life and beliefs.
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Beginning with the eighth of the alternately rhymed decasyllabic quatrains, Gray contrasts the simplicity and virtue of the stalwart English yeomanry of the past with the vain, boastful present. The ambitious of the growing age of industrialism should not mock their "useful toil," nor cloud over their ‘'homely joys," nor hear a recitation of their "short and simple annals" with disdain. The lesson that their humble graveyard teaches is that whether life is blessedly simple, as it was for these rustics, or adorned with "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,/ And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave," the fact is that "the inevitable hour" awaits. To be sure, the grave is the terminus of the "paths of glory," but for the paths of the humble as well. The fact that no impressive memorials marked their resting places, nor "pealing anthems'‘ of funerals in "long-drawn alisle and fretted vault" does not matter. These displays of earth's glories make their honorees no less dead:
Can storied urn or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?"
Gray then conjectures what losses may have occurred to art and science because these rural folk never could avail themselves of the opportunities that those of greater advantage could. Perhaps a would-be clergyman, with "heart once pregnant with celestial fire," or a potential great political leader with hands "the rod of empire might have sway'd," or poet who might have "wak'd to extasy the living lyre" lies in the cemetery. But their careers were stanched by the dual forces of ignorance and poverty. Knowledge did not reveal to them "her ample page" laden with the "rich with the spoils of time," while "chill penury" disabled their creative spirits. As a result, their geniuses went to the grave unblossomed, just as (in a reference to Lycidas)
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to lush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
With a sense of futility, Gray notes that all life's endeavors, whether positive or negative, are rendered useless by the shadow of the tomb. To be sure, some "village Hampden" (that is, a benefactor of the people) or "mute inglorious Milton" may have been stifled by rural poverty and inaccessibility, but likewise a potential dictator (Gray was a Tory) such as Cromwell may have been saved from shedding "his country's blood." Here is the poetic consolation, not only for the dead but the living, conservative poet; destiny has shut off from them the very avenues of advancement associated with the oligarchy of 18th century England, so that none of their rank will ever be glutted with "th' applause of listening senates," nor will they ever read their histories in the chronicles of the nation. Gray's Tory position, then, used here almost to justify their poverty, is that destiny confined not only their "growing virtues" but "their crimes confin'd" as well. From their ranks no one will "wade through slaughter to a throne," or open eyes of mercy on humankind. In the most often quoted (or misquoted) line in the poem, Gray says that their aspirations never deviated very much from the quietude that lies "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." Instead, they adhered to the "cool sequester'd vale of life."
Turning his attention to the unsophisticated memorial stones in the cemetery, Gray notes the "uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculptures" which call from the sentimental passerby the "passing tribute of a sigh." The scriptural texts which adorn them "teach the moralist to die," yet even these simple memorials call for us, the living, to see that we still share in their humanity: "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,/ Ev'n in our ashes live their wanted fires."
In the conclusion of the poem, Gray recognizes that as he contemplates the efforts, hapless as they may be, of these rustics to insure some kind of earthly immortality through their tombstones, he is giving voice to his own impulse toward immortality. Neoclassical decorum demands, however, that he remove himself from the poetic expression; therefore, he conjures up a persona, one who "mindful of the unhonor'd dead" did their "artful tale relate." And "hoary-headed swain" will tell the "kindred spirit" passer-by that this poet could in times past be seen meeting the sun at early dawning, wandering through the forests and by the brook all day: "Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlom,/ Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love." But mortality claimed him at last. The passer-by is asked to read the epitaph of this "youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown." The stressing of both human knowledge and piety suggests Gray's own image of himself. "Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,/ And Melancholy mark'd him for her own." Large in kindness as well as holiness, this self-projection of the poet lies (as eventually Gray would be buried beside his mother in the Stokes Poges churchyard) trusting not in human endeavor but in "the bosom of his Father and his God." In such terms, he agrees with both Pope in The Essay on Man and Johnson in The Vanity of Human Wishes.
Many critics point out how the poem conveys so perfectly what others have always felt. Its reflections on fame, obscurity, ambition, and destiny tend to sound as if they have always been written in stone
QUESTION 5
John Donne, whose poetic reputation languished before he was rediscovered in the early part of the twentieth century, is remembered today as the leading exponent of a style of verse known as “metaphysical poetry,” which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. (Other great metaphysical poets include Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, and George Herbert.) Metaphysical poetry typically employs unusual verse forms, complex figures of speech applied to elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits, and learned themes discussed according to eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning. Donne’s poetry exhibits each of these characteristics. His jarring, unusual meters; his proclivity for abstract puns and double entendres; his often bizarre metaphors (in one poem he compares love to a carnivorous fish; in another he pleads with God to make him pure by raping him); and his process of oblique reasoning are all characteristic traits of the metaphysicals, unified in Donne as in no other poet.
Donne is valuable not simply as a representative writer but also as a highly unique one. He was a man of contradictions: As a minister in the Anglican Church, Donne possessed a deep spirituality that informed his writing throughout his life; but as a man, Donne possessed a carnal lust for life, sensation, and experience. He is both a great religious poet and a great erotic poet, and perhaps no other writer (with the possible exception of Herbert) strove as hard to unify and express such incongruous, mutually discordant passions. In his best poems, Donne mixes the discourses of the physical and the spiritual; over the course of his career, Donne gave sublime expression to both realms.
His conflicting proclivities often cause Donne to contradict himself. (For example, in one poem he writes, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Yet in another, he writes, “Death I recant, and say, unsaid by me / Whate’er hath slipped, that might diminish thee.”) However, his contradictions are representative of the powerful contrary forces at work in his poetry and in his soul, rather than of sloppy thinking or inconsistency. Donne, who lived a generation after Shakespeare, took advantage of his divided nature to become the greatest metaphysical poet of the seventeenth century; among the poets of inner conflict, he is one of the greatest of all time.
QUESTION 8
John Keats', "To Autumn", and Percy Shelley's, "Ode to the West Wind", are both poems that use the Romantic element of nature to describe human feelings. They use the seasons to portray their views of life. Though both use seasons as their metaphor, both apply it with different terms. Though P. B. Shelley and John Keats were mutual friends, but they have possessed the diversified qualities in their creativity. These two are the greatest contributors of English Literature, though their life cycle were very short. Their comparison is also less with each other, while each is very much similar in thoughts, imagination, creation and also their lifetime.
Attitude towards the Nature
P. B. Shelley:
Whereas older Romantic poets looked at nature as a realm of communion with pure existence and with a truth preceding human experience, the later Romantics looked at nature primarily as a realm of overwhelming beauty and aesthetic pleasure. While Wordsworth and Coleridge often write about nature in itself, Shelley tends to invoke nature as a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression.
John Keats:
Keats’s sentiment of Nature is simpler than that of other romantics. He remains absolutely influenced by the Pantheism of Wordsworth and P. B. Shelley. It was his instinct to love and interpret Nature more for her own sake, and less for the sake of the sympathy which the human mind can read into her with its own workings and aspirations. Keats is the poet of senses, and he loves Nature because of her sensual appeal, her appeal to the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of touch.
Keats poem uses autumn to portray the mind and life of man. Life is viewed as the process of aging, decay, and death. The first stanza there is a sense of ripeness as fall is beginning to approach, and Summer is ending. Under the "maturing sun" indicates nature at its full bloom. Keats sees summer as his climactic time of life. By the second stanza, Keats has reached his "last oozings," or his last moments of summer, which he views as the climactic time of his life. Autumn is beginning to arrive and winter, or death, is approaching soon after. The last stanza asks, "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they"" Or, where are Keats' carefree younger days? He says, "barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day," he is resisting the death he sees approaching. The poem is relates nature to the closure of the season, while it is the closure of the author's life.
Shelley uses the wind in his poem as a spirit, and concentrates on the aspect that the wind causes death or darkness. In the first two stanzas of the poem, there are comparisons of "dead leaves" to "ghosts" and "winged seeds" to dead bodies that "lie cold and low... within its grave." The author comes to associate the season of autumn with these dismal, violent thoughts. He sees the Autumn season of a time of aging, and of a "dying year." As the poem progresses, Shelley starts describing images of peace and serenity. He talks about the "blue Mediterranean" and "summer dreams." By the final stanzas of the poem, Shelley, wants to use the winds evil power to create a new beginning. "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new rebirth!" He feels that good can come through evil, therefore, respects the wind changing him.
As mentioned above, both Romantic poets used the season of Autumn to portray the seasons of life. Though as seen through the works, they interpreted the outcome differently. Keats' poem spoke of aging and death, whereas Shelley's spoke of rebirth and rejuvenation.
QUESTION 7
Mock-heroic is a term used to describe poems which use a very grand and formal style to describe a common or trivial subject for which this style is not appropriate. This leads to a comic effect since the style of the poem is mismatched with the subject.
For example:
A poem with a hero who does battle with monsters (such as Beowulf) is heroic, and can also be epic if it is sufficiently long
A poem in which the central character is not brave or does not have genuine adventures, such as some parts of Byron's Don Juan (1819-24), is mock-heroic.
STYLE
The style of the mock-heroic poem follows that of the epic closely, particularly in its use of embellished, formal language and elevated vocabulary. However, the mock-heroic poem will exaggerate to the point of bathos, and is likely to produce a comic effect.
Alexander Pope's long poem The Rape of the Lock (1712-14) is a mock-epic which is also mock-heroic. The poem tells of the pilfering of a lock of hair and parodies the kidnapping of HELEN OF TROY in The Iliad. The poem also mocks the gods, making them seem petty and quarrelsome
Pope's epic The Dunciad (1729) is mock-heroic in style, describing the goddess Dulness and her take-over of England. The poem opens with an epic invocation and mocks the tediousness that Pope sees developing in Britain. The Rape of the Lock is a humorous indictment of the vanities and idleness of 18th-century high society. Basing his poem on a real incident among families of his acquaintance, Pope intended his verses to cool hot tempers and to encourage his friends to laugh at their own folly.The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one of the most serious of literary forms; it had been applied, in the classical period, to the lofty subject matter of love and war, and, more recently, by Milton, to the intricacies of the Christian faith. The strategy of Pope’s mock-epic is not to mock the form itself, but to mock his society in its very failure to rise to epic standards, exposing its pettiness by casting it against the grandeur of the traditional epic subjects and the bravery and fortitude of epic heroes: Pope’s mock-heroic treatment in The Rape of the Lock underscores the ridiculousness of a society in which values have lost all proportion, and the trivial is handled with the gravity and solemnity that ought to be accorded to truly important issues. The society on display in this poem is one that fails to distinguish between things that matter and things that do not. The poem mocks the men it portrays by showing them as unworthy of a form that suited a more heroic culture. Thus the mock-epic resembles the epic in that its central concerns are serious and often moral, but the fact that the approach must now be satirical rather than earnest is symptomatic of how far the culture has fallen.
Pope’s use of the mock-epic genre is intricate and exhaustive.The Rape of the Lock is a poem in which every element of the contemporary scene conjures up some image from epic tradition or the classical world view, and the pieces are wrought together with a cleverness and expertise that makes the poem surprising and delightful. Pope’s transformations are numerous, striking, and loaded with moral implications. The great battles of epic become bouts of gambling and flirtatious tiffs. The great, if capricious, Greek and Roman gods are converted into a relatively undifferentiated army of basically ineffectual sprites. Cosmetics, clothing, and jewelry substitute for armor and weapons, and the rituals of religious sacrifice are transplanted to the dressing room and the altar of love.
The verse form of The Rape of the Lock is the heroic couplet; Pope still reigns as the uncontested master of the form. The heroic couplet consists of rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter lines (lines of ten syllables each, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables). Pope’s couplets do not fall into strict iambs, however, flowering instead with a rich rhythmic variation that keeps the highly regular meter from becoming heavy or tedious. Pope distributes his sentences, with their resolutely parallel grammar, across the lines and half-lines of the poem in a way that enhances the judicious quality of his ideas. Moreover, the inherent balance of the couplet form is strikingly well suited to a subject matter that draws on comparisons and contrasts: the form invites configurations in which two ideas or circumstances are balanced, measured, or compared against one another. It is thus perfect for the evaluative, moralizing premise of the poem, particularly in the hands of this brilliant poet.
QUESTION 1
Your father lies five whole fathoms below.
His bones have turned to coral now.
His eyes have turned to pearls.
There’s nothing left of him,
His bones have been changed into corals and eyes into pearls due to sea – change process. Nothings of his parts of the body have been destroyed. But his whole body has changed the sea into something valuable and strange. It also means means to say than life does not die but changes to other forms. Death is nothing but just a medium of changing life from one form to another. Life after death is permanent whereas life itself is ephemeral.
QUESTION 2
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
All this lousy shepherding going on is even worse when you add to it the fact that the sheep are already being attacked by wolves on a daily basis. Of course these lame shepherds don't even say anything about it.
Peter also says that some "two-handed engine" is ready to "smite" or cut down these bad shepherds for good. Once this "engine" smites them, he will "smite no more," because the job is done.
"Privy" means "clandestine," "secret," or "stealthy."
Some critics think that the "wolf" is a reference to the Roman Catholic Church, which Milton, a radical Protestant, hated. Yep, hated.
Nobody really knows what that "two-handed engine" is, and there are about as many speculations as there are lines in the poem. Some think that it refers to the sword in the book of revelations, which represents the word of God. But it could also be a reference to just about any other sword that appears in the Bible – and there are a fair few, friends.
Whatever that sword represents, it's ready to do some damage. We might think of this as Milton assuring his readers that the unworthy members of the clergy in England will pay the price for their corruption eventually. And his 1645 preface reminds us that they totally did.
It has been known for twenty years that the etymology for the title of Milton's poem "Lycidas" derives from the Greek for wolf cub, transliterated as "lykideus" (Forester). This fact has not made it into any edition of that poem that I am aware of. It is only slightly surprising, then, that there has been no critical discussion of the relevance of wolves to Milton's poem. The ambiguity of the association between Edward King and wolves is similar to the inherently ambiguous association of Apollo with wolves. Apollo has a number of epithets that link him with wolves. Lykegenes, or "born of a wolf," appears in Book 4 of The Iliad (Rouse 50). Lykeios, or the alternate spel ling Lykios, can mean, variously, the Lycian god as wolf slayer or simply the god of light. And the stories about Apollo and his relationship with wolves are equally various. He is associated with wolves when they are beneficial animals as well as when they are a threat to society. The Delphians recognize Apollo in the wolf that killed the robber of his temple and led them up Mt. Parnassus to their stolen gold (Pausanias 10.14.443). But Apollo is also a killer of wolves. He is a protector of flocks, just as Edward King the shepherd would be. When Milton adds to his header for this poem in his 1645 collection, he appears to be making a straightforward statement: "And by association foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their height