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Instructions ⋈ How does Act I Scene I set mood of the play 'The Merchant of Venice' throughout? (talk: + bio) (log) · Move: To project space · Run Reflinks · Run Citation Bot · Search: Google, Bing, WP · Submitted 2 seconds ago by Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk: H D +) · Last edited 1 second ago by Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri
Complete Essay on Analyse the character of Lady Macbeth of Shakespearian play ‘Macbeth’- Analyse the character of Lady Macbeth of Shakespearian play ‘Macbeth’.
A: “I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid; He shall live a man forbid: Weary se’n nights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost Yet it shall be tempest-tost.”
Much more than the other elements, the Witches introduce an element of supernatural mystery and fear into Macbeth. As Coleridge says, “as true a creation of Shakespeare’s as his Ariel and Caliban” and “wholly different from the representation of witches in the contemporary writers, and yet presented a sufficient external resemblance to the creatures of vulgar prejudice, to act immediately on the audience.” It is significant that the play begins with a brief meeting of the three witches. A very short prologue is long enough to awaken curiosity, but not to satisfy it. We have come in Act I, Scene I ,where at the end of the witches’ meeting, just as they are arranging their next appointment before their familiar spirits-devils in animal shapes-call them away into the ‘fog and filthy air’. The apparent confusion implied in their words –“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” points to the general upheaval of order to which Scotland is led by Macbeth and that constitutes the main action of the play. “So fair and foul a day I have not seen”—a strange coincidence evidently establishes a connection-a kind of affinity- between Macbeth and the Witches, even before they meet. It also brings out the possibility that Macbeth, who has so far been referred to as a brave general in the heights of glory, has a somewhat tainted soul and is, therefore vulnerable to the Witches’ machinations:
“First Witch “Here’s the blood of a bat.
Hecate Put in that; oh put in that. Second Witch Here’s libbard’s bane. First Witch The juice of toad, the oil of adder. Second Witch That will make the younker madder.
Hecate Putin: ther’s all, and rid the stench.
Firestone Nay, here’s three ounces of the red-haired wench.
All Round: around, around, & c.” “ Who can tell us more about a man’s character than his wife? Shakespeare allows Lady Macbeth to explain her husband’s character as she understands it, and although she cannot see the whole truth, she tells us a great deal about Macbeth that is true. Two lines of her soliloquy in Act I, Scène 5 are particularly significant:
“Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it: ‘’ By ‘illness’ Lady Macbeth means ‘evil’; but her metaphor is appropriate: Macbeth catches evil, as one might catch a disease. The play shows how his symptoms develop, until there is no hope of a cure, and the man must die------! “Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry 'Hold, hold!' When Lady Macbeth makes her first appearance in the play, she is seen reading the letter from her husband in which he tells her “his dearest partner of greatness”, of his success in the battle, the prediction of the witches and their partial fulfillments. In her comments on the letter ,she expresses her admiration for his greatness, and wishes for him all that he wishes for himself. Aware of her husband’s weakness, she is determined to further the schemes using the whole force of her superior will lead him into prompt action. Her cruelty is only assumed and meant for the betterment of her husband’s career.
What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. -------- Lady Macbeth is feminine not only as a perfect wife but also as a mother. She has given suck and knows “how tender ‘tis to love the babe” that milk her. In Act II Scene II, she also shows the feminine feeling of tenderness explaining her reluctance to kill Duncan herself: “Had he not, resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.” It is not that she is unaware of her feminine weaknesses, but she has enough will to repress them; at least temporarily. Her feminity, noticed long repressed by an apparent show of cruelty, fully takes possession of her in the sleep-walking scène, at end. Every crime has struck deep into the mind and heart. She now sobs like a delicate woman. We find her concern for Macbeth again in Act III, Scene II, when she tries to cheer up her husband and rid him of his “sorriest fancies” and a tendency to “keep alone”. Though Macbeth does not reveal his plans of murdering Banquo and Fleance, the understanding between him and his wife is so perfect that she can easily read the thoughts in her husband’s mind. Macbeth knows quite well of the feminine qualities of his wife. So in Act III, Scene II, he decides to protect her from the knowledge of his plans to murder Banquo and his son. He tells her: “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck.” “Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery” We hear a lot about Macbeth before he comes on to the stage, first from the Sergeant who has fought on his side, and then from Ross, who also speaks of Macbeth’s courage in battle. These reports lead us to expect a noble warrior and a loyal subject to Duncan. We have only one slight doubt about Macbeth, and we are not able to explain quite what this is. We know that, somehow, he is associated with the witches; and this surely, cannot be good:
Assisted by that most “disloyal’’ traitor,
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict…………..- As soon as however, Macbeth arrives, when Lady Macbeth goes straight into business, significantly greeting him as lone greater than both Glamis and Cawdor. When Macbeth tells that Duncan who is coming as a guest will leave the next day, she straightaway hints at the proposed murder: “Look like the time bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: And then proceeds to offer him sound advice: “Look like th’ innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.”/
“The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.” Being aware of her husband’s weakness she wishes to take control of the situation-- “and you shall put This night’s great business into my dispatch; Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.” And yet Macbeth, who has a strong conscience, is yet to decide on further action. So his response to his wife’s persuasion is non-committal: “We will speak further”, but Lady Macbeth cannot let the matter rest here. She advises Macbeth to “look up clear” and tells him “Leave all the rest to me.”
“Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between Th’effect and it.
Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief!” After the arrival of Duncan , Macbeth finds himself tormented by the practical and the moral objections to the proposed assassination: “Black spirits, and white; red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle,mingle;you that mingle may. Titty,Tiffin,keep it stiff in. Fire-Drake,Pucky,make it lucky. Liand ,Robin,you must bob in. Round,a-round,a-round,about,about All ill come running in, all good keep out.” He decides,
But in these cases,
We still have judgement here that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague th’inventor. ------------. When Macbeth expresses his fear of the consequences of failure, she assures him that failure is impossible if only Macbeth shows the courage to act. The practicality of her scheme and her reproaches to drive away Macbeth’s scruples. He cannot help agreeing to her plan: “[Knock] Knock, knock. Knock. Who’s there I’th’name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’expectation of plenty. Come in time-have napkins enough about you, here you’ll sweat for’t.” It is true that the thought of murdering Duncan initially comes to Macbeth’s mind from his meeting with the Witches, but without Lady Macbeth’s instigations, the thought might probably never been transformed into action:
Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wreck’d as homeward he did come. To tempt Macbeth into action she outlines the evidently fool-proof plan she has chalked out. When Duncan is asleep, his two guards will be reduced to a state of drunken stupor and it will be possible to put on them the guilt of the great quell: “[Knock] Knock, knock. Knock. Who’s there? Faith, here is an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor, here you may roast your goose. [Knock] “ In the Banquet Scene, though Macbeth’s superstitions, fears and loss of self control have spoilt their schemes and threaten certain ruin to both of them, it is noticeable that, even when they are left alone, she utters no words of reproach to him. “Almost at odds with morning, which is which.” Her love for him makes her look upon the incident with genuine sympathy, she only endeavors to comfort him and find an excuse for his strange behavior: “You lack the season of all nature’s sleep!” “In conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.” Lady Macbeth’s influence on her husband begins to decline steadily after accomplishment of Duncan’s murder. Despite her apparent cruelty, Lady Macbeth is certainly not without traces of conscience. In Act III, Scene II, her first private thought since Duncan’s murder gives a momentary expression to her feelings of remorse at the heinous deed: ..” ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy…” Lady Macbeth is capable of tremendous self-control and practically when it comes to meeting crisis. In Act II, Scene III after the discovery of Duncan’s murder, she pretends in ignorance of the murder. And her pretence is so convincing that it succeeds, atleast for the time being, in keeping her husband beyond the suspicion of those present. Her subsequent fainting now seems only too natural in the eyes of the others there, she tries to save the awkward situation by intervening an illness for her husband, by discouraging the guests from talking to him. She remains composed all through that even Macbeth cannot help admiring her: “When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine is blanched with fear”….. She employs her strength of determination to keep her conscience suppressed because without doing so, she can never reach her goal: “Bring forth men-children only, For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males.” Though Lady Macbeth’s influence on Macbeth guides the earlier action of the play, later she becomes so insignificant that she doesnot appear at all on the stage after Act III, Scene IV. Though she partially succeeds in saving the situation by bringing the banquet to a hurried end, it now becomes clear that her personal influence upon her husband is no longer a match for his fast growing guilt-conscience. Macbeth’s decisions to murder Macduff’s family and to revisit the Witches, it may be noted, have nothing to do with his wife’s influence. While Macbeth degenerates into a butcher, Lady Macbeth is herein now overcome by a growing sense of guilt and becomes a nervous wreck. Their isolation from each other goes to such an extent that when Macbeth receives the news of her death, he seems to do so with extreme callousness: “Out, out brief candle, Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That stuts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.” Thus Lady Macbeth is undoubtedly the most fascinating female character of Shakespeare. To quote A.W. Verity, “Lady Macbeth and Hamlet stand apart from the rest of Shakespeare’s creations in the intensity and perplexity of the interest they arose.” Inspite her all her crimes and machinations, the readers cannot help pitying her ultimate sufferings and premature death. According to A.W. Verity,” Of all women, Shakespeare had drawn none exercises so strange a fascination as this fragile, indomitable northern Queen, who makes the great denial of her sex-and greatly suffers, even to the death.” [Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ Tiger: But in a sieve I’ll thither sail, And like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.] (?)
EXCEPT SETTINGS, IDEAS AND TO CONTEXTUALIZE, WORK ON REFERENCE, WORDS, SENTENCES FROM DR.S.SEN AND THE TEXT BOOK. Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk) 23:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)HOW FAR THE CHARACTER OF LADY MACBETH IS JUSTIFIED TO THE REFERENCE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY 'MACBETH'?
JOHN KEATS, A THINKER IN RELATION TO THE CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF HIS VERSE ‘ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE’. THE WAY I HAVE TAKEN THIS ANSWER: Ans. “Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, And taper finger catching at all things To bind them all with tiny rings;” Keats’s attitude towards nature developed as he grew up. In the early poems, it was a temper of merely sensuous delight, an unanalyzed pleasure in the beauty of nature. “He had away”, says Stopford Brooke, “of fluttering butterfly-fashion, from one object to another, touching for a moment the momentary charm of each thing… he would let things flit in and out of the brain not caring to ask anyone to stay and keep him company, but pleased with them and his game of life.” His attitude was one of unthinking pleasures and enjoyments without thought. …..“To laugh a while at her so proud array; Her waving streamers loosely she lets play, And flagging colours shine as bright as smiling day.” Sensuousness is the key to Keats’s attitude towards nature. He looked with child-like delight at the objects of nature and his whole being was thrilled by what he saw and heard. The earth lay before him tilled, spread out with beauties and wonders, and all his senses reached to them with delight and rapture. Everything in nature for him was full of wonder and mystery-the rising sun, the moving clouds, the growing bud and even swimming fish. “Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf!” The lines also reveal Keats’s idea that our imperfect nature is not framed to enjoy the eternal joy and beauty for long. In Ode to a Nightingale Keats in his attempt to share the eternal joy and happiness of the nightingale, escapes into the idyllic woodland where the bird sings. The escape brings him the bliss he ever longs for, but he cannot enjoy the imaginative reverie in which state alone he can enjoy this bliss. When Keats is recalled from the world of the nightingale’s song to the actual world, he realizes that fancy cannot make a man forget the realities of life so thoroughly as it is believed to do. In other words, the illusion produced by fancy or imagination is after all, evanescent.
“Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep?” As a poet Keats is enchantingly and abundantly sensuous. His poetry has rarely been equaled in descriptions of the beauties perceptible to the senses. Ode to a Nightingale amply illustrates Keats’s sensuousness -his delight in the sights, sounds, colours, smell and touch. He will ‘taste’ wine “cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth”, he will ‘see’ the beaker “with beaded bubbles winking at the brim” and “purple-stained mouth”, he ‘hears’ the nightingale singing in “verdurous glooms”, and the flies buzzing “on summer eves”, while his ‘smell’ is gratified by the “soft incense” that “hangs upon the boughs” and the fragrant flowers at his feet. In other words, the poem offers a rich feast for all the senses. “There is a place beyond that flaming hill, From whence the stars their thin appearance shed; A place beyond all place, where never ill Nor impure thought was ever harboured;” Keats says, “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive - a thing which enters into one’s soul and does not startle it” to make beauty, says Bradley, is his (poet’s) philanthropy. He must be unselfish; by refusing, that is, to be diverted from his poetic way of helping by his desire to help in another way. Hence there is no didacticism in Keats as there is in Wordsworth. There is no moralizing in The Eve of St. Agnes as there is none in King Lear; in both, the poets leave their works to speak for themselves.
“Ite domum impasti,domino iam non vacat, agni,
Go home unfed, my lambs, your master now has no time for you,” Keats often says that the poet must not live for himself, but must feel for others, and must do good but he must do so by being a poet- not by being a teacher or moralist. He must have a purpose of doing well by his poetry, but he must not obtrude it in his poetry-that is, he must not show, that he has palpable design upon us. One of the most striking notes of romantic poetry is that of supernaturalism. Just as the romantic poet looks backward from the present to the distant past, so he looks beyond the seen to the unseen. His imagination is lured by the remote, shadowy and the mysterious among the romantic poets. Coleridge felt the spell of the supernatural the most, and his Ancient Mariner and Christabel are two of his important poems which dealt with ‘supernatural’. Keats dealt with the supernatural in his La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and in that little poem he has condensed a whole world of supernatural mystery.
“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death. Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath;”…… Ode to a Nightingale is an escape into the dreamland cast up by Keats’s romantic imagination. The poet hears their song of a nightingale. The song fills his mind with intense joy which borders on pain. Drunk with the delight the nightingale brings him he longs to escape to the cloudland of the nightingale’s song to forget the anguish caused him by “the weariness, the fever and the fret” and the evanescence of youth, beauty and love. At first he seeks the aid of wine to escape from reality, but the next moment he gives up the idea of taking wine as a means of escape into his dream world, and mounts on the viewless wings of poesy to land on the nightingale’s romantic bower. The song of the nightingale perches him on the height of his happiness and he wants to “cease upon the midnight” painlessly with the nightingale still singing to him. The paradox gets resolved when he says that Melancholy “Dwells with Beauty, Beauty that must die; And Joy whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu.” There are, thus, a variety of topics introduced in the flow of thoughts that constitute the related-poem, but to think that it has no central theme or unifying motif is to betray indifference to the wonderful power of poetic imagination that sustains the entire ode and the unique artistic design that gives an undeniable coherence to its structure. It is true that Ode on a Grecian Urn concentrates only on the pictures of the urn, their effects and significance; and Ode to Autumn is dedicated on the opulence and beauty of Autumn, without much philosophic reflexion, but Ode to a Nightingale, in spite of being more passionate in mood, more complex in psychological probe and more full of sudden twists and turns of thought by way of dramatic reactions to what may follow, does not in any way forfeit its unity of appeal…But of, his escape to the dreamland of his own doesn’t endure long - Reality soon asserts itself and sets his excursion to the cloud land of the nightingale’s song at naught. He is stranded on the hard shores of reality and left to lament. Ode on Melancholy dwells primarily on two fundamental experiences of human life, the experience of joy and the experience of pain. Paradoxically enough he says that real melancholy is there in all that is joyful and beautiful.
“Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.” Though Ode to a Nightingale should be read as a poem of escape, we cannot ignore the reflection of human experience in it. Indeed the poet escapes to the romantic bower of the nightingale to quite forget the ills and evils of life which the bird “among the leaves hast never known”. The poem reflects the tragic human experience that human life is a tedious tale of sorrow, of hopes baffled and efforts disappointed. In this world few men live up to old age, and even those who are fortunate to live up to that age are struck with paralysis agitans, and with a few grey hair on their heads , they hobble along trembling and tottering. Youth is transient and repeated shocks to premature death. The world is so full of miseries that no thinking man can reflect on human life, even for a single moment, without being filled with despair. The lot of man is misery even for the best and fairest. The charms of a loveliest woman fade away very soon, and the love of a woman for her lover does not last longer than a single day.
“Swelter in quiet waves of immortality”
The realization that happiness in this world is but an occasional episode in the general drama of pain is too much for them to bear. So to forget their own painful experience and that of others they escape to the ideal land of their imagination. Thus Wordsworth escapes to Nature, the vast world of flowers, trees, mountains, valleys etc; Coleridge to the mysterious world of the supernatural and the Middle Ages; and Shelley to the Golden Millennium of the future. “Think what a present thou to God has sent, And render him with patience what he lent; This if thou do, he will an offspring give That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.” We read Ode to a Nightingale primarily as a poem of escape, Ode to a Nightingale is a glory of Romantic poetry, and escapism is the distinctive feature of Romantic poetry. The Romantic poets are all fed up with the hard stern realities of life – “its din and bustle, fever and fret”. “… the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.” The allegory in Endymion relates the ‘divine essence’ with concrete, sensuous loveliness but by the time we reach Hyperion his conception of beauty has widened. In the first place, beauty has become the symbol of power born of perfection, which explains the victory of the new creation of Gods over the old one; secondly, beauty has become blended with sorrow in the picture of Thea. “But saintly heroes are for ever said To keep an everlasting sabbath’s rest, Still wishing that, of what they’re still possessed, Enjoying but one joy-but one of all joys blest.” The treatment of Keats’s poetic growth will be only half-sided if we omit to trace the influence of other poets on the development of his poetic genius. Keats was educated almost exclusively by the English poets. In the early part of his poetic career the influence of Spenser was immense. “It was the Faerie Queene” says Brown a friend of Keats’s later years, “that first awakened his genius.” “Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!” Now his imagination invests the nightingale with immortality with the result that it ceases to be a bird to flesh and blood and becomes a thing of beauty, a voice of romance, regaling the ears of kings and clowns, and women in distress and captivity from time out of mind.
“But Oh: how unlike marble was that face,
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self.” In Spenser’s fairyland, he was enchanted, breathed in a new world and became a new being. It is significant that Keats’s earliest composition is the Imitations of Spenser, written probably in 1813; and Spenser never lost hold upon his imagination. There was indeed an essential kinship between the two poets, and that brooding love of sensuous beauty, that frank response to charm of nature and romance, that luxuriance of fancy and that felicity of expression to which the Faerie Queene owes its irresistible fascination, were soon to be re-echoed in the poems of Keats. He also came under the influence of Chatterton. Early in 1815, he came under the influence of Chapman’s translation of Homer. The early works of Milton, and of the poems of Fletcher and of William Browne, while his delight in the seventeenth-century Spenserians remained inextricably blended with his admiration for the most prominent of Spenser’s living disciples, the charming and versatile Leigh Hunt. Spenser and Hunt gave a great impetus to his spirit of romanticism. “Keats was introduced by Leigh Hunt,” says Elton, “to the enchanted gardens of romantic poetry.” -He saw “beautiful things made new.”~~……………….. A marvel of English lyrical poetry, Ode to a Nightingale is one of the greatest odes Keats wrote. It illustrates all main features of Keats’s poetry, namely, his concept of Beauty, his Sensuousness, his Meditation, his Hellenism and his Verbal magic. The Odes of Keats are not only sensuous, but also deeply meditative. Ode to a Nightingale turns on the thought of the conflict between the ideal and the real -between the joy, beauty and apparent permanence of the nightingale’s song, and the sorrow and the transience of joy and beauty in human life, which lends a deep philosophic interest to it. It embodies the thought that however distressful the human condition is, man still possesses the capacity to respond to immortal beauty and thus to establish communion with the unchanging world beyond flux and mutability. “Qual in colle aspro,al imbrunir di sera L’avvezza giovinetta pastorella Va bagnando I’herbetta strana e bella Che mal si spande a disusata spera Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,…” (As, on a rugged hill, when twilight darkens, The young shepherdess, familiar with the place, Keeps watering a strange and beautiful little plant Which feebly spreads its leaves in the unfamiliar clime, Far from its native fostering springtime….) Thus in different ages men of different classes and social positions - “emperor and clown”, Ruth, captive princess -had, in certain fleeting moments, glimpses of this unchanging world of beauty. The poem also contains the reflection that death means the denial of sensory experience. In the Ode the poet is still sensuous, but his sensuousness is now touched with “the still, sad music of humanity” and shot through and through with the stirrings of an awakening intellect. “The same that oft-time hath Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.” It is true that his poetry does not express the revolutionary ideas of his time, as Shelley’s poetry does. But for, Keats was not a revolutionary idealist like Shelley, nor had he Shelley’s reforming zeal. Keats was a pure poet, who expressed in his poetry the most worth-while part of himself and this worst—while part of great poet must follow the bent of his genius:-he has his own vision of life, and he expresses it in his own way. Wordsworth has a spiritual vision and he expresses it in simple style; Shelley has an idealistic vision and he expresses it in musical verse; Keats had the artist’s vision of beauty everywhere in nature, in art, in the deeds of chivalry, and truth were identical………~~
“…the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside Their scantily-leaved and finely tapering stems.” This was the profoundest and innermost experience of Keats’s soul, and he expressed it most emphatically: “Where swarms of minnow show the little heads/Staying their wavy bodies against the stream.”The very idea of joy and beauty make one melancholic because the duration of joy and beauty is very short. They must die one moment or the other. Thus we see that in Ode on Melancholy, Keats is purely realistic and there is no question of making an escape into a different world. The poem deals with purely human emotions of pain and joy. For Keats, therefore, senses were creative as they set Imagination into play and what the imagination gasped as beauty was also Truth. Thus the Ideal was only a sublimation of the real. He sums up the whole matter in one of his letters: “Adam’s dream will do here and seems to be a conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection is the same as human life and its spiritual reflection…The Prototype must be hereafter.” Shelley soared above the earth in search for the light that never fades but Keats contemplated the dark earth against the polar light of heaven, the two being the opposite sides of the same coin. The Nightingale also embodies the age-old human experiences that however distressful the human condition is, man still possess the capacity to respond to immortal beauty and thus to establish communion with the unchanging world beyond flux and mutability. Thus in different ages men of different classes and social positions-“emperor and clown”, distressed women, captive princesses-had, in certain fleeting moments, glimpses of this unchanging world of beauty. The poem also contains the reflections that death means the denial of sensory experience.
“Like as a ship, in which no balance lies,
Without a pilot, on the sleeping waves, Fairly along wieth wind and water flies, And painted masts with silken sails embraves, That Neptune’s self the bagging vessel saves,” To conclude, though we should read Ode to a Nightingale as a poem of escape, we should not neglect the reflection of human experience in it.
“When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shall remain in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty?’ that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” “ The tale of Keats’s development from his feeble poetic beginnings to the magnificent odes is open of the great stories of literary history. It is remarkable that this achievement is contained in four years. The development, by necessity because of the short period of time, may be incomplete. In Keats’s work, beginning from 1816 and culminating in1821, we see the growth of a high poetic intelligence. “Now comes the pain of truth, to whom ‘tis pain; O folly! For to bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstances all calm, This is the top of sovereignty.” Like Wordsworth’s lark he is -“Type of the wise who soar but never roam/True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.”But of, this instinctive or sensuous and intuitional perception of the feelings, joys and sorrows of theirs must be balanced and steadied by an intellectual self-awareness. “Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.” In the last book of the fragmentary epic Keats presents the transformation of Apollo through the sudden rushing in of knowledge into his impulsive heart. “Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet each verse of thine Outside the meat, outdid the frolic wine-“ Keats’s concern for Man simultaneously brings in mind. T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats have got to say about the chaotic state of affairs in the world around us, in their famous poems The Waste Land and Sailing to Byzantium respectively. Unfolding deeper mysteries of life, finding the truth of being and the meaning of existence are as much a rhyme of Keats’s poetry as recurrently we see them finding place in the poetry of modern poets. He has in him Wordsworth’s fundamental goodness of human-heart and it is this basic goodness of heart that generates in us a sense of oneness with Keats. He feels for us and in return we feel for him and this accounts for his ever-continuing appeal to his readers. His poetry shows a deep concern for Man, the problems of Man and his pains and joys. We find much of the same thing in the poets of our times. Another feature of Keats’s poetry which has also been employed to a much greater degree by modern poets is Symbolism. Keats has made use of the Nightingale as a symbol of permanence and immortality and the Grecian Urn as a symbol of artistic perfection. There are inspired moments when the present beauty of nature with all its sensuous appeal gives him a fleeting vision of deeper reality. He then in his imagination passes from the world of time to the world of eternity. These mystic experiences are indicated in his Ode to a Nightingale. As Keats hears the song of the nightingale, the barriers of time and space seem to vanish away. He has imaginatively passed through death, flown on the wings of imagination to the nightingale, the barriers of time and space seem to vanish away. He has imaginatively passed through death,- “flown on the wings of imagination to the nightingale’s immortality”. The nightingale will be singing on while he will become a sod. “Then”, says Middleton Murry, “with a magnificent sweep of the imagination, he sees the song and the bird as one. The bird becomes pure song, and inherits the eternity of beauty.”
Keats often asked himself the question, “Where are the songs of spring?” Indeed, the songs of spring do not stay; beauty does not keep her lustrous eyes for long. So beauty is transitory, fleeting -it remains for a time and passes away. It is experience of his senses, but his imagination revealed to him the essential truth about beauty. Though poetry came naturally and spontaneously to him,” as leaves to a tree”, yet he felt that poetic composition needed application, study and thought, and with regard to many passages of his works he took considerable pains to shape his verse. The observation that Ode to a Nightingale, unlike Keats’s other odes, has no single central theme is neither true nor desirable. Keats was a conscious artist and his poetry, apart from its other qualities, is marked by its artistic workmanship. He wrote rapidly and many of his happiest phrases came to him in the flush of inspiration; still he carefully reviewed his work, and made alternations, where necessary, to give his conceptions the desired shape. “Keats’s sureness of touch in the corrections of his verse reveals is sense of consummate artist.”
“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” This is why Keats laid so much emphasis on the ‘negative capability’ of the poet: ‘A poet is the most unpoetical thing in the world because he has no identity he is continually filling some other body…it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated…capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ Again, he is with his fellow human beings to sit with them and hear their groans. He always has a warm corner in his heart for those sufferings from “the fever, and the fret” and palsy. “Sitting careless on a granary floor, Her hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind, Or on a half reaped furrow sound asleep Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while her hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.” In Ode to a Nightingale, we find that Keats has been deeply grieved by the mental strains of humanity at large. These strains have resulted from the intricate complexities of human life. Some are suffering from palsy, the others are dying young. Everyone has one problem or the other so much so that “Men sit and hear each other groan.” In nutshell, man is suffering from so many that the world has become a place, “Where but to think is to be full of Sorrow”. In order to find relief from the heavy burden of human worries, Keats wants to fly far away into the world of the Nightingale who, “Among the leaves hast never known” as to how miserable is the life of man in the world of reality. The natural beauty of the world of Nightingale also subdues Keats’s mental strain to a large extent. The happy lot of the Nightingale also generates a death wish in Keats and he puts it very clearly, “Now more than ever seems it rich to die”, but finally Keats comes back into the world of reality with the sound of just one word, ‘Forlorn’, a word that reminds him of the human lot.
“In the very temple of Delight,
Veiled Melancholy has her sovereign shrine.” So, imagination reveals a new aspect of beauty, which is; sweeter’ than beauty which is perceptible to the senses. The senses perceive only external aspect of beauty, but imagination apprehends its essence, and “what the imagination seizes as beauty (Keats says) is truth’’.
“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird,
No hungry generations tread thee down.” In so far as they fail to do this, in so far as they are thoughts and reasoning, they are no more than a means to an end, which end is beauty-that beauty which is also truth. This alone is the poet’s end and therefore his law (Bradley). Keats was led to this conviction by the poetic instinct in him. He was more than Wordsworth or Coleridge or Shelley, a poet and simple.
“Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,
Though thou be black as night, And she made all of light, Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow.” But of, Keats’s aestheticism was not only sensuous -it had an intellectual element. He was constantly endeavouring to reach truth through beauty; he had a conviction that “for his progress towards truth, thought, knowledge and philosophy were indispensible, but he felt also that “a poet will never be able to rest in thoughts and reasoning, which do not also satisfy imagination and give a truth which is also beauty.”
“And ask no questions but the price of votes. “
The ode is an exquisite example of the imaginative adventure of Keats. Nature takes him away from’the weariness, the fever and the fret of the present world to the eternity of beauty represented by the song of the nightingale. Here is the highest nature poetry of Keats, where the inspired imagination of the poet gives him a fleeting glimpse of eternal beauty.
“Hear melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.” Keats was a conscious artist in the matter of producing musical effects in his verse. He consciously used language as Spenser, the Elizabethan poets, and Milton had used it, employing all its resources to make his verse musical. He frequently uses alliteration, but it is used with the sure tact of an artist, so that it contributes to the music of his verse:”the marble men and maidens”, “the winnowing wind”, “fast fading violets covered up in leaves”. In his Odes, vowels are artistically arranged so that they do not clash with one another; they bear the burden of the melody, and are interchanged, like the different notes of music, to prevent monotony. Many are the devices employed by the poet to make his verse musical, one of them being to make the sound echo the sense. “But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child: And I replied, My Lord.” The focus is predominately on the ephemeral character of all that is valuable and desirable in life. Human sorrow and suffering and loss are mainly due to the decay and fickleness of youth, health, beauty and love. The quickly perishable charms of life under the ruthless domination of devouring time only leaves an inevitable sense of inconsolable gloom and despair. The destructive process in the life of reality is also expedited by ‘hungry generations’ treading on the existing beings and things.
“…for heaven’s smiling brow
Half insolent for joy began to show: And the brag lambs ran wantonly about, That heaven and earth might seem in triumph both to shout.” The Middle Ages have been said to be a vast storehouse of romance, and some of the romantics freely drew upon this storehouse for their inspiration. Distance lends enhancement to the view, and so the distant days of the medieval past made a strange appeal to the romantics. Pater says that the romantic quality in literature is addition of strangeness to beauty, and this strangeness, the romantic poets-Coleridge, Scott and Keats, is one of those, who reveled in the past, in which his imagination, loved to dwell are the Middle Ages and the days of ancient Greece, with its beautiful mythology.
“A! fredome is a noble thing.
Fredome maiss man to have liking: Fredome all solace to man gives: He livis at ease that freely livis.” In Ode on a Nightingale, there is sorrow, but Keats, an untiring worshipper of beauty, would not allow his personal sorrow to interfere with his pursuit of beauty. In one of his letters Keats writes: “The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow were before my window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.” “Knowledge enormous make a god of me Names, deeds, grey legends, agonies etc. Pour into the wide hollows of my brain And deify me.”……… Every poet is a lover of beauty-but he may have, and often has, other interests and affections. Shakespeare was interested in the drama of human life and in the play of human passions. Milton’s dominant interest was religion, though he was passionate lover beauty. Wordsworth and Shelley had other interests than mere beauty, but to Keats passion “with a great poet, the sense of beauty overcame every other consideration”. Beauty was, for Keats, the moving principle of life; infact, beauty was his religion. He loved beauty in all its forms and shapes-in the flower and in the cloud, in the song of a bird and in the face of a workman, in a work of art and in tales of romance and mythology. And all his poetry from Endymion to Hyperion has one dominant theme- viz. Beauty. “O cheeks! Beds of chaste loves By your showers seasonably dashed;
Eyes! nests of milky doves
In your own wells decently washed;
O wit of love! that thus could place Fountain and garden in one place.” Like the ancient Greeks, Keats often presents the objects of nature as living beings with a life of their own. As Leigh Hunt said of him, “he never beheld the oak tree without seeing the Dryad.” The moon is Cynthia, the sun Apollo. Keats’s observation of Nature is characterized by minuteness and vividness. Keats’s eye observes every detail, and presents it with a mature touch. He has the knack of capturing the most essential detail and compelling our attention. His descriptions of nature are thus marked by a fine pictorial quality. Keats remained untouched by the idea of the Revolution which filled the atmosphere of Europe at the time; at least from his poetry we do not find any indication of his interest in the Revolution. Though the contemporary facts of history have not left any impression on his poetry, he deeply realized and expressed in his poetry the fundamental truths of life. Keats was a pure poet, and would not allow any extraneous things like politics or morality to disturb the pure waters of poetry. And poetry is the expression of the poet’s own experience of life. Keats as he developed mentally and spiritually- and his development was very rapid- was searching for truth in his soul. The earlier hankering for the world of Flora and Pan- for unreflecting enjoyment of sensuous delights- is past; he now subjected himself persistently and unflinchingly to life. He faced life with all uncertainties and contradictions, its sorrows and joys.
“Eheu quid volui mihil floribus austrum
Perditus…” (Alas, what wretchedness have I brought upon myself! I have let loose the south wind upon my flowers….) Ode to a Nightingale begins by pitting the poet’s heart-ache against the ‘full-throated ease’ of the nightingale’s song whose joyous melody is symbolic of the undying beauty of art; and by suggesting a reconciliation of the contraries by ‘being too happy in thine happiness.’, but nevertheless the intensity of the contrast between the nightingale’s forest world and the painful, troubled and decaying human world is brought into sharp focus in Stanza Third: the nightingale ‘among the leaves’ is completely free from ~~ “What is love?’tis not hereafter. Present mirth hath present laughter; What‘s to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty; (…..Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Yoth’s a stuff will not endure.”)! The contrast between the imperishability of the world of art or the emblem of imagination and the transience of life, is a common theme in romantic poetry and analogies are frequent in Shelley and Yeats, but what gives greater depth to, and accounts for the subtler effect of Keats’s presentation of those contrast is his ironical and paradoxical awareness of the other side of things. The moment, when Keats listens to the superb spell of the nightingale and glorifies its song as well as the singer as ‘immortal’, is not measured in terms of clock-time or calendar-time, it is an ‘eternal moment’ as Foster calls it; and once ‘eternal’, it remains so even after the fading away of the ‘plaintive anthem’, with the flying away of the bird to the other side of the hill.
“The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes of few, sad, last grey hairs, Where but to think is to be full of sorrow.” Melancholy arises from transience of joy is transient by its nature. Therefore, Keats accepts life as a whole-with its joy and beauty as well as its pain and despair. It is this alternation of joy and pain, light and shadow, that gives life its harmony, his is the truth of life- and truth is beauty. The poet is wholly in the time and with the things of which he wrote. He lives wholly in the present, and does not look back to the past or forward into the future. The Greeks were lovers of beauty, and so is Keats. To him, as to the Greeks, the expression of beauty is the aim of all art, and beauty for Keats and Greeks is not exclusively physical or intellectual or spiritual bur represents the fullest development of all that makes for human perfection. It was the perfection of loveliness in Greek art that fascinated Keats, and it was the beauty and shapeliness of the figures on the Grecian Urn that started the imaginative impulse which created the great Ode. The instinctive Greekness of Keats’s mind lies in his passionate pursuit of beauty, which is the very soul of his poetry. It is a temper of unruffled pleasure, of keen sensuous joy in beauty. To him a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Keats enters fully into the life of nature, and does not impute his own feelings to her. He is completely absorbed in the momentary joy and movement of things in nature. He enters into-
“Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;” The Greeks did not burden their poetry with philosophy or spiritual message. Their poetry was incarnation of beauty, and existed for itself. Similarly Keats was a pure poet. He enjoyed unalloyed pleasure in nature, which for him did not carry any philosophical or spiritual message. Keats did not know anything of Shelley’s enthusiasm for humanity, or his passion for reforming the world. Keats’s poetry had no palpable design; it existed by its right of beauty. For Keats the sense of beauty overcame every other consideration.
“Go, soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless arrant Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go since I needs must die, And give the world the lie.”…
Graham Hough perceived that Keats’s major odes ‘are closely bound up this theme of transience and permanence.’ It is his romantic urge that forces him, after acutely feeling the tragic loss of all that is lovable and precious in life in the inevitable flux of the world of reality, to discover an imaginative resource of permanent beauty and happiness, which would defy the decaying power of time. And in his poetry he continually makes an ‘attempt to reconcile the contradiction’ between mutability of human life and permanence of art. The four major odes of Keats, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, ‘Ode to Autumn’ and ‘Ode On Melancholy’ yield a very interesting study if they are read one after the other. The total impression of these Odes constitutes a very solid and compact whole. There is an element of unity in the final impression that they leave upon the reader and this unity springs primarily from the oneness of themes in these odes. The basic theme, underlying all these Odes can be summed up very briefly like this: The Odes deal with the fundamental human problems of finding a solace from the naked and merciless realities of life. The solace can be found in the objects and beauties of nature, in the world of art, in the world of imagination and in a wish for death but with Keats the solace is always temporary in character and a final come back into the world of realities is very important and essential. In the Ode to Autumn, he asks, the past or forward into the future. The acceptance of life- this triumph over despair attained through deep spiritual experience is expressed most forcibly in his Ode on a Grecian Urn. “Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour: Brightness falls from the air, Queens have died young and fair, Dust hath closed Helen’s eye. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!”……………………. The ode begins and ends in real time and is in a very profound way bound by time. Living in real time and is in a very profound way bound by time. Living in real time, the nightingale provides the plot by impinging on the poet’s consciousness, so provoking the reflections that make up the poem, before flying away…’. This is the fact, as observed by John Barnard in his John Keats that accounts for the thematic unity of the ode. The thought of soporific drug in the first stanza leads to the thought of wine in second stanza and the thought of flight from reality. The reason for this desire to escape is given in third stanza. The escape is achieved through imagination in fourth stanza and this and the next stanza dwell on a peaceful, relaxed enjoyment of the sensuous beauty of nature. The topic of death in six stanzas is allied to the desire to escape already mooted in the earlier stanza. Robert Bridges has complained of an unexpected shift of thought in seventh stanza., but of the key-line, ‘ Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!’ has own and of man’s , mortality, a contrast, which is very much the central theme. It is a moment which is timeless, this impression is created by the magical voice of the nightingale and the same spell is conveyed on us by the wonderful song of the poet. So, it is idle to complain that the poem lacks a definite central theme. Rather the unity of the basic inspiration is felt again and again in the depth of our hearts and it is clearly betrayed in the diction as well. The ‘fade away’ of second stanza is echoed by ‘Fade for away’ in third stanza, and ‘Away! away! for I will fly with thee’ in fourth stanza. The ‘hungry generations’ in seventh stanza recalls the sordid picture of life in third stanza. It is the last word, ‘forlorn’ in sixth stanza which is repeated like a refrain at the beginning of seventh stanza to mark a bridge between the land of fancy and the solid ground of reality. What more could be expected by way of thematic unity in a genuine romantic poetry where passion and imagination enjoy the right to blossom fully?
“Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven
With the moon’s beauty and the moon’s soft place.” In his Ode to Nightingale, the luxuriance of his fancy carries him far away from the fever and fret of the world to a faery land, where the song of the nightingale can be heard through “charmed magic casements opening on the seas”. He is carried away by his imaginative impulse, but his artistic sense soon prevails. The exuberance of his fancy does not blind him to his classical sense of form and order. He realizes that “fancy cannot cheat so well as she is famed to do,” and he comes back to the world of realities.
“A little lowly Hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a forest’s side.” All romantic poets except Keats see in nature a deep meaning, ethical, moral, intellectual or spiritual. For Wordsworth, Nature is a mother, a nurse, an educating influence. He regards it as a living spirit. He sees in it the presence of God. Shelley, too, finds in Nature Intellectual Beauty, but while Shelley intellectualizes nature and Wordsworth spiritualises it, “Keats is content to express her through the senses; the colour, the touch, the scent, the pulsing music; these are the things that stir him to his depths; there is not a mood of Earth he doesnot love, not a season that will not cheer or inspire him.”
“Forlorn; the very word is like a bell
That dolls me back from thee to my sole self”, Thus we find here a happy blending of the romantic ardour with Greek restraint of romantic freedom with classical severity. Thus “there was in Keats the keenest sense and enjoyment of beauty, and this gave him a fellow-feeling with the Greek masters”, but of it was one side of Greek art he saw. He saw its beauty, but he did not see its purity, its self-restraint and its severe refinement. His poems-barring La Belle, the Odes and the Hyperion fragments are characterized by over-refinement and looseness. They have romantic ardour, but lack classical severity. It is in the Odes that we find a fusion of romantic impulse with classical severity. Here we notice Keats’s sense of form, purity and orderliness. The Odes show an amazing sense of proportion in the Greek manner and present well-designed evolution of thought. They have a close texture and are marked by severe restraint, but at the same time they have all the spontaneity and freedom of imagination that characterizes romantic poetry. “Mori mihi contingat, non enim alia Liberatio ab aerumnis fuerit ullo pacto istis.” (Would I were dead,for nought, God knows, But death can rid me of these woes.)
The poem ends by admitting in a very sensible manner the impossibility of achieving freedom from the tethers of the struggles and pains and frustration of life through imagination forever, because ‘the fancy cannot cheat so well/As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf’. The implication in ‘so well’ includes a stress on ‘so long’ too, but the quality and intensity of this joy and freedom achieved through artistic fancy has an eternal value. John Barnard has rightly observed: ‘The paradox of the poem is that by admitting failure it, as if inadvertently, demonstrates the grandeurs of the human singer, who within his limits, gives the bird immortality-an immortality that exists only in the human mind.’ It is our capacity of thought which makes our mortality so palpable to us and makes us ‘full of sorrow’. But for, the nightingale is unthinking, so it cannot possible comprehend the advantage of immortality and accompanying feeling of superiority.
“For Love is lord of truth and loyalty, Lifting himself out of the lowly dust On golden plumes up to the purest sky Above the reach of loathly, sinful lust Whose base affect through cowardly distrust Of his weak wings dare not to heaven fly. But like a moldwarp in the earth doth lie.” Same is true of the Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats is acutely aware that in real life everything is short-lived and fleeting, but when he looks at a beautiful pieces of art, the Urn, he is all praise for its artistic worth which has lent a torch of immortality, not only to the Urn itself, but also to all that has been carved upon it, the piper, the trees, the lover and the maidens. Even earthly objects have been immortalized just because they are there on a piece of art that has been very beautifully named by Keats as the “Still unravish’d bride of quietness” and the “Sylvan historian.” Analysing the contents of Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale according to prosaic logic, one may naturally think that the poem is full of diverse thoughts. It begins with an expression of dull pain suffered by the poet which seeks a relief in the joyous song of the nightingale. It draws a contrast between his deep drowsiness and the bird’s full-throated song and Dryad like charm in the beech-green forest. The second stanza records a picture of Dance, and Provencial song, and sunburnt mirth in summer in Southern France, born out of the poet’s desire for a beaker full of wine which he needs to drink in order to forget the world of reality and escape from it to the nightingale’s world. The third stanza concentrates on the misery and plight of human beings on earth, where suffering and death are the only certainty, and youth, beauty and love are constantly facing extinction. The fourth and fifth stanzas contain the poet’s imaginative experience of sitting on the leafy tree with the nightingale in the embalmed darkness and anticipating the beauty of the moonlit sky above and the charm of the fragrant flowery garden below. The sixth stanza brings back his focus on the nightingale’s song itself and triggers off his constitutional desire for death, which flares up at this opportune moment, when the bird’s song can serve as a requiem. The seventh stanza contains an emphatic assertion of the nightingale’s immortality, and the poet, flying on the wings of imagination, traverses an unending amount of space and time to affirm that the same nightingale sang from days immemorial to persons of all kinds, in life and in fiction. Finally, in the last stanza the poet wakes up from his dream, at the fading away of the nightingale’s song, as the bird flies across the hills. He is faced with stark reality and realizes that fancy cannot prolong its spell on human mind. The beautiful sensuous lines on the Queen Moon, ‘Starry Fays’ and the scented flowers of the season, bear eloquent testimony to his love for and intense appreciation of the gifts of nature which he wanted to explore and cherish. The spirit and attitude betrayed here is positively youthful and enthusiastic. His whole being is involved in this eternal celebration of life. No idle escapist has the capacity to think, as Keats has done in this ode, about the relation of ideal art, represented by the nightingale’s song and transient, ever-changing life of reality. The nightingale was ‘not born for death’, he asserts and immediately re-asserts his conviction by calling it ‘immortal Bird!’, but man is simply mortal and in his world of mortality nothing lasts long, being devoured by time and treaded down by ‘hungry generation.’ Moreover, if the escapist mood had become dominant for some moments due to frustrations and vexations of life, Keats finally does not fail to realize that escape from reality is absurd and realistically he can feel that the nightingale’s song is nothing as joyous as it pretended to be, but a ‘plaintive anthem’. At the end of the poem he wakes up from his indolent dream to face actual life on its terms.
“Love, the delight of all well-thinking minds;
Delight, the fruit of virtue dearly loved; Virtue, the highest good that reason finds; Reason, the fire wherein men’s thoughts be proved; Are from one world by Nature’s power bereft, And in one creature, for her glory, left.” Moreover, it is the bard, a human creator, who invests the nightingale with immortality by glorifying its song in his song that hopes to attain immortality. In reality a nightingale’s life-span is much shorter than a man’s and its song survives only in the sense of a kind of song by successive generations of nightingales; whereas in case of a great poet like Keats, his individual song endures.
“Ecce novo campos Zephyritis gramine vesit
Fertilis, et vitreo rore madescit humus.” (See, the bountiful daughter of Zephyr dresses the fields in new grass, and the earth is moist with glistering dew.) In Ode to a Nightingale Keats shows his deep sense of awareness for “the fever, and the fret” of men and women of the world of reality. The poet thinks of forgetting his personal loss and suffering in life by drinking and sleeping under the influence of the liquor. He thinks that the sweet song of the nightingale is a sure testimony of the absolutely happy world of the bird. The poet, therefore, eagerly wants to escape from the life of reality, which has given him a surfeit of torment and misery in the forms of ill health, unsuccess in poetic career and in love and bereavement of a younger brother and seek refuge in the forest world of the nightingale. His personal afflictions are also seen as part of the sad lot of humanity as a whole. The general picture of malady is undeniably moving in its pitiful starkness. Thus, Ode to a Nightingale may truly be described as a wonderful poetic record of the poet’s reflection of human experience. “The Lord thy God I am, That Johne dois thee call; Johne representit man, By grace celestiall.” The pattern of thought in the Ode is apparently complex and not smoothly linked in parts, but the occasion as well as the basic impulse and atmospheric effect, externally spelt through the music and the imagery , secure unity and solidarity of this creative artistic production. It starts with a feeling of drowsiness and ends with the final clearing of that smokiness of the brain. The entire period in between was a spell cast by the nightingale’s melody on the highly sensitive and imaginative mind of the poet. One of the main ideas in this romantic poem is a sincere yearning to get away from the miseries and frustrations of life, to escape ‘the weariness, the fever and the fret’, which the poet experienced from his failure to achieve fame, love and health. What he generalizes as the lot of humanity is authentically based on his personal afflictions. It is therefore impossible to escape from inevitable pain in life. Shelley says of the dead Adonias: “He lives, he wakes-his Death is dead, not he.” It is the thought of death or mortality that naturally leads to its opposite thought, that of immortality. It enables the poet to highlight the contrast between the world of man and that of the nightingale in a climactic manner. With a philosophical imagination Keats calls the nightingale ‘Immortal Bird’. The phrase has been variously interpreted, the most common of them being that the poet is called not a particular bird, but the nightingale as a species, immortal. Some think that it is not the bird, but its song which is immortal in its appeal, but it is more reasonable to agree with Farrod who points out that the particular nightingale is addressed as ‘Immortal’ because Keats has called it ‘light winged Dryad of the trees’ at the outset , a creature of myth, like nymphs and fairies, which being purely imaginary, are not subject to death. “Who brought me hither Will bring me hence, no other guide I seek.” Ode to a Nightingale has a note of searching melancholy and is inspired by the poet’s personal sufferings and disappointments in life, the latest of which was the death of his brother, Thomas Keats. Not only does he want to escape to the nightingale’s forest, but he also yearns for death. Life’s torture has taught him to love Death and call him ‘soft names’. The wish ‘to cease upon the midnight with no pain’ and with the nightingale’s song in his ears, is a purely romantic wish. The beginning of the next stanza, contrary to the opinion of some critics, is not at all abrupt. “Now more than ever seems it rich to die To cease upon the midnight with no pain While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad.” The thirst for wine brings in the beautiful sensuous image of a ‘beaker full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene/With beaded bubbles winking at the brim/ And purple-stained mouth’. Allusions and concrete imagery reinforce each other to produce the whole sensuous impact as unforgettable. We not only have the rich colour of the wine, but also the emphatic suggestion of its poetic efficacy. The small bubbles with their bead-like shapes and restless movement are compared to curious children peeping at the outside world from the rim of the container and winking. It will be difficult to find in the whole range of English poetry a more truly romantic lyric and a better penetration into the mysteries of life and death in a mood of complete absorption in beauty. The ode is intensely lyrical, yet its thoughts are elaborate enough to form a comprehensive philosophy in combination with imagination and sensuous experience. Keats’s poetic genius attains maturity to find its most perfect expression in a few wonderful odes, and Ode to a Nightingale is undoubtedly at the centre of the selected band. The nightingale’s song, heard by the poet in the Hampstead Garden, triggers a series of sensations and thoughts and builds up imaginative situations, in the mind of the poet. It produces myths, gorgeous imagery, subtle psychological perception and takes us through momentous experience of personal memory and historical imagination. Still the fundamental fact remains that Keats must not escape to the world of the Urn or the world of the Nightingale for long. In the fourth stanza of the poem he realizes that with all its immortality withit, the Urn will remain speechless. It will remain empty and desolate and the desolation of the Urn, once again brings back on the hard crust of earth on which average man lives. This vivid depiction of the negative side of life makes all readers acutely feel a desire to escape from here. And the poet passionately and emphatically cries out: He decides to fly on the wings of poetic imagination and stays in the company of the nightingale on the shady branch of a leafy tree. He indulges in the contemplation of nature’s beauty and pleasures. “Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow”, are “thrilled with aching hopelessness”, but this hopelessness, this despair, Keats met squarely. In Ode to Melancholy, he points out how sadness inevitably accompanies joy and beauty. The rose is beautiful indeed, but we cannot think of the rose without its thorn.
“Open the temple gates unto my love,
Open them wide that she may enter in,…” The nightingale, the source of the purely joyous music, is a symbol of perfect happiness and beauty; and is world amidst the forest is the ideal world offering a total contrast to the sordid, painful and morbid world of man. This purely romantic conception of aspiring for the ideal and bewailing the fact that it cannot be achieved by mortal man, is comparable to the attitude of Shelley in To a Skylark and of Yeats in The Stolen Child. Keats calls the nightingale ‘light- winged Dryad of the trees’, who sings of the joyous summer and whose song is imaginatively associated with the warm Southern countries of ‘Dance and Provencal song’ and ‘sunburnt mirth’. “So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight. For of the soul the body form doth take: For soul is form and doth the body make.” All through the poem, we are keenly alive to Keats’s sensitive study of nature’s charm and beauties, while a poignant sense of melancholy pervades the atmosphere, but above all and, superintending other elements, is the astonishing flight and magical power of imagination. “This joy in present, this absorption in the beauty of the hour, this making of it a divine possession and losing in its loveliness, the pain of life is one of the chief makes of his genuine.”The richly sensuous stanza on flowers where the sense of smell is most exhaustively exercised is justly famous. The poet at once takes us into the enchantingly fragrant atmosphere of the dark garden, where we inhale and identify white hawthorns, eglantines, violets and the musk-rose, astonishingly mythed as ‘Mid-May’s eldest child’. At the same time a unique melodious effect is achieved by the ultimate verse of this stanza: ‘The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.’ “her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought That one might almost say, her body thought.” Since the bird is immortal its song is literally timeless and defies the barrier of space. The poet imagines that the same nightingale which is singing to him now had gladdened the hearts of monarchs as well as fools in ancient days, relieved the gloom of Ruth’s mind in the biblical times and even had consoled the captive princess of the fairy tales. The powerful imagination thus sweeps all over the universe and blends together the real and the imaginary. The drab world of reality is linked by its aerial ray with the ‘faery lands forlorn.’ But of, though the wings of imagination float the poet wherever he wishes to fly Keats retains artistic control over his creation. The quick succession of thoughts, spontaneous, rich and colourful, is beautifully stranded together as the colours in a rainbow. The whole effusion is occasioned by the nightingale’s song and at the end, the poet is waked up to reality from his ‘vision’ or reverie when the bird files away and its song fades into silence. Meanwhile his mind has ranged from the garden bench to the farthest ‘charmed casements, opening on the foam of periluous seas’, only to return to the starting point, after completing a circle. Structurally the poetic frame-work, containing the feelings, thoughts and fancies, is admirably sound.
“I envy no man’s nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme Who plainly say, My God, My king.” In sharp contrast to this, the nightingale is called ‘immortal’, ‘not born for death’ and its song, which represents ideal beauty of art, has an eternal and universal appeal. It is omnipresent in all times and places and casts its spell unfailingly on John Keats as well as on kings and Ruth and the captive princes of the medieval Romances and fairy tales. The romantic imagination has lifted the poet far away from the nightingale whose song is the theme of the poem.
“The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, openings on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.” Here there is romantic suggestiveness and mystery. The nightingale’s song is the voice of eternity, and the poet longs to die in the hope of merging with eternity. There is, behind the expressed words, a world of mystery. This is a romantic style. The word ‘rich’ is infinitely suggestive-suggestive of the sensuous delight of the poet, his physical comfort as well as the soul’s ardent longing to escape the fever and fret this world. “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted-nevermore!” The beginning of the next stanza, contrary to the opinion of some critics, is not at all abrupt. It is the thought of death or mortality that naturally leads to its opposite thought, that of immortality. It enables the poet to highlight the contrast between the world of man and that of the nightingale in a climactic manner. With a philosophical imagination Keats calls the nightingale ‘Immortal Bird’. The phrase has been variously interpreted the most common of them being that the poet is calling is not particular bird, but the nightingale as a species, immortal. Some think that it is not the bird, but its song which is immortal in its appeal, but it is more reasonable to agree with Garrod who points out that the particular nightingale is addressed as ‘Immortal’ because Keats has called it ‘light winged Dryad of the trees’ at the outset, a creature of myth like nymphs and fairies, which, being purely imaginary are not subject to death.
“Where are the songs of spring?
Ay, where are they?” He answers, “Why talk of spring? We are in autumn.” From this stark and gruesome reality the poet wants to escape on the ‘viewless wings’ of imagination to the world of the nightingale. By virtue of his unfettered romantic fancy he can lose himself in the midst of the dark foliage of the trees and sit beside the nightingale. It has a miraculous power to deport him through time and space anywhere in the universe. It is this imagination which immediately leads to the creation of a mythical image of Spenserian sweetness. The note of escapism asserts more strongly in the death-wish of the poet. The soothing darkness brings up his desire for dark death.
“With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim.” A drowsiness steals over him as if he has drunk an opiate. He wishes for a draught of vintage, which would carry him out of the world into the abode of the nightingale. He would thus leave behind him the sorrows of the world. He thinks of the universal, sorrows of man, and his own particular and personal griefs. The youth that grows pale and spectre-thin and dies, is his own, dearly loved brother Tom who had died few months before, and beauty’s lustrous eyes are according to Middleton Murray, the eyes of Fanny Brawne, whom Keats loved. “This stanza is tense with the emotion of personal suffering controlled by poetic genius.” “..for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain…” A highly imaginative and purely romantic poet like Shelley or Keats cannot be reconciled with the real life which they feel as oppressive and restrictive in every way. In all their representative creations an urge for getting rid of the tyranny and bondage of social life must be inevitably betrayed. Ode to a Nightingale being one of Keats’s most significant poetical utterances, does illustrate an escapist trend of the poet. However before making any final appraisal of this feature in the poem, we have to consider what the term ‘escapism’ implies and whether in Keats’s poetry it is a passing mood or a permanent obsession. ’Escapism’ is usually a pejorative term; it is used to denote a strong reproof, a criticism of the habit of shrinking or avoiding duties, a failure to face life’s trials. Escapists run away from harsh, unpleasant acts and duties and try to hide themselves in their idle world of dream and peace, like an ostrich hiding its head in the sands during storms on the desert. It implies cowardice and spinelessness. The first and foremost quality of his odes is their unity of impression. The major odes of Keats-Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on Melancholy have a common subject and theme. They have a common mood to depict and last but not the least in all these odes the development of mood is more or less similar and the mood develops , in the shape of a drama, i.e. first the mood takes birth, it develops, reaches a climax and finally the anti –climax takes place. Thus when we read Keats’s odes, we feel that we are reading an abridged drama, and in this lay the secret of their success. In so short a form of writing, Keats been able to give an impression of the kind that plays of Shakespeare produce, but for it shall be an over-simplification of facts if this statements of ours is taken to mean that Keats has reached the Shakespearean heights of literature’s perfection. No doubt it was Keats’s most cherished desire to be remembered with Shakespeare in the rank of men of letters, but unfortunately Keats could not perform this feat. Might be, if he had not died young, he could have had been able to probe better into his poetic wealth. “She found me roots of relish sweet Of honey wild and manna dew.” Yes, a note of escapism is sounded clearly in Ode to a Nightingale because the poet wants passiately to ‘leave the world unseen’ and with the nightingale ‘fade away into the forest dim.” The setting of the poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci is medieval. We have here also medieval accessories-the knight-at-arms, the cruel mysterious, lady, ‘a faery’s child’, the elfin grot, and the spell and enchantment and general supernatural atmosphere. La Belle is one of Keats’s great achievements. It is medieval in its setting and atmosphere and has the simplicity of the medieval ballad. The Eve of St. Agnes, on the other hand, is overloaded with excessive details and is marked by gorgeous, high-flown style. La Belle is in the simple style of a ballad, and tells a supernatural story with a medieval atmosphere. “Since then ‘tis centuries; and yet each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses’ heads Were toward eternity.” ………… The other element of drama to be found in the odes of Keats is their drama-like development. A mood takes birth, it develops and reaches its point of pinnacle and finally it drops from that high point to its lowest position. The climax is reached when the mood of escape goes to the extent of a wish for death and at that moment Keats finds it richer than ever to die but the word ‘forlorn’ reverts the whole process and the anti-climax takes place with Keats’s return to the world of reality.
“Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.” This temper of spontaneous joy changes with the coming of pain and sorrow in the poet’s life. He has his brother die and his love doomed to disappointment. The temper of the poet becomes grave and imaginative, and his note towards nature is mixed with sorrow, which seeks to lose itself in joy. Now there is deep spiritual union between the soul of the poet and the soul of nature. Nature does not merely gratify his senses -she now goes deep into his soul. In the joy of nature, Keats forgets his sorrow. This is the spirit that informs the Ode to Nightingale. The poet has felt the burden of sorrow in his own personal life and the whole world of full of sorrow, but of then there is the nightingale also in the world, and the nightingale is the very symbol of joy. The imagination of the poet is set aglow by the song of the bird, and he forgets his sorrow and joins the nightingale in spirit. This is the moment when nature, with her moon and stars and flowers, enters into his soul, and his soul is merged in nature. Keats and nightingale are one; it is his soul that sings in the bird, and he sings. In one of his lad poems- Ode to Autumn, he describes the sensuous beauty of the season-but here the tone is one of joy mixed with the sadness of thought. The poet is and to think of the passing away of beauty, though he soon overcomes the feeling of sadness. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-Friend of the maturing sun.”
The most characteristic quality of Keats’s poetic art is power to paint pictures by means of words. His poems may be said to have been painted with words. His words and epithets call up vivid pictures to the mind: “beaded bubbles winking at the brim; anguish moist; full throated ease; soft conched hushed, cool-rooted flowers fragrant eyed.” The abstract ideas in Keats’s poetry assume a concrete, corporeal form; for instance, he gives a concrete living image to express the idea of earthly joy which is transitory;
“Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.”
Keats was extraordinarily endowed with a native gift- viz. that of feeling acutely with his senses. All his five senses reacted quickly to the beauties of the external world, and these sense-impressions are transmitted into poetry by his imagination. The first line of Endymion strikes the keynote of Keats’ poetry.. Even in the midst of his pains of disease and his sufferings and disappointments of life, this joy of beauty came to him through his senses. In one of his early poems-Sleep and Poetry, he wrote- “First the realm I’ll pass Of Flora and of Pan, sleep in the grass, Feed upon apples, and strawberries And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees.” So Keats drank in the beauty of the external world with all his senses, and his whole being was excited by it and he sang out with wonder and delight, “The Ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears
Its voice mysterious.”
Thus throughout his brief career, Keats’s poetry reveal sensuousness aspect of his love of beauty. “How sould I rewill me or in quhat wys, I wad sum wyse man wald devys; Sen I can leif in no degree, Bot sum my maneris will dis pys. Lord God, how sould I governe me?” The poetic genius transports him. Not with the help of wine but on the wings of poetic imagination, he flies to the realm of forgetfulness-viz, the romantic world of the nightingale. This world is “a heaven of joy”, where the poet listens to the song of the nightingale. Now more than ever it seems to him rich to die, and cease upon the midnight with no pain. But if, he was indeed to die, he would not hear the song. Thus, morality has its poor advantage, in that he, while living, can hear the enchanting song of the bird. “Morality is re-asserted against the immortality of which the bird’s song is at once the symbol and the elixir.” “Joy whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu.”
The poetic equivalent for an emotion with Keats is commonly a picture; he hardly expresses a thought or feeling in abstract terms; his thought leaps into visual forms the chill of winter is thus expressed by means of picturesque images.
“A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sour.”
Keats is a Greek in his manner of personifying the powers of nature. The attitude of the ancient Greeks in the presence of nature was one of childlike wonder and joy, and they defined the powers of nature. This imaginative attitude of the Greek created their “beautiful mythology”. They felt the presence of Proteus in the sea, of Dryads in the trees and of Naiads in the brooks. Keats’s instinctive delight in the presence of nature led him to the heart of Greek mythology. What Greeks felt, Keats also felt. The rising sun for Keats is not a ball of fire, but Apollo riding his chariot. He sees the moon as the goddess with a silver bow coming down to kiss Endymion. Infact, the world of Greek paganism lives again in the poetry of Keats, with all its sensuousness and joy of life, and with all the wonder and mysticism of the natural world, Autumn to Keats is not only a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but a divinity in hun shape. Autumn sometimes appears as a thresher.
“St. Agnes’ Eve- Ah, bitter chill was:
The Owl for all his feathers was a cold,
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass
And silent was the flock in woolly fold.” The imagination of Keats came to be elevated by his sense perception and sense –impressions. His poetry is not a mere record of sense-impressions. It is a spontaneous overflow of his imagination kindled by the senses. He hears the song of nightingale and is filled with deep joy which at once kindles his imagination. He has been hearing the actual song of a nightingale, but when his imagination is excited, he hears the eternal voice of the nightingale singing from the beginning of time. He sees the beauty of the Grecian Urn and of the figures carved upon in. His imagination is stirred, and he hears in his imagination the music of the piper. “Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.” Indirect contrast to this is the world of the Nightingale who, “Among the leaves has never known” what it is to sad and unhappy. The nightingale is singing the happy and melodious songs of summer “in full-throated ease.” She is an immortal bird as compared to man who is ever prone to death. It is here that the real drama takes place. The poet, already quite tired of the worries of the real world, wants to fly away to the world of the Nightingale “on the viewless Wings of Poesy.” He wants to make an escape to the care-free surroundings of the Nightingale, but the drama does not end with the escape. It touches their heights of climax with the sound of a single word; and that word is “forlorn!”, the very word is like a bell.“To toll me back from thee to my sole self”with this the poet is back on the hard crust of earth. He accepts the world of his fellow beings with all its pains and worries. In nutshell, he does not allow the deceiving elf, and fancy to cheat him. The ode presents a living picture of Keats’s state of mind. It shall, therefore be in fitness of things to say that the ode takes birth from the inner conflicts of Keats’s mind. Sometimes, as a reaper, sound asleep on a half reaped furrow, or as a gleaner, steadying the laden head across a brook. This is the typical attitude of the Greeks, who attributed human qualities and shapes to gods and demi-gods. The Pan of Greek myth was half human - any one wandering in the lovely woods, may expect to meet him playing on his pipe. The Pan of Keats’s ode is also half human, and he sits by the riverside, wanders in the evening in the fields and meadows. “Heard melodies are sweet, those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared, Pipe to the spirit, ditties of no tone.” Keats’s greatest achievement, however, is in his presentation of pure beauty. Beauty itself was his interest, not beauty to point a moral or to carry a message. Keats had no lesson to teach. He did not want to call his readers’ attentions to social wrongs as Shelley did; to the corrupt state of society as Byron did, to nature as a great moral teacher as Wordsworth did. Because of this lack of bias, his poems have an objective beauty which is especially attractive to young people. But for, to readers of all ages Keats sings enduring music.
“I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows…” Keats’s influence has been very strong from Tennyson to the present time. His emphasis upon craftsmanship has had excellent following. Many a poet has been led through the example of Keats to perfect verse that might otherwise have been carelessly written. Keats also turned attention to richness of verse, unlike the simplicity of Wordsworth. Again, he taught a new use of the classics. Instead of finding in the classics models for restraint he found a highly coloured romanticism. Restraint of form he did emphasize, but for his material he chose the legends of Endymion and Lamia rather than the tales of Greeks and Romans of inspiring deeds.
“Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.” The underlying principle of all Keats’s poetic thought is this: ‘’Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty”. In one of his letters he says: “I have loved the principle of beauty in all things”. But of, his “passion for the beautiful “was not that of the sensuous or sentimental man, it was an intellectual and spiritual passion. There was a deep melancholy about him, too; pain and beauty were the two intense experiences of his mind. “Do you not see”, he writes, “how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school intelligence and make it a soul?” Keats studied the Elizabethans, and “caught their turn of thought, and really saw things with their sovereign eye.. He rediscovered the delight and wonder that lay enchanted in a dictionary” (Lowell). “There is something innermost soul of poetry in almost everything he wrote.” (Tennyson). “Away! away! for I will fly to thee,”… The English Romantic Movement was the movement in literature which started towards the end of the 18th century and continued till the thirties of the 19th century. It can be roughly dated from 1780 and it ended round about 1830. Of course, there were poets of 18th century who showed romantic tendencies in their writings before 1780. Thomson, Dyer, Akenside etc. wrote in a manner which anticipated some features of romantic poetry. But of, true romanticism, though it sometimes flings our imagination far into the remote and the unseen, is essentially based on truth- the truth of emotion and the truth of imagination. Keats was a true romantic-not a romantic in the hackneyed sense of dealing with the unrealities of life. He loved not merely beauty but truth as well, and not merely the world of imagination but that of reality; and he saw beauty in truth and truth in beauty. He never escaped from the realities of life in pursuit of the beautiful visions of his imagination; in fact, the visions of his imagination are based on reality. He persistently endeavoured to reconcile the world of imagination with the world of reality. Therefore, Middleton Murray calls Keats “a true romantic.” Shakespeare and Wordsworth developed his intellect and style though in different ways. The vocabulary and phraseology of Endymion differ from that of the 1817 volume in the influx of Shakespearian words, allusions and reminiscences, drawn from a large number of plays while the influence of Shakespeare’s poems is shown in the fact that though the large number of Keats’s sonnets are in Italian form, all the best, with the exception of the Chapman’s sonnet which belongs to an earlier date, are written upon the model of Shakespeare. At the same time that he was finding in Shakespeare the greatest examples of the imaginative presentation of life, he was turning to Wordsworth whose teaching had seemed to Wordsworth a pretty piece of paganism, yet it was Wordsworth’s interpretation of Greek mythology which revealed to Keats the spirit which informed the poem. Furthermore, Keats owed much to the spirit and vocabulary of the old English poets especially those of the Renaissance. The influence of Paradise Lost is visible in Hyperion. .“Thou wast not born of death, immortal bird. No hungry generations; tread thee down.”……………..Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk) Written in the spring of 1819, this Ode “was inspired by a song of a nightingale that had built its nest close to the house” of a friend in Hampstead. The bird’s song, we are told often threw Keats into a sort of trance of tranquil pleasure. The proper subject of the poem is not so much the bird itself as the poet’s “aspiration towards a life of beauty away from the oppressing world”- a beauty revealed to him for a moment by listening to the bird’s song. This glimpse of the Infinite, revealed to Keats for a moment by the song of the nightingale, is also suggested in that bold line, Then with a magnificent sweep of the imagination he sees the bird and the song as one. “The bird becomes pure song and inherits the eternity of beauty. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Like all romantic poets, Keats seeks an escape in the past. His imagination is attracted by the ancient Greeks as well as the glory and splendor of the Middle Ages. Most of his poetry is inspired by the past. It is rarely that he devotes himself to the pressing problems of the present. Endymion, Hyperion and Lamia are all classical in theme, though romantic in style. The eve of St. Agnes, Isabella and La Belle Dame Sans Merci are medieval in origin. Keats thus finds an escape to the past from the oppressive realities of the present. The poetry of Keats shows a process of gradual development. His earlier experiments in verse are products of youthful imagination, immature and overcharged with imagery. The youthful poet has abnormal sensibility, but lacks experience of life. Endymion opens with the famous line-‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’, it is full of glorious promise, but it is lost in shadows and uncertainties, because it is not based upon experience of real life. In the tale that follow-Isabella, Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes, the poet has not come to grips with real life: his imagination plays with the romance of love. In the Odes, Keats’s poetry assumes a deeper tone. There he faces the sorrows and sufferings of life. He would wish for a life of joy and happiness, like that of nightingale. “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:” The effect of listening to the song of the nightingale is that the poet’s heart is full of aching pain and his senses are dulled, owing to the very happy participation in the happiness of the bird. The pain is the outcome of excessive joy of the poet to think that the nightingale should thus sing in full throated ease in the care-free manner. The poet longs to lose himself into the happy spirit of the bird, and leave the world unseen and fade away into the dim forest. At first proposes to do with the help of a cup of wink that has been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, and is rich with all the associations of the songs and dances of Provence, its country of origin. If he can do so, he will leave behind him all the woes of the world, the weariness, the fever and the fret of the world where we sit and hear each other groan, where youth grows pale all too soon, and beauty fades in no time. But in, on second thought he understands, wine is not potent enough to transport him into the ideal region. Poetry alone shall transport him. For a moment he mistrusts his own power, but the next moment he finds himself in imagination by the side of the bird, listening to the bird’s song in the wwoodland.The poet describes the romantic forest into which he has flown on the viewless wings of poetry. In the darkness he cannot see the flowers, but can guess each of them by its peculiar fragrance-the hawthorn, the eglantine, the violet and the musk rose. The illusion is broken; the poet comes back to his daily consciousness and regrets that imagination has not the power to beguile him for ever. In this beautiful romantic scene the poet thinks of many associations of the bird’s song as he listens to it. “In his joy he remembers how often the thought of death has seemed welcome to him, and thinks it would be more welcome now than ever.” The nightingale would not cease her song- the poet will die but the bird will sing on-the contrasts the transitoriness of the individual human life with the permanence of the song-bird’s life, meaning the life of this type. The bird was not born or to die; the voice that the poet hears was heard in ancient times by damsel kept captive in some medieval castle. The Ode to a Nightingale is “a poem of midnight, and sorrow and beauty”. The poet hears the song of a nightingale when the night is tender. “That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy’d, A burning forehead and a parching tongue, Thou, silent form: doth lease us out of thought As doth eternity; Cold Pastoral:” The stanza-form, with its intricate rhyme-plan is a beautiful invention of the poet. It has a sustained melody the rolling music of the lines being variegated by the introduction of a short line in each verse. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is a b a b c d e c d e. There is a Shakespearian felicity of expression in the telling epithets and picturesque compounds throughout the poem. “Where palsy shakes a few, sand last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies, Where but to think if to be full of sorrows And leaden-eyed despairs.” To Wordsworth, the cuckoo becomes a wandering voice, which turns, this world into a faery unsubstantial place. In the Immortality Ode, Wordsworth passes from the finite to infinite when he says: “Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither.” The nightingale whose song the poet hears is suddenly transported in a flash from the world of time to the world of eternity; it has been singing for ages and ages. Thus to the poet in that moment of imaginative ecstasy the nightingale is not a solitary bird swinging from its hiding place in the tree; the bird is turned into song; the bird and the song are one- therefore the bird is immortal, “not born finite, from the world of the time to the world of eternity is a marked feature of the greatest romantic poetry. Blake expresses his imaginative vision of eternity in a wonderful manner: “To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.”…………… Some superficial critics have complained of the logical fallacy involved in the contrast between the transitory life of the individual man with the permanent life of the nightingale, conceived not as an individual but as a type of the race; but such critics, led by their prosaic method of criticism, have missed the real significance of the great line-“ Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird.“ “And haply the Queen Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by her starry rays.” “I could not name”, says Bridges, “an English poem of the same length which contains so much beauty as this Ode.” Middleton Murray says: “For sheer loveliness this poem is unsurpassed in the English language.” It reaches the peak of romantic poetry in the lines…………….. The poetic style of Keats reaches its peak of glory in the Ode to a Nightingale. As an example of almost perfect execution, the ode is one of the very greatest that has been written in the English language. It shows a perfect blending of classical balance and romantic inspiration. Every word is in its place, and there is a restraint of expression from the beginning to the end; yet it grows with emotion, which is romantic to the extreme. Starting in a mood of despondent contemplation of life, in which beauty perishes, the poet has a fleeting glimpse of a world- the world of eternity- where beauty does not perish. Behind the seen world, he has a vision of the unseen-and this is the verb quintessence of romance. “Provencal song and sunburnt mirth, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden –eyed despair. Now more than ever seems it rich to die.” The poem represents the fleeting experience of the poet- an intense imaginative experience in which sorrow is fused into joy, and the world of time merges into the world of eternity. It is a romantic poem, but it denies nothing of human experience; it tells of the sorrows of life and it reveals also that the bitterest human experience can be transmuted into beauty, which is truth. The Ode to Nightingale is one of the greatest lyrics in the English language. “So hand in hand they pass’d, the loveliest pair That ever since in love’s embrace met,…” Keats is pre-eminently a poet of sensations, whose very thought is clothed in sensuous images. The epithets he uses are rich in sensuous quality- watery clearness, delicious face, melodious plot, azure-lidded sleep, sunburnt mirth, embalmed darkness, anguish moist. Not only were the sense perceptions of Keats quick and alert, but he had the rare gift of communicating these perceptions by concrete and sensuous imagery. How vivid and enchanting is the description of wine-bubbles in the line: “With beaded bubbles winking at the brim.”Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk)…………… He contemplates the sorrows of the world to which all mankind is subject, and longs to get away from them. How? By means of his imagination which reveals to him the truth of beauty, he at once passes from this physical world –the world of time-to the world of eternity. The song of the nightingale represents beauty- ideal beauty that never fades. It is the eternal spirit of beauty; it is the voice of eternity that transcends the bounds’ of space and time: “Thou wast not born of death, immortal bird.”……………….~~ Keats was passionate lover of Greek literature, mythology, sculpture and almost anything Greek. It has influenced his attitude to nature and life immensely. The temper of the soul with which he has looked on nature betrays all the simplicity, the same feeling of joy and worship wrought together, which a young Greek might have had before Socrates. In his world of poetry the sun is not a mere ball of fire, but Apollo himself burning in with ardour; the moon is the sweet love of Endymion. Pan’s sweet pipings are heard among the oaks and olives, along with choirs of fauns. Trees and brooks are full of dryads and naiads. The immortal knit relation with the mortal. This Hellenism accounts for the charm of concrete beauty and mythical loveliness of his lyrics, narrative poems and odes alike. “Insuffishaunce of cunnyng & of wyt Defaut of language & of eloquence, This work fro me schuld have withholden yit…” (!....) This delight in pure sensation was, however, but a passing phase with Keats. As his mind mature, his sympathies broadened, and he felt at one with the human heart in travail. Sensuousness is still there, weaving its fairy tissues as before but the colouring is different. In his maturerer poems, it is gradually manifested with the stirrings of an awakening intellect, and is found charged with pain, charged with the very religion of pain. His yearning for passing for the beautiful is transformed into an intellectual and a spiritual passion. He sees things, not only in their beauty, but also in their truth. And it is partly by reason of his perception of truth in sensuous beauty that Keats has become the, “inheritor of unfulfill’d renown.” This mood of serenity is expressed in the Ode to Autumn which according to Middleton Murry, is “the perfect and unforced utterance of the truth contained in the magic words (of Shakespeare): ‘Ripeness is all.’ The Ode to a Nightingale is a vivid portrayal of the drama of pulls and strains, taking place in Keats’s mind. On the one hand, like Shelley he is bleeding after having a fall on thorns of life.”The fever, and the fret” of the world of Man are making him feel uneasy. His dissatisfaction with the world of reality is clearly reflected in what he has got to say about it. “Songe and prison han noon accordaunce; Trowest thou I wol synge in prisoun? Songe procedith of ioye and of pleasaunce And prison causith deth and distructioun…”Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk) That “sensuousness is a paramount bias” in Keats’s poetry is largely true; even as it is true that he is more a poet of sensuousness than of contemplation.” Yet, like all generalized statements, these remarks are only partly true. Keats’s mind is mainly sensuous by direct action but it also works by reflex action, passing from sensuousness into sentiment. Certainly, some of his works are merely, extremely sensuous; but this is the work in which the poet was trying his material and his powers, and rising towards mastery of his powers, and rising towards mastery of his real faculty……….. In his mature performances in the Odes, for example, and in Hyperion, sensuousness is penetrated by sentiment, voluptuousness is permeated by vitiality, and aestheticism is tempered by intellectualism. In Keats’s palace of poetry, the nucleus is sensuousness; but the superstructure has chambers of more abiding things and more permanent colours. “The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown”Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk)…………………. The other predominant feature of Keats’s poetry that holds our attention is its masterly handling of the world of reality and the world of escape. He does not remain uninfluenced by the delights of the world of the Nightingale. He relishes in the carefree life of the bird. At the same time he enjoys the pleasant and beautiful natural surroundings in which the Nightingale has her abode. The sweet fragrance of the white hawthorn, the fast fading violets and the musk-rose fascinates his sense of smell. So he makes an escape into the Nightingale’s world. He fades far away flying “on the viewless wings of poesy, but right after a very brief escape, the anti-climax follows. The very sound of the word ‘Forlorn’ falls heavily upon Keats’s ears. It is really terrible for Keats to stand the sound and he cannot afford to remain in the world of escape any longer though the world continues to remain as beautiful as ever. He tossed back into the world of naked truth. In a sonnet he wrote: “How fevered that man who cannot look upon his mortal days with temperate blood.” Keats was trying to attain serenity of mood in the midst of all the sufferings which he was undergoing in his own life and which he saw all around him in life. Further Shelley passes beyond the bounds of space and time, and expresses his poetic vision of the Infinite when he says: “The one remains, the many change and pass: Heaven’s light for ever shines, earthy’s shadows fly.”…………………..Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
EXCEPT THE DECORUM OF THE SETTING OF ANSWER WITH ADAPTATIONS OF IDEAS OF PLACING QUOTES ON CIRCUMSTANCES, A-MINOR CHANGES OF ORIGINAL- WRITING,--SENTENCES AND WORDS SHADOWED DIRECTLY FROM VARIOUS BOOKS- DR.SEN, DAICHES, M.N.SINHA, AND A.BHATTACHARYYA.
“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” - John Keats
Many days before, when I was in A Muslim family I heard this play. The play was again repeated to me in my professional life when I struck myself herein to analyze Raina’s remarks-‘Oh! The Chocolate Cream Soldier’--
“And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!” After some reluctance, Raina also accepts him saying that she is accepting him as her ‘chocolate cream soldier’ and not as a rich businessman. Bluntschli looks at his watch and becomes business like. He instructs Petkoff to be ready to deal with the infantry of the Timok division. He requests Sergius not to get married until he comes back. He promises to be back at five in the evening of Tuesday night. Then, with a military bow to the ladies, he goes out. Sergius [enigmatically]: The world is not such an innocent place as we used to think,Petkoff. The play is the best of Shaw’s plays from the point of view of stage craft. Shaw has shown excellent brilliance in contriving the stage situations. The actions take place in a garden and two rooms only. We feel the tension that Raina feels. All the situations are well controlled. The plot is simple and actors are alive. Although audiences are kept tense but all the bitter truths have been sugar coated and the ion is removed with laughter. The Puritarian setting of the play also goes a long way to make it popular. The title of the play, Arms and the Man, as Shaw himself acknowledges in the Preface to Plays Pleasant, is taken from “the first line of Dryden’s Virgil.” The Aeneid, the famous epic of the Latin poet Virgil, begins with the Latin phrase ‘Arma virumque cano’. In his translation of The Aeneid, Dryden skillfully renders this phrase into English, ‘Arms and the Man I sing’. Dryden’s line is one of the most heroic lines in heroic poetry. “Raina enters and exclaims, “Oh! The chocolate cream soldier!” ‘ To make the situation worse, Bluntschli comes back to return the coat. Catherine tries to send him away secretly, but her husband and Sergius see him and, as he is known to them, they receive him cordially. They make him stay, for they need his help in the dispersal the troops. Meanwhile Raina noticed her ‘hero’ flirting with her maid. Louka excites jealous in Sergius by telling him that Raina is in love with the Swiss who took refuge in her bedroom and whom she is sure to many if he returns as she had overheard their conversation. Raina: “…Oh,I see now exactly what you think of me ! You were not surprised to hear me lie. To you it was something I probably did every hour.”… War is over, and Major Petkoff and Sergius return home. After the first raptures of re-union, the soldiers settle down. Sergius starts flirting with Louka, the maid-servant. One day, he speaks of a Swiss officer of the Serbian Army who told the romantic story of his being sheltered and saved by a young Bulgarian lady into whose bedroom he had entered. Raina and her mother are shocked and worried. Again Bluntschli’s friend tells the story to the father of the same young lady whose house is the only private house with windows and who does not suspect his own daughter at all. Of all the days in the year Bluntschli comes to return the coat on the 6th of March, 1886, and is seen by Petkoff remains unaware, rather he is fooled by his wife and daughter. “A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, Loitered about that vacancy; a bird Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:” Bluntschli is Shaw’s idea of a soldier. He marches and fights like the real man with his stomach. Other things being equal, he prefers life to death. Long fighting leaves his nerves on edge. He is uncontrollably sleepy after being awake for two nights. He eats cream chocolates when they are offered to him. Such an idea of a soldier was revolting to Raina, as it was to Shaw’s first audiences, but it will be recognized as the reality by all who have been soldiers. Everyone knows that the ideal soldier of poetry and fiction is mere saw-dust and that, if he existed, he would be the laughing stock of the Army. There are not many diversions and the plot is simple, the play is divided in three acts only. In the First Act, we have a melodramatic setting. There is the army—adoring heroine fully absorbed in the romantic thought of war and love, with a midnight entry of a fugitive in her bedroom. Directly or indirectly we are introduced to all major characters of the play in an ‘atmosphere of military drama’. Shaw is ever disengaged, composed, deliberate, good humoured - all these qualities are reflected in his style. One will look in vain for the softer graces of sentiment, for the tendered play of fancy. His style is characterized by a hard glitter of wit, the Bandying of argument, the close reasoning. And his style is very well adapted for the propagation of his ideas. His aim is always to drive the point home. He has well succeeded in it. In Act-II, Shaw attacks romantic illusions of war and love, thus takes the theme of the play in hand. Two strands of plot now become clearly separate- the ‘Bluntschli-Raina Episode’. The romantic illusions about love have been shattered mercilessly here, where two events mix, the plot becomes complicated but the action advances considerably. The Third Act has no suspense. The climax comes and illusions about war are also shattered and right pairs of lovers have been made. So there is simplicity and clarity in the plot and the play is not presenting a bundle of complications. Shaw, with his frank and free style, his mixture of humour and wit and his unconventional characters, has been able to catch the attention of the audience and has been a successful playwright to maintain his popularity and hold it as well. “I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish With themselves, remorseful after deeds done;” Shaw’s plays are always argumentative and full of ideas. As in Major Barbara he is discussing poverty, so in Arms and the Man, he is discussing and arguing about the real nature of love and war. Both are esteemed by people in the wrong light but both are very different from what we think they ought to be. This technique of using ideas adds meaning to his plays and makes them more useful. Arms and the Man displays Shaw’s favourite device of inversion of conventional situations regarding the relation of men and women. Contrary to the established conventions, Catherine is the ‘’boss’’ in the Petkoff establishment, not her husband. Nicola pays reverences to her. Bluntschli says, “The officers send for their wives to keep discipline.” Louka is the force and energy in her romance with Sergius. She takes the initiative although he wanted flirtation; she sees to it that it becomes something more serious. “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monostrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.” Bluntschli then gives her his introduction that he is a Swiss serving Serbian Army as a professional. He shocks her by his attitude to war. He tells her that war is a folly and that soldiers are fools and about himself he says that he would prefer carrying chocolates with him to cartridges. He says that soldiers are not heroes but ordinary men who like food and value life above everything else. Raina asks him to describe the great cavalry charge that brought the Bulgarians victory. He vividly pictures the Quixotic bravado of the leader of the attack and denounces the whole thing as unprofessional and suicidal. Raina’s dream castle collapses, a sort of realistic reaction starts in her and she begins to see the Swiss in a new light. She is so much fascinated by him that she conceals her photograph in the pocket of the coat with an inscription, “Raina, to her chocolate cream soldier.”
“Let those who go home tell the same story of you:
Of action with a common purpose, action None the fruitful if neither you nor we Know, until the judgement after death, What is the fruit of action.” Literature reflects the life. The mirror that an artist holds up to the world is the mirror of his own personality. In theory, drama does not permit a writer to represent his life but in practice, writers do make their personalities felt. He makes his presence felt through the utterances of his various characters, in their personalities and makes the reality felt by the audiences also. Shaw makes fun of the Army by his term ‘chocolate cream soldier’. At a time when chocolate did not secure the approval of the Army dieticians as a battleworthy concentrated food, he made a soldier get the nickname ‘chocolate- cream soldier’ by gobbling chocolate creams enthusiastically. The term ‘the chocolate cream soldier’ is quite amusing, while Shaw’s purpose is serious so, it’s doubtful whether it would have been a suitable title for Shaw’s play. Shaw exposes in this play the falsity of the order that denies the man bound by the romantic bonds of arms. He builds his play not on the fun, given by a particular soldier, but on the true relation between man and his arms. Hence,” Arms and the Man “and not ‘the chocolate-cream soldier’ seems to be an appropriate title. Louka [wistfully]: “I wish I could believe a man could be as unlike a woman as that. I wonder are you really a brave man?” Louka enters the room and informs them that all the windows are to be closed and shutters made fast, because there will be shooting in the street as the Serbs are being chased by Bulgarian Army. She closes the windows and fastens the shutters and then she and Catherine leave. Raina is left alone in her bedroom. She gives a kiss of approval to her hero’s portrait and starts reading before going to sleep. Shaw’s real intention in the play is to unmask love and war. He wants to tell the world that war is not a chivalrous sport. Sergius, who n is responsible of romanticism of war, becomes wiser through the experience of war. Through his disillusionment, Shaw is conveying the great truth about the unheroism of successful fighting. Shaw’s mouthpiece, Bluntschli, cares more for chocolates than for bullets and says the first duty of every soldier, being a human being, is to save his own life. Bluntschli enters her life quite dramatically; he is a fugitive who is pursued by Bulgarians soldiers, climbs up the water pipe to the balcony of her room. At first Raina is compelled to receive him, but later, when the pursurers come seeking him, she pities him and saves him. This is the beginning of her attraction for him. Catherine: “You will marry Louka! Sergius you are obliged to marry Raina. Sergius (adamantly folding his arms). Nothing can oblige me.” Chocolates symbolize food, the necessity of life, bullets symbolize the arms, the romance of life, food sustains life is more precious than the glory of war. In the same way, Shaw denounces love and marriage. For him ‘higher love’ is nothing but list. Raina and Sergius both are lost in such romance but ultimately they are disillusioned. Sergius gets ready to marry a housemaid who has no special understanding and Raina accepts Bluntschli, the unheroic but practical man. The two marriages might seem improbable but they do symbolize the realities of life. Shaw proves through them marriage is the procreation of generation, which is more important than the romance. So the conflict between romanticism and realism, which was the main target of his psychological treatment of the play, ends with the victory of realism. “I would not be Sisyphus, there were things that I should learn to break.” On the morning the 6th March, 1886, Sergius sees Louka, it seems for the first time. There is no indication in the play that she was not in the family when Sergius left for the battlefield. If she was in service with the Petkoffs even then, there is no reason why Sergius had not fallen in love with her earlier. On the day of the action of Act II, Sergius is least disposed to pay attention to Louka is busy making love to his fiancé whom he has met after a period of four months. When Raina goes to fetch her hat he wants her to return at once because time hangs heavy upon him in her absence. After she has gone we are told that his face is “radiant with the loftiest exaltation” rising out of romantic love. It is difficult to reconcile with his behavior a minute afterwards. Again, we are told Raina is at this time spying upon him but she does not understand what the matter is. There is no reason why Raina should not have spied from the beginning to the end when once her suspicion, and then her jealousy have been aroused. Instead she goes in to fetch the hat and does not follow Sergius and Louka to the stable yard. Further, one day is too short a time for all the events to happen without appearing to be improbable. Raina [bitterly]: “Major Saranoff has changed his mind. And when I wrote that on the photograph, I did not know Captain Bluntschli was married. Bluntschli [startled into vehement protest]: I’m not married.” In this farcical comedy, the dialogue keeps pace with situations. Right from the time Bluntschli comes on the scene, the conversation becomes alive. When Raina asks him, “I suppose, now you have found me out, you despise me” he answers with a sparkle of wit “I’m your infatuated admirer”. All the dialogues are spicy and lively with wit and humour.It is obvious why the play has gained a continuous success till today, but after World War-II its popularity increased still more. The soldiers who came back from war justified Shaw’s view on war. The peculiar charm of Arms and the Man is that it is professing to be anti romantic, but it is gaily romantic besides being rich in wit and character. Catherine:”He certainly ought to be promoted when he marries Raina. Besides, the country should insist on having atleast one native general.’” It is one of Shaw’s earlier plays, and it does not totally break away from the old tradition. The main plot is divided in three main Acts and each Act has got separate scenes and with each scene the characters change. In the First Act all the characters have been introduced and in the Second Act the plot rises to a climax with many intrigues. In the last Act each thread has been knitted to its separate and proper place and the conclusion is drawn. Raina [succumbing with a shy smile]: To my chocolate cream soldier. Critics have often criticized Shaw for making his characters his mouthpieces. But of, in reality even if Shaw is presenting his ideas through his character he is not murdering their individuality; rather he has not made his characters classical heroes “all perfect”. They have the weaknesses of their own and that is why they are humans and are real, Bluntschli being the most attractive of them. He is a fine figure, comic in his talk and behavior with an infectious exuberance. Sergius excites laughter with his pompous pretensions while Raina enchants. The adventures of Major Petkoff invoke sheer fun; all these are excellent acting parts are extremely effective on stage. Bernard Shaw has used the stage as a pulpit to communicate to the public, directly or indirectly, and whatever he said, heroes entertainingly. And that is why the interest of people in his plays has never abated, but has only grown with the passage of years. His farcical comedy Arms and the Man has attracted all classes of people. The play has always been extraordinarily effective in the theatre and there are many reasons for its popularity. Again, when she senses the figure of Bluntschli in her room, she is described as “crounching on the bed” which once again suggests her timidity and lack of courage, but Raina’s conversation with Blutschli doesnot reveal any timidity in her inspite of the pistol in his hand. We even hear her asking Bluntschli boldly how he knows that she is afraid to die. Here she is not the same Raina that she was a few minutes earlier. She has been to behave inconsistently by Shaw; just to make the dialogue crisp and interesting Shaw has ignored the reality of the character. Sergius: “Dearest, all my deeds have been yours. You inspired me. I have gone through the war like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him.” Shaw has written discussion dramas. There are two kinds of discussions mainly, the discussion of problems for their inherent interest. In such dramas we have nothing more important than the discussion itself. For example Don Juan in hell. Secondly, the discussion as an emanation of conflict between persons. Shaw is a known expert in writing verbal duels in which acerbity and interest derive not from the question discussed, but from situation and character. The villain in his plays is civilization, regarding some special problem framed for the occasion, constitutes the drama. Sergius: “Allow me to see, is there any mark? (He moves up the bracelet and examines the bruise caused by his tight grasp. She stands still, not staring at him, liking it but not displaying it). Ffff!Is there any pain?” The very first act takes place in Raina’s bed-chamber, and it brings before one’s mind’s eye all the articles of her room, the window curtains, the Turkish Ottoman, the counterpane and hangings of the wall, the painted wooden shrine, the little carpet and all the oriental textual fabrics, the wash stand consisting of an enamelled iron basin with a pail beneath it in a painted metal frame, the dressing-table, covered with a cloth of many colours, with an expensive toilet mirror on it, the chest of drawers, also covered with a variegated cloth. Through an open window with a little balcony, a peak of the Balkans is seen, as if it were quite close at hand, and as it is night it appears wonderfully white and beautiful in the starlit snow. Through this vivid picture Shaw has given us an understanding of Raina’s character. She is intensively conscious of the romantic beauty of the atmosphere and of the fact that her own youth and beauty are part of it. These facts we cannot gather only from dialogues, these are marked by the spectator or with Shaw’s description to the reader also they become significant. We may take Arms and the Man as a compromise between a well made play and a thesis play. Although there is not much action in the play but the compromise has been made by a good development of character and proper use of dialogues. The opening of the play is very dramatic; at first Raina is enjoying the night and is happy over the victory of her lover but all of a sudden scene changes, shots are heard and a Swiss soldier, unknown to her, enters her room. Then, again audiences are relieved from the tension with the entrance of a stupid Russian officer and still the scene is further vitalized with the dialogue between Raina and the fugitive. He tells her that the cavalry officer of Bulgarian Army, who is her lover, also, is a humbug, perhaps even a pretender and a coward. And somewhere in her heart the girl agrees with him. Her mother too participates in the intrigue and lends the fugitive her husband’s coat (in which Raina hides her snap also with an inscription for the soldier) to make his escape easy. “I’d study those red and blue mountain Ranges as on a map that offered escape, The veins and arteries the roads I could travel to freedom when I grew.” Again, when Bluntschli picks up the dressing gown of Raina as the best weapon for his protection, he throws his pistol on the divan and hides behind the curtain that was later on another circumstance was noticed even by a maid. It is nothing but a mock-search serving the purpose of the dramatist to prove something indifferent who must keep also the military man, Bluntschli alive if the play has to go on till the Third Act. Raina is a girl with a romantic disposition and is influenced by the operas she has watched. Sergius too is a Bulgarian Byron. Raina and Sergius both suffer from psychological criss-crossing. Raina and Serrgius say something, think something else and yet something else; so they are always indecisive. There is no consistency between their intention and action. Shaw fought against show and hypocrisy. Though stark, his realism is healthy. Through Arms and the Man he has depicted the healthy realism and the unaffected realistic view of life. This view is embodied in Bluntschli who is a personification of realism of Shaw. Romantic Raina, after meeting him, begins to see everything in a new light. She discovers that what he says is true. He removes her illusionary ideas and false romantic conceptions of war and love and thus makes her realize her real self. Louka and Nicola are in the same line. In his own life, which is certainly better, because it is based on reality, as contrasted with that of Sergius, he shows the hollowness of the pomp and pageantry of war. Then again Sergius, with his higher love himself stands exposed, baited as he is by Captain Bluntschli. The aim of Shaw in writing the play is just the reverse to that of Virgil in writing his epic, Aenid. Shaw in Arms and the Man has declared that war is dangerous and its consequences are bitter. People, who have witnessed the horrors of the two world wars, can well appreciate the anti-war cries of Shaw. Shaw asserts the supremacy not of a war hero, but that of a real human being. Every man is a human being and wants to live long as possible. This is what Bluntschli says. After analyzing the title of the play, we come to the conclusion that the play is intended to show the weakness in warfare, according for “Arms” and to provide an example of a “Man” who understands fighting and yet gives it up because he considers it more important to become a normal man attending to his natural business. This is what both Bluntschli and Sergius feel about. They know how to fight, yet they are not in favour of warfare. Virgil’s phrase, as understood from Dryden’s translation, praises ‘the soldier and the weapons of war’. It is a heroic expression that brings to the mind the sparkle of arms, and glory of the warrior. But of, Shaw has given a different picture in his play. Instead of glorifying war and heroism like Virgil, he exposes the romantic glamour attached with war and the profession of a soldier. Though the opening of the play creates an atmosphere of war and heroism but the end strips it of all its romantic glamour. Shaw shows chivalry of love and chivalry of war to be fake. Raina, as the play develops, goes through a process of disillusionment; all her romantic ideals are shattered and she sees what war, after all, is and how false and insincere ‘higher love’ proves to be. Captain Bluntschli opens her eyes to the truth about these concepts. “Be through my lips to unawken’d earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” Arms and the Man is having two themes-love and war- closely knitted with a single yarn with great skill. Shaw has shown how the romance of war leads to the romance of love. ‘Arms and the Man’ portrays this having ruthlessly thrown among the idealisms. With a joy akin to that of Moliere, Shaw turns on the absurd impulses in men and women to lie and pose; and in Arms and the Man he subjects every lie to ludicrous exposure. He wanted to make fun of popular romantic false ideas regarding love and marriage. Shaw believed in marriage as a necessary and desirable institution. There is a subtle suggestion that arms is perhaps referring to the embraces of lovers, thus giving a double meaning to the title. The story is dealing with both, love and war. Raina’s love for Sergius is based on her romantic notions of love which are soon shattered by a practical professional soldier-Bluntschli. He appeals to Raina so much that she develops a liking for him and ultimately the play terminates in their engagement. Again, Louka entraps Sergius, who is bethroned to Raina and at the end; -both are engaged to become husband and wife. Moreover war is there at the back of love-on the stage it’s love which people see most of the time. War only prepares a background for love theme. So, we may say that the title has a double meaning. But of, he was of opinion that the romantic halo generally given to it led ultimately to disillusionment and unhappiness. This is the point of view that he projects through the love-theme in the play. When Sergius turns from the mistress to the maid without any apparent loss of intensity or sincerity in passion and when Raina abandons the copy-book here for her ‘chocolate-cream soldier’, Shaw succeeds in breaking the myth of romance that surrounds love and marriage in the popular imagination. Major Petkoff: “Luckily he is no more our enemy. (In a worried tone) I think you have come here as a friend, not for striking deal on horses or prisoners.” Shaw’s Arms and the Man evolve out of the background of war and deals with the man-in-arms. It’s purpose is to ridicule the ‘fictitious morals’ of war and to show up the interior of the man bound by the romantic bonds of arms. Shaw proves that war is run by pathetic chivalry, cheap egoism, and pompous inefficiency and that a soldier is, in reality, more interested in chocolates (symbolizing food) than in cartridges (symbolizing arms). Shaw is the giant master of human psychology. This statement is absolutely true. He probes deep into the various aspects of human psychology which he presents through his characters. In Arms and the Man he has successfully delineated the psychological conflict between romanticism and realism and two sets of characters depicting these two ways of life. The Man (feigns as if highly impressed) “A Major! Oh, God such a high position. It is hard to think!” At the beginning of the play, we meet Raina Petkoff living in a world of which Sergius Saranoff is the central figure. She considers herself in love with him. She has gathered her ideas of that passion from Byron and Pushkin,and from operas she witnessed during her visits to the cities. She believes that what holds her and her Sergius together is “higher love” and that it will lead them into a married life of never-ending happiness. Her ideas about Sergius receive a rude awakening when she listens to the matter-of-fact, frank and lively Bluntschli, but even then she persists in believing that her lover is a hero of romance. When he is back from the war she receives him with warmth and calls him her hero and her king, confident that they have realized “higher love”. Sergius too, is in love, and finds the higher reaches of that passion realized in his romance with Raina. When he returns, after a rapturous show of joy, he is ready to make love to the maid as soon as his “queen’s” back is turned. Then he openly, and with some conviction, chooses Louka as his life partner. All his empty pretensions fade away, and he is ready to find sober and sure happiness in Louka’s company. Raina maintains very lofty and romantic ideals, based on the romantic concepts of war and love. She glorifies war and sentimentalises love, but she has her own dreams or misgivings. She doubts Sergius, but the moment she hears the news of the triumphant cavalry charge led by him, all her doubts dispel and when she talks to Bluntschli, she forms an entirely different opinion about Sergius. She keeps on changing her mind. A few minutes later, her vision founders, when she sees Sergius shamelessly making love to Louka, her maid. The apostle of higher love falls down from the pedestal where her imagination had placed him. Hence she is unmoved, when he decides to marry Louka. She herself is ready to find happiness with Bluntschli. When Shaw makes Sergius marry Louka and Raina consents to become Bluntschli’s wife, he enforces his notion that marriage is not the combination of high-flown desires and romantic passion, but a contract which is a means of bringing into being a better generation. As in Major Barbara, Barbara, ‘mother of creation’ selects Cusins as her life partner to produce a better generation, not because of ‘Idealistic love’. In Arms and the Man the “heroic” soldier is dumb before the professional military expert, so the bubble of the “higher love”, as proclaimed by Sergius and Raina, is pricked by the real thing, introduced by those masters of reality, Bluntschli and Louka. Yet Louka has her glamorous moods, rebuked by one even nearer the disillusioned heart of things. “You have the soul of a servant, Nicola.”- “Yes, that’s the secret of success in service. Intellectually, the play is a setting in opposition to the clear, actual, apparently cynical view of things as they are, voiced by Nicola and presently elaborated by Bluntschli, against the racial way taken by Sergius and Raina of making believe that the facts of life are romantically different. Even Raina’s parents, who pride themselves much on their wealth and honour, are at least convinced of the worth of Bluntschli as their son-in-law by his most unromantic enumeration of his possessions-many horses, so many carriages, so many pairs of sheets and blankets, etc. the very triumph of the character is the antithesis between the conventional standard of life and the real motive in human life. Then, by the end of the First Act, Raina has been shown to be stripped of her romanticism regarding war and heroism of Sergius, but in the Second Act when she neets Sergius she behaves as though no change has occurred in her. She continues to pretend in front of Sergius. Bluntschli: “Never mind whether it’s heroism or baseness. Nicola’s the ablest man Ive met in Bulgaria. I’ll make him manager of a hotel if he can speak French and German.” Then Serbian artillery discovers of its not having proper ammunition; at the last moment which is hard to believe. Bluntschli carries chocolates in his cartridge box instead of bullets and ammunition, at the time when he should be worried about his safety he can think of chocolate creams seems improbable. Then again in the cold weather in which one would like to wear a coat or sit near the fire, Bluntschli had not even once put his hands in his coat’s pocket to discover Raina’s photograph. The romantic view of war, which has sought to dispel, is based on the idealistic notion that men fight because they are heroes, and that the running of the greatest risk brings the brightest glory. It is such a bloated notion that Raina Petkoff has about her Sergius. She believes that the world is a happy place where heroes partake in such adventures and their heroines feel the glory. Then suddenly reality dawns upon her in the form of the weary, dirt-stained Swiss soldier. His very appearance and his notions about a soldier’s duty alarm yet impress her as nearer truth than her own high-flown notions. Raina (To Louka). “Do not fasten the shutters. I can do it on hearing any disturbing noise.” The title which has been taken from Virgil carries its own significance. Chesterton calls it a “mounting and ascending phrase”, conveying the idea that man is more than his weapons. It cannot be said that Shaw seeks to express through his play a total antipathy towards war, as is seen in Tolstoy and other modern humanitarians and pacifists. Shaw is more concerned with abolishing romantic ideas war; he wants to denude it of such an attractive garb. We are apt to appreciate Shaw’s outlook when we realize how war has survived as a method of settling human disputes, because it has also been looked upon as an opportunity for the display of all that is best in man. When she meets the stark realist, Bluntschli, her romantic notions start getting cold at once. When Sergius comes back from the war, her old romantic mood revives. It seems she cannot think anything herself. She thinks what she is made to think by others and works under their influence. When her contact with Bluntschli is renewed and Sergius proves inconsistent in love; she leaves Sergius to ‘his kind’ and marries the ‘chocolate cream soldier’, Bluntschli. This is a process of Metamorphosis from Romanticism to Realism. Shaw has shown the war in the light of the common sense- a matter of business and superior forces, devoid of romance and heroism, except for featherbrained fools like Sergius. The genuine glamour of war is that felt by the man who stays at home and makes a fortune out of it, and a rhapsodic exponent of this position is given to us in Andrew Undershaft. The crowning point of the disillusionment is in Sergius himself. He returns from the war a sadder, but wiser man. He has been disillusioned, and as he puts it, the cavalry charge was the cradle and the grave of his military reputation. He has sent in his resignation, and is not going to withdraw it. Raina remained unconscious of this effect of disillusionment in her fiancé for a long time. It is interesting to note that, Bluntschli’s story of the cavalry charge has partly shaken. Raina’s faith in her romantic idealism about war, Sergius seems to be quite sobered by his experience. He has come to realize that soldiering is “The coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm way when you are weak.” The wisest maxim of war is never to fight any enemy on equal terms. He realizes that the hotel keeper’s son with all his knowledge of horses came better equipped for the army than for himself. Through the disillusionment of Sergius, Shaw succeeds in dispelling the common notions of the heroics of war. Raina: “Our relationship constitutes a very beautiful and sublime part of my life. I think you can understand my feelings.” The chief vitality of the plays of Bernard Shaw lies in their invariably didactic intent and tone. His plays present ideas and project the author’s attitude towards it. when this play was first presented on the London stage , Shaw was accused of making fun of the Army, because in those days the Army , even though it had lost some of its importance as a weapon of national defence,had still some glamour about it. Kipling was singing the praise of the “officer and the gentleman.” The lasting appeal of this “pleasant” comedy can be traced to the fact that in a word more bitterly conscious of the miseries of war than the Europe of the 1890’s, it gives food for thought on a subject of immediate and urgent importance. Shaw himself once said, “I write plays with the deliberate object of converting the nation to my opinions,” hence we see him tackling, in his plays, a large variety of themes, bringing them, and adding to the wisdom and gaiety of the world. There are few things in human life, from eating to love making, on which Shaw has not something both sensible and witty to say. Arms and the Man is not an exception to it. The greatest shock to Raina’s romantic ideals comes when Bluntschli describes Sergius’s cavalry charge. He derides him most devastatingly. He ridicules him, likening him to Don Quixote against the windmill and says that he looked like a foolish drum-major, who should have been court-martialled for his folly. Bluntschli knows out and out the reality and futility of war, and as such “save your skin” is the policy which he follows most unhesitatingly; he declares that all the soldiers are afraid to die, and that soldiers are born fools. Shaw has criticized the days when “the officer and the gentleman” was a respected figure in English society and when Kipling had glorified the noble art of fighting. It was into such any atmosphere that Shaw, with his characteristic ruthlessness, introduced Bluntschli. Through this Swiss officer, Shaw presented soldiers pretty much as soldiers appeared to themselves and to one another. The Swiss soldier attributes the Bulgarian victory to sheer ignorance of the art of war. First, he criticizes the cavalry charge, which decided the day. It is unprofessional –a rash act and quite unthinkable. Raina wants to hear the details of the cavalry charge, but of Bluntschli a realist, makes fun of Raina’s her” a handsome fellow, shouting his war-cry, and fighting like Don Quixote at the windmill.” Later, it was learnt that the Serbs had the wrong ammunition sent the portrait of hero, and tells him that she is bethroned to him. He apologises to her. Yet he insists on calling him Don Quixote and laughs. Then he gives out the truth that perhaps the gentleman got wind of the enemies being without the right cartridge and ran no risk in charging so rashly. Raina is annoyed to see that her hero is figured out as a pretender and coward .Thus Shaw has treated both the themes (Love and War) unconventionally in his play Arms and the Man. He has successfully managed to keep them knitted with the same yarn by treating both in the same manner. Both Love and War had been highly romanticized by the Victorians and pre-Victorians, bit Shaw has brought the reality of the two on earth and has proved that having ideals about them bring nothing except disillusionment. Chesterton has rightly remarked that “The world does not encourage a quiet rational lover, simply because a perfectly rational lover would never get married. The world does not encourage a perfectly rational army, because a perfectly rational army would run away.”Now all these coincidences provide the backbone to the play and are obviously contrived by the dramatist to serve his purpose. Coincidences do happen in our real life also but they seldom happen in such a close succession as in Arms and the Man. “I observe a famine at sea- I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;” Shaw has written this play with the object of exposing the idle romantic notions held by people regarding war and love. He had created Bluntschli to serve as his spokesman and to express his realistic and commonsense points of view to put through his satire on romantic idealism about war and love. And Bluntschli admirably serves the purpose-we hear him give outspoken expression to the dramatist’s favourite ideas and opinions. Shaw generally represents the person who derides convention and walks the path chalked out by his own individuality as right and sensible. Here it is Bluntschli who opposes traditional notions and bluntly expresses the practical point of view of all romantic and fanciful illusions. Bluntschli is a typical Shavian hero. Bernard Shaw is a playwright who writes to sell his ideas, and like most propagandists, he is a little impatient to make his point. The effectiveness, with which Bluntschli conveys Shaw’s ideas on war, is remarkable indeed. His categorization of soldiers into young and old is very succinct. The immature young ones are rash and enthusiastic, whereas the old experienced ones are skeptical and reluctant; the former carry ammunition, while latter prefer grub on the battlefield. Here Shaw is overdoing a little, but deliberately so in order to hold up to ridicule the whole business of fighting. Bluntschli shocks Raina by eating like a child. He showed that soldiers were afraid; that they would carry with them to the field chocolates rather than bullets; that, other things being equal, they preferred life to death; and that they were bound to be sleepy after fighting for three days on end. We are told that what caused great indignation in 1890’s against the play was the confectionery, the way in which a soldier was shown gobbling up cream chocolates which were then the ammunition for armour rather than arms . Another God whom Shaw has attacked fiercely here is the romantic lover, the bold hero enveloped with a poetic halo in the popular imagination. It was a part of Shaw’s deliberate crusade against all empty Victorian idols. Here, he not only reveals their hollowness of romantic love, but presents a matter-of –fact practical attitude towards marriage. Nothing could express it as forcibly as Sergius’s preference for the maid and Raina’s for the unromantic hotelkeeper’s son. Shaw was a professed social reformer, and satire was the weapon he used to convert the nation to his own point of view. In play after play, he lashes out at the social evils prevalent in the society. In Arms and the Man he has satirized the romantic ideals of love and war, soldering and social snobbery. Raina, in particular lives in a dreamland. She talks of the ‘higher love’ which nothing can defile. Sergius, more than fully, reciprocates is his “queen” and he has gone through the war like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking at him. And yet all their love is superficial. It is more of a show than a reality. Hot on the heels of his professing higher love for Raina, Sergius’s gaze is caught by the poor but attractive maid, Louka. It comes as a shock to the readers to find this apostle of higher love, most unceremoniously, making advances to Louka. He confesses before Louka that ‘higher love’ is a very “fatiguing” thing. She makes a thorough idiot of him, making him dance to her tunes and all his declarations of “higher love” for Raina prove to be deceptive. The love between Raina and Sergius is generated by external charm and by the family and position of the beloved. Such a love is based on old fashioned notions of romance and chivalry and is bred by the readings of poetry of Byron and Pushkin and visits to the opera. Shaw has delineated the psychological changes in a very correct manner. His psychology moves from sentimentalism to realism. This is in fact, the key to his dramatic psychology. Thus we see that in Arms and the Man Shaw exposes the fallacy of the romantic conception of war and love, thereby scandalizing the comfortably compromised Victorian public. He also lets us see the absurdity of class-consciousness. He does overstate the case but only in order that we may be provoked to thinking about the problem from the rational point of view. The most impressive and engaging character in Arms and the Man is Bluntschli, who makes a dramatic enter into it, who dominates it throughout and who carrries it to a happy ending. He is the most important character, not because he is theatrical as well as the real hero of the play, but because through him Shaw expresses his own ideas and opinions-he is his mouthpiece, his spokesman. He is created to show to the reader that in the world of today in which people’s ideas and ideals, viewpoints and attitudes, of life in general and to war in particular, are mostly confused, there are some persons like Bluntschli who can keep the balance, who can view and think without prejudice, even in the midst of thousands of conventions. Raina (grasping her arm). “Do not mamma: the wretched darling is totally exhausted. Allow him to sleep.” Bluntschli is introduced to us as a fugitive running away from his pursuers, and trying to save himself by climbing up a drainpipe and entering a young lady’s chamber. Shaw has not presented a hero devoid of all faults and defects. Instead, he has portrayed a man who has remarkable qualities of head and heart but also has the weakness of human beings. In Victorian society, marriage was supposed to be the sacred act between two people of same status with higher spiritual values but when Raina marries Bluntschli and Sergius with Louka, Shaw proved that marriage is a licentious evil and is done for economic gains, eg. Louka and Raina both see the economic gains, e.g. Louka and Raina both see the economic gains in selecting their partners so marriage too is a target of satire in Arms and the Man. At times Bluntschli might appear to be rude and rough but he is polite and civilized, when Raina offers him her hand, he looks dubiously at his own and says, “Better not touch my hand, dear young lady, I must have a wash first.” Inspite of this, when Raina offers her hand as a token of safety, he kisses it with hands behind his back. Not only this, when the Russian officers, brought in by Raina’s mother, are about to enter Raina’s room, Bluntschli prepares himself to fight and gives Raina her cloak. He could easily have kept it, thereby preventing Raina from opening the door, but his civilized upbringing doesnot allow this. It may, however, be added here that Bluntschli knows full well that even if Raina doesnot open the door he is not safe because then Russians will break the door and kill him. Again when all is safe and clear, he asks Raina to inform her mother of his presence, because, says he, “I hid better not stay here secretly any longer than is necessary.” Bluntschli [promptly]: “… I came sneaking back here to have another look at the young lady when any other man of my age would have sent the coat back-“ In the play, Shaw describes him as ‘’a man of about 35…he is of a middling stature and undistinguished appearance with strong neck and shoulders, roundish obstinate looking head covered with short crisp bronze curls, clear quick eyes and good brows and mouth; hopelessly prosaic nose like that of a young minded baby, trim soldier like carriage and energetic manner, and with all his, wits about him…” A hint of his shrewdness is dropped by Major Sergius in the Second Act of the play while mentioning the exchange of prisoners. He humbugged Major Petkoff and Sergius into giving him fifty able bodied men for two hundred worn-out chargers. They were not even eatable. His apparent listlessness covers his sense of humour and shrewdness. He has deep insight into human character and is a prudent soldier. He knows perfectly well that nine soldiers out of ten are born fools, but he himself does not belong to that category. When Raina tries to hide him from Bulgarians, he tells her that she can do so if she keeps her head because he knows perfectly well that nine soldiers out of ten are born fools. The Russian officer comes in; he just looks in the balcony and goes out thanking Raina. He doesnot care to search the room or look behind the curtain. Bluntschli’s judgment turns out to be correct and the Russian officer is proved to be a fool. Bluntschli has a wonderful sense of humour. He laughs at romanticism, but he does so in a very subtle manner. His talk with Raina and Sergius sparkles with touches of his humour. The way he tries to pronounce ‘Petkoff’ also shows his sense of humour. His caricaturing of Sergius as Don Quixote is another example of his humour. Infact, he attracts us by his liveliness and his exuberance. From the moment he enters the scene, the mood is transformed and we watch for the unexpected and the original in word and deed. His exuberance is irrepressible, and nothing can prevent his bubbling forth continuously. He is not fickle-minded and unbalanced like Sergius who is completely a different man at different times. Though Raina worships Sergius like a priestess, Bluntcshli succeeds in winning her. He offers her his hand not as the King of Switzerland but merely as a ‘chocolate cream soldier’, but he is sincere..when he is alone with Raina in her bedroom he asks her to inform her mother of his presence; like a real man, he does not take the opportunity to flirt but Sergius does. He never lives like Sergius , in a fool’s paradise or in a dreamland. Moreover he never entertains high opinions about himself, he judges everything right at its face. He is a very practical and balanced man. Bluntschli himself tells Raina, “I am a Swiss fighting merely as a professional soldier. I joined the Serbs because they came first on the road from Switzerland.” According to him, it is the duty of every soldiered to live as long as is possible instead of being killed in the battlefield even when there is a chance to escape. Not only this, he judges everything according to strict military rules. A cavalry charge for him is “like slinging a handful of peas against him, and then all the rest in a lump.” He does not speak in high terms about it and about Sergius. He tells Raina. This account offends Raina. Bluntschli in despair tells her, “It’s no use dear lady; I can’t make-you see it from the professional point of view.” Moreover he takes war as mere art and the cavalry charge appears to him as something very unprofessional. He can also distinguish between the old soldiers and the young ones. This shows that he is really a very experienced soldier and knows all the tactics of war. Once more he gives an example of his experience. “You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones grub.” Raina Petkoff is the heroine of the play as Bluntschli is the hero of the play. Hence both of them stand head and shoulders above other characters of the play. She has extraordinary physical charms; her intelligence is also extraordinary; her attitude towards life is quite abnormal- her whole make –up is attractive and beautiful. Shaw presents her as typical of the upper middle class in its philistinism and ridiculous ineptitude. She is the type also of general humanity that clings, in spite of common sense, to romantic notions regarding life and things. Catherine [severely]: “My daughter, sir, is accustomed to a first-rate stable. Raina : Stop,mother, you are making me laughable.” Sergius too maintains a kind of ‘higher love’ with Raina, but in reality, as a human being he cannot neglect his natural sex-instinct and starts flirting with Louka, a maid-servant although his sense of ‘higher love’ and romantic heroism abuse him consciously. At last he gets fed up with his Byronism and adopts a matter-of-fact attitude and marries Louka. Here again we find the conversation of Romanticism into Realism. Bluntschli: “If you were twenty-three when you said those things to me this afternoon, I shall take them seriously.” When we first meet Raina, we see that she is a brooding romantic girl contemplating the distant view of the Balkan hills, but she seems to possess a strong common sense; from the beginning there is a doubt in her mind whether the heroic ideals, which she cherishes in her heart, for her fiancé, are after all true. Her mother, who comes running in to infirm her of Sergius’s splendid cavalry charge which decided the day for the Bulgarians, dispels all her doubt. She blames, now, herself for entertaining the doubts. It appears that Raina’s romantic idealism is buttressed –up affair; it needs to be stimulated and reinforced.
Raina lives in the realm of romantic idealism, far from the world of grim reality. She looks upon Sergius with a view of the knights of ancient days of chivalry come to life again. This view of hers has been created and pampered by the romantic dreams of life gathered from Byron, Pushkin, and from the several operas she has witnessed she takes his portrait in her hands and elevates it like a priestess. When she meets him after his return from the front, she most romantically calls him, ‘My hero, my king’, but it is a sceptic attitude...there is a good deal of doubt in it. She keeps on watching Sergius and he does betray her. So their ‘higher love’ turns to ashes.
Captain Bluntschli is a man of remarkable qualities; but he is not an ideal hero devoid of all faults. Rather he is a character very much true to life. He exhibits the sense of humour with brutal frankness’. He is in fact the mouthpiece of Shaw. The rare gift of irony enables him to see through all kinds of dealings. He is not led by blind love or unfaithful emotions. He is a true lover. In short, he is a cool and I, partial man, susceptible to the charms of beauty and youth. He is a shrewd judge of character. His sincerity of purpose is admirable and his sense of duty praiseworthy. In fact, he is the most loving and living character of the play. Raina poses to be an idealist too. She idealises the world as “really a glorious world for women who can see its glory and men who can act its romance.” In a solemn tone she tells Sergius,”I think we two have found the ‘higher love’.” she wants to make Bluntschli realise that her “relation to him (Sergius) is the only really beautiful and noble part” of her life. She often strikes a ‘noble attitude’, ‘speaks in a thrilling voice’ and looks like a great idealist. Her father wonders and admires her, her lover is kept spell-bound, but empty vessels make more noise..she cheats Sergius and Sergius betrays her, so two ‘apostles of higher love’, two idealists, prove what they are in reality. It is a hoax, an empty show. Petkoff [with childish awe]:”Are you Emperor of Switzerland? Bluntschli: My rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I am a free citizen.” Like her parents, Raina is a snob. She is proud of her family’s social status and riches. Very proudly she tells Bluntschli that her father is a “Major”, that her family has a “library”, “the only one in Bulgaria” and that people of her position “wash their hands nearly everyday”. When Louka, says “My love was at stake”, she taunts as if it were ridiculous for a maid-servant to have a lover. And destiny snatches her own ‘King’ and puts him in the lap of the same maid servant. Sergius: “The glimpses I have had of the seamy side of life during the last few months have made me cynical;but I should not have brought my cynicism here:least of all into your presence, Raina.” There is always a clash between Rain’s perception of reality and her romantic illusion. Sometimes she seems to be in despair whether she can be true to her romantic ideals, e.g. when Bluntschli tells her about Sergius and calls him a fool..which shows that, to keep her confidence she needs continuous pampering because the moment she gets the news of the splendid cavalry charge led by Sergius, her faith is revived. Louka calls Raina a ‘liar” and a “cheat” and Bluntschli openly pointed out her lies and pretentions. Raina, however, deliberately deludes others. When she is caught by Bluntschli in her imposture, in the last Act of the play, she at first tries to register indignation, but finding Bluntschli unimpressed, she admits the truth about her “noble attitude” and “thrilling voice.” The way in which Raina readily transfers her affection from Sergius to Bluntschli is strange and may lead one to doubt reasonably the very depth of her devotion. Raina is bold and intelligent. She does not get nervous when a stranger enters her room with a ready revolver. She had no idea that there was no cartridge in the revolver. She had no idea that there was no cartridge in the revolver. She does not get upset when the Russian officer comes to search her room, she did her job before the officer smartly and intelligently and makes a fool of him. She offers Bluntschki her hand twice for security. She even gives the old coat of her father to him while leaving because the weather was cold. Again very boldly she puts her photograph in the pocket of the coat and when her father wears it when it is brought back; cleverly she takes out the photograph. William Archer has accurately observed her as “a deliberate humbug, without a single genuine or even self-deluding emotion in her bloodless frame.” A dramatist must keep his action moving and his characters coming and going. Usually he tries to make their entrances and exits unobtrusive; they must leave the stage or enter on it naturally, not as though on an obvious cue. Although Raina is a coquette, Shaw has not made her a fiendish figure. She feels for wretched fugitives and feelingly questions: “what glory is there in killing wretched fugitives?’ she saves Bluntschli at a great personal risk and she has no motive behind this act. Raina Petkoff, with a contradictory and complex character, enchants the readers of the play from beginning to end. As the plot develops, her personality also develops rapidly. She is not the “all perfect” Victorian heroine, rather with all her follies and illusions she appears to be more human and real. Sergius: “I won the battle the wrong way when our worthy Russian generals were losing it the right way. In short, I upset their plans, and wounded their self-esteem. Two Cossack colonels had their regiments routed on the most correct principles of scientific warfare. Two major generals got killed strictly according to military etiquette. The two colonels are now major-generals, and I am still a simple major.” Bluntschli’s personality affects not merely her notions about war, it breaks all her illusions of ‘higher love’ too. She feels attracted by the plain-spoken Swiss, with a gleam of mischief in his eyes and a practical attitude towards everything. When he comes back, his influence becomes stronger. He alone has the frank courage to tell her that when she strikes a noble attitude and speaks in a thrilling voice, he is led to admire her, but not to believe one word of what she says. Her protest against this is half-hearted, even though she manages to act as if she were shocked. Her conception of ‘higher love’ collapse completely when she sees Sergius making advances to Louka and finds her hero really attracted towards a maid. All her rosy visions fade away, and she is ready to face life as it is. And when, finally she accepts the offer of marriage from Bluntschli, she is absolutely cured of all the delusions she has entertained about life. “She runs to the dressing table, blows out the light there, and hurries back to bed in the dark…” Shaw describes Sergius in Arms and the Man as “a tall, romantically handsome man, with the physical manhood, the high spirit, and the susceptible imagination of an untamed mountaineer chieftain. But of, his remarkable personal distinction is of a characteristically civilized type. The ridges of his eyebrows, curving with an interrogative twist round the projections at the outer corners; his jealousy observant eye; his nose, thin, keen and apprehensive in spite of the pugnacious high brigade and large nostril; his assertive chin, would not be out of place in a Parision salon, shewing that the clever imagination barbarian has an acute critical faculty which has been thrown into intense activity by the arrival of western civilization in the Balkans…” He is what may be called a Byronic hero and his personal appearance shows clearly that he is in love with Byronic romanticism. Both are proud, beautiful and spirited, but of status wise, they belong to two different stations of life, Raina has learnt her behavior from the sophisticated society of Vienna and her ideas of life from operas but Louka came there as a simple country maid with unpolished habits and behavior, but she was tutored in the ways of civilized behavior by Nicola who has plans to marry her. Under his eyes she has learned to be neat and clean and behave daintily. “Life is for one generation; a good name is forever” The technical novelty of Arms and the Man lies in the extensive use of bathos or anti-climax. Both Raina and Sergius – romantic fools- talk of higher love keep boring the audiences for a long time. Sergius’s love for Louka is based on passion. Initially his aim is to flirt with her but manipulating Louka weaves a web around him. She makes him realize that a man must have a woman’s heart as well as convinced that he would do much better with her and openly accepts her. This is nothing but the conquest of passion and reality over romanticism. He tries to cheat both Raina and Louka but ultimately he surrenders before reality. Raina’s outlook is one of satisfaction with her material lot, Louka is ambitious and ever anxious to improve her social position. Both are ruled by the illusions of life though their illusions are different. Raina has the romantic views of war and love, Louka has the romantic notions about the power of her defiance and revolutionary spirit, but her illusions do not make her sentimental like Raina. She has no idea about romantic love. She loves but her’s a plain, practical love with the sole aim of marriage. Bluntschli [before he can speak]:”It’sno use. He never apologizes. Louka: Not to you, his equal and his enemy. To me, his poor servant, he will not refuse to apologize. Sergius[approvingly]: “you are right. [he bends his knee in his grandest manner] Forgive me.” Sergius is a wild rebel-rebel both as a soldier and as a lover, though his revolt is made cruelly ridiculous by contrast with the matter-of-fact, plain Bluntschli. He has the courage to point out the hollow sham of war and tender his resignation from this mean business. For, whereas Bluntschli wisely caricatures the attractiveness of war, Sergius boldly denounces the very method with which a war is fought. As a lover, Sergius is not a bit coward. He faces the reality of his love courageously and is not afraid of the opinion of his class in the matter of his decision to marry Louka-“If I choose to love you, I dare marry you, in spite of all Bulgaria.” Shaw had kept himself engaged in a continuous struggle with critics and the public. There are two chief grounds for this struggle- A revolt against the life of the stage, its artificiality, unnaturalistic and hopelessly sentimental standard and a resolute effort to make the reading and theatre-going public accept him as a stark realist. Raina: [pretending to sulk]: “The lady says that he can keep his tablecloths and his omnibuses. I am not here to be sold to the highest bidder. [She turns her back on him]. Sergius has absolute faith in his concepts and despises the world because it disregards them; this makes him a constant prey to petty disillusion, with the result that he has acquired the half-ironic air, the mysterious moodiness, the suggestion of a strange and terrible history that has left nothing but undying remorse. Sergius has always a pose, and sometimes it makes him ridiculous, but he seems to be hardly conscious of it. When he says that he never apologises or he is never sorry, he makes himself ridiculous, but at last he recognizes Bluntschli’s superiority and bows to it. Action is said to be the very core of drama and characters acquire their significance from the action and in turn action revealed characters by bringing them into clash with one another and dialogue is the instrument used by the characters for some action. Shaw, in this play, is not unobtrusive. He leaves the characters he desires on stage, but dismisses the others in an unnatural manner. We must never forget that the focal interest is in the dialogue, not in the action, so the free movement of the characters is essential. We should not then be exceptionally surprised when Shaw dismisses his superfluous characters in all arbitrary fashion. Our senses may be jarred, but we have to accept the situations. Bathos is a device used by the dramatist to create ridiculous effects. In this device, the action, instead of moving upwards towards a climax, moves downwards towards anti-climax. Bluntschli and Louka know that ‘higher love’ is not real- it is farce, it is the love at the earthly and physical level that is worth enjoying. The anti-climax lies in the fact that Bluntschli and Louka do not soar to the romantic heights of Sergius and Raina; instead Sergius and Raina come down to the level of Louka and Bluntschli. Chesterton has rightly written, “Arms and the Man is a play which is built not on pathos but on bathos.” Raina: “I thought you might have remembered the great scene where Ernani, flying from his foes just as you are tonight, takes refuge in the castle of his bitterest enemy, an old Castilian noble. The noble refuses to give him up. His guest is sacred to him.” A.C. ward is right to some extent when he writes, “Shaw as a playwright, as a dramatic artist was not a realist.” But of, as far as his ideas are concerned he is original and real. It is only in the presentation of his characters and action that he is using each as a tool to solve his problem only and produce humour. Shaw has revived a type of drama in which the action consists almost exclusively of a valuable discussion of the mental revolutions and spiritual conversion which takes place in the minds of characters and changes even their souls. Down to the time of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, standard commercial plays consisted of an exposition in the First Act, a situation in the Second and a sort of tidying up and bowing the audience out in the Third. Bluntschli (in his driest military manner): “I am at Madam’s orders.” Thus, when Shaw sends Raina indoors to fetch her hat, we know that Louka and Sergius must be left together; Sergius and Bluntschli are to be alone, so that Sergius can suggest a duel; Louka finds the door left open for her, and makes an exit. Nicola’s exit also should be watched for its “obviousness”, Raina’s entrances are always well –timed; they, however, are permissible because we know that Raina has a highly dramatic character. Shaw’s basic unit of construction is a short scene, usually consisting of an exchange of ideas or opinions between a few chararacters. Shaw’s plots donot flow forward in a single uninterrupted line. Instead short scene follows short scene rapidly, with each scene there is a change in the persons on stage. Characters and topics often drop out of sight for long periods of time until Shaw is ready to take them up again. This style of construction allows Shaw to develop several stories (Bluntschli- Raina; Raina-Sergius; Sergius-Louka, Louka-Nicola) during an act and, by emphasizing personal relations and discussion; it allows him to show the effect of ideas and opinions on behaviour. Sergius being provided by Louka, addresses Captain Bluntschli gravely, and charges him with being his rival and having deceived him. He challenges Bluntschli to meet him in the parade ground on Klissoura Road, alone on horseback with his sword. It proves Sergius’s stupidity and the effect of Byron on him that in an age of pistols he is talking about swords. Bluntschli says that if he goes, he shall take a machine gun and not a sword, and this time there will be no mistake agrees with him as he had often acted as sword instructor. Sergius offers to lend him his best horse but Bluntschli says he would prefer to fight on foot, for he does not want to kill Sergius if he could help it. Psychologically, Sergius seems to be a complex character. One does not know what he will do and when. His ideas and actions are not reconcilable; on the one hand he tells Louka that “a gentleman never discusses his lady with her maid” but, on the other hand, when she tells him about Raina’s attraction towards the fugitive, he, a gentleman, makes love with a maid at his lady’s back. He is a living anomaly. Bluntschli: “Shot in the hip in a woodyard. Couldn’t drag himself out. Your fellows shells set the timber on fire and burnt him, with half a dozen other poor devils in the same predicament. Raina: How horrible” Shaw’s characteristics are different from typical Victorian characteristics. They are not saying what they were supposed to in the royal manner but they are saying what they want to in their own simple vocabulary. They express their ideas not seriously but comically. So they are able to hold the attention. Other characteristics of Shaw’s dramatic style include the use of coincidence, anticlimax, quick transitions in a character’s behaviour, the construction of plot around much short character’s behaviour, the construction of plot around many short scenes, and the use of dialogue, instead of action, to advance the plot. “The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!” Sergius, in the beginning, is not merely a romantic soldier but he is also the apostle of ‘higher love’, but his ideas of love are as romantic and fanciful as his ideas of war. He is engaged to a lady of his class and professes to have “higher love” for her. He considers himself her worshipper, ready to die in her service. He calls her “My Queen” in Byronic manner, but all the time he is assailed by the doubt whether all this is not just a pose, an attitude assumed for a dubious self-satisfaction. He also realizes that it is difficult to keep up the attitude for any length of time. He too goes through a process of disillusionment like Raina. The weakness of his old character, as he perceives, leads him to the temptation of making love to Louka. About ‘higher love’ he says, “It’s very fatiguing thing to keep up for any length of time.” Although while making love to Louka he says,”What would Sergius, the apostle of higher love, say if he saw me now?” but he finds consolation in the news that Raina too has a lover. He has something of a cynic as well as an egoist in him. His own power of introspection makes him realize that he is a bundle of contradictions. He tells Louka that he is half-a-dozen Sergiuses in one. He is not able to judge the real Sergius in the midst of this muddle, at least not before the end. Shaw is a rebel to tradition. He has written plays not for the purpose of self-expression, but for the purpose of propaganda, he converts the stage into a forum. As his plays are of ideas, dialogues become more important element in his play than either character or action. . Sergius is an interesting character, a good subject for an analytical study. Shaw once said that his character was an attempt at a comic Hamlet. Certainly there is something similar between the gloomy prince of Denmark who suffers from his inability to do his duty as he sees it, and the romantic Bulgarian hero who is tormented by the difficulty of accommodating his idealistic notion to the stern realities of life, but it is really comic to place Sergius against Hamlet. Sergius was created to be the hero of the play, but he is degraded to the position of a villain with a second rank. Sergius: “And how ridiculous! Oh, war! War! The dream of patriots and heroe! A fraud, Bluntschli. A hollow sham, like love. “ As Louka is a foil to Raina, Sergius is a foil to Bluntschli. He acts as a background to Bluntschli and highlights his realism. And other practical qualities. This rebel is made a fool of by the all conquering ‘chocolate-cream soldier’. And in his last exclamation “What a man! Is he a man!”is echoed the envious admiration of a disappointed soul. The rebel in Sergius is silenced by the realist in Bluntschli. The hero in Sergius is silenced by the realist in Bluntschli. The hero in Sergius is beaten both in courtship and soldier ship. Eclipsed by Bluntschli’s intelligence and promptitude, Sergius is only left to stand and stare with a defeatist mentality. Sergius is not comical. His failure is essentially tragic, though the tragedy of his lot is deftly turned into an amusing sport by the comic element of the play. Shaw’s characters may be somewhat unnatural in their eloquence but they are not wooden beings. The distinct individuality of each character is present all through the play. There is no confusion between Raina and Louka; both are distinct. Similarly both Sergius and Bluntschli’s words in Sergius’s mouth or Sergius’s actions in Bluntschli cannot be shown. Although Petkoff and Catherine are Shaw’s caricatures but even they are not without soul. With all their semi-barbaric notions, their idiotic extravagances, they remain quite interesting figures on the stage. And all his characters are not mere abstract ideas; they are attractive and alive on the stage. Sergius is arrogant but his condition is miserable now when he finds himself to be at fault. He is asked to apologise by Bliuntschli but he replies “I never apologise”. Raina complains to Bluntschli about Sergius for spreading this horrible story about her. Bluntschli assures her that he is dead-burnt alive. Serius, when he hears the account of his death of being set fire to, cries out against war. He says-“war is a fraud, a hollow sham, like love.” Raina protests against his latter remark. But of, Sergius is not willing to believe that Bluntschli has come back and has no interest in Raina. He tells Raina that Louka had given him all this information and Raina discovers his baseness. She discovers that very morning he was with her maid all the time. She confesses that she looked out of the window as she went upstairs, and at that moment did not understand what was going. Louka:”Did you find in the charge that the men whose fathers are poor like mine were any less brave than the men who are rich like you”? Sergius:”You’ve no magnetism: youre not a man: youre a machine.” Some of Louka’s actions may be called mean. She does not treat everybody at his or her level. She tries to blacken the character of Raina in the eyes of Sergius by telling him that Raina makes love to Bluntschli at his back. She does not talk decently about the Petkoff family. When Nicola advises her to be respectful to the family, she replies, “I know some family secrets, they would not care to have told, young as I am, let them quarrel with me if they dare”. This maid is always ready to blackmail someone. She has the habit of eavesdropping. This she does out of curiosity, but ultimately it pays her. When she is caught red-handed, eavesdropping, she defends, “My love was at stake. I am not ashamed.” She is a scheming woman-she makes a calculated play for Sergius, correctly guessing Raina’s changed feelings. She is sharp-tongued, sharp-witted and far-sighted. Sergius rightly calls her, “a provoking little Witch.” After all, in this play, character and action are of minor importance and ideas are all in all. It is doubtful whether a thesis play can have any recognized technique. Yet Shaw’s plays are quite good for the stage, they are not merely academic exercises. Sergius is an unprofessional, enthusiastic and inexperienced soldier. The fact becomes obvious from the cavalry charge which he leads on the enemy equipped with machine guns. His cavalry would have been destroyed mercilessly by the enemy if at all they had the ammunition. He had won the battle just as a mere chance. Bluntschli: “I wont take that answer. I appealed to you as a fugitive, a beggar, and a starving man. You accepted me. You gave me your hand to kiss, your bed to sleep in, and your roof to shelter me.” Sergius sees romance everywhere, even in war. War is full of military glory for him and he never bothers to look at its terrible consequences. The victory swells him with pride and joy but when he is not promoted, he feels completely dejected and resigns his job, so like Raina he needs continuous pampering to keep his faith in his own illusions. He does not have that power in himself; Sergius calls soldering “the cowards act of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are a weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your name at a disadvantage, and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms.” This is his estimate of war and soldering. He is rightly called ‘Don Quixote at windmills’ by Bluntschli. He is new to the trade of war. He appears merely as a theorist devoid of practical sense. Louka is quite realistic and practical in her attitude towards life. She has no illusions about rank, position, gentility, etc. all the affected airs are blown out of Sergius by the breath of her sharp wit and sharp tongue. She uses the secrets and situations to her own benefit. She uses Raina’s jealous in winning over Sergius. She does not hesitate to play upon Sergius’s vanity and finally envy and secures him for herself. When Raina impulsively addresses Bluntschli as the ‘chocolate cream soldier”, and Catherine tries to save the situation by concocting a story about Nicola dropping the plates over a soldier’s figure in cream chocolate made by Raina, he gets suspicious. He doubts Raina’s suddenly developed culinary interest and Nicola’s carelessness. The Man [with grim good humor]: “All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we can. Now, if you raise an alarm-“ Although Major Petkoff is a ridiculous character but he is not insignificant as far as his place in the entire play is concerned. The ‘coat episode’ ,which helps the plot to develop further, moves around him too and it is to clear his doubts that Bluntschli discloses everything and thus paves the way for his own marriage with Raina. He also points out the foolishness of Sergius and his views and snobbery affect the heroine of the play who too is a snob. So we just cannot avoid this character. Apart from that, he adds to the humour of the play. Bluntschli: “But now that you’ve found that life isn’t a farce, but something quite sensible and serious, what further obstacle is there to your happiness?” Catherine is a formidable housewife. It is fairly obvious that she rules the home. She is a successful wife. She not only keeps her husband happy but she also keeps her servants under control. She runs the home smoothly and efficiently. The Major, once his routine wants are looked after, is ready to leave everything entirely in her hands. She contemplates her husband with a little amusement, putting up with his weakness that at times borders on the childish. Louka, though insolent, fears Catherine and never behaves towards her as she does towards Raina. Major Petkoff is worldly minded. When Bluntschli proposes for Raina’s hand, he demurs at first, because Bluntschli appears to him to be only a soldier of fortune, possessing nothing of his own. But of, his father’s heart is soon satisfied when Bluntschli enumerates in detail all that he possesses. His pride is not hurt at all, therefore, when Raina, instead of marrying Sergius, a man of his own set, bestows her choice on Bluntschli. Petkoff: “No longer the enemy, happily. [Rather anxiously] I hope you’ve called as a friend, and not about horses or prisoners.” Although Major Petkoff has been presented as a simpleton, yet there is a spark of intelligence in him. As soon as he comes home from the battlefield, he tries to inquire about his old coat. He had heard the story of a Swiss soldier being given shelter in a Bulgarian house and having been sent away disguised in an old coat of the master of the house. Probably, he wants to ascertain that the story did not occur in his own house. When Catherine talks about Sergius’s promotion, Petkoff immediately points out his foolish action on the battlefield and says that he does not deserve it. This shows that he knows which man should be given which status. Catherine Petkoff is the wife of Major Petkoff and mother of Raina. She is the true representative of Balkan society, anxious to raise itself from barbarism to civilization. Shaw has described her as: “Catherine Petkoff, a woman over forty, imperiously energetic, with magnificient black hair and eyes, who might be a very splendid specimen of the wife of a mountain farmer, but is determined to be a Viennese lady, and to that end wears a fashionable tea gown on all occasions.” Catherine is keenly conscious of her aristocracy and also of her husband’s official and social position. That is why, the dramatist calls her a ‘specimen’ determined to be a Viennese. She apes western manners. Social status and financial position are her chief considerations in deciding the eligibility of a man for Raina. She accepts Bluntschli when she comes to know that he satisfies both these qualities. Raina: “ Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in his arms and looking into my eyes that perhaps we only had our heroic ideas because we are so fond of reading Byron and Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that season at Bucharest. Real life is so seldom like that! Indeed never, as far as I knew it then.” But of, with Major‘s characteristic simplicity, he drops the matter. He is again doubtful when he finds his missing coat replaced, but he attributes it to the weakness of the age; when he puts on the coat, he finds it out that it has been deformed and rightly says that it has been put on by somebody else. This shows that he uses his brain. Raina manages to deceive him by removing her portrait from the pocket of the coat while helping him on with it, but he realizes that something is wrong somewhere; he is not satisfied with the explanation given by Raina and backed by Catherine. They also try their best to hide the fact about his old coat and the photograph in its pocket that intrigues him very much. He does not drop the topic until the truth is revealed by Bluntschli and the entire mystery cleared. Raina: “Allow me. [she sails away scornfully to the chest of drawers, and returns with the box of confectionary in her hand.] I am sorry I have eaten them all except these. [She offers him the box].” Catherine is very much concerned about her social status and the need to live up to it. As a member of a rich reputed family she is conscious of her superiority and is anxious to exhibit it. She is proud of having a library in her house and flight of stairs. Her new acquisition is an electric bell, and with that she feels she has reached the acme of civilized life. She washes her face and neck daily not with a purpose of personal hygiene but to become a modern woman. She is proud of her lineage which she terms historical, even though it can be traced back to a mere twenty years. Like others of her class, she is blissfully unaware of the comic effect of it all. Major Petkoff is not a strict disciplinarian. He cannot plan out the demobilization of the forces and seeks the help of Catherine and Sergius; but even then the problem remains unsolved. When Bluntschli, superior to them (as he is more practical and can take immediate decisions), asks him to look to the proper sending of soldiers, he takes his wife along with him saying that she would manage it better. This shows that he does not have control over persons on whom he should have. Petkoff: “Oh, I shall be only too glad. Two hundred horses! Whew! “ Louka says that Raina would prefer to marry Bluntschli. Agaist which Bluntschli protests saying that the gracious young lady meant nothing; it was just out of pity that she saved his life. He says that he is not even fit for these last 15 years he had been wandering in barracks and battles. He says he is very old for this school-girl of seventeen, he is thirty five..he cannot believe that awoman who took the affair so seriously, could have sent him this photograph with the inscription. All the mystery of the coat is made to clear to Petykoff. Bluntschli poses to be satisfied that he has put everything right, but Raina is annoyed that she has been taken as a school-girl of seventeen and declares that she is a woman of twenty –three. Raina snatches her photograph from his hands, tears it up and throws the pieces in his face. Sergius seems to enjoy his rival’s discomfiture. Bluntschli repeats Raina’s age to himself and thinks over it. He makes up his mind to propose her. Raina [crunching on the bed]: “Who’s there? [The match is out instantly] Who’s there? Who is that? A Man’s Voice [in the darkness, subduedly but threatingly]: Sh-sh!” Catherine, in spite of all her skillful management of the household and with all her commanding personality, does not possess common insight in human character. Raina, Sergius, Louka behave differently at her back but she never senses the fun or mischief behind any of their actions. She behaves as a typical rich aristocratic foolish wife who claims education or experience or culture. Catherine intervenes politely and tells bluntschli her daughter’s position, who is used to luxury and comfort. She says that Sergius keeps 20 horses, Bluntschli grasps the papers in a blue envelope and declares that if Sergius has got 20 horses, he has got 200 horses, Sergius has 3 carriages and he has 70 . He has 4,000 table cloths, 9,600 pairs of sheets and blankets, 2,4oo cider down quilts, 10,000 knives, forks and dessert spoons, 300 servants, 6 palatial establishments, 2 livery stables, a tea garden and a private house. He has four medals for distinguished services, he has the rank of an officer and the standing of a gentleman and he knows three languages. Catherine now withdraws her objection and adds that she will not stand in the way of her daughter’s happiness. Petkoff agrees to his wife’s wish. As a mother, Catherine is very fond of her daughter. She is very solicitous about her health and happiness. That is why she wants her to be married to a rich person. She is rather an over affectionate mother. Even when Raina is impertinent towards her and does something which is not to her liking, she puts up with it. When Raina gives shelter to Bluntschli against the wishes of Catherine, she bears with it, rather she tries her best to keep it a secret by telling many lies. Later when Raina gets so impertinent as to say that Catherine should marry Sergius, if she thought so much of him, Catherine simply bears it. She had able to keep her loyalty to Raina. Catherine’s resourcefulness and presence of mind are seen on several occasions. It is to her that Raina turns with a confidence on the eventful night of the fugitive’s appearance. Again, when Bluntschli reappears, she at once surmises that he has come to return the coat. She knows that his presence can create trouble so she wants to get rid of him at the earliest. She takes care that her husband does not learn of Bluntschli’s coming and so she gets the door of the library closed. When she learns that Petkoff has come to know about Bluntschli’s coming. She manages to save the situation. Similarly, she tides over the ‘chocolate cream incident’ with a quick and ingenious explanation that satisfies her husband to some extent. In the affair of the coat too, she acts smartly. She also prepares her husband for Raina’s marriage with Bluntschli by telling him of Bluntschli’s possessions. The Man:”Stairs! How grand! You live in great luxury indeed, dear young lady.” Major Petkoff is a somewhat misunderstood character. He is neither a simpleton nor very sharp. The secret of his character seems to be that he does not give expression to his real self even before his wife or daughter or friends but, he is a loving husband, a dutiful father and a generous friend; he takes everything in the spirit of resignation and that is why he is not discontented like Sergius or fussy like Catherine though Shaw meant this character to be ridiculous; we shut the book with the feeling that he is slightly stupid, whimsical, vain member of the Bulgarian nobility whose main consideration is what others think of him, but he is not a romanticist like his wife and daughter and, like them, he does not like foolish modernism. He shows his practical attitude towards life by giving permission to Bluntschli to marry his daughter even when she was engaged to Sergius. He creates a good impression upon the readers by his simplicity even while remaining in the background.
“What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown,
If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone? Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast, That I’d be sitting here one day with this pain in my chest?’ Bluntscli’s return with Petkoff’s coat makes the situation and the plot complicated. Catherine, with her true womanly resourcefulness, smuggles away the coat very cleverly and saves the situation. This is the minor climax of the plot. The fugitive expresses his views about soldiers and says there are only two types of soldiers- old ones and young ones. He has served fourteen years. The talk drifts somehow to the cavalry charge that decided the day’s battle. The soldier describes the Bulgarian who led the cavalry as Don Quixote. Who succeeded because Serbians did not have the right ammunition. Raina finds her dream castle shattered. With apologies Bluntschli still calls the man a fool who knowingly led his corps in the mouth of death. Raina cannot forgive Bluntschli for talking about her hero in such a manner. She suggests that he should go back the way he came. He replies that he is too tired to do it and it is beyond him to get down through the pipe. But of, when he braces himself up to it as inevitable, she stops him out of pity. She feels like calling him her ‘chocolate cream soldier’, he requests Raina to put out the candle so that they shall not see the light when he opens the shutters. Raina drags him back and begs him to accept her hospitality. She now tells him her name and that her father is a Major in the Bulgarian Army. She also tells that their’s is the only private house that has two rows of windows and a flight of stairs inside. The Man [dreamily lulled by her voice]: “No: capture only means death; and death is sleep: oh, sleep, sleep, sleep, undisturbed sleep! Climbing down the pipe means doing something-exerting myself- thinking! Death ten times over first.” Realism is a much misused and confused term. Fortunately Shaw himself has explained (Quintessence of Ibsenissm, Ch. II) what he means by realism. Man, as he progresses from barbarism to civilization, adopts certain institutions which are neither perfect nor divine., but as time passes and these institutions are handed on from generation to generation, people come to believe that they are of supernatural origin and are to be accepted and glorified as such. Those who do so, even when they are convinced that they are not so from their own experience, are idealists, in one sense of the term. In another, idealists are those who imagine institutions as they ought to be, neither natural nor holy, they are only human inventions which should not be allowed to outlast their earthly utility. It is in this sense that Shaw is a thorough realist. Once he declared that he was a specialist in social disease and he always probes social sores without flinching. Raina wants to impress upon him that he is in the house of civilized people and not in that of the country folk who might see his Serbian uniform and kill him. She pledges herself for his safety. The man refuses to take her hand as he must have a wash first. Raina is pleased to tell that Bulgarians of really good standing wash their hands daily. She offers her hand and the man kisses it with his hands keeping on the back. Then he begs her to inform her mother, for he would not like to stay there longer than was necessary. Raina is scared when she sees the fugitive with a pistol in his hand, she cannot shout for help. The fugitive throws his pistol on the divan and picks up Raina’s dressing gown. He tells her that if she shouted for help she will have to receive the soldiers in her present half naked state. In the mean time soldiers are heard knocking at the door of Petkoffs as they suspect the entry of a fugitive in the room through a window. Louka, the maid servant, knocks at Raina’s door and asks her to get ready to receive the soldiers. Bluntschli realizes that she’ll have to open the door; he returns her gown so that she could receive the soldiers. He says that he is ready to submit to the inevitable and fight with the soldiers who are coming to search the room. He warns Raina to be cautious and to remain away from the scene because his death is sure though he promises that he would fight till his death. “The face of an old woman on the ground Was marred with suffering, but she made no sound. Silence was common to us all. I heard No cries of anguish, or a single word. “ Sergius and Petkoff recognize Bluntschli as their acquaintance and invite him in the house. Again the situation becomes tense with Raina’s entrance when she shouts to Bluntschli,”Oh! The chocolate cream soldier.” Again Catherine and Nicola manage the situation by making a story of a cake soldier. Sergius, insinuated by Louka, blames Raina for making love to Bluntschli at his back. To this, Bluntschli discloses the whole story of ‘chocolate cream soldier’ and tells Sergius that Raina had to receive him on the point of his pistol otherwise she is chaste. Sergius is defeated, but the denouement of the play is postponed a little until the defeat of Sergius is complete. He has himself being untrue to the romantic ideal of love,but he still believes Raina to be fully inspired and exalted by it. Louka disillusions him and finally he surrenders to her. Bluntschli goes on demolishing all the romantic sentiments ruthlessly, at last snatches off Raina. When her parents come to know about Bluntschli’s wealth, they do not obstruct her way. With this the play ends. The very triumph of the character is the antithesis between the conventional standard of life and the real motive in life. Petkoff and Sergius come back and the plot is made complicated by the return of Bluntschli. By now everyone has come to know the story of his escape; the only fact hidden is Raina and her mother’s hand in it. Shaw never forgets the double purposes of the play. Sergius’s ‘higher love’ for Raina proves false when he starts flirting with the maid-servant, Louka. The play has reversed the traditional theory of play-making in the last Act with its conclusion. The plot rises to its height in the First Act and wanders off into mere dialogue. As Chesterton has pointed out, “apart from the problem raised in the play, the very form of it was an attractive and forcible innovation.” Classic plays which were wholly heroic and comic plays ironical were common enough. Commonest of all in this particular time was the play that begun playfully, with plenty of comic business, and was gradually sobered by sentiment until it ended on a note of romance or even of pathos. Shaw reversed this process. He has built the play not on pathos, but on bathos. The play moves from sublime to ridiculous. It is, thus, an anti-romantic and anti-climatic comedy. All the interest of the play centres around the triangular fight between Raina, Sergius and Louka, to be concluded by the debasement of Sergius, whose real self is revealed in the process, and all the stupidity of romantic idealism is laid bare. It should be noted that Petkoff’s coat plays an important part in the resolution of the plot. Bluntschli:”I know it doesn’t sound nice; but it was much safest plan. I redeemed it the day before yesterday. Heaven only knows whether the pawnbroker cleared out the pocket or not.”
- “I don’t recall what happened then. I think I must have cried;
I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side And as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.”*** <<EXCEPT THE REFERENCES/SETTINGS/IDEAS/CONTEXTS/ STRESSED-QUOTES; - WORDS AND SENTENCES FROM DR S.SEN’S CRITCISM EVALUATION OF ARMS AND THE MAN WITH SLIGHT AND FEW CHANGES FROM ORIGINAL. >>
Scandinavian Influence on English Language- A:-To the element of his language, an Englishman might apply what Wordsworth says of the daisy: “Thou unassuming common-place Of Nature, with that homely-face And yet with something of a grace Which Love makes for thee!”
The Old English language, was essentially self-sufficing, its foreign elements were few and did not modify the character of the language as a whole. It was almost a purely Teutonic tongue, but practically from the close of the Old English period the foreign elements that began to enter into the language gradually modified its character to a great extent. The Scandinavian element is one of the three that have really changed the character of the Old English language as no other element has done. The other two are French and Latin. These were, according to Jespersen, “Three super structures, as it were, that came to be erected on the Anglo-Saxon foundation, each of them modifying the character of the language, and each preparing the ground for its successor.”
The Danish influence is of considerable importance from the point of view of the development of the language. The contribution of the Danish settlers in the growth of British civilization and the permanent effects on English language have been very wide and deep and intimate, as is seen from the permanent place in English of purely Scandinavian words that are primarily grammatical elements in the language, such as the pronouns they, them and their. The early linguistic influence of the Danes can be felt in the use of the Scandinavian loan-word ‘to call’ in a glorious patriotic war-poem written shortly after the Battle of Maldon (993).
A great number of Scandinavian families settled in England,specially in Norfolk,Suffolk,Lincolnshire,Northumbria,etc. Names of places ending in –by- thorp,-back and names of persons testify to the predominance of the invaders in great parts of England.
Scandinavian influence on place-names and proper names-
Certain names of places ending in –by,-thorp,-beck,-dale,-thwaite,-toft etc show Scandinavian influence. These suffixes are not found in English proper, e.g. - Whitby, Goldthorp, Braithwaite, Lowestoft, etc.
All these suffixes have the meaning ‘village’ or ‘hamlet’. This preponderance of the Scandinavian place-names shows that a great number of Scandinavian families settled in England.. It is apparent that these families entered intimately into the speech of the people of the Danelaw.Quite a large number of such place-names are found in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Norfolk etc. Personal names ending in-son as Gibson, Jonson, and Thomson also show Scandinavian preponderance. The similarity between Old English and Old Norse was very great as both the English and Scandinavians were descended from the same Germanic stock. On account of the almost identical vocabulary of these two languages, it seems rather difficult to indicate the extent of the Scandinavian element in English. And say definitely whether some words which are used in English today originally belonged to the native English or they were borrowed from Scandinavians, though they could be distinguished from one another by a few sound tests. However, number of words were then identical in two languages, as even now there is some correspondence between two languages, like man, wife, father, mother, wise, well, ill, over,under,come,sit,etc. Among the settlers there were Norwegians too, and it is difficult to say to which nation England owed most. Some words as ‘bound’, ‘busk’, ‘boon’ are Norwegian.
“And though the forms of grammar were very different, much of the vocabulary was shared between Old English and Old Norse dialects, with differences of pronunciation. Moreover, among the aristocracy of England and Scandinavia there was a common Germanic heroic tradition and many commonly inherited cultural features which Christianity in England had not obliterated‘’ (Wrenn). “The most important and the most far-reaching influence of the Danish, however, was not so much upon the vocabulary as upon the pronunciation, grammar and syntax, and to some extent upon the development of dialect.”(F.T.Wood)
“Words are like leaves; and where they most abound.” The influence of the Scandinavian conquest thus, manifests itself in three directions. They are- (a) In certain place names and proper names (b) In the introduction of new words of Danish origin and, (c) In modification in respect of grammar and syntax, but more often pronunciation of the existing language. Scandinavian influence in respect of law-terms and war-terms- The attempt of the Scandinavians to impose on the English is clearly seen in a certain number of Scandinavian law-terms to some extent which have entered the language, though a great number of Scandinavian law-terms have gone out of use after the conquest of England by the Normans who took charge of legal affairs.
Mention may be, however made of few of these Scandinavian terms which are in common use in Modern English like law, by-law, thrall, crave etc. As the Scandinavians were superior in land and sea fight, the English borrowed from them a few words in this sphere like orrest (battle),fylcian(to marshall),lith (fleet),barda (kind of warship),etc. These words, however soon disappeared.
Scandinavian influence on architecture and cooking- Though the Scandinavians were not very superior in these spheres, still a few words from them were borrowed like- Window (< Scandinavian word ‘vindauga’> ‘vinde’ is ‘wind’ +’auga’ is ‘eye’. So Scandinavian word literally meant ‘wind-eye’, i.e. an eye or hole for the admission of light and air), Steak (< Scandinavian word ‘steik’), Knife (< Scandinavian word knif) etc. Obsolete native words revitalized through Scandinavian influence- Some words which had existed in Old English but had gone out of use, gained back the vitality and currency through Scandinavian influence. The preposition ‘till’ is found only once or twice in Old English texts belonging to the pre-Scandinavian period, but after the Danish conquest it begins to be exceedingly common in English. Other words were blend, rim, run were very rare in old English but later their use was strengthened by the Scandinavian influence. Survival of Scandinavian words due to agreement with other native words- Here, the English took Scandinavian words for conveying ideas which could adequately be expressed with words of their own language.E.g. - The word ‘Die’- The Scandinavian verb was ‘deya’ (die). This Scandinavian word was more easily associated with Old English ‘death’ and ‘dead’, probably because of the similarity of the initial sound than Old English ‘steorfan’ and ‘sweltan’. Old English noun and adjective ‘death’ and ‘dead’ had corresponding Old English verbs ‘steorfan’ and ‘sweltan’. The Scandinavian word ‘deya’ replaced the Old English verbs ‘steorfan’ and ‘sweltan’, and survives in Mod. English as ‘die’. ‘Sweltan’ was totally discarded but ‘steorfan’ was retained and it attained a specialised sense ‘to starve’. Similarly, the word ‘seat’ comes from the Scandinavian word ‘saete’. In Old English the verbs were ‘to sit’ and ‘to seat’. The Scandinavian, ‘saete’ was adopted in English as noun because it agreed so well with the existing Old English verbs ‘to sit’ and ‘to seat’. The Scandinavian word ‘want’ survived because of its agreement with Old English ‘wan’ means ‘wanting’ and ‘wana’ means ‘to want’. The Scandinavian word ‘ill’ was retained because it agreed so well with Old English ‘evil’. The Scandinavian word ‘same’ survived because it was easily associated with the Old English ‘swa’ means ‘so’. The Scandinavian pronouns, they, them, their survived and supplanted the Old English plural pronouns hie, heom, heora. It is because of two reasons- 1) The Scandinavian pronouns with initial’th’ sound were readily associated with the Old English forms beginning with ‘th’sound in ‘the’, ‘that’,’this’ (Native Words) 2) These Scandinavian words were felt to be more distinct forms than the Old English forms hie,heom,heora which were supplanted.
Otherwise, after the vowel sounds had become obscured, it would no longer have been possible to keep easily apart ‘he’ and ‘hie’,’him’ and heom.Her(hire) and heora,so that we would always have got confusion between Old English singular and plural forms:
(i) He (singular) and hie (plural) (ii) Him (singular) and heom (plural) (iii) Her (singular) and heora (plural). It took a long time before the Old English forms were finally discarded. The Old English dative ‘hem’ (heom) still survives in the form ‘em as take’,’em’which is ignorantly taken as the shortened form of ‘them’. Scandinavian influence on form words- Thus, the Scandinavian words not only made their way into English confined to nouns and adjectives and verbs, but also extended to pronouns,prepositions,adverbs and even a part of the verb to be. Such parts of speech are not often transferred from one language to another. (i) Pronouns- The pronouns they,them,there are Scandinavian,but they are not the only Scandinavian pronouns to be found in English. ‘Both’ and ‘same’, though not primarily pronouns,have pronominal uses and are of Scandinavian origin. (ii) Prepositions-The preposition’till’ was at one time widely used in the sense of ‘to’.,besides having its present meaning. The word ‘fro’, likewise in common use formerly as the equivalent of ‘from’,survives in the phrase ‘to and fro’. Both words are from Scandinavian. The Conjunction ‘though’,the Old Norse equivalent of Old English ‘theah’. The scandanavian use of ‘at’ as a sign of the infinitive ,is to see in the English ‘ado’(at-do) and was widely used in this construction in Middle English. (iii) Adverbs- The adverbs aloft,athwart,aye(ever) and seemly and the earlier hethen(hence) and whethen (whence) are all derived from the Scandinavian. (iv) Verbs- While ‘we aron’ was the Old English form in the North, the West Saxon plural was ‘syndon’ and the form ‘are’ in Modern English undoubtedly owes its extension to the influence of the Danes. Cases where Scandinavian forms survive in dialects, native in literary language- There are cases where the old English forms belong to the literary language, while the Scandinavian forms occur only in some dialects. In the following pairs, the English word is given first. Leap-loup,church-kirk,yard-garth, mouth-mun, chest-kist,dew-dog. Cases where native form has survived, Scandinavian form has disappeared- There are cases where the native form has remained and has ousted the Scandinavian form in course of time. E.g.- Old English that has ousted the Scandinavian forms-(These Scandinavian (Sc.) forms have disappeared from the English Language.) Loathe (Old English) > laithe (Sc.) Few (Old English) > fo (Sc.)
Fish (Old English) > fisk (Sc.) Bench (Old English) > bennk (Sc.)
Yarn (Old English) > garn (Sc.)
Naked (Old English) > naken (Sc.)
Origin of thence, hence, whence- Thanon (Old English) > has ousted > thethen (Sc.) and has become > ‘thence’,--- when at a later stage adverbial ‘s’ was added to the Old English form, and this ‘s’ gradually became ‘c’ that ultimately the Old English form became ‘thence’. Here we find that the Scandinavian ‘e’ has been retained, while the Old English vowel ‘o’ has disappeared. Heonan (Old English) > has ousted > hethen (Sc.) and has become > ‘hence’,--- when at a later stage adverbial ‘s’ was added to the Old English form, and this ‘s’ gradually became ‘c’ that ultimately the Old English form became ‘hence’. Here we find that the Scandinavian ‘e’ has been retained, while the Old English vowel ‘eo’ has disappeared. Hwanon (Old English) > has ousted > hwethen (Sc.) and has become > ‘whence’,--- when at a later stage adverbial ‘s’ was added to the Old English form, and this ‘s’ gradually became ‘c’ that ultimately the Old English form became ‘whence’<( hwanon +c). Here again, we find that the Scandinavian ‘e’ has been retained, while the Old English vowel ‘o’ has disappeared. Collateral existence of the Old English and the Scandinavian forms of the same word with slightly different shades of meaning- As a result of the Scandinavian influence we come across a class of words, having two forms- one the Old English and the other the Scandinavian influence. Both of these forms are retained with slightly different shades of meaning, as in the following pairs where the first word is and the second Scandinavian, e.g.-whole -hale, no-nay, from-fro, shirt-skirt, edge-egg(incite),shriek-screech, rear-raise. All these forms are used in standard speech. Cases where Scandinavian form has survived, native form has disappeared- In these cases the Scandinavian forms have survived and have ousted the legitimate native forms, e.g.- Sister> comes from > syster (Old Norse) has ousted sweoster (Old English) They (Sc.) > yete (Native) Get (Sc.) > yelde (Native) Guild (Sc.) > yive (Native) Gift (Sc.) > yift (Native) -- In this word, not only initial ‘g’ due to Scandinavian influence, but also has the modern meaning. The Old English word ‘yift’ meant ‘the price paid by a suitor in consideration of receiving a woman to wife.’ Kettle (Sc.) > chetel (Native)
The Scandinavian verb ‘take’ replaced Old English ‘niman’, ‘cut’ took the place of Old English ‘smithan’, ‘window’ drove out the equally appropriate English word ‘eagthyrel’ means eye-thirl, i.e. eyehole, ‘sky’ took the place of Old English ‘wolcen’ is now being preserved only in poetical word ‘welkin’. All these native forms have disappeared from the English language.
Sense-Shifting- In some cases where, native form has survived but the meaning adopted is that of the corresponding Scandinavian word. E.g. - The word ‘Dream’- Old English Word Meaning in Mid. English and Modern English < Scandinavian influence Dream ,(which originally meant ‘joy’) but, in Mid. English, it is assumed modern meaning ‘vision of the night < taken over from the corresponding Old Norse ‘draumr’, Danish word as ‘drom’ which had also the meaning ‘vision of the night’. Analogous cases are- ‘Bread’, an Old English word meant ‘fragment’. The word had survived but adopted in Mid. English the modern meaning ‘loaf’< taken over from the meaning of Danish ‘brod’. ‘Bloom’ (bloma), an Old English word meant ‘mass of metal’. The word had survived but adopted in Mid. English the modern meaning ‘shine’ taken over from the corresponding Scandinavian word. ‘Dwell’, an Old English word meant ‘to lead astray’. The word had survived but adopted the modern meaning ‘to remain in a place’ taken over from the corresponding Scandinavian word. ‘Gift’ (yift), an Old English word meant ‘the price paid by a suitor in consideration of receiving a woman to wife.’ The word had survived but adopted the modern meaning which is general, not specific, taken over from the meaning of Scandinavian word. ‘Earl’, an Old English word meant ‘nobleman’. The modern meaning is something specific (nobleman ranking between marquis and viscount) < has been taken over from the meaning of Old Norse ‘jarl’.
Scandinavian influence on pronunciation-
Thus, the hard pronunciation of ‘g’ in give and get is due to the Scandinavian influence. In Old English these were ‘yive’ and ‘yete’.
Scandinavian influence on Grammar-
A certain number of inflectional elements peculiar to the Northumbrian dialect have been attributed to Scandinavian influence-
(i) The ‘-s’ of the third person singular, present indicative of verbs and the participial ending-and, corresponding to’-end’ and ‘-ind’ in the Midlands and South, and now replaced by ‘-ing’ are said to be due to Scandinavian influence. (ii) The final ‘t’which is the neuter adjective ending of Old Norse is preserved in and forms an inseparable part of words like scant,want,athwart. (iii) Except a few verbs like take, thrive, etc. which are strongly inflected as in Scandinavian, almost all Scandinavian strong verbs have been made weak in conjugation in English. ‘Die’, was a strong verb in Scandinavian but in English conjugation it has become a weak verb ‘died’. (iv) Scandinavian nominative ending ‘-r’ in nouns was dropped in English, e.g. Scandinavian word ‘byr’ became ‘by’ in Native. (v) There is at least one interesting word with the Scandinavian passive voice in ‘-sk’ as ‘busk’, but in English it is treated like an active form. (vi)As the result of the influence, admixture was the leveling of the terminations in English, that is, the simplicity of declension and conjugation. (vii) Certain prominal forms like ‘they,them,their’ ,adverbial forms ‘thence,hence,whence, present plural ‘are’ of the verb ‘to be’ and the prepositions like ‘till’ and ‘fro’ are all due to Scandinavian influence. The bulk of Scandinavian words are of a purely democratic character. The French words introduced in the following centuries represent the rich and the refined. The Scandinavian influence is felt in the English grammar and syntax. The ‘-s’ of the third person singular in the present indicative tense of verbs is said to have been due to Scandinavian influence. Scandinavian influence on Syntax- (i)Relative clauses without any pronoun were very rare in Old English, but they became very common in Mid. English due to Scandinavian influence. E.g.- The man whom I know.The man I know. This is the book which I lost. This is the book I lost. (In these second cases the relative prononouns whom and which are omitted.) (ii) According to Jespersen the omission of the relative pronoun in relative clauses (This is the book I lost, in the example given in syntax) – the relative pronoun ‘which’ is omitted here, and the retention and omission of the conjunction ‘that’ are also due to the Scandinavian influence. (iiii) The use of shall and will in Mid. English corresponds well Scandinavian. Other points in syntax might perhaps ascribed to Scandinavian influence, such as the universal position of the genitive case before its noun (where Old English like German placed it very often after it),but in these delicate matters it is not safe to assert too much, as in fact many similarities may have been independently developed in both languages.
Except Settings, Ideas and To Contextualize, Words/References/Sentences from Manual of English Philology (P.K.Bose), Jespersen and West Bengal State University Book.
How does Act I Scene 1 set the mood of the play ‘The Merchant of Venice’?
-The moon shines bright: in ‘such a night’ as thus. When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees. And they did make no noise.- It is a genre, in which Shakespeare is a master. For the other great comedy of the world’s literature, the comedy of Moliere or Ben Jonson, is different in kind to his. The play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, resolves itself purely into a simple form. It illustrates the clash between the emotional and the intellectual characters, the man of heart and the man of brain. The man of heart, Antonio, is obsessed by tenderness for his friend. The man of brain is obsessed by lust to uphold intellect in a thoughtless world that makes intellect bitter in every age. Shylock, is a man of intellect, who born into a despised race. It is a tragedy, that the generous Gentiles about him can be generous to everything, except to intellect and Jewish blood. Intellect and Jewish blood are too proud to attempt to understand the Gentiles who cannot understand. Shylock is a proud man. The Gentiles, who are neither proud nor intellect, spit upon him and flout him. “How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian; But more that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice.” All we can say, is that in the tragedies, the dramatist seeks to entertain generally mainly by playing on our capacity to shudder and shed tears whereas in the comedies are the Elizabethan feelings, whether humorous or sentimental. Shakespeare has a careful selection of the titles of his plays. His tragedies and historic plays are named after the central character of the play. His comedies on the other hand, are named after weak and passive characters; similar is the case with the present play. It has been named after Antonio, the merchant of Venice, a weak and passive character suffering from nameless melancholy. As with character, so with the feelings, the gaiety and folly and pensive sentiments of love are portrayed to the life, but not its pain, nor its mystery-its profounder influence on the character of the lover. “Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sleep when he wakes , and creep into the jaundice By being peevish?” If there is a moment of anxiety or sorrow, it passes and leaves no mark when things go well again. Melancholy Antonio is so not very melancholy at the end of the play, though he has been in danger of a dreadful death hours before. Shakespeare has been regarded as a master of opening scenes. No matter what terms we may use, the fact cannot be denied that an author, while portraying life and human nature in his work, gives his own point of view to us in the process. Every author looks a life from a certain angle, and that determines the kind of reality he depicts in his work. “Then let us say you are sad Because you are not merry: and ‘twere as easy For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry Because you are not sad.” The opening scene of play’ The Merchant of Venice’ fully illustrates this view. The play simply begins on a street in Venice. Antonio , the protagonist, a rich and prosperous merchant appears as a kind of a brooding man, who says that he regards this world as the stage of a theatre on which every man has to play a certain role, his own role being a sad man. “ I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one.” Gratiano, another friend, who says in contrast that he would like to play the role of a happy and jovial man wanting that the wrinkles of old age should come to him with mirth and laughter. He ridicules the man who is too serious and solemn, and who pretends to be “Sir Oracle”, wanting all others to become silent when he is about to open his mouth to speak. “I’ll tell thee more of this another time: But fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.” Salerino and Solanio, other friends, are talkative persons as Gratiano is, though Gratiano has more wit and is more glib-tongued than they. Solanio says that he too would be feeling melancholy at this time if his ships were sailing upon the sea; and Salerino elaborates this view as his speech contains of vivid pictures of a ship being tossed by the sea-waves and getting struck in shallow waters or over-turning after a collision with dangerous rocks. “Should I go to church And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side Would scatter all her spices on the stream, Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks..” Salerino, in another speech is reasonably distinguishes now between the two kind of men, those who are always melancholy and sullen, those who are always laughing and chattering. “Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes, And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper; And other of such vinegar aspect That they’ll not show their teeth in the way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable’’.. Bassanio, Antonio’s best friend, however, is a prodigal young intelligent man, is also romantic with an enterprising and adventurous spirit. He wants to try his luck at Belmont but he has no money. He had previously taken a loan from Antonio, whom he has not yet repaid. He now asks him for again, another loan. He has an ingenious and fertile mind therefore too. Asking for a second loan, he refers over here to one of his boyhood habits. He says that whenever as a school-boy he lost one arrow, he used to shoot another arrow in the same direction, succeeding in finding the first arrow, besides recovering the second. ..”I donot doubt, (As I will watch the aim) to find both, Or bring your latter hazard back again, And thankfully rest debtor for the first.” This scene, further introduces to the play’s compassionate natured heroine, Portia, who is quite obviously resourceful and confident of herself can able to take quick decisions to put them into action with intelligent plans. She has been much praised during two centuries of criticisms. She is one of the smiling things created in the large and gentle mood that moved Shakespeare to comedy. The scene in the fifth act, where the two women, coming home from Venice by night, see the candle burning in the hall, as they draw near, is full of naturalness that makes beauty quicken at heart. “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils;” However, though not directly, but through Bassanio’s description of her in the opening scene, he is speaking to Antonio about his to go to Belmont in an effort to win ‘her’. In this description, loyal Portia is here described as “a lady richly left”, as “fair, and, fairer than that word”, and “of wondrous virtues.” Bassanio becomes eloquent when he goes on to describe her: “Her name is Portia; nothing undervalu’d To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia; Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, For the four winds blow in from every coast Renowned suitors;”.. Of the mature comedy, the foundations of the major stories of the play hence have been laid very clearly and firmly. Indeed, Shakespeare became successful in his skill of becoming an architect who had built up the plots with his many-sided genius in the portrayal of his characters. It is wonderful that Shakespeare has built up this play in such a way that the impacts of each of ‘the two stories’ are found in the opening scene. ‘The Merchant of Venice ‘consists of four plots- two major and two minor, so intricately interwoven to form one whole integrated story. The two main plots comprise ‘The Bond Story’ and ‘The Lottery of Caskets’. These two plots are closely interlinked. The main plot of this play pertains to Antonio and the Jew and money-lender, and of the bond that Antonio sighs and subsequently forfeits. This story is known as ‘The Bond Story’. “Why thou-loss upon loss! the thief gone so much, And so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, No revenge: nor no ill luck stirring but what lights O’ my shoulders; no sighs but o’ my breathing; No tears but o’ my shedding.” The other major story pertains to the will left by Portia’s father, laying down the condition which a suitor of Portia must fulfil before he can claim Portia’s hand in marriage. This is known as ‘’The Casket Story”. “O my Antonio, had I but the means To hold a rival place with one of them, I have a mind presage me such thrift That I should questionless be fortunate.” Bassanio, asks therefore for a loan of three thousand ducats from Antonio in order to be able to go to Belmont to try to win Portia as his wife. Antonio, who has no cash in hand, hence asks Bassanio to borrow money in his name as the guarantor from some money-lender or merchant. Both the stories hence have been set afoot at the same time and the stories have closely interwoven also. Without the one, the other has no obvious significance of its own. “You know me well, and herein spend but time To wind about my love with circumstance; And out of doubt you do me now more wrong In making questions of my uttermost Than if you had made waste of all I have.” The two sub-plots in the play are- The Jessica-Lorenzo love story and The Ring Episode. Both these sub-plots are interrelated to each other and to the main plot as well. However, this former story includes Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, falls in love with Lorenzo, a friend of Antonio and Bassanio. Both the lovers go to Belmont, where Portia entrusts them with the responsibility of looking after her household, till she remains in Venice for the trial of Antonio. When the Court scene reveals Shylock at his most horrible and the Christians also not at very best, the scene immediately shifts to a peaceful vicinity of Belmont, where on a glorious moonlit night the run-away lovers Lorenzo and Jessica are seen in Portia’s garden engaged in a highly romantic conversation bandying the names of lovers of bygone times and distant climes. Lorenzo and Jessica get half the share of Shylock’s wealth when Shylock loses the case against Antonio. The next episode constitutes one of the important stories in the play. It is only after Bassanio wins the lottery of caskets, that Portia marries him and gives him a ring as a token of their love. She takes a promise from Bassanio that he will never part with the ring. At the same time, Nerissa married Gratiano and gives him a ring, with the promise from him that he will not part with it at any cost. The rings represent wealth as well as emotional value. This is known as ‘The Ring Episode’, acts as an offshoot of the Casket story. Then it is connected with the Bond Story in the Trial scene, as Bassanio and Gratiano give their rings to Portia and Nerissa respectively as a token of gratitude for saving Antonio. “The quality of mercy is not strained It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; It is twice blessed It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
Justice and mercy, as delivered in the play, do not appear to be as sweet, selfless and full of grace as presented by Portia. The play depends on the theme of appearance and reality to enrich the plot and to present the atmosphere and to create the suspense in the storyline. The exposition of the play is therein to the audience to convey the circumstances that unfold, leading up to the events of the play. Outward appearances are liable to be deceptive. This principle is best demonstrated through the lottery of the caskets. In the choice of caskets, not only their appearance but the mottoes inscribed on them are to be considered:
“Gold: Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire. Silver: Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves. Lead: Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.” Thus the plot of the play, determines the general framework but into it are fitted the other elements which enrich and diversify their sense of pleasure. There is an Elizabethan phrase-‘A Paradise of Dainty and Delight.’ The phrase well described the romantic comedy except that daintiness is not essential. Any delight has a right to be admitted to the paradise. In the words of Raleigh, the last Act of the play of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is ‘an exquisite piece of Romantic Comedy’ and Shylock has no place there. It is easier to find an analogy to Shakespeare’s comedies in musical compositions than in his classical comedy proper. Shakespeare is closer to Mozart that to Moliere.
‘’ The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.”
[References, words, sentences, ideas, settings, orientation of words and its elaboration, contextualized from Dr. S. Sen (of Critical Evaluations), Rajinder Paul, Textual Workbook and other]
Critical appreciation of the poem ‘Ode to the West Wind ‘.
“Thunder is good; thunder is impressive. But it is lightening that does the work.” The poem ‘’Ode to the West Wind’’ was written in the autumn of 1819, in the beautiful Cascine Gardens outside Florence and was published with ‘‘Prometheus Unbound’’ in 1820. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. “This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once wild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.” Nothing can surpass Shelley’s poetic description of himself in ‘Adonais’, as a ‘frail form’, ‘a phantom among men’, ‘companionless’ as ‘the last cloud of an expiring storm’- “The weight of the superincumbent hour, It is a dying lamp, a falling shower; A breaking billow;” The life of Shelley lays worlds apart from that of Byron. His treatment of Harriet apart, his private life was not vicious, but on the contrary in many respects exemplary. As far as the ideas, which he sang, were capable of application to life, he applied them in his own conduct. He preached the equality of man and he proved that he was willing to practice it. He was generous and benevolent to a fault. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Clutton-Brock has discussed in detail Shelley’s myth-making power as revealed in the Ode to the West Wind: “It has been said that Shelley was a myth-maker. His myths were not to him mere caprices of fancy. They expressed by the only means which human language provides for the expression of such things, that sense which he possessed, of a more intense real.ity in nature than is felt by other men. To most of us, the forces of nature have little meanings. But for Shelley, these forces had as much reality as human beings. Have for most of us, and he found the same kind of intense significance in their manifestations of beauty that we find in the beauty of human belongs or of great works of art. The nature of this significance, he could not explain; but he could express it with enormous power in his art, and with a precision of statement which seems miraculous where the nature of the subject matter is considered… to Shelley, the West Wind was still a wind, and the cloud a cloud, however intense a reality they might have for him. …we are not wrought upon to feel anything human in the wind’s power; but if we are susceptible to Shelley’ magic, we are filled with a new sense of the life and significance and reality of nature.” Shelley started writing very early, but his first major work came in 1811. This was Queen Mab, along poem. It is a revolutionary poem, but there is much confusion in the development of the story. The next great poem ‘Alastor’ came in 1815. In the same year he produced Mount Blanc and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. These poems expressed the poet’s idealism. In the latter of the two poems, the poet expresses his feeling of the presence of a spirit in nature. In 1818-19, came the great drama, Prometheus Unbound. This is a major poem. As a drama it is not much of a success, but both in theme and in its individual songs it achieves greatness. In 1819, came another great play, The Cenci. This play portrays absolute evil as Prometheus Unbound portrays absolute goodness. This was followed by ‘The Witch of Atlas ‘and ‘Epipsychidion’. In the same year published ‘Adonais’, a lament on the death of the poet Keats. In the last year of his life (1822) Shelley wrote Hellas. Shelley left an unfinished poem, Triumph of Life. In addition to these long poems, Shelley wrote a large number of lyrics. The most well-known of these are ‘Ode to the West WinD’, ‘To a Skylark’ and ‘The Cloud’. It is in these lyrics that we often find Shelley at his best. ‘Ode to the West Wind’ is a great achievement-a poem in which great thought is combined with great art. Most of his lyrics are love poems. Many of them express the poet’s deep joy in life as well as his deep sorrow. Shelley sets up a humanity glorified through love; he worships in the sanctuary left vacant by “the great absence of God” (His youthful atheism lacked warmth and in the end he turned to a type of pantheism). Love, as exemplified in his personal life, is a passionate kind of sensuality which becomes his simple moral code with no duty, blame, or obligation attached. The reign of love when no authority was necessary was his millennium. Most of Shelley’s poems are sad in tone and as such he is regarded as “the singer of endless sorrows”, but this is not true of all his poems. Whenever he writes of the future of mankind, he turns ecstatically optimistic. “A wave to pant beneath thy power,and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou,O uncontrollable!-“
Shelley believed in a soul of the Universe, a Spirit in which all things live and move and have their being. His most passionate desire was for the mystical fusion of his own personality with his spirit. Spontaneity and fluidity are the proof of his wealth of imagination. There is no effect of laborious artistry about Shelley’s style at any time. According to Bradley,” The language is poetical through and through, not, as sometimes with Wordsworth, only half-poetical, and yet it seems to drop from Shelley’s lips. It is not wrought and kneaded; it flows.” In ‘Ode to West Wind’, the poet begins his invocation in a buoyant mood. He looks upon the Wind as the destroyer of the present order and usherer of a new one. In the course of the poem, Shelley’s pessimism reaches its peak. He suddenly remembers his own plight: “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” The subsequent thought of the future at once turns his melancholy into ecstatic rapture and he ends the poem with one of the most optimistic and memorable prophecies about the future of mankind. The ecstasy arises out of his ardent belief in the imminent regeneration of mankind and the end of all evils. He hopes that all forms of tyranny and oppression will be replaced, in the millennium to come, by all-round happiness. The joyous rapture is born of an intense feeling of optimism: “Be thou,Spirit fierce, My spirit!be thou me,impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;”
Most of Shelley’s poetry is symbolic. Shelley makes use of symbolism by means of his normal use of images including the personified forces of life and nature. He looks upon the West Wind as a personified force of nature and finds in it various symbolic meanings to suit the purpose of the poem. The West Wind drives the last signs of life from the trees and also scatters the seeds which will come to life in spring. In this way the Wind appears to the poet as a destroyer of the old order and a preserver of the new, i.e., a symbol of change. The Wind also symbolizes Shelley’s own personality. When he was a boy he was one like the Wind: “tameless, and swift, and proud.” He still possesses these qualities but they lie suppressed under “a heavy weight of hours.”
“Ideals are like stars. We never reach them but, like mariners on the sea, we chart our course by them.”
Shelley’s sky-lyrics-‘’Ode to the West Wind’’, ‘’The Cloud’’ and ‘’To A Skylark’’-have all been interpreted as having symbolic significance. The West Wind drives away the old, pale; hectic-red leaves and scatters fresh seeds over the ground. Shelley thus looks upon the Wind as a destroyer of the old order and the usherer of a new one i.e., as a symbol of the forces that will end all evil and bring about the golden millennium in which there will be nothing but peace and happiness for mankind. In the poem The Cloud, the brief life of a Cloud has also been constructed by such critics as a symbol of the immortality of the soul. However, there is no doubt that his concept of the Skylark is entirely symbolic. Shelley’s Skylark, is not just a bird but an embodiment of this ideal, the poet can hear its song but the bird ever remains invisible. The skylark, by its very nature, also symbolizes Shelley’s own poetic spirit. “Poetry is like a perfume which on evaporation leaves in our soul essence of beauty.” Among the Romantic poets, Shelley is marveled for his inimitable abstract ideas, but he is less of an artist .He was aiming not at the poetry of art, but at the poetry of rapture. Keats advised him to be “more an artist” and to “load every rift with ore”, but Shelley was aiming at a different effect from that of Keats’s richly decorated and highly finished poetry. The poem” Ode to the West Wind” is universally accepted as one of the best poems in English Literature. The poem is remarkable for its theme, range of thought, spontaneity, poetic beauty, lyrical quality, and quick movement similar to that of the wind itself. This poem along with the “The Cloud” and “The Skylark”, mark an abiding monument to Shelley’s passion for the sky. Shelley himself writes: “I take great delight in watching the change in the atmosphere.” The west wind wakes the Mediterranean up from its summer dreams and even manages to shake up the otherwise quite calm Atlantic Ocean. For its path the ocean starts to create cracks and the might of the west wind is so great that even the moss and flowers under the sea begin to tremble with fear. Thus, the west wind acquires the quality of being fearful and creating terror. The clouds are carried by the wind to a tomb and are locked there. During this season, the strong wind does not let the clouds gather easily since it blows them away. Shelley imagines that the wind gathers the clouds in a sepulcher till they have enough strength to burst forth and bring rain. Again the idea of destroyer and preserver is implicit. The clouds are destroyed and without rain the earth becomes barren but then clouds burst bringing rain which brings earth back to life. There is greenery everywhere and earth is rejuvenated. “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” Shelley calls the west wind the ‘dirge of the dying year’ and in these words is hidden the idea of rebirth. The west wind once again brings winter and December but the end of the year implies the birth of a new one since December is followed by January and the new year with new hopes and resolutions. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking reawakening also through the poem and wants the wind to carry his dead thoughts and ideas like it has taken the leaves and wants fresh ideas to take birth. This is possible only if he first gets rid of stale ideas and thoughts and learns to replace them with new ones. In that sense even the poet is feeling a sort of intellectual deaths and is desirous of being given a new lease of life. ”Wild Spirit,which art moving everywhere- Destroyer and Preserver-hear,O hear!” Shelley’s idea of the Islands of Delight as expressed in ‘Lines Written among the Euganean Hills’, is merely a product of an unfounded optimism and has no logical bearing. Shelley’s faith is no doubt genuine and intense, but it comes from his abstract visions, not from sound logical reasoning. He is ever haunted by the Eternal Mind. He constantly endeavours to look beyond the evil of life and chases the invisible and impalpable. He gives various names to this unattainable thing. In his Hymn To Intellectual Beauty, he describes it as the spirit of Beauty pervading the universe. He speaks of it as an “unseen power” that rarely visits human hearts as an ‘awful loveliness’ that can free this world from tyranny and oppression. Thus, a profound note of yearning for the unattainable is another feature of Shelley’s poetry. According to Cazamian,”The tone of Shelley’s poetry is that of a keen aspiration, in which mystical desire, with its anguished pangs and spiritual raptures, transcends the joys and sufferings of ordinary mankind.” Shelley is pessimistic about the present but optimistic about the future. He believes that regeneration always follows destruction and that a new and utopian order is certain to come when the present degenerate system is ended. His optimism about the imminent dawn of a golden age is genuine and firm and his prophecy of that millennium underlies most of his poems. In Ode to West Wind also this prophetic note is present and present with the greatest intensity of expression. “And, by the incarnation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!” Shelley had a deep interest in ancient Greeks. His enthusiasm for the wisdom of the Greek philosophers is implicit in many of his poems. This gives Shelley a sharper appreciation of natural forms and the theory that artists and poets must try to remove the worldly cover from objects and expose the underlying ideal prototype. Platonism appeals to him most because the guiding power behind the ideal forms serves him in lieu of a religion. In ‘Adonais’, Shelley’s Platonism has found the most elaborate expression. Like the other Romantic poets, Shelley too was an ardent lover of Nature. Like Wordsworth, Shelley conceives of Nature as one spirit, the Supreme Power working through all things “The one spirit’s plastic distress/ Sweeps through the dull dense world.” Again he personifies each object of nature as an individual life, a part of that Supreme Power, Nature. He celebrates nature in most of his poems as his main theme such as ‘’The Cloud’’, ‘’To a Skylark’’, and ‘’To the Moon’’. ‘’Ode to the West Wind’’, ‘’A Dream of the Unknown’’. The tone of pessimism set in the beginning with ‘dead’,’ghosts’,’corpse in grave’ reaches its climax with ‘ I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed’. In the last stanzas the poet moves from the natural to the human misery and the mention of the hearth combines the two because hearth is seen as the centre of the earth where the natural world and the human one merge. The poet is seeking transcendence into the sublime as did Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey. The affinity of temper between them prompts the poet to appeal to the Wind to save him from his present plight. At this hour of distress the poet can look upon the Wind as a competent savior, a symbol of aid and relief. Finally, the West Wind is treated by the poet as representing the forces that can help bring about the golden millennium, when the miseries and agonies of mankind will be replaced by all round happiness. “The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness.” Shelley shows no sense of history and cannot put forth the cause and remedies of the evils he finds in human society. He has an intense belief that regeneration of mankind is imminent but cannot tell us why and how it is coming. His West Wind is a symbol of the forces that will bring about this regeneration: it is nothing more. He has never told us what these forces symbolized by the wind are in reality. Shelley belongs to the younger generation of Romantic poets. Like the other two poets of his generation, he died young. His poetry divided itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer seeking to overthrow the present institutions’ in order to bring about the Golden Age. “Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:-O hear!” Sometimes Shelley becomes pantheistic in his concept of nature when he seems to believe that every aspect of nature is a manifestation of only one and invisible soul or spirit and that after the end of the earthly existence, everything is reunited with that one soul. “…that sustaining love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea.” Shelley’s lyrics are surpassingly musical and sweet. Swinburne was ecstatic in his tribute to this aspect of Shelley’s lyricism. Shelley out sang all poets on record, but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as diverse as nature’s and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing God; his thoughts words and deeds all sang together. Arnold, one of the worst critics of Shelley, admired his music and remarked: “the right sphere of Shelley’s genius was the sphere of music.” Shelley’s careful handling of diction fitting into the sense of his lines enhances the musical quality keeping with the swift, of his lyrics. The rhythm of Ode to the West Wind is thus exactly in gusty march of the wind itself: “O wild West Wind, thou breathe of Autumn’s being.” Shelley never allows morbidity to overcome the enjoyment in his lyrics. Self-pity is no doubt his favorite theme, but in his lyrics, he presents this self-pity, not as something to be feared, but as an essential part of life. Shelley’s readers are never depressed because they are constantly reminded that sufferings lie only in the present and that in future all sufferings will be replaced by pure happiness. His despondency is soon replaced by an ecstatic rapture of joy when he comes to think of the future happiness of mankind, of the millennium to come: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” Shelley calls the west wind a destroyer and a preserver at the same time. It is a destroyer because it makes the trees shed their leaves making them bare. The west wind is called a preserver since it carries the seeds to places where they lie in hibernation during the winter and when the sister of west wind, the east wind blows in spring time, they start to germinate and blossom into many different colored flowers. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. “(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in the air) With living hues and odours plain and hill- Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere- Destroyer and Preserver –hear,O hear!” This co-existence of pessimism and optimism-the swift replacement of one by the other-is a major attractive feature of Shelley’s lyric poetry. This poem is considered to be one of the finest lyrics in English poetry because of its sentiments and the perfect technical construction. The poet touches on the four elements- earth, sky, weather and fire and the transition from the wind to himself is very smooth one and does not feel enforced. It is a complex poem because of the number of similes and they do not appear to be enforced or excessive in any way. The movement of the wind from earth to sky and water is observed minutely by the poet keeping scientific facts in mind. The symbolism of destroyer and preserver is carried through the poem; first with the wind driving the dead leaves away to make place for new ones, secondly with the mention of pumice isle which was built with the lava from a volcano. Volcano is both a destroyer and a preserver since while it erupts it pours forth fire but once it subsides it leaves behind valuable minerals and fertile material. Finally, the poet’s own thoughts are dead leaves to be driven away so that new ones can take their place. The theme of rebirth is thus an integral part of the poem. “A deep resolute mind rises above all difficulties” The poet then describes how the wind carries loose clouds on its stream and spreads them from horizon to the height of the skies. The wind is the funeral song of the passing year because soon after autumn comes winter when the year ends and a new one begins. Winter is often seen as death since plants die and many animals hide themselves for the season. The earth looks barren and appears lifeless but spring is a time of rejuvenation, flowers blossom and insects and animals begin to start life again. The poet gives the credit of carrying the seeds to a safer place in winter to the west wind. This way it becomes the destroyer and the preserver. “Each like a corpse, within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth,” In his treatment of nature, he describes the things in nature as they are and never colours it. It is true, he gives them human life through his personifications, but he does it unintentionally for he felt they are living beings capable of doing the work of human beings. His mythopoeia power had made him the best romanticist of his age. In Ode to the West Wind, he personifies Nature as the Destroyer and the Preserver, and in ‘‘The Cloud’’, the cloud is a possessor of mighty powers. “Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightening!” Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Beauty, to Shelley, is an ideal in itself and a microcosm of the beauty of Nature and he calls it ‘Intellectual Beauty’. He celebrates Beauty as a mysterious power. In the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, he says that when Intellectual Beauty departs, this world becomes a “dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate” and if human heart is its temple, then man would become immortal and omnipotent: “Man were immortal and omnipotent Did’st thou, unknown and awful as thou art Keep with thy glorious train firm state Within his heart.” The West Wind is the breath of Autumn. Dead leaves, black, yellow and red in colour, fly before the wind, as the ghosts fly before a magician. The West Wind scatters the flying seeds. The seeds lie under the ground and when Spring comes, they grow into flowers of different colours and fragrance. The West Wind destroys dead leaves and preserves useful seeds. “Make me thy lyre, ev’n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own!” The spirit of the west wind is described as ‘uncontrollable’. The west wind is unstoppable and it affects everything that falls in its path. It affects the earth, the water in the oceans and the clouds of the sky. It is responsible for carrying them and locking them up in a sepulcher till they burst forth in fury of rain and hail. The poet thinks that the west wind has a free spirit and wanders as and where it pleases. He admires it for its freedom and wishes the wind would carry him along like a leaf or a cloud. Shelley then sums up the spirit of the west wind as ‘tameless, swift and proud.’ It cannot be kept in check so it is ‘tameless’, the speed of the west wind is formidable and it is proud because it would not listen to any one. Finally, the poet refers the west wind as ‘Spirit fierce’ and ‘impetuous one’ that acts on the impulse of the moment. “The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean,know Thy voice,and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: -------- O hear!” The Wind blows through the jungle and produces music out of the dead leaves. Shelley requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may create a revolution in the hearts of men. He wants the Wind to scatter his revolutionary message in the world, just as it scatters ashes and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire men. He tells the Wind to take the message to the sleeping world that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind. In optimistic note he declares that bad days are followed by good days. “Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers,” Idealism is a part and parcel of Shelley’s temperament. He is a rebel, like Byron, against the age –old customs, traditions, conventions and institutions, sanctioned only by practice and not by reason. Unlike Byron, but, he is not only a rebel but also a reformer. He wants to reconstitute society in keeping with his ideals of good, truth and beauty. According to Compton- Rickett, “To renovate the world, to bring about utopia, is his constant aim, and for this reason we may regard Shelley as emphatically the poet of eager, sensitive youth; not the animal youth of Byron, but the spiritual youth of the visionary and reformer.” Poetry is the expression of the poet’s mind. This is absolutely true of Shelley’s poetry. A study of Shelley’s poetry is the easiest and shortest way to his mind and personality. The fourth Stanza of Ode to the West Wind is entirely personal and autobiographical. An analogy with the West Wind helps the poet describe his own spirit:”tameless, and swift, and proud.” The poet narrates the change, he has undergone in the course of his life. He was full of energy, enthusiasm and speed in his boyhood, but the agonies and bitterness of life-“A heavy weight of hours”-has repressed his qualities and has put him in an unbearable state. The expression of his sufferings “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”is intensely genuine, heart-rending, and possibly the most spontaneous of Shelley’s emotional outbursts through his poems. The calm Mediterranean was sleeping. The music of the glassy waves lulled the ocean to sleep. It was dreaming of towers and palaces reflected in its water. The West Wind creates furrows on the smooth waters of the Atlantic Ocean. At the bottom of the Atlantic grow plants and vegetation. These plants are dry, without sap though they live in water. When the West Wind blows in autumn, the plants on the land wither; the plants at the bottom of the ocean also fade and die. “Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,” Shelley is describing the approach of the terrible West Wind. In the regions of the sky. Shelley’s emotional ecstasy fires his brain to that kind of superb conception which made the ancient Greeks fill the earth, the air sand the water with gods and goddesses who were but personifications of the forces of nature. “Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.”
The cloud form on the horizon, gather up in the sky and then darken the space. The sky is at first blue, but it assumes a dark appearance on the approach of the vaporous clouds. From the distant and dim horizon to the highest point in the sky, the whole visible space is filled by the movements of the air. The clouds are up and spread themselves. The scattered and disorderly clouds look like the locks of the mighty West Wind personified, as seen approaching through the sky; these locks resemble the dishevelled and erect hair on the heads of intoxicated and frenzied female worshippers of the wine-god who used to dance madly about.
“The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem’d a vision,-“ These lines are very touching and highly characteristic of Shelley. Shelley was a rebel and a revolutionary. He had a restless temperament which was even at war with something. In the West Wind, Shelley finds a kindred spirit. Looking at it, he is reminded of his youth when he too was free and uncontrollable. At that time, he did not think it an impossibility to vie with the West Wind in its speed, but the worries and mysteries of this life have proved too much for him and have made him tame and weak. He had lost his old vigour and force, and he appeals to the West Wind to lend him some strength and lift his dejected spirit as it lifts a cloud, wave or a leaf. He was very much oppressed by the hardships of the world and he wants somebody to support him through his struggle for existence in this world. He was indeed tameless and wild like the West Wind at one time, but now he is bowed down by the worries and care, and calls for help.Next, Shelley describes the agitated surface of the ocean cuts a thousand deep passages on itself for the march of the terrific wind; while the rush and tumult on the surface reach the vegetable world at the bottom of the ocean, the leaves, the flowers, the sapless forests there tremble with fear and are shaken loose pell-mell at the awful roar of the mighty wind. Desmond king-Hele remarks: “The verse technique and structure of the Ode to West Wind could scarcely be improved: it is the most fully orchesterd of Shelley‘s poems, and consequently the most difficult to read aloud. The ever fluctuating tempo and he artfully random pauses in the long lines reflect the lawless surging of the wind and its uneasy silences. This device is not overworked: the wonder is that Shelley could use it at all when grappling with the problems of the terza rima and operating within a rigid structural framework. In conformity with this framework, which seemed to be in the Style of Calderon, the first three Stanzas are designed to show the wind’s power in three spheres of Nature, in preparation for the prayer to the Wind, as pseudo-god, in Stanzas 4 and 5. The keynote of the first three Stanzas is balanced. Their settings, land, sky and sea, give equal emphasis to the three states of matter, solid, gaseous and liquid. Each of the four seasons has its appointed place, and there is a full range of colours- red, yellow, blue, grey and black explicitly, white and green implicitly. Turmoil is balanced against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against calm, life against death, detail against generalization, cold against warmth, plain against hill, and so on. The varied evidence of Stanzas1-3 is assembled in support of the narrow, one-track theme in the last two stanzas: the plan is sound, but in points of detail it falls short of perfection. For Shelley harps on his prayer rather too long. His defeatism becomes a trifle depressing, unless when reading the poem we happen to be in the same mood as he was…the note of self-pity is overplayed in the last two Stanzas; and this must be counted a blemish in what is otherwise a nearly faultless poem.” “Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:-O hear!”
Except setting, development and thoughts the words are completely followed up from Critical Evaluation of Shelley by Dr.S. Sen and another book...
How far is it true that the play ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, presents a moral world of Webster’s that is different from the conventional mores? Answer: “We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls, struck and banded Which may please them.” The Machiavellian qualities seen in the villain’s, along with the pragmatic of even existentialist attitude to life displayed by the good as well as bad characters may give a first impression that the world Webster presents in The Duchess of Malfi, is a chaotic world, but for a closer and deeper look at the play will show that the world is influenced by a moral order though this order cannot be universally enforced. Though the moral presence exists, this world remains mysterious, incomprehensible and the future of worldly creatures is unpredictable. The growing immortality and sensuousness, which the court displayed, made the citizens sympathise with the Puritans. People began to criticize the court and religion more vocally. This critical temper had its effect in literature of the time too. Times were running out and pessimism and satire arose out of the dissatisfaction among the people. The melancholy mood found in the literature of the late 16th and early 17th century was not affection, but a natural expression of the gloom and frustration that people of the time felt. The preoccupation of Webster with decay, disease sickness and death can be explained in the light of the social history. Webster excels in the sudden flash, in the intuitive but often unsustained perception. At times he startles us by what may be called the ‘Shakespearean’ use of the common word. In the dark night of ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ at the high point of tension when the Duchess is about to die her last words are: “Go tell my brother, when I am laid out They then may feed in quiet”- The bareness of ‘Feed’ increases the force of the line, for it suggests animal’s engrossment. It has too, that kind of authority peculiar to the common word unexpectedly introduced. Its impact is that of ‘bread’ in Hamlet’s skill. [“He took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May:”]
They too often remain isolated and detached from the main stream of thought. In his manner of writing such sentences come too often though they may not have a direct relation with the texture of the play. Such lines as:
“O, this gloomy world: In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness, Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!
Let worthy minds never stagger and distrust
To suffer death or shame for what is just; Mine is another voyage”, stand out as detached expression of Webster’s sententious wisdom. Many of Webster’s lines in The Duchess of Malfi have become almost proverbial and can be quoted like proverbs without consideration of the text in which they occur. Tragedy according to Aristotle should ‘arouse pity and fear leading to the catharsis of such emotions’. Webster, an Elizabethan and a Jacobean, possibly could not have written plays according to Aristotle’s cannons. However, there is plenty in the play that arouses pity. And surely there is fear too in abundance arising out of all pervading horror in the play. As it is generally understood, a tragedy deals with sufferings and misfortunes of the protagonists of the play. “That I might toss her palace ‘bout her ears Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads, And lay her general territory as waste As the hath done her honours.” The Duchess of Malfi, like any good tragedy teaches us to know the world and its ways better. There are plenty in the play that are sensational and horrifying making it melodramatic to some extent, and they appeal to the morbid instincts of the playgoer. However, the principal victim of this play is not merely the sufferer, the Duchess, but the unconquerable and unsubdued human spirit of hers. In this the Duchess comes close to Shakespearian heroes and heroines. She keeps up her dignified spirit of defiance towards the evildoers, but is remarkably humble before heaven. She displays her sensuality not only in her marriage but also in devouring the apricots with evident greed. She becomes blind in her passion for Antonio and is credulous in taking Bosola’s words at face value. Her shirking of her responsibility, as a ruler of Malfi is a glaring flaw. Still the resigned dignity with which she faces the spectacle showing her dear ones as dead and her own impending strangling make us respect her unbreakable spirit. That enduring spirit ennobles us and uplifts us. Our faith in the essential nobility of human beings is reinforced, despite the damaging effect on that faith caused by the evil and villainy of others. In the case of Bosola, it is an intellectual failure. He fails to understand his personal identity and his responsibility for his actions. The play suggestively tells that sin is inherent in man and that the corruption of the body will find its way into corrupt action. The drift towards an error is natural and it eventually arrives at the natural consequence: retribution. This appears to be the meaning of the play. “Right the fashion of the world: From decay’d fortunes every flatterer shrinks: Men cease to build where the foundation sinks:” The Duchess, Antonio and Bosola share the focus of tragic issues in the play. The tragic flaw (hamartia) in the Duchess is the ‘madness’ which Cariola identifies at the end of the first act. That of Antonio, mainly is ambition- “Ambition,madam,is a great man’s madness, That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms, But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt With the wild noise of prattling visitants Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure.” Along with the realism may be mentioned the meditative energy and the capacity to realize the irony, the mysterious nature and the pathos of life. The meditative energy Webster displays is an essential part of his dramatic genius. Sometime he introduces fables or parables even when by doing so inconsistencies in character portrayal creep in. Duke Ferdinand’s parable or Reputation, Love and Death and the Duchess’s fable of the salmon and the dog-fish belong to this area. “Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in tissue:” Webster presents a moral world that is some mysterious ways that ultimately bring punishments for the crimes one commit. The devilish Arragonian brothers and their equally devilish instrument, Bosola, feel the pangs of conscience and meet ignoble death. Remorse touches Ferdinand the most, and makes him lycanthropic. His presenting a dead man’s hand to the Duchess is another indication. The sight of the dead Duchess indeed acts as a trigger in turning him fully mad. Finally he is killed by Bosola. Bosola is struck with remorse, when he finds that his much expected ‘preferment’ does not come to him. He declares that if he was to live once again he would not commit his crimes, “For all the wealth of Europe’ Further looking at the dead Duchess he says, “Here is a sight As direful to my soul as is the sword Unto a wretch hath slain his father.” Later he mortally stabs the Cardinal and the Duke and himself, is killed by the Lycanthropic Duke. Even the Cardinal, who is a cold and calculating Machiavellian, feels the pricking of conscience. He goes to the religious books for consolation but finding it futile, lay it aside. He expresses his mental agony clearly when he soliloquizes: “How tedious is a quality conscience: When I look into the fish –ponds in my garden, Methinks I see a thing arm’d with a rake, That seems to strike at me.” True, the Duchess and Antonio do have their flaws but the sufferings they face appear to be out of proportion to their sins. Really their mistakes are minor and the punishment too great. Webster illustrates that the moral order he visualizes does not mete out reward and punishment equitably. The intense suffering that is heaped upon Duchess and to a lesser extent on Antonio , is determined by the forces of evil that exist in her devilish brothers and their villainous tool Bosola. The three appear to be mentally diseased people, sadists who enjoy inflicting of pain on others. Bosola, despite his occasional moral meditations and occasional show of sympathy for the plight of the Duchess, inflicts subtle mental torture on the Duchess. “Who would be afraid on’t. Knowing to meet such excellent company In the other world?” The dramatist’s fondness for bloodshed, violence and horror can be seen from his preoccupation with the morbid and the macabre. The world he presents is one of corruption, immortality, cruelty, dishonesty, greed and Machiavellianism. “This is flesh and blood, sir; ‘T is not the figure cut in alabaster.” Altogether ten murders take place, on the stage, in The Duchess of Malfi. Tortures of the most repulsive and shocking kind are released on the Duchess. The presentation and the dead man’s hand, the spectacle of the waxen figures of Antonio and children, shown as dead, the letting loose of the lunatics on to coffin, the strangling of the Duchess, Cariola and the children, the lycanthropia of the Duke, the killing of Antonio and the servant and the final Carnage, all show the preoccupation of the author with the murky and the morbid. Further, he seems to show disappointment when he finds the Duchess unbroken in spirit, despite her effort to break it. In Webster, like in Shakespeare, the good people with minor flaws seem to suffer deeply. Revenge is not a sacred duty in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. Thus the play defers from the traditional ones. Revenge in its most grotesque form is presented here. Both the brothers, who seek revenge, are beastly villainous beings. In their rage they lose their sense of judgment and behave as depraved human beings, which they really are. Their resentment at the Duchess’s marriage below rank is natural, but it makes them commit inexplicably monstrous atrocities. Their revenge is not even a wild justice but very unnatural and bestial cruelty born out of perversion. In presenting this changed kind of revenge Webster has moved away from the beaten path. “Would I could be one, That I might toss her palace ‘bout her ears, Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads And lay her general territory as waste As she hath done her honours.” Webster does not believe that human suffering is caused by a supernatural agency- God or Fate. The events in the play show that human suffering is caused partly by the flaw in the sufferers and partly by the devilish qualities that exist in other villainous people. The Duchess, who suffers most in the play, is not a blemishes person. She has her flaw, her hamartia which is her sensuousness that makes her marry beneath her. She does not care for the damage of reputation her marriage could bring to her illustrations brothers, a Cardinal and a Duke. “He and his brothers are like plum-trees that grow crooked over Standing-pools: they are rich and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one of their flattering ponders, I would hang on their ears like a horseleech, till I were full, and then drop off.” The Duchess of Malfi is one of the John Webstar’s finer plays. Several images are in the play which brings in tempests, thunder and earthquakes. Perhaps the best that belongs to this group is found in the Duke’s answer to the Cardinal’s question why the former behaves like a tempest. Very pungently he satirises the courtiers and courtly life of the time. The corruption of the court and the rewards the princes extended for devilish services is one of the major themes of the play. In the very first scene of the play we find Bosola making fun of the courtiers, and the evil patrons. Webster’s skill in stagecraft is displayed in several episodes of the play. The whole of Act IV is a theatrical tour de force. The Duchess wooing of Antonio leading to the secret marriage in Act I also shows equally great dramatic skill. The sudden appearance of Cariola from behind the arras gives a shock to Antonio. The meeting of Antonio and Bosola in the courtyard of Malfi palace, with its ‘sense of the theatre’ resembles the courtyard scene in Macbeth (Act II, Sc.I). Also dramatic is the Duke’s stormy appearance at the residence of the Cardinal with a letter in hand, fuming with rage. The Duke’s secret entry into the Duchess’s bed chamber gives a dramatically arresting episode. The Duchess s surprised at the continued silence of her husband, hears footsteps behind and turns expecting him coming back, but sees her brother the Duke advancing to her with his hand on his poniard. Another, theatrically very effective scene is where the Duke suffering from lycanthropic appears on the stage muttering ‘strangling is a very quiet death.’ The Duke, stealing across the stage in the dark, whispering to himself, with the devastating appearance of mad man is a figure one may not forget. Despite the existence of definite flaws in the nature of the Duchess and Antonio the sufferings and misfortunes they faced would not have arisen but for the evil present in the Cardinal, the Duke and Bosola. Webster appears to believe in the predominant existence of evil in this world. The various references to the devil and Machiavellianism stand testimony to it. Such references help to emphasize the evil nature of the Cardinal, the Duke and their tool-villain, Bosola. They are responsible for most of the sufferings and the ten deaths shown in the play. The tyrannous brothers become indignant at the news of their sister giving birth to a child, which they think to be illegitimate. The Duke is affected more and loses all self-control: He shouts in anger that he would become a storm: “That I might toss her palace ‘bout her ears Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads, And lay her general territory as waste As the hath done her honours.” In Elizabethan drama scenes of madness used to be shown on the stage, but they were episodic and did not contribute to the play at a psychological level. Webster too presents the chorus of madmen according to the revenge tradition. It creates, mostly a grotesque atmosphere with the antics and lunatic dance of the mad men. However there is some psychological interest too present in it. The Duke devises the scheme to torture the Duchess with the intention of turning her mad, but ironically he, not the Duchess, becomes mad. The lycanthropic madness of the Duke has still greater psychological significance. his madness is shown not only as an instrument to create horror, but to show that his crime has knocked him out of his sanity. Human beings inflict untold sufferings on his fellow beings prompted by ambition, envy, hatred, greed and lust for power. In Webster’s world it is the natural lot of man that he endures decay, disease and death. The Duchess and Antonio, the good characters of the play meet their death; one after a long suffering, the other by simple accident. Even the blameless Cariola, and the innocent children meet death by strangulation. Virtue, innocence and other good qualities appear to offer no assured safety against suffering and premature death. “If all my royal kindred Lay in my way unto this marriage, I’d make them my low footsteps.” Webster’s world is one where suffering embraces all, the good and the wicked. Suffering and death are inevitable. They result sometimes from deliberate contrivance as in the case of the Duchess, Cariola etc; sometimes from compulsive action as in the case of Antonio; and they can take place quite arbitrarily as in the case of the servant whom Bosola kills. Though he is a villainous person perpetrating some of the most heinous crimes, but he is also portrayed as a meditating malcontent who occasionally appears to act as a mouth-piece of the author’s view of life. Seeking happiness in the world, Webster seems to say is a futile effort for pleasure and is only momentary, but suffering is inevitable and profound. The dying Antonio makes it clear, “Pleasure of life, what is ‘t?only the good hours Of an ague: merely a preparative to rest, To endure vexation.” Webster could have been influenced by a few contemporary incidents to make the play what it is. One of them is the story of the fate of Torquato Tasso at the hands of Alfonso d’Este, an Italian Duke, because of his love for the Duke’s sister. Another was the imprisonment of Lady Arabella Stuart, as a punishment for het marrying Lord William Seymour against the wishes of King James I, her cousin. Lady Arabella became mentally deranged while in person. Though Webster followed Painter’s line, he made many noticeable additions. This can be found not only in the plot construction but also in characterization. In the play we find the Cardinal and the Duke warning the Duchess against a remarriage. There is nothing of the sort present in Painter. So also are the part played by Bosola, the secret entry of the Duke into the bed chamber of the Duchess and the sub plot of Julia’s adulterous relationship with the Cardinal. Further most of the incidents of Act IV especially the tormenting of the Duchess, by presenting the spectacle of the waxen images, the Duke’s presenting a dead man’s hand to the Duchess, the antics of the lunatics, Bosola’s entry as a tomb maker and a bellman etc., are all Webster’s inventions. Antonio’s visit to the Cardinal, the Echo-scène, the lycanthropia of the Duke, Bosola’s decision to turn against his master and the final death of all the three, too are Webster’s additions. “I have ever thought Nature doth nothing so great for great men As when she’s pleas’d to make them lords of truth: Integrity of life is fame’s best friend, Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.” The Duchess of Malfi has an admirable exposition in the first act. All the major characters are introduced sufficiently well. Antonio, knowledgeable in the fashion and manners of French Court, the Duke and the Cardinal who are like plum trees that grow crooked and right noble Duchess’ whose ‘discourse it is so full of rapture’ are painted with a few thick strokes . Later the Duchess shows her independence, vivacity and passionate nature by declaring her defiant attitude to the advice of the brothers and wooing Antonio abruptly and marrying him secretly. This may apply not only to the virtuous Duchess, but also to the wicked Bosola, who with determination kills the two characters. Bosola’s statement, “Let worth minds ne’er stagger in distrust To differ death or shame- for what is just:” makes this point amply clear. Whether virtuous or wicked, all should boldly decide not to compromise or surrender, but persist in being what they have it in themselves. Bosola by declaring: “I’ll be mine own example-“ And the Duchess by asserting, “I am Duchess of Malfi still” He realizes that he has to ‘die like a leveret’. He does so and we feel as if he has faced the ultimate punishment for his crimes. Nemesis reaches all the three villains giving the impression that there is some moral -order that in some unknown way mete out punishments to the evil doers.
The Duchess ridicules Cariola for her respect for religion and calls her ‘a superstitious fool’. However she displays her belief in God by kneeling before her death. We have to conclude that, Webster does not openly negate the existence of God in the play. However, the turn of events in the play makes one think that Webster’s moral world is an extentialist one.
“Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows A fearful madness: I owe her much of pity.” Bosola’s telling that “I will be mine own example” is a typical extentialist statement. The Duchess taking firm personal decision about her marriage, Duchess’s disregarding the opinion of her brothers and her accepting the consequences of that action with a resigned courage too is an existentialist attitude; so also is the detachment with Antonio faces his fate. One of the basic requirements of that philosophy, negation of God, however is not emphasized in the play. Antonio is an extentialist as far as his attitude to religion, but nothing is said to show that he does not believe in God. The fables, the Duchess and the Duke relate, too are significant for their moral worth. Bosola, though a dark and villainous tool in the hands of the equally dark brothers, during his meditative bouts brings out worthy moral; truths. About gold coins he says, “These cur’d gifts would make You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor:” He has other philosophic comments too. “Since place and riches oft are bribes opf shame: Sometimes the devil doth preach.” Musing over the ruins of the Abbey near the Cardinal’s palace he says: “But all things have their end: Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death that we have” To show the transcience of happiness he says, “Pleasure of life, what is ‘t? only the good hours Of an ague:” The moral message of the play comes out frequently through pithy statements. It is interesting that almost all characters utter some universal truth, some statement significant to human life, displaying the moral undertone of the play. Antonio moralizes from the beginning till his last moments. Even minor characters are often found to express moral ideas. Cariola comments on the Duchess’ marriage thus: “Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows A fearful madness:” The first pilgrim has this to say about the fall of the great. “Fortune makes this conclusion general. All things do help the unhappy man to fall.” Julia, the trumpet too utters a pithy statement “ ‘T is weakness, Too much to think what should have been done.” Delio has something moral to state very often “Though in our miseries Fortune have a part, Yet in our noble sufferings she hasth none:” He winds up the play with a statement pregnant with philosophic truth: “Integrity of life is fame’s best friend, Which nobly, beyond death shall crown he end.” All these moral statements may appear out of place in a tragedy to a modern reader, but an Elizabethan play goer would have taken it as a sign of the Author’s moral consciousness. “I am Duchess of Malfi still”, brings out Webster’s view of life. There is an amount of self-centered thinking in her. Further she is a credulous person and susceptible to flattery. We see her gloating over the praise Bosola showers on Antonio and reveals her secret of identity of her husband to Bosola. Then, pleased with his flattering comments on her marriage she takes him as a confidant decides to accept his advice and to go to Loretto on a feigned pilgrimage. Both the actions lead to disastrous consequences. Antonio too, faces his fate partly because of his flaws. Though he despises ambition as ‘a great man’s madness’, it is his ambition that makes him succumb to the desires of the Duchess and marry her. His passivity too led to his downfall. He does not show any inclination it out with the Arragonian brothers though he knows that justice is on his part. Many of the opinions expressed by the various characters of the play betray Webster’s extentialist leanings though, the word ‘extentialism’ as a philosophy evolved only in the nineteenth century after Kierkgoard. Extentialism rejects metaphysics and concentrates on the individual’s existence in the world. It is a pragmatic and psychologically realistic philosophy that negates the existence of a God. There is some inherent absurdity in man’s existence. For ‘all human activities are equivalent, all are destined by principles to defeat”, but a man is responsible for his effect on others, though only his existence is real to him, and he is ultimately his own judge. Among all these apparently chaotic happenings in this world one wonders what a man should aim at. Are there some values he should cherish? Webster answers, surely, through his unmistakable esteem for the virtuous characters in the play. He apparently advocates two qualities to be cultivated among humans: they should persist in being what they are and they should face calamities with fortitude. The closing speech of Delio may be Webster’s message to humans. “The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes With the sword of justice” Webster presents in his plays, a view of the world where the destructive forces unleash their power on the individual. The inner reality one sees in Shakespearean characters is absent in Webster. He portrays only their outer nature, and even that is often absorbed into the general forces. This results in their losing even the exterior marks of individuality. After sketching their traits through narration, Webster shows them behaving in conformity with that narration. They become types, their characteristics being shared by many others in this world. The soliloquy of Webster does not give any deep insight into the character, which Shakespeare very well provides. Webster’s soliloquies only throw light into a plot and action. Further Webster removes the inner dimension of man from his tragic picture he presents. As a result development of character, as is seen in Shakespeare, is not possible in Webster. “I am puzzled in a question about hell; He says, in hell there’s one material fire.”…
EXCEPT IDEAS AND SETTINGS AND REFERENCES, WORDS AND SENTENCES FROM DR.S.SEN.
‘AS YOU LIKE IT’- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“The Forest of Arden, according to the play reflects the different -state -of -mind of the various characters of the play itself”-Discuss.
“There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Every story narrated or dramatized has an artistic structure which may be called its architectural design. The different elements of the story, technically known as the plot, are characters, incidents and the atmosphere born out of the union of these two. Characters unfolding themselves through incidents which often mould them,or incidents revealing characters through narration and dialogue, are so skillfully adapted to each other and vitally connected as ultimately to conceal the parts in the symmetrical beauty or realized harmony of the whole. Every interesting story arises out of a conflict, absence of which will make it dull and unexciting. There are, generally speaking, two main movements required to achieve this artistic result- a movement of Complication and a movement of Resolution. Between these two movements the plot will develop through many ups and downs which follow a well-regulated course. Structurally the natural divisions of a drama are fivefold, roughly corresponding to its five acts in the Elizabethan play.
“Truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy.”
While Romance admits the comic spirit within a corner of the field, the area is strictly limited. Romance and the comic spirit cannot well live together on terms of equality. In Shakespearean comedy, the comic spirit has to minister to the purposes of Romance and not the other way about. The truth of this observation can be seen in how the characters of Benedick and Beatrice, though seen in a comic setting in the beginning, emerge finally as Romantic characters, with both of them acting as the Champions of hero who is subjected to such ill merited suffering. On a lower plane it is true of Dogberry and Verges also. As Peter Quennell says: “Dogberry like Bottom was intended to raise a cultured laughter.”
Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden is an imaginary setting in As you Like it and it is futile and unnecessary to try and find its actual counterpart in the world- whether in France or in England. What matters is that the Forest of Arden has a significant role in As You like It. “Pythagoras said, that this world, was like a stage Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the stage Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn The manneres of all nations.”
In such a place, in such an atmosphere, Love is the central light, the infallible intelligence, the chief source of life and happiness. And this love is identified primarily with a young woman. She is the Shakti of this universe; she is beauty, truth and rarity and inspires similar virtues (or values) in her lover.
“For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn Than women’s are.’’
In Shakespeare’s mature comedy-it is worth remembering that in comedy Ben Jonson put him above the classics- he presents ‘a harmonious society in which each person’s individuality is fully developed and yet is in perfect tune with all others’. While keeping to the old principle that comedy portrays characters, he profoundly modified it by deepening and strengthening each separate character, developing the relations between different characters, until the characters became the plot.
As You Like It has a systematically worked–out plot. Its principal plot is to illustrate the ultimate happy fate or the denouement of pair of lovers after passing through some struggles and difficulties. This is the story of the love between Orlando and Rosalind. Round about it there are three sub-plots, having the same theme of love between pairs. These sub-plots merge into the main plot in such a way as to leave no impression of their independent existence. The sub-plots are- the love between Oliver and Celia, the love between Silvius and Phebe, the love between Touchstone and Audrey. All these have happy endings in marriage. The aim of the dramatist in constructing these subplots is to produce the impression that the atmosphere of the play is one of genuine, undiluted love, serenity, joy and peace. The governing idea of the dramatist in constructing the plots of Gloucester and Edmund as a parallel to the main plot of Lear and his daughters.
“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one,”
Arden is not untouched by the world of reality and its sorrows, but it is a place where those who come to it discover certain abiding truths about life. The characters get a conviction that gay and the gentle can endure the rubs of fortune to find happiness in them and in others on this earth. The characters also realize certain truths. The masque of Hymen marks the end of this interlude in the greenwood, and announces the return to a court purged of envy and baseness. As in all comedy the characters realize the truth about themselves through trial and error, and the change is for the better. Thus Rosalind as Ganymede discovers she can play no more but must accept Orlando’s love. By loving a shadow, the mere image of a charming youth, Phebe discovers that it is better love than to be loved and scorn one’s lover. If we consult the evidence of the play it will be abundantly clear that Love-at-first-sight is the main theme of the comedy, As You Like It.
All the lovers in this play, courtiers as well as rustics, follow this kind of love. Rosalind and Orlando fall in love with each other the moment they see each other; and the rest of the lovers following the same course. Such a conception of love is romantic, and Shakespeare has employed unhesitatingly for no less than four pairs of lovers, two from the higher and two from the lower class of society, follow such a mode of romantic love. Whether one agrees or not with such a mode of love one cannot but observe that in this play this motive of love eventuates in the happiness of all the lovers. In a Romantic Comedy, the main stress is on the story of these loves-a story, says Mark Hunter, “treated seriously, moving through a number of checks and trying complications to a prosperous ending.”
It is, besides, “ a story not only of high life, but of the highest in each particular case possibly”, but allied to the main story, there are invariably other stories also, but-like silk threads, of diverse colours-all are cunningly woven into a single texture: “Through complexity of plot if secured a compensating variety, both variety of character-interest, and variety of delight afforded by the alternation of two or more Romantic themes, together with a greater or lesser admixture of pure Comedy, not Romantic.” That Shakespeare is an artist hardly needs asserting in the present day. It is true that his art was probably far less self conscious that that of Milton or of Tennyson, that it was probably more intuitive than aforethought. The distinction, however, is probably not so important as its seems. A great artist does not need rules or conscious analysis to tell him what is good and what is evil. Any analysis that may be necessary may be done sub-consciously.
“Shallow. “Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I be young for your sake, Mistress Anne. Anne. The dinner is on the table.”’
The presentation of love on the stage is fraught with grave dangers even when attempted by a great artist; for it has a natural tendency towards degenerating into the ridiculous. Lyric poetry remained the appropriate domain for love’s expression in creative. It was only post-Renaissance dramatists who made a bold experiment in introducing love as an absorbing theme in drama. In the Elizabethan age romantic love often became the main ingredient of novels and dramas. To Elizabethan people “to live be to love, and to love was to love romantically. That was for them a fact of experience.”
It was left to Shakespeare and his great contemporaries to achieve a mystical alliance between comedy and romance and to elevate comedy from the region of the farcical and the ludicrous to the realm of the poetic and the romantic. A note of high seriousness often characterized a comedy of love, As You Like it. It is replete with different portrayals of love.
“I have seen the day, with good biting falchion, I would have made them skip: I am old now. And these same crosses spoil me.”
Like Thomas Hardy’s Edgon Heath, Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden is not simply a background of the plot; nay it is itself a character, perhaps the most important character of the play. “It has its own soul, a vital breath- that possesses the greatest reformative and constructive power. It reforms the wicked, selfish and cruel Oliver; it softens the aching hearts of the weary pilgrims, who come to it; it brings about a reconciliation between the Dukes, and finally, it is the Forest Of Arden which unties the separate lovers-Orlando and Rosalind- infusing a spirit of love into other characters.”
“If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear.”
“The play treats of the gifts of Nature and the ways of Fortune. Orlando, given little is brought too much. Rosalind and Celia, born too much, are brought to little. The Duke, born to all things, is brought to nothing. The usurping Duke, born to nothing climbs too much, desires all, and at last, renounces all. Oliver born too much, aims all little more, loses all, and at last, renounces all. Touchstone, the wordly-wise, marries a fool Audrey, born a clown, marries a courtier. Phebe, scorning a man falls in love with a woman. The play is a little picture of this world, as Hallam observes, but it is a picture in mellow and soothing colours of gaiety.”
“I am much sorry, sir, You put me to forget a lady’s manners, By being so verbal.”
The practical value of the songs in the play was to entertain the audience with music. The Elizabethans were great lovers of music and they always welcomed songs. While he conceded to the popular demand for songs he introduced into them some significance on the context in which they were sung. In As you Like It we have half a dozen songs primarily intended to heighten the psychological effect of the scene in which they are sung. For instance the song in the Forest scene beginning with “Blow, blow thou winter wind,” has the effect of intensifying the pathos of the situation.
The sense of ingratitude under which the banished Duke is acutely suffering is made more poetical and so endurable, by the beauty of the song and aptness of its sentiments. In the songs of country life which this play contains we find a different significane.These songs (“Under the greenwood tree”) heighten the sense of rural bliss and innocence by expressing through musical words and serenity and peace that pervades the countryside. Thus we may say that the songs in Shakespeare’s generally serve the purpose of intensifying the effect of the scenes and situations in which they are introduced. The world of Arden has not the rarefied atmosphere of an unearthly region; this forest is emphatically real and feelingly earthy. It is subject to the change of seasons; eternal spring does not reign here. The struggle for existence is as acute here as in the city. The shepherd and the shepherdess are not ideal and innocent persons of the golden age breathing the idyllic atmosphere of Arcadia. A heartless coquette like Phebe and an ‘ill-favoured’ Audrey easily capable of deserting her true love for becoming the snobbish wife of a courtier, are found to dwell within its extensive air. Boas says: “The sentimentality of the orthodox pastoral is entirely absent, and in its place we have the ruddy vigour, the leaping pulse and play of the open-air life that ‘loves to live in the sun’. Never has the charm of outdoor existence found more matchless expression.”
As You Like It owes its charm and beauty to the flavor love that pervades the plot. The drama maintains a number of love episodes, which as a matter of fact spring from the main fountain- love between Orlando and Rosalind, but there is another touch of love in the play, which distinguishes it from most of the Shakespearean comedies. It is the innocent yet sincere and penetrating love between the two cousins Rosalind and Celia. “What would you have, Your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness.”
It is to be noted that the first impression of Arden is not very attractive to any of those who escape to it. “Well, this is the forest of Arden,” says Rosalind in apparently unenthusiastic tones. Touchstone calls himself foolish for having come there. The Forest of Arden is no conventional Arcadia. It is not a place where the laws of Nature are abrogated and roses are without thorns. Life’s roughness is very much in evidence in Arden. The herd abandons the wounded deer. Winter and rough weather, the season’s differences, the icy fangs and churlish chiding of the winter’s wind invade Arden as often as they invade this hemisphere of ours. Nor does Manna fall to it from heaven. One may come by a sufficient sustenance of flesh ,if one has the weapons and the impulse to make a breach in the conventionality of idyllic Nature by killing its own creatures, the deer, to whom the Forest is assigned a native dwelling place.
Rosalind and Orlando will return to live their adult life in the society of men and in civilization, which will impose upon them their duties of extended social responsibilities.
“Come, woo me, for now I am in a Holiday humour and like enough to consent.”
It is easy to see how As You Like It conforms to the conventions of the pastoral tradition. We find, for example, a plentiful crop of rustic scenes and situations of shepherdess, and all the other associations of a pastoral life. Even the principal figure of the comedy the heroine herself, takes to the life and manners of the shepherds in the major portion of the play. Rosalind buys the estate of a shepherd in the Forest of Arden and lives the life of simplicity and unsophisticated innocence. Besides, it is as a disguised shepherd youth that Rosalind appears in her best wit and intelligence. Her mock wooing of Orlando, her complications as a girl in the dress of a boy and, finally, her splendid resources of wit in reducing all these complications to an easy and happy ending- all these prove that Shakespeare exploited the pastoral convention in the service of comedy.
The songs are a notable feature of As You Like It. The forest would be dead without them. They are all old and plain; no luscious madrigals or quaint eclogues but songs of the greenwood and the holly, of the chase and country love. The themes are all the better for being old-fashioned: they awake the echoes of Robin Hood, and their music and association help not a little to convey that open air feeling that pervades the play, and which mere convey that open air feeling that pervades the play and which mere description cannot always impart. Here the sylvan predominates over pastoral; we are in Sherwood not in Arcadia, as J.C. Smith says.
“He that brings this love to thee Little knows this love in me: And by him seal up thy mind; Whether that thy youth and kind Will the faithful offer take Of me and all that I can make; Or else by him my love deny, And then I’ll study how to die.”
By a pastoral comedy we mean a play in which the characters belong to the rustic class, specially shepherds and shepherdesses. The situations of such plays are romantically simple and pure and innocent, and the story usually delineates the peaceful and enviable life of these figures that love and enjoy life in an ideal fashion. They have no cares and burdens. They always get what they wish, and they end in a happy atmosphere of joy and felicity. Such, in the main, are the elements of a pastoral story whether in fiction or in drama.
“Thus men may grow wiser every day; it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.”
Shakespeare builds up his ideal world and lets his idealists scorn the real one, but into their midst he introduces people who mock their ideals and others who mock them. One must not say that Shakespeare never judges but one judgment is always being modified by another. Opposite views may contradict one another but of course, they do not cancel out. Instead they add up to an all embracing view far larger and more satisfying than any one of them by itself.
As You Like It belongs to the group of plays consisting of Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night which are splendid specimens of Shakespearean’s mastery of the comic and dramatic art. These plays are characteristic Elizabethan romantic comedies- plays which satisfied the curiously Elizabethan demand for drama catering to the romantic as well as the comic instinct of the audiences. Neither the extreme of idealism nor those of materialism, as they are variously represented, emerge as “the good life” in As You Like It. through the device of contrast an effective balanced view emerges.
“West of this place, down in the neighbor bottom; The rank osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand brings you to the place. But at this hour the house doth keep itself; There’s none within.”
We may, however, note one thing while discussing As You Like It as a pastoral comedy. The pastoral creation of the ancient writers usually verge on the improbable and almost fantastic side. This results in the impression of artificiality in an endeavour to escape from it, but in the consummate art of Shakespeare even the idealization which is inevitable in the application of the pastoral convention is touched with probability and realism with the result that his characters remain endearingly human. Their motives may be romantic but their passions and sentiments are human and worldly-wise. In other words, it may be said that in Shakespeare’s hands the pastoral convention is humanized. The union of Rosalind and Orlando in happy wedlock has been the objective aimed at from the beginning and this is now finally attained, but the crowning achievement of the heroine lies not only in her own happiness but also in winning happiness for others. All the different pairs of lovers have their heart’s desire fulfilled-it is As You Like It.
“We that are true lovers run into strange capers; But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature In love mortal in folly.”
The purpose of the Exposition is ‘to put the audience in possession of all information that is essential for the property understanding of the play.’ It prepares us for the aviation, but it is really independent of the plot proper. In As You Like It the preliminary information consists chiefly of : (a) the banishment of the elder Duke, the unexpected presence of his only daughter Rosalind at the usurper’s court, and (b) the will of Sir Rowland de Boys and the ill-treatment of Orlando at the hands of his elder brother Oliver. Thus the two main threads out of which the love story will be woven are suggested e even at the outset; the hero and the heroine have been introduced in the midst of circumstances which are strikingly similar in many respects. The Wrestling Match is the initial incident which starts the action: and the seed of this great love is shown here. Here is also the genesis of the main conflict between our hero and the heroine on one side and Oliver and the usurper ranged against them on the other.
“O my life, his malice’s against the lady Will suddenly break forth.”
“Other and inferior writers would have worked out their descriptions with all pettiness and impertinence of detail” says Coleridge, regarding the pastoral atmosphere created by Shakespeare. In fact Shakespeare has not cared to describe at large these pictured of pastoral scenery: he has as the master artist adopted the unique method of subtle suggestion. By a few strokes of the painter’s brush he has succeeded in creating not only the appropriate pastoral back ground but also a vast and vivid woodland scene studded with some landmarks,e.g., he Duke’s cave, Rosalind’s cottage, the antique oak, and the crawling brook. So superb has been the success of this delineation that we seem to breathe ‘the very breath of the woods and the mountains’. Public theatres of the Elizabethan age had no painted scenes.
The dramatist had thus to depend entirely on his own poetic art and his power of stimulating their imaginative capacity of his audience. There are two levels of awareness at work in the scene. The audience’s awareness is at one with Rosalind’s; Orlando’s awareness falls short. To this extent, the climactic scene is structurally simple. But in, very simplicity it is magnificient.The compensation for the lack of complexity comes the wooing scene in As You Like It is different from similar scenes in Shakespearean comedies. There is in this play different level of awareness and ignorance which make the wing scene all the more interesting dramatically and thematically. The wooing scene, in fact, is the climax as far as the theme of ignorance and awareness is concerned. As Rosalind disguised as Ganymede questions and argues with Orlando who does not know Ganymede’s identity, there is much fun as well as serious comment implicit for audience.
“For thou thyself hast been a libertine As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That thou with license of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.”
In the width of the discrepancy in the awareness of the lovers. The wooing scene deliberately exploits this gap in the awareness of the lovers. The wooing scene deliberately exploits this gap in the awareness. The exploitation is not thin. Neither the relation of the participants nor the situation changes at all during the action. At the beginning, Rosalind knows everything and Orlando nothing; it is the same at the end. However, at the end of the scene. Rosalind’s conviction about Orlando’s love has received a final confirmation. There is a blending of the magic and the comic even in the sunny, joyous and bright comedy of As You Like it. Thus the play opens with a quarrel between the brothers-Oliver and Orlando. The former makes attempts to take the life of the latter. We also get distinctly tragic elements in the sorrow of the banished Duke, which he philosophies away; in the melancholy of Rosalind due to the banishment of her father, which is dispelled by the cheery optimism of Celia; in the pathetic fate of the three unfortunate sons of the old man, who are injured by the wrestler. There is also something like the tragic element in the disappointment of Silvius regarding Phebe. These tragic elements are harmoniously, delicately, and artistically blended with and merged into the comic elements. The court milieu at the beginning of AS You Like It then, is one in which disorder flourishes. Life in the Forest of Arden is contrasted with “that of painted pomp” with the perilous life in “the envious court”. This is the “court versus country” theme which recurs in Shakespeare in other plays.
The fidelity and conscience piousness of the old servant Adam are contrasted by Orlando with the general rule that obtains in this environment. And it is Adam himself who gives what is perhaps the most striking evidence of the disorder that is rampant. It may be well to point out that Shakespeare does not believe that court life must necessarily be corrupt and disordered. In fact he is concerned in As You Like It to point out by implication that escapism is no solution: at the end of the play, we have most of the exiles returning from the Forest of Arden, and we are clearly meant to understand that the court environment has been rid of its evil. Disorder has been set right.
“Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?”
In the true order of things a man’s graces and virtues should assist him in his life, but here a man’s virtues are a danger to him, exciting the envy of others. The true order of things is inverted. Speaking to Orlando he says:
“O, what a world is this, when what is comely Envenoms him that bears it!”
The Forest has a great deal of influence on the people who stray into it. We see the shady dark green landscape in the background and breathe in imagination the fresh air of the forest. The hours are here measured by no clocks, no regulated recurrence of duty or toil; they flow on unnumbered in voluntary occupation or fanciful idleness, to which every one addicts himself according to his humour or disposition; and this unlimited freedom compensated all of them for the lost conveniences of life. One throws himself down solitary under a tree, and indulges in melancholy reflections on the changes of fortune; others make the woods resound with social and festive songs to the accompaniment of their horns. Selfishness, envy, and ambition have been left in the city behind them. The wit of touchstone is a dainty kind of absurdity worth comparison with the melancholy of Jaques. And Orlando in the beauty and strength of early manhood, and Rosalind-“a gallant curtle axe upon her thigh, a broad spear in her hand, and the bright tender, loyal womanhood, within”-are figures which quicken and restore our spirits. But upon, no one does the air of Arden work as powerfully as upon the banished Duke. He extracts some useful lessons from his life of banishment in the forest. He draws a contrast between “painted pomp” of court life and the life of careless ease in the Forest of Arden. The life at court is full of envy, malice and ambition. But of, the forest life is sweeter and more “free from peril.” But even, when he shrinks from the cold winter wind, he feels it is better than the flattering courtiers.
While the courtiers at court are only enemies in disguise, the cold wind is an open enemy and does not flatter him. The Duke also realizes the sweet uses of adversity. The forest life has many things to teach. Every object in Nature has a lesson of its own. He finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.
“Thou art not for the fashion of these times. Where none will sweat but for promotion. And having that, do choke their service up Even with the having; it is not so with thee.”
“The dramatist presents us with a pastoral comedy of the characters of which , instead of belonging to the ideal pastoral age, are true copies of what nature will produce under similar conditions” (Halliwell). The pastoral poet of convention clothed courtiers in the shepherds’ dress and put into mouths sentiments of an advances civilization. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has given us real shepherds-Corin and William and Audrey, “whose language is the language of the fields, whose hands saviour of the wood and sheep, and whose persons exhale the odour of the goat-pen or the dairy” as Stanley Wood says, but the characters of Rosalind, Orlando and Duke are certainly ideal ones-although like every ideal, they are based on the actual; they represent experiences idealized.
“Well, I’ll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look you.”
“My fortunes were more able to relieve her; But I am shepherd to another man, And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:”
EXCEPT SETTING, REFERENCE, IDEAS; WORDS AND SENTENCES FROM DR.S.SEN.
POPE'S EPIC TREATMENT TO AN EXTREME LUDICROUS SUBJECT 'THE RAPE OF THE LOCK'.
LATIN VERSE- Nolueram, Belinda, Tuos violatre capillos; Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. -Martial Pope has given an EPIC TREATMENT to an EXTREMELY LUDICROUS subject in “THE RAPE OF LOCK”. Discuss. The Cave of Spleen episode, seen to be an integral to the poem. Its relevance in the mock-epic framework is clear; it parodies a serious epic convention for comic and satiric purposes. The episode presents a picture of the artificial and hypocritical nature of the soci’ty ladies and at the same time mocks these affectations. This is in keeping with the general satiric purposes of the poem. The whole passage has a dreamy (perhaps, nightmarish) quality which speaks greatly of Pope’s artistic and imaginative skill. In this episode, all the sex symbols are gathered as if in dream fantasy, and the Freudian symbols are unmistakable. In this aspect too, the Cave of Spleen episode is relevant to the poem as a whole, for The Rape of the Lock as the title itself suggests has distinct sexual connotations. In the confused values of the society the poem portrays, virginity is not as important as a favourite lock of hair, and appearance is all that counts. In the context of the “moral” of the poem good sense and good humour are advocated; in other words, the Goddess of Spleen and her gifts are to be painstakingly avoided. “This lock, the Muse the stars consecrate to Fame, And mid’st the stars inscribe Belinda’s Name!” In “The Rape of the lock” the satire is directed towards the “little” men and the gentle ladies who are capable of such mighty rage. The habits and artificial modes of the aristocratic society of eighteenth century England are the targets of Pope’s satire. The vanities of women are also ridiculed. Through the minute description of Belinda’s toilet, Pope ridicules women’s excessive concern with self-embellishment. But of, the most important subject of satire here is the utter moral confusion of that society. “This Verse to Caryll, Muse! Is due; This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: Slight is the Subject, but not so Praise If She inspire,and He approve my Lays.” -I sing.
Following the Restoration, in 1660, of the Stuart king, CharlesII, to the throne of England the manners of the seventeenth century society became quite coarse, politics scandalously corrupt and the general tone of society brutal. But on, people soon grew sick of the outrageous licence of the fashionable circles and the early 18th century witnessed a resolute attempt in the direction of moral regeneration.
Exaggeration is another effective device of satire in Pope’s hand. There is more than a touch of it in the passage in which Pope speaks of the souls of ladies continuing the same life of fashion in the form of spirits. It is evident also in the description of how the sylphs protect them by making them more flirtatious with a wider range of men. “Belinda still her downy Pillow prest, Her Guardian Sylph prolong’d the balmy Rest.” The address by Ariel in the Second Canto of the poem serves to raise, in a mock-heroic manner, the fantastic supernatural order of spirits to cosmic order. There are various orders of spirits, each order with specific functions assigned to it. They control such various events as the movement of stars and the safety of the British throne. Thus, these supernatural beings are given a wider perspective and at the same time their mock-heroic significance is never forgotten. “Where Wigs with Wigs Sword-knots Sword-knotts strive, Beaus banish Beaus, and Coaches Coaches drive.” This desire for improvement was feature of the literature of this age, and particularly of the literature that was created by middle class writers who were most strongly influenced by the moral considerations. But for, the people of this age were quite as hostile, on the other hand, to the religious zeal and fanaticism of the Puritans. And thus, though England began to regain lost ground morally, she did not recover the high passion or the spiritual fervor of the Elizabethan age. People, in their dread of the emotional excesses of the Puritans, fell into a mood of chilly apathy, virtue was preached and recommended, but any manifestation of earnestness, even in the Pulpit was regarded as ‘enthusiasm’ and hence, shockingly bad taste. ‘Good sense’ became the idol of the time, and by ‘good sense’ was meant a love of the reasonable and the useful and a hatred of the extravagant, the mystical and the visionary. “By the same laws which first herself ordain’d. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem. To copy Nature is to copy them.” This is shown in the field of religion in which the prevailing principles were rationalism and utility. The same temper marks the literature of the age which exhibits a similar coldness and want of feeling, and a similar tendency towards shallowness in thought and formality in expression. It is a literature of intelligence-intelligence which rarely goes much beneath the surface of things.-of wit and of fancy and not a literature of emotion, passion or creative energy which are the essential elements of high class literature. In this literature, spontaneity and simplicity are sacrificed to the dominant mania for elegance and correctness, this is true even of poetry, which seldom travelled, beyond the interests of that narrow world of the ‘Town’ by which men’s outlook was commonly circumscribed, finding its publicity in the coffee houses and the drawing rooms, drew for its substance upon the politics and the discussion of the hour; and the couplet was its accepted dress. Such poetry, however clever, was necessarily more or less fugitive; it lacked inevitably the depth and grasp of essential things which alone assure permanence in literature. And the quest for refinement in style resulted too often in stilted affections and frigid conventionalism. “A sudden Star, it shot thro’ liquid Air, And drew behind a radiant Trail of Hair. Not Berenice’s Locks foirst rose so bright, The Heave’ns bespangling with dishevel’d Light. The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, And pleas’d pursue its Progress thro’ the Skies.” Feminine frivolity is the target of Pope’s satire. The Rape of the Lock is an exquisite continuation of “The strain of mockery against hoops and patches and their wearers, which supplied Addison and his colleagues with the material of so many Spectators” as Leslie Stephen observes. The scheme of the Rosicrucian spirits is well assimilated by Pope into poem. We can safely say that the inclusion of the machinery has enhanced the brilliance of the poem. Further, it gives a touch of imaginative beauty to the work. It is also part of the mild satiric-moral scheme of the poem, for by implication, the sylphs and gnomes and salamanders are telling comments on the vanities, frivolities and follies of the female sex which Pope was satirising. This was the kind of life led by fashionable people of the upper classes in the Age of Pope, and Pope has described it in gorgeous colours on the one hand and with scathing satire on the other. While he shows the grace and fascination of Belinda’s toilet, he indicates the vanity and futility of it all. There is nothing deep or serious in the lives and activities of the fashionable people, all is vanity and emptiness, and this Pope has revealed with brilliance and artistically. No English poem is at once so brilliant and so empty as The Rape of the Lock. It reflects the artificial age with all its outward splendour and inward emptiness. “It was”, says Lowell, “a mirror in a drawing room, but it gave back a faithful image of society, powered and roughed, to e sure, and intent on trifles, yet still human in its own way as the heroes of Homer in theirs”. In The Rape of the Lock, Pope has caught and fixed forever the atmosphere of his age. “These swell their Prospects… …Your Grace salutes their Ears.”
‘Spleen’ or ‘hypochondria’ denoted ill-humour, irritable and peevish temper-qualities which were to be avoided, as Clarissa’s speech points out. The all glory of the Cave of Spleen is brilliantly conceived to satirise the mixture of ill-humour and affection which marked many a society lady of the time. The gift bag of sighs and sobs and “the war of Tongues” given by the Goddess of Spleen to Umbriel is able to conquer Belinda (who is otherwise the epitome of cheerfulness) because there is one ingredient of Spleen in Belinda’s character-namely, affectation.
“Favours to none, to all she Smiles extends. Oft she rejects, but never she offends.” The Rape of the Lock depicts to a nicety the petty pleasure-seeking life of the fashionable lady of the time. It also depicts the small follies of the female sex, as in the brilliant satire of the Cave of Spleen-the sighs, sobs, soft sorrows and flowing tears, as well as the wild shrieking tantrums. “And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets Motions, Looks, and Eyes; At ev’ry Word a Reputation dies.” And it was in this palace that Belinda and her companions played cards and enjoyed coffee. And it was here that her lock of hair was cut off. There is also a mention of the Lake of Rosamonda, a notorious place for love-trysts, and of Partridge, a fake astrologer of the day. We are also told about Hyde Park and of its famous drive where fashionable people rode in their coaches and sedan chairs. “Jove’s Thunder roars, Heav’n trembles all around; Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing Deeps resound; Earth shakes her nodding Tow’rs, the Ground gives way; And the pale Ghosts start at the Flash of Day.” The Rape of the Lock bears fully the witticism of its age. In his conception of the theme and selection of the title, Pope displays his unsurpassable wit. The theme of the poem is the rape of the lock of a fashionable belle by one of her haughty admirers. This is quite a trivial affair but Pope makes an amusing epic out of it. The whole course of the poem from the dream of Belinda to the mysterious disappearance of her lock is ingeniously contrived, and speaks only of Pope’s wonderful sense of wit. The very title of the Pope’s epic is comically associated with a mere lock of hair, and echoes wittily the epical episodes of Homer and Shakespeare. “Descend, and sit on each important Card; First Ariel perch’d upon Matadore, Then each, according to the Rank they bore; For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient Race, Are, as when Women, wondrous fond of Place.” Pope’s social banter is a marvel of wit and art. His sharp invectives are critically enwrapped in fancy and fantasy to prevent them from degenerating into personal libel. The social banter of The Rape of the Lock, couched in a mock heroic style, is hardly surpassed by other work. “To have given in a single work the maximum expression to the social and moral characteristics, manners and literary taste of an epoch is a feat that few have been able to perform.”The poem reflects the confusion of values. As Elwin points out: “The relative importance of things, the little with them is great, and the great little. They attach as much importance to a China jar as to their honour, as much to religion as to dances and masquerades, as much to their lap-dogs as to husbands.” Belinda and other fashionable ladies took several cups of the inspiring coffee and liquor. And that was her undergoing. For coffee which makes the politician wise, -Sent up in Vapours to the Baron’s Brain New Stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain. Levity was the prominent feature of the women and men of this age. Their manners and behaviour were artificial and affected. They practised lisping, hanging their heads aside, going into fainting fits and languishing with pride. They would sink on their rich quilts and pretend sickness so that young gallants should come to inquire after their health and see the costly gowns which they were wearing. “The Nymph exulting fills with Shouts the Sky, The Wall, the Woods and long Canals reply.” Belinda represents the typical fashionable ladies of the time. What is her life, and how does she spend her day? There is not the slightest glimpse of seriousness or sincerity, goodness or grandeur of human life in any of her words and actions. Belinda is a beautiful lady; she has a host of admirers; she is a flirt and coquette. But of, despite all their flirtations and the disdain they showed for their lovers as Ariel, the guardian sylph, discovered about Belinda. Though these beautiful ladies apparently seemed to reject their suitors, they secretly harboured ambition to get married to lord and guided by considerations of material prosperity, through matrimonial relationships. They were always searching for more and more prosperous matches. For this reason, they scoffed at matrimonial alliances which were below their expectations. And dreaming of their rich prospects, women like Belinda sleep late and are used to rising late from their beds, and Pope describes it beautifully equating the beast with the beauty. And also Belinda goes to sleep again and when she finally does awake she is engaged immediately with her toilette which takes up a large part of her time. “This Casket India’s glowing Gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box, The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, Transform’d to Combs, the speckled and the white, Here Files of pins extend their shining Rows, Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.” The Rape of the Lock is an epitome of the eighteenth century social life. In The Rape of the Lock Pope has caught and fixed forever the atmosphere of the age... No great English poet is at once so great and so empty, so artistic and yet so void of the ideal on which all high art rests.” As Dixon asserts: “Pope is the protagonist of a whole age, of an attitude of mind and manner of writing.” Hence, this poem is very arresting because of the presentation of social life of the age. The artificial style of the poem is in conformity with the artificial life and ways of thought of the time. This age is empty, hollow and devoid of all ideals. So the poem is as meretricious as the age was. It reflects ad mirrors the true picture of the contemporary society. The classicism of Pope is the shadow of classicism; it is false or pseudo-classicism. “A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos’d; Fate urg’d the Shears, and cut the Sylph in twain, (But Airy Substance soon unites again)” Belinda is what she is not. She deceives others as she deceives herself. Her pretensions and her real intentions are at logger-heads. Outwardly, she wishes to be considered virtuous but inwardly, she is ready to have fun with the young folk. She loves the Baron at heart. But of, she rebukes and abuses him. Ariel, her guardian spirit gives up his duties of guarding her virtue when he discovers her hypocrisy. Though she is a flirt, she wants to be worshipped as a queen of virtue. All her anger is intended only to deceive others into thinking that she is a paragon of honour. Belinda is very mindful of the virtues, though she would not care if she lost her virginity in some secret love-affair. She is very conscious about her reputation, about her morals. Actually she is fond of men and of having a good time with them on the other hand she would not like to be called cheap or frivolous but only as a goddess of beauty and virtue. “Then flash’d the living Lightning from her Eyes, And Screams of Horror rend th’ affrighted Skies” The toilette, in fact, is the great business of her life, and the right adjustment of her hair, the decorating of her face, and the chief employment of her time. The beauty of Belinda and the elaborate details of her toilette are all set forth with matchless grace, but behind all this fascinating description, there is a pervading sense of vanity and emptiness. Pope’s satirical gift is shown at its best when he shows the outward charms and the inward frivolity of fashionable ladies. “Their hearts are toy- shops. They reverse the relative importance of things; the title with them is great and the great little.” “With earnest Eyes, and round unthinking Face, He first the Snuff-box open’d, and then the Case, And thus broke out –My Lord, why, what rage Devil?” It is Pope’s use of this machinery, moreover, which more than any other single feature made the poem the signal success than it is, as G.Holden holds. The gentlemen of the smart set are as frivolous as the ladies. Lord Petre and his fellows are the representatives of the fashionable society of the time. They are all idle, empty-minded folk, and seem to have nothing else to do but making love or flirting with ladies. The “battle” between the ladies and gentlemen shows emptiness and futility of their lives. They visit clubs and coffee-houses, and there they indulge in empty scandalous talks. Apparently, the ladies of Pope’s age were pre-occupied with petty trifles. Belinda, in a way, symbolizes the woman of that age-beautiful in a superficial way (though one must admit there is a note of genuine appreciation in Pope’s lines on her), but concerned mostly with self-embellishment, gossip, shopping, card-playing and flirting. Cosmetics are worshipped, vanities carefully cultivated, art of flirtation developed. The form of poem chosen, namely the mock-heroic, precludes the possibility of portraying the society entirely; so there is no point in charging Pope with the limitation. The poem is thus, confined to the aristocratic society. The poet in a very subtle manner satirises the activities of the palace. The Queen’s consultations with her ministers and her taking tea with the luminaries of her regime are equated. The serious and the frivolous have been mentioned in one breath, as if taking counsel is as routine and frivolous matter as taking tea. The intrigues of the court are also laid bare. The Queen’s palace, Hampton Court, which is beautifully laid out with “long canals” and “Woods” turns out to be a mere place for gossip and intrigue where the nobles and ladies. “She sighs for ever on her pensive Bed, Pain at her Side, and Megrim at her Head.” Under Queen Anne the profligacy of men never decreased. Fashions held great sway over them. The petty vanities of women were indulged in more and more. It was one of Addison’s purposes to check this perilous wave of female vanity. In some letters of the Spectator are given the accounts of the fashionable-world, of how the high head-dresses have disappeared, but the coverings for the lower portion of the body has increased. And Addison, wittily, remarks that this shows lack of proportion in architecture since the base grows in proportionately bigger than the top. The pettiness and empty pride of the females of the society is part of the confusion of values rampant in the society as a whole. To the fashionable lady of the time, the breakage of a China vase is an important as a disaster of Fate, a stain on honour equals a stain on a brocade dress, and husband and lapdog are held on the same level of importance. (Line 253-258 amply bring out the moral bankruptcy of the ladies through ridiculous contrasts).Loss of virtue may not be as important as the snipping of a lock of hair and this point out the petty pride and vanity of the female sex. “The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of Mischief skill on Earth to roam. The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the Fields of Air.” In The Rape of the Locks, the ladies and gentlemen alike, meet in the Hamilton Court where -To taste awhile the Pleasures of a Court; In various Talk th’ instructive hours they past, Looks and Eyes; Who gave the Ball, or paid the Visit last: One speaks the Glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen;.. A dress was not the only vanity. There were other absorbing things – rouge, puff, powder and ornaments. Women devoted much time to their toilet. The average life of a society woman was to dress, to visit clubs and coffee-houses where young gallants assembled to please and to flirt. The leisured aristocrats and the profligate young men read French romances, made love and fought duels. Women had more power over them, although they cared more for their lap-dogs. “No writer”, says Leslie Stephen, “reflects so clearly and completely the spirit of his own day as Pope does” and it is in The Rape of Lock that he reflects the life of the fashionable society of his time completely. After indulging in this kind of ‘instructive’ talk for some time, the lords and ladies play cards, and the poet describes the game in detail, because card-games seemed to occupy an important place in the daily activities of fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the period. Belinda and Lord Petre engage in the game, and when Belinda wins, she is filled with joy of victory. Pope casually refers to judges and merchantmen. Judges are more concerned with their belly than with passing correct judgment on the poor defendants. Apparently, justice was quite arbitrary. The merchants” monetary lust is also mentioned. Cunnigham says, “In the sylphs, we witness a delightful down-scaling of the epic machinery.” “That while my nostrils drew the vital air, This hand which won it, shall for ever wear.” The poem mirrors the various tastes of the people. Coffee was popular among gallant lords, ladies, and politicians and writers. The politicians, statesmen and writers used to gather in coffee houses to discuss the affairs of the day. They were addicted to coffee. And despite the best effort the poor sylph who was in charge of Belinda’s lock could not resist the Baron from committing such as heinous crime. “As on the Nosegay in her Breast reclin’d, He watch’d th’ Ideas rising in her Mind, Sudden he view’d, in spite of all her Art, An Earthly Lover lurking at her Heart.” The sole occupation of these ladies was their toilette, love-letters, couched in the conventional language of such letters mentioning “wound” “charms” and “ardours” and at last, though not the least, their pet-dogs, parrots and the like. They set much store by these pets. Among the ill-omens that Belinda recalled after she had lost a lock of her hair was he indifference of her two domestic pets. While Belinda was dreaming in her sleep, The face which even a lover pines to touch is easily available to a mere dog. So much so that Shock, her lap-dog, -Leapt up, and wak’d his Mistress with his Tongue, In Canto III of The Rape of the Lock, Pope gives a detailed description of the scene where Belinda’s beautiful lock of hair is to be raped. There is Hampton Court, the place of the English Queen beautifully situated on the banks of the river Thames, where -Here Britan’s Statesmaen oft, the Fall of foredoom Or Foreign Tyrants and, of Nymphs at home; The age in which Pope flourished is called the Augustan or Classical Age as well as the Age of Pope, because he became its chief poet and man of letters. It was in many ways a unique age. What poetry had attained in the age of Elizabeth I and of Milton, prose achieved in this period. It is thus, the greatest manifestation, namely the work of pope. It was, no longer, inspired by that high emotional and imaginative fervour and creative spirit as in the preceding ages. It was dominated by the prevailing spirit of satire and moral preaching. And that was due to the demands of the times. “The artificial one of the age, the frivolous aspect of feminity is nowhere more exquisitely pictured than in this poem. It is the epic of trifling; a page torn from the petty, pleasure-seeking life of fashionable beauty”. Sexual connotations of the Cave of Spleen should not be missed, especially the lines in which Pope speaks of women who seemed to imagine themselves to be bottles shouting for corks. Apparently, Pope wants to suggest that a mind affected by Spleen is diseased, given to hallucinations and fantasies. Further, he also speaks against the excessive suppression of natural desires in the cause of affected “reputation” and fake “honour”. Sir Plume is another fashionable gentleman, excelling all others in his vanity and utter emptiness: -(Sir Plume, of Amber Snuff-Box justly vain, And the nice Conduct of the clouded Cane.) The scene of the Cave of Spleen is almost central to the whole poem: it epitomizes the dominant passion satirized in the poem- Spleen or ill-humour which caused the quarrel between the two families. The episodes of the Cave of Spleen serve simultaneously to mirror and mock. The whole passage is a brilliant satire on the flippancy and loose character of the ladies of Pope’s time. These ladies were frivolous, artificial and obsessed with sexual desires which were unnaturally repressed. The goddess of Spleen is described as having two hand maids, one of which is Affection of pale and sickly appearance. The painted faces, assumed lisp, pretend swoons, the languishing airs and habitual sorrowful expression are all characteristics of the fashionable lady of the time, ridiculed with great effect by Pope in this passage through allegory. The passage is a masterly satire against hypocrisy and affectation. “Matter too soft a lasting mask to bear; And best distinguished by black, brown, of fair.” Satire must have a moral norm to make it purposeful. The Rape of the Lock has been considered by several critics to lack a moral lesson. Indeed, it was partly in response to the criticism of some contemporaries that Pope added in Canto V (in the second version of the poem) a speech delivered by Clarissa. Its sole purpose was to make his moral norm explicit in the poem, said Pope. But even, leaving aside Clarissa’s speech, which is certainly a repository of Pope’s moral lesson, the poem does not lack any moral. It is by understanding the value of implied moral values that a critic has called the poem “a criticism of life”. “Methinks already I your Tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded Toast, And all your Honour in a Whisper lost!” It would be incorrect to say that he was not a poet at all. He brought the form of poetry to perfection, and thereby made his own contribution to poetry. His scope was extremely limited but within these narrow limits how much has he done. He perfected the heroic couplet. His jewelled phrases have become current expressions of our everyday speech. His poetry does not have anything which may ennoble our thoughts and feelings but it gives us a great deal of pleasure. It may be “a miniature painting on two inches of ivory” but such a painting also has its own value. His poetry is the conventional poetry of a conventional age but it is poetry all the same. He can say what he wants to say in the best possible words, so that his common place thoughts and sentiments acquire unexpected beauty and grace. He completely achieves his own ideal of poetry-“What oft was thought but never so well expressed.” “On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore, Which might Kiss, and Infidels adore.” What does Pope mean by the word ‘nature’? Pope’s view of nature is very different from what we ordinarily understand by it. Wordsworth who killed the Popean school of poetry, called for a ‘return to Nature’. And Pope also said, ‘follow nature’. Where is the difference between the two poet’s point of view? For Wordsworth, ‘nature’ meant the external face of the universe, and those elements of human nature, which are uncorrupted by artificial civilization. For Pope, ‘nature meant that which was rational and was approves by tradition.’ Wordsworth, influenced by Rousseau, wanted man to go back to nature and to live in harmony with nature freed from all the insincerities and artificialities of so-called civilization. Pope, the poet of the artificial society, wanted men to live properly in civilized society, following the rational principles of human conduct. Wordsworth was the apostle of nature which is untouched by human civilization. Pope speaks of “nature still, but nature methodized- not wild free nature, but nature properly manipulated and “to advantage dressed”. For Wordsworth, poetry must be natural spontaneous overflow of emotion. For Pope, poetry must be rational and avoid extremes. Thus, Pope and Wordsworth both followed ‘nature’, but their conceptions of ‘nature’, but their conceptions of ‘nature’ were poles apart. “Gods! Shall the Ravisher display your Hair; While the Fops envy, and the ladies stare!” The Rape of the Lock in spite of its various excellences, cannot be called a great poem, for it deals with something that is trivial and ephemeral. It satisfies us by its workmanship, by its fineness of detail, by aptness of diction, but it is flimsy and superficial. Pope said: “The proper study of mankind is man,” but The Rape of the Lock depicts mankind as seen only in the small society of the city. There is no wide study of mankind in it-none of universal human nature. Perhaps it does exist- but how little a piece of humanity. “A pretty rag, no thought, no passion in it. It is a small picture of life- and that also artificial and insignificant.” Here the lords and ladies of the time often restored to taste the pleasure of the court and to talk society scandals. And -Here Thou, Great Anna! Whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take and sometimes Tea. Pope was not happy in his experiences with women. He was a small and sickly person and as such could not expect to win the love and respect of any worthy woman. It is said that he made his suit to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but she rejected him. As such he felt insulted and therefore bore a grudge against the fair sex. The women of the time could not appreciate his intellectual power or his poetic talent. It is quite possible that in The Rape of the Lock he gave expression to his personal feelings against the aristocratic women of the contemporary society. “When next he looks thro’ Galilaeo’s Eyes; And hence th’ Egregious Wizard shall foredoom The Fate of Louis, and the Fall of Rome.” The rape of lock is a perfect work of its kind; for wit and fancy and intention, it has never been surpassed. It is true that there is no inspiration in it- one is not inspired and lifted by the poem. But for, pure entertainment it is unmatched. There are, says, Lowell, two kinds of Poetry-one gives us the message of the eternal, i.e., tells us things which are true for all times; the other tells what the age wishes to hear. Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth give us message of the eternal: “Pope tells us of this in the one, and amusement and instruction in the other, and be honestly thankful for both.’’ “Nay, Poll sate mute, and Shock was most Unkind!” …. The problem was how to acquire the beautiful lock of Belinda. In the game of Love, Everything is Fair… so the Lord decides to use any means to obtain the object of his heart’s desire!..Being fond of sex-intrigues, the Baron on that day was obsessed with the idea of possessing Belinda’s lock. Arriving at Hampton Court, the Baron starts his flirtation with Belinda, the Queen of beauties. He engages her in the game of cards and partly because Belinda is more intelligent than him, and partly because he is willing to surrender to her charm, he is defeated in the game. But of, his defeat spurs his anger and feeling for revenge. How should he defeat his conqueror-is the foremost thought in his mind. Sipping his Coffee, he gets an idea of cutting her lock to score over her. In the lighter vein, Pope describes the invocation of the Lord at the altar of Love. Lord Petre makes an improvised altar with twelve books of French romances and with gloves, and other gifts obtained from the women he had loved. He lights the fire with love-letters and by breathing sighs he prays to the god of Love to bless him with success. In the manner of knights of the Middle Ages, the Baron seeks the help of his Love god in the adventure of the day. He feels very happy for his victory over his fair rival. He has won a unique prize! He regards Belinda’s hair as his most valuable possession. Perhaps this will make his name immortal. Belinda, however, is full of anger and cries vehemently for the restoration of her lock. Sir Plume, Belinda’s friend also pleads with the Baron for the return of the lock. The Baron, however, refuses to oblige both of them. His worship at the altar of love-god and his behavior at the card game is equally ridiculous. His vainglorious utterances over his cherished possession are not in harmony with his temporary success. Both in the card-game and the lock-game, Belinda turns out superior to him. The lock mysteriously disappears...becomes a part of the starry heavens. In short, the portrait of the Baron is an exaggerated and satirical portrait of a wealthy, foppish and lustful young man of the eighteenth century aristocracy. “What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things…” When he is requested by his lady-love Thalestris to persuade Lord Petre to surrender the “precious hairs” of Belinda, he utters words which are unsurpassed in their emptiness. Nothing shows more clearly the futility and unthinking folly of the smart set than this little speech of Lord Plume. “Z-ds; damn the lock! ‘fore Gad, you must be civil! ‘Plague on ‘t! ‘tis past a Jest-nay, prithee, Pox! Give her the Hair’-he spoke and rapp’d his Box.” Warton said that the largest part of Pope’s work “is of the didactic, moral and satiric kind and consequently not of the most poetic species of poetry”. Lessing’s opinion is that Pope’s merit lay in “the mechanics of poetry”. Byron admired Pope, but he admired his careful finish, which Byron himself lacked. There is no doubt that Pope’s poetry does not “sing anywhere, but the abiding influence of fancy” in his poetry fully entitles him to the rank of a poet. He was undoubtedly a man of genius, a poet of fancy and he possessed two of the qualifications necessary for a poet- vivid expression of his actual subjects and artistic use of the metre employed by him. Of course, Pope cannot lay claim, says Saintsbury, to “poetic transcendence”, but his extraordinary felicity of expression, and his wonderful command of the metre which he employed, cannot be challenged and, therefore “it is absurd to deny poetry to Pope”. “Know further yet; Whoever fair and chaste Rejects Mankind, is by some Sylph embrac’d: For Spirits, freed from mortal Laws, with ease Assume what Sexes and what Shapes they please.” Pope was the poet of correctness, and sought to curb wildness and disorder of unbridled imagination. The Romantic and the Metaphysical poets had corrupted poetry by indulging in extravagances and eccentricities. Pope therefore a theory of ‘A Return to Nature’. “Gods! shall the Ravisher display your Hair, While the Fops envy, and the Ladies stare! Honour forbid!at whose unrival’d Shrine Ease, Pleasure, Virtue, All, our Sex resign.” The great deficiencies’ of Pope as poet are his lack of warmth and flight- warmth of emotion and flight of imagination. These are serious deficiencies in his poetry and inspire of its rationality, good sense and intellectual clarity, it can never claim to be real genuine poetry. But of, a great deal may be allowed to Pope in view of the age in which he lived. In his one province he still stands unapproachably alone. ‘He is the greatest satirist of individual men.” Her has given the finest expression to the life of the court or the ballroom; he has added more phrases to the language than any other poet but Shakespeare, if all these achievements make a man poet, Pope is certainly one. He is the founder of the artificial style of writing which in his hands became living and powerful. Measured by any high standard of imagination Pope will certainly be found wanting, but by any test of wit, Pope sands unrivalled. “Our humbler Province is to tend the Fair, Not a less pleasing, tho’less glorious Care, To save the Powder from too rude a Gale, Nor let th’ imprisn’d Essences exhale”.. Wordsworth did not find any poetry in Pope. Wordsworth, in fact was not in a position to do justice to Pope. A man “brought up in sublime mountain solitudes and walking on earth quivering with the throes of French Revolution, could not be expected to appreciate the poet of artificial life. ‘’ Among the great English poets who had preceded Pope, Chaucer was the painter of actual life, Spenser of imaginative life, Shakespeare of ideal life, and Milton of moral and spiritual life. It remained of Pope, says Lowell, to give rhythmical utterance to conventional life, and he was eminently fitted for the task, because he was gifted with the power of intellectual expression and perfect propriety of phrase. Poetry should not represent all aspects of life. There is indeed room for all kinds of poetry in the world of the Muses. One can enjoy both natural poetry and artificial poetry- natural poetry for its nature, artificial poetry for its artificiality- provided they be good of their kind. “If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget all.”
There is no doubt that as a literary man, Pope, represents precision and graceful expression, and as a poet (if his claim as a poet is recognised) he represents understanding as opposed to imagination, which, according to Wordsworth, is the indispensable quality of poetry. There is in Pope’s poetic work a happy union of clear thinking and understanding with clarity and accuracy of expression and the pleasure which the poetry of Pope gives us is primarily due to its intellectual quality rather than any genuine poetic substance.
“… The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever, From the fair Head, for ever, and for ever. “ Dryden said: “The true end of satire is the amendment of vice by correction,” and that is what Pope set out to do in his “Rape”. By using the burlesque, mockery, innuendo and irony, Pope ridicules the deviations of his society., “Yet you may hear me witness,” writes Pope in his Dedication to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, “it (The Rape) was intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies, but at their own.” The use of the mock-heroic technique facilitates Pope’s effort at disclosing these “unguarded follies”. In the very opening lines the poet laughs at “little men” engaging in tasks so “bold”, and at gentle ladies who are capable of such “mighty rage”. In the strange battle fought between the fashionable belles and the vain beaux, the fall of Dapperwit and Sir Fopling is particularly demonstrative of the hollowness of the people of his age. And the Pope does not spare the Queen either... “Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms; The Fair each moment rises in her Charms; Repairs her Smiles,awakens ev’ry Grace And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face.” Till the end of the nineteenth century the question whether Pope was a poet was hotly debated. Wordsworth and Coleridge condemned him as the founder of the mechanical school of poetry and the originator of the artificial diction. Arnold bracketed him with Dryden as the classic of our prose. Mark Pattison described him as an unrivalled rhyme and no more. Even in the twentieth century the voices denying Pope the title of the poet have not been completely silenced. Wherein lies the truth? He has been viewed from the standpoint of periods out of sympathy with his excellences and impatient of his defects, and his influence has been regarded as a monstrous barrier restraining all deep and natural emotions until swept away by the torrent of the romantic revival. He has figured as one who left the free-air of heaven for the atmosphere of the coffee house as the first to introduce a mechanical standard of poetry, owing its acceptance to the prosaic tone of the day. Is this the correct estimate of the poetical works of Pope? “In various Talk th’ instructive hours they pass, Who gave the Ball, or paid the Visit last.” There are occasional flashes of real poetry- like the description of the sylphs-in his works, which show that he would have been a different poet in a different age. We should not judge an author for what he has done but for what he has done. We cannot, for example, deny Jane Austen the title of a great novelist because she has not written about anything outside the drawing-room. In the same way, we cannot deny the title of a great poet to Pope because his subject is nothing outside the artificial life of his time. We can enjoy classical poetry and romantic poetry. There is no reason why we should not enjoy the conventional poetry of Pope. He has done so well, what he has attempted to do, that “in his own province, he stands unapproachably alone.” “First follow Nature, and your judgement frame By her just standard, which is still the same.” It sometimes complained that Pope did not give a single new thought to the world. But of, originality does not always mean giving new thoughts to the world; it also means expressing a thought which we might have had vaguely, but which we had not (in the words of Emerson, “art or courage to clothe with form and utterance”. Pope may not have given a new thought to the world, but he clothed common thoughts with form, and gave them a vivid and forceful expression. Therein lies a source of the pleasure which we derive from Pope’s poetry. “Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav’n are cast, When Husbands, or when Lap-dogs breathe their last, Or when rich China Vessels, fal’n from high, In glitt’ring Dust and painted Fragments lie!” In the above lines from the “Rape” the antithesis is used with great effect. The mocking effect, it is clear, appears due to the pairing of such disparate things like ‘honour” with a ‘new brocade” and ‘prayers’ with a “masquerade”. Pope’s poem is a highly successful mock-epic. This not only dazzles but also edifies- It is remarkable for its wit and fancy and in Tilloston’s words “it mocks at the maximum amount of the epic”. It would not be wrong to conclude with Dr. Johnson’s words that “To the praises which have been accumulated on The Rape of the Lock by readers of every class, from the critic to the waiting maid, it is difficult to make any addition. It is universally allowed to be the most attractive of all ludicrous compositions.” “Men prove with Child, as pow’rful Fancy works, And Maids turn’d Bottles, call aloud for Corks.” The epithet ‘Augustan’ was applied, to begin with, as a term of high praise, because those who used it really believed that just as the age of Augustus was the golden age of Latin literature, the Age of Pope was the golden age of the English Literature, but that is not the view of all, and hence the original significance of the term has disappeared. But of, the epithet is still retained for the sake of convenience; it serves to bring out the analogy between the English literature of the first half of the eighteenth century and the Latin literature of the days of Virgil and Horace. In both cases, men of letters were dependent upon powerful patrons and in both cases a critical spirit prevailed. In both cases the literature, not of free creative effort and inspiration, but of self conscious and deliberate art. Pope’s Dedicatory Letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor To MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR MADAM, It will be in vain to deny that I have some Regard for this Piece, since I Dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me Witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good Sense and good Humour enough, to laugh not only at their Sex's little unguarded Follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the Air of a Secret, it soon found its Way into the World. An imperfect Copy having been offered to a Bookseller, you had the Good -Nature for my Sake to consent to the Publication of one more correct: This I was forc’d to, before I had executed half my Design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to complete it. (The “machinery” consisting of the sylphs and spirits was added by Pope in the second version of The Rappe of the Lock, the purpose being to elaborate the poem into a full-fledged mock-epic poem. Supernatural machinery is integral to any epic poem, for it shows the relationship between God and man, and the importance of Fate in human affairs.) The Machinery, Madam, is a Term invented by the Critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a Poem: for the ancient Poets are in one respect, like many modern Ladies: Let an action be never so trivial in it self, they always make it appear of the utmost Importance. These Machines I determin’d to raise on a very new and odd Foundation, the Rosicrucian Doctrine of Spirits. (Christian and Greek theology would be inappropriate in a mock-epic poem, as they are inherently solemn. Pope made a fortune choice in the Rosicrucian spirits-a fantastic system of supernatural being believed in by a community known as the Rosicrucian. Pope came across it in a French book Le Comte de Gabalis.) I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard Words before a Lady; but 'tis so much the Concern of a Poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that You must give me leave to explain two or three difficult Terms. (“The Rape of the Lock” is a mock-heroic poem with satiric purpose. The Cave of Spleen has a special relevance both in the context of the mock-heroic scheme as well as the satiric intention.) The Rosicrucians are the people I must bring You acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French Book called Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its Title and Size is so like a Novel, that many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these Gentlemen, the four Elements are inhabited by Salamanders, The Gnomes or Dæmons of Earth delight spirits which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs and. in Mischief; but the Sylphs, whose Habitation is in the Air, are the best-condition’d Creatures imaginable. For they say, any Mortals may enjoy the most intimate Familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a Condition very easy to all true Adepts, an inviolate Preservation of Chastity. (“The Rape of the Lock” consists of different types of these supernatural beings- salamanders, water spirits, gnomes, sylphs. All are the souls of women which after death become a spirit of the type most appropriate to their nature when alive. The sylphs are the celestial beings, occupying the atmosphere close to the earth. They are the spirits of the light-hearted spirit.) As to the following Canto’s all the passages of them are as Fabulous as the Vision at the Beginning, or the Transformation at the End; (except the Loss of your Hair, which I always mention with Reverence). The Human Persons are as Fictitious as the Airy ones, and the Character of Belinda, as it is now manag’d, resembles You in nothing but in Beauty.
(“The Rape of the Lock” is a title which beautifully juxtaposes the serious violence implied in “rape” with the ridiculous triviality of a “lock” of hair. The poem is concerned with love and war-two major concerns of classic epics. But of, the love here is more of flirtation and mockery and the war a grotesque battle of sexes with hair-pins and snuff over the cutting of a lock of hair.)
If this poem had as many Graces as there are in Your Person, or in Your Mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro’ the World half so Uncensured as you have done. But let its Fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this Occasion of assuring You that I am, with the truest Esteem, (The subject of the poem is, on the face of it, insignificant and absurd. Whoever heard of a lock of hair being “raped’! But of, the trivial quarrel over the snipping off a society belle’s lock of hair by a lord is given a serious and eloquent treatment to make the poem one of the best mock-heroic works in English Literature.) Madam, Your most obedient, Humble Servant,
A.POPE.
[Except the underlined and few changes in the body and pattern of letter, the actual contents of the letter only is referred at The Rape of the Lock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock]
The central incident in this poem is the ‘rape’ of Belinda’s beautiful lock of hair by the Baron and the quarrel between their two families because of this. All the main features of an epic surround this incident, we have the machinery; there is a visit to the under-world; a voyage though only on the river Thames and battles too! But of, the characters placed in this epic form cut a sorry figure and all their actions look very ridiculous. J. J. Cunningham puts it very succinctly. According to him, Pope, in this mock-epic yokes “together the ancient and the contemporary” and imparts “a modern, comparatively trivial subject, elevated treatment, simply by forcing ancient and modern into uncomfortable proximity.” Belinda has hysterics, the Hector-like Baron sneezes and the apparently grand and dignified Sir Plume turns out to be a mere being mouthing such incoherent words.
In The Rape of the Lock Pope parodies the content as well as the style of the epic. He introduces the supernatural machinery, a number of episodes like the game of Ombre, account of battles and single combats; journey to the underworld; threats of punishment to be inflicted by the chief of the supernatural on his followers and even parallels to particular epic scenes. In fact pope uses the technique of diminution. As Tilloston says, “The epic is a long poem. The Rape of the Lock is short. The story of the epic covers years; that of ‘The Rape of the Lock’ hours. The gods of the epic are stupendous creature; Pope’s sylph is tiny”. In fact the purpose of the mock-epic is satirical. The poet, by placing the subject in a framework entirely inappropriate to its importance, makes it look ridiculous. “Whatever Spirit, careless of his Charge, His Post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large, Shall feel sharp Vengeance soon ov’rtake his Sins, Be stopt in Vials, or transfixed with Pins;” But in, The Rape of the Lock is not only edification. Belinda’s stuff is a perfect contemporary reference. “Coffee, tea, and chocolate...are now become capital branches of this nation’s commerce,” wrote Defoe in 1713 and all these beverages find a place in Pope’s poem. The time when Belinda challenges two gallants to a game of Ombre is the time, “When hungry Judges soon the Sentence sign, And Wretches hang that Jury-men may Dine.”
One of the peculiarities of epic poetry is its grand style. Joseph Warton rightly puts this question before us: “If Virgil has merited such perpetual commendation or exalting his bees, by the majesty and magnificence of his diction, does not Pope deserve equal praise , for the pomp and lustre of his language on so trivial a subject?” pope shunned words which were considered low or common -place. He would rather go in for periphrasis or circumlocution and use a phrase like “finny prey”, “Earth of China”, and “The little engine” than employ such common-place words like “Fish”, “Cup” and “Scissors”. Latinisms and personifications, again, are used frequently by him to achieve the effect of elevation and dignity. Words like “Sol”, “irriguous” and “umbrageous” are used to produce exactly this effect. Another device which Pope was fond of using was the antithesis; that is, he brought together in the same line the great and the small, the significant and the insignificant thereby producing a stunning effect.
“But since, alas! Frail beauty must decay, Curl’d or uncurl’d, since Locks will turn to grey;” At the advent of the 19th century, Pope’s reputation as a poet suffered a setback. The growth of Romanticism in English literature in the late years of the 18th century and the strong roots it took in the 19th century was reaction to the 18th century poetry of which Pope and Dryden are representatives and stand out the most prominent. In this connection, Arnold’s indictment of Dryden and Pope in his The Study of Poetry is an outstanding example. In this essay, Arnold, applying his principle of “high sensuousness” to the history of English poetry, delivers his judgment to the effect that Dryden and Pope are ‘masters of prose’ , and not masters of poetry because their works according to him are lacking in grand subject, seriousness of treatment , and nobility of sentiments. The game of Ombre forms the episode of the heroic-comic epic and shows the frivolity of the age. Belinda wins and is overjoyed, but is unaware of the coming disaster, which is the crisis of the story. Immediately after Belinda’s triumph, comes the crisis. Clarissa offers to Lord Petre a pair of scissors” a two edged weapon” in the manner of ladies assisting their Knight. When the Baron is cutting off the curl, -Swift to the Lock a thousand Sprights repair, A thousand Wings, by turns , blow back the Hair, This is what the great aristocratic ladies and gentlemen do gossiping, talking scandal and discussing such inane topics like dance and courtesy calls. All this reminds us the characters in the “Rape” are mere types and not whole, rounded characters. Nowhere do we get the true feelings and emotions of these characters. But on, if we keep in mind the nature of the work it will become amply clear why this is so. As it is, a poet in his satirical work of art has to paint his characters in “extremes of colours”; otherwise “the amendment of vices by correction” would not be possible. “Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favourite lock; Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock; To fifty chosen sylphs, of Special Note, We trust the important Charge, the Petticoat:” Such vivid pictures of the contemporary society in which “lovers just at twelve, awake” is juxtaposed on to a world of the ethereal. He has equated the grave work of taking counsel on State matters with the triviality of taking tea. Pope is unremitting in his criticism of the ladies and lords of his time. Some “dire-disaster” is to overtake Belinda, but the guardian spirits do not know. The poet is making fun of the attitudes of the ladies of his time. To them, it seems, losing one’s virginity is as big or small a disaster as breaking of a China Vase! Honour is no more important than a new brocade and forgetting to say one’s prayer is like missing a mask ball. Thus, we see that the real is blended with the unreal, the fact with the fiction, creating a world of the mock-heroic. “Or stain her Honour, or new Brocade, Forget her Prayers, or miss a Masquerade, Or lose her Heart, or Necklace, at a Ball;” For any work of art, its diction is of great importance. By diction is meant the choice and arrangement of words so as to achieve the desired effect. Naturally, it differs according to the subject, the literal form, and the age in which a particular work is written. In a good poem, the diction is in character with the person who is speaking. It was William Hazlitt who had called the Rape “the most exquisite specimen of filigree work ever invented.” But for, in spite of all the wealth of ornament and detail, the main subject of the poem is never lost sight of. In fact, all this “filigree work”, serves as a purpose and is not merely introduced to give brightness and dazzle to the work. All this ornamentation and decoration has been introduced so as to perch the characters on the pedestal and then let them fall; to show them in all their pomp and grandeur only to reveal their real hollowness and levity. “Whether the Nymph shall break Diana’s Law, Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw; Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade, Forget her Pray’rs or miss a Masqurade”. It is obvious that his achievements do not belong to the very highest forms of poetry. We do not breathe in his works the spirit of the broad beneficence and large humanity of Shakespeare, nor the high toned grandeur of Milton’s conceptions, nor do we hear the ineffable music of Shelley. But of, it is useless to condemn him because he was not somebody else. He is a great poet because of the many-reasons. Brooks, however, believed that sexual symbolism runs throughout the poem. He refers to the line pointed out by the critics, and particularly the game of Ombre as a symbol of the war of the sexes. Every card and every move in the game suggests some sexual image. “No common Weapons in their Hands are found, Like Gods they fight, nor dread a moral Wound.”
“The Rape of the Lock”, says Lowell: “(it) ranks itself as one of the purest works of human fancy.” But of, more than the fancy of the poem, the perfect keeping (harmony) of the poem deserves admiration. There is unity of construction and harmony in all the conceptions and images of the poem, and therein lies the supreme art of The Rape of the Lock. But of, this view of poetry and the Arnoldian attitude towards Augustan poetry were rejected later by such critics as T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis and others. According to these modern critics the criterion to judge poetry is not the subject matter but what is made of the subject, however trivial and commonplace it may be. As Aristotle put it, a poet was primarily a maker; a maker of language adequate to the experience. And Pope’s poetic craftsmanship, his sense of structure and his handling of language and rhythm prove him to be a great poet.
The Rape of the Lock certainly does not belong to the highest class of poetry; its range is extremely limited, and it deals with artificial life. It is not to be compared with a great poem like Paradise Lost, but within its limits shows perfection of artifice, which rises to the height of art. The Rape of the Lock is a mock –heroic poem in which the petty actions and sufferings of the fine world are epically treated and the contrasts, continually suggested with bigger things, reveal the poet’s truth. “Hither the Heroes and Nymphs resort, To taste awhile the Pleasures of a Court; In various Talk th’ instructive hours they past, Who gave the Ball, or paid the Visit last:” The idea of the goddess of Spleen, dwelling in her place where “the dreaded East is all the wind that blows”, is a very happy one, and fits in with the story. A fight in the mock-heroic manner begins between the followers of Belinda and those, of the Baron. The spirits help in the fight just as gods and goddess did in the Trojan War described by Homer. Belinda wins the fight and demands the return of her lock. In the meantime, the lock had ascended to the sky. It is changed into a constellation. This is the end of the poem: the lock of hair round which the poem turns is exalted to the position of a star. “Restore the lock, She cries, and all around “Restore the lock” the vaulted Roofs rebound.” The keynote of the poem is struck here, and we put ourselves in tune with it. The poet then introduces the heroine Belinda. She awakes but falls asleep again to dream of the well-dressed youth who, it appears, is the chief of the pigmies of the sky. In the true epic style, pope opens his mock epic piece with an invocation, suggesting the theme of the poem. “Down to the Central Earth, his proper Scene, Repair’d to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.” The supernatural machinery of the poem is just in keeping with the atmosphere of the poem. The airy beings are as artificial as the life with which the poem deals, and the functions, apportioned to different spirits, have all the insignificance of foppery and folly. These airy beings are not and cannot be the gay fairies of The Midsummer Night’s Dream. They belong to the ethereal world of foppery, and are as vain and pleasure loving as their human counterparts. The souls of fashionable ladies, when they die, retire to their first elements, and form the light militia of the sky. It is a band of these spirits that are now waiting on Belinda. The mythology of the sylphs is Pope’s own creation, and shows his fanciful wit at its best. Indeed, ‘wit infused with fancy is Pope’s peculiar merit”. The punishments with which delinquent spirits are threatened are charmingly appropriate an ingenious. “Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen, With throngs promiscuous strew the level green.” The supernatural machinery employed in describing battle scene fits in with the artificial though humorous atmosphere of the poem. And Pope goes on to compare this battle of the sexes, the warriors employing such fantastic weapons like fans and bodkins-with the battle of the great gods which Homer describes. The toilet was an important feature of a fashionable lady’s daily life, and so Belinda’s toilet is described in detail. The most glittering appearance is given to everything –to paste, to pomatum, billet-doux and patches. “The toilet is described with the solemnity of an alter raised to the goddess of vanity.” Belinda, now armed with all the charms and smiles, goes out for boating. Her locks have captivated the heart of Baron, who wants to possess them by any means. He prays for success to the Goddess of Love who grants his prayer. The ceremony accompanying the prayer is in keeping with fashionable triviality of the theme. “Sooner shall Grass in Hide-Park Circus grow, And Wits take Lodgings in the Sound of Bow; Sooner let Earth,Air,Sea,to Chaos fall, Men,Monkies,Lap-dogs, Parrots, perish all!” The heroic-couplet is the fitting medium of the heroic-comical poem. The couples are artistically handled so as to suit on the one hand the triviality of the subject and on the other, the exigencies of the narrative where there is occasion for satire, they are full of brilliancy and wit, balance and epigram. “Not with more Glories, in th’Ethereal Plain, The Sun first rises o’er purpled Main, Than issuing forth, the Rival of his Beams Launch’d on the Bosom of the silver Thames.” When Pope compares Belinda with the sun it is not in the same strain as when Dryden compares Shadwell with Hanibal. The comparison of Belinda with the sun is a wild exaggeration but it is nonetheless absurd merely because it is a common place image in love poetry. Pope, of course, was quite aware of this absurdity. Though the comparison is absurd it does contain an element of imaginative truth as is reflected in a different way in this line: -Belinda smil’d and all the World was gay. The epic, whether of early or more modern times, is (i) a narrative poem, (ii) of supposed divine inspiration, (iii) treating of great and momentous importance for mankind, (iv) the characters of the story being partly divine, and (v) the language and style in which the incidents are related being full of elevation and dignity. If a long narrative poem should satisfy all the tests of epic poetry, but the subject which is celebrated be a trivial nature, like the cutting off lock of a woman’s hair, which is the story that is related in Pope’s The Rape of Lock, then such a poem is called a mock-epic. A mock-epic poem is supposed to be the inspiration of a Muse, the characters are partly human and partly divine, and the language is stilled and grandiose, but the subject is of very frivolous and commonplace nature. “Unnumber’d Throngs on ev’ry side are seen, Of Bodies chang’d to various Forms by Spleen.” Thus, wit, fancy, and satire, combining together in a harmonious form and design make The Rape of the Lock a masterpiece of art and construction within its limited sphere. “The whole poem more truly deserves the name of a creation than anything Pope ever wrote. The action is confined to a world of his own; the supernatural agency is wholly of his own contrivance and nothing is allowed to overstep the limitations of the subject…The perfection of form in The Rape of the Lock is to me conclusive evidence that in it the natural genius of Pope found fuller and free expression than in any other of his poems. The others are aggregates of brilliant passages rather than humerous wholes.”(Lowell) “Not Tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia when her Manteau’s pin’d awry, E’er felt such Rage, Resentment, and Despair, As , sad Virgin! For thy ravish’d Hair.” Pope’s The Rape of the Lock contains very few of the directly “diminishing” image of direct and blunt satire in which Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe abounds. Pope usually makes use of the mock-heroic image which heightens the effect of the fundamental irony. “Roar’d for the Handkerchief that caus’d his Pain,” as Belinda, for the stolen lock. Earlier in the poem, the sustained use of similies, allusions of the tiny celestial beings, elevates the game of Ombre to a higher level which in itself a merely a battle of the sexes. “Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain Roar’d for the Handkerchief that caus’d his Pain.” Mock-epic or mock-heroic or heroic-comical, terms virtually interchangeable, are applied to literary works in which the epic or heroic tradition is ridiculed or mocked. Sometimes the devices of Homer’s epics are directly burlesque-as in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, the grave-yard battle of Molly Seagrim in Fielding’s Tom Jones, and Byron’s Don Juan. Ian Jack observes that a mock-heroic poem is a “Parody of the Epic.” He adds: “In mock epic, a dignified genre is turned to witty use without being cheapened in anyway. The poet has an opportunity of ridiculing through incongruity, and of affording his reader the sophisticated pleasure of recognizing ironical parallels to familiar passages in Homer and Virgil.” “Sol through white Curtains shot a tim’rous Ray, And op’d those Eyes that must eclipse the day.” Hazlitt has called the poem ‘the perfection of the mock-epic’. It belongs to the literary type, called burlesque or parody, on a large scale. In it, not a single poem, but the whole type or style of literature is travestied (parodied); the language and thought, proper to a serious theme are reproduced in describing something ridiculous or trivial. The eighteenth century with its passion for the ancients, was familiar with the whole epic tradition. It contains, among others, parody of Homer (in the description of the battle), Virgil, Aristo and Milton. The parallels to Paradise Lost of Milton and Pope’s The Rape of Lock are numerous, but the most crucial parallel is the scene which occurs just before the cutting of the lock, when Ariel discovers the secret longing of the beautiful Belinda. He finds an earthly lover lurking in Belinda’s heart. The situation is apparently an echo of the moment in Paradise Lost when, after the fall of Adam and Eve, the angles retire to their heavenly abode feeling sorry for them. The two battle as depicted in the poem are inflated and treated ironically and echo the battle of Troy and Carthage. The card game is a mock-battle, a symbolical war between the sexes. The card-game is actually an unconscious amorous skirmish. Belinda’s conduct of the war begins with words which have an epic grandeur. In the same manner Belinda’s voyage to Hampton Court suggests the voyage of Aeneas up the Tiber, described by Virgil. The coffee drinking is a parody of descriptions of meals of Homer. Belinda’s petticoat is treated as the seven-fold shield of Ajax, and her lament for her severed hair suggests the lamentation of Virgil’s Dido. “If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget all.” Belinda is a complex character. It is not possible to find a single label to cover up her qualities. Undoubtedly, she is a representative of the upper class women of the eighteenth century, but of she is more than a mere type. She has her own personality and stands out by her whims and fancies. The very fact that the poet first calls her a goddess and in the end a heavenly being, shows that Pope worships beauty and had an over-riding respect for the fair sex. Who would spoil his chances of success with the fair sex by satire, except at his own peril! It is impossible to find a parallel to Belinda in any other poem of the eighteenth century. “How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains, Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains: That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace, Behold the first in Virtue as in Face!” The Rape of the Lock is a heroic-comical poem. A successful heroic-comical or mock-heroic poem meant much more in the days of Pope than it can possibly mean in our days. The men of letters of that age knew and reverted the classics much more than what we of modern time consider to be worthwhile to know or revere. Not only in the main frame-work but in numerous details there are so many points of similarly intentionally introduced between the old epics and the new satiric poems that to appreciate them fully is a difficult task today. The Rape of the Lock has been rightly called by Ryland “a mosaic of quotation, parodies and allusions derived from the masters of the epic and narrative poetry.” “Homer and Virgil dip forth at almost every other line; Milton and Ovid are not less persistent.” The very opening of the poem is in approved classical manner; the turn of expressions used reminds us of the epic masters. The descriptions of the functions of the sylphs and nymphs take us back to Homer, Virgil and Milton. The ‘Machinery’, Pope reminds us, is an essential part of the epic and so he cannot do without one suitable to his mock-heroic poem. The cave of Spleen is reminiscent of the grotto of Circe. The heroic bombast of the Baron are parodies of Hectorian orations. Then battle between the beaux and the belles is a right royal Homeric battle; even the game of Ombre is a delicate parody of epical fights. “It would be almost true to say”, observes Holden, “that in this heroic-comical poem, it is the comical part which makes most appeal to us, as the heroic part did do our ancestors. Pope called The Rape of Lock a “heroic-comical poem”. It belongs to class of literature called “burlesque”. A burlesque is a parody on a large scale, in which not a single poem but a whole type of style of literature is parodied, the language and thought proper to a serious theme being reproduced in setting forth something ridiculous or trivial. “Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, Burns to encounter two adventurous knights, At ombre singly to decide their doom; And swells her breast with conquest yet to come. “ The burlesque is partly a matter of treatment and partly a matter of language. By treating an insignificant subject in the manner of an epic the poem parodies that form of poetry. Instead of grand passions and great fights between heroes in which the immortals take part, we have as the theme of The Rape of Lock a petty amorous quarrel assisted by the spirits of the air. The epic portrays an age round the personality of a god or a semi-god, and its characters are heroes. The Rape of the Lock, on the other hand, gives us a picture of a fashionable society. The central figure in that picture is a pretty society girl, and the other characters are a rash youth, a foolish dandy and a few frivolous women. Instead a deep and genuine passion, as are found in ancient epics we come across a succession o mock passions in The Rape of Lock. “Why round our Coaches crowd the white-glov’d Beaus, Why bows the Side box from its inmost Rows?” The action of The Rape of the Lock turns on a trivial incident- the cutting of a lock of hair from a lady’s head. Such a thing had taken place. One Lord Petre cut off a lock of hair from the head of Lady Arabella Fermor. There was a quarrel between the two families, and Pope was requested to make a jest of the incident, and ‘laugh them together’. This was the occasion of the composition of the poem. Pope did give to the world a fine work of wit-the best mock-heroic poem in the English language, but we do not know whether the families were reconciled. The mock-heroic character of the poem is perceived in the very title. Rape is a serious moral offence which means the violation of a woman’s chastity by force. It also refers to the seizure of a lady by some ruffians in a grossly inhuman manner. In any case, rape is a grave crime, affecting the social decency of a human being. Pope has used this term in an amusing way. The possession of the hair of Belinda by the Baron is described by him in a mock serious vein. The title evokes nothing but the mock sensation and well indicates the mock-heroic characters of Pope’s work. “Fairest of Mortals, thou distinguish’d Care, Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!” The theme of the poem is suggested in the invocation, as in an epic poem, but the theme is ridiculously trivial, in comparison with the great theme of an epic. The action opens in a mock-heroic manner with the awakening of Belinda, the heroine of the poem. Belinda is the very goddess of beauty and the luster of her eyes surpass that of the sun, who peeped timorously through the white curtains in Belinda’s room. The whole structure of The Rape of the Lock is cast in the epic mould, but it could not be a serious epic, because the incident is trivial-so we have the mock-heroic or heroic-comical poem. The poem is divided into Cantos like an epic poem, and there are ironical parallels to the main incidents of the epic. As in epics, in The Rape of the Lock too, divine beings are portrayed. Belinda is in divine care of the sylphs. There is the mischievous gnome who like Milton’s Satan, is intent upon making Belinda miserable and thereby all her admirers. The gnome addresses the wayward Queen who rules the sex from fifteen to fifty. And then he collects, “a wondrous bag”, from the “wayward Queen’’ in which she has put “The force of female lungs, sighs, sobs and passions and the war of tongues” and a vial filled with “fainting fears, soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.”But of, then the sylphs are fragile, airy beings and they are helpless before the caprices of men. Despite all their concern for Belinda, her beautiful lock of hair is raped by the naughty Baron. “Sudden he view’d, in spite of all her Art, An Earthly Lover lurking at her Heart. Amaz’d , confus’d, he found his power expir’d, Resigned to Fate, and with Sigh retir’d.” The epic always uses the supernatural element. In the Iliad there are gods and goddesses; in The Rape of the Lock, there are the sylphs and gnomes. These aerial spirits are small and insignificant things, and are therefore, exactly in keeping with the triviality of the theme. They guard the personality of the heroine and when there is a fight between the followers of Belinda and those of the Baron; they take part in the fight, like the gods and goddesses in Trojan War. An epic poem must contain some episodes also. In keeping with this practice Pope has introduced the episode of the game of Ombre which is described in great detail. There is also the hazardous journey of Umbriel to the Cave of Spleen. Then there is the battle between the lords and ladies just like the battles in epic poetry, but in the true mock-heroic style this battle is fought with fans and snuff instead of with swords and spears. There are single combats also between Belinda and the Baron and between Clarissa and Sir Plume. The Rape of the Lock is a mock heroic poem-that is to say a poem in which trivial things are mockingly treated in a heroic or exalted manner. A heroic or epic style is imitated, but of a mock-heroic poem is not merely parody of the epic; in a mock heroic poem trivial things are shown by comic contrast in all their trivialities. The ‘clouded cane’ as compared with the Homer’s ‘spear’ indicates the difference of scale-the lower of the mock-heroic style. “Say, what strange motive, Goddess! Cou’d compel A well-bred Lord t’ assault a gentle Belle?” In the true epic style, Pope opens his mock epic piece with an invocation, suggesting the theme of the poem. The keynote of the poem is struck here, and we put ourselves in tune with it. The poet then introduces the heroine Belinda. She awakes but falls asleep again to dream of the well-dressed youth who, it appears, is the chief of the pigmies of the sky. “So when bold Homer makes the gods engage And heav’nly Breasts with human Passions rage; ‘Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;” Thus, wit, fancy, and satire, combining together in a harmonious form and design make The Rape of the Lock a masterpiece of art and construction within its limited sphere. “The whole poem more truly deserves the name of a creation than anything Pope ever wrote. The action is confined to a world of his own; the supernatural agency is wholly of his own contrivance and nothing is allowed to overstep the limitations of the subject…The perfection of form in The Rape of the Lock is to me conclusive evidence that in it the natural genius of Pope found fuller and free expression than in any other of his poems. The others are aggregates of brilliant passages rather than humerous wholes.”(Lowell) “But when to mischief Mortals bend their Will, How soon they find fit Instruments of Ill!” Hazlitt observes: “No pains are spared, no profusion or ornament, splendor of poetic diction, to set off the meanest thing. The balance between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity is nicely trimmed, the little is made great and the great made little. It is the triumph of insignificance, the apotheosis of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of the mock-heroic.” Thus, in The Rape of the Lock the poet has heightened the little, exalted the insignificant, in order to make the little and the insignificant look more ridiculous. He employs the mock-heroic form, not to mock the epic form, but to show the triviality of mean things by contrasting them with great things. This is the true mock-heroic style. “And now, unveil’d, the Toilet stands display’d, Each SilverVase in mystic Order laid. First, rob’d in White, the Nymph intent adores, With head uncoverr’d and Cosmetic Pow’rs, A heavenly Image in the Glass appears, To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears.” When the first version of The Rape of the Lock appeared Addison with his usual geniality, frankly commended the poem as ‘merum sal’ or ‘a bit of pure wit’. That version, of course, has undergone immense changes and enlargement, but the original quality of wit of the poem has, in no way been, adversely affected. “Let Spades be Trumps! She said, and Trumps they were.”
The Rape of the Lock bears fully the witticism of its age. In his conception of the theme and selection of the title, Pope displays his unsurpassable wit. The theme of the poem is the rape of the lock of a fashionable belle by one of her hungry admirers. This is quite a trivial but Pope makes his amusing epic out of it. The whole course of the poem-from the dream of Belinda to the mysterious disappearance of her lock-is ingeniously contrieved and speaks of Pope’s wonderful sense of wit. The very little of the poem is wittily conceived as a parody on such well-known incidents like the rape of Helen and the rape of Lucrece in literature. The title of Pope, is comically associated with a mere lock of hair and echoes wittily the epical episodes of Homer and Shakespeare.
[Translation of the Latin Verse written to the context of letter-‘I had not wished, Belinda to dishonor your hair.. But of, it delights me to have yielded to your request.’] The poem bears out amply how Pope has succeeded in realizing his mock-heroic design in which the little is made great and the great little. This epic frame-work contains a mock-heroic portrait, and the whole work is an entertaining travesty on epic poetry. Pope imitates the strain of the epic poem in his description even of the slight or trivial affairs. The dream which Ariel brings to the drowsy belle contains much that is humerously serious. The function of the sylphs, the effect of their work on the thoughtless brain of young lady and the frail nature of a woman are all suggested with an affected gravity that evokes only laughter. Belinda’s toilette is another engaging account in which Pope has attributed in a perfectly mock-heroic manner, the solemnity of a religious observance the luxurious toilette of a lady of fashion, and frivolity. Puffs, powders patches, Bibles, billet-doux are all brought on the same table and the slight and the serious are all strangely synthesized. The Rape of the Lock is a rare instance in which the slight theme is given an exalted treatment for satirical purposes. All through the poem, most importance is given to all that is thoroughly unimportant and insignificant and practically meaningless and farcical. The very conception of writing an epic on the rape of a lock of hair is funny and bears testimony to the poet’s effort to make ‘the title great and the great little.’ “My lord, why what the devil Zounds damn the lock for god, you must be civil Plague on’t, ‘tis Past is Jest-nay, prithee pox Give her the hair”-he spoke, and rapp’d his box.” Perhaps, Pope’s wit reaches its apex in the account given by him, about the shock of Belinda after the rape of her lock. Belinda’s frustration at the tragedy of her ravished hair is described with some witty analogies. The Baron’s resolve to retain the lock forever is also surcharged with witty mock-seriousness. Of course, Pope’s wit is not sufficiently refined and imaginative. Some marks of grossness and vulgarity are unmistakably perceptible in the poem. Like Swift’s, Pope’s wit has the trenchant shafts of satire that disturbs much of the pure fun and fancy. This defect of Pope’s wit, however, belongs to his own age. It is not his own fault. He is there, fully dominated by the literary trend of his age. “Or the small pillow grace a lady’s bed, While visits shall be paid on solemn days, When numerous wax-light in bright order blaze, While nymphs take treats, or assignations give.” Nevertheless, Pope’s wit, as glaring displayed in The Rape of the Lock, remains in the ultimate analysis, quite engaging and impressive. The poem in the words of Hazlitt, ‘is a double-refined essence of wit and fancy”. Wilson Knight regards the poem as a synthesis of the sexual and the religious, and this is organic to its humour. He dwells on the Eros cult. Just as he God of Love was worshipped in ancient times, in the same way, the goddess of beauty as worshipped in the eighteenth century. “Oh thoughtless Mortals! Ever blind to Fate, Too soon dejected, and too soon elate! Sudden these Honours shall be snatch’d away, And curs’d for ever this Victorious Day.” The Rape of the Lock belongs to a literary age of wit and satire it reflects the spirits of its time and remains a distinct piece of the heroic comical poetry of the age. This class of poetry is essentially witty in substance and its success depends on the flash of wit and the roar of laughter. In theme and treatment heroic-comical poetry parodies a wittily the sublime or serious element to establish its superiority as a mere travesty. “That while my nostrils drew the vital air, This hand which won it, shall for ever wear.” Juvenal and Horace are the two well-known satirists in verse of Roman literature. The former’s satire is pointed, full of force and often savage. The fierce indignation of Juvenal’s censure and ridicule stands comparison with that of Swift in English literature, only that the latter is a prose satirist. Horace’s irony is more graceful and easy; he chides with a smile. His manner might be compared with that of Addison in the Spectator Papers. Satire is a distinct element in Chaucer, and yet he cannot be called a satirist. There is no misanthropy or cynicism in him, and his heart is too full of the milk of human kindness to qualify him for the trade of a satirist. In the Elizabethan Age, John Donne (1573-1631), John Marston (1575-1634), and Joseph Hall (1574-1656), wrote poetical satires; their work is lacking in vigour, but it makes up for it in scrutiny and abuse. In the seventeenth century, Dryden wrote a number of satires: Political, Absalom and Achitophel, personal, Mac Flecknoe, religious, The Hind and the Panther. In the succeeding period Pope is the great master of verse satire. The Dunciad or The Progress of Dullness, in which most of the writers who had the misfortune to incur the enmity of Pope are pilloried, and some of his Epistles belong to this class of writing. According to Richard Garnet, “the expression in adequate terms of the sense of amusement or disgust excited by the ridiculous or unseemly, provided that humour is a distinctly recognized element, and that the utterance is invested with literary form. Without humour satire is invective; without literary form it is mere clownish jeering.” “Should only rule who not resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his tender years;” The mention of the losing of honour by Belinda clearly refers to the loss of her chastity. From the technical standpoint, The Rape of the Lock is essentially witty in character. The poem, in fact, is not simply a satire on the fashionable and frivolous English society of the eighteenth century. It is a witty parody of the heroic or epic style in poetry. The form of verse is quite comical with the diverting fall from the lofty thought to the mean. “But this bold Lord, with manly Strength indu’d, She with one Finger and a Thumb subdu’d: Just where the Breath of Life his Nostrils drew, A Change of Snuff the wily Virgin threw;” The element of the wit is marked all through the poem. Belinda’s toilet is conceived in quite a entertaining and humerous manner. The description of the belles as the priestess of the sacred rite of pride is truly witty and the details of the object of toilet are drawn with a rape sense of the comic. Equally witty in conception is the alter built by the Baron with ‘twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.’ The game of Ombre, which is patterned after some epic battle is too a gift of pure wit. The servance of the lock from Belinda’s head by the ‘glittering forfex wide’ shows the same gift of wit. The amusing portrait of Sir Plume, with amber snuff box and ‘clouded cane’ is a fine piece of wit, and equally witty is Pope’s presentation of his utterance of absolute nonsense. “How awful beauty puts on all its arms; The fair each moment rises in her charms.” The rhetorical from known as anti-climax, is fully exploited by the poet here to produce a truly comical and witty effect, as evident in the lines below- -Here thou, great Anna whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea. Besides this, there are many suggestive words and phrases like “soft bosoms” “winning lips “,”the melting maids”, “midnight masquerades”, “white breast”, “the charge of the petticoat” which have obviously sexual implications and are not capable of giving any other meaning. But of, triumph of Pope’s wit is, perhaps evident in his depiction of the strange battle, fought between the fashionable belles and the vain beaux. The fall of the Dapperwit and Sir Flopping is particularly couched in a witty vein. Belinda’s triumph over the Baron with a pinch of snuff is contrivance, hardly outmatched in wit anywhere else. Lastly, the explanation given for the cause of the disappearance of Belinda’s lock, in the same way, bears out Pope’s wit that triumphs all through the poem. “The adventurous Baron the bright locks admired: He saw, he wished,and to the prize aspired.” When Shadwell is called the “last great prophet of tautology” in Mac Flecknoe, Dryden is not only passing an adverse judgment on Shadwell alone but on the whole race of poetasters. Pope’s range on the other hand, is somewhat limited. In The Rape of the Lock the whole panorama is limited to 18th century aristocratic life. In the strange battle, fought between the fashionable belles and the vain beaux, the fall of Dapperwit and Sir Fopling is particularly demonstrative of the hollowness of the people of this age. And even the greatest of the great, the Queen herself is satirized to produce a truly comical and witty effect. Even for the Queen the taking of counsel and the taking of tea is the same trivial matter. “Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive, And Love of Ombre after Death survive.” The true objective of a good satire is moral. It amends the vices by castigation. The satirist, in the language of Dryden, “is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease.”In Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe”, Flecknoe is in search of a successor to his throne of foolishness finds no one better than his son Shadwell (whom Dryden considers to be a poetaster and a fool) of whom he says, -Tis resolved, for nature pleads that he Should only rule who not resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his tender years; Shadwell alone of all my sons is he Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence. But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Poetic satire might very properly be regarded as didactic poetry, for the object it has in view is the reformation of men and manners, and to this end the satirist takes the liberty of boldly censuring vice and vicious characters.“The true end of satire is the amendment of vice by correction,” says Dryden. And most people agree that satire is a “criticism of life, an exposure of human weaknesses, follies, absurdities and short comings.” The satirist uses humour, wit, mockery, ridicule, innuendo and irony gives him the standard or ideal with which he ridicules the deviations of society. “Or lose her Heart or Necklace at a Ball; Or whether Heav’n has doom’d that Shock must fall.” The Rape of the Lock is a satire on the aristocratic strata of the 18th century society. In the very opening lines, the poet laughs at “little” men engaging in tasks so “bold”, and at gentle ladies who are capable of such “mighty rage”. The contrast between “tasks so bold” and “little men” and another between “soft bosoms” and “mighty rage” is very wittily constructed and cuts down to size these vain people of Pope’s time. “Let Wreaths of Triumph now my Temples twine (The victor cry’d) the glorious is mine!” With such scathing ridicule no other poet would dare to write again and Dryden has been completely successful in his mission. This is exactly the function of satire. Pope’s satire, too, functions in somewhat the same manner. In The Rape of the Lock when Lord Plume is requested by his lady-love to persuade Lord Petre to surrender the “precious hairs” of Belinda, he utters words which are unsurpassed in their emptiness. What a torrent of meaningless words! Satire predominates in the works of Pope. Even a cursory glance at his poetry reveals that the major part of it consists of satire or is satiric in spirit. The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, Moral Essays, Satires and Ephistles of Horace Imitated are the best of his satires. Pope wrote many satires against individuals, which were deadly and sharp and they are marked by bitterness and malice. Stopford Brooke, while comparing Dryden and Pope as satirists, points out that Dryden’s work is done in large outline. “It has relation not only to the man he is satirizing, but to the whole of human nature, Pope’s satire is thin, it confines itself to person, it has no relation to the greater world beyond his clique, and its voice both sharp and querulous, rises sometimes to a shriek of feeble vacuity.” “Hear me, and touch Belinda, with Chagrin; That single Act gives half the World the Spleen.” The satire in The Rape of the Lock is directed not against any individual, but against the follies and vanities in general of fashionable men and women. Pope started writing this poem with the object of conciliating two quarrelling families but as the poem progressed, the poet forgot his original intention, and satirized female follies and vanities. Belinda is not Arabella Fermor; she is the type of the fashionable ladies of the time, and in her the follies and frivolities of the whole sex are satirized. And the Baron represents not Petre but typifies the aristocratic gentlemen of the age. The strange battle between the sexes shows what sort of people these were. Just one example will amply demonstrate the levity of these people and also show that the criticism was leveled not against any individual alone but against the whole gamut of the aristocratic vanguard. And these lines which come earlier: -When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, Chloe stept in and kill’d him with a Frown; She smil’d to see the doughty Hero slain, But, at her smile,the Beau reviv’d again. Pope’s satire is intellectual, and full of wit and epigram. His picture of Addison as Atticus though unjust and prompted by malice, is a brilliant piece of satire. “As an intellectual observer and describer of personal weakness, Pope stands by himself in English verse.”(Lowell).Not only that, the poet has also satirized the system of justice and the judges. At four in the afternoon, judges hurriedly sign the sentence so that they could have their dinner in time. This is their sense of responsibility. Even the concept of friendship has been attacked. Friends are hollow and fickle. Belinda’s friend Thalestris is as shallow as the age in which she lives. As soon as the reputation of Belinda is gone, she does not like to e called her friend, because it will be a disgrace to be known as her friend henceforth. “Propt on their Bodkin Spears, the Sprights survey The growing Combat, or assist the Fray.” But of, Pope’s criticism is not negative. He strikes mightily with his sweeping banter, but he instructs and advises, too, for the cure of the moral degeneration of his age. The poem has a moral purpose, and this constitutes the constructive aspect of Pope’s cynicism of life. The long speech, given to Clarissa, at the beginning of Canto V chiefly contains his unambiguous instruction to his age, particularly to the ladies of fashion and rank of his time. Through this lecture, Pope tries to enlighten and rectify the frivolous society of his time. He gives his wise counsel here to the gay and silly pursuers of pleasures and vanities, about the transience of all fashions and show, and the triumph of the quality of the character. After all, beauty with all its charms and allurements, must pass away ere long, and can gain nothing, in the ultimate analysis without the virtue of heart. All the female charms of a lovely belle would seem meaningless, unless a good and loving husband brings out the best in her. “Mean while, declining from the Noon of Day, The Sun obliquely shoots his burning Ray; The hungry Judges soon the Sentence sign, And Wretches hang that Jury-men may Dine;” Addison was too condescending with his pretty pupils; but under Pope’s courtesy there lurks contempt, and his smile has a disagreeable likeness to a sneer. If Addison’s manner sometimes suggests the brilliant wit, Pope’s contempt has a keener edge from his resentment against fine ladies blinded to his genius by his personal deformity. Even in his dedication, Pope with unconscious impertinence insults his heroine for her presumable ignorance of his critical jargon. His smart epigrams want but a slight change of tone to become satire. It is the same writer who begins an essay on women’s characters by telling a woman that her sex is a compound of “Matter too soft a lasting mask to bear; And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair”, and communicates to her the pleasant truth that every woman is at heart a rake. Women, in short, are all frivolous beings, whose genuine interest is in love-making. The same sentiment is really implied in the more playful lines of The Rape of the Lock. The sylphs are warned by omens that some misfortune impends; but they don’t know what! We can understand that Miss Fermor would feel such raillery to be equivocal. It may be added that an equal want of delicacy is implied in the mock-heroic battle at the end, where the ladies are gifted with an excess of screaming power. “In Tasks so bold can Little Men engage, And in soft Bosoms dwell such mighty Rage?” We see her, next going with a party of admirers, up the river Thames to Hampton Court palace and holding her Darbar there as if she were a queen. She smiles upon well-dressed fops that crowded round her. Then follows an account of the game of cards and of coffee drinking, leading to the catastrophe, the cutting of her lock of hair. He then describes the hypocritical fits of passion and battles for the severed lock of hair. ‘Here is an epic of the frivolous’. Pope paints the vanity and shallowness of this life. Likewise, the poet also gives us an account of the frivolous young men. They run after ladies, now this, now that; they hang about their boxes in the theatres and their coaches in the Hyde Park. They display their hair in rings; give parties and invite people to balls. They are as insincere and hollow as ladies whom they love. “The men may say, when we the front box grace, Behold the first in virtue as in face.’’ Pope was inspired by a prevailing sentiment of contempt towards the whole female sex. The witty lines are read not with kind irony but as disagreeable sneers. If Miss Fermor was pleased, as she seems to have been with her reflection in the character of Belinda, she certainly gave countenance to what was evidently Pope’s opinion. Perhaps the idle society- women of Pope’s day deserved no higher estimate: but it is not to be supposed that the whole sex was dominated by puffs, powders, patches and billet-doux. It is fair to laugh at the lovers and lap-dogs, the devotion to Bohea and China vases: it is not fair to leave us with the impression that nothing higher was possible. But for, as Pope thought it is not a poet’s business to look beyond his age, the result may be accepted, because the poem undoubtedly strikes off a vivid picture of certain current fashions which were as ludicrous as they were transitory. The picture remains bright and entertaining because under similar conditions these fashions do arise from certain traits in female character which seem to be fundamental. “This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless Skies, When next he looks thro’ Galileo’s Eyes; And hence th’ Egregious Wizard shall foredoom The Fate of Louis, and the Fall of Rome.” The poem is a reflection of this artificial and hollow life, painted with a humorous and delicate satire. It paints the idle life of the pleasure-seeking young men and women. It introduces us to a world of frivolity and fashion, which was busy with its pleasures. These pleasures were petty and frivolous-dressing, flirting, card playing, driving in Hyde Park, visiting theatres, writing love-letters, and so on and so forth. Their whole day’s programme seems to be nothing but a waste. We see, here, Belinda sleeping on till noon and dreaming of young lovers and fashions of dress. Her lap dog Shock awakens her with a lick of his tongue. This is significant. She first reads love-letters and then goes straight to her dressing or toilette table. Pope gives a very original and witty account of her toilet. So vain is she that dressing seems to be some religious rite or ceremony. He calls it ‘the scared rites of Pride’. The number of cosmetics on the table, the whole procedure of preparing the toilette, etc., is a great satire on fashionable ladies of the times. Their dress is frivolous, their minds are sprightly and their hearts moving toy-shops which they sell now to John and then to David. “A Beau and Witling perished in the Throng, One dy’d in Metaphor, and one in Song.” Thus, the poem is a delicate, playful, humorous, original, witty satire on the upper class society of the eighteenth century. Though genial and gentle, it is at times deadly. It does not condemn Swift; it exposes the follies with a light ridicule. The poem is, in fact, satire upon feminine frivolity. It continues the strain of mockery against hoops and patches and their wearers, which supplied Addison and his colleagues with the materials of so many Spectators. Even in Addison there is something which rather jars upon us. His persiflage is full of humour and kindness but underlying it there is a tone of superiority to women which is sometimes offensive; it is taken for granted that woman is a fool, or at least should be flattered if any man condescends to talk sense to her. With Pope this tone becomes harsher, and the merciless satirist begins to show himself. In truth, Pope can be inimitably pungent but he can never be simply playful. “Jove’s Thunder roars, Heav’n tremble all around; Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing Deeps resound;” Pope seems to be enamoured with his own creation. He describes her in superlatives- the goddess, the nymph, the fair, the rival of sun’s beams. In this way he plays a homage to this beautiful character who resembles Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. Like her, she is a perfection of beauty, and a winner of men. Secondly, Pope regards her as a fair warrior who wins the battle of life. She is the conqueror of Hampton Court; she knocks down two knights at the card table. Her protests against the attack of Lord Petre put a premium on her virtue. On other hand, Pope is not blind to her human side with her weaknesses and whims. He mocks her at times and laughs at her fragilities. In fact, she is the goddess of sex who knows all the tricks of the sex-games. Belinda’s reaction to the loss of her lock is quite natural. It is a breach of hero- worship and rules of chivalry and courtship. All in all. Pope makes her a living human personality full of life to the finger-tips. “Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting Grace, A two-edg’d Weapon from her shining Case: So Ladies in Romance assist their knight, Present the Spear, and arm him for the Fight.” The Rape of the Lock is a triumph of English satire, although it is not a personal satire, like The Dunciad or Mac Flecknoe. Its moral purpose is directed not to any individual in particular, but to society, specially the polished society of Pope’s age. In his Dedicatory Epistle to Miss Fermor, Pope writes of the purpose of his poem: “It was intended only to divert a few young ladies who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies, but at their own.” The poem, indeed, is a refined, playful satire on the universal follies and foibles of the fashionable people of all ages, particularly those of England of the eighteenth century. The superiority of the poem as a satire is patent, in no less measure, in the moral aspect. “Think not when Woman’s transient Breath is fled, That all her Vanities at once are Dead: Succeeding Vanities she still regards, And tho’ she plays no more, o’erlooks the Cards.” Pope’s portrait of Belinda is also animated with a truly comic spirit. In Belinda, he found the charm that a fair and fashionable woman brings to society, together with all her pride and vanity. Her bright appearance contrasts sharply with her fickle nature. Pope makes her quite amusing and trivial by showing her very lack of discrimination, and her failure to catch the true value of things. Her heart is “a moving toy-shop” where image follows image without any distinction and nothing serious has any place. The rape of her Lock and her Reaction to its symbolically testify to the frail nature of her fashionable society, where sexual behavior is subject to society for certain conventional standards. Pope equates, with a rare sense of the comic, virginity with China wares and woman’s honour to a new brocade, and husbands with lap-dogs. “And trust me, Dear! Good Humour can prevail, When Airs, and Flights, and Screams, and Scolding fail. Beauties in vain their pretty Eyes may roll; Charms strike the Sight, but Merit wins the Soul.” All in all, though sex is not the main theme of the poem, it has been sufficiently exploited to rouse the interest and curiosity of the reader. Pope’s main aim is to speak for the need of good sense and toleration in human relationships. The moral lesson is contained in Clarissa’s speech which pleads for healthy relationship between men and women through companionship of love and marriage. Good humour and good sense are as essential in life as love and beauty. Hyman thinks that the word “Lock” stands for the female organ and all keys are fit in it. The cutting of the Lock may be regarded as a sexual act. This becomes clear as Belinda protests and cries after losing her lock of hair. Of course, the restoration of the Lock is impossible like the restoration of virginity. Hyman also refers to the line, “And maids, turned bottle, call aloud for cork”, which make it clear that women are fond of sex. It may not be possible for us to agree with Pope’s view of sex. “Think not when Woman’s transient Breath is fled, That all her Vanities at once are Dead:” Pope has succeeded in harmonically blending a satire on contemporary London society with a witty parody of the epic or heroic style. In fact, it is the parody of the epic which lends such a sting to the satire on the contemporary 18th century London society. As Geoffrey Tillotson puts it: “The best mock heroic poets mock at the literary form for carrying the contemporary ‘low’ human material, but they mock more severely at the material for being so unworthy of the form. For though the mock heroic poet adopts a different angle from the epic poet, he is standing on the same ground. Both are serious, morally interested, and in earnest. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries considered the moral element in the epics their first glory and they did not mock at that as they mocked at the machinery.” “Tis these that early taint the Female Soul, Instruct the Eyes of young Coquettes to roll, Teach Infant-Cheeks a hidden Blush to know, And little Hearts to lutter at a Beau.” Mark Pattison calls Pope the representative of his Age. Belinda is an object of Pope’s chivalrous devotion to women. Some critics have found fault with Pope’s attitude towards Belinda. Taine, the French woman critic wrote- “The truth is, he (Pope) is not polite, a French woman would have sent him back his book, advised him to learn manners, for one commendation of her beauty she would find ten sarcasms upon her frivolity.” This criticism cannot be sustained because Pope only reflects the eighteenth century view of women of high society. They were regarded as pretty triflers, and having no serious concern with life and engrossed in dance and gaiety. Lord Chesterfield writing to his son treats women with equal contempt. “A man of sense” he says, “only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them about, nor truss with them, serious matters, though he often makes them believe that he does both, which is the thing in the world that they are proud of… No flattery is either too high or too low for them. They will greedily swallow the highest and gratefully accept of the lowest.” Moreover, as the poem is written in Mock-Heroic vein, Belinda could not be any other than a mock heroic. It is quite clear that the poet wrote in a playful mood and his light satire should not be taken seriously. “Just where the Breath of Life his Nostrils drew, A Charge of Snuff the wily virgin threw; Sudden, with starting Tears each Eye O’er flows, And the high Dome re-echoes to his Nose.” It would not be wrong to say that Pope did have a moral pre-occupation, even if it is covered in a veneer of wit and humour.To her even the amorous supplication of the fashionable youth is highly desirable, but she cannot resist from giving a warning and stating the disadvantages of shunning mortality. In fact, Pope cannot resist revealing Clarissa’s hypocrisy either. Even Clarissa forgets her sense of mortality and perhaps out of envy towards Belinda or simply out of goodwill towards the Baron aids him in his heinous crime of ‘raping’ the lock of Belinda. Even Clarissa is tempted towards evil and she aids the Baron in his evil designs. “With tender Billet-doux he lights the Pyre, And breathes three am’rous Sighs to raise the Fire. Then prostrate falls and begs with ardent Eyes Soon to obtain, and long possess the Prize:” It’s this ‘merit’ –the ‘good humour’ which wins the soul; that Pope wants his ladies to imbibe and not merely ‘charms’ that only ‘strike the sight.’ And all through this mock -epic poem Pope sets himself to poke fun at this terrible and excessive obsession with one’s beauty. The women spend most of their time with their ‘toilet’ and in reading letters and the men with writing these obnoxious love-letters replete with conventional romantic phraseology. But in, Clarissa is not at all a prude as the quoted above might convey. Hers is the one same voice advocating a sense of good humour so as to preserve all the achievement of the beauty and charm of her sex. Even in her beautification is not undesirable. “Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his tender years; Shadwell alone of all my sons is he Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.” Actually Pope’s satire is a double-edged sword; it cuts both way. At the very moment when he is using Clarissa, a sort of mouth piece of his, to lay down the moral tenets for his age (itself of a flimsy nature as is the subject of his mock-epic) he is making fun of her and revealing her weakness and hypocrisy. He leaves none unscathed. So strong is the vanity and the deep –rooted rottenness of their nature that their shortcomings stick with them even after their death. Even the men turn to gnomes after death, with all their vices. But of course, Pope does all this ‘beating’ in good humour and tries to laugh off the vices in men. In the opinion of Matthew Arnold, poetry is at bottom a criticism of life. This criticism, however, should not be merely critical. It must imply a contrast between what life is and what life ought to have been. Judged from this criterion The Rape of the Lock is a satisfactory work by Pope. It is not merely a scathing satire but a criticism of life in the true sense of the term and it is in a style which is witty and humerous. “Are nature still, but Nature methodis’d, Nature like liberty, is but restrain’d” But of, satire in Pope is so finely chiseled by wit, that it is rarefied into pure humour. Thus, in such a scheme of poetry there is not much scope for serious moral lessons. Even the moral lesson that is there in Clarissa’s speech is one more facet of Pope’s consummate wit and humour. Even so what can we call these lines of Clarissa as setting a strict moral standard for the 18th century ladies. “Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, And she who scorns a Man, Must die a Maid; What then remains but well oue Pow’r to use, And keep good Humour still, whatev’r we lose?” A particular incident in the battle scene of Canto V shows Pope’s mystery in reducing to size the pompous men and women of his age. It is the scene where Belinda vanquishes the Baron with a pinch of snuff. What a sorry figure the Baron cuts! And what scandalous behavior on the part of an aristocratic lady! In one stroke Pope has demolished the pompousness of his vainglorious characters. “Soon as she spreads her Hand, th’ Ariel Guard Descend, and sit on each important Card” Some of Pope’s contemporaries, like John Dennis found The Rape of the Lock immoral and distasteful. According to them it lacked true wit and judgment. Dennis’s remarks on Mr. Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1728) severely criticizes the poem for deviating from the rules of the epics. His charge was that Pope dealt in trifles, without moral, in his mock epic. However, most critics feel that Clarissa’s speech at the opening of Canto V sets the moral tone. As Warburton put it, Pope introduced Clarissa’s speech “to open more clearly the moral of the poem.” Pope knew that a moral was thought by critics to be important to an epic. From the very beginning, The Rape of the Lock had a moral motive. His aim was to teach the lesson of “concord” and good humour between two quarrelling families. “And now, unveil’d the Toilet stands display’d, Each Silver Vase in mystic Order laid. First, rob’d in White, the Nymph intent adores With Heaf uncover’d the Cosmetic pow’rs.” Pope’s pointed and critical survey of his age is amply evident in his descriptions of the toilet of Belinda; the strange alter raised by the proud Baron and the ‘nice conduct’ of Sir Plume and his ‘clouded cane’. Belinda’s long and laborious toilet clearly demonstrates her vanity and pride which are certainly unfortunate sins. Pope brings out forcefully the obdurate female pride as well as vanity of his age through his portrait of Belinda and her conduct. “With varying Vanities, from ev’ry Part, They shift the moving Toyshop of their Heart.” The mention of the losing of honour by Belinda clearly refers to the loss of her chastity. Besides this, there are many suggestive words and phrases like “soft bosoms” “winning lips “,”the melting maids”, “midnight masquerades”, “white breast”, “the charge of the petticoat” which have obviously sexual implications and are not capable of giving any other meaning. The Baron’s conduct too is, indicative of the moral depravity of the age. Sir Plume stands for the shallow lazy punctilio of the age that has no strength of character of force of mortality. “Oh, hadst thou, cruel! Been count to seize, Hair less in sight, or any hairs but these!” And how ridiculous the Baron looks when he, -But chiefly Love-to Love an altar built, Of twelve vast French romances neatly gilt. They lay three garters, half a pair of gloves; And all the Trophies to his former Loves. A true satire is purposive and instructive. In fact, the real end of satire is ‘the amendment of vices by correction.’ The Rape of the Lock is a perfect specimen of satiric literature, and its moral tone is quite patent. Here comes the element of the criticism of life in Pope’s mock-heroic satire. The Rape of the Lock contains a good deal of the poet’s critical evaluation of the English social life of the eighteenth century. Pope’s subject of study here is the showy, artificial and frivolous life of the aristocratic, fashionable society of his own time. He ruthlessly exposes here the gay and thoughtless belles and the idle and vain beaux of the time. He misses no chance to hit hard at all that characterizes that shallow, artificial age- its affection and vanity, its coquetry and frivolity, its gay foppery and spineless morality. “Now Lap dogs give themselves the rowzing Shake, And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake:” Hyman thinks that the word “Lock” stands for the female organ and all keys are fit in it. The cutting of the Lock may be regarded as a sexual act. This becomes clear as Belinda protests and cries after losing her lock of hair. Of course, the restoration of the Lock is impossible like the restoration of virginity. Hyman also refers to the line, “And maids, turned bottle, call aloud for cork”, which make it clear that women are fond of sex. It may not be possible for us to agree with Pope’s view of sex. There is the reference to the public hair and the private hair which grows on the part of the women. Belinda refers to them when she bewails the loss of the lock. Much more than the loss of the private hair. “A heav’nly Image in the Glass appears, To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears; Th’ inferior Priestess, at her Altar’s side Trembling begins the sacred Rites of Pride. “ The introduction of the machinery of the sylphs and the gnomes heightens the mock-heroic effect of the poem. Thus In place of the gods and goddesses of Homer, we have in The Rape of the Lock a band of tiny spirits. As G. Holden points out, “It is Pope’s use of this machinery, moreover, which more than any other single feature made the poem the single success that it is.” It is the machinery which enables him, in various ways, to create the mock epic effect. All the epic poets like Homer, Virgil, Tasso and Milton made use of the machinery, and it was in the fitness of things that Pope should also parody it in his mock-epic. In an epic the machines are strong and mighty, here they are tiny and weak. “In the sylphs” says Cunningham, “we witness a delightful down- scaling of the Epic Machines.” In the ultimate analysis, Pope’s machinery, a sure proof of his artistic excellence. And what Pope himself once wrote to his friend is not all wrong. “The making of that (the machinery) and what was published before fit so well together, I think is one of the greatest proofs of judgment of anything I ever did.” “Say, why are Beauties prais’d and honour’d most, The wise Man’s Passion, and the vain Man’s Toast? Why deck’d with all that Land and Sea afford, Why Angels call’d, and Angel-like ador’d?” Pope has succeeded in harmonically blending a satire on contemporary London society with a witty parody of the epic or heroic style. In fact, it is the parody of the epic which lends such a sting to the satire on the contemporary 18th century London society. As Geoffrey Tillotson puts it: “the best mock heroic poets mock at the literary form for carrying the contemporary ‘low’ human material, but they mock more severely at the material for being so unworthy of the form. For though the mock heroic poet adopts a different angle from the epic poet, he is standing on the same ground. Both are serious, morally interested, and in earnest. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries considered the moral element in the epics their first glory, and they did not mock at that as they mocked at the machinery.” “'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know, Tho’ Honour in the Word with Men below.” The use of machinery is a traditional and distinctive feature of epic poetry. The action of the heroic characters are represented as subject to the intervention of gods and controlled by destiny. This interposition may take different forms of varying significance. The immortal figures may remain only the watchers of the scenes from the clouds, or bestir themselves actively upon the earthly stage. At times it seems that the real plot is being enacted in the skies and the mortals are mere pawns with which these divinities play out their game. Thus, we find the gods taking part in the epics of Homer, Milton, Virgil and in the epics of the Hindus, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. There another poem in which destiny overhangs the plots. From the constructional point of view its importance is well brought out in the bantering words of Pope himself: “The use of these machines is evident: synced no epic can possibly subsist without them, the wisest way is to reserve them for your greater necessities: when you cannot extricate your hero by any human means, or yourself by your won wit, seek relief from heaven , and the gods will do your business very readily.” “The Knave of diamonds tries his wily arts, And wins (oh shameful chance) the queen of hearts...” The original machine was a sort of crane used in the Greek theatre for the purpose of bringing down the gods as though descending from the sky to intervene and solve the insuperable difficulties. Hence, it came to mean a supernatural person or agency introduced into a poem, and the allied word “machinery”, the set of supernatural devices used for denouement in a drama or poem. “Even then, before the fatal Engines clos’d, A wretch’d sylph fondly interposed; Fate urg’d the Sheas, and cut the Sylph in twain (But Airy Substance soon unites again).” The poem was now fully complete as a mock-heroic. The machinery, an essential part of epic poetry, was now supplied to it. Whoever had heard of an epic poem without machinery? In this letter to Miss Fermor, Pope himself explains the term. “The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Demons are made to act in a poem.” In the Iliad this part is played by the gods and goddess of Greek mythology, while in Paradise Lost, it is played by the angels. In The Rape of the Lock this part is played by the spirits which are entirely in keeping with the trivial subject and the foppish characters of the poem. “For when the Fair in all their Pride expire, To their first Elements their Souls retire.” Pope felt the need to introduce the machinery in his The Rape of the Lock after having read a book by French author, Abbe-de- Villiars, containing an account of the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits. It struck him that he could incorporate this fairy like mythology in his little poem. All his friends with the exception of Addison approved of the idea and Pope adjusted to the poem the parts of the supernatural spirits. The complete poem was published in 1714 with the author’s name. “This Lock, the Muse the stars consecrate to Fame, And, mid’st the stars inscribe Belinda’s Name!” The first version of The Rape of the Lock was made up of only two cantos, containing the main incidents of the game of cards, cutting of the lock and the ensuing battle therewith. This humorus piece was meant to bring about a happy reconciliation between the two families of the Fermors and the Petres. This version, however, was never published and it had not yet taken the shape of a mock-epic. It was meant to be read by a selected number of people related to or close with the two families. Pope saw the possibility of expanding it into a mock-heroic poem and he expanded it into the mock epic form before he got it published. This was done by in clung into the body of the poem the supernatural creatures like the sylphs and gnomes who seem to be the guiding force behind the central action of that poem. “A constant Vapour o’er the Palace flies; Strange Phantoms rising as the Mists arise; Dreadful,as Hermit’s Dreams in haunted Shades, Or bright as Visions of expiring Maids.” Pope took the name of Ariel from Shakespeare’s Tempest and the idea of the sylphs from a French book, Le Comte de Gabalis, which gives an account of the Rosicrucian mythology of spirits. According to this mythology, the four elements are inhabited by spirits, which are called sylphs (air), gnomes (earth), nymphs (water) and salamanders (fire). The gnomes or spirits of earth delight in mischief, but the sylphs, which dwell in air, are the best conditioned creatures imaginable. Two of these kinds-sylphs and gnomes-are introduced by Pope in The Rape of the Lock. “Soon as she spreads her Hand, th’ Aerial Guard Descend, and sit on each important Card.” In spite of all the careful vigilance of Ariel and the sylphs, the lock of Belinda’s hair is raped. The spirits do not in the least influence the action; they neither prevent the danger nor retard it, unless it be for one futile moment. The visit of Umbriel to the Cave of Spleen reminds one of the visits to the underworld described in the epics, and is introduced for the sake of mock-heroic effect. It is an episode, which gives an opportunity to the poet to satirise the evil nature and affection of the ladies and gentlemen of his society. It also serves the action of the poem, for Belinda becomes alternatively angry and sad as Umbriel empties the bag of passions and the vial of sorrows over her head. “On the rich Quilt sinks with becoming Woe, Wrapt in a Gown, for Sickness and for how. The Fair-ones feel such Maladies as these, When each new Night- Dress gives a new Disease.” These aerial spirits of Rosicrucian mythology were tiny, light being which would exactly suit his mock-heroic poem. The gods and goddesses of Homer would not do for his flimsy poem, nor would angels of Milton’s Paradise Lost. The pigmy beings, like the sylphs and the gnomes, are suited to the theme and atmosphere of the poem and they are as artificial as the society depicted in The Rape of the Lock. “Triumphant Umbriel in Sconce’s Height Clapt his glad Wings, and sate to view the Fight.” Another fault that is to be found with the poem is, as Stopford Brooke points out, that it is overworked, that even its exquisite technique is too plainly technical; in fact, it is even more artificial than the society it treats of. Pope, when he wrote it, was much more in love with his own skill than with his subject. ‘Pope, while writing The Rape of the Lock was extremely punctilious about the construction of the poem. He imitated the epic manner accurately in all its details, from the invocation to the rising of the lock to the heaven as a constellation. The poet seems to be more attentive to the construction of the poem than to its subject-matter.” We miss that ease or spontaneity which is the mark of great poetry. There is everywhere the mark of labour and artifice. Hence, Brooke rightly says that the poem is ‘overworked”. The fault of the poem lies in its faultlessness. “Coffee, (which makes the Politician wise, And see throu’ all things with half-shut Eyes)” The fairies of The Midsummer Night’s Dream are also tiny beings, but they are different in nature and spirit from the sylphs, and the gnomes of The Rape of the lock. The former are gay, delightful spirits, wandering about in moonlight; they embody all the beauty and freshness of nature and in their limited sphere, they are endowed with supernatural power, and play pranks on human beings. Puck cries out:”What fools these mortals be.” The light militia of the lower sky, represented in The Rape of the Lock, is of a very different character. They are artificial spirits and they have all the vanity and superficiality which they had when they were” one enclosed in woman’s beauteous mould.” They take delight in the game of Ombre and help Belinda in her game. What are the functions of the aerial spirits in The Rape of the Lock? Ariel has a premonition that some calamity is impending over Belinda. Therefore, Ariel who guards Belinda assigns different functions to the spirits under his control. One was given the charge of Belinda’s fan, another was to take care of her ear-rings, the third was to look after her watch, and fourth was to guard her favourite lock. Ariel was to take charge of the dog. The important duty of guarding the petticoat was given to fifty chosen sylphs. Ariel warned the pigmy band of spirits against negligence in their duties. Severe punishment was to be awarded to those who failed in the discharge of their duties, and the punishments were exactly adjusted to the size and nature of the spirits. The punishment with which the delinquents were threatened was: to be shut up in small bottles, to be pierced through with pins, to be held fast in the eye of the bodkin, or to be struck up in gums and pomades. “Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav’n are cast When Husbands, or when Lap-dogs breathe their last.” We may safely conclude that John Dennis made an incorrect assessment of The Rape of the Lock when he said that the poem has no moral. Nor is it correct to say that the moral lesson is unimportant- for, then the satire loses its purpose. The moral is very much an integral part of the poem, criticizing the life it describes, implying in the confusion of values it depicts the correct moral norms to be aimed at. “There she collects the Force of Female Lungs, Sighs, Sobs and Passions, and the War of Tongues.” Though The Rape of the Lock is a poem of frivolity and satire, its aim was reconciliation between two families which had quarrelled on account of cutting of the hair of a maid by a Lord. The eighteenth century critics regarded it as a work of satire on the frivolous activities of the aristocracy, the twentieth century critics have read sex symbolism in this poem. Hyman, the twentieth century critic regards The Rape of the Lock as a poem on the loss of virginity. Undoubtedly, Pope did not know of Freud’s interpretation of sex as the latter was born in the present century. The punishment, with which Ariel threatens his followers, if they neglect their duties, is equally funny. The spirits are to be shut up in “vials”, to be pierced with pins, to be made fast in the eyes of bodkins or to be stuck up in gum and pomades. The most important function performed by these spirits in the poem is the enhancing of satirical and fanciful nature of the poem. It is through these spirits that Pope satirises the vanity and fickleness of the ladies of the day. “With thunder Billet-doux , he lights the Pyre, And breathes three am’rous Sighs to raise the Fire.” The first two lines of the poem, give below certain words like “assault” (Criminal act) and “rejects” which have sexual implications. Similarly at the end of the poem, Thalestris incites Belinda to punish the Baron for his criminal act. She calls the lover “ravisher”.
-Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou’d compel
A well-bred Lord t’ assault a gentle Belle? O,say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor’d, Cou’d make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? Besides supplying an essential requirement of epic poetry, the spirits in The Rape of the Lock serve another purpose also. In the dedication of the poem, Pope claims that, ‘Human persons in this poem are as fictitious as the Airy ones.’ Still, most people knew that Belinda was Arabella Fermor and the Baron was Lord Petre. By introducing this fictitious machinery, therefore, Pope made the poem more impersonal and thereby substantiated his claim. “The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the Fields of Air.” The artificial mythology of the sylphs harmonises with the artificial story. It is full of the most fanciful wit. Indeed, “wit infused with fancy is Pope’s particular merit.”The difference between these pigmy spirits of Pope and the gods and goddesses of Homer and the angels of Milton is the measure of difference in scale between Pope’s tiny work and the great epics of Homer and Milton. But of, the choice of these sylphs and gnomes is very appropriate in The Rape of the Lock for through them the poet gets the full opportunity of showing up the follies and the vanities of the fashionable ladies of the time. Through the use of Ariel and the other celestial beings Pope has managed to point out satirically woman’s excessive fondness for rank and pomp. And if they could have their way, they would maintain it even after death. “Rather than so, ah let me still survive, And burn in Cupid’s Fames,-but burn alive.” As Wilson Knights points out, machinery increases dramatic suspense and therefore story-depth, since they fore-know and warn about the central disaster: help to universalize semi-humorously the whole action, forming indeed, the binding symbolism of the little drama; are related to certain paradise and in Umbriel’s journey-hellish colourings, touching Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton; and finally reflect the implied belief of poetic art-forms in general that humanity and its sensible world do not exhaust the total of the comprehensive psychic statement. They are of a race that lives in the pure upper light; that guides orbs in heaven like the child spirit in Shelley: or follows shooting stars by moonlight; and indeed variously associated with the rainbows, mists, tempests, and earth; and guardianship of the British throne . As unseen helpers they recall the attendant spirit in “Comus”. They are explicitly related to traditional beliefs, both trivial and profound. “In fields of purest ether play And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.” 21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)~~………… [EXCEPT SETTING OF THOUGHTS-SETTING OF SENTENCES IN MANY PLACES-IDEAS-REFERENCES-QUOTES WITHOUT INVERTED COMMAS AND ELABORATION OF IDEAS; -WORDS AND SENTENCES FROM DR.SEN’S-CRITICAL EVALUATION ON ‘THE RAPE OF THE LOCK’ THOUGH EVEN THERE WITH AFEW CHANGES OF WORDS FROM THE ORIGINAL BOOK] AND
[Except the underlined and few changes in the body and pattern of letter in the box that provided in my document, the main constituents of the letter only is referred at The Rape of the Lock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
“Tis more to guide than spur the Muses’steed; Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; The winged courser, like a gen’rous horse, Shows most true mettle when you check his course, Those rules of old discover’d not devis’d, Are nature still, but Nature methodis’d, Nature like liberty, is but restrain’d By the same laws which first herself ordain’d. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem. To copy Nature is to copy them.”
“William Wordsworth as an ardent lover of nature”- Explanation of the poet as a nature-lover in reference to the critical appreciation of his poem ‘Tintern Abbey’-- …ON BASIS OF REFERENCE TO -‘Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting The Banks of the Wye During A Tour July 13, 1798’. The scene is in the narrow gorge of the river, Wye, somewhere between Tintern and Monmouth. Wordsworth had visited it in the summer 1793. In July, 1798, he again visited it with his sister, after five years of absence. Many reminiscences of the earlier visit were recalled. “The peaceful charm of the scene prompted him to retrospect of the long, debt which he owed to Nature;” and he reviewed the change that had affected his attitude or Nature in the in intervening period. The intellectual progress, described in these lines, has been traced more fully in The prelude, written in 1805. Apart from its personal interest, Tintern Abbey possesses a special historical value as the first clear statement of the emotional change in poetry of which the Romantic Movement was the climax recognizing and defining the power of nature to quicken an sustain the imagination and creative faculty of man.
“Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters!” The poem is marked by Wordsworth’s gift of making beautiful and highly expressive phrases. Some of the phrases and lines of this poem have become so famous that they are often quoted “e.g. We see into the life of things”; “Perpetual stir unprofitable”; “the fever of the world “; “ the sounding cataract haunted me like a passion”; “aching joys and dizzy raptures”; “the still, sad music of humanity”; “the shooting lights of thy wild eyes”; “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her”- these are some of the best-known phrases and verses in the poem.
“Open the temple gates unto my love,
Open them wide that she may enter in,…”
The fruits on the tree are at this season unripe and green. Business are growing wild in the jungle. They look like an irregular line of the hedge. “Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon’s beauty and the moon’s soft pace.” According to him, Nature deeply influences human character. He tells his sister Dorothy that “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her”; that Nature can impress the human beings lofty thoughts. He advises Dorothy to let the moon shine on her and the winds blow on her, i.e. to put her under nature’s influence.
“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:” Smoke is rising from among the trees. From this smoke we guess that either some homeless wanderers are making fire in the jungle, or some hermit (holy man) is sitting in the jungle near his fire. “How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro’ the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!” The poet pays a second visit to Tintern Abbey after an absence of five years. He hears the murmuring sound of the waters of River Wye. The tall mountains give an impression of deep seclusion (loneliness). The green fields seem to stretch as far as the horizon. The landscape is calm and quiet. The poet lies down under the sycamore tree. The plots attached to the cottage are green, right up to the cottage door. “Nor perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay:” The poem was first published in the Lyrical Ballads (1798). Some two months after its composition Wordsworth writes : “ I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol.” “While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years.” The music of the poem is also noteworthy. The sublimility of the verse suits the loftiness of the theme. The blank verse of the poem is dignified and we see here an instance of Wordsworth’s grand style. “A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts And rolls through all things.” His management of blank verse is particularly praiseworthy. It has a steady flow of dignity and at the same time great flexibility. There are Miltonic echoes in it, no doubt, but how different is the movement of Wordsworth’s verse from Milton’s. “With a rolling blank verse, well condensed and solemn, Tintern Abbey makes the most revealing document of Nature, philosophy and the final testament of the soul’s journey from sensuous to the spiritual.” “Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her;”
Wordsworth visits Tintern Abbey in the Wye valley (Wye is a river), after an absence of five years. Wordsworth is the greatest poet of nature. He is a lover of natural scenery. The poem falls into three parts: Description of the Scenery, The poet’s philosophy of Nature and Address to his sister Dorothy.
This poem was written in July 1798. It was one of the nineteenth poems that Wordsworth contributed to Lyrical Ballads (1798). This poem may be regarded as “record” of the poet’s growth or his spiritual development.” It states in clear words the gradual development in Wordsworth’s attitude towards Nature. It reveals how the poet appreciated Nature and began to worship it for its inner meaning or significance. “When as her lute is tuned to her voice, The air grows proud for honor of that sound,” We don’t understand the meaning and purpose of the world. But of, worshipper of nature understands the mystery. He understands the meaning of the world, not by head, but by heart. Our body sleeps for the time being; our soul wakes and we get a gasp of meaning of creation. “Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee:” The poet has been absent from this scene for five years but he has not forgotten this scene through his long absence. This scene has not become blank in his memory as is the landscape to a blind man’s eye. Where is the spirit (God) in nature? God dwells in the light of the setting sun, round ocean, living air, blue sky and in the mind of man. God moves through all subjects and rolls through all things. God is all, and all is God- this is Pantheism. The poet loves the woods, the mountains and the fields, since they are the visible shape of God. Nature is the source of purest thoughts; she is the guide and guardian of moral being. The poet was troubled in the noisy towns and the cities, but memories of this lovely scene of nature refreshed his mind and brought him pleasure and peace. “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all moral being.” A worshipper of nature does a thousand little acts of greatness and love. These small acts of kindness are not remembered by the world. “And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again:”
Let Dorothy walk all alone in the moonlight amidst storms and mists of the mountains. If ever misfortunes befell her, she would remember his advice, namely that nature-worship removes all worries and troubles. Or by then the poet might have died. At that future time, she would remember the present visit to Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth, the worshipper of nature, loved Tintern Abbey, both for its sake and for the fact that his sister was with him.
“What is love?’Tis not hereafter. Present mirth hath present laughter” The poet’s sister, Dorothy is with him. He calls dear friend. His sister reminds him of his past. In the second stage, he loved the sensuous (outward) beauty of nature. Dorothy is still at that second stage. In her eyes he reads her past. She is what he once was. He advises Dorothy to put herself under the eye of nature. Nature leads him from joy to joy. She never deceives anyone who worships her. For a worshipper of nature, life is all joy. He enjoys peace of mind. All the troubles of the world cannot destroy his happiness or his optimism. Wordsworth also found joy in the child who lived in closer communion with Nature. The child’s life is the hiding place of man’s future power. The child comes to the earth trailing clouds of glory and immortality. He is instinctively aware of divinity running through all created things, and we should therefore partake of childhood’s simple joys and delights. “The still sad music of humanity Nor harsh, nor grating but with ample Power to chasten and subdue.” Wordsworth certainly sings of the joy in Nature, but there is gradual development in the apprehension of this feeling of joy. It grows from a simple feeling undiluted by sadness to a feeling powerful to take into consideration “the still sad music of humanity” and to transcend the miseries of this life. “In all things, in all natures, in the stars, This active principle abides, from link to link, It circulated the soul of all the worlds.”
Wordsworth is the acknowledged poet of Nature. In Nature as well as in man, Wordsworth saw “the hiding places of infinite-power.” Nature to him was veritably alive, speaking in a many-voiced language. In his earlier poems, Wordsworth is struck with love of Nature. Just as boy he enjoyed sheer animal pleasure, in some of his poetry he takes pure delight in natural scenes- he is happy wandering as lonely as a cloud seeing a field of yellow daffodils. He finds joy in the solemn mountains, the lakes and the forests. All these natural objects have the power to refresh and elevate the soul of man it is not a simple joy which Wordsworth celebrates. It is a feeling which grows in the mind of man as he is in close communion with nature- be it the icy cages of the Alps or the smooth waters of Lake Windermere. It is a joy which grows out of the awareness of “A presence” in all created beings. As he says in Tintern Abbey,
“Think what a present thou to God hast sent, And render him with patience what he lent; This if thou do, he will an offspring give That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.” The poet has written the poem on the occasion of revisiting Tintern Abbey on the banks of river Wye and this time he is accompanied by his sister. He is not only revisiting and recalling his development in his relationship to Nature. As a young boy when he came to that place his pleasure in watching the sights of Nature was of a rough, coarse type. He remembers the ‘glad animal movements’ of those days when he was not conscious of the beauty around him but only looked at things around him and jumped around like animals in such a vast place. Next, he came there as a young man and for the first time he was aware of the beauty around him. He ran around along the river banks and streams like a deer, wherever Nature took him. The feelings he experienced at the time were both of fear and pleasure. The fear was of being alone in the presence of a vast place that is wild and of the awe Nature inspired. Yet, he sought Nature and wanted to see more because of its beauty and its mystery-more like one wishes to explore Nature. Nature to him was then ‘all in all’ without any remote charm. He satisfied his eyes with what he looked upon and enjoyed all the sounds his rare could hear whether it was the soft sound of the water flowing down the mountain, the mountains, and the tall rock. All these objects were nothing more than beautiful shapes and he looked at them wild eyed and filled with pleasure. He did not feel the need for any philosophical thought or of contemplation or deriving any message from what he can saw. It was an appetite he needed to satisfy and Nature had no charm beyond what he could see or hear and thrill that he got.
“The gleam,
The light that never was on sea or land, The consecreation, and the poet’s dream.” The eighteenth century had been the advocate of reason and intellect. Romanticism emphasized on the feelings-the heart was considered as a wiser guard. Wordsworth in his Ode on the Intimations of Immortality expresses his “Thanks to the human heart by which we live” for enabling him to sympathise with human suffering and realize fundamental truths of the universe. “My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes.” But of, this time the poet had come as a mature man who had been in the city and the world and had experienced the ‘fretful fever’ of life; had seen and suffered the malice and criticism of people around him. It is true that he could no longer feel the excitement and dizziness when he looked on the beauty of Nature but he did not regret having lost that thrill of youth. The reason was that what he had discovered in its place more than made up for the loss of that joy. The poet then clarifies what it was had replaced the youthful thrill and ecstasy. He could now look at Nature and he could hear the ‘still sad music of humanity’ and this music did not sound harsh or something that spoilt his joy but it had a power to make him sober and mature. The poet was now connecting Nature and human beings and in Nature he could hear the sad music of the sufferings of men. The poet was not only talking of the intimate objects in Nature but of the peasants and the shepherds and their plight. He goes on to elaborate his feelings and talks of experiencing a presence in Nature that inspired nobler thoughts and he felt this presence in the light of the setting sun, the ocean and the air. He was able to feel the same presence in the mind of man and that was how to him it was the spirit that bound us all. Earlier in the poem the poet talked of another gift Nature had given him he told his sister that even when he was not present among Nature, he carried the memories with him and they helped him face the world and its ugliness. He had only to sit in his room and think of Nature and he felt inspired to perform those little acts of kindness and love which made him a good man. In fact, Nature put him in a mood of meditation where he rose above the bodily frame and became unaware of the world around him. In this kind of trance the mysteries of life were revealed to him, and he became a living soul whose body had gone to sleep. These were the reasons that he loved Nature, not for the beauty that was visible but because Nature inspired him to be better human being and helped him understand the secret of living and gave him courage to face the ills of society. Nature was his nurse, guide and guardian. “Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!” Prior to these lines , the poet has been talking of all objects in the world and the human beings as inhabited by the same spirit and that is the reason he loves Nature and all the ‘mighty world/Of eye and ear.’ The poet refers to Nature as the mighty. Supreme world which is seen by the eye and heard by the ear. Talking of the trees and falls the poet called them ‘these beauteous forms’ and all that one behold around one is a world of eye and ear because it is the eye that sees and ears that hear the various sounds; the sound of the river coming down the mountain with an ‘inland murmur’; the chirping of the birds or the whistling of the wind. There is the sound of the thunder and of animals running or squirrels eating nuts. These are all heard by the ear even when one may not see them. Similarly, the trees, flowers, birds, smoke from among the trees; clouds rolling by are sights that the eye sees. This is the mighty, powerful world of Nature. When the poet talks of ‘what they half-create and what perceive’ he is referring to all that this world of eye and ear are seen as an inspiration for deeper thoughts that are noble and ‘elevated’. These thoughts and imagination are the creation of man’s mind but Nature is partly responsible for them because it gives rise to these thoughts. In this sense, it half creates. The poet has talked of how he can go into a trance and see ‘into the life of things’ when he ponders over Nature. It impels him to be noble and to see the same spirit in all objects. It has to be remembered that these objects and shapes in Nature are seen by all but not everyone is as affected by them as Wordsworth is so what he finds beyond what is visible is his creation aided by Nature.
“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.” Wordsworth’s advice to his sister is to expose her to the forces of nature, to let the moonlight fall on her face when she is out walking alone. She should soak in all she can, because once she is away, the memories of this day will stay with her. She is at the stage where she is overawed by the beauty around her and doesn’t feel the need for seeking beyond the world of ‘eye and ear’. According to the poet, when she is in any kind of pain or misery, when she is away from him and cannot talk to him, she will get solace from the memories of what she sees and stores in her mind. He knows that the world outside nature can be cruel and vicious but nature will give her the strength to ignore the meanness and malice and criticism of people because he believes that – “’t is her privilege Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy:” The poem is written after Wordsworth’s visit to the banks of river Wye in the company of his sister whom he looked upon as a friend. Through the poem he advises his sister to remember that Nature never betrays any one and it elevates the spirit of man. He asks her to soak in all beauty of Nature because it will bring her closer to peace and humanity. “well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.” The poet is revisiting the banks of river Wye after a gap and this time he is accompanied by his younger sister. Describing the scene he says that there is greenery all around and even the hedges are no more than wood running wild and there is the soft sound of the water of the river. He can see some smoke rising up from the trees and most probably it is some temporary dwellers or a hermit who has camped for a while. Nature acts as a source of inspiration and peace even when he is away in the city and he owes a lot to her. She brings peace and arouses feelings of kindness that lead one to perform little nameless acts of helping others and he owes sweet sensations to her. Nature impacts him in a way that he goes into a trance where his body seems to sleep while his spirit meanings. Finally, he arrived at a stage where he could hear the sad music of humanity and mysteries of the world were unburdened; moreover, he could now feel that it was the same spirit that connected people, animals and Nature and flowed through the whole universe. Nature now was the nurse, the guard and the guardian of his life. In the company of his elder sister he rememembers his youth and how when he was her age as she is wide eyed at the beauty around her. He tells his sister that Nature never betrays those who love her. Once a person learns to love Nature he is not affected by adverse comments or criticism of people. He advises his sister to soak in all she can see and assures her that in future if she has to face hardships in life she will remember that moment and it will give her courage and peace. Wordsworth then tells her that if in future they are away from each other they will both remember that visit and to him that scene will bring joy because he will rememember he had shared the moment with her. Wordsworth is seen as one of the pioneers of the Romantic Movement but he was the first to have considered to be the highest form of literature was mostly written to commemorate great heroes or great love and before Wordsworth’s age, it was employed to point out the ills of the upper classes. Wordsworth made a move away from heroes to write about ordinary peasants and shepherds; he chose to write about Nature and daffodils or linnets rather than about society. The third major change was that he decided to concentrate on personal thoughts and feelings and moved towards lyricism. “That time is past, And all its acting joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures.” The present poem is a testimony to his love of Nature. He describes the various stages in his relation with Nature from the time he was a young boy. As a boy his pleasures were of a course nature and he talks of ‘glad animal movements’ and when a youth, Nature was a thing of beauty, an appetite for lovely colours and sounds and it stopped here, but of as he grew older, Nature acquired supreme importance equal only to that of God. He now looked upon Nature as the nurse, the guard and guardian of his heart and soul. It is noteworthy that he uses the definite article ‘the’ in place of the indefinite ‘a’. He seems to imply that Nature is not one of the guardians but the only one that shows him the way to being a moral person and Nature protects him from harsh cruelties of other people. His final word on Nature is that she never betrays the heart that loves her. It is Nature that has brought him closer to human beings and he can now hear the still sad music of humanity. Being amongst trees and rivers lifts his spirit and he is able to go in a trance where he forgets his physical being and gets connected to Nature. “The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult of the soul A fervent, not ungovernable love”. In the beginning of the poem, the poet has drawn a very vivid picture of greenery with expressions like ‘unripe fruit’ and while talking of pastoral farms he talks of green to the door and the hedge rows are sportive wood growing wildly. We are reminded of the kind of greenery we see after Monsoons when greenery erupts even in wall cracks. Wordsworth has created many such imaged in the poem which makes it an experience and brings the readers closer to Nature. Unlike his other poems, this poem is written in language that is not very simple but the subject matter demanded that. The love for Nature and his sister both come across clearly through the words and the poem captures us by the genuine sentiments expressed. He employs a lot of negatives like ‘not unborrowed from the eyes’, ‘has not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man’s eye’. The poem has some vivid images like that of water falling with an ‘inland murmur’ and smoke coming out of a vagrant dweller’s hut. “May my life Express the image of a better time, More wise desires and simplest manners.” Pantheism and Mysticism are almost interrelated factors in Nature poetry of the Romantic period. Wordsworth conceives of a spiritual power running through all natural objects-the “presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts” whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, the rolling ocean, the living air, the blue sky, and the mind of man (Tintern Abbey). The rocks, brooks, mountains, winds, sky and clouds are symbols and signs of Eternity, and “Characters of the Apocalypse.” (The Simplon Pass). When the sudden awareness of this spirit behind all living things comes on the poet, his flesh seems to melt and he becomes a “living soul”, able to understand the truth of things. Along with the interest in nature and the belief in a spiritual power in Nature came the deepening interest in the common folk, the rustics and the peasants. Wordsworth’s poetry is full of such character-Michael, the Cumberland beggar, or the leech gatherer. This interest is partly Wordsworth’s case; it was also prompted by his conviction that in these simple folk the elemental passions and human feelings is and are uncorrupted by the influences of city life. “So hand in hand they pass’d, the loveliest pair That ever since in love’s embraces met,…” Thus the child can enjoy the joys of Nature, but as he grows up, material concerns dim the “visionary gleam” which could instinctively divine truths. The Leech-gatherer, living close to Nature, has gained strength of mind and courage. Lucy, growing up in the lap of Nature, is beautiful in appearance as well as character. Wordsworth‘s conception of poetry is given in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads where he says: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Poetry thus evolves from the feelings of the poet and there is an unforced quality (spontaneity) about it. Powerful feeling and emotion are fundamental to poetic creation. This is a theory which is a sure departure from eighteenth century practice-thus Wordsworth had to create a taste for the kind of poetry he was to write. He was a poet with a programme to wean public taste from neo-classical tenets. “Our meddling intellect His shapes the beauteous forms of things- We murder to dissect,” When, however, Wordsworth carried simplicity too far, it could result in banality- as in the line, “The silent heavens have goings on”. The thorn is famous for the prosaic lines measuring the pond, but of it was only at his uninspired moments that he produced flat sounding lines. It has to be remembered, however, that most of the flatness is part of his fearless search for a diction, which would take a sort of photograph or recording of experience itself, not just the scene but the emotion connected with the scene. “If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft- In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight;” Incidents of Human Life occupy a main place in Wordsworth’s poems. Love’s power to inflict the deepest wounds and to heal the most irreparable is a common theme, as in The Thorn. Most of the poems are developed out of incidents which befell the poet personally. His stories are simple, forming a setting for his meditations on some aspect of ordinary human nature. “…Behold me then Once more in Nature’s presence, thus restored Or otherwise, and strengthened once again (With memory left of what had been escaped) To habits of devotes sympathy.” Subjectivity is a key-note of Romantic poetry. Wordsworth is often called a supreme egoist in his poetry- the “egoistical sublime”. It is personal experience that his poems embody. It is his reactions to certain scenes that the poems convey. He once saw a thorn-tree which left a deep impression on him in a storm-it led to the composition of The Thorn, Tintern Abbey, Elegiac Stanzas, The Simpleton Pass and the famous Ode, are all results of personal feelings. Thus his poetry is the poetry of expression, the product of genius and inspiration. Whether or not this theory is infallibly correct, it is worth noting that the poet has a great desire to penetrate through artificialities to that which is essentially human. This purpose is definitely fulfilled by a character like the leech-gatherer. His action and words are steeped in life which belongs to the permanent foundations of human existence. Wordsworth is not only interested in men, but in men as part and parcel of the grand phenomena of Nature. “I listened, motionless and still: And as I mounted up the hill The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.” To the Romantic poets, Nature was a source of wisdom. Wordsworth is a special-advocate of this theory. The child living in the lap of Nature, according to him, will grow in moral stature. Three years she grew in sun and shower tells us of how Lucy grew to perfection, nurtured by Nature. In the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth speaks of the joy that a child finds in being close to Nature. It is widely accepted fact that Wordsworth was a great poet of Nature. However, his uniqueness lies in the fact that he has presented in his poetry an impressive and emotionally satisfying account of man’s relation to Nature. All created things are part of a unified whole in his concept. In boyhood, Wordsworth felt an animal pleasure in nature. Like a deer, he ran races over the mountains, and on the banks of rivers and streams. It seemed as if he was running away from nature. The fact was that he loved nature. The sight of natural objects or a common human being leaves an impression on the poet’s highly sensitive mind. Wordsworth never composed poetry as soon as he saw something which impressed him. We get to know from Dorothy’s diary that they both met a leech-gatherer. Long before Wordsworth wrote Resolution and Independence. It was only on remembering the meeting- “recollected in tranquility”- that Wordsworth wrote the poem. Then the incident is transmuted, coloured by Wordsworth’s imagination, purified of extraneous elements and reduced to its elemental factor. The leech-gatherer is placed in the vast desolate moor to stand for courage, resilence, dignity and strength of mind, to create a feeling first of wonder and then of consolation in the poet’s heart. “Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow, For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.”
Thus Wordsworth had a definite theory of poetic creation, different from earlier theories. Of course, an expressive theory, and one based on “communication”, it is often illustrated in practice by his poetry.
“I chanced to see at break of day The solitary child’ “No mate, no comrade Lucy knew.” Similarly, The Simplon Pass was born out of Wordsworth’s journey across the Alps, but of it recreates the feelings evoked by the mountain, sky, waterfalls and winds, the tumult and the peace. In Tintern Abbey, we read of how the scene the poet once saw is recollected by him and helps to evoke the same feeling of peace and comfort in him. Elegiac Stanzas also derive from Wordsworth’s personal experience. He speaks of how once he saw Nature only as calm and joyful. However, he has later realized the truth of feeling evoked by George Beaumont’s picture of Peele Castle in the storm. Contemplation of the scene evoked by his memory brings about an overflow of feeling, and in that emotional state, he composes his poetry. “Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime;” Poetic creation involves recollecting the original object of observation, contemplation, renewal of the original emotion evoked, and finally composition when the feeling is intense and overflowing. The purpose of poetry is to communicate the feelings to the reader and thus impart pleasure which will also teach something. “While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.” In the second stage, nature became all in all to the poet. The sounding cataract (waterfall) haunted him like a passion. Nature was his beloved. He felt a deep love for the tall rocks, mountains and the jungle. He loved the sights and sounds of Nature. He cared only for the outward beauty of nature, which he saw with eyes and ears. He looked at nature with a painter’s eye. “…and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur,-‘’ To Wordsworth, as to all mystics, life does not begin or end in the ordinary sense. The soul of Man is immortal, as is the spirit of nature, for both are the immanent spirit of God, the Eternal Being, “of first, and last, and mist, and without end”, as he says in The Simplon Pass. It is the idea that man’s soul is immortal which informs the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. The child sees a divine light in Nature because of his recollections of his heavenly life before he came on earth. Later on, Man can perceive the truth by recollecting the experience of his childhood. It would be difficult to get the intrinsic quality of a person as a human being unless these artificialities are all removed. Such a difficulty does not arise in the case of persons who live a humble life like that of the leech-gatherer, and have no trappings to cover their essential nature. So it is that a leech-gatherer, was able to impress Wordsworth much more than any of the sophisticated section of humanity he often met within towns. This explains Wordsworth’s great desire to be in greater communion with natural objects uncorrupted by artificial civilization, in order to attain the harmony of the soul. In The Thorn, Nature is seen as a symbol of the human situation. The old and aged thorn exposed to the winter gales is similar to the wretched woman who sits by it and moans by day and night, under the sun or the stars. The tragic figure seems to come to a union with the elements:
“A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love-oh! With far deeper zeal
Of holier love.”
In the third stage, he no longer cared for the pictorial beauty of nature. Now he came to read the ‘hidden meaning’ of nature. In the running water of the brook, he heard the still, sad music of humanity. The water of the brook gave him the idea of the tears and troubles of humanity. Wordsworth believed in an internal harmony between man and Nature, because the same conscious spirit that dwelt in the ocean and the blue sky lived in the mind of man: “God in man spoke to God in Nature, spoke to God in Man.” It is necessary not to stress on any one element in Worrdsworth’s poetry, for the naturalistic, humanistic and theistic components are equally important. The three together lead to his belief in the “motherhood of Nature, the brotherhood of Man, the fatherhood of God”. His Nature-mysticism and pantheism is not severed from his sympathy with fellow human beings. Nature speaks to him of the “still sad music of humanity”. In Elegiac Stanzas, the picture of the stormy seas helps him to understand human suffering and reveals to him the truth that “Not without hope and we mourn.” “Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.” It is significant that Nature protects her from the hostility of the villagers. God through Nature directs us that our attitude to this woman should be one of pity and sympathy. “The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet’s dream” In Resolution and Independence, the leech-gatherer is compared to a stone on top of a hill and a sea-beast, suggesting fortitude and immense strength of mind and silent perseverance. He has absorbed this quality from his close co-existence with Nature. His words suddenly reveal the truth to Wordsworth. As he sees in his mind’s eye the old man pacing about the weary moors, he glimpses the truth of the universe. “Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? The basic feature of mysticism may be described as “an attitude of mind founded upon an instinctive or experienced conviction of unity, of oneness, of likeness in all things.” The instinctive conviction in the case of the Romantic poets came mostly out of their communion with Nature. Wordsworth’s poetry illustrates his philosophical beliefs which are: the immanence of the universal spirit of God in all Nature making it alive, intercommunion between God’s soul in Nature and God’s spirit in Man and the chastening effect of this communion in tranquillising and elevating the human spirit and putting it in tune with the infinite. These belifs are not “reasoned” by the intellect but instinctively felt or experienced by Wordsworth. Wordsworth once wrote to his friend Sir George Beaumont: “Every great poet is a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing.” His aim in writing poetry was to “Console the afflicted”, make the happy happier, and to teach the people “to think and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous.” He said that his poems had purpose-they were aimed at directing the attention to “some more sentiment, or to some general principle of law of thought, or of our intellectual constitution.” In other words, the function of the poet was to teach- of course, in a poetic manner, by presenting a vision of life and aspect of Truth. “..that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and wear weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened…” From the time of Tintern Abbey, when he first fully realized his poetic power, to the end of his life, there is an ethical element in his work, implied or explicit. His most spontaneous outburst of joy has some relation to moral questions. Throughout his life, he strove to appeal to feelings which were “sane, pure and permanent.”Wordsworth’s poems cannot be considered as uniformly adhering to his theory of reproducing the language of “conversation in the middle and lover classes of society.” “And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills and Groves Forebode not any severing of our loves.”
Nature’s Spiritual power to heal and evoke lofty thoughts in man’s mind is celebrated by Wordsworth in all his poems. In Tintern Abbey the poet tells us how, in moments oppressed by the “fretful stir and fever of the world” he has hot relief by thinking of the scene near Tintern Abbey. Nature for Wordsworth held a spiritual significance: he personally experienced spiritual exaltation, when his senses and corporeal being seemed to fade away and he became a living soul in close communion with Nature. He communicates this experience in Tintern Abbey.
“With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.” He often ignores his own dogmatic utterances of his Preface. But for, in several of his poems he shows us that ordinary words of plain significance can be used with force and skill to express simple thoughts and feelings. Generally, his language is worthy of his themes. At its best, it has restraint, quietness and integrity, and a refusal to be clever or fanciful merely to attract the reader. As we read his poems, we are aware of his strong moral and philosophical tendency. An analysis of the poems shows us that a kind of broad philosophical system can be discerned in Wordsworth’s poetry. In the Simplon Pass, we are given his experience of how the crags, rocks, brook, waterfalls, the blue sky, the tumult and peace of Nature led him to discern the presence of a divine spirit. Natural objects are symbols and signs of eternity. In Tintern Abbey he speaks of the “presence that disturbs me with elevated thoughts”- a “motion and a spirit that impels” everything and “roles through all things”. In his Lucy poems especially, we are told that Nature is the best teacher of uncorrupted youth. In Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower, we read how Nature took the education of Lucy in her own hands, and become both her “law and impulse”.
“Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.”
Lucy under the influence of Nature would develop, not only beauty of looks and figure, but a moral-sense and wisdom. The child is capable of feeling the spirit of divinity shining from everything surrounding him. He finds a peculiar joy and peace in meadow, grove and hills, indeed in all the commonest of things, says Wordsworth in the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. He tries to communicate in the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality how the most trivial of natural objects is fraught with moral significance. Almost all his poems show evidence of a powerful imagination. The leech-gatherer is set against a background of a vast moor to bring out effectively what Wordsworth wanted to say. Similarly, in The Thorn a symbolic atmosphere is built up by using natural objects, the setting moon is Strange fits of Passion have I known seems to forebode the death of Lucy. Indeed, it is the mind’s eye or imagination which plays an important role in Wordsworth’s poems. It is thus that he sees the child as a “sere blest” and “best philosopher”. But of, as he grows up, the corrupting influences of material considerations draw him away from Nature and God, and he can no longer find that joy. But for, by recollecting childhood experiences, he understands the immortality of the soul. In Tintern Abbey, three different attitudes to Nature are traced, each with its own special formative influence on the character of man. The poet tells his sister and by, implication, the reader; “To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” Merit of Pure Language is the positive aspect of Wordsworth’s adherence to simple diction. The Lucy poems are beautiful in their simplicity. The last lines of Elegiac Stanzas are strikingly plain, and therefore effective. Even Tintern Abbey, in spite of its sonority, is written in pure and simple language. Indeed, one can name any poem to illustrate his purity of language. “A tale from my own heart, more near akin To my own passion and habitual thoughts.” Merit of Serious and Weighty Thought marks his poems, and these thoughts are noted for their originality. In Resolution and Independence, he asserts: “By our own spirits are we deified: We poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.” Truth of Nature is another Merit of his poetry. Wordsworth’s images and descriptions from nature are absolutely truthful. The image of the hare running through the wet earth raising a mist which follows it, in Resolution and Independence, is beautiful but accurate in observation. So is the comparison of the leech-gatherer to the stone poised on a hill. How well is the picture of Peele Castle and the smooth sea evoked in Elegiac Stanzas.
“The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare.” Through the objects of Nature, he glimpsed the spirit of Eternity, as in The Simplon Pass and Tintern Abbey.Quality of Meditative Pathos gives beauty to many of his poems- as he wistfully wonders where his “visionary gleam” has fled (Immortality Ode); as he sees in his sister’s eyes what his own state of mind once was (Tintern Abbey); as he describes the old man, bent double by age, wandering his lonely way across the vast moors (Resolution and Independence); as he laments the passing away of Lucy leaving only memories what has been. (Three Years She Grew); as he reflects upon the truth captured by Beaumont’s picture of the stormy sea (Elegiac Stanzas); or as he gives the story of the forsaken woman crying “Oh misery” by a thorn-tree. The eternal spirit in Nature is mentioned in Tintern Abbey too. Wordsworth’s communion with Nature inspires him to feel. We may agree with A.C. Bradley who says that for Wordsworth, to call a thing lonely or solitary is to “open a bright or solemn vista into infinity.” The solitary things and figures impress with their inner strength, endurance and moral dignity. As Caroline Spurgeon has observed,”Wordsworth was not only a poet, he was also a seer and a mystic.” Wordsworth senses that Natural objects. He feels this “Presence” in the light of setting sun, the ocean and the living air, the blue sky and in the mind of man. It is the spirit -
“A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts;” The central faith, that an unbroken chain binds all things in the outward world, and that the spirit of man can consume with God through nature, informs Wordsworth’s poetry. Mysticism in Wordsworth is inseparable from his pantheism. The cardinal doctrine is that a spiritual power lives and breathes through all the works of Nature, and the emotional intensity of the contemplator can alone reveal the presence of the spiritual beneath the material, concrete and outward appearances of this phenomenal world. He had caught a vision of the life in Nature. He believed that everyone could attain this vision, but of as H.W. Garrod points out, Wordsworth, unlike other mystics, does not try to escape from the senses, for the mysticism of Wordsworth is “grounded and root actually in the senses. “...that impels All thinking things, all objects of thought And rolls through all things.” One of the great convictions of Wordsworth to which he gives expression in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is that it is possible to get to the root of humanity and understand the essential workings of the human mind when we deal with the more humble classes of mankind. Perhaps to some extent this is true. The more humble the position of a man is, the more akin to nature he is generally found to be. Artificially of outlook and manners comes with the so-called refinements of modern civilization. Civilization and refinement often hide and dim the truly natural instinct in human beings. This possibly is what Wordsworth means when he prefers to unravel the essential humanity in us through characters belonging to the more humble classes in society. People have become thoughtless and arrogant, hostile and unfeeling to one another. The wretched woman beside the mound in The Thorn is faced with the hostility of the villagers who believe her to be a child-murderer. They have no pity for her miserable situation, her isolation and sorrow. But for, Nature saves her from the villagers’ hostility, and consoles her solitary unhappiness. We should learn from Nature the resilience and fortitude of the old grey thorn-tree and the muddy pond, and appreciate the fresh and lively innocence of the child (symbolized by the mossy-green mound covered with flowers) even if we cannot regain it. When there is communion with Nature, there is communion with God, for it is the spirit of God which dwells in life. To discover behind the diverse forms and phenomena of nature the “One Inseparable and Changeless”- this was the mystic note in Wordsworth. Thus he can say in his Ode: “Thanks to the human heart by which we live Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that lie too deep for tears.” (Intimations of Immortality-) There is regret for things lost: a vision of immortality in youth, an absolute sense of Nature’s beneficence, an unchartered freedom, or the ‘phantom of delight’ one’s wife was when first encountered. At the same time, there is an acceptance, not only without hesitation or sentimental self-pity, but with positive joy, those substitutes which come for the early raptures.
“I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation, drinking in pure Organic pleasure…” Wordsworth observes natural objects and instinctively reaches spiritual revelation. The recollection of these “beauteous forms” of Nature have inspired him into “.. that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and weary weight Of all his unintelligible world Is lightened...” Nature has the power to console mankind. It is when man’s mind is in harmony with the natural objects that a sudden s flash of revelation comes upon him and he becomes aware of the unifying spirit behind everything. In Tintern Abbey, he tells us how the best part of human life is shown to be the result of natural influences. Nature’s healing power was a rapturous experience for Wordsworth and he conveys it in Tintern Abbey; the recollection of the scene soothes him in tormented moments. In The Simplon Pass, the echoing crags, the steep rocks, the dense decaying forest, the tumultuous stream, the stationary blasts of waterfalls, the torrents which seem to fall from the sky, the roaring winds, the unfettered clouds and the calm blue sky- all this “Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light” brings to Wordsworth a spiritual experience.
“Oft in these moments such a holy calm
Would overspread my soul, the bodily eyes Were utterly forgotten and what I saw Appeared like something in myself, a dream, A prospect in the mind..”
Feeling gives importance to situation in Wordsworth’s poems. The situation in The Thorn is not important by itself, but the pathos which shines out in the poem is what Wordsworth aimed at. Not the scene alone but the emotion concerned with the scene is evoked by those scenes. When the individual mind and external nature are in harmony, it is natural that there is a communion between Nature and Man. In The Thorn, a beautiful passage brings home to us the union of the tragic figure to the elements:
“I cannot tell; I wish I could; For the true reason no one knows, But if you’d gladly view the spot, The spot to which she goes;” Thus when the scene is remembered, the feelings connected with the scene are also re-awakened in the poet’s mind.
‘’Apparelled in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.” (Ode: Intimations of Immortality) Poetry, he said, is emotion recollected in tranquility. Tintern Abbey records such an experience. Many a time in periods of stress, he has remembered that scene which has re-evoked in him the feelings of peace and calm. It is that serene mood in which the “affections gently leads us on”, and we are “laid asleep in body, and become a living soul,” says Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey. It is easy to associate Wordsworth only with the “joy” and “happiness” of human destiny. But of, in fact, he was fully conscious of the “cloud of human destiny” and presents it in his poems. “…that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep Nobody, and become a living soul.” In Tintern Abbey, he speaks of the “still sad music of humanity” which colours the mature mind and makes Nature all the more significant. In the Immortality Ode again we read of the “soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering.” Indeed, it is suffering that leads to the philosophical mind which finds meaning in the “meanest flower that blows.” “And she is known to every star And every wind that blows.” In the Elegiac Stanzas, he welcomes the humanizing of his soul through distress; it is suffering that gives fortitude and patient cheer. In The Thorn the anguish of the forsaken woman is presented vividly. “…when the fleshy ear O’ercome by humblest prelude of that strain, Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.” Back to Nature was the motto of the Romantic poets whereas the eighteenth century poets had been poets of city culture. Wordsworth is especially regarded as a poet of Nature. Wordsworth, however, is not satisfied with the appearance of nature alone. Wordsworth has his eye on the object and observes his own dictum of “truth to nature.” His capacity for visual observation is shown in his description of the hare running in Resolution and Independence. We have a nature description in The Simplon Pass where the different senses are subtly fused:
“Fair seed time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.” Tintern Abbey vividly records the development of the poet’s attitude towards Nature. Defect of Verbal Clumsiness mar some poems as a result the poet who wrote such a beautiful line as, “The silence that is in the starry sky”, also wrote a clumsy one like:”The silent heavens have going on.” “The immeasurable heighty Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls...”
…EXCEPT SETTING—IDEA--AND—REFERENCE-CONCEPT; WORDS AND SENTENCES FROM DR.S.SEN AND SRABANI GHOSH.
‘Macbeth’ is Shakespeare's profound and mature vision of evil. No summary can do justice to the play. At best, a commentary such as the one here can be no more than a map. It can show the roads, and even point out the important places; but it is no substitute for reading the play. The entertainment, the moral teaching, the psychology, and the poetry are often all contained in the same speech-even, sometimes, in the same line. Macbeth needs an alert reader- The irony gives us a complete feeling of Fate’s operation! ---And Yet Macbeth Is A Tragic Hero!
‘MACBETH’ NEEDS AN ALERT READER-THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF THE PLAY, OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Who can tell us more about a man’s character than his wife? Shakespeare allows Lady Macbeth to explain her husband’s character as she understands it, and although she cannot see the whole truth, she tells us a great deal about Macbeth that is true. Two lines of her soliloquy in Act I, Scène 5 are particularly significant:
“Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it: ‘’ By ‘illness’ Lady Macbeth means ‘evil’; but her metaphor is appropriate: Macbeth catches evil, as one might catch a disease. The play shows how his symptoms develop, until there is no hope of a cure, and the man must die…!
When Elizabeth I of England was dying, childless, she named James VI of Scotland as her successor. He became James I of England.
In August 1606 James was at Hampton Court, a palace near London, entertaining his brother-in-law, King Christian of Denmark. A play was acted for them, Macbeth, written by the best dramatist of the time, William Shakespeare. It was a new play, but the story was an old one, and James knew it well, because it was about the ancestors, Banquo and Fleance, through whom he had inherited the throne of Scotland.
Shakespeare found the story in ‘The History of Scotland’ by Raphael Holinshed, but his play is much more than a dramatic re-writing of the historical facts. He made many changes, and the biggest of these concerned James’s ancestor.
James also believed that he was descended spiritually from the long tradition of English monarchs, and that he had inherited the power of healing that Edward the Confessor (1042-66) possessed. Shakespeare’s description of this power (Act 4, Scene 3,148-58) is, to some extent, deliberate flattery of his king. Shakespeare also knew that James was extremely interested in witchcraft and had written a book about it.
Macbeth is certainly a play ‘fit for a king’.
But of course, it is more than this-more than flattery for an ancient British monarch; and although the story is largely true, we do not read Macbeth as ‘history’. We could interpret Shakespeare’s play as a moral lesson. Macbeth murders his king. To murder any man is a crime, but those who lived at the time of Shakespeare thought that the murder of a king was the greatest of all crimes. Kings were appointed by God, to rule as His deputies: rebellion against a true king was rebellion against God. By murdering Duncan, Macbeth gains the crown; but he loses love, friendship and respect-and, in the end his life. His crime is rightly punished.
Porter:
“In conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.”’
Macbeth deliberately chooses--not once but several times in the play-the evil path. In the portrayal of Macbeth we witness the destructive power of evil in the inner life of a man. It is not a simple, smooth downward progress; but involves turmoil and conflict between conscience and other desires, between good and evil impulses that work within man. At every stage of Macbeth’s degeneration we witness the choice being made deliberately; at the same time there is a sense of inevitability about Macbeth’s choices. The Witches merely prophecy certain things for Macbeth. They do not influence him in any concert manner. It is a fact that his ambition impels him towards “the swelling act of the imperial theme” but his conscience fills him with horror at the idea that has come to him about how to gain the throne.
[All the Witches:
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go, about, about,
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace, the charm’s wound up.”]……………….
We hear a lot about Macbeth before he comes on to the stage, first from the Sergeant who has fought on his side, and then from Ross, who also speaks of Macbeth’s courage in battle. These reports lead us to expect a noble warrior and a loyal subject to Duncan. We have only one slight doubt about Macbeth, and we are not able to explain quite what this is. We know that, somehow, he is associated with the witches; and this, surely, cannot be good.
Macbeth:
“Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night; to make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till supper-time alone. While then, God be with you.”
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s profound and mature vision of evil. It is a play depicting destruction, wrestling with creation. It is a study of the disintegration and damnation of a man. And yet Macbeth is a ‘tragic hero’, Therein lies Shakespeare’s art, evolving from a deep understanding of the complexity of the human nature.
All the Witches: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.” Macbeth speaks very little when first the witches, and then Ross, hail him as ‘Thane of Cawdor’. Perhaps he is stunned to silence by his good fortune, but soon we hear him speak-or rather, think aloud, for he doesnot mean to be overhead: Macbeth: “Glamis,and Thane of Cawdor; The greatest is behind.” It is not, however, cowardice that restrains Macbeth. At the end of Act I he is wrestling with his conscience. He is acutely aware of the duty which he owes to Duncan: Macbeth: “He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself.” Very soon he begins to admit ‘a suggestion’, some ‘horrible imaginings’, and then he says to himself the word ‘murder’ (Act I, Scene 3, 133; 137; 138.Oxford University Press). Once this word has been spoken, we must regard Macbeth with suspicion grows when he confesses his ‘lack and deep desires’ in the scene that follows (Act I, Scene 4, 51.Oxford University Press). It is confirmed when his wife, speaking as though he were in the room with her, tells Macbeth that she knows he wants Lady Macbeth: “That which rather thou dost fear to do, Than wishest should be undone.” It is significant that the play begins with a brief meeting of the three witches. A very short prologue is long enough to awaken curiosity, but not to satisfy it. We have come in Act I, Scene I ,where at the end of the witches’ meeting, just as they are arranging their next appointment before their familiar spirits-devils in animal shapes-call them away into the ‘fog and filthy air’. The apparent confusion implied in their words –“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” points to the general upheaval of order to which Scotland is led by Macbeth and that constitutes the main action of the play. “So fair and foul a day I have not seen”—a strange coincidence evidently establishes a connection-a kind of affinity- between Macbeth and the Witches, even before they meet. It also brings out the possibility that Macbeth, who has so far been referred to as a brave general in the heights of glory, has a somewhat tainted soul and is, therefore vulnerable to the Witches’ machinations. Porter: “[Knock] Knock, knock. Knock. Who’s there in th’ other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O come in, equivocator. [Knock]” Dramatic irony is a literary device often employed by dramatists of all times for heightening the tragic effect. It appears in a speech or a situation in which two opposite meanings are possible. It is discernible where, for example, the speaker makes a remark that has a special significance for other characters in the play or for the audience- a significance of which the speaker is unaware. Similarly, dramatic irony arises in a situation that may help the audience foresee disaster or calamity unknown to the character concerned. The fact of words reaching out to meaning in the future which is beyond the speaker’s imagination intensifies the tragedy considerably. Macbeth abounds in such examples of dramatic irony and this fact accounts for its success as a tragedy among readers and audiences. In Macbeth the effect of atmosphere is particularly marked; the atmosphere, indeed, is both the result, and cause of the artistic unity of the play. Ross: “And Duncan’s horses, a thing most strange and certain, Beautous and swift, the minions of their race, Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contening ‘gainst obedience as they would Make war with mankind.” Duncan’s words of appreciation for the brave Macbeth come to be charged with dramatic irony in the light of the subsequent acts of villainy and treachery committed by the “valiant cousin” and “worthy gentleman”. Informed of Cawdor’s joining hands with the enemy he orders his death- Duncan: “No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest.”……………………but his words become ironical when the new Thane of Cawdor, i.e. Macbeth, proves him wrong and encounters him with a much greater amount of treachery. In Act I, Scene IV Duncan regrets having built “an absolute trust” on the treacherous Cawdor; the regret itself is full of tragic irony, but the fact of his saying this precisely when the new “Thane of Cawdor” is contemplating his murder makes the irony even more poignant and tragic. On Macbeth too Duncan has already been building an absolute trust. The tragedy is further deepened by Duncan’s ecstatic reception of Macbeth: Duncan: “O worthiest cousin! The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me. Further, the irony here becomes more effective because the audience is now fully aware of the evil ambition in Macbeth’s mind. On the other hand, the good king Duncan cannot imagine that the worthy cousin to whom he is apologizing for his fancied ingratitude will soon commit the worst conceivable ingratitude by killing him. He creates a cruelly the worst conceivable ingratitude by killing him. He creates a cruelly ironical situation by inviting himself to Macbeth’s castle: the lamb committing himself gleefully to the wolves’ care. There is a dramatic irony in his extravagant tribute to Macbeth’s exit from the scene: Duncan: “..he is full so valiant. And in his commendations I am fed. It is a banquet to him.” He then goes on to describe Macbeth as “a peerless kinsman” without knowing that this kinsman of his would ultimately prove “peerless” only in the treachery and not in the sense of nobility that the term is usually associated with. Porter: “Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him, makes him stand to and not stand to.”” The vision of the dagger before him with the handle dripping with blood unnerves Macbeth. The scene is a profound evocation of terror and uneasy gloom. The ideas of night and witchcraft and murder expressed in Macbeth’s words create an atmosphere of fear and evil- a fitting prelude to the murder. Fear tentacles are seen to spread fast and wide, as in the very next scene we see the so far invulnerable Lady Macbeth feels the first twinge of the emotion. She admits that she herself would have killed Duncan if only he had not resembled her father as he slept. Her courage now is the hollow courage derived from drink. Macbeth after his crime is shown to be in abject terror pitifully giving voice to his inability to pronounce “Amen.” While Macbeth expresses the inventible loss of peace mind as a result of his criminal action-his consciousness that he will no longer be able to sleep in peace-Lady Macbeth expresses her fear of a more practical kind. She tells him to wash his hands and place threw daggers in Duncan’s room, but fear has completely unmanned him; he cannot go back into the room, and it is Lady Macbeth who has to undertake the work. Every noise now appeals him and his bloodstained hands, he feels, will redden the entire ocean. Lady Macbeth: “To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.” [Exit] Macbeth is guilty of committing the most heinous crimes. Lady Macbeth, as if she were a fourth witch, encourages and influences him with valour of her tongue and the crime, which might otherwise have remained undone, is committed. Lady Macbeth, too, soon realizes the futility of the crown that they have obtained through crime and soliloquies. She suffers like her husband, the tortures of Hell, a glimpse of which we get in the sleep-walking scene. Porter: “[Knock] Knock, knock. Knock. Who’s there I’th’name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’expectation of plenty. Come in time-have napkins enough about you, here you’ll sweat for’t.” When Lady Macbeth makes her first appearance in the play, she is seen reading the letter from her husband in whom he tells her “his dearest partner of greatness”, of his success in the battle, the prediction of the witches and their partial fulfillments. In her comments on the letter, she expresses her admiration for his greatness, and wishes for him all that he wishes for himself. Aware of her husband’s weakness, she is determined to further the schemes using the whole force of her superior will lead him into prompt action. Her cruelty is only assumed and meant for the betterment of her husband’s career. Gentlewoman: “ Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take s forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed, yet all this while in a most fast sleep.” As we look at the character of Macbeth we see, more clearly than we are able to see in real life, the effects of uncontrolled ambition on a man who is, except for his ambition, noble in nature. Macbeth has full knowledge of right and wrong; he knows that he has committed a very great crime by murdering Duncan. Shakespeare shows us how Macbeth becomes hardened to his crimes, and yet how he suffers from fears which he has created himself. Banquo: “Thou hast it now, king Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promis’d and I fear Thou played’st most foully for’t.” Gradually Macbeth discovers the unshakable truth of evil’s deception, but not before it has wrought deterioration of character in him. To him appearance is reality, but he has lost touch with the benevolent spirit, which gives meaning to life. The theme of false appearance is embodied in the very action of the play, so that Macbeth’s despairing recognition of mere ‘mouth-honor’ among his remaining followers echoes ironically his wife’s advice to be a serpent under the welcoming of Duncan. It is reinforced by the cloud of uncertainty that settles on Scotland during Macbeths’ despotism. After the murder of Duncan, the darkness that envelops the earth in daytime reinforces the disorder and equivocation in nature as aptly implied in the words of Rosse, Act II, SceneIV. Old Man: “Threescore and ten I can remember well; Within the volume of which time, I have seen Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night Hath trifled former knowings.” The scene in which Lady Macbeth receives the royal guest is steeped in dramatic irony. Duncan’s immediate response to the surroundings on his arrival at Macbeth’s castle is charged with irony: Duncan: “This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses...” Banquo’s expression of admiration for the castle, “the heaven’s breath/smells wooingly here,” is similarly imbued with a sense of grim irony. The irony becomes memorable when Duncan describes the conspiring Lady Macbeth as “our honoured hostess” and ‘’fair and noble hostess.” The irony employed here effectively heightens the cruelty, ugliness and meanness of the act that Lady Macbeth proposes to commit in partnership with her husband. There is equally intense irony in Duncan’s final words on the stage. Duncan has no idea that his host and hostess whom he loves highly will prove the worst traitors to him; the audience, however, knows it through Lady Macbeth’s earlier announcement that Duncan would never leave their castle alive. Duncan: “Give me your hand; Conduct me to miner host: we love him highly, And shall continue our graces towards him.” Duncan has no idea that his host and hostess whom he loves highly will prove the worst traitor for him. The audience, however, knows it through Lady Macbeth’s earlier announcement that Duncan would never leave their castle alive. Porter: “[Knock] Knock, knock. Knock. Who’s there? Faith, here is an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor, here you may roast your goose. [Knock] “ Dramatic irony is present in many of Macbeth’s sayings. His opening words, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”, bear, unknown to Macbeth himself,. Special significance for the audience on account of their being an echo of the earlier words of the witches, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” He does not know what we know, the close correspondence between his language and theirs, suggestive of a bond of spiritual kinship pre-existing between them. Again in the same scene Macbeth utters the well meaning words, “Let us toward the king.”, but what a grim suggestion the words have for us who know the full story. He is moving towards the kingship indeed in a sense in which he at least consciously does not mean it. Macbeth’s words to Banquo in Act II, Sc.I before Banquo retires to bed, is again ironical. Macbeth: “I think not of them; Yet when we can entreat an hour to serve, We would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time.” Macbeth tells him that he and his wife could have accorded greater hospitality to the king if they had been given ample time for it. The irony lies in the reader’s awareness of their plan to assassinate their royal guest. There is grim irony in Banquo’s delivery of the diamond sent by Duncan in appreciation of Lady Macbeth’s hospitality. Banquo still remains ignorant of the evil designs of his hosts and the irony is understood by Macbeth and the audience. There is much irony in Macbeth’s words to Macduff justifying the killing of the guards. Macduff: “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece: Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple.” Here Macduff’s ignorant of the identity of the murderer, takes the words at their face value; but the audience is now confirmed of the hypocrisy and villainy of the speaker. There is dramatic irony in Macbeth’s inviting Banquo to the banquet:”My Lord, I will not.” And indeed he does not fail to attend the banquet-much to the consternation of his lord: Macbeth’s decision to secure peace and safety by murdering Banquo is an irony in itself. That which was calculated to further his fortune most certainly marks the beginning of his decline. Dramatic irony can be noticed in quite a number of speeches made by Lady Macbeth. Thus she tries to console a repentant Macbeth after he has murdered the king: Lady Macbeth: “These deeds must not be thought After these ways so, it will make us mad.”
But of, her words turn ironical in the light of the future happenings. It is she who goes mad. Again, in the same scene her words of reproach for her husband “Brainsickly of things” turn ironical when we find how she herself becomes “Brainsick” before her end.
Lady Macbeth: “A little water clears us of the deed: How easy is it then.” We realize the irony of these words when we set them in the context of the words of a shattered and insane Lady Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene: Lady Macbeth: ” Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” We also discover dramatic irony in several speeches as made by other characters. Act III, Sc.VI, where Lennox and another Lord are speaking about the late state of affairs in their rotten state, is full of pungent rhetorical irony. “Things have been strangely borne”, says Lennox. The gracious Duncan was pitied by Macbeth and “marry, he was dead.” The drunken remarks of the porter are again in some places, poignantly ironical. He compares himself with the “porter of Hell gate” without knowing that the castle of the Macbeths has indeed turned hellish with the assassination of the royal guest. After the discovery of the murder Macduff tells Lady Macbeth that he cannot tell her what has happened because” the repitation,in a woman’s ear,/ would murther as it fell.” The dramatic irony in this case lies in the ignorance of Macduff as to the identity of the killers and in the awareness in the audience of the facts. Dramatic irony also underlies Lennox’s description of the ‘unruly’ night just before Macduff returns with the news of Duncan’s assassination. Duncan: “There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.” Lennox while describing the nights is yet to know the truth of the murder but the audience linked up the strange happenings of the night with the foul murder of the innocent king. The dramatic irony in the account of the portents effectively intensifies the horror of the heinous crime. Angus: “Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.” A.C. Bradley thus comments on Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in Macbeth: “Not even Richard III is there so much of irony. I do not refer to irony in the ordinary sense (to speeches, for examples, where the speaker is intentionally ironical, like that of Lennox in Act III , Scene vi) I refer to irony on the part of the author himself, to ironical juxtaposition of persons and events, and especially to the Sophoclean irony by which a speaker is made to use words bearing to the audience, in addition to his own meaning , a further and ominous sense, hidden from himself and usually, from the other persons on the stage.” Dramatic irony produces in the audience a sense of the working of Fate. The action initiated by the protagonist has in itself the seeds of his destruction though he is only aware of the glory and prosperity that he is aiming to get. Macbeth’s ambition makes him blind to the equivocation of evil forces. The Witches’ prophecies are taken in one sense by Macbeth and he lets his evil impulses take the upper hand. In the end, however, Macbeth realizes that he has misinterpreted the words of these “juggling fiends.” But for this knowledge comes too late; his actions must bear fruit and he must be destroyed. This is the awesome dramatic irony working at the level of the action of the play, and it is what makes the tragedy’s impact so powerful. At every step, the situational irony mocks at Macbeth. He kills Duncan, but the king’s sons live; he feels Macduff to be a threat but his murder of the rest of the family achieves nothing for him. He thinks he has killed one enemy in Banquo only to be tormented and led to what the protagonist expects happens. The irony gives us a feeling of Fate’s operation. Macbeth: “Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires, The eye wink at the hand. Yet let that be Which the eye fears when it is done to see.”……………………..(!)
“As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him, but as he was ambitious, I slew him….Who is there so base that would be a bondman? If any speak, for him have I offended.”
REFERENCES, WORDS, SENTENCES EXCEPT IDEAS, SETTINGS AND CONTEXTUALIZE FROM DR.SEN,TEXT BOOK AND OTHER.
Do the Witches, in fact have any power in the play ‘Macbeth’ throughout? The forces of evil are always ready to ensnare man, but they have their limitations. They do not, indeed cannot, force man into evil; they can merely tempt man to choose to follow evil ways. Experiencing temptation is not sinful, but deliberately choosing to give in to temptation is an evil.
[“Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
Saucy and over-bold? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death?”] (HECATE SCENE, Act 3, SCENE 5)
Macbeth deliberately chooses-not once but several times in the play-the evil path. In the portrayal of Macbeth we witness the destructive power of evil in the inner life of a man. It is not a simple, smooth downward progress; but involves turmoil and conflict between conscience and other desires, between good and evil impulses that work within man. At every stage of Macbeth’s degeneration we witness the choice being made deliberately; at the same time there is a sense of inevitability about Macbeth’s choices. The Witches merely prophecy certain things for Macbeth. They do not influence him in any concert manner. It is a fact that his ambition impels him towards “the swelling act of the imperial theme” but his conscience fills him with horror at the idea that has come to him about how to gain the throne. The deterioration of Macbeth’s character illustrates the theme of conscience and its decline. From a brave soldier and noble person, Macbeth reaches a state when he is a soulless man, a beast chained to a stake and finally slaughtered like a beast. A fever in his blood keeps him away from conscience and urges him on to ceaseless action and to desperation. Love of power and the will to live are so powerful in him that he goes to the extent of challenging Fate... TheWitches’predictions and their partial fulfillment at once engross him in the thought of kingship. His ambition makes him unscrupulous and the thought of murdering Duncan occurs instantly in his mind. “And you all know, security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” (HECATE SCENE, Act 3, SCENE 5) Act-I Scene-I, a short scene introduces the readers to the theme of evil. As a scene of exposition, it creates the atmosphere and hints at a battle being fought and the keenness of the Witches to meet the protagonist. Even before human beings have been introduced, the witches and tumultuous, hostile weather suggest the part to be played by the supernatural. The two ambiguous lines, “When the battle’s lost and won” and “Fair is foul and foul is fair” are only a beginning to many more of such paradoxical and enigmatic statements. It may be noted that in the whole play there are nineteen scenes of darkness as against only seven of dusk and daylight. The atmosphere of darkness and terror continues through the play until in the last scene Macduff enters with Macbeth’s head indicating the ultimate end of the nightmare.
Macbeth’s ambition, aided by his wife’s instigation, is too strong for his conscience, which is ignored. As soon as he commits the murder he can again hear the disturbing protest of his deeper self. Conscience now gnaws at him and makes itself articulate in the form of unforgettable sighs and haunting sounds. Macbeth is now overwhelmed with a sense of futility of the crime and an equally strong sense of remorse. “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Macbeth is guilty of committing the most heinous crimes. Lady Macbeth, as if she were a fourth witch, encourages and influences him with valour of her tongue and the crime, which might otherwise have remained undone, is committed. Lady Macbeth, too, soon realizes the futility of the crown that they have obtained through crime and soliloquies. She suffers like her husband, the tortures of Hell, a glimpse of which we get in the sleep-walking scene. ‘Macbeth: “How now,you secret,black, and midnight hags! What is’t you do? All the Witches: A deed without a name.”’ Evil always works through deception. The evil within Macbeth responds to the evil outside when he believes the words of the Witches. The Witches offer Macbeth worldly prosperity, as evil must, in order to be attractive enough to tempt man, but the promises of evil are false; they are seeming or half-truths. Evil always create an atmosphere of uncertainty and false belief. Macbeth’ himself does not know how far the Witches’ prophecies are good or evil! “Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more. By Sinel’s death, I know I am Thane of Glamis. But how of Cawdor?” Evil must deceive in order to prosper, if only temporarily, for deception ultimately is found out. While it is in sway it sets in motion ripples of ambiguity in which the innocent are perforce also caught. Thus Duncan calls, Macbeth as “noble”, “worthy” and so on, little knowing the reality beneath the appearance…the reality is given expression to by the porter’s macabre humorous quibbles on hell-gate! ‘“ I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire. [Knock] Anon, anon. I pray you, remember the porter.” [Opens door]’ Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ‘voice what appear to be the most hospitable epithets while committing the most heinous of crimes against hospitality- the murder of a guest under their own roof. Thus before he commits the murder of Duncan he is troubled by the vision of the blood-stained dagger. He is later troubled by the hallucination of Banquo’s Ghost. Once again there is confusion between appearance and reality. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.” Like all tragic heroes, Macbeth too is blind to reality. He believes implicitly in what the Witches say, it is on the basis of his belief in their words that he takes action and goes deeper into the quagmire till he reaches the point of no return. His belief in the Witches…The atmosphere of uncertainty let loose by one act of evil permeates everything and colours the vision of even the innocent and good characters. Thus Malcolm in his cautiousness puts on an appearance of vileness to test the reality of Macduff’s integrity. In case of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth when they welcome Duncan, we have evil masquerading as good to hide the truth. “Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use; We are yet but young in deed.” Gradually Macbeth discovers the unshakable truth of evil’s deception, but not before it has wrought deterioration of character in him. To him appearance is reality, but he has lost touch with the benevolent spirit, which gives meaning to life. The theme of false appearance is embodied in the very action of the play, so that Macbeth’s despairing recognition of mere ‘mouth-honour’ among his remaining followers echoes ironically his wife’s advice to be a serpent under the welcoming of Duncan. It is reinforced by the cloud of uncertainty that settles on Scotland during Macbeths’ despotism. After the murder of Duncan, the darkness that envelops the earth in daytime reinforces the disorder and equivocation in nature as aptly implied in the words of Rosse,Act II,SceneIV. Evil works out its own destruction. It may create terrible disorder at first but Nature is able to restore harmony. The birth of good is heralded by the perversion of Nature itself. Birnam Wood moves and Macduff turns out to be a man “unborn” of a woman-these are symbolic devices to indicate that the very perversion of mature can herald the doom and destruction of one who initially caused that perversion. True honour and bravery are opposed to false honour and rashness. The repetition of words such as ‘duty’, and ‘service’ create a sense of an orderly social and political fabric which has been disrupted by Macbeth’s crime. Images of planting and seeing, of sleep, and of milk stand in contrast to the images of disorder implied by words like fear and blood and by contrast between appearance and reality. Evil is deceptive and seeks to lead astray.
Reference’, Words and Sentences from Critical Evaluations of Dr. Sen and Sraboni Ghosh, except setting, ideas and contextualized. (RituparnaRayChaudhuri/Shehanaz)
Its oft I had been asked by students and many of others of the given topic. What I personally felt be its answer, referring obviously to standard books, I answered my seekers including also analyzing myself just twelve lines of the opening scene, which is in fact, later I thought, is containing a very ‘partial fulfillment’ of the conversation among the witches- perhaps that figures out the destiny of a mortal being, destiny of the tragic hero, full of “profound- mature -complexity of human materialistic nature’’-----Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2014 (UTC)