Allied I : Background to the Study of English Lit I - University of Madras: Revised Syllabus BA English (Sem 1)

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE – I (ALLIED)

UNIT I

Elements of Drama

Most successful playwrights follow the theories of playwriting and drama that were established over two thousand years ago by a man named Aristotle.  In his works the Poetics Aristotle outlined the six elements of drama in his critical analysis of the classical Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex written by the Greek playwright, Sophocles, in the fifth century B.C.  The six elements as they are outlined involve: Thought, Theme, Ideas; Action or Plot; Characters; Language; Music; and Spectacle.

1. Thought/Theme/Ideas

What the play means as opposed to what happens (the plot).  Sometimes the theme is clearly stated in the title.  It may be stated through dialogue by a character acting as the playwright’s voice. Or it may be the theme is less obvious and emerges only after some study or thought. It deals with the abstract issues and feelings that grow out of the dramatic action.

2. Action/Plot

The plot must have some sort of unity and clarity by setting up a pattern by which each action initiating the next rather than standing alone without connection to what came before it or what follows.  In the plot of a play, characters are involved in conflict that has a pattern of movement. The action and movement in the play begins from the initial entanglement, through rising action, climax, and falling action to resolution.

3. Characters

These are the people presented in the play that are involved in the perusing plot.  Each character should have their own distinct personality, age, appearance, beliefs, socio economic background, and language.

4. Language

The word choices made by the playwright and the enunciation of the actors of the language.  Language and dialog delivered by the characters moves the plot and action along, provides exposition, and defines the distinct characters.  Each playwright can create their own specific style in relationship to language choices they use in establishing character and dialogue. 

5. Music

Music can encompass the rhythm of dialogue and speeches in a play or can also mean the aspects of the melody and music compositions as with musical theatre.  Each theatrical presentation delivers music, rhythm and melody in its own distinctive manner.    Music is not a part of every play.  But, music can be included to mean all sounds in a production.  Music can expand to all sound effects, the actor’s voices, songs, and instrumental music played as underscore in a play.  Music creates patterns and establishes tempo in theatre.  In the aspects of the musical the songs are used to push the plot forward and move the story to a higher level of intensity.  Composers and lyricist work together with playwrights to strengthen the themes and ideas of the play.  Character’s wants and desires can be strengthened for the audience through lyrics and music.

6. Spectacle

The spectacle in the theatre can involve all of the aspects of scenery, costumes, and special effects in a production.  The visual elements of the play created for theatrical event.  The qualities determined by the playwright that create the world and atmosphere of the play for the audience’s eye. 

Further Considerations of the Playwright

Above and beyond the elements outlined above the playwright has other major consideration to take into account when writing.  The Genre and Form of the play is an important aspect.  Some playwrights are pure in the choice of genre for a play.  They write strictly tragedy or comedy.  Other playwrights tend to mix genre, combining both comedy and tragedy in one piece of dramatic work. 

Genre/Form

Drama is divided into the categories of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and tragicomedy.  Each of these genre/forms can be further subdivide by style and content.

Definition of Tragedy

Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.  The tragedy is presented in the form of action, not narrative. It will arouse pity and fear in the audience as it witnesses the action.  It allows for an arousal of this pity and fear and creates an affect of purgation or catharsis of these strong emotions by the audience.  Tragedy is serious by nature in its theme and deals with profound problems.  These profound problems are universal when applied to the human experience.  In classical tragedy we find a protagonist at the center of the drama that is a great person, usually of upper class birth.  He is a good man that can be admired, but he has a tragic flaw, a hamartia, that will be the ultimate cause of his down fall.  This tragic flaw can take on many characteristics but it is most often too much pride or hubris.  The protagonist always learns, usually too late, the nature of his flaw and his mistakes that have caused his downfall.  He becomes self-aware and accepts the inevitability of his fate and takes full responsibility for his actions.  We must have this element of inevitability in tragedy.  There must be a cause and effect relationship from the beginning through the middle to the end or final catastrophe.  It must be logical in the conclusion of the necessary outcome.  Tragedy will involve the audience in the action and create tension and expectation.  With the climax and final end the audience will have learned a lesson and will leave the theatre not depressed or sullen, but uplifted and enlightened.

Comedy

Comedy should have the view of a “comic spirit” and is physical and energetic.  It is tied up in rebirth and renewal, this is the reason most comedy end in weddings, which suggest a union of a couple and the expected birth of children.  In comedy there is absence of pain and emotional reactions, as with tragedy, and a replaced use of mans intellect.  The behavior of the characters presented in comedy is ludicrous and sometimes absurd and the result in the audience is one of correction of behaviors.  This correction of behaviors is the didactic element of comedy that acts as a mirror for society, by which the audience learns “don’t behave in ludicrous and absurd ways.”  The types of comedies can vary greatly; there are situation comedies, romantic comedies, sentimental comedies, dark comedies, comedy of manners, and pure farce.  The comic devices used by playwrights of comedy are: exaggeration, incongruity, surprise, repetition, wisecracks, and sarcasm. 

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is the most lifelike of all of the genres.  It is non-judgmental and ends with no absolutes.  It focuses on character relationships and shows society in a state of continuous flux.  There is a mix of comedy and tragedy side by side in these types of plays.

Revenge Tragedy

    There remains one further species of tragedy to define and analyze--namely, revenge tragedy, a type that originated in ancient Greece, reached its zenith of popularity in Renaissance London, and which continues to thrill audiences on the silver screen today.

    In general, revenge tragedy dramatizes the predicament of a wronged hero.  A typical scenario is as follows: Your daughter has been brutally raped and murdered; but because of legal technicalities, the killer is allowed to go free. What do you do? Stoically endure your pain? Or take justice into your own hands?  Examples of the revenge theme abound in Greek tragedy (e.g., Agamemnon, Medea) and in Elizabethan drama (Hamlet, Titus Andronicus). The theme is also illustrated in numerous Hollywood westerns and crime thrillers (e.g., Death Wish). 

Melodrama

Melodrama is drama of disaster and differs from tragedy significantly, in that; forces outside of the protagonist cause all of the significant events of the plot.  All of the aspects of related guilt or responsibility of the protagonist is removed.  The protagonist is usually a victim of circumstance.  He is acted upon by the antagonist or anti-hero and suffers without having to accept responsibility and inevitability of fate.  In melodrama we have clearly defined character types with good guys and bad guys identified.  Melodrama has a sense of strict moral judgment.  All issues presented in the plays are resolved in a well-defined way.  The good characters are rewarded and the bad characters are punished in a means that fits the crime. 

Farce

A farce is a literary genre and the type of a comedy that makes the use of highly exaggerated and funny situations aimed at entertaining the audience. Farce is also a subcategory of dramatic comedy that is different from other forms of comedy, as it only aims at making the audience laugh. It uses elements like physical humor, deliberate absurdity, bawdy jokes and drunkenness just to make people laugh and we often see one-dimensional characters in ludicrous situations in farces.

The basic purpose of a farcical comedy is to evoke laughter. We usually find farces in theater and films and sometimes in other literary works too. In fact, these combine stereotype characters and exaggeration to create humor. Although a farce may appear only funny, however they also contain deeper implications on account of the use of satirical elements. In terms of plots, farces are often incomprehensible; hence, the audiences are not encouraged to follow the plot in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed and confused. Moreover, farces also contain improbable coincidences and generally mock at weaknesses of humans and human society.

Masque

The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Often, the masquers who did not speak or sing were courtiers: the English queen Anne of Denmark frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I of England performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV of France danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

The masque has its origins in a folk tradition where masked players would unexpectedly call on a nobleman in his hall, dancing and bringing gifts on certain nights of the year, or celebrating dynastic occasions. The rustic presentation of "Pyramus and Thisbe" as a wedding entertainment in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream offers a familiar example. Spectators were invited to join in the dancing. At the end, the players would take off their masks to reveal their identities.

While the masque was no longer as popular as it was at its height in the 17th Century, there are many later examples of the masque. During the late 17th century, English semi-operas by composers such as Henry Purcell had masque scenes inset between the acts of the play proper. In the 18th century, William Boyce and Thomas Arne, among other composers, continued to utilize the masque genre mostly as an occasional piece, and the genre became increasingly associated with patriotic topics. There are isolated examples throughout the first half of the 19th century.

Style/Mode/ “ism’

Each play will have its own unique and distinctive behaviors, dress, and language of the characters.  The style of a playwright is shown in the choices made in the world of the play: the kinds of characters, time periods, settings, language, methods of characterization, use of symbols, and themes.

Dramatic Structure

                Dramatic structure involves the overall framework or method by which the playwright uses to organize the dramatic material and or action.  It is important for playwrights to establish themes but the challenge comes in applying structure to the ideas and inspirations.  Understanding basic principles of dramatic structure can be invaluable to the playwright.  Most modern plays are structured into acts that can be further divided into scenes.  The pattern most often used is a method by where the playwright sets up early on in the beginning scenes all of the necessary conditions and situations out of which the later conditions will develop. Generally the wants and desires of one character will conflict with another character.  With this method the playwright establishes a pattern of complication, rising action, climax, and resolution.  This is commonly known as cause to effect arrangement of incidents. 

The basic Characteristics of the cause to effect arrangement are:

• Clear exposition of situation
• Careful preparation for future events
• Unexpected but logical reversals
• Continuous mounting suspense
• An obligatory scene
• Logical resolution

Point of Attack

The moment of the play at which the main action of the plot begins.  This may occur in the first scene, or it may occur after several scenes of exposition.  The point of attack is the main action by which all others will arise.  It is the point at which the main complication is introduced.  Point of attack can sometimes work hand in hand with a play’s inciting incident, which is the first incident leading to the rising action of the play.  Sometimes the inciting incident is an event that occurred somewhere in the character’s past and is revealed to the audience through exposition.

Exposition

Exposition is important information that the audience needs to know in order to follow the main story line of the play.  It is the aspects of the story that the audience may hear about but that they will not witness in actual scenes.  It encompasses the past actions of the characters before the play’s opening scenes progress.

Rising Action

Rising action is the section of the plot beginning with the point of attack and/or inciting incident and proceeding forward to the crisis onto the climax.  The action of the play will rise as it set up a situation of increasing intensity and anticipation.  These scenes make up the body of the play and usually create a sense of continuous mounting suspense in the audience.

The Climax/Crisis

All of the earlier scenes and actions in a play will build technically to the highest level of dramatic intensity. This section of the play is generally referred to as the moment of the plays climax.  This is the moment where the major dramatic questions rise to the highest level, the mystery hits the unraveling point, and the culprits are revealed.  This should be the point of the highest stage of dramatic intensity in the action of the play.  The whole combined actions of the play generally lead up to this moment. 

Resolution/Obligatory Scene

The resolution is the moment of the play in which the conflicts are resolved.  It is the solution to the conflict in the play, the answer to the mystery, and the clearing up of the final details. This is the scene that answers the questions raised earlier in the play.  In this scene the methods and motives are revealed to the audience.

Categories of Plot Structure

Climatic vs. Episodic

Climatic Structure

·         Plot begins late in story, closer to the very end or climax

·         Covers a short space of time, perhaps a few hours, or at most a few days

·         Contains a few solid, extended scenes, such as three acts with each act comprising one long scene

·         Occurs in a restricted locale, one room or one house

·         Number of characters is severely limited, usually not more than six or eight

·         Plot in linear and moves in a single line with few subplots or counter plots

·         Line of action proceeds in a cause and effect chain. The characters and events are closely linked in a sequence of logical, almost inevitable development

Episodic Structure

·         Plot begins relatively early in the story and moves through a series of episodes

·         Covers a longer period of time: weeks, months, and sometimes years

·         Many short, fragmented scenes; sometimes an alternation of short and long scenes

·         May range over an entire city or even several countries

·         Profusion of characters, sometimes several dozen

·         Frequently marked by several threads of action, such as two parallel plots, or scenes of comic relief in a serious play

Unit II

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE POETRY

Subject matter which is supplied by external objects, such as deeds, events and the things we see around us, and that which is supplied by the poet’s own thoughts and feelings. The former gives rise to Objective poetry, the latter to Subjective.

In Objective Poetry the poet acts as a detached observer, describing what he has seen or heard; in the other hand he brings to bear his own reflections upon what he has seen or heard. The same subject matter can be viewed either way. If the poet views it from without confining himself, that is to say merely to his externals, his treatment is objective; if he views it from within, giving expression, that is to say, to the thoughts and feelings it arouses in his mind, his treatment is subjective. Objective Poetry is impersonal and Subjective Poetry is Personal. In the former the focus of attention is something that is outward – a praiseworthy act, a thrilling occurrence, a beautiful sight; in the latter it is the poet himself: whatever the subject may be, his mind is centred on his own thoughts and feelings.

Objective Poetry is older than Subjective. The Primitive people among whom it developed , like the uncivilized races in some parts of the world today, were more interested in what they saw and heard than in what they thought.They valued the experiences of their eye and ear more than the experiences of their mind. Deep thinking may even have been irksome to them, considering that their life was simple, composed more of action than of thought. Their Poetry, therefore, dealt with deeds, events and the things they saw around them, and it called for the little mental efforts from their hearers. At the early stage man has not acquired a subjective outlook, which is the product of civilization. The Epic and the Drama are the forms of this objective poetry, in which, as in the ballad, the writer’s personality remains in the background. The Lyric and the elegy, which belong to later times, represent the subjective variety.

Subjective Poetry and its different forms

1) THE LYRIC

The lyric: Its Nature; Its Kinds

The lyric is the commonest kind of the poetry of self-expression. Man has always liked to pour out his intensely-felt feelings and emotion, and hence the lyric is among the earliest forms of poetry to be written in the literary history of any people. When moved by some intense emotion, love, hatred, joy, sorrow, wonder, admiration, etc., man has always expressed himself in a poetic language, and this accounts for the early appearance of the lyric among all peoples.

In the beginning, the word ‘lyric’ was used for any song meant to be sung with the ‘lyre’, a stringed musical instrument known to the Greeks. In course of time this musical accompaniment of the lyric was dropped and the word came to signify any short poem or song expressing the personal emotions and experiences of the poet. A lyric may embody any kind of emotion. SaysHudson in this connection, “a lyric is almost unlimited in range and variety, for it may touch nearly all aspects of experience, from those which are most narrowly individual to those which involve the broadest interests of our common humanity. Thus we have the convival or bachanalian lyric; The lyric which skims the lighter things of life, as in the so–called verse de societe; thelyric of love in all its phases, and with all its attendant hopes and longings,  joys and sorrows; the lyric of patriotism; the lyric of religious emotion: and countless other kinds which it is unnecessary to attempt to tabulate.” There is also the reflective lyric in which the element of thought becomes prominent, and the poet philosophises on human life and human experiences.

Essentials of a Good Lyric

The chief qualities of a good lyric may be summarized as follows:

1.         It is a short poem, characterised by simplicity in language and treatment.

2.         It deals with a single emotion which is generally stated in the first few lines. Then the poet gives us the thoughts suggested by that particular emotion. The last and concluding part is in the nature of a summary or it embodies the conclusion reached by the poet. Such is the development of a lyric in general, but often these three parts are not distinctly marked. In moments of intense emotional excitement the poet may be carried away by his emotions and the lyric may develop along entirely different lines. A lyric is more often than not, mood-dictated.

3.         It is musical. Verbal-music is an important element in its appeal and charm. Various devices are used by poets to enhance the music of their lyrics.

4.         A lyric is always an expression of the moods and emotions of a poet. The best lyrics are emotional in tone. However, a poet may not express merely his emotions, he may also analyse them intellectually. This gives to the lyric a hard intellectual tone. Such intellectual analysis of emotion is an important characteristic of the metaphysical lyrics of the early 17^thcentury. Such lyrics are also more elaborate than the ordinary lyric.

5.         It is characterised by intensity and poignancy. The best lyrics are the expressions of intensely felt emotions. Like fire, the intensity of the poet’s emotion burns out the non-essentials, all attention is concentrated and the basic emotion, and the gain in poignancy is enormous. It comes directly out of the heart of the poet, and so goes directly to the heart of the readers. The lyric at its best is poignant, pathetic and intense.

6.         Spontaneity is another important quality of a lyric. The lyric poet sings in strains of unpremeditated art. He sings effortlessly because he must, because of the inner urge for self-expression. Any conscious effort on his part, makes the lyric look unnatural and artificial.

The Elizabethan Lyric

The Elizabethan age was the glorious age of the English. In this age everyone sang, down from the flowery courtier to the man in the street. It was also on the stage, and lyrics are scattered all over the plays of dramatists like Shakespeare. The Elizabethan lyric is sweet and musical, but it is characterised by artificiality as the lyrics were composed because it was a fashion to write lyrics, and not because the poets really had any urge for self-expression.

The Elizabethan lyric has some well-defined characteristics of its own: (a) In the best of them there is a fine, “blending of the genius of the people and the artistic sense awakened by humanism.” The song had always been there, but the song of popular tradition was unrefined and coarse. In the most successful Elizabethan lyric, “the rudeness and clumsiness of the popular muse has been penetrated by graceful refinements of Vocabulary and a pliability of versification previously unknown to her.” (b) While the best lyrics have a perfection which is never re-captured, in lesser hands it degenerates into mere artifice and pedantry. Hence the artificiality of much of Elizabethan lyricism. (c) Moreover, many compose lyrics merely because it is the fashion to do so, and not because they have genuine inspiration. They sing of love, without being lovers, and of nature without having any real feeling for her charms. Hence the insincerity, conventionalism and affectation of many an Elizabethan lyric. The poets have brilliant fancy but little passion. (d) The Elizabethan lyric differs from the romantic lyric in as much as it is not the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion. It is not the outpouring of the poet’s soul, it lacks intensity and passion. It is impersonal in character rather than subjective. The lover is commonly represented as a shepherd, a device which separates the lover and the poet. The poet seems to be in love with love itself, and not with alyric. The poet frequently generalises on the folly of love or the pain or idolatory of lovers. The happiness of lowly desire, the tranquility of a virtuous mind, the superiority of a shpeherds’s life to that of a king, etc., are often pointed out by the poet. (f) Thanks to the prevailing taste for music, the Elizabethan lyric is very musical. Alliteration and other verbal devices are frequently used to make the lyric musical. (g) The lyric lacks originality. The poets are afraid of breaking new ground. They seek respectability for their efforts, “either by basing them upon accepted classic or by chanting them to hymn-like airs,” (S.A. Brooke). “In the Elizabethan lyric are blended the aroma of antiquity and the secret of modernity.”

Lyric in the 17^th Century

With the exception of Milton’s epics, the poetry of the early 17^th century comprises of lyrics which may be divided into three categories: (a) the metaphysical lyric, (b) the religious lyric, and (c) the Caroline or Cavalier lyric. The metaphysical lyric is more elaborate than an ordinary lyric, and is hard, intellectual in tone. John Donne, the founder of the metaphysical school of poetry, intellectualised the English lyric. He also has the credit of writing some of the finest love-lyrics in the English language. Some of the most poignant of the religious lyrics in the language also belong to him.

Every one of the lyrics has its origin in some emotional situation, and as the lyric proceeds the poet analyses intellectually that particular emotion. The emotion is discussed and analysed almost threadbare and arguments, for and against, are given in the manner of a clever lawyer pleading his case. Thus inValediction: Forbidding Mourning, the poet advances arguments after arguments in support of the view that true lovers need not mourn at the time of parting. Similarly, in the Canonisation a case is cleverly made out in favour of love-making and the lovers are ingenuously shown to be saints of love. This intellectual analysis of emotion is something new and original in the English lyric. It results in that fusion of thought and emotion – that unification of sensibility – for which T.S. Eliot commended the metaphysical lyric and regarded Donne as one of the greatest of the English poets. But this argumentation also imparts to Donne’s lyrics a hard intellectual tone, which is further heightened by his use of learned imagery drawn from such recondite and out of the way sources as medieval scholastic philosophy and older systems of astronomy and physics. However, as Ernest Rhys point out, “as Donne’s lyrics do not lack emotional intensity and immediacy, despite all this argumentation, analysis, and use of learning.”

The Caroline lyric is characterised by sweetness, music and melody. In its diction it almost touches perfection. But it is artificial, the result of art rather than of an inner urge for self-expression. Its worst fault is its extremely licentious and immoral nature.

The chief qualities of Cavaleir or Caroline lyric are:

1.         The Caroline lyrics, like the Elizabethan lyrics, were published in miscellanies and anthologies, as Wits Recreation (1641), Wit Restored(1658), Parnassus Biceps (1656) etc. The miscellanies have preserved for us the best songs and lyrics of even the lesser known poets.

2.         The Caroline lyric is the result of conscious effort. It is artificial. It is a work of art characterised by finish, polish and elegance of language but lacking that spontaneity and absence of effort which characterised the Elizabethan lyric. It has formal finish and perfection but is wanting in natural ease and warmth of emotion.

3.         It mirrors the mood and temper of the age. It is often coarse, licentious and indecent, thus reflecting the coarseness and indecency of the court and the courtly circles to which most of the poets of this school belonged.

4.         The poets of this school again and again find the various beauties of nature united in the beauty of their respective beloveds.

5.         The Cavalier poets are great lovers of nature. They observe nature minutely and describe it with feeling. Concrete, visual images drawn from the homelier objects and forces of nature abound in their lyrics.

6.         The Caroline lyric is charming but there is something trivial and unsubstantial about it. In this respect again, it reflects the triviality and frivolity of the life of the times.

The Romantic Lyric

The Augustans used exclusively the heroic couplet and little lyric poetry was written during this period of over one hundred years. It was with the rise of romanticism that the lyric once again came to its own. Shelley is the supreme lyricist of the romantic age. As a lyricist, Shelley remains unexcelled in the history of English literature. His lyrics are marked with spontaneity and effortlessness. “He exhales a lyric as a flower exhales fragrance.” Like his own skylark, he sings in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. His lyrics are the outpourings of his heart. Says J. A. Symonds: “In none of his greatest contemporaries was the lyric faculty so paramount”, and further that, “he was the loftiest and the most spontaneous singer of our age.” His lyrics are among the most musical lyrics in the English language.

The excellence which the romantic poets achieved as lyric-writers seems to have been due to two things. In the first place they perceived, in a higher degree, perhaps, than even the Elizabethans had done, the music latent in words, and succeeded in producing in their poetry, by means of happy combinations of words and rhythms, effects similar to those produced by music itself. Keats and Tennyson, more specially, were musical artists in words, and lines like,

Charmed magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very world is like a bell,
To toll me back from thee to my sole self:

make their appeal to us as much by the lingering fascination of their music as by the exquisiteness of their pictorial suggestion. It is in this respect that the romantic lyric surpasses the Elizabethan; a loss of some of the sunny spontaneity of the later being balanced by a corresponding gain in power and more complex quality of emotion.

“The success of the romantic lyric has, in the second place, been due to the fine appreciation, by the lyric-writers, of the delicate balance subsisting between subject and form. Never before had such a variety of subject found its way into English lyrical verse and been so completely absorbed as to give a certain intellectual value and tone to the poems without in any way detracting from their lyrical worth, Therein has lain, in large measure, the skill of the great lyricists from Wordsworth to Tennyson: they have been able to perceive with nicety the degree of thought which the lyric could carry, and exactly how they could be introduced without damage to the poem itself. It is, therefore, in their ability to perceive both the musical possibilities of words and the subtle relationship of matter to form that the Romantic and later lyricists are superior even to the Elizabethans.”

Lyric in the Victorian Era

Great lyric poetry continued to be written throughout the 19^th century. In the Victorian age, there are a number of lyric-poets of note, Tennyson and Browning being the greatest of them. Tennyson is a great artist with words and so his lyrics are characterised by verbal felicity of a high order. Moreover, he is matchless in his gift of making music with words. But his artistry introduces an element of artificiality in his lyrics. His artistic, philosophic and dramatic interests inhibit and retard his lyrical impulse. Browning, on the other hand, is a great writer of dramatic lyrics, lyrics in which he does not pour out his own soul, but that of some imagined character. It is only in a few lyrics like Prospice that he speaks in his own person of his love for his beloved wife, Elizabeth.

The Modern Lyric

Lyrics continue to be written in the modern age, and it is nearly impossible to make a selection from the crowd of 20^th century lyricists. Mention may only be made of John Drinkwater, Walter Do La Mare, W.H. Davies, James Elory Flecker, John Masefield, and W.B. Yeats. Lyrics of nature, lyrics of place, patriotic lyrics, love-lyrics, soldier lyrics, lyrics for children, are some of the categories of the modern lyric, and this in itself is sufficient to bring out the immensity, variety and abundance of lyric poetry in the post-Victorian period.

(B) THE ELEGY

The Elegy: Its Nature

An elegy is a special kind of lyrics. A lyric expresses the emotions of the poet, and the elegy is an expression of the emotion of sorrow, woe, or despair.In short, the elegy is a lament, a lyric of mourning, or an utterance of personal bereavement and sorrow and, therefore, it should be characterised by absolute sincerity of emotion and expression. Says Hodgson, “In common use, it is often restricted to a lament over the dead, but that is an improper narrowing of its meaning. There are laments over places, over lost love, over the past (which is never “dead”), over an individual’s misery or failure; there are laments over departed pet animals, and so forth.”

The Elegy: Reflection and Philosophy

An elegy then is an expression of grief, and simplicity, brevity, and sincerity are its distinguishing features. There are elegies which are confined to the expression of grief as, for example, The Burial of Sir John Moore, and Tennyson’s Break, Break, Break. But more often than not, from an expression of personal grief, the poet passes on to reflections on human life – human suffering, the shortness of human life, and the futility of human ambitions. Writes A. N. Eatwistle in this connection, “Sometimes Death is the inspiration and sole theme; at other times it is merely the common starting-point from which poets have launched various themes – speculations on the nature of death and the hereafter, tributes to friends, the poet’s own mood, even literary criticism.” Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is one of the most popular elegies in English language. In this elegy, the poet does not mourn the death of some particular friend or relative, but expresses his grief at the sorry fate of the rude forefathers of the village, who die in obscurity, unknown, unsung. It is a magnificent and complex work of art, dignified and solemn in tone, and not an expression of personal grief.

On the other hand, Matthew Arnold’s Rugby Chapel is the poet’s direct expression of grief on the death of his father, and the elegy is characterised by sincerity and intensity of emotion. But from the expression of personal grief, the poet soon passes on to reflect on the sorry fate of humanity, and on the triviality and futility of human life. It thus becomes an embodiment not merely of the melancholy of the poet, but also of the pessimism and despair of the age in which he lived. Tennyson’s In Memoriam is a unique elegy in the English language. It is a collection of over a hundred poignant lyrics, united into a single whole by the poet’s lament at the death of his college friend, Arthur Hallam. But along with the expression of personal grief, there also runs a theology and a philosophy, as the poet constantly reflects on the problems of human life and human destiny. The elegy is an epitome of the philosophical and religious thought of the age.

The Pastoral Elegy

The pastoral elegy is a special kind of elegy. The words ‘pastoral’ comes from the Greek word “pastor”, which means “to graze”. Hence pastoral elegy is an elegy in which the poet represents himself as a shepherd mourning the death of a fellow shepherd. The form arose among the ancient Greeks, andTheocritus, Bions and Moschus were its most noted practitioners. In ancientRome it was used by the Latin poet Virgil. In England, countless pastoral elegies have been written down from the Renaissance (16^th century) to the present day. Spenser’s Astrophel, Milton’s Lycidas, Shelley’s Adonais and Arnold’s Thyrsis and Scholar Gipsy, are the most notable examples of pastoral elegy in the English language.

The pastoral elegy is a work of art, following a particular convention, and using a particular imagery drawn from rural life and rural scenery. Hence it is lacking in that sincerity which should be a marked feature of a poem of personal lament. Hence it was that Dr. Johnson condemned the form as artificial and unnatural and said, “Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief.”

Elegies continue to be written in the 20^th century, elegies in which the poets pour out their anxieties, frustrations and despairs. Their number is so large that even their names cannot be mentioned in the short space at our disposal. But one thing is to be noted. The modern poet is unconventional in his use of the elegiac form, as in other matters. For example, W.H. Auden reverses the elegiac tradition in this elegies, particularly in his well-known elegy on W.B. Yeats. Traditionally in an elegy all nature is represented as mourning the death, here nature is represented as going on its course, indifferent and unaffected by the death of Yeats. The great poet’s death goes unnoticed both by man and nature; human life goes on as usual, and so does nature. Secondly, in the traditional elegy the dead is glorified and his death is said to be a great loss for mankind at large but Auden does not glorify Yeats. He goes to the extend of calling him ‘Silly’ and further that his poetry could make nothing happen. “Ireland has her madness and her weather still.” Thus Auden reverses the traditional elegiac values and treats them ironically. Dylan Thomas is another such unconventional writer of elegies.

(c)  THE ODE

The Ode: Its Nature

The Ode is a special kind of lyric, more dignified, stately and elaborate than the simple lyric. Like the lyric, it also originated in ancient Greece. The Greek poet Pindar was the first to write Odes, and later on the form was practiced with certain modification by the Roman poet, Horace.

The word ‘ode’ is simply the Greek word for ‘song’. It was used by the Greeks for any kind of lyric verse, i.e. for any song sung with the lyre or to the accompaniment of some dance. However, as far as English literature is concerned, the term is now applied to only one particular kind of lyric verse. An English Ode may be defined as, ‘a lyric poem of elaborate metrical structure, solemn in tone, and usually taking the form of address” very often to some abstraction or quality. Edmund Gosse defines the ode as, “a strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyric, verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and dealing progressively with one dignified theme.”

The Essentials of an Ode

From these definitions the essentials of a modern English Ode may be summed up as,

1.         It is in the form of an address, often to some abstraction. It is not written about but written to.

2.         It has lyric enthusiasm and emotional intensity. It is a spontaneous overflow of the poet’s emotions.

3.         Its theme is dignified and exalted. It has ‘high seriousness’.

4.         Its style is equally elevated; it is also sufficiently long to allow for the full development of its dignified theme.

5.         The development of thought is logical and clear.

6.         Its metrical pattern may be regular or irregular, but it is always elaborate and often complex and intricate.

Its Two Kinds:

There are two important forms of the ode

(1) The Pindaric Ode; and

(2) The Horation Ode.

(1)  The Pindaric Ode

Pindar the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece (6^th to 5^th century B.C.) was the father of the Pindaric or Choric’ Ode. Pindaric Odes were written generally in honour of the gods or to sing the triumphs or victories of rulers or athletes.Hence they are also known as “triumphal” odes. A Pindaric Ode has a fixed stanza-structure or pattern. The number of stanzas may vary, but they are invariably arranged in groups of three, each group being called a triad. The first stanza in each triad is called a ‘strophe’ – it was chanted by the dancing chorus as it proceeded in one direction. The second stanza in each triad is called an ante-strophe’ – it was chanted by the chorus as it returned. The third stanza in each triad is called an ‘epode’, and it was sung when the chorus was stationary. Just as the total number of stanzas in a Pindaric Ode may vary (Pindar’s odes range from one triad to thirteen in length) so also there could be variations in the metrical length of individual lines. Thus the Pindaric Ode has a fixed stanza-pattern but enjoys great rhythmical and metrical freedom.

The Poet Cowley (1618-67) was the first poet of England to imitate consciously the Pindaric odes. However, he did not understand the regular structure of the Pindaric and introduced a verse form with long irregular stanzas without any fixed system of metre or rhyme. The true Pindaric in triadic form was written with success by Dryden (Ode to St. Cecilia and Alexander’s Feast) and then by Gray (The Bard and the Progress of Poesy).After Gray, Pindaric of the triadic form fell out of use till it was revived again by Arnold and Swinburne.

Though the true Pindaric did not take root in the English soil, the ode in long irregular stanzas, first used by Cowley, has grown and flourished and has become one of the recognised and popular verse-forms of England. The title Pindaric is no longer used for it. But some of the greatest odes in the English language are of this irregular kind. To name only a few: Tennyson’s Ode on the death of Duke Wellington; Shelley’s Ode to Liberty; and Wordsworth’sOde on the Intimations of Immortality. In other words the term Ode is now loosely used for any lyric which is sufficiently elaborate and dignified. No fixed pattern of stanza or metre is now considered necessary.

The Horatian Ode

The Horation Ode. This kind of Ode has been named after the Latin poet, Horace, who imitated Pindar but with far reaching modifications. The Horation Ode consists of a number of stanzas with a more or less regular metrical structure but without any division into triads of the Pindaric. It may be rhymed or unrhymed. This kind of Ode is light and personal (not choric) without the elaboration and complexity of the Pindaric. Many of the Finest English Odes are of this lighter sort. Some notable examples are: Collin’s Ode to Simplicity and Ode to Evening; Gray’s Eton Ode and Ode to the West WindWordsworth’s Ode to Duty; Shelley’s Ode of the West Wind; and Keats’ Ode to Nightingale.

It was in the hands of Keats that the Ode attained its highest possible perfection. His odes are the finest  fruits of his maturity. They represent Keats at his best. All the characteristic qualities of his poetry find full and vivid expression in them. As has been well said, Shelley’s genius finds perfect expression in the lyrics, Keats’ genius in The Odes. The six great odes of KeatsThe Ode to Psyche, to Melancholy, to Nightingale, to a Grecian, Urn to Indolence, and to Autumn, have received the highest praises from all critics of Keats. These odes are a unique phenomenon in English literature . Nothing like them existed before; and in them Keats may be said to have created a new class of lyric poetry. They are Keats’ greatest claim to immortality.

The Victorian Ode: 

Odes continued to be written all through the Victorian era, and they are being written even to-day. In the Victorian era, Tennyson and Swinburne are the greatest writers of odes. Tennyson wrote three odes, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, Ode for the Opening of the International Exhibition 1862, and Ode to Memory. Of these three odes, the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, the Victor of Waterloo, is the most moving and inspiring, and is marked with a note of patriotism and national adoration of the great hero who won victory for England against Napoleon. Tennyson pays a nation’s homage to the hero and outlines the salient qualities of his character. Swinburne produced fine odes included in Atlanta in Calydon. The opening ode of his classical tragedy Hounds of Spring is a glorious commemoration of the joys and triumphs of spring. The poet presents spring close on the heels of winter, and sings of the glories of the vernal time.

Another great poet, Francis Thompson, composed the Hounds of Heaven,which presents the pursuit of man engrossed in worldly pleasures by the hounds of heaven. Man cannot escape divinity. His final salvation lies in following the path of morality and spiritual life. The ode is unique in splendour of imagery and richness of expression reminds us of the earlier attempts of Spenser in glorious expression.

Ode in the Modern Age:

During the twentieth century many poets have composed odes, but generally speaking the modern age is not suited for the ode. Hopkin’s Ode on the Wreck of Deutschland is an ecclesiastical ode presenting the loss of the German ship with five nuns on board. The ode was in a new metrical form which Hopkins had been mediating for sometime. “I had long had haunting my ear the echo of a new rhythm which now I realised on paper,” Hopkinswrote to R.W.Dixon, his friend. Watson wrote an Ode to the Coronation of Edward VII. The language of Watson’s Ode is similar to that of the Victorians. It comes from the study of Tennyson, Arnold and Milton, and shows no contact with the speech that the Edwardians used in their streets, their public houses or even in their drawing rooms and libraries. Watson’s ode does not have the vitality of a living diction and has a kind of expensive vagueness not expected from an Edwardian. Rose Macaulay’s New Year, 1968, is an unconventional ode, not glorifying the birth of a new year, but just telling us that the new year does not bring new gifts. Upon Eckington Bridge, RiverAvon, by Arthur Quiller-Couch is an ode singing of the old glories of the past and the destruction wrought by time. These poets make us feel that the hey-day of the ode in English are things of the past. The ode may never regain its old glory and greatness. The term is being loosely used for lyric poetry of every kind, and not much heed is being given to the characteristic features of the ode.

(D)  THE SONNET

The Petrarchan Sonnet

The sonnet also is a form of the lyric, and of all its forms it is most carefully ordered and bound by definite, rigid rules.

The word “Sonnet” is derived from the Greek word “Sonneto”, meaning, “a sound”. It is a short lyric of fourteen lines and the Italian poet Petrarch was the first to use this form of the lyric to express his love for his beloved Laura, and its use “became the mark of Petrarchan love-poetry all over Europe in the 16^th century.” Petrarch had divided his sonnets into two parts, the octave of eight lines and the sested of six lines, with a pause or ceasura after the eighth line. Its rhyme-scheme was a b, b a, a b , b a,     c d e, c d e.

The Sonnet in England – Early Sonnetteers

Sir Thomas Wyatt was the first to write sonnets in England. It is the Petrarchan form of the sonnet that Wyatt follows. His use of this measure is often rigid and awkward, and he entirely fails to capture the warm, sensuous colour and delicate music of the Italian poet.

His great contemporary Earl of Surrey also wrote sonnets in which he expressed his entirely imaginative love for Geraldine or Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald. The elegiac note is natural to him, but his lover’s plaints and sighs mingle with exquisite nature-passages. His sonnets have great artistic merits. Though he follows the Petrarchan convention of courtly love, he does not follow the Petrarchan model of the sonnet. He divides his sonnets into threequatrains, with a couplet at the end, and thus he is the first to use that form of the sonnet which came to be called Shakespearean from the great dramatist’s use of it. The rhyme-scheme of this form of the sonnet is a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g.

The Elizabethan Sonnet

However, the technical peculiarity of the sonnet was not realised in the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign. The word ‘sonnet’ was used indifferently for any short lyric. The sonnet proper remained forgotten and neglected till the publication in 1591 of Sidney’s sonnet-sequence called Astrophel and Stella.They express Sidney’s passion for Penelope, who was by that time the wife of Lord Rich. The Publication of Astrophel and Stella at once caught the imagination of the people and gave rise to the vogue of the sonnet. Everybody tried his hand at it, mostly to express his love for some imagined mistress. This accounts for the artificiality of most of the Elizabethan sonnets. Sonnets were written merely because it was the fashion to write sonnets, and not because the poets had some really feit passion to express. They merely echo the sighs and love-pangs of Petrarch and the Petrarchans.

However, sincerity is the key-note of Spenser’s Amoretti (An Italian name), a collection of about 88 sonnets. They express Spenser’s love and courtship of Elizabeth Boyle, the lady who became his wife shortly afterwards. It is in these sonnets alone that Spenser expresses his genuine feeling without recourse to allegory. “In the first ranks of the works of the English Renaissance, Spenser’s sonnets come between those of Sidney and Shakespeare, from which they are different in form as in sentiment.” – (Legouis)

Each of the quatrains in his sonnets is linked up by rhyme, but the couplet stands alone as in the Shakespearean variety of the sonnet.

While the Sonnets of Sidney and Spenser form the very core of their poetic work, Shakespeare’s Sonnets were written in moments snatched from work for the theatre. His 154 sonnets were first published in 1609, and as Wordsworth has put it, it was with this key that the poet unlocked his heart. It is in the sonnets alone that the poet directly expresses his feeling. Besides their sincerity of tone, they have literary qualities of the highest order. They touch perfection in their phraseology, in their perfect blending of sense and sound, and in their versification. Shakespeare’s sonnet-sequence is, “the casket which encloses the most precious pearls of Elizabethan lyricism some of them unsurpassed by any lyricist.” He divides his sonnets into three stanzas of four lines each followed by a concluding couplet.

The Contribution of Milton

In the post-Elizabethan era there is no great writer of sonnets till we come to Milton. As F.T. Prince points out, “the English passion for sonneteering died out in the early 17^th century”, and Milton’s sonneteering represents practically a fresh start. His was an individual undertaking unique in the Mid-seventeenth century. By his use of it Milton not only revived the sonnet form, but he also considerably enlarged and widened its scope. It may also be added here that all Milton’s sonnets are occasional and personal, on different topics, and so cannot be arranged in sequences like the Elizabethan sonnets.

Milton’s English sonnets number twenty-three in all. Six of these belong to the period of Milton’s youth and immaturity, though even in them the hand of the master is visible. The rest were written during 1645-1658, the period in which Milton was largely busy in prose-writing. “These later English sonnets are the most immediately personal of all Milton’s utterances, representing emotional moments in his later life, experiences which find no adequate expression in his prose-writing in the publication of which he was during these years primarily engaged. We may believe also that they were, like the Psalms, prompted in part by a conscious desire in Milton to exercise himself in verse in preparation for the epic poem which he still intended. – (Henford)

Milton’s formal model is not the English sonnet, with its tendency to close with a couplet, but the Italian original which, on the whole, avoided such an ending. On the whole, Milton’s sonnets strike a new note of lofty dignity, conformable to his epic personality, and justifying Wordsworth’s description:

In his hands
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains – alas, too few!

Milton widened considerably the scope of the sonnet. Previously the sonnet sang only of love and friendship, but Milton uses the form to express his deeply felt emotions on contemporary politics, religion, public figures of importance, womanhood, relationship of husband and wife, and such personal matters as his blindness. Similarly, he introduces far reaching innovations in its technique. Following the Petrarchan tradition he divides his sonnets into two parts – an ‘Octave’ of eight lines and a ‘Sestet’ of six lines. In the Petrarchan model, Octave and Sestet each has its own set of rhymes, which hold it together; but each is also sub-divided, the octave into two quatrains, the sestet into two tercets (group of three lines). In the octave the usual arrangement of rhymes is aba, abba (though abab abab and abab baba also occur). In the sestet two or three rhyme sounds are allowed, and their arrangement varies more widely than in the octave. The sentences fit into the division of the stanza, so that there is a pause at the end of each quatrain and tercet, and a more marked pause between octave and sestet.

But Milton, while accepting Petrarch as the master of the form, introduced many stylistic innovations. His sentence structure is more complex, and the rhythm is slowed down, the syntax tends to overflow the two main and the two subsidiary divisions of the poem. Milton’s use of this new style in the Sonnets foreshadows the methods of his later blank verse, where we also find ‘the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another’. The technical changes he takes over from the Renaissance Italians, to make what is necessarily a short poem into one that seems weighty and sustained; pauses within the lines are added to those suggested by the rhymes, which are partly submerged by the flow of the sense. The sonnet thus becomes a single verse-paragraph flowing through a sound-pattern made up of the four division marked by the rhymes.

The Sonnet after Milton

In the Augustan age, the sonnet-form fell into disuse. Hardly any sonnet worth the name was written during this period of over a hundred years. The sonnet was revived by Wordsworth who was inspired to write sonnets by his study of Milton’s Sonnets. Wordsworth further widened its scope by bringing in nature as one of its subjects. Since then, Sonnets have been written on practically every conceivable subject between heaven and earth. Keats, Browning and Rossetti are among other able practitioners of the form. Very little attention is now paid to the rules of sonnet-making, and wide liberty and flexibility in the use of the form is indulged in.

The vogue of the sonnet continues unabated in the 20^th century. We haveRobert Bridge’s admirable sonnet sequence The Growth of Love. Rupert Brooke and John Masefield have immortalised themselves as writers of sonnets. Commenting on the English sonnet in the 20^th century, J.A. Noble writes “Rich as the sonnet literature of Enlgand is now, it is becoming every day richer and fuller, of potential promise, and though the possibilities of the form may be susceptible to exhaustion, there are no present signs of it, but only of new and bounteous developments. Even were no additions made to the store which has accumulated through the centuries, the sonnet – work of our English poets would remain for ever one of the most precious of the intellectual possessions of the nation.”

Objective Poetry and its different forms

1.  THE BALLAD

Ballad: Its Nature and Definition

The Ballad may be defined as a short-story in verse. The word Ballad is derived from the word “Ballare” which means “to dance”. Originally a ballad was a song with a strong narrative substance sung to the accompaniment of dancing. The minstrel or the bard would sing the main parts, and the dancers would sing the refrain or certain lines which were frequently repeated. Often it was in the form of a dialogue.

Thus the popular ballad had a strong dramatic element; the audience were not merely passive listeners, they danced and sang along with the bard. There was thus a strong sense of participation and, consequently, the entertainment was much greater. As theballads generally narrated some local event, they were easily understood by the audience even when they were most allusive. Loves, battles, or heroic exploits, some supernatural incident or some local event are the chief themes of the ballads.

Its Two Kinds

Gradually the dance accompaniment was dropped out and it became more and more common for ballads to be recited to an audience sitting still. Its metrical form also grew fixed, and the term ballad came to be loosely applied to any narrative poem in the ballad metre i.e. in a quatrain or four-lined stanza with alternate rhymes, the first and third lines being eight-syllabled, and the second and fourth six-syllabled. In this way it is possible to divide ballads into two kinds or categories: (a) The “Popular ballad” or the Ballad of growth with its simplicity, its apparent ease and artlessness, and its primitive feeling, and (b) the “literary ballad”, the conscious imitation of a later date of the original popular ballad.

A Brief Historical Survey

The ballad was originally oral literature. It was folk-lore. Ballads were passed on orally from generation to generation and in the process they were much “altered, modified or suppressed, and new circumstances suggested opportune additions.” Oral tradition changed the form of the ballad. “Like money in circulation it lost, little by little, its imprint; its salient curves were blunted; and long use gave it a polish it did not have originally” – (Legouis). The popular ballad thus is not the work of any single poet, but of a number of unknown poets or bards.

The ballads had been very popular since the earliest times but the impulse to make them is strongest in the 15^th century, and it is also to this century that the earliest written specimens belong. Not only were numerous ballads of a very high quality made and sung, but two of the very finest English ballads were also reduced to writing for the first time in this period.

First of these remarkable ballads is the ballad of The Nut-Brown Maid. A lady, who is also supposed to be the poet, plays the part of the nut-brown maid and the other speaker takes up the part of her lover, who pretends to be an outlaw in order to test her love. This dialogue imparts to this ballad a heightened dramatic interest and animation and these qualities, along with its sincerity and primitive simplicity, go a long way to explain its popularity and the fascination it has exercised on all those who have read it. This piece shows that the essence of poetry existed in the disinherited 15^th century. “In this echo of some humble love-ballad there is not even one false note.” Its purpose is to free womanhood from the reproach of inconstancy but this didacticism does in no way lessen the aesthetic charm of this little piece.

Chevy-Chase is the other remarkable ballad. Its subject is the war between Percy of England and Douglas of Scotland. It extols the heroism of the two as well as the generosity and chivalry of the victor, Percy, who weeps over the body of his enemy and admires his heroism. The ballad is primitive in its simplicity and there is minimum of ornament. As it is realistic, it betrays sincere emotion in every line, and for this reason it moves the readers and wins their hearts. It is one of the so-called “Homeric or epicballads”, its theme being the heroic exploits of Percy, and it deals with its subject with Homeric impartiality. The poet is an Englishman and his English patriotism is visible in every line and yet the courage and war-like qualities of Douglas have been impartially brought out.

This simple, moving ballad has fascinated not only the people but also the learned. It charmed Sir Philip Sydney, and Addison in the 18^th century, admired it, for its just style and natural feeling. It was included by Bishop Percy in his Reliques (1765). It is one of those medieval poems which did much to cause a revival of romanticism.

There has also come down a large cluster of ballads centring round the exploits of Robin Hood and his merry-men, who though outlaws, merely robbed the rich to distribute their wealth among the poor and the needy. They were local heroes and their exploits were sung by many a wandering bard.

While the ballads mentioned above are the finest examples of the ‘ballad of growth’ or the ‘Authentic ballad’, Keat’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Coleridge’s Christabel andThe Ancient Mariner are the finest examples of the literary ballad i.e. ballads written in imitation of the popular ballad.

The literary ballads are conscious work of art in which the poet tries to capture the simplicity, the freshness and charm, and the rapidity of movement and the music and melody of the original. The English had never ceased to enjoy the ballads, but the Augustans had no ear for any kind of music other than that of the heroic couplet. But the medivealisation movement about the middle of the 19^th century did much to cause a revival of interest in the medieval ballads. In 1765, Bishop Percy published his famousReliques of Ancient English Poetry, and this single work aroused a widespread interest in the popular ballads of the past. Its influence upon Scott, Coleridge and Wordsworth cannot be exaggerated. Literature owes a deep debt to Percy as the first popularizer of English ballads, though he was a most unreliable editor, and did not scruple to add and alter in order to confer, what he considered to be, elegance on the ancient poems. However, it is quite possible that if he had presented the public with a scientifically edited text, his work would not have been popular. As it was, it awakened a keen and widespread interest in old ballads and poetry, and it hastened the decay of poetry of the artificial school.

Next came Sir Walter Scott’s anthology of medieval ballads The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, with some original ballads of his own. The best of his own contributions, such as the Eve of St. John, have a strong infusion of the ancient force and fire, as well as a grimly supernatural element. In the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) there is much more originality. The work is a poem of considerable length written in the Christabel metre, and professing to be the lay of an aged bard who seeks shelter in thecastle of Newark. As a tale, the poem is confused and difficult; as poetry it is mediocre; but the abounding vitality of the style, fresh and intimate local knowledge and the healthy love of nature, made it a revelation to a public anxious to welcome the new romantic methods. The chief characteristics of Scott’s ballads are scenic background, historical and psychological interest, and supernatural element.

These two great anthologies had far-reaching influence on succeeding poets. Mention in this connection may be made of Coleridge’s Christabel and Ancient Marinerand Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner is first of the great literary ballads of the romantic era. Written in the traditional ballad stanza, it makes full use of devices like repetition, refrain, question and answer method of narration, invocation, etc., in the manner of the medieval ballad makers. He has succeeded in capturing the freshness and simplicity of his great originals. “Thus” says Compton Rickett “all the simple beauty of the old ballad is imparted without any of its extravagance, while with the Medievalism he blends the modern spirit, so as to convey a more moving magic to the reader of today.”

Keats’ ballad La Belle Dame Sans Merci is one of the finest literary ballads in the English language. This incomparable ballad can hardly be said to tell a story. “It rather sets before us,” says Sidney Colvin “with imagery drawn from the medieval world of enchantment and knight errantry, type of the wasting power of love, when either adverse fate or deluded choice makes of love not a blessing but a bane.” The poem does not so much seek to tell a story as to create an impression or express a mood. The ballad is also autobiographical; it partly expresses the plight of the poet himself in the thralldom of Fanny Browne. It is a rare union of simplicity and art. It shows the poet’s mastery of the ballad stanza and the ballad manner. The use of question and answer method of narration and frequent repetitions in the ballad manner serve to heighten the medieval atmosphere. Its weird old world atmosphere, its imagery, skilfully chosen to harmonise with its emotion, its conciseness and purity of poetic form, its simplicity of diction, and the perfect union of sound and sense, make, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ the master-piece of Keats at least among his shorter pieces. “The ballad marks the highest point of romantic imagination to which Keats could attain.”

In the Victorian Age, we find many ballad-like qualities in Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot which is based on the Arthurian legends. Lady of Shallot, besieged in a tower, is looking at a mirror and seeing the outside world reflected in the mirror. She falls in love with Sir Lancelot whom she sees in the mirror. Use of archaic language, repetition, alliteration and the use of refrain are some of the characteristics of this poem, which give it a ballad flavour.

Browning also tried his hand at ballad-writing. In Herve Riel, we see him at work in a medium whose method is by no means to dissect step by step individual consciousness, but to describe an event graphically, swiftly, and dramatically, the method of the ballad. Once before he had done it as a perpetual joy for children in The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a work written to amuse little Willy Macredy, the son of famous actor. For his purpose he had borrowed from an old legend, but now he went to history itself.

Nor were the Pre-Raphaelites without a love for this literary genre. Of Rossetti’s ballad Sister Helen is the noblest, as Rose Mary is the richest: Sister Helen has an original quality and has been variously appraised. Medieval in setting it tells of a woman who in her castle, burns the waxen image of her lover who has betrayed her. So fierce is her passion for revenge that she wants to damn him, body and soul, by the power of magic. The lover’s brother, father, and finally his wedded wife arrive to pray for mercy, but she is adamant. The poem is in the form of conversation between Helen herself and her little brother, who is set in the window to watch what may befall, while the slow agony is in progress. Each stanza has a refrain, to capture the appropriate atmosphere of magic. Rose Mary is Rossetti’s most characteristic poem. A.C. Benson writes, “In this ballad are blended all the strains that were most potent in his mind. The setting is purely romantic, “there is the passion of erring and slighted love and the whole poem is dominated by the deepest and most mystical super-naturalism.” Swinburne has to his credit ballads like May Fanet; The Witch Mother, and A Ballad of Dreamland. William Morris (1834-96) also wrote ballads. His first book of poetry, The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), contained two ballads, Shameful Death; and the Haystack in the Floods. These two ballads are the models of compression and simplicity in narrative. Here mention  may also be made of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome and Matthew Arnold’s Forsaken Merman.

The Englishman’s love of the ballad continues unabated in the 20^th century. Thus love was accentuated by the publication of F.J. Child’s Anthology of Ballads entitledEnglish and Scotish Popular Ballads, and the recent researches in Anthropology and Sociology. This monumental work inspired a host of writers to write ballads, and some have done so with great success. John Masefield has a number of fine ballad to his credit and the ballad-strain runs through his masterpiece Reynard the Fox. Walter De La Mare has also tried his hand at the genre. While T.S. Eliot’s genius was too heavy for primitive simplicity of this form, W.B. Yeats was one of the greatest writers of ballads in the modern age. The ballad strain runs through most of his poetry. This is so because he was profoundly influenced by Irish folk-lore and folk-ballads, and this influence has left a permanent mark on his poetry. The Ballad of Moll Magee is one of his more popular ballads. Another great writer of ballads in the 20^th century was W.H. Auden. His The Ballad of Miss Gee and Victor rank very high as ballads. They are ballads of the Comic-horofic kind; they arouse horror by narrating lightly deeds of incredible cruelty.

The Mock-ballad: In the end mention may be made of Mock-ballad, a parody of the ballad proper. In the mock-ballad a comic theme is treated with tragic earnestness and so the serious is made ridiculous. William Cowper’s John Gilpin is one of the finest examples of a mock-ballad in the English language.

Essentials of a Good Ballad

The chief characteristics of a good ballad may be summarised as follows:

1.         It is a short story in verse, about the exploits of some popular hero, or about an incident of common knowledge. The story is generally tragic.

2.         The narration is dramatic, and the attention of the readers is captured by an abrupt, startling opening.

3.         It is characterised by extreme simplicity. Indeed, its primitive simplicity is one of its peculiar charms. Complexity and difficulty of every kind is avoided.

4.         Question and answer method of narration is used.

5.         Often the poet prays to Christ and Virgin Mary.

6.         Obsolete and archaic words are used to create a medieval, old world atmosphere.

7.         It is extremely musical.

8.         An element of the supernatural, magic and mystery is generally introduced.

9.         It is written in the ballad-stanza i.e. in quatrains with alternate rhymes (first line rhyming with the third, and the second with the fourth). However, this basic pattern is frequently varied.

10.      Often there is repetition of particular lines, words, or phrases.

2.  THE EPIC

The Epic of Growth

Just as a Ballad is a short story in verse, the epic is a long story in verse. Just as there are ballads of growth and ballads of art, so also there are Epics of growth andEpics of art. The epic of growth has its origin in popular song and story. It is not the work of one man or the result of conscious artistic effort. A number of stories and legends about some popular hero may circulate in an oral form for generations. They may be given currency by wandering bards or minstrels. Later on, some poet may collect them, organise them and impart to them form and  unity. Iliad is one such epic. It is supposed to have been composed by the Ancient Greek poet Homer out of a number of fragmentary stories. The Anglo-Saxon Beuwolf is another epic of growth. The name of the poet who brought together the floating material of legend and folk-lore is not known.

The Epic of Art

An epic of art, on the other hand, is an artistic imitation of the manner and style of the authentic epic or the epic of growth. It is the work of one man who tries to imitate and excel the earlier poets. Aenied of the Roman poet Virgil and Paradise Lost of the English poet Milton are the most prominent examples of the Epic of art.

Hudson, distinguishing between these two different kinds, writes: “The literary epic naturally resembles the primitive epic, on which it is ultimately based, in various fundamental characteristics. Its subject-matter is of the old heroic and mythical kind; it makes free use of the supernatural; it follows the same structural plan and reproduces many traditional details of composition; while, greatly as it necessarily differs in style, it often adopts the formulas, fixed epithets, and stereotyped phrases and locations, which are among the marked features of the early type. But examination discloses, beneath all superficial likenesses, a radical dissimilarity. The heroic and legendary material is no longer living material; it is invented by the poet or by disinterested scholarly research; and it is handled with laborious care in accordance with abstract rules and principles which have become part of an accepted literary tradition. Where, therefore, the epic of growth is fresh, spontaneous, racy, the epic of art is learned, antiquarian, bookish, imitative. Its specifically ‘literary’ qualities – its skilful reproduction, and adaptation of epic matter and methods, its erudition, its echoes, reminiscences, and borrowings – are indeed, as the Aenied and Paradise Lost will suffice to prove, among its most interesting characteristics for a cultured reader.

Essentials of an Epic

The essentials of an epic are:

1.         It is a long narrative poem, generally divided into twelve books. Homer’s epics are divided into twelve books each, and Milton also divided his Paradise Lostinto twelve books.

2.         It deals with the military exploits, deeds of valour, of some national hero or of same person of national, even international importance. The epic hero is a man of heroic bulk and dimensions. He is giant among men and has extra-ordinary physical prowess. Because an epic is a story of heroic deeds it is also called a heroic poem. Thus Homer’s Iliad narrates the heroic deeds of the Greeks during the war of Troy, and Odyssey those of King Odysessus or Ulysses. Milton’sParadise Lost has a cosmic sweep and range and deals with events of interest to all mankind. In this respect, it stands unique among the epics of the world.

3.         A number of thrilling and sensational episodes and digressions are introduced. There is much exaggeration, and the incredible adventures and deeds of valour narrated by the poet excite wonder and admiration.

4.         However, despite such digressions, the epic has a well-marked unity and form. It is an organic whole. Thus unity is provided by the fact that all events and adventures centre round the central figure, the epic-hero. Indeed, it is on this basis that epic is divided into two classes (a) the classic epic, and (b) the romantic epic. The classic epic is coherent and well-knit, while the romantic epic is characterised by much incoherence and looseness of structure. A romantic epic is rambling and incoherent and lacks concentration on any one central figure. There is confusing diversity of character and action, and if there is any unity, it is hard to discover. Spenser’s Fairy Queen is an instance of such a romantic epic. It lacks in that organic unity which is an essential characteristic of a classic epic, like the epics of Homer or Milton.

5.         The supernatural plays an important part, and frequently intervenes in the action. Thus in Homer’s Iliad, the Gods intervence in the war of Troy, and in Spenser’s Fairy Queen also a number of supernatural agencies are seen at work.

6.         An epic reflects the life of the times. It is the very embodiment of the spirit of the age in which it is written. It is an important social document and much may be known from it about the life of the times.

7.         The purpose of the epic is moral. It may be to arouse patriotism and national pride as in the case of Homer, or “to fashion a gentleman in virtuous and gentle discipline” as in the case of Spenser, or to justify the ways of god to man, as in the case of Milton.

8.         The theme of an epic is lofty and sublime, and its diction is equally elevated and grand. Grandeur both in theme and treatment characterises an epic. Epic-similes, Personifications, Latinism, unusual and unfamiliar words, allusions and references, Latin or inverted constructions, peripherises, etc., are the various stylistic devices used with this end in view.

9.         There are certain epic conventions which are followed as far as the method of narration is concerned. First, poet does not begin his story from the beginning, but plunges somewhere in the middle, and the earlier part of the story is told in due course.

Secondly, the poet begins the epic with an invocation to the Muse to inspire him.Milton invokes the Heavently Muse in the very beginning of his epic.

Thirdly, the invocation is followed by a statement of the theme of the epic and the purpose of the poet in writing it. Thus Milton tells us that his theme is the fall of man, and his purpose is to justify the ways of God to Men.

Fourthly, in all epics there is a journey to the underworld, undertaken to seek the help of some supernatural agency. Similarly, accounts of tournaments, catalogues of warriors, assemblies and conferences, are common features of an epic, and are a part of the epic convention.

“The ambition to write an epic and thus to equal the literary exploits of the ancients like, Virgil and Homer, and of the modern poets of Europe, like Ariosto, was born with the Renaissance”. We find that there is a host of poets trying to write an epic after the model of Homer and Virgil and there are many others trying to translate the epics of antiquity. The best of such translations is George Chapman’s rendering of Homer, a work which fired the imagination of Keats; and the best of the long, narrative poems are those of Daniel, Drayton and Spenser, who tried to write epics but succeeded only in producing long, narrative poems.

Epics continued to be written all through the 17^th century – Abraham Cowley’sDavidies and D’Avenant’s Gondibert being the outstanding examples – but it was Milton alone who could write a successful epic in the classical style. Paradise Lost is the only classical epic in the English language. This is the significance of the remark that the “epic in England, begins and ends with Milton.”

‘Paradise Lost’ is a classical epic, having all the common features of the epics of homer and Virgil. It is a long narrative poem in twelve books, its subject is solemn and grand, and it finds an equally grand and solemn treatment. Indeed grandeur and majesty are the key-notes of Milton’s epic. Like the classical epic, it has unity of theme and treatment. There is nothing in it that is superfluous; every episode and incident leads to the central theme – the fall of man and the loss of paradise. Wars and heroic exploits are also not lacking. There is supernatural intervention in plenty. Its characters are mostly superhuman – God and His angels, and Satan and his followers. There are only two human characters, Adam and Eve. Indeed this paucity of human actors and consequent lack of human interest is the basic weakness of Milton’s epic. In keeping with the epic tradition, its style and versification is lofty and sublime. Frequent and effective use has been made of Homeric or epic similes.

Paradise Lost is a classical epic, but it also has a number of qualities all its own. A classical epic deals with a subject of national importance, with the war-like exploits of some hero of national status. The theme of Milton’s epic is vaster and of a more universal human interest than any handled by the poet’s predecessors. It concerns itself with the fortune, not of a city or an empire, but of the whole human race, and with that particular event in the history of the race which has moulded all its destinies. Around this event, the plucking of an apple are ranged, according to the strictest rules of the ancient epic, the histories of Heaven and Earth and Hell. The scene of action is Universal Space. The time represented is Eternity. The characters are God and all his creatures. And all these are exhibited in the clearest and most inevitable relation with the main event, so that there is not an incident, hardly a line of the poem, but leads backwards or forwards to that central theme.

The Romantic Era:

Wordsworth’s “Prelude”: The 18^th century is an age of satire, of parody, of burlesque, and of mock epic. The genius of the age was not suited to epic or heroic poetry. In the romantic and the Victorian ages, many poets tried their hands at the epic but with little success. The greatest of the epics of the romantic era is doubtlessly Wordsworth’s The Prelude. The Prelude has all the essential features of an epic. It is characterised by length. It runs into twelve books. It has a central figure, the poet, and it tells the story of how his mind was educated and developed under the influence of Nature. In an epic there are military adventures, but in The Prelude the adventures are of the mind and the soul. There is conflict, but the conflict is not physical and external: it is rather internal and spiritual. In other words, The Prelude does have the war-like nature of an epic. However, in this respect Milton had already enlarged the scope of the epic, and Wordsworth carries this enlargement a step further. Milton had shown external conflict. In Wordsworth, the spiritual, the adventures and conflicts of the spirit, are the very basis of the epic.

The epic unity in Wordsworth’s poem, is provided throughout by the personality of the poet, but there is also epic variety, sweep and range. This variety is provided by the countless digressions and episodes that the poet has introduced. Thus we have the digressions of the stolen-boat, bird-nesting, and the episodes of card playing and the game of Naughts and Crosses. Nor does the poem lack epic significance and universality. As Abercrombie rightly points out, “The Prelude is not the story of the growth and education of a particular poetic, but of the poetic temperament and as such has universal implications. It tells us not only of the education of the poet Wordsworth but how the soul of a great poet is formed and developed under various influences, specially the influence of Nature.” Thus The Prelude is an epic but an epic of a different kind.

Keats and Byron:

Keats’ Hyperion is modelled on Milton’s Paradise Lost and Keats employed many of the devices of the classical epic e.g. catalogue of assembled Titans in the second book, description of the great council, and architecture of the classical epic. Keats gave up the adventure in sheer disgust; for Milton’s flights and daring conjurations were beyond his power. Byron’s Don Juan is another great work in the epical style. It is Byron’s epic-satire reviewing satirically the social, political and economic conditions of different countries of Europe.

English Epic in the Victorian Age: During the Victorian age Tennyson attempted the fusion of classical epic and romance in The Idylls of the King. “We look in vain here, however, for the technical features of either classical or romantic epic. The unity is a unity of framework rather than an organic unity of all the parts. The Idylls are really idylls, separate pictures or cantos of a single poem. Each has its independent beginning and in no respect prepares for that which follows. There is scarcely one of the traditional devices we have come to associate with the epic-form – the formal theme, the plunge in the middle with a later narrative exposition, the catalogue of forces, or the epic simile. There is blank verse, it is true as in Paradise Lost, but it is not Miltonic blank verse. Classical ideals are upheld in the artistry and precision with which the flowing verses are made rich and beautiful, but the spirit is that of slightly ennobled and purified romance.

Morris’ The Defence of Gunievera and Other Poems is an epic in which he approached the Arthurian legend, in a very different manner. Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustam, based an Firdosi’s Shahnama, is an epic fragment describing with all the richness of Homeric similes, the death of Sohrab at the hands of his father, Rustam. This epic fragment embodies Arnold’s fatalistic attitude towards life and the overpowering role of fate in human affairs.

The Modern Epic:

All these poems bear witness to the continued ambition to write an epic, but considered as epics they fall far short of the epics of antiquity or of the epics of Milton. It seems that the modern age is not suited to epic poetry. T.S. Eliot may write The Waste Land which has been called the epic of the 20^th century, and an Alfred Noyes may writeDrake dealing with the exploits of the well known Elizabethan sea-dog, but there can be no denying the fact that the modern ages has neither the heroic temper nor the requisite leisure. The Horizons of life have widened and no poet can include them all in his work, however, wide his vision, and the range sweep of his imagination. Moreover there is the competition from the novel which is a long narrative in prose, as the epic is a long narrative in verse.

3.  THE MOCK-EPIC

Its Nature

A Mock-epic is a small narrative poem in which the machinery and conventions of epic proper are employed in the treatment of trivial themes, and in this way it becomes a parody or burlesque of the epic. A mocking, ridiculous effect is created when the grandiloquent epic-style and epic-conventions are used for a theme which is essentially trivial and insignificant. The ancient Mock-epic The Battle of the Frog and Mice, a parody of Homer’s Iliad, Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Battle of the Books and Pope’sDunciad and The Rape of the Lock are the finest examples of the Mock-epic.

Its Essential Features

The essentials of a Mock-epic are best illustrated by a brief consideration of Pope’sRape of the Lock. The theme of the Mock-epic is the rape on the locks of a butterfly of society, Belinda, committed by her lover, Lord Peter, a gallant. The lady is displeased, the two families fall out, and Pope is requested to write something to laugh away the displeasure of the young lady. Pope uses the machinery and convention of the epic, as well as the grandiloquent epic-style for his essentially trivial theme. The trivial is exaggerated and glorified and a mocking, ridiculous effect is thus created. Instead of the mighty epic-hero, we have a tiny slip of a girl as the central personage, digression and episodes deal not with the military exploits of some gigantic epic hero, but with a game of cards, and the fight of the lord and ladies for the severed lock of hair. The weapons used are not swords and spears, but a bodkin and a pinch of snuff, and the killing eyes of ladies. The supernatural agency is also there in the form of tiny sylphs who seated on bodkins or candlesticks watch the fight between the parties. The various stylistic devices of he epic-poet, exaggeration, Latinism, personifi- cation, circumlocution, have been used throughout, and as the subject is trivial the result is ridiculous in the extreme. In this way, the epic values are reversed, and we get not the epic, but the mock-epic, a parody of the epic proper.

The Battle of the Books is one of the finest and the greatest of the prose mock-epics in the language. The exalted epic manner and style have been used effectively for a trivial subject i.e. a literary controversy regarding the comparative merits and demerits of ancient and modern learning. ”The result is a delightful fantasia, an inimitable parody of the epic.”

4.  THE IDYLL

By the word “Idyll” is meant a description in prose or verse of some scene or event which is striking, picturesque, and complete in itself. Such an idyll may stand alone, or it may form a kind of interlude in a longer composition. In our literature idyllic passages are commoner than isolated-idylls. Indeed, the actual name is best known to us by Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Browning’s Dramatic Idylls.

An Idyll is neither a lyric nor a narrative but partakes of the qualities of both. It derives its name from the Greek word meaning, “a little picture”, and so two of its essential characteristics are (a) its brevity, and (b) pictorial effect. An Idyll keeps relatively close to the ordinary world of action and experience, though it may give idealised pictures of that world. More often than not an Idyll gives us idealised, poetic pictures of the life and doings of rural folk in rural setting. It sheds a romantic poetic glow on what may otherwise be commonplace, dull, prosaic and dreary. It deals with simple like, and so its language is also simple. It is characterised by simplicity both in theme and treatment. We get such an idealised picture of rural life in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale with Perdita distributing flowers to her guests, and there are a number of such idylls scattered all up and down the novels of Thomas Hardy.

Commenting on the characteristics of an Idyll, Hudson writes, “This kind of narrative poetry often finds its themes and characters in the present; and even when it goes back into the past for them, it seeks them still, as in Longfellow’s Evageline, mind commonplace people and surroundings and not in heroic legend, or romantic achievements, or among the great movements and figures of history. Sometimes it may take the form of a humorous transcript from contemporary manners, especially the manners of “low” life, as in several of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and in the delightful character-studies loosely set in the economic argument of Goldesmith’s Deserted village. But the greatest interest belongs to two subdivisions of it, both of comparatively recent growth, the first of these comprises such poems as derive their material from “the short and simple annals of the poor,” or from the lives of the humble and obscure, like Wordsworth’s Michael and Tennyson’s Enoch Arden and Dora. To the second we may assign all such poetic narratives as, Mrs. Browning’s Aurora Leigh,Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House, and Robert Browning’s Red-Cotton Night-Cap Country, which are to all intent and purpose novels in verse. The former class has a special historical significance as marking the influx into narrative poetry of that ever-broadening sympathy with “all sorts and conditions of men.” Which is one aspect of the modern democratic movement. The latter is manifestly the result of that same complex of forces, social and literary, which produced the modern novel.”

5.  THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

The Dramatic Monologue is the most important kind of that sub-division of objective poetry which we have called dramatic, which is dramatic not because it is to be acted on the stage, but because it gives the thoughts and emotions not of the poet but of some imagined character. The poet’s identity is merged with that of the dramatic personage, and the poet speaks through his mouth, so to say. Robert Browning is the most important writer of dramatic monologues in the English language.

The dramatic monologues are dramatic because they do not express the thoughts and feelings of the poet but of some imaginary character; they are monologues because in them only one character speaks throughout (Mono means ‘one’).

The dramatic monologues may be used for the study of character, of particular mental states and of moral crises in the soul of the characters concerned. In his monologues, the poet Browning depicts an amazingly wide variety of characters, taken from all walks of life, cowards, rogues, artists, scholars, Dukes, cheats, beggars, murderers, and saints like Pippa, all crowd his picture-gallery. His characters belong not to any one country and age, but to a number of countries and ages.

In each monologue, one character is at the centre, and the substance of the monologue consists of what passes within his soul. Cazamian calls them, “soul reflectors”, or “studies in practical psychology”, for they provide us with a peep into the inner working of the mind and soul of these characters. Beside these main figures, in each monologue there are some minor figures who are briefly but distinctly sketched with a few deft touches. They are the listeners for most of the time, but they also perform the dramatic function of the interlocutor from time to time, and thus provide the reason or the cause for the speaker’s mood or his self-analysis. Thus in Andrea Del Sarto, Andrea is the speaker, Lucrezia is the listener, and her lover and the three rival artists are also introduced indirectly. Often the nature background is skilfully interwoven with the mood and temper of the speaker, and in this way the total effect is heightened. In the poem mentioned-above, the speaker’s references to the Autumnal grey nature-background are used to heighten his own mood of depression and world weariness.

In each monologue, the speaker is placed in the most momentous or critical situation of his life and the monologue embodies his reactions to his situation. The monologues have an abrupt, but very arresting opening, and, at the same time, what has gone before is suggested cleverly or brought out through retrospective meditation and reflection. Thus My Last Duchess opens with a reference to the picture of the dead Duchess, with clear indication that it is being shown to some one. Similarly this abrupt beginning may be followed by self-introspection on the part of the speaker, and his moods, emotions, reflections, and meditations may be fully expressed. The speaker’s thoughts range freely over the past and the future, and so there is no logical and chronological development. The past and the future are focused in the present and the unity is emotional rather than logical.

The main feature that distinguishes poetry from other written genres is succinctness, a tight structure and higher concentration of content – crowded into fewer words – than you usually find in ordinary prose.
     Poetry can be analyzed as to its form and its content. Ideally, the two should reflect and reinforce each other in expressing the message of the poem.

FORM: 

     Number of lines: The number of lines may be a clue that a poem belongs to a special verse form, for example, a sonnet , which in Chinese is called a  limerick, which normally has five lines. A poem or stanza with one line is called a monostich, one with two lines is a couplet; with three, tercet or triplet; four, quatrain. six, hexastich; seven, heptastich; eight, octave. Also note the number of stanzas.

     Meter: English has stressed and unstressed syllables. English is considered a stress-timed language, unlike French, which is a syllable-timed language. In poetry, stressed and unstressed syllables are often put together in specific patterns. In poetry these patterns are called meter, which means 'measure'. The meters you find in poetry are the same ones we use in everyday speech. The main difference is that in speech these patterns tend to occur spontaneously and without any special order; in poetry they are usually carefully chosen and arranged.
     Here are the most common meters you find in English poetry. / represents a stressed, long syllable;。stands for an unstressed, short syllable (not to be confused with 'long' and 'short' vowels), also called amora (pl. morae, sometimes moras). The first word of each meter below (e.g. 'iambic') is the adjective form, the one in parentheses is the noun form.

iambic (iamb; L. iambus, Gk iambos; a pre-Hellenic word) trochaic (trochee; Gk. trochaios 'running') dactylic (dactyl; Gk. daktylos 'finger' with one long, two short joints) anapestic (anapest; Gk. ana 'back' + paiein 'to strike', i.e., a reversed dactyl)

。/ 。/ 。/ 。/ /。 /。 /。 /。 /。。 /。。 /。。 /.。。 。。/ 。。/ 。。/ 。。/

     A fifth kind of meter is called spondaic (spondee; Gk sponde 'solemn libation', which was accompanied by a solemn melody) and consists of two consecutive lo ng, stressed syllables: / /; and a sixth is caled pyrrhic (from a word for an ancient Greek war dance); this is a metrical foot having two short or unaccented syllables 。。. In addition, there are two even lesser-known meters, amphibrach, which has a short-long-short pattern: 。 /。 (e.g. delicious) and amphimacer, a long-short-long one: /。/ (e.g. eighty-eight). There are still other meters, but these are mostly from Greek and Latin poetry (the preceding are also found in Greek and Latin poetry), and they are not very applicable to English poetry.
    Often the same rhythm will not be used throughout a whole poem, or even a whole line; there may be an extra beat here, one omitted there; or the meter may simply change. Poets often seem to establish a regular pattern, but then put in something 'unexpected' to startle the reader, or to achieve some special effect.
     If the meter of a poem seems to fall into none of the above categories, it may simply have an irregular, or unpredictable, meter that does not follow any set pattern.
     You can divide the rhythms above into parts. Circle each group of symbols containing just one long, stressed syllable / in each example above. You will find that each line has four such groups. Each one of these groups is called a foot, and counting the number of feet is one way of determining the length of a line of poetry. Here are the literary terms for each line length as regards number of feet: one foot:monometer; two feet: dimeter; three feet, trimeter; four feet, tetrameter; five feet, pentameter; six feet, hexameter; seven feet, heptameter.

caesura: a caesura is simply a pause. Absence of sound is also an important element of poetry. Make sure you insert caesuras where they are called for. Not all caesuras are the same length; some are quite long, others are very short. Normally there is a fairly long caesura at the end of every line of poetry. There is usually also a very short caesura after every 'foot'.

punctuation and capitalization: An important thing to remember is that almost any kind of punctuation you see in a poem tends to signal a pause or caesura. Some poets use very conventional punctuation, some use none at all. Some follow their own special rules in the use of punctuation, e.g. E. E. Cummings, who is also noted for seldom using capital letters in his poetry. You know from your experience with Chinese that different ways of punctuating a phrase or sentence can sometimes result in different meanings.

    Rhyme is the effect created by matching sounds at the end of words. Ordinarily this includes the last accented vowel and the sounds that follow it, but not the sound of the preceding consonant(s).
     Masculine rhyme falls on one syllable: fat, cat; repair, affair. Feminine or double rhyme includes two syllables, of which only the first is stressed: better, setter; pleasure, treasure. Triple rhyme, often reserved for light verse and doggerel, involves three syllables: practical, tactical.
     There are different kinds of rhyme: exact rhyme (perfect, full, true, complete, whole), which repeats end sounds precisely, e.g. cap, map; slant rhyme (half, approximate, imperfect, near, off, oblique) provides an approximation of the sound: cat, cot; hope, cup; defeated, impeded. Identical rhyme repeats the entire sound, including the initial consonant, sometimes (as in rime riche) with two different meanings and/or spellings, e.g. two, too. Eye rhyme looks as though it should rhyme, but does not, e.g. great, meat; proved, loved. Apocopated rhyme pairs a masculine and feminine ending, rhyming on the stress: cope, hopeless; kind, finder. In mosaic rhyme, two words rhyme with one, or two with two: master, passed her; chorus, before us; went in, sent in.
     Most rhyme occurs at the end of the line and is called terminal rhyme. Initial rhyme comes at the beginning of a line, and is sometimes combined with end rhyme. Internal rhyme occurs within one or more lines. Crossed or interlaced rhyme combines internal and end rhyme to give a long-line couplet the effect of a short-line quatrain. Enclosed rhyme envelops a couplet with rhyming lines in the patternabba. In interlocking rhyme a word unrhymed in a first stanza is linked with words rhymed in the next to create a continuing pattern, e.g. aba bcb cdc.
     The functions of rhyme are essentially four: pleasurable, mnemonic, structural and rhetorical. Like meter and figurative language, rhyme provides a pleasure derived from fulfillment of a basic human desire to see similarity in dissimilarity, likeness with a difference. As a mnemonic aid, it couples lines and thoughts, imprinting poems and passages on the mind in a manner that assists later recovery. As a structural device, it helps to define line ends and establishes the patterns of couple, quatrain, stanza, ballad, sonnet, and other poetic units and forms. As a rhetorical device, it helps the poet to shape the poem and the reader to understand it. Because rhyme links sound, it also links thought, pulling the reader's mind back from the new word to the word that preceded it.
      The effect of rhyme in a poem depends to a large extent on its association with meter. Rhymes gain emphasis in sound and rhetoric when they are heavily stressed. Rhyme is frequent in the poetry of many but not all languages. It is rare in Greek, Latin, and Old English, though it has been common in English since the 14th century. By a more extended definition it can cover the sound patterns of the poetry of all languages and periods, and may include any sound echo, such as alliteration (alliterative verse 雙聲詩 was briefly popular in China's Northern and Southern Dynasty period), assonance, consonance andrepetition (definitions below).

     A few verse forms:

sonnet (It. from L. sonus 'sound'): This is a special verse form with 14 lines, usually iambic pentameter in English. There are two main kinds of sonnet, Italian or Petrarchan and Shakespearean orEnglish. An Italian sonnet is composed of an octave, i.e. an eight-line verse, rhyming abbaabba, and a sestet or six-line verse, rhyming cdecde or cdcdcd, or in some variant pattern, but with no concludingcouplet (2-line verse). A Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains (four-line verses) and rhymes abab cdcd efef gg. how to write a sonnet.

blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

free verse: Poetry that is free of traditional rhyme, metrical, stanza patterns.

Heroic couplet: Lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme in pairs (aa, bb, cc).

doggerel : Silly, trivial poetry. A humorous poem may belong to a set form, for example, it may be a limerick  A limerick has an aabba rhyme scheme; the first two and last rhymes are trimeter, the third and fourth, dimeter. It is usually dactylic.

triolet: A French verse form with this rhyme scheme: A B a - Rhymes with 1st line. A - Identical to 1st line. a - Rhymes with 1st line. b - Rhymes with 2nd line. A - Identical to 1st line. B - Identical to 2nd line. how to write a triolet (with links on the ballad, sonnet, villanelle) audio file on the triolet form

Spenserian stanza: A nine-line stanza with an ababbcbcC rhyme scheme; the capital "C" means the last verse is an Alexandrine, which has six feet instead of five, i.e. it is s a hexameter instead of pentameter.

   When reading a poem, try to get to its intended message, what the poet is trying to communicate in this poem; this may be quite different from the apparent, literal meaning of the poem.
      Sometimes a poet is simply trying to communicate a certain feeling, and uses various devices to create that feeling or an understanding of it in the reader. Sometimes a poem is mostly form with little meaning; its main effect may be visual or auditory. This is called abstract poetry.

OTHER LITERARY TERMS

alliteration (L. ad 'to' + littera 'letter'';: Repetition of the same or similar consonant  sound at the beginning of a word, e.g. 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.'

allusion (L. allusio 'a playing with';: A reference to another text or event.

ambiguity (L. ambi 'around' + agere 'act'; ambigere 'to wander'; : Something suggesting more than one meaning or interpretation.

anonymous (Gk. an 'without' + onyma 'name'; : 'Without a name'; indicates that an author of a work is not known.

antithesis (Gr. anti 'against' + tithenai 'to place'; : A direct contrast or opposition.

antonym (Gk. anti 'opposite' + onyma 'name'; : A word opposite in meaning to another.

assonance (L. ad 'to' + sonare 'sound'; 'to sound in answer'; : Repetition of vowel  sounds, e.g. 'They flee from me that sometime did me seek.'.

cacophony (Gk. kakos 'bad, evil' + phone 'voice' adj. cacophonous; : 'Bad-sounding'.

cliché; (F. clicher 'to stereotype' from Gk. klitsch, 'clump, claylike mass'; 'to pattern in clay'; A tired expression that has lost its original power to surprise because of overuse.

connotations (L. com- 'together' + notare 'to mark';  The implied meanings of a word; its overtones and associations over and above its literal, dictionary meaning.

consonance (L. com 'with' + sonare 'to sound'; : Repetition of inner or end consonant sounds, e.g. the r and s in 'broods with warm breast'.

context (L. com- 'together' + texere 'to weave'; : The verbal or physical surroundings of a text.

denotation (L. de 'down' + notare 'to mark'; : The basic dictionary meaning of a word without any of its associated meanings.

ellipsis (Gk. elleipein 'to fall short [of a perfect circle]'; : Omission, a leaving out of something, which is nevertheless still implied.

enjambement, or run-on lines (Fr. en 'in' + jambe 'leg', enjamber 'encroach'; : In enjambement the grammatical sense runs from one line of poetry to the next without pause or punctuation; opposite of end-stopped line.

euphemism (Gk. eu 'good' + phanai 'to say'; : An attractive substitute for a harsh or unpleasant word or concept; a less direct way of referring to something potentially offensive.

euphony (Gk. eu 'good' + phone 'voice'; adj. euphonious;  'Good-sounding', melodious.

expletive (L. ex 'out' + plere 'to fill';: An unnecessary word or phrase used as a filler in speaking or writing ('you know') or as an aid to metrical regularity in verse ('oh'); an exclamation or oath.

explication (F. from L. ex 'out' + plicare 'to fold'; : An explanation, analysis, or interpretation of a text.

genre (F. from L. genus 'kind'; : A certain form or style of writing; e.g. poetry, novel, essay.

hyperbole (Gk. hyper 'over' + ballein 'to throw', i.e., 'throw too far; excess'; : exaggeration, overstatement.

irony (Gk. eiron 'dissemble ['disguise, pretend'] in speech'; also called antiphrasis; Gk. anti 'against' + phrazein 'to speak'; : In general, irony is the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between seems and is, or between ought and is. Irony falls mainly into three categories: (1) verbal: meaning something contrary to what the words seem to say; this assumes a tacit understanding between speaker and listener as regards the true situation; (2) dramatic: saying or doing something while unaware of its contrast with the whole truth, i.e. verbal irony with the speaker's awareness erased; (3) situational: events turning to the opposite of what is expected or what should be (also called circumstantial irony or the irony of fate, or cosmic irony), as when it rains on the Weather Bureau's annual picnic; the ought is upended by the is. Situational irony is the very essence of both comedy and tragedy.

literal meaning (L. littera 'letter'; : the precise, plain meaning of a word or phrase in its simplest, original sense, considered apart from its sense as a metaphor or other figure of speech; in translation, a rendering as close as possible to the word-for-word plain sense of the original.

litotes (Gk. litos 'smooth, simple, plain'; : A kind of irony: the assertion of something by the denial of its opposite; 'Not bad.', This is no small matter.'

lyric (Gk. lyrikos 'of a lyre : A poem, brief and discontinuous, emphasizing sound and pictorial imagery rather than narrative or dramatic movement. Lyrical poetry began in ancient Greece in connection with music, as poetry sung for the most part to the accompaniment of a lyre.

metaphor (Gk. meta 'over' + pherein 'to bear';  The comparison of one thing to another, treating something as if it were something else; a metaphor can be plain, implied, or dead.

metathesis (Gk. meta 'over' + tithenai 'place'; : Interchanging of letters, sounds or syllables within a word, e.g. Old English brid became Modern English bird through metathesis; a modern example would be pretty, purty.

metonymy (Gk. meta 'other' + onyma 'name'; : 'Substitute meaning'; an associated idea names the item: "Homer is hard." for "Reading Homer's poems is hard."

mixed metaphor : Changed or contradictory metaphors in the same discourse:, e.g. The population explosion has paved the way for new intellectual growth. Mixed metaphors are considered a sign of poor writing in English, but not necessarily in Chinese.

monologue (Gk. monos 'single' + legein 'to speak'; A text recited by one person alone.

narrator (L. narrare 'to tell';  One who tells a story or narration.

neologism (Gk. neos 'young, new' + logos 'word';  A newly coined word.

onomatopoeia (Gk onoma 'name' + poeia 'making'; : The use of words formed or sounding like what they signify; examples: mew, mew; clang, clang; swish.

oxymoron (Gk. oxys 'sharp, acid' + moros 'foolish' ® 'a pointed stupidity';  An apparently self-contradictory figure of speech, e.g. 'a fearful joy', or 'the sonorous silence'.

paradox (Gk. para 'side' + dokein 'to think, seem', i.e., 'other than what you expect'  An apparently untrue or self-contradictory statement or circumstance that proves true upon reflection or when examined in another light.

parody (Latin parodia, Gk. para- 'beside, subsidiary' + aidein to sing; a 'mock song';  A parody imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. The humorist achieves parody by exaggerating certain traits common to the work, much as a caricaturist creates a humorous depiction of a person by magnifying and calling attention to the person's most noticeable features. The term parody is often used synonymously with the more general term spoof, which makes fun of the general traits of a genre rather than one particular work or author. Often the subject matter of a parody is comically inappropriate, such as using the elaborate, formal diction of an epic to describe something trivial like washing socks or cleaning a dusty attic.

paralepsis (Gk. para 'side' + leipein 'to leave';  Mention of desire to omit something in order to emphasize it. Also called apophasis.

parallelism (Gk. para 'side by side', allelos 'one another'; : The comparison of things by placing them side by side; a one-to-one correspondence of form, meaning, or both in a text.

paraphrase (Gk. paraphrazein 'to say in other words;: A rendering in other words of the sense of a text or passage.

personification (F. from L. persona 'actor's face mask, character'; : The technique of treating abstractions, things or animals as persons; a kind of metaphor; also called anthropomorphism (Gk.anthropos 'man' + morphe 'form').

poetic license (L. licere 'to be permitted'; : The liberty taken by a poet who achieves special effects by ignoring the conventions (e.g. grammar) of prose.

point of view  The vantage point from which a story is told or an account given. "I", or "he/she", etc.

prose (L. prosa, from prorsa (oratio) 'direct speech'; Ordinary writing patterned on speech, as distinct from poetry (Gk. poiein 'to make').

prosody (Gk. pros 'to' + oide 'song, ode';: The analysis and description of meters; metrics; the patterns of accent in a language.

pun (clipped form of It. puntiglio 'fine point'; : A figure of speech involving a play on two or more words which sound similar but have different meanings, or refer to different things; usually humorous, but sometimes with serious intent

redundancy (L. re(d) [an intensifier] + undare 'surge, swell' < unda 'wave'; : 'Overflowing'; repetitive, using many more words than necessary; also called pleonasm, tautology.

refrain (F. from Latin refringere 'to break off';  A set phrase or chorus recurring throughout a song or poem, usually at the end of a stanza or at some other regular interval.

repetition (L. re 'again' + petere 'to demand, rush at, fall';: Using the same sound, word, etc. more than once; may be used for emphasis or other reasons.

rhetorical question (Gk. rhetor 'orator'; : A question posed for rhetorical effect, usually with a self-evident answer.

rhyme scheme (ME, F. rime; Gk. schema 'a form'; The pattern created by the rhyming words of a poem or stanza. Usually Latin letters are used to designate the same rhyme, e.g. abab cdcd.

satire (L. satira or satura 'satire, poetic medley'; : Literature that ridicules vices and follies.

scansion (L. scandere 'to climb, mount'; : A system for analyzing and marking poetical meters and feet.

shaped poem (L. carmen figuratum; also called figure poem; : A poem constructed so that its shape on a page presents a picture of its subject.

simile (L. 'a likeness'; : The comparison of one thing to another using the word, or a word meaning, like.

sound symbolism : A relationship between the sound structure and/or qualities of a word and its referent.

stanza (vul. L. stantia 'standing';: Any grouping of lines in a separate unit in a poem; sometimes called a verse.

synaesthesia (Gk. syn 'together' + aisthesis 'sense-impression';  Close association or confusion of sense impressions. The result is essentially a metaphor, transferring qualities of one sense to another, e.g. a 'loud color'.

synecdoche (Gk. synekdoche 'to receive together';  Reference to something by just a part of it. "New York won the World Series," instead of "The New York Yankees won the World Series." See also: metonymy.

synonym (Gk. syn 'together' + onyma 'name'; : A word that means the same or almost the same as another.

tone (Gk. tonos 'stretching, tone'; : An author's revealed attitude toward his or her subject or audience: sympathy, longing, amusement, shock, sarcasm, etc.

understatement ( An ironic minimizing of a fact in order to emphasize it; meiosis (Gk. meioun 'to make smaller').

verse (L. vertere 'to turn'): (1)  One line of poetry; (2)  a stanza; (3)  poetry in general; (4)  light poetry as opposed to serious.

zeugma (Gk. 'yoke';  The technique of using one word to yoke two or more others for ironic or amusing effect, achieved when as least one of the yoked is a misfit, e.g. "He took leave and his hat."

Unit 3: Prose – A Brief Introduction to the Literary Forms

1.      ESSAY AND ITS TYPES ( APHORISTIC, PERIODIC, SATIRICAL, CRITICAL)

Essay: Origin and Definition

Essay is derived from a French word essayer, which means to attempt, or to try. An essay is a short form of literary composition based on a single subject matter, and often gives personal opinion of an author.

A famous English essayist Aldous Huxley defines essays as, “a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything.” Oxford Dictionary describes it as “a short piece of writing on a particular subject.” In simple words, we can define it as a scholarly work in writing that provides the author’s personal argument.

1) The expository essay

What is it?
This is a writer’s explanation of a short theme, idea or issue.

The key here is that you are explaining an issue, theme or idea to your intended audience. Your reaction to a work of literature could be in the form of an expository essay, for example if you decide to simply explain your personal response to a work. The expository essay can also be used to give a personal response to a world event, political debate, football game, work of art and so on.

What are its most important qualities?
You want to get and, of course, keep your reader’s attention. So, you should:

• Have a well defined thesis. Start with a thesis statement/research question/statement of intent. Make sure you answer your question or do what you say you set out to do. Do not wander from your topic. 
• Provide evidence to back up what you are saying. Support your arguments with facts and reasoning. Do not simply list facts, incorporate these as examples supporting your position, but at the same time make your point as succinctly as possible. 
• The essay should be concise. Make your point and conclude your essay. Don’t make the mistake of believing that repetition and over-stating your case will score points with your readers.

2) The persuasive essay

What is it?
This is the type of essay where you try to convince the reader to adopt your position on an issue or point of view.

Here your rationale, your argument, is most important. You are presenting an opinion and trying to persuade readers, you want to win readers over to your point of view.

What are its most important qualities?

• Have a definite point of view. 
• Maintain the reader’s interest. 
• Use sound reasoning. 
• Use solid evidence. 
• Don’t get so sentimental or so passionate that you lose the reader, as Irish poet W. B. Yeats put it:
  The best lack all conviction, while the worst
  Are full of passionate intensity
• Your purpose is to convince someone else so don’t overdo your language and don’t bore the reader. And don’t keep repeating your points! 

3. Aphoristic Essays:

Aphorism is a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. The term is often applied to philosophical, moral and literary principles. To qualify as an aphorism, it is necessary for a statement to contain a truth revealed in a terse manner. Aphoristic statements are quoted in writings as well as in our daily speech. The fact that they contain a truth gives them a universal acceptance. Scores of philosophers, politicians, writers, artists and sportsman and other individuals are remembered for their famous aphoristic statements.

Aphorisms often come with a pinch of humor, which makes them more appealing to the masses. Proverbs, maxims, adages and clichés are different forms of aphoristic statements that gain prevalence from generation to generation and frequently appear in our day-to-day speech.

5. Periodical essay: A periodical essay is a type of prose non-fiction published in a periodical. A periodical is a type of serial publication such as a magazine or newspaper that appears at regular intervals. It often is compiled by a publisher or editor by assembling works commissioned from or submitted by several authors. In England, periodicals flourished from the 18th century 

4. Satirical Essays: Satirical essay writing is a style of writing that uses satire to criticize or poke fun at a subject. A satirical writer often uses such devices as hyperbole and irony to get his point across. Satirical essays are often aimed at political candidates, celebrities or situations that are absurd. The satire writer often seeks to provide relevant, useful, eye-opening information within the scope of his essay. Learning to write satirically is easy once you understand the techniques used for the style and the purpose of your content.

5. Critical essays: A critical essay is an analysis of a text such as a book, film, article, or painting. The goal of this type of paper is to offer a text or an interpretation of some aspect of a text or to situate the text in a broader context. For example, a critical analysis of a book might focus on the tone of the text to determine how that tone influences the meaning of the text overall. 

THE SHORT STORY:

Definition:

A short story is fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel. Edgar Allan Poe, in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition," said that a short story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours. In contemporary fiction, a short story can range from 1,000 to 20,000 words. 

Because of the shorter length, a short story usually focuses on one plot, one main character (with a few additional minor characters), and one central theme, whereas a novel can tackle multiple plots and themes, with a variety of prominent characters. Short stories also lend themselves more to experimentation — that is, using uncommon prose styles or literary devices to tell the story. Such uncommon styles or devices might get tedious, and downright annoying, in a novel, but they may work well in a short story.

Five important parts of a Short Story:

1.      SETTING -- The time and location in which a story takes place is called the setting.  For some stories the setting is very important, while for others it is not.  There are several aspects of a story's setting to consider when examining how setting contributes to a story (some, or all, may be present in a story): 

2.      PLOT -- The plot is how the author arranges events to develop his basic idea;  It is the sequence of events in a story or play.  The plot is a planned, logical series of events having a beginning, middle, and end.  The short story usually has one plot so it can be read in one sitting.  There are five essential parts of plot: 

3.      CONFLICT--   Conflict is essential to plot.  Without conflict there is no plot.  It is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move.  Conflict is not merely limited to open arguments, rather it is any form of opposition that faces the main character. Within a short story there may be only one central struggle, or there may be one dominant struggle with many minor ones.

There are two types of conflict:
1) External - A struggle with a force outside one's self.

2) Internal - A struggle within one's self; a person must make some decision, overcome pain, quiet their temper, resist an urge, etc.

There are four kinds of conflict:
1) Man vs. Man (physical) - The leading character struggles with his physical strength against other men, forces of nature, or animals.

2)  Man vs. Circumstances (classical) - The leading character struggles against fate, or the circumstances of life facing him/her.

3)  Man vs. Society (social) - The leading character struggles against ideas, practices, or customs of other people.

4)  Man vs. Himself/Herself (psychological) -  The leading character struggles with himself/herself; with his/her own soul, ideas of right or wrong, physical limitations, choices, etc. 

4. CHARACTER -- There are two meanings for the word character: 
1)  The person in a work of fiction. 
2)  The characteristics of a person.

Persons in a work of fiction - Antagonist and Protagonist 
Short stories use few characters.  One character is clearly central to the story with all major events having some importance to this character - he/she is the PROTAGONIST.  The opposer of the main character is called the ANTAGONIST.

5. POINT OF VIEW

Point of view, or p.o.v., is defined as the angle from which the story is told.

1.  Innocent Eye - The story is told through the eyes of a child (his/her judgment being different from that of an adult) .

2.  Stream of Consciousness - The story is told so that the reader feels as if they are inside the head of one character and knows all their thoughts and reactions.

3.  First Person - The story is told by the protagonist or one of the characters who interacts closely with the protagonist or other characters (using pronouns I, me, we, etc).  The reader sees the story through this person's eyes as he/she experiences it and only knows what he/she knows or feels.

4.  Omniscient- The author can narrate the story using the omniscient point of view.  He can move from character to character, event to event, having free access to the thoughts, feelings and motivations of his characters and he introduces information where and when he chooses.  There are two main types of omniscient point of view:

a)  Omniscient Limited - The author tells the story in third person (using pronouns they, she, he, it, etc).  We know only what the character knows and what the author allows him/her to tell us. We can see the thoughts and feelings of characters if the author chooses to reveal them to us.

b)  Omniscient Objective – The author tells the story in the third person.  It appears as though a camera is following the characters, going anywhere, and recording only what is seen and heard.  There is no comment on the characters or their thoughts. No interpretations are offered.  The reader is placed in the position of spectator without the author there to explain.  The reader has to interpret events on his own. 

THEME -- The theme in a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight.  It is the author's underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey.  The theme may be the author's thoughts about a topic or view of human nature.  The title of the short story usually points to what the writer is saying and he may use various figures of speech to emphasize his theme, such as: symbol, allusion, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or irony.  

4.      BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

A biography is an account or detailed description about the life of a person. It entails basic facts such as childhood, education, career, relationships, family and death. Biography is a literary genre that portrays the experiences of all these events occurred in the life of a person mostly in a chronological order. Unlike a resume or profile, biography provides life story of a subject, highlighting different aspects of his/her life. The person or the writer, who writes biographies, is called as a biographer.

Types of Biography

There are three types of biography:

Autobiography

It tells the story of a person’s life, who writes it himself or herself. However, sometimes he/she may take guidance from a ghostwriter or collaborator.

Biography

It narrates the life story of a person written by another person or writer. It is further divided into five categories:

• Popular biography
• Historical biography
• Literary biography
• Reference biography
• Fictional biography
• Memoir

This is a more focused term than an autobiography or a biography. In a memoir, a writer himself/herself narrates the details of a particular event or situation occurred in his/her lifetime.

Kinds

Biographies are difficult to classify. It is easily recognizable that there are many kinds of lifewriting, but one kind can easily shade into another; no standard basis for classification has yet been developed. A fundamental division offers, however, a useful preliminary view: biographies written from personal knowledge of the subject and those written from research.

Firsthand knowledge

The biography that results from what might be called a vital relationship between the biographer and his subject often represents a conjunction of two main biographical forces: a desire on the part of the writer to preserve “the earthly pilgrimage of a man,” as the 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle calls it (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 1838), and an awareness that he has the special qualifications, because of direct observation and access to personal papers, to undertake such a task. This kind of biography is, in one form or another, to be found in most of the cultures that preserve any kind of written biographical tradition, and it is commonly to be found in all ages from the earliest literatures to the present. In its first manifestations, it was often produced by, or based upon the recollections of, the disciples of a religious figure—such as the biographical fragments concerning Buddha, portions of the Old Testament, and the Christian gospels. It is sometimes called “source biography” because it preserves original materials, the testimony of the biographer

TRAVEL WRITING

The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoir.

One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century AD. In the early modern period, James Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1786) helped shape travel memoir as a genre.

The travel genre was a fairly common genre in medieval Arabic literature.

Travel literature became popular during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) of medieval China. The genre was called 'travel record literature' and was often written in narrative, prose, essay and diary style

One of the earliest known records of taking pleasure in travel, of travelling for the sake of travel and writing about it, is Petrarch's (1304–1374) ascent of Mount Ventoux in 1336. He states that he went to the mountaintop for the pleasure of seeing the top of the famous height. 

Travel books range in style from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic, and from the humorous to the serious. They are often associated with tourism and include guide books, meant to educate the reader about destinations, provide advice for visits, and inspire readers to travel. Travel writing may be found on web sites, in periodicals, and in books. It has been produced by a variety of writers, such as travelers, military officers, missionaries, explorers, scientists, pilgrims, social and physical scientists, educators, and migrants.

Travel literature often intersects with essay writing, as in V. S. Naipaul's India: A Wounded Civilization (1976), whose trip became the occasion for extended observations on a nation and people.

A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place, designed for the use of visitors or tourists". An early example is Thomas West's, guide to the Lake District published in 1778.^[

A travel journal, also called road journal, is a record made by a traveller, sometimes in diary form, of the traveler's experiences, written during the course of the journey and later edited for publication. This is a long-established literary format.

Some fictional travel stories are related to travel literature. Although it may be desirable in some contexts to distinguish fictional fromnon-fictional works, such distinctions have proved notoriously difficult to make in practice, as in the famous instance of the travel writings of Marco Polo or John Mandeville. Examples of fictional works of travel literature based on actual journeys are:

Fiction: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899), which has its origin in an actual voyage Conrad made up the River Congo

UNIT IV

BIBLE TRANSLATION

TYNDALE BIBLE:

The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536). Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. The term Tyndale's Bible is not strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete Bible. Prior to his execution Tyndale had only finished translating the entire New Testament and roughly half of the Old Testament. Of the latter, the Pentateuch, Jonah and a revised version of the book of Genesis were published during his lifetime. His other Old Testament works were first used in the creation of the Matthew Bible and also heavily influenced every major English translation of the Bible that followed. The chain of events that led to the creation of Tyndale’s New Testament possibly began in 1522, the year Tyndale acquired a copy of Martin Luther’s German New Testament. Inspired by Luther’s work, Tyndale began a translation into English using a Greek text "compiled by Erasmus from several manuscripts older and more authoritative than the Latin Vulgate" of St. Jerome (A.D. c.340-420), the only translation authorized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Tyndale made his purpose known to the Bishop of London at the time, Cuthbert Tunstall, but was refused permission to produce this"heretical" text. Thwarted in England, Tyndale moved to the continent. A partial edition was put into print in 1525 in Cologne. But before the work could be completed, Tyndale was betrayed to the authorities and forced to flee to Worms, where the first complete edition of his New Testament was published in 1526.

Two revised versions were later published in 1534 and 1536, both personally revised by Tyndale himself. After his death in 1536 Tyndale’s works were revised and reprinted numerous times and are reflected in more modern versions of the Bible, including, perhaps most famously, the King James Bible.

Tyndale's Pentateuch was published at Antwerp by Merten de Keyser in 1530. His English version of the book of Jonah was published the following year. This was followed by his revised version of the book of Genesis in 1534. Tyndale translated additional Old Testament books including Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel, first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles, but they were not published and have not survived in their original forms. When Tyndale was martyred these works came to be in the possession of one his associates John Rogers. These translations would be influential in the creation of the Matthew Bible which was published in 1537.

Tyndale used a number of sources when carrying out his translations of both the New and Old Testaments. When translating the New Testament, he referred to the third edition (1522) of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, often referred to as the Received Text. Tyndale also used Erasmus' Latin New Testament, as well as Luther’s German version and the Vulgate.

Scholars believe that Tyndale stayed away from using Wycliffe's Bible as a source because he didn’t want his English to reflect that which was used prior to the Renaissance. The sources Tyndale used for his translation of the Pentateuch however are not known for sure. Scholars believe that Tyndale used either the Hebrew Pentateuch or the Polyglot Bible, and may have referred to the Septuagint. It is suspected that his other Old Testament works were translated directly from a copy of the Hebrew Bible. He also made abundant use of Greek and Hebrew grammars.

Tyndale’s translations were condemned in England, where his work was banned and copies burned. Catholic officials, prominentlyThomas More, charged that he had purposely mistranslated the ancient texts in order to promote anti-clericalism and hereticalviews, In particular they cited the terms “church”, “priest”, “do penance” and “charity”, which became in the Tyndale translation “congregation”, “senior” (changed to "elder" in the revised edition of 1534), “repent” and “love”, challenging key doctrines of the Roman Church. Betrayed to church officials in 1536, he was defrocked in an elaborate public ceremony and turned over to the civil authorities to be strangled to death and burned at the stake. His last words are said to have been, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes.

The Catholic Church had long proclaimed that the church was an institution. The word church to them had come to represent the organizational structure that was the Catholic Church. Tyndale’s translation was seen as a challenge to this doctrine because he was seen to have favored the views of reformers like Martin Luther who proclaimed that the church was made up and defined by the believers, or in other words their congregations.

Some radical reformers preached that the true church was the “invisible” church, that the church is wherever true Christians meet together to preach the word of God. To these reformers the structure of the Catholic Church was unnecessary and its very existence proved that it was in fact not the “true” Church. When Tyndale decided that the Greek word ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) was more accurately translated congregation, he was undermining the entire structure of the Catholic Church.

Many of the reform movements believed in the authority of scripture alone. To them it dictated how the church should be organized and administered. By changing the translation from church to congregation Tyndale was providing ammunition for the beliefs of the reformers. Their belief that the church was not a visible systematized institution but a body defined by the believers themselves was now to be found directly in the Holy Scripture.

Furthermore, Tyndale’s use of the word congregation attacked the Catholic Church’s doctrine that the lay members and the clergy were to be separate. If the true church is defined as a congregation, as the common believers, then the Catholic Church’s claim that the clergy were of a higher order than the average Christian and that they had different roles to play in the religious process no longer held sway.

Tyndale’s translation of the Greek word πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros) to mean elder instead of priest also challenged the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In particular, it asked what the role of the clergy should be and whether or not they were to be separated from the common believers as they were in the current Catholic system.

The role of the priest in the Catholic Church had been to lead religious sermons and ceremonies like mass, to read the scripture to the people, and to administer the sacraments. They were considered separate from the common believers. In many reform movements a group of elders would lead the church and take the place of the Catholic priests. These elders were not a separate class from the common believers; in fact, they were usually selected from amongst them.

Many reformers believed in the idea of the “priesthood of all believers,” which meant that every Christian was in fact a priest and had the right to read and interpret scripture. Tyndale’s translation stripped away the scriptural basis of Catholic clerical power. Priests no longer administered the church: it was the job of the elders, which implied that the power rested in the hands of the people.

Catholic doctrine was also challenged by Tyndale’s translation of the Greek μετανοεῖτε (metanoeite) as repent instead of do penance. This translation attacked the Catholic sacrament of penance. Tyndale’s version of scripture backed up the views of reformers like Luther who had taken issue with the Catholic practice of sacramental penance. Reformers believed that it was through faith alone that one was saved.

This differed from the views of the Catholic Church, which followed the belief that salvation was granted to those who lived according to what the church told them and thus participated in the seven sacraments. Tyndale’s translation challenged the belief that one had to do penance for one’s sins. According to Tyndale’s New Testament and other reformers, all a believer had to do was repent with a sincere heart, and God would forgive.

The Tyndale Bible also challenged the Catholic Church in many other ways. The fact that it was translated into a vernacular language made it available to the common people. This allowed everyone access to scripture and gave the common people the ability to read (if they were literate) and interpret scripture how they wished, exposing it to the threat of being "twisted to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures" (2 Peter 3.16) instead of relying on the church for their access to scripture.

The main threat that Tyndale’s Bible caused to the Catholic Church is best summed up by Tyndale himself when he tells us of his reason for creating his translation in the first place. Tyndale’s purpose was to “[cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more scripture] than the clergy of the day” many of which were poorly educated. Thus Tyndale sought to undermine the Catholic Church’s grip on both the access to and interpretation of scripture. They were no longer needed as intercessors between the people and God.

COVERDALE BIBLE

The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old Testament or New Testament), and the first complete printed translation into English (cf. Wycliffe's Bible in manuscript). The later editions (folio and quarto) published in 1539 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1539 folio edition carried the royal license and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English.

The place of publication of the 1535 edition was long disputed. The printer was assumed to be either Froschover in Zurich or Cervicornus and Soter (in Cologne or Marburg). Since the discovery of Guido Latré, in 1997, the printer has been identified asMerten de Keyser, in Antwerp. The publication was partly financed by Jacobus van Meteren, in Antwerp, whose sister-in-law, Adriana de Weyden, married John Rogers. The other backer of the Coverdale Bible was Jacobus van Meteren’s nephew, Leonard Ortels(†1539), father of Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598), the famous humanist geographer and cartographer.

Although Coverdale was also involved in the preparation of the Great Bible of 1539, the Coverdale Bible continued to be reprinted. The last of over 20 editions of the whole Bible, or its New Testament, appeared in 1553.

Coverdale based his New Testament on Tyndale’s translation. For the Old Testament, Coverdale used Tyndale’s published Pentateuch and possibly his published Jonah. He apparently did not make use of any of Tyndale’s other, unpublished, Old Testament material (cf. Matthew Bible). Instead, Coverdale himself translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. Not being a Hebrew or Greek scholar, he worked primarily from German Bibles—Luther’s Bible and the Swiss-German version (Zürich Bible) of Zwingli and Juda—and Latin sources including the Vulgate.

UNIVERSITY WITS

The University Wits is a phrase used to name a group of late 16th century English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at the universities (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became popular secular writers. Prominent members of this group were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe from Cambridge, and John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, George Peele from Oxford. Thomas Kyd is also sometimes included in the group, though he is not believed to have studied at university.

This diverse and talented loose association of London writers and dramatists set the stage for the theatrical Renaissance of Elizabethan England. They are identified as among the earliest professional writers in English, and prepared the way for William Shakespeare.

The term "University Wits" was not used in their lifetime, but was coined by George Saintsbury, a 19th-century journalist and author.

Edward Albert in his History of English Literature (1979) argues that the plays of the University Wits had several features in common:

(a) There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed and Tamburlaine.

(b) Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety; splendid descriptions, long swelling speeches, the handling of violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder.

(c) The style was also ‘heroic’. The chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets, and powerful declamation. This again led to abuse and to mere bombast, mouthing, and in the worst cases to nonsense. In the best examples, such as in Marlowe, the result is quite impressive. In this connexion it is to be noted that the best medium for such expression was blank verse, which was sufficiently elastic to bear the strong pressure of these expansive methods.

(d) The themes were usually tragic in nature, for the dramatists were as a rule too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy. The general lack of real humour in the early drama is one of its most prominent features. Humour, when it is brought in at all, is coarse and immature. Almost the only representative of the writers of real comedies is Lyly.

G. K. Hunter argues that the new "Humanistic education" of the age allowed them to create a "complex commercial drama, drawing on the nationalisation of religious sentiment" in such a way that it spoke to an audience "caught in the contradictions and liberations history had imposed".While Marlowe is the most famous dramatist among them, Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe were better known for their controversial, risqué and argumentative pamphlets, creating an early form of journalism. Greene has been called the "first notorious professional writer".

JACOBEAN AND ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

Jacobean drama is, simply, the drama that was written and performed during the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, James I. But, as with Elizabethan drama, it is more than just the plays written during the reign of a particular monarch: like Elizabethan drama, Jacobean drama has its particular characteristics.

James inherited a whole English drama culture. The English theatre was thriving as well as any industry of the time, complete with about twenty London theatres and scores of playwrights feeding them with new material every week.

By the time James came to the throne the theatre had become a favourite leisure activity in London, but the appetites of the theatre-going public were changing. Audiences loved the humour and the many human situations – the tragic and comic dramas – that were unfolding before them on the stage. But as time went on the playwrights, reading the audience’s changing appetite, felt the need to give them even more realistic representations of the society of which they were a part.

Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign the plays were becoming more edgy and human situations were becoming more exaggerated. Extreme violence was being portrayed on the stage. The playwrights were focusing on the human being’s capacity for selfishness, and exaggerating such Renaissance forces as human ambition, and its effects. They were exploring the nature of evil, pushing things to the extremes of human behaviour. Audiences flocked in to see those representations of the society in which they lived, dramatised in exciting titillating stories, full of sex and violence.

And so we have such plays as John Webster’s The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, with their highly intelligent characters perpetrating crimes and acts of violence in the pursuit of their ambitions. We have Thomas Middleton andWilliam Rowley collaborating on a play that is still regarded as a model of Jacobean drama, The Changeling, in which we see a murderer cutting off the finger of his victim because the ring he wants to steal won’t come off. That is mild, though, compared with Shakespeare’s King Lear, where Lear’s daughter, Regan, tearing the old Gloucester’s eyes out, with the cry ‘Out, vile jelly!’

Shakespeare, the most gentle and sensitive of Elizabethan playwrights, with his moving human dramas and his comedies, but always with the lurking threat of violence, threw himself into the spirit of the Jacobean theatre, applying his talent for characterisation and plot to the new tastes. Iago, for example, the villain of Othello, a psychopath who limits his own violent acts but manipulates those around him to commit extreme violence, culminating in Othello strangling Desdemona, is the arch Jacobean protagonist – ambitious, intelligent, clever and manipulative. And, of course, Iago survives as one of the most notorious villains of both the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods – and of the whole of dramatic literature too.

To sum up: The comic dramas of the Elizabethan theatre give way to harsh satire, led by Ben Jonson: the Elizabethan tragic dramas give way to an obsession with moral corruption and violent stories of revenge. In both forms the dramas of the time show a cynical and pessimistic outlook on life.

A final, almost separate feature of Jacobean theatre sprang from a passion of the king and queen – the musical drama, and so the Jacobean theatre is full of masques – dramas with music and elaborate sets. And here again, the finest example of a Jacobean masque is Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Some of the most prominent of the Jacobean playwrights, apart from Shakespeare, are Jonson, Webster, Tourneur, Beaumont, Fletcher, Middleton, Rowley, Marston, Heyward, Ford and Dekker.

COMEDY OF HUMOURS

The comedy of humours refers to a genre of dramatic comedy that focuses on a character or range of characters, each of whom exhibits two or more overriding traits or 'humours' that dominates their personality, desires and conduct. This comic technique may be found in Aristophanes, but the English playwrights Ben Jonson and George Chapman popularized the genre in the closing years of the sixteenth century. In the later half of the seventeenth century, it was combined with the comedy of manners in Restoration comedy.

The four 'humours' or temperaments are: choleric; melancholic; sanguine; phlegmatic.

In Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour (acted 1598), which made this type of play popular, all the words and acts of Kitely are controlled by an overpowering suspicion that his wife is unfaithful; George Downright, a country squire, must be "frank" above all things; the country gull in town determines his every decision by his desire to "catch on" to the manners of the city gallant.

In his Induction to Every Man out of His Humour (1599) Jonson explains his character-formula thus:

Some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way.

The comedy of humours owes something to earlier vernacular comedy but more to a desire to imitate the classical comedy of Plautus andTerence and to combat the vogue of romantic comedy, as developed by William Shakespeare. The satiric purpose of the comedy of humours and its realistic method lead to more serious character studies with Jonson’s The Alchemist. The humours each had been associated with physical and mental characteristics; the result was a system that was quite subtle in its capacity for describing types of personality.

Unit V

Comedy of Manners

The Comedy of Manners is a theatrical genre that was uber-popular during the Restoration period. These comedies were bawdy and dirty, with lots of hilarious (and scandalous) dialogue focusing on sex. Their plot lines revolved around unfaithful wives, cuckolded husbands, and tricky lovers.

These comedies made fun of people… and sometimes entire social classes. Everyone is made to look ridiculous in these plays. People are stupid and gullible, or else they're amoral and exploitative. But it was all done in the name of fun. Audiences went to these plays during the Restoration period to laugh their heads off.

For example, the miles glorious ("boastful soldier") in ancient times, the fop and the rake during the English Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young. Restoration comedy is used as a synonym for "comedy of manners". The plot of the comedy, often concerned with scandal, is generally less important than its witty dialogue. A great writer of comedies of manners was Oscar Wilde, his most famous play being The Importance of Being Earnest.

The comedy of manners was first developed in the new comedy of the Ancient Greek playwright Menander. His style, elaborate plots, and stock characters were imitated by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence, whose comedies were widely known and copied during the Renaissance. The best-known comedies of manners, however, may well be those of the French playwright Molière, who satirized the hypocrisy and pretension of the ancient régime in such plays as L'École des femmes (The School for Wives, 1662), Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope, 1666), and most famously Tartuffe (1664).

Neoclassicism

In England, Neoclassicism flourished roughly between 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, and the 1798 publication of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, with its theoretical preface and collection of poems that came to be seen as heralding the beginning of the Romantic Age. Regarding English literature, the Neoclassical Age is typically divided into three periods: the Restoration Age (1660-1700), the Augustan Age (1700-1750), and the Age of Johnson (1750-1798). Neoclassical writers modeled their works on classical texts and followed various esthetic values first established in Ancient Greece and Rome. Seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century Neoclassicism was, in a sense, a resurgence of classical taste and sensibility, but it was not identical to Classicism. In part as a reaction to the bold egocentrism of the Renaissance that saw man as larger than life and boundless in potential, the neoclassicists directed their attention to a smaller scaled concept of man as an individual within a larger social context, seeing human nature as dualistic, flawed, and needing to be curbed by reason and decorum. In style, neoclassicists continued the Renaissance value of balanced antithesis, symmetry, restraint, and order. Additionally, they sought to achieve a sense of refinement, good taste, and correctness. Their clothes were complicated and detailed, and their gardens were ornately manicured and geometrically designed. They resurrected the classical values of unity and proportion and saw their art as a way to entertain and inform, a depiction of humans as social creatures, as part of polite society. Their manner was elitist, erudite, and sophisticated. The brooding social unrest that culminated in the revolutions in the American colonies and in France toppled this artificial refinement, and in the wake of those wars emerged portraits of the single common worker or wanderer sketched against the vast natural landscape, a character that came to be one of the chosen subjects of the Romantics in the nineteenth century.

In the Restoration Age, in poetry, the classical forms of the heroic couplet and the ode became popular. With the opening of the theaters appeared plays written in couplets and others in prose that fell in the category of the comedy of manners. Major works include Milton's Paradise Lost (although it spans both baroque and restoration in its style and subject) and Paul Bunyan'sPilgrim's Progress. But Dryden's works, lesser by comparison to those by Milton and Bunyan, more anticipated the Augustan Age to follow. In this second period flourished the poetry of Alexander Pope, with his exquisite mastery of the couplet in Essay on Man (1734); many of Pope's lines became famous sayings that are familiar in modern times such as this one from Essay on Criticism (1711): "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Also in the Augustan Age the rise of journalism and its way of evolving into and shaping fiction writing is visible in the work of Daniel Defoe, who began as a pamphleteer and ended by securing his place in the canon of great novelists with such famous works as Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722), which are fictions appearing to be autobiographical. The Age of Johnson was dominated by Samuel Johnson and the consummate work of his is The Dictionary of the English Language (1745-1755). In drama, the comedy of manners continued to be popular, but in poetry, there was a rise of the ballad and sentimental poetry as written by Thomas Gray, William Cowper, Robert Burns, and George Crabbe, which in some ways anticipates the style and sentiment of the romantics to follow. Additionally, there appeared the novel of sensibility, particularly the work of Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, which in their sensationalism and emotionality anticipate the Gothic novel of the nineteenth century.

Anti-sentimental comedy

            Ant-sentimental comedy is comedy of manners less the vulgarity and profanity!

Wit

1 Wit is a form of intelligent humor, the ability to say or write things that are clever and usually funny.

2 A wit is a person skilled at making clever and funny remarks.

Disguise

1 Give someone or oneself, a different appearance in order to conceal one’s identity.

2 A disguise can be anything which conceals or change a person’s physical appearance, including wig, glasses, makeup, costume or other ways. Camouflage is type disguise for people, animals and objects. Hats, glasses change in their type or wig, plastic surgery, and makeup are also used.

               One of the primary functions of comic satire is to expose false appearances. And this is why disguise is so important to dramatic comedy.

               We notice the prevalence of images of disguise of thing not being what they seen, in all of these situations.

              Anti-sentimental comedy is also called as the comedy of manners.

Comedy of manners

             The comedy of manners was originated in the new comedy of the Greek Menander and developed by the Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence in the third and second centuries B.C. This type of comedy is high polished in Restoration comedy. Here, we can standards and decorum.

             Comedy of manner, amusing, cerebrate form of dramatic comedy that design and often dried the manner and affection of a contemporary society. A comedy of manner is anxious with social control and the questions of whether or not character meets certain social standards. Often the covering social standards is morally atomic but critical , the plot of such a comedy , usually concerned with an dirty love affair or similarly odious matter , is subordinate to the play’s frail atmosphere , witty dialogue, and bitter commentary on human frailty.

             The comedy of manner , which was usually written by sophisticated authors for member of their own coterie social class , has historically thrived in periods and societies that combined material fortune and moral compass such was the case in ancient Greece when Menander in angulated new comedy  , the initiator of comedy manners . Meander’s smooth style, elaborate plots, and stock character were imitated by the roman poets Plautus and Terence, whose comedies were widely known and copied during the renaissance.

The Rivals

             Sheridan’s purpose in writing ‘The Rivals’ was to entertain the audience making them laugh and not by make them shed tears. ‘The Rival’ was written as a pure and simple comedy. Though there are certainly a few sentimental scenes in this play yet they are regarded as a apology of sentimentality. The scene between Falkland and Julia are satire on the sentimental comedy which was in fashion in those days and against with Sheridan revolted.

             A brief examination of these would clearly reveal that Sheridan’s intention was to prod fun at the sentimental comedy of the time. We find both Falkland and Julia campy. The true character of Faulkland is indicate to us by Absolute‘s description of him as the “most teasing, incorrigible lover”. Faulkland own description of his state of mind about his beloved. Julia also makes him appear absurd. He says that every hour is a demand for him to feel afraid on Julia’s account. It rains, he feels afraid let some stream should have freeze her. If the wind is sharp, he feels afraid let a boorish blow should skeptically affect her health. The heat of the noon and evening may expose her health. All this is funny and certainly not to be taken seriously. Sheridan is here banter the excessive solicitude and concern which an over sentimental lover like Faulkland experience when separated from his beloved. Sheridan seems to be pleading for mental calmness even in the case of a burning lover.

            Sheridan continues to portray faulkland in the same critical manner. When acres appear and is questioned by absolute regarding Julia is activities in the boonies, Acers replied that Julia’s has been enjoying herself thoroughly and been having a cheery time now, a normal lover would feel hugely happy to learn this. We expect the same reaction from faulkland because he had assured absolute that he would feel happy “beyond measure” if he were positive that Julia was flourishing and affable. But his actual reaction is quite different and greatly gladdens us by its crap.

            In one interview again shows him a ridiculous light. He subjects to a test in order to convince himself of the frankness of love. The author’s dimension to which an over sentimental lover can go and the author expects us to laugh at this kind of lover.

            Even Julia suffers from an extreme sentimentally and she is made to appear absurd and ridicules for that reason. The manner in which she described her lover to Lydia shows the kind of mentality that she has. In the two interviews with Faukland Julia is again over flowing with emotion. We smile at the way she behaves; we are diverted by her balance of emotion, we bogus at the subject addition to her lover and her repeated pursuit to make up with him.

           The manner in which the other characters have been interpreted is also data of the anti sentimental character of the play. Captain absolute is a practical man and though he accepts the name and status of Ensign Beverley, he would not like to forfeit the rich class which Lydia will bring him. Mrs.Malaprop is current, practical woman whose attitude to marriage is business like Sir Anthony is a practical worldly man. Bob acre is a country peasant with no romantic or sentimental vanity but toward the end of the play he shows that he is more practical than anybody else.

Sentimental Comedy

 Definition of Dictionary

Expressive of or appealing to sentiment, especially the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity or nostalgia: a sentimental song.

         Sentimental comedy is a kind of comedy that achieved some popularity with respectable middle class audience in the 18^thcentury. In contrast with the fine doubt of English restoration comedy, it showed virtue repaid by calm happiness; it plots, usually involving unbelievably good middle class couple, emphasized pathos, rather than humor.  Pioneered by Richard steel in the funeral and more fully in the conscious covers, it flourished in middle century with the French comedies larmoyante and in such plays on hug key’s false delicacy.  The pious moralizing of this tradition, which survived into 19^th century melodrama, was opposed in the 1770s by Sheridan and goldsmith, who attempted a partial return to the comedy of manners.

         A sentimental comedy is comedy that simply address itself to the beholder ‘s’ love of goodness rather than humor. It shows the morality of its situations and the virtue of character.

         Sentimental comedy, a dramatic genre of the 18^th century, denoting plays in which middle class protagonist beautifully overcomes a series of moral experience. Such comedy aimed at creates tears rather than laughter. Sentimental comedies reflected contemporary philosophical conception of human as inbredly good but capable of being plumb awry through bad example. By an appeal to his noble sentiments, a man could be reformed and set back on the path of virtue. Although the plays accommodated character whose natures seemed overly virtuous, and whose trials too easily confirm, they were still accepted by audience as truthful representation of human, condition. Sentimental comedy had its roots in early 18^th century tragedy, which had tone of morality similar to that of sentimental comedy but had sub line character and subject matter than sentimental comedy.

What does sentimental mean?

Sentimental is a thought, view or attitude particularly one based essentially on emotion Instead of reason. The term may also refer to the expression of deep and sensitive feeling particularly in art and literature.

Sentimental is an expression of feeble emotion, memories, special events, music and many other significant things can make a person sentimental.

             The sentimental comedy did not last long. The sentimental soon decline into sentimentality. This change gradually patent itself in the beginning of sensibility to replace with and immortality in the comedy. In this sentimental comedy of colley Cibber and Steele there was habitual morality and sentimentality in place of shameful of the restoration comedy. This dramatist dealt with the problems of, action, family and marriage in a tone that will no longer shock manners and by virtue of tears they contributed to the elucidation of souls. This dramatist aimed at instruction some moral lessons by cure anguish innocent virtue to happiness and converting cheat into good character. Thus these comedies lost the true spirit of comedy. There are no animation and innocent glee created by wit and fun. Instead, these plays served the false morality of the middle class. 

            The culture of sentiment and sensibility in eighteen century Europe is a phenomenon of such proportion that it is often viewed as epoch defining. It can be also defined as over inelegance of emotion and pathos and sympathy. It is depends upon individual. We can also see that it has relation with pathos. in Greek it means passion, or suffering or deep feeling but in modern criticism it is applied in a much more limited way to a scene or passage that is designed to evoke the feeling or tenderness, pity or sympathetic sorrow from the audience.

Pre romantics

A general term applied by modern literary historians to a number of developments in late 18th-century culture that are thought to have prepared the ground for Romanticism in its full sense. In various ways, these are all departures from the orderly framework of neoclassicism and its authorized genres. The most important constituents of preromanticism are the Sturm und Drang phase of German literature; the primitivism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Ossianism; the cult of sensibility in the sentimental novel; the taste for the sublime and the picturesque in landscape; the sensationalism of the early Gothic novels; the melancholy of English graveyard poetry; and the revival of interest in old ballads and romances. These developments seem to have helped to give a new importance to subjective and spontaneous individual feeling.