Assignment: P-105: (History of English Literature from 1350 to 1900)

 

Assignment Writing: P-105: (History of English Literature from 1350 to 1900)

Hello Beautiful People,

     This blog is  Assignment writing on Paper 105 (History of English Literatuare from 1350 to 1900)assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavangar University (MKBU).

Chaucer's Art of Characterization in the

Prologue of the Canterbury Tales

 

J Introduction:

                The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work.

                The Canterbury Tales is considered Chaucer's masterpiece and is among the most important works of medieval literature for many reasons besides its poetic power and entertainment value, notably its depiction of the different social classes of the 14th century CE as well as clothing worn, pastimes enjoyed, and language

 

J Who was Geoffrey Chaucer?

                Geoffrey Chaucer marks the first greatest development in the history of English poetry. He also marks the end of the medieval literature and the beginning of the modern English literature in general and Renaissance English literature in particular.

                Chaucer sowed the seed of the Renaissance also, besides giving the English literature a sure modern turn, but it is unfortunate of the English literature that there would be no more substantial harvest for almost two centuries after him, till Spenser, who made full use of the achievements of the Renaissance to develop the English literature; Shakespeare had to be waited for to develop dramas. Chaucer is the first original genius in the history of the English literature.

                Geoffrey Chaucer ( c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English poet and author. Widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.

                Geoffrey Chaucer was born to a middle-class family; his father was a distinguished wine merchant in London. As a boy, Chaucer was a studious student. As his works exhibit, he should have learned Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, classical literature, sand so on, because they were accessible even to the commoners if they could afford. He also had the chance to observe the life and manners of people from different parts of the country who came for business to Thames Street of London where his family lived.

                He mixed up with people of all sorts, heard and learnt several languages, and became fluent in French. He was appointed as a page to a duke whom he accompanied in one of the expeditions of the Hundred Years’ War. He was taken prisoner and was released on a ransom (of 16 pounds!).

                Then he became the personal attendant of the king; he married a maid (Philippa) who was also a relation to the royal family. Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the range of its poetic vocabulary and meters. He was the first English poet to use the seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter known as rhyme royal and the couplet later called heroic. Nevertheless, Chaucer dominated the works of this 15th century English followers and the so-called Scottish Chaucerian.

                For the Renaissance, he was the English Homer. Edmund Spencer paid tribute to him as his master; many of the plays of William Shakespeare show the thorough assimilation of Chaucer’s comic spirit. John Dryden, who modernized several of the Canterbury tales, called Chaucer the father of English poetry. Since the founding of the Chaucer Society in England in 1868, which led to the first reliable editions of his works, Chaucer’s reputation has been securely established as the English poet best loved after Shakespeare for his wisdom, humour, and humanity. Chaucer has been rightly called the ‘father’ of English poetry. His chief works are – The Book of the Duchess; The Parliament of Fowls; The House of Fame; Troilus and Criseyde: Legend of Good Women; and The Canterbury Tales.

J Synopsis of ‘The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer’:  

                The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a series of different kinds of stories told by a group of imaginary pilgrims going to Canterbury: The Cathedral, a place of assassination of Saint Thomas a Becket. One of the pilgrims, Chaucer’s persona or narrators, who is a civil servant, retells us the stories. Chaucer planned to write a long series of stories in verse, so as to describe his native country, its people and their way of life, and to express the experiences of the native people in the native language, thereby developing a national literature.

                Chaucer planned to write about 120 stories by making each of the 30 pilgrims tell 2 stories each on the way to Canterbury and 2 more each on their way back (as the leader of the party tells in the prologue). But Chaucer could write only 22 stories. Today the Canterbury Tales is significant not only as the first great piece of English literature but also a realistic piece of literature that brings (illustrates) the 14th century England more vividly than the most laborious history.          

                The very description of the team of pilgrims in its introduction (The General Prologue) is a “virtual art gallery” that gives a complete picture of the 14th century English society including the entire range of people from all classes, ranks, profession, both sexes, the good and the bad… and in such a realistic manner that makes Chaucer one of the greatest realists in the history of English literature. The prologue and the tales together both tell and show us the people’s way of life, their food, dress, interests, and habits, beliefs and attitudes, superstitions, religious life, rituals, social etiquette, table manners, hypocrisies, and many other details that create a vivid picture of the society.

Individual characters :

                Chaucer’s characters are types as well as individual characters; each of the individuals represents his class, profession, age, gender or some sort of type, but at the same time each one of them is described with such personal details about facial features, build, dress, individual traits, likes and dislikes, and so on, in order to make us feel that he is a real individual human being of the time. For instance, the Knight is a typical medieval crusader, faithful servant of the British royalty, a knight who loved chivalry, honesty, truth and courtesy, and like all ideal knights, a respected and reputed man all over the country. In this way, he represents a class of human beings, the knights of the fourteenth century England. But at the same time, he has his own very individual qualities: he is “as meek as a maid,” and he has his own favourites in dress and food and so on.

                There are balances of several kinds in the characterization of the characters. Like the balance between the individual and typical qualities in the description of each character, Chaucer has kept a balance between the positive and negative traits of each class and individual characters. Not all the civil servants are ideal like the knight; there is a tax-evading Reeve who was richer than his lords by means of fraud and fright! Thus, he balances between the good and bad people in each class (nobility, clergy and laity), each gender, each profession, and so on.

                For instance, there is a ‘hunting’ mock who had practically renounced and even denounced his religious duties and codes of conduct, but he is praised for his being a practical man and a good rider! All knights might not be necessarily so virtuous.

characterization with the variety of details:      

                Another striking technique is the characterization with the variety of details and the way the narrator shifts from one type of detail to another. The narrator notices features as specific as the color of a woman’s lips, the mole on the nose-tip about a man, the red face and rolling red eyes of a monk. But he also mentions features as general as the craze for aristocratic etiquette of a nun, the love roasted swan in the monk, the golden thumb of the miller, or the practice of virtue before preaching it by a ‘good man’ parson. The narrator shifts from specific and individual details to general ones. But at times he shifts abruptly from any type of detail to any other type, giving us the impression that these data are actually being gathered on the ‘field’ itself.

                The narrator includes every aspect of each character; their facial features including moles and scars. Their dress and the horse they are riding, their voice and temperament, their passions and foibles, their affectations and degradations, their virtues and ideals, their profession and abilities, their past lives and present status, their behaviour and humours. This variety and natural shift in the inclusion of the details also reinforces the impression of reality in the characterization.

Mirror of Society:

                Chaucer barely holds the mirror up to the society of his time. Even when we read only the prologue to The Canterbury Tales, we meet all the kinds of people of his time, leaving probably only the topmost, the king, and the very bottom, the beggar. He has included all the three estates, the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. To make the picture more representatives, he has selected the virtuous and the corrupted as well as the mixed “human” types from all the three estates.

                As we read the description of his characters, we are given the impression that Chaucer’s age was a time of transition from the medieval world to that of the Renaissance. Unlike the other writers who were lost in dreams and allegories, Chaucer has presented real life and people with their activities, tendencies, weaknesses, greatnesss, individual and professional behaviours, their passions and their absurdities. From their descriptions, we understand the social and economic as well as the religious and moral aspects of the society of fourteenth century England. The characters are types representing their respective professions, gender, religious traditions and social statues: the details of a character can be generalized as representing their class, profession, gender etc. But there are personal features like description of facial and dress details, emotions and tendencies in the description of each character. This makes the prologue even more realistic.

J Art of Characterization in the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales:

                Chaucer is the first great painter of character because he is the first great observer of it among English writers, in fact, next to Shakespeare, Chaucer is the greatest delineator of character in English literature. In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer tried to paint faithfully the body and soul of the fourteenth century life. Before the Canterbury Tales we do not know a poem of which the primary aim was to depict and display the truthful spectacle of life.

                It is the greatness of Chaucer that in the Prologue his twenty-nine characters drawn from different classes of society represent the fourteenth century society as vividly and clearly as Pope represented early eighteenth-century life in his poems such as The Rape of the Lock and Dunciad. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Chaucer's England comes to life. We meet the Knight travel-stained from the war and as meek as a girl in his behaviour; the Squire with curly locks 'embroidered' like a meadow full of fresh flowers, white and red; the Yeoman clad in coat and hood of green; the Prioress, earnest to imitate the manners of high society; the jolly Monk; the wanton and merry Friar; the drunkard Cook; the Merchant; the Oxford Clerk; the Lawyer; the Doctor; the Dartmouth Sailor; the Summoner; the Pardon; the Reeve; the Wife of Bath; the gentle Parson; the five guildsmen; the Ploughmen etc. All these characters are vivid and nicely sketched in the Prologue, which is a veritable picture gallery.

                In presenting the characters, Chaucer follows the method of an artist with a brush in his hand, but his method in painting the characters is primitive. He is primitive also by a certain honest awkwardness, the unskilled stiffness of some of his outlines, and such an insistence on minute points as at first provokes a smile. Chaucer has adopted no definite pattern in the description of portraits.

                He seems to amass details haphazardly. Sometimes the description of the dress comes first and then he describes physical features. Sometimes he begins with analysis of character and adds touches of dress afterwards describes physical features. Sometimes he begins with analysis of character and adds touches of dress afterwards.

                Chaucer has shown his characters by presenting them as foils to each other. The Summoner and the Friar, the Miller and the Reeve, the Prioress and the Wife of Bath, the Cook and the Manciple, the conscientious Parson and the unscrupulous Pardoner are foils. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in either inclinations, but also in their appearances and persons. Even the grave and the serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age; their calling and their breeding such as are becoming of them and of them only.

                In the Prologue various characters comprise all sorts and conditions of men, some of them are so real that they can be easily the sketches devised to provide a representation of the chief classes of English society under the higher nobility. Moreover, the sketches not only give typical traits of temperament, appearance and manners, but incorporate the essentials of medicine, law, scholarship, religion, the theory of knighthood and also a satire on faults in social life; they summarize the noblest ideals of the time and the basest practices.

                The result, therefore, is a conspectus of medieval English society; it would be possible to use the Prologue as the basis for a survey of fourteenth century English life.

                Chaucer's characters are both individuals and types. The Knight is a chivalrous character of all ages. He is a great warrior and a conqueror who in every age stands as the guardian of man against the oppressor. But the Knight has been individualized by his horse, dress and gentle and meek behavior. The young Squire stands for the type of warriors who are not always lost in the dreams of warfare, but are also interested in singing and playing upon a flute. But he has been individualized by his curly locks, embroidered clothes, and his short coat with long wide sleeves. The Yeoman is the type of expert archers, but he has been individualized by his cropped head and his brown visage. The Prioress is the type of a woman who tries to imitate courtly manners, but she has been individualized by her nasal tone, tenderness of heart, and her physical features.

                The monk is a type of the monks who had deserted their religious duties and passed their, time in riding and keeping greyhounds for hunting. But Chaucer's Monk is an individual with a bald head and rolling eyes glowing like fire under a cauldron. Chaucer's Friar is a type of those friars who were wanton and jolly, interested in gay and flattering talk.

                But Chaucer's Friar is individualized by his melodious voice, his skill in singing songs and by his knowledge of taverns and barmaids. In Chaucer's time The Clerk of Oxford represented studious scholars who devoted their time in the acquisition of knowledge, but he is also an individual person with his volumes of Aristotle, his hollow cheeks, grave looks and threadbare clock.

                The Man of Law is a typical figure. The Doctor of Physik with his love of gold and his little knowledge of the Bible is a typical doctor. But the Man of Law and the Doctor of Physik have also been individualized by their physical traits and features. There are many other characters who represent their class, their profession, but they are also individual figures with notions, idiosyncrasies, arguments and particular physical features. Thus Chaucer has maintained a balance between the typical and the individual features of a character

                The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales presents a social group of persons, larger and more diversified. Chaucer's group of pilgrims is not schematically representative of English society, but covers well enough the main social elements. The nobility and the lowest class of laborers are excluded as it was unlikely for them to travel in the fashion of this group.

                The lifelikeness of most of the Canterbury pilgrims has given rise to several scholarly attempts at identifying them among Chaucer's known contemporaries. The Host of the Tabard Inn, later in The Canterbury Tales called Herry Bailly most probably pictures an actual fourteenth century Southwark innkeeper called Henery Bailly; and here and there are scattered throughout the portraits, hints of possible actual persons. One can think of several personal features so distinctive that one feels that Chaucer's own observation noticed them somewhere in real life, but more often it is the occurrence of a name that adds lifelikeness to a portrait: the shipman hails from Dartmouth and is master of the barge `Madelaine, the Reeve comes from Bawds- well in Norfolk; the Merchant's trading interests were largely concentrated in Middleburg in Holland end Orwell near Harwich ; the knight had taken part in campaigns some of which were topical in 1386 in connection with a famous lawsuit in which a knightly family known to Chaucer was involved. Such details of names of persons or places may well derive from Chaucer's own knowledge, and with them some of the particulars of the persons described, and it is certainly no discredit to Chaucer's art if he did derive some of his inspiration from living people.

J Conclusion:

                So here we see that who is Chaucer? Then some brief introduction of The Canterbury Tales and Also  Chaucer's Art of Characterization in the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales.

                Some of the lessons are love conquers all, lust only gets you in trouble, religion and morality is virtuous, and honour and honesty is valued. Although there are some contradictory stories, Chaucer kept to this set of morals through most of his tales. The Canterbury Tales is considered Chaucer's masterpiece and is among the most important works of medieval literature for many reasons besides its poetic power and entertainment value, notably its depiction of the different social classes of the 14th century.

 

J References:

1.      “Geoffrey Chaucer.” The Illustrated Magazine of Art, vol. 1, no. 1, 1853, pp. 7–10. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20537875. Accessed 12 Feb. 2021.

2.      Higgs, Elton D. “The Old Order and the ‘Newe World’ in the General Prologue to the ‘Canterbury Tales.’” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 2, 1982, pp. 155–173. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3817150. Accessed 12 Feb. 2021.

3.      Lumiansky, R.M.. "Geoffrey Chaucer". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jan. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Geoffrey-Chaucer. Accessed 12 February 2021.

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Assignment: P-104: (Literature of the Victorians)

 Assignment Writing : Paper 104 ( Literature of the Victorians )

Hello Beautiful People,

     This blog is  Assignment writing on Paper 104 (Literature of the Victorians)assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavangar University (MKBU).

The Importance of Being Earnest as a Comedy of Manners

J Introduction:

         The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations.

     Teachers and parents! The Importance of Being Earnest is a comic play by Oscar Wilde that engages themes such as marriage, class, social expectations, and the lifestyles of … The play's central Her satire was so polished that it would make the audience burst in uproarious laughter.

    So Firstly we see that comedy of manner as Importance of  Being Earnest. Importance of Being Earnest the Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde.

 

J Brief Introduction of Importance of Being Earnest:

       The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play.

       At the beginning of Act I, Jack drops in unexpectedly on Algernon and announces that he intends to propose to Gwendolen. Algernon confronts him with the cigarette case and forces him to come clean, demanding to know who “Jack” and “Cecily” are. Jack confesses that his name isn’t really Ernest and that Cecily is his ward, a responsibility imposed on him by his adoptive father’s will. Jack also tells Algernon about his fictional brother. Jack says he’s been thinking of killing off this fake brother, since Cecily has been showing too active an interest in him. Without meaning to, Jack describes Cecily in terms that catch Algernon’s attention and make him even more interested in her than he is already.

      In Act II, Algernon shows up at Jack’s country estate posing as Jack’s brother Ernest. Meanwhile, Jack, having decided that Ernest has outlived his usefulness, arrives home in deep mourning, full of a story about Ernest having died suddenly in Paris. He is enraged to find Algernon there masquerading as Ernest but has to go along with the charade. If he doesn’t, his own lies and deceptions will be revealed.

           In Act III takes place in the drawing room of the Manor House, where Cecily and Gwendolen have retired. When Jack and Algernon enter from the garden, the two women confront them. Cecily asks Algernon why he pretended to be her guardian’s brother. Algernon tells her he did it in order to meet her. Gwendolen asks Jack whether he pretended to have a brother in order to come into London to see her as often as possible, and she interprets his evasive reply as an affirmation. The women are somewhat appeased but still concerned over the issue of the name. However, when Jack and Algernon tell Gwendolen and Cecily that they have both made arrangements to be christened Ernest that afternoon, all is forgiven and the two pairs of lovers embrace. At this moment, Lady Bracknell’s arrival is announced.

        Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire, where he is guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty, eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew, who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. In Hertfordshire, Jack has responsibilities: he is a major landowner and justice of the peace, with tenants, farmers, and a number of servants and other employees all dependent on him. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble of a sort that requires Jack to rush grimly off to his assistance. In fact, Ernest is merely Jack’s alibi, a phantom that allows him to disappear for days at a time and do as he likes. No one but Jack knows that he himself is Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, which is where he really goes on these occasions—probably to pursue the very sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his imaginary brother.

        Jack Worthing is a fashionable young man who lives in the country with his ward, Cecily Cardew. He has invented a rakish brother named Ernest whose supposed exploits give Jack an excuse to travel to London periodically to rescue him. Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the cousin of his friend Algernon Moncrieff. Gwendolen, who thinks Jack’s name is Ernest, returns his love, but her mother, Lady Bracknell, objects to their marriage because Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag at Victoria Station. Jack discovers that Algernon has been impersonating Ernest in order to woo Cecily, who has always been in love with the imaginary rogue Ernest. Ultimately it is revealed that Jack is really Lady Bracknell’s nephew, that his real name is Ernest, and that Algernon is actually his brother. The play ends with both couples happily united.

 

J What is  meaning of Comedy Of Manners ?

          Comedy of manners, witty, cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts and often satirizes the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. A comedy of manners is concerned with social usage and the question of whether or not characters meet certain social standards. Often the governing social standard is morally trivial but exacting. The plot of such a comedy, usually concerned with an illicit love affair or similarly scandalous matter, is subordinate to the play’s brittle atmosphere, witty dialogue, and pungent commentary on human foibles.

          He comedy of manners, which was usually written by sophisticated authors for members of their own coterie or social class, has historically thrived in periods and societies that combined material prosperity and moral latitude. Such was the case in ancient Greece when Menander (c. 342–c. 292 BC).

        One of the greatest exponents of the comedy of manners was Molière, who satirized the hypocrisy and pretension of 17th-century French society in such plays as L’École des femmes (1662; The School for Wives) and Le Misanthrope (1666; The Misanthrope).

 

J The Importance of Being Earnest as a Comedy of Manners:

       The Importance of Being Earnest is an enlightening example of comedy of manners as it makes fun of the behavior of Victorian aristocracy which attaches great value to hypocrisy, frivolity, superficiality, artificiality and money mindedness. The Victorian upper class society judged things by appearance and the present play makes us laugh at those values by turning them upside-down through a language which is satirical, funny and witty.

      Different characters in the play embody those values and provide us insight into the upper-class society of the Victorian period. The play centers on the questions of identity, love, marriage and money.

      Wilde's basic purpose in writing the play was to expose and prove as a sham the norms and values of the Victorian aristocracy. That society stressed respectability, seriousness and decency, but it was very different from what it appeared to be. What needed to qualify for marriage was wealth and good family background. Lady Bracknell rejected Jack as the candidate for Gwendolen, after she knew that he was a foundling. While asking him questions she gave last priority to his abilities and education and gave importance to family background. When she came to know that there is a handsome amount of money in Cecily's account she is ready to get her married to Algernon. The two female characters Cecily and Gwendolen love their respective boys just for the beauty of their name 'Earnest'. They find everything in the name and love for the name. The boys prefer the name Earnest but they lack seriousness. It is a satire on the society that gives priority to appearances and surfaces. It is hypocrisy of the concerned people. The dialogue used in the play is funny and witty. The clever exchange between the characters are beautiful on the surface and hollow inside. The artificiality and paradox embedded in the dialogue well matches the sham and hypocritical values and pretensions of the people targeted by satire.

       Thus, The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners as it uses light hearted language to evoke laughter at the false values of the Victorian upper society.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners which scarcely has any action. It is based on dialogue, which takes the form of paradoxes, epigrams and irony. This produces a great comic effect upon the readers and the audience. The play contains abundant paradoxical statements, witty epigrams, ironical or sarcastic remarks that are made by the characters in the course of their interaction. This evokes laughter and humour of the audience.

        A paradox is a statement which appears to be self-contradictory but it is essentially true; or it may mean a statement expressing an idea which is contrary to the established opinion. Almost every character in The Importance of Being Earnest makes paradoxical remarks which are witty. We all accept the view that truth is always pure and simple, but Algernon remarks:

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility". Jack makes a number of paradoxical remarks. On seeing tea-cups and cucumber sandwiches laid out for tea, he says, "Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young?

    "Gwendolen also gives paradoxical statements when her mother Lady Bracknell does not give her approval to Jack's proposal of marriage: "The old-fashioned respect for the young is dying out". Lady Bracknell is, of course, a master of paradox in the play. When she finds Cecily affluent, she immediately approves of her marriage to her nephew Algernon, " who has nothing but his debts to depend upon". During a heated argument, Lady Bracknell confesses, "I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing".

        Irony is the recognition of the incongruity or difference between reality and appearance. It lies in the contrast between what is said and what is actually meant. The Importance of Being Earnest contains plenty of comic irony which is a kind of mockery or deception and its force derives from the pleasure in contrasting 'appearances' with 'reality'. For example, when Lady Bracknell has been nasty to Jack, he remarks, "How extremely kind of you, Lady Bracknell!

      "Algernon goes to Jack's country house, in the guise of his younger brother just when Jack arrives there to announce Ernest's 'death' from a severe chill in Paris. This gives rise to several funny situations and verbal skirmishes between the two friends, who later turn out to be brothers.

     The play uses satirical language to turn their values upside down and make us laugh considering the way they judge things by appearance. A language that is funny and witty has also been used to describe the upper class of the Victorian society. The main themes that the play bases on are love, identity, marriage as well as money. Wilde who is the author of the play had an intention of exposing the norms and values of the upper class individuals of the Victorian society and to prove them as shame. The fact is that besides the society stressing on values like respectability, decency and seriousness, its practices are totally different from these values. In order for any marriage to take place, the involved parties must be certified in terms of wealth as well as family background. From the play, we find that lady Bracknell rejected the marriage between Gewendolin and Jack simply because Jack was foundling. During her conversation with Jack, the lady gave priority to the family background without considering the education and other abilities that Jack had. She even did not consider the love that existed between Jack and Gewendolin.

      When she notices that Cecily’s account has a lot of money, she predicts that the cash must have come from her boyfriend Algernon and stands ready to support their marriage. Therefore, it is the beauty of the boyfriend’s name that makes him qualify as a candidate for marriage other than his qualities and abilities. Both Cecily and Gewendolin are ready to marry their boyfriends only because of their name “earnest” as opposed to what they feel for them. They seem to be driven by the notion that has long existed in their society which requires them to be married by men from capable and financially stable backgrounds. To them, wealth is a key requirement for marriage. “The play describes them as people who find everything in the name and love for name” (Wilde 84).

 

JConclusion:

     A comedy of manners is a descriptive term applied to a play whose comedy comes from social habits of a specified society. The play normally bases on the dominant members of the society. The social habits involve the manners and the morals practiced in the specified society. The play normally features the conduct and social status of the upper classes in a given society and how they interact with the lower classes. In most cases, the lower classes interact with the upper classes by taking roles as servants, trade people and other responsibilities as such. Therefore, I think this play can only act in a hierarchical society with a population of different classes and social status.

         The importance of being earnest is referred to as a comedy of manners because it ironically describes the conduct of the Victorian upper class. The play describes their behavior in a hypocritical manner. The play seems to be making fun of them.

 

J Refernce :

1.      Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Comedy of manners". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Mar. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy-of-manners. Accessed 12 February 2021
2.      Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir, “THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST:”  2015, www.jstor.org/stable/24311947?seq=1.
3.      Koerble, Betty (1952). W. S. Gilbert and Oscar Wilde – A Comparative Study. Madison: University of Wisconsin. OCLC 55806177.

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Assignment: P-103: (Literature of the Romantics)

Hello Beautiful People,

     This blog is  Assignment writing on   Paper- 103 ( Literature of the Romantics) assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavangar University (MKBU).

Name        :Bhatt Riddhiben D.

                                      riddhi28bhatt@gmail.com

Sem       :1

Roll No.   :16

PG year   :2020-2022

PG Enrollment No.       :3069206420200004

Paper Name   :103 ( Literature of the Romantic Period)

Topic Name   :Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey- William Wordworth

Submitted to   :Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

By William Wordworth

 

J Introduction:

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey is a poem by William Wordsworth. The title, Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798, is often abbreviated simply to Tintern Abbey, although that building does not appear within the poem.

The full title of this poem is “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.” It opens with the speaker’s declaration that five years have passed since he last visited this location, encountered its tranquil, rustic scenery, and heard the murmuring waters of the river. He recites the objects he sees again, and describes their effect upon him: the “steep and lofty cliffs” impress upon him “thoughts of more deep seclusion”; he leans against the dark sycamore tree and looks at the cottage-grounds and the orchard trees, whose fruit is still unripe.

He sees the “wreaths of smoke” rising up from cottage chimneys between the trees, and imagines that they might rise from “vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,” or from the cave of a hermit in the deep forest.

 

J Brief intro of William Wordworth:

William Wordsworth was one of the founders of English Romanticism and one its most central figures and important intellects. He is remembered as a poet of spiritual and epistemological speculation, a poet concerned with the human relationship to nature and a fierce advocate of using the vocabulary and speech patterns of common people in poetry.

The son of John and Ann Cookson Wordsworth, William Wordworth was born on April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, located in the Lake District of England: an area that would become closely associated with Wordsworth for over two centuries after his death. He began writing poetry as a young boy in grammar school, and before graduating from college he went on a walking tour of Europe, which deepened his love for nature and his sympathy for the common man: both major themes in his poetry. Wordsworth is best known for Lyrical Ballads, co-written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and The Prelude, a Romantic epic poem chronicling the “growth of a poet’s mind.”

Wordsworth’s deep love for the “beauteous forms” of the natural world was established early. The Wordsworth children seem to have lived in a sort of rural paradise along the Derwent River, which ran past the terraced garden below the ample house whose tenancy John Wordsworth had obtained from his employer, the political magnate and property owner Sir James Lowther, Baronet of Lowther (later Earl of Lonsdale). 

In his middle period Wordsworth invested a good deal of his creative energy in odes, the best known of which is “On the Power of Sound.” He also produced a large number of sonnets, most of them strung together in sequences. The most admired are the Duddon sonnets (1820), which trace the progress of a stream through Lake District landscapes and blend nature poetry with philosophic reflection in a manner now recognized as the best of the later Wordsworth.

Other sonnet sequences record his tours through the European continent, and the three series of Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822) develop meditations, many sharply satirical, on church history. But the most memorable poems of Wordsworth’s middle and late years were often cast in elegiac mode. They range from the poet’s heartfelt laments for  two of his children who died in 1812—laments incorporated in The Excursion—to brilliant lyrical effusions on the deaths of his fellow poets James Hogg, George Crabbe, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb.

William Wordsworth was the central figure in the English Romantic revolution in poetry. His contribution to it was threefold. First, he formulated in his poems and his essays a new attitude toward nature. This was more than a matter of introducing nature imagery into his verse: it amounted to a fresh view of the organic relation between man and the natural world, and it culminated in metaphors of a wedding between nature and the human mind.

beyond that, in the sweeping metaphor of nature as emblematic of the mind of God, a mind that “feeds upon infinity” and “broods over the dark abyss.” Second, Wordsworth probed deeply into his own sensibility as he traced, in his finest poem, The Prelude, the “growth of a poet’s mind.” The Prelude was in fact the first long autobiographical poem. Writing it in a drawn-out process of self-exploration, Wordsworth worked his way toward a modern psychological understanding of his own nature and, thus, more broadly, of human nature. Third, Wordsworth placed poetry at the centre of human experience; in impassioned rhetoric he pronounced poetry to be nothing less than “the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man,” and he then went on to create some of the greatest English poetry of his century. It is probably safe to say that by the late 20th century he stood in critical estimation where Coleridge and Arnold had originally placed him, next to John Milton—who stands, of course, next to William Shakespeare.

 

J Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey :

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The poem Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey is generally known as Tintern Abbey written in 1798 by the father of Romanticism William Wordsworth. Tintern Abbey is one of the triumphs of Wordsworth's genius. It may he called a condensed spiritual autobiography of the poet. It deals with the subjective experiences of the poet, and traces the growth of his mind through different periods of his life. Nature and its influence on the poet in various stage forms the main theme of the poem. The poem deal with the influence of Nature on the boy, the growing youth, and the man. The poet has expressed his tender feeling towards nature.

He has specially recollected his poetic idea of Tintern Abbey where he had gone first time in 1793. This is his second visit to this place. Wordsworth has expressed his intense faith in nature.

 

Realization of God in nature :

There is Wordsworth’s realization of God in nature. He got sensuous delight in it and it is all in all to him. Tintern Abbey impressed him most when he had first visited this place. He has again come to the same place where there are lofty cliffs, the plots of cottage ground, orchards groves and copses. He is glad to see again hedgerows, sportive wood, pastoral farms and green doors. This lonely place, the banks of the river and rolling waters from the mountain springs present a beautiful panoramic light. The solitary place remands the poet of vagrant dwellers and hermits’ cave.

The poem is in realization of God in nature. The first section establishes the setting for the meditation. But it emphasizes the passage of time: five years have passed, five summers, five long winters… But when the poet is back to this place of natural beauty and serenity, it is still essentially the same.

Five section :

The poem opens with a slow, dragging rhythm and the repetition of the word ‘five’ all designed to emphasize the weight of time which has separated the poet from this scene. The following lines develop a clear, visual picture of the scent. The view presented is a blend of wildness and order. He can see the entirely natural cliffs and waterfalls; he can see the hedges around the fields of the people; and he can see wreaths of smoke probably coming from some hermits making fire in their cave hermitages. These images evoke not only a pure nature as one might expect, they evoke a life of the common people in harmony with the nature.

The second section begins with the meditation. The poet now realizes that these ‘beauteous’ forms have always been with him, deep-seated in his mind, wherever he went. This vision has been “Felt in the blood, and felt alone the heart” that is. It has affected his whole being. They were not absent from his mind like form the mind of a man born blind. In hours of weariness, frustration and anxiety, these things of nature used to make him feel sweet sensations in his very blood, and he used to feel it at the level of the impulse (heart) rather than in his waking consciousness and through reasoning. From this point onward Wordsworth begins to consider the sublime of nature, and his mystical awareness becomes clear. Wordsworth’s idea was that human beings are naturally uncorrupted.

The poet studies nature with open eyes and imaginative mind. He has been the lover of nature form the core of his heart, and with purer mind. He feels a sensation of love for nature in his blood. He feels high pleasure and deep power of joy in natural objects. The beatings of his heart are full of the fire of nature’s love. He concentrates attention to Sylvan Wye – a majestic and worth seeing river. He is reminded of the pictures of the past visit and ponders over his future years. On his first visit to this place he bounded over the mountains by the sides of the deep rivers and the lovely streams. In the past the soundings haunted him like a passion. The tall rock, the mountain and the deep and gloomy wood were then to him like an appetite. But that time is gone now. In nature he finds the sad music of humanity.

The third section contains a kind of doubt; the poet is probably reflecting the reader’s possible doubts so that he can go on to justify how he is right and what he means. He doubts, for just a moment, whether this thought about the influence of the nature is vain, but he can’t go on. He exclaims: “yet, oh! How often, amid the joyless daylight, fretful and unprofitable fever of the world have I turned to thee (nature)” for inspiration and peace of mind. He thanks the ‘Sylvan Wye’ for the everlasting influence it has imprinted on his mind; his spirit has very often turned to this river for inspiration when he was losing the peace of mind or the path and meaning of life. The river here becomes the symbol of spirituality.

He fifth and last section continues with the same meditation from where the poet addresses his younger sister Dorothy, whom he blesses and gives advice about what he has learnt. He says that he can hear the voice of his own youth when he hears her speak, the language of his former heart; he can also “read my former pleasure in the soothing lights of thy wild eyes’. He is excited to look at his own youthful image in her. He says that nature has never betrayed his heart and that is why they had been living from joy to joy. Nature can impress the mind with quietness and beauty, and feed it lofty thoughts, that no evil tongues of the human society can corrupt their hearts with any amount of contact with it.

The poet then begins to address the moon in his reverie, and to ask the nature to bestow his sister with their blessings. Let the moon shine on her solitary walk, and let the mountain winds blow their breeze on her. When the present youthful ecstasies are over, as they did with him, let her mind become the palace of the lovely forms and thought about the nature, so that she can enjoy and understand life and overcome the vexations of living in a harsh human society. The conclusion to the poem takes us almost cyclically, back to a physical view of the ‘steep woods’, ‘lofty cliffs’ and ‘green pastoral landscape’ in which the meditation of the poem is happening.

The poet has expressed his honest and natural feelings to Nature’s Superiority. The language is so simple and lucid that one is not tired of reading it again and again. The sweetness of style touches the heart of a reader. The medium of this poem is neither ballad nor lyric but an elevated blank verse. The blank verse that is used in it is low-toned, familiar, and moves with sureness, sereneness and inevitable ease. It has the quiet pulse, suggestive of 'central peace', which is felt in all his great poetry. This is the beauty of Wordsworth’s language.

 

J Main idea of Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth:

Tintern Abbey” is the young Wordsworth's first great statement of his principle (great) theme: that the memory of pure communion with nature in childhood works upon the mind even in adulthood, when access to that pure communion has been lost, and that the maturity of mind present in adulthood offers compensation for a very better way. Also, we see that Tintern is famous for its abbey and for the poets and painters such as Wordsworth and Turner who visited it two hundred years ago in the Romantic period.

It is indeed a wonderfully romantic place, lying on the Welsh side of the winding valley of the River Wye between Chepstow and Monmouth. This poem is also romantic so that “Tintern Abbey” is unique to Wordsworth's Romantic theory because it contains his characteristic use of isolation. The poem begins with Wordsworth returning to the abbey after five years, accompanied by his sister Dorothy. ... The poem says, “Five years have past; five summers, with the length – of five long winters! Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey” takes on an abundance of ideas regarding nature's ability to preserve one's memories as well as past and present perceptions. Wordsworth conveys his experiences with nature to readers through his poem using vibrant imagery, a narrative-like structure and abstract metaphors.

 

J Conclusion:

So after this discusson we see that one way in which ‘Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’ might be regarded as a transitional poem between earlier nature poetry of the century and the Romantic movement (which Wordsworth was ushering in with his poem) is in the way nature, in this poem, hovers somewhere between order and chaos: it is not quite tamed, but nor is it completely wild either.

Wordsworth may imagine that the smoke billowing up from those cottages is from hermits living entirely separate from society in caves in the hills and woods, but he knows that this is fancy, rather than reality. so the reminders of the real world of society, building, and living are scattered throughout the wild hills and woods of the countryside. This juxtaposition is what lends the place a particular significance for Wordsworth. In the last analysis, then, ‘Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’ is a poem that shows Romanticism emerging from earlier poetry, but also becoming something distinctive.

 

J References:

1. 1.      Castell James, "Wordsworth and the ‘Life of Things’” in The Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth,
2. 2.  Stephen Maxfield. "William Wordsworth". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 17 Dec. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Wordsworth. Accessed 12 February2021
3. 3.   "Wordsworth, William (WRDT787W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

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