English Literature

Canto- It is a division of a very long poem- especially epic. It comes from the Sanskrit word “Kanda” which means chapter. Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” could be taken as an example.

Caricature- in literature it refers to a method of describing people by which certain characteristics are exaggerated and others are over simplified. These could be either an insult or a compliment and are generally humorous.

Catastrophe- A tragic plot would traditionally turn “downwards” for worse. This turn was called catastrophe.

Catharsis:  The signature of a good tragedy, catharsis, purifies or purges the emotions by providing an outlet.  The tears that came out at the end of a tragedy were considered the ultimate purgation of self.

Bibliography- it is a list of books or wittings and includes the year and place of publications. Author would have either quoted from these writings or would have referred to them; it could also be the list of books meant for advanced reading.

Burlesque- An exaggerated theatrical production that could be a satire or parody, intended to evoke humor. Things of great importance are treated as if they were of no importance at all.

Byronic Hero: A much romanticized, negative character. These characters are typically sophisticated, educated, intelligent and good looking but have a negative streak in them like arrogance or skepticism. Such a character was first brought out by Lord Byron in the epic poem  “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”

Ballad- it is a poem with a story, most often set to music so that it can be sung. Themes could vary from the simple folk stories to the mythological, romance to the supernatural. Ballads usually have a simple rhyme and a refrain. “Tears in Heaven” and “Yesterday” are some of the famous modern ballads.

Biography- it is the story of someone’s life usually published as a book or article. Most biographies cover lives of famous people. Although, this need not always be so.

Blank verse- a term referring to unrhymed iambic pentameter used in poetry. John Milton made very good use of the blank verse in “Paradise lost”  

Allegory- a work of literature where the primary story has a deeper secondary meaning, often didactical. “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan is a very good example. An allegory could be a part of the story or the entire story itself.  “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift is supposed to be an allegory of contemporary politics in England.

Autobiography- a biography or story of one’s own life, written by oneself. For example Gandhi’s “My Experiments With Truth”.

Autobiographical novel- A novel which is fictionalization of the author’s own experiences. Most authors write autobiographical novels.  Arundhati Roy’s “God Of Small Things” is said to be one such novel.

In the next few articles, I would like to take you through what I consider are the meaning of some literary terms:

Alliteration – when the same consonant gets repeated a number of times in the beginning of several word in a phrase, you have alliteration. Example- long lost lovers live long lives lifelessly. It can also be applied to vowels or consonants with similar properties.

Anecdote- a very brief, short story based on real life. It is usually narrated to induce interest or humor.

Anthology- a collection of literary works, generally of the same genre. Anthology initially referred to only a collection of poems. Anthology usually is made up of shorter works like poems, short stories etc.

Dennis Brutus was the son of Anti-Apartheid movement. He was imprisoned for several years, he was banned from writing poetry, yet the artist strove on. He was born in Zimbabwe(then Rhodesia). He was raised in South Africa. He encountered racism and racial prejudice everywhere he turned. This troubled and raged him. Apartheid might have fuelled the poet in him.

He was imprisoned in 1963, the year when “Sirens, Knuckles and Boots” was published. He wrote “Letters to Martha and other letters from South African Prison”, when he was no longer allowed to write poetry. “A Simple Lust” (1973), “China Poems” (1975), “Stubborn Hope” (1978), “Salutes and Censures” (1982) and “Airs and Tributes” (1989) are his other works.
Though passionate and emotive, there is yet an elegance in the restrain he uses in the words. He gets the feeling across without ever being melodramatic. The misery, the pain, the frustration are evident and yet he never uses a word unnecessarily.  Given below is one of his poems, read it and you will know what makes this man’s poetry so unique.

Somehow we survive

Somehow we survive

and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.

Investigating searchlights rake

our naked unprotected contours;

over our heads the monolithic Decalogue

of fascist prohibition glowers

and teeters for a catastrophic fall;

boots club the peeling door.

But somehow we survive

severance, deprivation, loss.

Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark

hissing their menace to our lives,

most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror,

rendered unlovely and unlovable;

sundered are we and all our passionate surrender

but somehow tenderness survives.

Lamb takes us to a fairytale land in “Dream children: A Reverie”.  The essayist’s children, John and Alice had gathered around him to listen to the story of their great-grandmother Field. She was a caretaker of a huge house in Norfolk. The place was fascinating and had carvings of the story of the Children in the Wood on the chimneypiece of the great hall. One of the new owners had torn it down. At this point, Alice gave a look that reminded the essayist of Alice’s mother.
The essayist goes on like this, describing childhood memories. He tells how the great-grandmother had been a religious lady, respected by all. Her funeral was attended by all the poor and also some rich. She had been a great dancer and had to give it up due to cancer, but nothing broke her spirit. She was a brave lady and would sleep alone in the house reputed to be haunted.
He then starts describing the house with the busts of great emperors. He would explore the house taking in the tapestry and the furniture and wander into the lovely garden. His narrative shifts to Alice and John, as it does throughout the essays. He describes how John is eyeing the grapes. He then goes on with Grandma Field’s story, how she loved all her grandchildren. But she seemed to have a special place in her heart for John L., their uncle. The essayist regrets that when he had been lame, their uncle had been very considerate towards him but when later on John L. became lame, the essayist did not show similar consideration. He was dead now. He loved him and missed him. As he went talking about Uncle John, the children started crying and asked him to stop.
They asked him about their pretty mother, who was also deceased. He told them about the courting, the denials and coyness, then as he suddenly turned to look at the little Alice, her mother’s soul shone through her eyes. Slowly, everything about her started looking like her mother and he became confused as to who was really standing before him.
The children started fading away, they said that they were not his and Alice’s children. “The children of Alice called Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name”

The essayist wakes up to find that he had fallen asleep in the chair, with Bridget by his side. Everything had been a dream but John L was really gone forever.

The essay chokes me up everytime I read it. Alice stands for the girl he had loved, but she had not reciprocated. His ladylove had married Bartrum. He was left only with wishes and unfulfilled dreams now. John, his brother had passed away, adding to his sorrows. The only person left with him was his sister who was mentally unstable. This essay was written from the heart. There is no mask, the words come directly from within the essayist and reach out to the readers. Lamb is melancholic but what wins us to his side is that he is not for once self-pitying. The inter-play of sorrow and humour lend charm to the essayist. We feel the warmth of the man even after so many years, through his words.

The much adored and loved author, Charles Lamb, did not have an easy life. Born into a financially weak family, his struggle began early on. He was admitted into Christ’s Hospital, a free boarding school. It was here that he met Coleridge who was to become his long-term friend. Lamb’s terrible experiences in the boarding school and the violence he encountered there are narrated in his essays. In fact, the boarding school did produce a lot of famous literary figures, many of whom recount similar harassing environment of the boarding school. 

He was very close to his sister all through his life. Through Charles Lamb’s essays we come to understand that he was very attached to his family. His father, his grandmother, his uncle, sister, brother, etc., find mention in his essays. The small family rifts, the childhood memories, his preferred haunts all find a place in Lamb’s essays. 

Lamb’s life took a turn for the worse when his sister, allegedly driven by insanity stabbed their mother. She was declared insane and Lamb became her lifelong guardian.

Lamb, meanwhile was honing his skills as a writer. After many unsuccessful attempts, he brought out “Tales from Shakespeare”, along with Mary. It was an instant success. But what really brought Charles Lamb fame were his “Essays of Elia”. It is “Essays of Elia” that Charles Lamb is truly remembered for.

A man, surrounded by friends with literary inclinations and respected as a good critic, was finally to be recognised as a writer in  “Essays of Elia”.

In my next article I intend to cover one of Charles Lamb’s most famous essays- “Dream Children: A Reverie”. So, if you are wondering why “Essays of Elia” are considered the most lovable essays in the history of English Literature, maybe the next article will shed some light on it. 

There are a lot of writers that I would like to cover through this blog. I would also like to provide you with as much information as I can get on English Literature as we go on. Right now I am doing research regarding this.

Meanwhile I would like to put down my personal list of all-time favourite poets.

• Robert Frost: One of my favourite poets. This poet is so simple, yet in his simplicity lives his greatness. His messages touch the heart; he speaks of humanity, of choices, hard work. The rustic touch can never be missed.

• Sylvia Plath: A poet who made me wake up and READ the poem. There is no subtlety in her, no minced words for her. She is bold and direct. That is why she is at the top of my list.

• Nissim Ezekiel: I don’t know how old I was when I read his “The Night of the Scorpion”, his narrative writing style, his matter-of-fact description, his cynicism, all make him a giant amongst Indian writing in English. He is, therefore, my first choice for an Indian poet.

•   Emily Dickinson: A genius who was not recognised during her life, her poems are as much an enigma as the poet herself. Her poems tug at my heartstrings, there is something in her that I totally identify with. Naturally, she is among my all-time best poets.

•  Toru Dutt: If Emily’s genius was not recognised during her time, Toru passed away even before her genius could be truly realised. As comfortable in English and French as she was in her own mother tongue, this prodigy finds a mention for her unmatched talent here.

• Wordsworth: How can any list on poetry be complete without the master poet himself? Because he gave us poetry par excellence, because he showed a new direction to poetry, because his poems have become world’s most popular quotable quotes, Wordsworth makes it to my list.

• Keats: Because I fell in love with his talent the first time I read his poem. The love affair continues…

Like most writers in English, before Shakespeare, not much information is available about Chaucer. It is thought that his father must have worked in some trade related to shoemaking, hence the name-Chaucer but nothing definite is known. The era in which Chaucer wrote was turbulent. There was war between England and France, the church was in a state of turmoil, the standard of health was falling and so was the morale of the people. There was moral degradation in the hitherto “Holy” ranks and people were growing sceptic.

Perhaps, it is this scepticism that is reflected in Chaucer’s work too. Perhaps his characters from “The Canterbury Tales” would today be considered stereotypes. But we have to bear it in mind that Chaucer wrote at a time when this kind of a writing style had not even been conceived of. He is considered “the father of English poetry” and also as “the father of English novels”. It can even be said that the two great genres of English- Poetry and Novel- gained form because of him and this is no mean achievement!

The Canterbury Tales –The Novel:

29 travellers, from different walks of life, come together with one purpose- a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each of the travellers has to narrate 4 stories- two on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. What a marvellous plot! What a creative premise to bring together totally unrelated people from a vast spectrum of society onto a single platform! Even before the author begins, we know there will be a lot of variety. The description of each of the characters is a story unto itself. Though Chaucer did not complete his work- not all of the characters get a chance to speak-yet, the narrative is competently rendered. The stories that he brings out speak of human emotions, failings and grandeur, things that are relevant even today. As a novelist he successfully guides us through the narrative, never letting the pace slacken, each bit well inter-linked with the other.

The Canterbury Tales –The Poem:

The beautiful lyrical quality of the poem, the carefully selected words, the amazing imagery- all make the Canterbury Tales a reader’s delight. We fall into the rhythm of the narrative right from the beginning.

“Whan that Auerylle with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour”

The description is sheer poetry. He looks at April, not as a prose writer but as a poet. He speaks of the showers, the leaves, the dry earth, now touched by rain, the scenery- all with immense lyrical excellence

The obvious reason to call this a poetry, though, would be the rhyme and metre of the poem.

Readers, unfamiliar with Middle English, might feel that his words do not rhyme.  But we have to remember that our modern pronunciation is very different from Chaucer’s times.

Conclusion

The work is a commentary on the society of Chaucer’s times. The characters, though crudely described and stereotyped, do succeed in drawing a picture in our mind. As each person is described and the as every story is narrated, we can almost see the narrative in our mind’s eye. Witty, sarcastic and cynical, Chaucer spares no one. His portrayal of human weaknesses does not seem to age, they seem to hold true even today. The method may have changed but the emotions behind them remain the same.

Chaucer, with his Canterbury tales did not just leave behind a work of literature; he left behind a storehouse of knowledge, a lesson in History, a reference material for Middle English and an essay on human nature.