Social Picture in Pride and Prejudice

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   Social Picture in Pride and Prejudice

   
   
   

   
   Pride and prejudice by Austen's is a detail portrayal of the social atmosphere of the late 18th and early 19th century England and it is principally concerned with all social aspects of English gentry. It is Austen's great masterpiece, a sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in her time, a world in which men held virtually all the power and women were required to negotiate mine fields of social status. Marriage was then considered as the way of a women's security and also it paved the way for a woman to gain property. Austen contains vivid and realistic pictures of the social life of her time -the conventions, the manners, and the mode of living of that time and which are depicted in the novel in a most graphic manner.
   
   In the novel we see that money, marriage and the security of a woman are very interrelated. In pride and prejudice, we see that money is essential to begin a marriage. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." By saying it is universally acknowledged', we get the impression that marriage is something wanted by all. It also implies that any rich man wants a wife, when actually it is a woman that wants a rich husband, the opposite of what Austen says.
   
   Here in a conversation with Mr. Bennett, we see that Mrs. Bennett convinces her husband to wed one of their daughters to "A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.'', namely, Mr. Bingley. Mrs. Bennett is especially interested in his income.
   
   When MR. Collins proposes to Elizabeth, he presumes he will not be refused because he is richer. We see that he is one of the people who believe marriage is just about money. Another man wishing to marry Elizabeth is Colonel Fitzwilliam. He understands if one wishes to marry, one must be rich, and this saddens him because he cannot marry the girl he wants: "There are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money." Elizabeth can't understand how many people marry where there were no feelings of attraction with having only simply desire for more money. Mrs. Gardiner said to Elizabeth: "affection" for Wickham would be "so very imprudent" because of his "want of fortune". Charlotte's marriage to Collins is a monetary trade. She marries Collins primarily because he will be able to provide her enough livelihoods and will be able to make her life easy.
   
   In the pride and prejudice we find that marriage was thought as an acceptable path to his high status or their economic way according to the view of the society. Thus marriage was the main concern of the mother and also of the daughters of that time .
   
   
   Here we see that Mrs. Bennet always thinks about their daughters' marriage. "The business of her life was to get her daughters married "and she thinks that could fetch her daughter's wealthy and high status husbands; so marriage becomes a straight and quick to change their situation. When Mrs. Bennet comes to know that a bachelor is coming to occupy Nether field Park, her first thought is whether that rich bachelor would choose one of her five daughters as his would be wife . She says to her husband "My dear Mr Bennet how can you be sotire some: You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them ". (1). ``If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,'' said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, ``and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.'' Charlotte Lucas, whose pragmatic views on marrying are voiced several times in the novel: "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want."
   
   This novel also portrays the pride of upper class society. Darcy, a wealthy bachelor alienated himself from the others at first because of his intense pride. His eventual love, Elizabeth, was disgusted at his behavior and formed a prejudice against him. Even after he fell in love he completely debased her family for his pride. At Maryton. he dances only with the Bingley's sisters who belong to his class. When Bingley's offers to dance with any girls he says -``I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.''- Again when Bingley says to dance with Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy comments - "She is intolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me ;and I am no more humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by others man ".(3). Pride is represented also by his aunt Lady Catherine. When she was talking with Mrs. Charlotte and Elizabeth, she shows herself to be a woman who is acutely conscious of her social status over the other two women. She humiliated Elizabeth by saying -"her (Elizabeth's) taste is not equal to Anne's". She puts all posts of insolent questions to Elizabeth and she expresses her surprise that the Bennet girls never had a governess to look for them -"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess!".
   
   Prejudice is another picture in the society. Elizabeth was disgusted at Darcy's behavior and formed a prejudice against him. Elizabeth concerns a dislike for Mr. Darcy when she overhears his remark that she is not beautiful enough to dance with him. Her prejudices were increased when Wick ham made a long take of his grievances against Mr. Darcy she believed every word which Mr.Wickham has said. Her dislike of Mr. Darcy now hardens into hatred due to a prejudice which Mr. Wick ham's account has created in her mind. Darcy's cold arrogance and snobbery prejudiced her from him from the beginning and it took Elizabeth a lot longer time to overcome her prejudice.
   
   In the novel, Austen portrays the women's low status and the reasons of women's low status. But they in the novel didn't try to strive for their right; they thought little of their status. No right of inheritance, such is particularly the case of the Bennets,a family of five daughters whose father's estate is entailed to a distant relative because women have not the right possess his father's property. After Mr. Bennett's death, they will loose home, land, and income, everything else. Money played in determining a woman's daily life, marriage and destiny.
   
   The women in Austen's age lived in a patriarchal society ,a world in which men held all the advantage. Women could not entail their fathers estate, which has a quite iniquitous affairs to the daughters in the Bennets, as their property was entailed to a distant male heir. And they felt angry about it -"I don't think it is the hardest thing in the world that your estate should be entailed away from your own children.'' Since the law of the then England said that the property of a family should be entailed to a male heir and since the social power of a society was exercised by the male members of the society, marrying to a wealthy man was the only solution for a woman to gain property and, of course, shelter and security. So, when Mrs.Bennet knows Elizabeth's refusal to Mr. Collins , she threats her �''If you go on refusing every marriage , you will never get a husband , and I am sure I don't know who is to maintain you when your father died ''-illustrates the point that women have to depend on the men through her lifetime.
   
   Again in this connection is that assembles, balls and gossips were the order of the lady . The ladies are the upper middle class play in the in the hash ladies and gentlemen play cards or pass the time in held gossip. Listening news, collected news and the communicating news were the chief interest of the girls and ladies. Thus we see in the novel Mrs. Philips gathers news then it imparts to her nieces.

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Difference Between Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Bennet

Difference Between Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Bennet



They are two sisters. Jane is the elder one and then is Elizabeth. However, from first, it is perhaps clear to us that Elizabeth is smarter and with stronger personality. On the other hand, Jane was an innocent and at times a na�ve young who trusts people very easily. Of course, what is interesting to me is that in Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen kept a character called Jane in the first place but then she did not make her the heroine of the novel. This is funny to me because if I write a novel then I would never keep a character with my name.

Jane is prettier while Elizabeth Bennet is smarter. Jane admires people very easily while her younger sister has a much more critical eye. Thus, if you had read the novel then you would perhaps agree with me that the two sisters are quite opposite. Well, somehow, I find that they have something in common.

Both of them are good young girls. They became like their father Mr. Bennet. It is clear that Mr. Bennet was a kind hearted and good man and he was very supportive to his daughters. Both Jane and Elizabeth has got the same attitude. They like each other and they are very supportive. They are adorable and any man would become lucky and perhaps happy if they get married to either of them. Of course, if you are a man then you have to understand the value of girls like these two sisters.

I think that this is thing that Jane Austen wanted to show us. Yes, the two sisters have opposite personality traits. Yet, they are adorable, good and lovely. They believe in goodness and kindness and try to act to their idea. Many men while looking for a wife do not know what qualities they should look into a woman. Perhaps, the message of Jane Austen is that first search goodness in a girl and then other things. Only then, a man can be lucky and happy in a marriage.

Jane Bennet was a very ordinary girl but she was a good girl and Mr. Bingley was surely lucky to become her husband. Of course, we have to assume that they lived happily ever after.

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The theme of love and marriage in Jane Austen's Novel

The theme of love and marriage in Jane Austen's Novel, 'Pride and Prejudice'.

One of the major themes of the novel, 'Pride and prejudice' is love and marriage. Besides the marriage of Mrs. and Mr. Bennet, four marriages take place in the novel, mostly emanating from the love between each other. Moreover, the main concern of the novel is courtship and love, particularly the coming close of the hero, Darcy, and the heroine, Elizabeth, by stages.





(i) The first marriage that attracts our attention is that of Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Bennet. Mr. Bennet love with Mrs. Bennet and married her. This happened before the start of the novel. But Mrs. Bennet was not a fit match for Mr. Bennet. She is a nervous, ridiculous lady but Mr. Bennet is a conscious and sensible man. So they are pole apart in their thoughts and temperaments. Thus, this marriage is the worst example of its kind in the novel.





(ii) The second example of marriage in the novel is that of Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins. Mr. Collin is an affluent but stupid clergyman. He first proposes to Elizabeth but she rejects him. Then he proposes to Charlotte Lucas and she accepts his proposal because she wants social and economic security. So, this is a marriage of convenience, not a marriage of love.





(iii) The third example of marriage in the novel is that of Lydia and Wickham. Wickham is a philanderer and a cheat. He catches Lydia in his net and she falls in love with him. Not only that, she elopes away with him. Lydia�s action is bound to bring disgrace to the family. It is Darcy who bribes Wickham and makes him marry Lydia and thus save the family of Mr. Bennet from disgrace.





(iv) The fourth example of marriage is that of Jane and Bingley. They truly love each other. Bingley is a well to do young man. He marries Jane without dowry. This is an example of a successful marriage.





(V) The fifth and final example of marriage is that of Elizabeth and Darcy. It is an example of an ideal marriage based on true understanding and cross examinations as their love develops slowly, steadily and after careful observation of each other. Before marriage, they have encountered deep differences and critical confrontations resulting from the preoccupation of the pride by Darcy and obsession of the prejudice by Elizabeth. They get married only after Darcy has given up his pride and Elizabeth has given up her prejudice. The two try to understand each other and learn that they will be able to lead a life of social and economic security. Theirs is an example of an ideal love.

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William WordsWorth Views on Imagination and Fancy ...

Wordsworth's Views on Imagination and Fancy

In order to understand Wordsworth's view on imagination, we have to go to his poems, and to his letter. In 'The Preface', the word occur first when Wordsworth tells us that his purpose has been to select incidents and situations from humble and common life and make them look uncommon and unusual by throwing over them a coloring of imagination. This clarifies that imagination is a transforming and transfiguring power which presents the usual in an unusual light. The poet does not merely present "image of men and nature" but he also shapes, modifies and transfigures that image by the power of his imagination. Thus imagination is creative; it is a shaping or 'plastic' power. The poet is half the creator; he is not a mere mechanical reproducer of outward reality, but a specially gifted individual, who, like God, is a creator or maker as he adds something to nature and reality. It is the imagination of the poet which imparts to nature, the 'glory and freshness of a dream', the light that never was on land and sea.

In making the poet's imagination a creative power, Wordsworth goes counter to the 'associationist' theories of David Hartley who had considerable influences on the poet. Hartley and other associationist psychologist thought that the human mind receives impressions from the external words, which are therein associated together to form images. In this way, the mind merely reflects the external world. But according to Wordsworth the mind does not merely reflect passively, it actively creates. At least, it is half the creator. Imagination is the active, creative faculty of the mind. As Florence Marsh points out, for Wordsworth imagination is a mental power which alters the external world creatively.
"It is a word of higher import, denoting operations of the human mind upon those objects and processes of creation or composition, governed by certain fixed laws."
It is through imagination that the poet realizes his kinship with the eternal. Imagination works upon the raw material of sense impressions to illustrate the working of external truths. It makes the poet perceive the essential unity of "man, God and Nature" while "the meddling intellect" of the scientist multiplies diversities.

Again, he tells that the poet is a man who thinks long and deeply, and so he can treat things which are absent as if they were present. In other words, the poet contemplates in tranquility the emotions which he had experienced in the past and through imagination can visualize the objects which gave rise to those emotions initially. Imagination is the mind's eye through which the poet sees into the 'heart of things' as well as into the past, the remote, and the unknown. It is imagination which enables the poet to render emotional experience, which he has not personally experienced, as if, they were personally felt emotions.

The power of imagination enables the poet to universalize the particular and the personal, and arrives at universal truths. Henry Crabbe Robinson describes the process in the following words:
"The poet first conceives the essential nature of his object, and then strips it of all casualties and accidental individual dress, and in this he is a philosopher; … he re-clothes his idea in an individual dress which expresses the essential quality and has also the spirit and life of a sensual object. And this transmutes the philosophic into a poetic exhibition."
Stressing the importance which Wordsworth attached to the role of imagination in the process of poetic creation, C M. Bowra writes:
"For him, the imagination was the most important gift that a poet can have, and his arrangement of his own poems shows what he meant by it."
The section which he calls, 'Poems of the Imagination', contains poems in which he united creative power and a special visionary insight. He agreed with Coleridge that this activity resembles that of God. It is the divine capacity of the child who fashions his own little world:
For feeling has to him imparted power
That through the growing faculties of sense
Doth like an agent of the one great Mind
Create, creator and receiver both,
Working but in alliance with the works
Which it beholds.
The poet keeps this faculty in his maturity, and through it he is what he is. But Wordsworth was full aware that mere creation is not enough, that it must be accompanied by a special insight. So he explains that the imagination,
Is but another name for absolute power
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
And Reason in her most exalted mood.
"Wordsworth did to go so far as the other Romantics in relegating reason to an inferior position. He preferred to give a new dignity to the word and to insist that inspired insight is itself rational."
It should be noticed that here Wordsworth calls imagination, "reason in her most exalted mood". It is a higher reason than mere reason. It is that faculty which transforms sense perceptions and makes the poet conscious of human immortality. It makes him have visions of the divine.

Wordsworth deals with imagination at much greater length in his Preface to the 1815 edition of the Lyrical Ballads. There he draws a distinction between Fancy and Imagination. Wordsworth's distinction between Fancy and Imagination is not so subtle and penetrating as that of Coleridge. According to Wordsworth, both Imagination and Fancy, "evoke and combine, aggregate and associate". But the material which they evoke and combine is different, and their purpose in evoking and combining is different. They differ not in their natures but in their purpose, and in the material on which they work. The material on which Fancy works is not so susceptible to change or so pliant as the material on which imagination works. Fancy makes things exact and definite, while Imagination leaves everything vague and indefinite

Rene Wellek's comment in this respect is illuminating and interesting:
"Both Wordsworth and Coleridge make the distinction between Fancy, a faculty which, handles, 'fixities and definites, and Imagination, a faculty which deals with the 'plastic, the pliant and the indefinite'. The only important difference between Wordsworth and Coleridge is that Wordsworth does not clearly see Coleridge's distinction between imagination as a 'holistic' and fancy as an 'associative' power and does not draw the sharp distinction between transcendentalism and associationism which Coleridge wanted to establish."

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William Wordsworth's as a Romantic poet...

 

William Wordsworth's as a Romantic poet

William Wordsworth's poetry exhibits Romantic characteristics and for his treatment towards romantic elements, he stands supreme and he can be termed a Romantic poet on a number of reasons. The Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century was a revolt against the classical tradition of the eighteenth century; but it was also marked by certain positive trends. Wordsworth was, of course, a pioneer of the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century. With the publication of Lyrical Ballads, the new trends become more or less established. However, the reasons for why Wordsworth can be called a Romantic poet are given below:

Imagination: Where the eighteenth century poets used to put emphasis much on ‘wit’, the romantic poets used to put emphasis on ‘imagination’. Wordsworth uses imagination so that the common things could be made to look strange and beautiful through the play of imagination. In his famous “Intimation Ode", it seems to his as to the child "the earth, and every common sight" seemed "apparelled in celestial light". Here he says,

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light"

Moreover, in this poem, we find a sequence of picture through his use of imagery. Through his imagination he says,

The Rainbow come and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare"

Similarly, in the poem, “Tintern Abbey”, the poet sees the river, the stream, steep and lofty cliffs through his imaginative eyes. He was enthusiastically charmed at the joyful sound of the rolling river. Here he says,

Once again
Do I behold those steep and lofty cliffs
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect
The landscape with quiet of the sky".

In this poem, the poet seems that the nature has a healing power. Even the recollection of nature soothes the poet's troubled heart. The poet can feel the existance of nature through imagination even when he is away from her. He says,

In lonely rooms and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensation sweet".

Nature: Wordsworth is especially regarded as a poet of nature. In most of the poems of Wordsworth nature is constructed as both a healing entity and a teacher or moral guardian. Nature is considered in his poems as a living personality. He is a true worshiper of nature: nature's devotee or high priest. The critic Cazamian says, "to Wordsworth, nature appears is a formative influence superior to any other, the educator of senses or mind alike, the shower in our hearts of the deep laden seeds of our feelings and beliefs". He dwells with great satisfaction, on the prospects of spending his time in groves and valleys and on the banks of streams that will lull him to rest with their soft murmur.

For Wordsworth, nature is a healer and he ascribes healing properties to Nature in “Tintern Abbey” . This is a fairly obvious conclusion drawn from his reference to "tranquil restoration" that his memory of the Wye offered him “in lonely rooms and mid the din/Of towns and cities"

It is also evident in his admonition to Dorothy that she let her
"Memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh !then
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief.
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!”

Wordsworth says nature "never did betray the heart that loved her".

Subjectivity: Subjectivity is the key note of Romantic poetry. He expresses his personal thoughts, feelings through his poems. In “Ode: Intimation of Immortality” the poet expresses his own/personal feelings. Here he says that he can't see the celestial light anymore which he used to see in his childhood. He says,

It is not now as it hath been of yore;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By might or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see on more."

Nature becomes all in all to the poet. The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion. Nature was his beloved. He loved only the sensuous beauty of nature. He has also a philosophy of nature.

Pantheism and mysticism: Pantheism and mysticism are almost interrelated factors in the Nature poetry of the Romantic period. Wordsworth conceives of a spiritual power running through all natural objects- the " presence that disturbs me with the low of elevated thoughts" whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, the rolling ocean. the living air, the blue sky, and the mind of man (“Tintern Abbey”)

Humanism: The romantic poets had sincere love for man or rather the spirit of man. Wordsworth had a superabundant enthusiasm for humanity. He was deeply interested in the simple village folk and the peasant who live in contact with nature. Wordsworth showed admiration for the ideals that inspired the French Revolution. Emphasis in individual freedom is another semantic characteristic. Wordsworth laments for the loss of power, freedom and virtue of human soul.
Lyricism: Wordsworth is famous for simple fiction, bereft of artificialities and falsity of emotion. His "Lyrical Ballads" signifies his contention that poetry is the "history or science of feelings"

In the “Ode: Intimation of Immortality”, we see his lyricism. He writes,

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own:
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even, with something of a Mother's mind,
And, on unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Innate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

In the concluding part, it can be said that Wordsworth was a protagonist in the Romantic Movement which was at once a revolt and a revival. He shows the positive aspects of Romanticism with its emphasis on imagination, feeling, emotion, human dignity and significance of Nature.

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William Wordsworth As a Critic.

William Wordsworth As a Critic.

Wordsworth was primarily a poet and not a critic. He has left behind him no comprehensive treatise on criticism. The bulk of his literary criticism is small yet "the core of his literary criticism is as inspired as his poetry". There is the same utter sincerity, earnestness, passion and truth in both. He knew about poetry in the real sense, and he has not said even a single word about poetry, says Chapman, "which is not valuable, and worth thinking over".

Wordsworth's criticism is of far-reaching historical significance. When Wordsworth started, it was the Neo-classical criticism, which held the day. Critics were pre-occupied with poetic genres, poetry was judged on the basis of rules devised by Aristotle and other ancients, and interpreted by the Italian and French critics. They cared for rules, for methods, for outward form, and had nothing to say about the substance, the soul of poetry. Wordsworth is the first critic to turn from the poetry to its substance; builds a theory of poetry, and gives an account of the nature of the creative process. His emphasis is on novelty, experiment, liberty, spontaneity, inspiration and imagination, as contrasted with the classical emphasis on authority, tradition, and restraint. His 'Preface' is an unofficial manifesto of the English Romantic Movement giving it a new direction, consciousness and program. After Wordsworth had written, literary criticism could never be the same as before.

Wordsworth through his literary criticism demolishes the old and the faulty and opens out new vistas and avenues. He discards the artificial and restricted forms of approved 18th century poetry. Disgusted by the, "gaudiness and inane phraseology", of many modern writers, he criticizes poets who:

"… separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation".

Discarding formal finish and perfection, he stresses vivid sensation and spontaneous feelings. He says:

"All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."

Scott James says:

"He discards Aristotelian doctrine. For him, the plot, or situation, is not the first thing. It is the feeling that matters."

Reacting against the artificiality of 18th century poetry, he advocates simplicity both in theme and treatment. He advocates a deliberate choice of subject from "humble and rustic life". Instead of being pre-occupied with nymphs and goddesses, he portrays the emotions of collage girls and peasants. There is a healthy realism in his demand that the poet should use, "the language of common men", and that he should aim at keeping, "the reader in the company of flesh and blood."

There is, no doubt, his views in this respect are open to criticism. Scott James points out, the flesh and blood and emotions of a townsman are not more profound. Besides, by confining himself wholly to rustic life, he excluded many essential elements in human experience. Thus, he narrowed down his range.

"His insistence on the use of a selection of language really used by men is always in danger of becoming trivial and mean."

There is also, no doubt, that he is guilty of over-emphasis every now and then, and that it is easy to pick holes in his theories. Coleridge could easily demolish his theory of poetic diction and demonstrate that a selection of language as advocated by Wordsworth would differ in no way from the language of any other man of commonsense.

All the same, the historical significance of his criticism is very great. It served as a corrective to the artificial and inane phraseology and emphasized the value of a simpler and more natural language. By advocating simplicity in theme, he succeeded in enlarging the range of English poetry. He attacked the old, outdated and trivial and created a taste of the new and the significant. He emphasized the true nature of poetry as an expression of emotion and passion, and so dealt a death blow to the dry intellectuality of contemporary poetry. In this way, he brought about a revolution in the theory of poetry, and made popular acceptance of the new poetry, the romantic poetry, possible.

Unlike other romantics, Wordsworth also lays stress on the element of thought in poetry. He has a high conception of his own calling and so knows that great poetry cannot be produced by a careless or thoughtless person. He says:

"Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply."

Poetic process is a complex one. Great poetry is not produced on the spur of the moment. It is produced only when the original emotion is contemplated in tranquility, and the poet passions anew.

Wordsworth goes against the neo-classic view that poetry should both instruct and delight, when he stresses that the function of poetry is to give pleasure, a noble and exalted kind of pleasure which results from increased understanding and sympathy. If at all it teaches, it does so only indirectly, by purifying the emotions, uplifting the soul, and bringing it nearer to nature.

The credit for democratizing the conception of the poet must go to Wordsworth. According to him, the poet is essentially a man who differs from other men not in kind, but only in degree. He has a more lively sensibility, a more comprehensive soul, greater powers of observation, imagination and communication. He is also a man who has thought long and deep. Wordsworth emphasizes his organic oneness as also the need for his emotional identification with other men.

We can do no better than conclude this account of the achievement of Wordsworth as a critic with the words of Rene Wellek:

"Wordsworth thus holds a position in the history of criticism which must be called ambiguous or transitional. He inherited from neo-classicism a theory of the imitation of nature to which he gives, however, a specific social twist: he inherited from the 18th century a view of poetry as passion and emotion which he again modified as … "recollection in tranquility". He takes up rhetorical ideas about the effect of poetry but extends and amplifies them into a theory of the social effects of literature … he also adopts a theory of poetry in which imagination holds the central place as a power of unification and ultimate insight into the unity of the world. Though Wordsworth left only a small body of criticism, it is rich in survivals, suggestions, anticipations and personal insights."

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john Donne

John Donne

John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. The loosely associated group also includesGeorge Herbert, Richard Crashaw,Andrew Marvell, and John Cleveland. The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational and hierarchical structures of the seventeenth century with his exacting and ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.

Donne entered the world during a period of theological and political unrest for both England and France; a Protestant massacre occurred on Saint Bartholomew's day in France; while in England, the Catholics were the persecuted minority. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne's personal relationship with religion was tumultuous and passionate, and at the center of much of his poetry. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school, because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrine that defined Anglicanism. At age twenty he studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and joined the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his Catholic loyalties, died in prison. Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic verse, and some sacred poems in the 1590s, creating two major volumes of work: Satires, and Songs and Sonnets.

In 1598, after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. While sitting in Queen Elizabeth's last Parliament in 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, the sixteen-year-old niece of Lady Egerton. Donne's father-in-law disapproved of the marriage. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for the couple and had Donne briefly imprisoned.

This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons. Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his marriage, exacerbated by the birth of many children. He continued to write and published the Divine Poems in 1607. In Pseudo-Martyr, published in 1610, Donne displayed his extensive knowledge of the laws of the Church and state, arguing that Roman Catholics could support James I without compromising their faith. In 1615, James I pressured him to enter the Anglican Ministry by declaring that Donne could not be employed outside of the Church. He was appointed Royal Chaplain later that year. His wife, aged thirty-three, died in 1617, shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this phase of his life.

In 1621, he became dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral. In his later years, Donne's writing reflected his fear of his inevitable death. He wrote his private prayers, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, during a period of severe illness and published them in 1624. His learned, charismatic, and inventive preaching made him a highly influential presence in London. Best known for his vivacious, compelling style and thorough examination of mortal paradox, John Donne died in London in 1631.

source==poets.org

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Conceit in john Donne's poetry

Conceit in Donne's poetry

Many of John Donne's poems contain metaphysical conceits and intellectual reasoning to build a deeper understanding of the speaker's emotional state. A conceit can be defined as an extended, unconventional metaphor between objects that appear to be unrelated. Metaphysical conceit is a highly ingenious kind of conceit widely used by the metaphysical poets. It often exploits verbal logic to the point of the grotesque and sometimes creates such extravagant turns on meaning that they become absurd. The metaphysical conceit is characteristic of seventeenth century writers influence by John Donne, and became popular again in this century after the revival of the metaphysical poets. However, Donne is exceptionally good at creating unusual unions between different elements in order to illustrate his point and form a persuasive argument in his poems.

By using metaphysical conceits in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", Donne attempts to convince his beloved (presumably his wife) that parting is a positive experience which should not be looked upon with sadness. In the first stanza, Donne compares the speaker's departure to the mild death of virtuous men who pass on so peacefully that their loved ones find it difficult to detect the exact moment of their death. Their separation must be a calm transition like this form of death which Donne describes. The poet writes,

"Let us melt, and make no noise"

Then we find another example of conceit which was not found in any poems of any poets before. Here he compares the two lovers to the pair of legs of compass. Like the compass they have one central point (love) and two sides (bodies) which note in a circle. Here he says,

"If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two,

Thy soule the fix foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the 'other doe"

Similarly, in the poem, "The Good-Morrow", we find some startling and shocking or fantastic conceits which had never before found. Here he says, the lover is a whole world to his beloved and she is a whole world to him, not only that they are two better hemispheres who constitute the whole world. Here the poet says,

"Where can we finde two better hemispheres,

Without sharpe North, without declining West?"

Again he says that as the four elements, earth, air, fire and water were supposed to combine to form new substance, so two souls mix to form a new unity. The strength and durability of this new unit is dependent upon how well the elements of the two souls are balanced, as we see from these lines from The Good-Morrow:

What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;

It our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

In the poem "The sunne Rising" there are a lot of conceits in almost every stanza. The poet says that the lover can eclipse and cloud the sun with a wink . He says,

"I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke"

Again he says that the beloved lying in the bed by the lover's side is to his both west and East Indies; the beloved is all states and the lover is all princes. He says,

She's all states, and all Princes, I,

Nothing else is"

In the poem, "The Canonization", we find the use of conceit. Organic imagery is a strong point of this poem. In the second stanza, the poet says,

"Alas, alas. who's injur'd by my love?

What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?"

The poet assumes that a lover. ship have the power to drown ships, that his tears may flood the grounds, that his "colds" may bring about the season of winter, and that his "heats" may bed to the list of deaths by plague. (These are all fantastic hyperboles. The poet is, of course, mocking at the Petrarchan exaggeration). Then he says,

"We' are Tapers too and at our own cost die"

The beloved is one fly, the lover is another fly. And they are tapers too. In then are to be found the Eagle and the Dove. They provide a clue to the riddle of the phoenix because they are one representing both sexes. These are all fantastic conceits.

In the poem "The Extasie", we find conceits. Here he says that the souls of the lovers have left their bodies temporarily and are communicating with each other (like two armies facing each other). And the images of the two lovers in each other's eyes are regarded as the lovers "propagation" or the issue which they have produced. And the two souls of the lovers have become one and the resultant soul is abler or finer than each taken singly. Moreover, the bodies are spheres, and the lovers' minds or souls the intelligences which move the sphere.

In the poem "The Flea", we find another use of conceit where the Flea is thought to be their marriage temple as well as their marriage bed because it sucks a tiny drop of blood from the lover's and the beloved's body. And according to the poet it means that they two have got married. Here he says,

"Marke but this flea ,and marke in this,

Low little that which thou deny'st me is;

Mee it suck'd first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;"

The killing of the flea will mean destroying three lives- those of the poet, his beloved and the insect. It will also be an act of sacrilege because a temple will be destroyed. He says that the beloved should surrender her body to the poet because she will, by doing so, lose just as little honour as the life she has lost by a drop of her blood having been sucked by the flea.

In summing up we can say that John Donne's poetry is abound with metaphysical conceits. Conceits are the effortless creation of John Donne. To him, conceits come to his poetry as leaves come to the tree. And for the use of conceits he stands supreme and mostly for such uses of conceit, he becomes the best metaphysical poet.

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John Donne-- A love poet

John Donne-- A love poet

Donne was the first English poet to challenge and break the supremacy of Petrarchan tradition. Though at times he adopts the Petrarchan devices, yet his imagery and rhythm, texture and colour of his love poetry is different. There are three distinct strains of his love poetry – Cynical, Platonic and Conjugal love.

Giving an allusion to Donne's originality as the poet of love, Grierson makes the following observation:
"His genius temperament and learning gave a certain qualities to his love poems … which arrest our attention immediately. His love poems, for instance, do have a power which is at once realistic and  distracting."
Donne's greatness as a love-poet arises from the fact that this poetry covers a wider range of emotions than that of any previous poet. His poetry is not bookish but is rooted in his personal experiences. Is love experience were wide and varied and so is the emotional range of his love-poetry. He had love affairs with a number of women. Some of them were lasting and permanent, other were only of a short duration.

Donne is quite original in presenting the love situations and moods.

The "experience of love" must produce a "sense of connection" in both the lovers. This "sense of connection" must be based on equal urge and longing on both the sides.

"The room of love" must be shared equally by the two partners.

Donne magnifies the ideal of "Sense of connection" into the physical fulfillment of love.
"My face in thine eyes thine in mime appears"
This aspect of love helps him in the virtual analysis of the experience of love. Donne was a shrewd observer who had first hand knowledge of "love and related affairs. That is why in almost all his poems, he has a deep insight.

His love as expressed in his poetry was based not on conventions but on his own experiences. He experienced all phase of love – platonic, sensuous, serene, cynical, conjugal, illicit, lusty, picturesque and sensual. He could also be grotesque blending thought with passion.

Another peculiar quality of Donne's love lyrics is its "metaphysical strain". His poems are sensuous and fantastic. Donne's metaphysical strain made his reader confused his sincerity.

Donne's genius temperament and learning gave to his love poems power and fascination. There is a depth and rang of feeling unknown to the majority of Elizabethan poets. Donne's poetry is startlingly unconventional even when he dallies, half ironically, with the hyperboles of petrarch.

Donne is realistic not an idealistic. He knows the weakness of Flesh, the pleasure of sex, the joy of secret meeting. However he tries to establish a relationship between the body and the soul. Donne is very realistic poet.

Grierson distinguished three distinct strains in it. First there is the cynical strain. Secondly, there is the strain f conjugal love to be noticed in poems like "valediction: forbidding mourning". Thirdly, there is platonic strain. The platonic strain is to b found in poems like "Twicknam Garden", "The Funeral", "The Blossoms", and "The Primroses". These poems were probably addressed to the high-born lady friends. Towards them he adopts the helpless pose of flirtations and in high platonic vein boasts that:
Different of sex no more we know
Than our Guardian Angles doe
In between the cynical realistic strain and the highest spiritual strain, there are a number of poems which show an endless variety of mood and tone. Thus thee are poems in which the tone is harsh, others which are coarse and brutal, still other in which he holds out a making threat to his faithless mistress and still others in which he is in a reflective mood. More often that not, a number of strains and moods are mixed up in the same poem. This makes Donne as a love poet singularly, original, unconventional and realistic.

Whatever may be the tone or mood of a particular poem, it is always an expression of some personal experience and is, therefore, presented with remarkable force, sincerity and seriousness. Each poem deals with a love situation which is intellectually analyzed with the skill of an experienced lawyer.

Hence the difficult nature of his poetry and the charge of obscurity have been brought against him. The difficulty of the readers is further increased by the extreme condensation and destiny of Donne's poetry.

The fantastic nature of the metaphysical conceits and poetry would become clear even we examine a few examples. In "Valediction: Forbidden Mourning" true lovers now parted are likened to the legs of a compass. The image is elaborated at length. The lovers are spiritually one, just as the head of the compass is one even when the legs are apart. One leg remains fixed and the other moves round it. The lover cannot forget the beloved even when separated from her. The two loves meet together in the end just as the two legs of the compass are together again, as soon as circle has been drawn.

At other times, he uses equally extravagated hyperboles. For example, he mistakes his beloved to an angel, for to imagine her less than an angle would be profanity.

In Donne's poetry, there is always an "intellectual analysis" of emotion. Like a clever lawyer, Donne gives arguments after arguments in support of his points of view. Thus in "Valediction: Forbidden Mourning" he proves that true lovers need not mourn at the time of parting. In "Canonization" he establishes that lovers are saints of love and in "The Blossome" he argues against the petrarchan love tradition. In all this Donne is a realistic love poet.

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John Donne-- A metaphysical poet

John Donne-- A metaphysical poet

Dryden once remarked:
"Donne affects metaphysics not only in his satires but in amorous verses, too, where nature only should reign."


Though Donne was influenced by the sixteenth and the seventeenth century poets, yet he did not tread on the beaten track. His concept of poetry was unconventional. In his poetry, intellect takes the form, primarily, of wit by which heterogeneous ideas are yoked together by violence. The seventeenth century poets labeled his poetry as 'strong line poetry', mainly, on account of his concise expression and his deliberate toughness. In his life, he was never called a metaphysical poet. After his death, his poetry was re-evaluated and some other important features were found in it, which won the name of a metaphysical poet for Donne.

Grierson's defines metaphysical poetry as:

"Poetry inspired by a philosophical concept of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of existence".


This definition is based on the metaphysical poetry of Dante, Goethe and Yeats. So "metaphysical" is applicable to poetry who is highly philosophical or which touches philosophy.

Combination of passion and thought characterizes his work. His use of conceit is often witty and sometimes fantastic. His hyperboles are outrageous and his paradoxes astonishing. He mixes fact and fancy in a manner which astounds us. He fills his poems with learned and often obscure illusions besides, some of his poems are metaphysical in literal sense, they are philosophical and reflective, and they deal with concerns of the spirit or soul.

Conceit is an ingredient which gives a special character to Donne's metaphysical poetry. Some of his conceits are far-fetched, bewildering and intriguing. He welds diverse passions into something harmonious.

"When thou weep'st, unkindly kinde,
My lifes blood doth decay."

"When a teare falls, that thou falst which it bore,"
"Here lies a she-sun and a he-moon there"


"All women shall adore us, and some men."
His approach is based on logical reasoning and arguments. He provides intellectual parallels to his emotional experiences. His modus operandi was "to move from the contemplation of fact to a deduction from it and, thence, to a conclusion". He contemplates fidelity in a woman but, in reality, draws it impossible of find a faithful woman.


"No where
Lives a woman true, and faire."

He does not employ emotionally exciting rhythm. His poetry goes on lower ebb. Even his love poems do not excite emotions in us. Even in a "Song" while separating, he is logical that he is not parting for weariness of his beloved.

"But since that I
Must dye at last, 'tis best,
To use my selfe in jest
Thus by fain'd deaths to dye;"


His speculations and doctrines are beyond common human experience. His ideas are beyond the understanding of a layman and are a blend of intellect and emotions making his approach dialectical and scholastic. He asks his beloved in "The Message" to keep his eyes and heart because they might have learnt certain ills from her, but then, he asks her to give them back so that he may laugh at her and see her dying when some other proves as false to her as she has proved to the poet.

Donne was a self-conscious artist, therefore, had a desire to show off his learning. In his love poetry, he gives illustrations from the remote past. In his divine poems, he gives biblical references like the Crucification.

"Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?"
"Get with child a mandrake roote."

"But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall."
Metaphysical poetry is highly concentrated and so is Donne's poetry. In "The Good Morrow", he says

"For love, all love of other sights controules."
"For, not in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere."

"Hee that hath all can have no more."
His poetry is full of arguments, persuasion, shock and surprise. Instead of conventional romantic words, he used scientific and mathematical words to introduce roughness in his poetry; e.g. he used the words 'stife twin compasses', 'cosmographers', 'trepidation of the spheres' etc.

His style is highly fantastic, curt and he uses rough words. He rejects the conventional style which was romantic, soft and diffused.

Paradoxical statements are also found in his poems. In "The Indifferent" Donne describes constancy in men as vice and ask them:


"Will no other vice content you?"

In "The Legacy" the lover becomes his own 'executor and legacy'. In "Love's Growth" the poet's love seems to have increased in spring, but now it cannot increase because it was already infinite, and yet it has increased:

"No winter shall abate the sring's increase."


He deals with the problem of body and soul in "The Anniversarie" of the individual and the universe in "The Sunne Rising" and of deprivation and actuality in "A Noctrunall". In his divine poems he talks about the Crucification, ransom, sects / schism, religion, etc.

Donne is a coterie poet. He rejects the Patrarchan tradition of poetry, adopted by the Elizabethans. The Elizabethan poetry was the product off emotions. He rejected platonic idealism, elaborate description and ornamentation. He was precise and concentrated in poetry while the Elizabethan are copious and plentiful in words.

Seventeenth century had four major prerequisites; colloquial in diction, personal in tone, logical in structure and undecorative and untraditional imagination, which were also present in Donne.

To conclude, he is more a seventeenth century poet than a metaphysical poet. There are some features in his poetry which differentiate him e.g. he is a monarch of with and more colloquial than any other seventeenth century poet. If other seventeenth century poet bring together emotions and intellect, he defines emotional experience with intellectual parallels etc. Still he writes in the tradition of the seventeenth century poets.

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What is jazz?

What is jazz?

Jazz is America's classical music.Jazz is a 1992 historical novel by pulitzer and Nobel prize winning  American auther Toni Morrison.

The majority of the narattive takes places in Harlem durin the 1920s, however, as the pasts of the various characters are explored , the narrative extends back to the mid 1800s American south.

jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the Southern United states.It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions.

Jazz is an original American art form that began in the southern United States in the early 20th century. Two basic elements set this art form apart from classical music: Improvisation and Rhythm.

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sylyia plath

sylyia plath

sylyia plath was born in Jamaica plain, Massachusetts, the older child of Otto and Aurelia Schoeber Plath.
Har father was Professor of German and entomology (a spcialist on bees) at Boston University.
Her Mother  was a high school teacher , was his student.Both parents valued learning.
In 1940 Otto died of Complications from surgery after a leg amputation, and Aurelia's parents became part of the household to care for the cildren when she returned to teaching.


Sylvia's interests in writing and art continued through her public school years in Wellesley, Massachussetts, and at Smith College, Where she attended on scholarships.




continue.....

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Desdemona character analysis

Desdemona character analysis 

Desdemona from Othello embodies what most would believe to be the perfect woman. She is loyal and trusting, innocent and pure, and her inner beauty is only matched by her outer experience. Her somewhat naïve personality however, leaves her exposed to the more worldly individuals, those who have learned how to take advantage of others through experience. What initially attracts many to Desdemona proves to be her downfall, and her inexperience with the evils of the world leads to her demise. One's innocence attracts all types, yet this attraction may become lethal.

Desdemona does not know how to be unloving to one in need. When Cassio does not know how to amend his friendship with Othello, she willingly lends a helping hand. Her vow to “perform it to the last article” is fulfilled when her death is caused by her loyalty to this friendship. Desdemona is also completely blinded by her love for Othello. “Unkindness may do much, And his unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love.” This quote could be said to summarize all of the character of Desdemona. Her own words foreshadow her death, yet her love for her husband keeps her from seeing the truth of this statement. Desdemona does not know how not to love even those who, whether intentionally or unintentionally, mean her harm.

The loyalty Desdemona feels towards all she meets keeps her from seeing their true colors. Her trust in the Moor, that he was born without jealousy, keeps her from noticing the changes in his everyday demeanor. Her loyalty to her husband also displays her innocence of the world. When Desdemona asks Emilia if there are really women who would cheat on their husbands, she puts her lack of worldly experience on display for all to see. Her ignorance of how the world works, and her supposedly trusting husband's belief in false statements, eventually leads her to the ultimate betrayal.

The attributes of one such as Desdemona appear to be the perfect qualities that a woman can possess. Yet it is these same seemingly wonderful qualities that turn against their host, blinding them to the realities of society. Her trust in her husband does not allow her to see the beast he has become. Her loyalty to her friends blurs how the relationship may be seen from outside sources. Overall, this “perfect” Desdemona leads herself to her death, yet has no knowledge of doing so while on her life's journey.

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Female Characters in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Female Characters in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew are the two female leads in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Both women provide the main source of conflict in this romantic comedy; they are the objects of affection. During Acts One and Two the women are deceived by the well-meaning male characters, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff. However, during the beginning of Act Three, all is easily forgiven.

Gwendolen and Cecily are hopelessly in love, at least by Victorian standards, with their male counterparts. Cecily is described as “a sweet simple, innocent girl.” Gwendolen is depicted as “a brilliant, clever, thoroughly experienced lady.” (These claims come from Jack and Algernon respectively). Despite these supposed contrasts, it seems that the women in Oscar Wilde’s play possess more similarities than differences. Both women are:

• Intent on marrying a man named Ernest.
  
• Eager to embrace one another as sisters.
  
• Quick to become rivals pitted against each other.
  

Gwendolen Fairfax: Aristocratic Socialite

Gwendolen is the daughter of the pompous Lady Bracknell. She is also the cousin of the whimsical bachelor Angernon. Most importantly, she is the love of Jack Worthing’s life. The only problem: Gwendolen believes that Jack’s real name is Ernest . ("Ernest" is the name Jack has been using whenever he sneaks away from his country estate).

As a member of high society, Gwendolen exhibits fashion and a working knowledge of the latest trends in magazines. During her first lines during Act One, she exhibits self-confidence. Check out her dialogue:

First line: I am always smart!

Second line: I intend to develop in many directions.

Sixth line: In fact, I am never wrong.

Her inflated self-appraisal makes her seem foolish at times, especially when she reveals her devotion to the name Ernest. Even before meeting Jack, she claims that the name Ernest “inspires absolute confidence.” The audience might chuckle at this, in part because Gwendolen is quite wrong about her beloved. Her fallible judgments are humorously displayed in Act Two when she meets Cecily for the first time. First she declares:

GWENDOLEN: Cecily Cardew? What a very sweet name! Something tells me that we are going to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong.

Moments later, when she suspects that Cecily is trying to steal her fiancé, Gwen changes her tune:

GWENDOLEN: From the moment I saw you I distrusted you. I felt that you were false and deceitful. I am never deceived in such matters. My first impressions of people are invariably right.

Gwendolen’s strengths include her ability to forgive. It does not take long for Gwendolen to reconcile with Cecily, nor does much time pass before she forgives Jack’s deceptive ways. She may be quick to anger, but she also rushes to absolve. In the end, she makes Jack (AKA Ernest) a very happy man.

Cecily Cardew: Hopeless Romantic?

When the audience first meets Cecily she is watering the flower garden, even though she should be studying German grammar. This signifies Cecily’s love of nature and her disdain for the tedious socio-academic expectations of society. (Or maybe she just likes to water flowers.)

Cecily delights in bringing people together. She senses that the matronly Miss Prism and the pious Dr. Chausible are fond of each other, so Cecily plays the role of matchmaker, urging them to take walks together. Also, she hopes to “cure” Jack’s brother of wickedness so that there will be harmony between the siblings.

Similar to Gwendolen, Miss Cecily has a “girlish dream” of marrying a man named Ernest. So, when Algernon poses as Ernest, Jack’s fictional brother, Cecily happily records his words of adoration in her diary. She confesses that she has imagined that they are engaged, years before they even met.

Some critics have suggested that Cecily is the most realistic of all characters, in part because she does not speak in epigrams as frequently as the others. However, it could be argued that Cecily is just another outrageous romantic, prone to flights of fancy, just as all of the other wonderfully silly characters in Oscar Wilde’s play.

source--plays.about.com

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The Importance of Being Earnest THEMES

The Importance of Being Earnest THEMES

 

THEMES

Major Theme

The major theme of this play is the triviality of the upper class. This is expressed in the nature of the writing, which is satirical. By examining the language and interaction of the characters, one can see that they are simply absurd.

Minor Themes

Triviality of Marriage

This is perhaps the most obvious theme, and a subset of the triviality theme. This theme exposes the aristocracy as shallow and absurd. Wilde’s characters consistently refer to marriage in a poor light, yet, continuing with their absurdity, each seek to be married.

Victorian Manners

This theme also seeks to support the theme of the triviality of the upper class. The way in which they interact with one another is based on a social code; this is also an example of sentimentality. For instance, Lady Bracknell is kind to Jack until she discovers his background. Gwendolen and Cecily are overly kind to one another until they find something upon which to disagree. Lady Bracknell is kind to Cecily when she discovers she has money.

Importance of Wealth/ Life of Leisure

This theme supports the presentation of Victorian society as shallow. Lady Bracknell, who is representative of the aristocratic class, concerns herself primarily with the wealth of others. Even more apparent, is the life of leisure in which everyone partakes. No real “action” occurs. This is primarily a play of language, of conversation.

MOOD

The mood of the Importance of Being Earnest is largely satirical. This is because Wilde is seeking to mock the triviality of the upper class society of London. Wilde’s satire is characterized by wit and is, throughout, lighthearted. He often portrays lines that characters deliver as quite normal e.g., when Gwendolen tells Ernest that she loves him because of his name. This, however, is quite ridiculous-making Gwendolen appear so by association. Wilde is also writing from an aesthetic perspective. This movement in literature saw that art be celebrated for art’s sake, and not concern itself with the political issues of the outside world. Therefore, much of what Wilde writes is, simply, humorous.  

source--pinkmonkey.com

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Othello's Relationship with Iago

Othello's Relationship with Iago

From Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakesperean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear by Alexander W. Crawford. Boston R.G. Badger, 1916.

The first scene of Othello presents a conversation between Roderigo, the disappointed suitor of Desdemona, and Iago, concerning incidents of which Othello is the chief agent. Othello and Desdemona have eloped, it seems, leaving Roderigo disappointed and distressed. He complains that Iago had not forewarned him in order that their marriage might have been prevented. But Iago, though in close touch with Othello, protests he did not "dream of such a matter," implying that it was as much a surprise to him as to any one. For some time lago had what he considered good reason for hating the Moor, though this latest episode enables him for the first time to see through the whole affair. Othello's attachment to Desdemona now explains why he was passed by and the new appointment of lieutenant to Othello was conferred upon Cassio. lago now suspects that the post was given to Cassio by reason of Desdemona's friendship for him, and because he was a go-between in the courtship of Othello and Desdemona. this lago now declares his hatred of the pair, and intimates his willingness to join Roderigo in an attempt to harass Othello, and if not too late, to prevent his marriage.

After his usual manner Shakespeare has made the opening conflict, that between Othello and lago, the chief conflict of the play. But this is a conflict between two men who had up to this time been the nearest and warmest friends, one a great general and the other his most trusted officer. There is plenty of evidence throughout the play that up to this time there had been the fullest confidence between the two, and both alike were looked upon as men of excellent ability and sterling character. Othello was known as a noble Moor and had attained the highest military position, and therefore must have had the fullest confidence of the state and the senate. Every one regarded lago also as an upright and noble-minded man, and he had earned for himself the epithet of "honest." But all at once the "honest" lago becomes the mortal enemy of the "noble" Moor. We must then account for this change, as upon this change all the development of the play depends. This is the play. Shakespeare has apparently been at pains to show us what lago's attitude toward the Moor was, as well as what it is, and the explanation of the change can be found only in the play itself. We must explain it either from the incidents of the play or from the words of the play, or from both.

The incidents that take place at the opening of the play, at the same time as the change in the attitude of lago, are two, the courtship and marriage of Othello and Desdemona, and the promotion of Cassio to the position of lieutenant under Othello. The words of Iago at the opening of the play show that he regards the latter as an offence to himself, and therefore makes it the ground of his hostility to Othello. He complains that Cassio has "had the election," and that,

"He (in good time) must his [Othello's] Lieutenant be,
And I (bless the mark) his Moorship's Ancient."
(I. i. 34-5.)

At a later time he comes to see some connection between the two incidents, and believes that Cassio got the appointment because of an old friendship with Desdemona, and probably because he carried messages between Othello and Desdemona during their courtship.

When Othello had occasion to appoint a lieutenant, "Three great ones of the city in personal suit" appealed to him on behalf of lago, only to find that he had already chosen Cassio. It appeared to be a matter of personal preference only, for he could give no reason for the choice of Cassio. This capricious choice lago at once took as a very great slight upon him, and rightly so. As one of "the usual lunacies," so-called, in the interpretation of the play, however, Professor Bradley says, "It has been held, for example, that Othello treated lago abominably in preferring Cassio to him." But the "lunacy" on this occasion is to be charged to Othello in utterly disregarding and flouting the principle of preferment that holds in military circles more rigorously than perhaps anywhere else. This is the basis of the complaint of lago, and arouses at once his suspicion and bitter resentment, and soon turns him into an abiding but very stealthy enemy.

If Othello can be capable of such gross violation of all military rules and practices, lago sees that he can no longer trust Othello, and that all confidence between them has virtually ceased to exist, and no longer can he hope for the intimate relationships of former days to continue. This rewarding of Cassio with a military position because of personal service to himself and Desdemona was a most dangerous thing for a general to do, and opened up all kinds of possibilities of trouble, not only with lago, but with the discipline of all his forces. Only the fortune that favors fools could save him from disaster. But it was fatal when one of the disposition of lago was involved, for it turned him at once into an enemy, not only to himself, but to all the others connected with the insult, to Desdemona and Cassio, linking all three in his plan of revenge.

Here, then, is an outstanding fact that too few critics have even observed, and none have adequately explained. At this point in the lives of Othello and lago a great change comes over their relations. It cannot be too much insisted upon that up to this time they had, been the warmest and closest friends, and that lago had been in fact the confidential officer of Othello. Now all at once, for some reason that has not been understood, lago has been turned into the bitter enemy of his old friend, Othello, and as if to mark the importance of this for the interpretation of the play, the dramatist has chosen this point in their relations for the opening scene. But in spite of all that has been observed about the importance of Shakespeare's opening scenes for the exposition of his dramatic art, little attention has been paid to this fact in respect to Othello. The task of the critic at present, then, is to discover the cause of this great change in the relationships of these two men, and from this to trace the further development of the play.

Ever since Coleridge it has been the common thing, though by no means universal, to attribute the whole trouble to the sudden and unmotived malignity of lago, or to forget the fact that it has been sudden and unlike anything heard of before on the part of lago, and to assume only the malignity. Later critics, however, have not been able to overlook the emergence of the malignity at this time, and have attempted to explain it from their own imaginations rather than from the words of the play. Professor Bradley may be taken as voicing the best that can be said by those who would lay all the blame of the tragedy upon lago, but who feel they must account in some manner for this sudden malignity. Not content with charging lago with the evil the play undoubtedly lays upon his shoulders, Professor Bradley suggests that lago has always been in reality a villain, and has worn his "honesty" only as a mask, which now he throws off, revealing suddenly the real villain that he is, his true nature. He has always been, says Professor Bradley, "a thoroughly bad, cold man, who is at last tempted to let loose the forces within him." But this is sufficiently answered for the present if we have succeeded in discovering a change of attitude on the part of Othello, due to his infatuation with Desdemona, and to the fact that he found Cassio very [helpful in that regard]. A complete criticism of the assigned motive of lago, and an attempt at the elaboration of his real state of mind must be left until after we have followed the conflict through the initial stages, when we shall be better able to judge the real merits of the case.

Sufficient reason has been found, however, for declining to admit that the drama is the story of the intrigue of lago, and as the name would intimate it is the play of Othello. There is also now justification for attempting to explain the play as in the main the tragedy of the Moor in his new home in Venice. In our attempt to find the explanation of the tragedy in the hero, as assigned by the dramatist, we seem forced to say that now at last, when a crisis comes upon him, the great Moorish general, transplanted from the wilds of his African or Spanish home into the cultured and refined life of Venice, finds himself unable to bear honorably all the great responsibilities of his high position and his new life. It may be that the dramatist, who was a man of peace and had little admiration for the Caesars and 'other great warriors, is here taking his opportunity to show how little of the higher virtues dwells in great military ability. But the fact that he makes Othello a Moor, and so designates him throughout the play, must also be accounted for.

Up to this time Othello had borne himself nobly in his adopted state, and had the full confidence of the people and the senate, and was universally acknowledged to be the first soldier of Venice. But at this point he fails. For once, and for the first time, he allows purely personal considerations to sway him from following the established order of preferment in the army, and does a great injustice to lago. With no reason that he dare give, he appoints a wholly inexperienced man in preference to a tried and proven soldier who had fought under his own eyes, "At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds Christen'd and heathen." (I. i. 81-2.) This wholly unwarranted rightly grieved lago, who took it as a great slight, for he believed he was entitled to promotion. It also shook his confidence in Othello, and roused in him all his force of resentment and turned him into a bitter enemy of Othello.

Thus far in Shakespeare's play there is not so much as a hint of the motive assigned to lago in Cinthio's novel, the presumed source of the play. The dramatist has almost completely changed the point of view of the whole story, by inventing an entirely new, and perhaps loftier if not better, motive for his lago. On the other hand, he transformed the one he found in the story, and invented the character of Roderigo to bear that vulgar part. Then he invents a second motive for Iago, and makes him hate Othello also for his supposed relations with Emilia. By way of revenge for this offence, lago's first impulse is to try to corrupt Desdemona, and thus get even with Othello. But how little this was his intention is seen by the fact that he never seems to have seriously considered it. In place of this, however, he has an alternative that becomes his ruling motive, to put Othello into a jealousy of Cassio. This he thinks will serve to revenge himself on Othello for both offences at one blow:

And nothing can, or shall content my soul
Till I am even'd with him, wife, for wife.
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure.
(II. i. 331-5.)

The two offences with which lago charges Othello are both matters of honor, and mark phases of Othello's inability to sustain the new and exalted life of his adopted country. He was quite equal to the task of maintaining his military, or semi-barbaric, relations to the state, and rose to the highest command in Venice. But in matters of personal honor he is not above reproach, and in his obtuseness offends lago in two ways. Some critics think it is because of such offences as that with Emilia that Othello is unable to maintain an undisturbed married relationship with his refined and delicate Venetian bride. But his guilt is left very doubtful by the play, and therefore this conclusion is unwarranted. It is sufficient to observe, however, that the clear-headed lago perceives this to be his most vulnerable point, and by enlisting the dupe Roderigo, attacks him where he is weakest.

lago's dominating personality quickly subjects Roderigo to his schemes, and makes him a willing agent in his revenge. The first thing they do is to rouse up Brabantio, and under his leadership institute a search for the eloping pair. Shakespeare has here greatly enlarged and dignified the meaning of his play by making Roderigo, and not lago, the disappointed suitor of Desdemona. lago is thus reserved for the more tragic passion, and Roderigo bears the baser motives, and at; the same time supplies the needed money, and helps to carry out the intrigues of the crafty ancient. Their joint appeal to Brabantio will be the best possible plan of attack on Othello, as it will show Othello in opposition to the law and to a senator of the state. lago wishes at first only to plague Othello with flies, but the sick fool, Roderigo, stupidly hopes still to become the accepted lover of Desdemona.

lago sees it is quite out of the question to enter upon a course of open hostility and revenge against his General, and the appearance of friendliness will better serve his purpose. His inferior position compels him to play the hypocrite, and appear to continue faithful to Othello. But this very position enables him the better to work out his purpose, which is not to destroy Othello, but only to disturb his relations with Desdemona, and to put him into an agony of jealousy. lago does not fully understand the fierce nature of Othello, and does not appear at first to foresee the terrible extremes to which his barbaric and ungovernable passion will drive him. He realizes that he must at no time be found in a position "Against the Moor" (I. i. 162), and therefore separates himself from Roderigo, and hastens to join himself to Othello, in order to appear on his side in the ensuing disturbance.

source---shakespeare-online.com

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