Saturday, April 16, 2016

Zulm-o-jabr tou husn waalon ki saqafat hai...

Zulm-o-jabr tou husn waalon ki saqafat hai,
Badla-e-khulus main naseeb humain adawat hai,

Koi jaa ker kare kamosh Ali bin Asghar ko,
Aah nahi berdasht abhi, yeh waqt-e-shaddat hai

Woh karain zulm aur hum hain k umeed naa harain,
Mohabbat ke ander bhi aik ajeeb si sharafat hai,

Sawal aik zaroor meri maiyat ko sataiga,
Qafan tou hogaya, qatil ko nadamat hai?

Itna zulm kyu kisi ghair per koi kere ga,
Tumhari berukhbhi bhi daleel-e-rafaqat hai!


Pain and cruelty is the tradition of those with beauty,
In return for sincerity we are destined only with malice,

Someone go and quiet Ali bin Asghar* now
No sighs are tolerated here, this is the time of sacrifice,

They continue with their torture and we fail to lose hope,
In love exists an odd sort of innocence,

A question will indeed plague me beyond life,
The burial has happened, does the murderer regret?

Such cruelty who would do unto a stranger?
Your aloofness is proof of our closeness!

- Hassan Bin Fahim

*Ali Bin Asghar is a reference to Husein's (ra) infant son from the battle of Karbala.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Paper no.8:-cultural studies - Four Goals of Cultural Studies



DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH MAHARAJAH KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

CONCEPT OF CULTURE AND ANARCHY BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

                      Semester:-M.A SEM 2                               Paper no.8:-cultural studies

ROLL NO:-6

ENROLLMENT NO:- PG15101006
EMAIL ID:-cnbhungani7484@gmail.com
Blog id:- chintavanbhungani201517.blog.spot.com

Four Goals of Cultural Studies

Introduction:-
The word “culture” itself it so difficult to pin down, “cultural studies” is hard to define. As far as cultural study is concerned, it has broader meaning because we see from various perspective then an individual can know what actually it lays in the meaning. Therefore firstly it becomes my job to deconstruct the meaning of culture as the meaning is elaborated according to different critics so at first we will have glance on the meaning of culture.

What is culture?
 ‘Culture’, derives from ‘Cultura’ and ‘colere’ meaning ‘to cultivate’. It also meant ‘to honor’ and ‘project’ by the 19th century in Europe it tastes of the upper class (elite).

          ‘Culture’ is the mode of producing meaning and ideas. This ‘mode’ is a negotiation over which meanings are valid. Elite culture controls meanings because it controls the terms of the debate.

What is Cultural Study?
Cultural studies is the science of understanding modern society, with an emphasis on politics and power cultural studies is an umbrella term used to look at a number of different subject. Categories studied include media studies including film and Journalism, sociology, industrial culture, globalization and social theory.

“Cultural Studies is not a tightly coherent unified movement with a fixed agenda, but a loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues, and questions.”

Cultural studies is composed of elements of Marxism, Post structuralism and Postmodernism, Feminism, Gender studies, anthropology, sociology, race and ethnic studies, film theory, urban studies, public policy, popular culture studies and Postcolonial studies: those field that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation.
















First Goals: cultural studies transcends the confines of a PARTICULAR DISCIPLINE such as literary criticism or history:-

“Cultural studies transcend the confine of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. “practiced in such journal as critical inquiry , representations, and boundary 2 , cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text – for example Italian opera, a Latino telenovela, the architectural styles of prisons, body piercing and drawing conclusion about the change in textual phenomena over time.

 Cultural studies are not necessarily about literature in the traditional sense or even about “art”. In their introduction to cultural studies , editors Lawrence grossberg,cary nelson , and Paula trencher emphasize that the intellectual promise of cultural studies lies in the attempts to “ cut across diverse social and political interests and address many of the struggles within the current scene.”

 Intellectual works are not limited by their own “borders” as single texts, historical problems or disciplines , and the critic’s own personal connections to what is being analyzed Amy also be described.
      Henry Giroux and others write in their Dalhousie review  manifesto that cultural studies practitioners are “resisting intellectuals” who see what they do as “an emancipator project.” Because it erodes the traditional disciplinary divisions in most institutions of higher education.

 Second goals:- Cultural Studies is politically engaged:

          The cultural critics see themselves as “Oppositional” not only within their own discipliner but to many of the power structures of society at large. The cultural critics question inequalities within power structures and try to find out the models for restructuring relationships among the dominant and “minority” of “Subaltern” discourses. The meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally constructed, they can thus be reconstructed. This type of idea, taken to a Philosophical extreme, demise the autonomy of the individual whether an actual person or a character in literature, a rebuttal of the traditional humanistic “Great man” or “Great Book” theory and a relocation of esthetics and culture from the ideal realms of taste and sensibility into the arena of a whole society’s everyday life as it is constructed.

3.   Cultural studies deny the separation of “high” and “law” or elite and popular culture:

You might hear someone remarks at the symphony or at art museum “I came here to get a little culture”. Being a “cultured” person used to mean being acquainted with “highbrow” art and intellectual pursuits. But is not culture also being found with a pair of tickets to a rock concert? Cultural critic’s today work to transfer the term popular, folk or urban. Following theorists Team Baudrillard and Andreas Hussein, cultural critics argue that after world war-II the distinction among high, low and mass culture collapsed and they cite other theory such as Pierre Boudoirs and Dick Hedge on how “Good taste” often only reflects prevailing social, economic and political power bases.

For example,
The images of India that were circulated during the colonial rule of the British Raj by writers like Rudyard Kipling seem innocent but reveal an entrenched imperialist argument for white superiority and worldwide domination of other races, especially Asians. But race alone was not the issue for the British Raj, money was also a deciding factor. Thus, drawing also upon the ideas of French historian Michel de Cereal, cultural critics examined “The practice of everyday life”. Studying literature as an anthropologist would, as a phenomenon of culture, including a culture’s economy. Rather than determining which are the “best” works produced, cultural critics describe what is produced and how various productions relate to one another. They aim to reveal the political economic reasons why certain cultural product is more valued at certain times.

Transgressing of boundaries among discipline high and law can make cultural studies just plain fun.

For example,
A possible cultural studies research paper with the following title: The Birth of Caption Jack Sparrow: An Analysis”. For sources of Johnny Deep’s funky performance in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, the curse of the Black Pearl (2003). You could research cultural topics ranging from the trade economies of the sea two hundred years ago, to real pirates of the Caribbean such as Blackbeard and Henry Morgan, then on the Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1881).
4.  Cultural Studies analyses not only the cultural work, but also the means of production:

Marxist critics have long recognized the importance of such par literary questions as these: Who published his or her books and how are these books distributed? Who buys books? For that matter, who is literate and who is not? A well known analysis of literary production is Janice Radway’s study of the American romance novel and its readers, reading the romance women, patriarchy and popular literature, which demonstrates the textual effects of the publishing industry’s decisions about books that will minimize its financial risks. Another contribution is the collection reading in America, edited by Cathy N. Davidson, which includes essays on literature and gender in colonial New England, urban magazine audiences in 18th century New York City. The impact upon reading of such technical innovations as cheaper eye glasses, electric lights and trains, the book-of-the-month club and how writers and texts go through fluctuation of popularity and canonicity. These studies help us recognize that literature does not occur in a space separated from other concerns of over lives.

Cultural studies thus joins subjectively – that is, cultural in relation to individual lives – with engagement a direct approach to attacking social ills. Though cultural studies practitioners deny “humanism” or “the humanities” as universal categories, they strive reason”, which often resembles the goals and values of humanistic and democratic ideals. What difference does a cultural studies approach make for student? First of all, it is increasingly clear that by the year 2050 the United States will be demographers call a “Majority – Minority” population, that is the present numerical majority of “white”, “education” and  “Anglo-Americans” will be the minority, particularly with the dramatically increasing number of Latin / residents, mostly Mexican Americans. As Gerald Graff and James Phelan observe “It is a common prediction that the culture of the next century will put a premium on people’s ability to deal productively with conflict and cultural difference. To the question “Why teach the controversy?” they note that today a student can go from one class in which the values of western culture are prorated as hopelessly compromised by racism, sexism and homophobia. Professors can acknowledge these differences and encourage student to construct a conversation for themselves as “the most exciting part of their education”.

Conclusion:-

So here I write my own thoughts and understanding about four goals of cultural studies .in culture this main four goals are most important part for understanding the cultural studies. This theory came with many questions and here we can solve this issue with these goals.  



Paper no.7:-Literary theory and criticism - Eliot’s concept of tradition And individual talent.

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH MAHARAJAH KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Eliot’s concept of tradition  And individual talent. 

Semester:-M.A SEM 2 

Paper no.6:-Literary  theory and criticism  ROLL NO:-6

ENROLLMENT NO:- PG15101006
EMAIL ID:-cnbhungani7484@gmail.com
Blog id:- chintavanbhungani201517.blog.spot.com
Introduction:-
Born
Thomas Stearns Eliot
26 September 1888
St. LouisMissouri, United States
Died
4 January 1965 (aged 76)
Kensington, London, England
Occupation
Poet, dramatist, literary critic, and editor
Citizenship
American by birth; British from 1927
Education
AB in philosophy
Period
1905–1965
Literary movement
Notable works
Notable awards
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM "one of the twentieth century's major poets”. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement.
Literary
Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism. While somewhat self-deprecating and minimizing of his work—he once said his criticism was merely a "by-product" of his "private poetry-workshop"—Eliot is considered by some to be one of the greatest literary critics of the twentieth century.
 The critic William Epson once said, "I do not know for certain how much of my own mind [Eliot] invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind."

In his critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art. "In a peculiar sense [an artist or poet] ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past." This essay was an important influence over the New Criticism by introducing the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works, a "simultaneous order" of works (i.e., "tradition"). Eliot himself employed this concept on many of his works, especially on his long-poem The Waste Land.
                             
Tradition and individual talent
T.s. Eliot’s “tradition and individual talent” was published in 1919 in the egoist – the times literary supplement. Later, the essay was published in the sacred wood: essays on poetry and criticism in 1920/2. This essay is described by David lodge as the most celebrated critical essay in the English of the 20thcentury. The essay is divided into three main sections:
1)the first part gives us concept of tradition.
2)the second part is exemplifies his theory of depersonalization and poetry
3)and third part he conclude the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition and impersonality of poetry are complementry things.
At the outset of the essay, Eliot asserts that the word ‘tradition’ is not a very favourable term with the English who generally utilize the same as a term of censure. The English do not possess an orientation towards criticism as the French do, they praise a poet for those aspects of the work that are individualistic.

For Eliot, Tradition has a three-fold significance.
Firstly, tradition cannot be inherited and involves a great deal of labour and erudition.
Secondly, it involves the historical sense which involves apperception not only of the pastness of the past, but also of its presence.
Thirdly the historical sense enables a writer to write not only with his own generation in mind, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature from Homer down to the literature of his own country forms a continuous literary tradition.

Part 1:- concept of tradition


Eliot begins the essay by pointing out that the word ‘tradition’ is generally regarded as a word of censure. It is a word disagreeable to the English ears. When the English praise a poet, they praise him for those-aspects of his work which are ‘individual’ and original. This brings Eliot to a consideration of the value and significance of tradition. Tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of the previous generation or generations. This would be mere slavish imitation, a mere repetition of what has already been achieved, and

“novelty is better than repetition.”

To him knowledge of tradition plays vital role in the development of personal talent. He writes,

“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves the historical sense.” This means:
“the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.”

The close relationship and interdependence of the past and the present:
Eliot express his views as follow
“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of  asthetic, not merely historical criticism”

The relationship of a poet’s work to the great works of the past:
                      Eliot says that there is a distinction between knowledge and pedantry.

“Some can absorb knowledge; the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential histories from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum”.

He also then finds is that shakespeare seem to be unexceptinal because if  he says that everyone has to be very well read every creative artist and then coming down to the modern reader they also have to be very active readers very well than what about some luminaries like shakespeare. If we look at shakespeare biography, we find that there is no mention that shakespeare went to any unuversity for example ,marlow his contemporary was university wits.shakespeare there is no mention by literary historian.arnold mention that critic play very important role in criticism .critic provides fresh ideas to the authors. 

Part - 2

His theory of Depersonalization:

    He starts the second part of his essay with: ‘‘Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry’’.

   The artist or the poet adopts the process of depersonalization, which is ‘‘a continual surrender of him as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.’’ There still remain to define this process of depersonalization and its relation to sense of tradition.
·      
  THE PROCESS OF DEPERSONALISATION:-

Eliot explains this process of depersonalization and its relation to the sense of tradition by comparing it to a chemical process – the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide. The analogy is that of the catalyst. He says: “when the two gases previously mentioned (oxygen and sulphur dioxide) are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum they form sulphurous if the platinum is present: nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum. And the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material.
                       

Part – 3

       In the last section of this essay, Eliot says that the poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. Eliot writes: ‘‘to divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a jester estimation of actual poetry, good and bad.’’ Finally he ends his essay with: ‘‘very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.’’

Friday, April 1, 2016

Paper no.6:-Victorian age:- Concept of culture and anarchy by Matthew Arnold

 for marks


DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH MAHARAJAH KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Concept of culture and anarchy by Matthew Arnold

Semester:-M.A SEM 2       

 Paper no.6:-Victorian age

ROLL NO:-6
ENROLLMENT NO:- PG15101006
EMAIL ID:-cnbhungani7484@gmail.com
Blog id:- chintavanbhungani201517.blog.spot.com


Topic: - Concept of culture and anarchy by Matthew Arnold?

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was one of the 19th century England’s most prominent poet and social commentators. He was for many years an inspector of schools. Later becoming professor of poetry at Oxford University. Amongst his books, perhaps the best known is culture and anarchy (1869), in which he argues for the role of reading ‘the best that has been thought and said’ as an antidote to the anarchy of materialism, industrialism individualistic self-interest. Arnold mounts a case in support of building and teaching a canonical body of knowledge:  
Nationality            : - British
Period                    :-Victorian 
Genre                     :-poetry, literary social and religious criticism
Notable works     :-“dove beach”, the scholar gipsy”, thyrsus, culture and anarchy literature and dogma.



  • Introduction:-


                            Culture and Anarchy is a controversial philosophical work written by the celebrated Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold. Composed during a time of unprecedented social and political change, the essay argues for a restructuring of England's social ideology. It reflects Arnold's passionate conviction that the uneducated English masses could be molded into conscientious individuals who strive for human perfection through the harmonious cultivation of all of their skills and talents. A crucial condition of Arnold's thesis is that a state-administered system of education must replace the ecclesiastical program which emphasized rigid individual moral conduct at the expense of free thinking and devotion to community. Much more than a mere treatise on the state of education in England, Culture and Anarchy is, in the words of J. Dover Wilson, “at once a masterpiece of vivacious prose, a great poet's great defense of poetry, a profoundly religious book, and the finest apology for education in the English language.”

  1)-What is culture?
           The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, “the best which has been thought and said in the world”; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following theme staunchly which makes up for the mischief  of following them mechanically .


           According to Matthew Arnold culture is sweetness and light
                Arnold believed that culture is also connected with the ideas of sweetness help of Greek words aphasia & euphoria. The euchres stand for the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the aphis stands for Philistire. The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection; and Mr. Bright misconception of culture as a smattering of Greek and Latin, comes itself. After this wonderful significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of over education and is in itself a kind of homage to it. Culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one laws with poetry. In thus making sweetness and light, to be characters of perfection, culture shows its single minded love of perfection.
As we already saw that Arnold, in the first chapter- ‘sweetness and light’ has tried to show that culture is the study and pursuit of perfection; and sweetness and light are the main characters. But hitherto he has been insisting chiefly on beauty or sweetness, as character of perfection. To complete his design, it evidently remains to speak also of intelligence, or light, as a character of perfection.

What is anarchy?
                                      According to Arnold, freedom of doing as one likes, was one of those things which English thus worshiped itself without enough regarding the ends for which freedom is to be desired. Arnold also agrees with the prevalent notion that “it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress.” Even though the British Constitution is a system which stops and paralyses any power in interfering with the free action of individuals...... that the central idea of English life and politics is the ascertain of person liberty, yet Arnold fames this very right and happiness of an Englishman to do what he likes may drift the entire society towards Anarchy.

                                     Doing as one likes may become an anti social activity. Then liberty becomes license and in an organized society anarchy breaks out. Arnold’s ‘culture’ may bring about a spirit of cultivated inaction. If this culture is blind to the existing evils of society or if this culture is in danger of being and enemy to all reforms and reformers, then that culture is bound to become all moonshine. Arnold’s critics believe in action and not in aesthetic detachment.
 
Plot and Major Characters

                                                      Although Arnold does not create specific fictional characters to express his ideas in Culture and Anarchy, he does infuse his essays with a narrative persona that can best be described as a Socratic figure. This sagacious mentor serves as a thematic link between each of the chapters, underscoring the importance of self-knowledge in order to fully engage the concept of pursuing human perfection.
 
Major themes

Arnold introduces the principal themes of Culture and Anarchy directly in the essay's title. Culture involves an active personal quest to forsake egocentricity, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness and to embrace an equally balanced development of all human talents in the pursuit of flawlessness. It is a process of self-discipline which initiates a metamorphosis from self-interest to conscientiousness and an enlightened understanding of one's singular obligation to an all-inclusive utopian society.

 According to Stefan Collin, culture is
“An ideal of human life, a standard of excellence and fullness for the development of our capacities, aesthetic, intellectual, and moral.”

Three classes (the Barbarians, the Philistines and the populace):

In the third chapter of ‘culture and anarchy’ Matthew Arnold gave his views on the three classes of society. These three classes of England are the Aristocrats, the Middle class and the Working class. He shows the virtues and defects of all three classes in the essay.

The Aristocrats (Barbarians):
Arnold calls this class the ‘Barbarians’. They have personal liberty and anarchical in their tendencies. They have their own individualism. Outwards qualities like politeness grace in manners come directly inculcated by the Aristocrats from the Barbarians. Their culture is skin-deep, external and lacking in inwards virtue.

The Middle class (Philistine):
In a German sense, Philistine means the uncultured people. They are worldly-wise men, busy in trade and commerce. They have brought all economic prosperity and progress in the country. Thus, they are the empire builders in long; they would bring all material prosperity.

The Working class (Populace):
The working class is helper of the empire builders. They are raw and half developed. They are being exploited by the Philistine and the Barbarians so long. Because of their awakening, their poverty and squalor dawned. They become politically conscious and coming out from obscurities.
Thus, Arnold finds a sort of caste system in England consisting of the Barbarians, the Philistine and the Populace. Yet there is something common factor in all the three classes is a common basis of human nature. From above the basis of culture must be founded- sweetness and light.

View about Hebraism or Hellenism
Hebraism
Hellenism
·       Spirit of thought
·       Spirit of mind
·       Spirit of bible
·       Spirit of Greek
·       Narrow mindedness
·       Open minded
·       Religious
·       knowledge
·       Thought only for god
·       Though with practical
·       Follow the biblical idea
·       Follow the platonic idea

Hellenism and Hebraism both are directly connected to the life of human being. Hellenism keeps emphasis on knowing or knowledge, where as Hebraism fastens its faith in doing. Socrates, as Hellenic, states that the best man is he who tries to make himself perfect, and the happiest man is he who feels that he is perfecting himself. He does not tell us how it is to be done, and how to see things in their reality and beauty.

  Aim of Hebraism and Hellenism
                        The final aim of both is man’s perfection or salvation so the aim and end of both is admirable. And Hellenism is too seeing things as they are and Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Right thinking and right acting both are motivated by the desires of the body; and at the bottom of his design lurks a desire in man for reason and the will of god and thus to acquire the love of god. So in the ultimate analysis Arnold find that “the governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness; that of Hebraism, strictness or conscience”

Conclusion:-


                   So in this essay we study  four chapter :1)sweetness and light 2)doing as one like 3)barbarians, philistines, populace 4)Hebraism and Hellenism. Matthew Arnold describes all four chapters according to society and his own views. At the end we can say that Arnold describes culture and anarchy as different term both are not equal but some different meaning. Thus we can conclude we may say that the men of culture are the true apostles of equality.