La-Bella Dame Sans Merci

  John Keats has written this ballad, he was english romantic poet. This poem exist in two version with minor differences between them. This poem is about a Soldier who suffered  in hands of beautiful lady. This poem is written in 12 stanzas which show the suffering of soldier.

       

           In the very first stanza, the Soldier in questioned by a stranger near the river on the cold hill’s side wherein the stranger finds the Soldier in a pathetic condition alone and loitering aimlessly and in second stanza Stranger further questions the Soldier on his condition where the Nature is very beautiful but the Knight is suffering .

       

             The third stanza, the Stranger  talks about his fever and his facial condition as he was looking extremely pale. The Knight start answering the Stranger about how he met a beautiful Lady in the meadow ,who was like fairy’s child with beautiful eyes and long hair. In the next stanza, he talks about how he made garlands and bracelets of roses in love as a gift.

        

            In the six stanza, he talks about how he made her comfortable on her steed and kept looking at her by listening  to her wonderful songs. The seven stanza talks about how he taught  that in her strange language, she kept on speaking, ‘I love you’ and found him roots and honey to eat. Then she took him to the grot wherein she cried and I made her comfortable by kissing her eyes.

       

               In nine stanza, she made me sleep by singing a Lullaby and that is when he saw a dream which was very dreadful and found himself near the hill. In the next stanza, the dream continues where he saw many kings and princes almost dead and were crying “ La Belle Dame Sans Merci”.

       

      In eleven stanza, he found all the Kings, princes, soldier in extremely poor condition and he was awake  all of sudden almost shocked because of bad dream. In the last one , he says that that is the reason why he is “alone and palely loitering on the cold hill’s side”.

                                  “Memories are always painful”

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

         

  Strange case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson , published in 1886It is associated with the rare mental condition  called ‘Split Personality’where within the same body, exists more than one distinct personality. In this novella, Dr. Jekyll has duel  personality within himself good and evil as Each coin has two sides.He has duel personality but he wants to be civilized  in front of others. So he found the liquid which separates his personality but physically he is one. He create his evil personality that id Mr. Hyde through which he did all evil works and as civilized he lived life as Dr. Jekyll.

    

        In Freudian Theory the thoughts and desires of unconscious mind motivate the behavior of conscious mind. It also explains the Christian concept of hiding evil behind the light.

                                              

                                                Civilized  v/s Savage

                                               Appearance v/s Reality

         

               This theme reminds us of Mary Shelley’s work ‘Frankenstein’ which also deals with the same aspects the inner self and outer appearance through the character of Victor Frankenstein the  creator like Dr. Jekyll and Monster the creation like Mr. Hyde. The only difference between them is  physical separation of one person into two otherwise it directly shows the inner side of Victor through Monster. This is how Dr. Jekyll as a creator refers to his creation as his own darker personality the evil one.

       

          To sum up , one can say that in Dr. Jekyll’s view every soul contains of both good and evil but one dominates as in Jekyll’s case , his good side is dominant at   the beginning but he knows his evil inside him.

Ghashiram Kotwal by Vijay Tendulkar

This is a tragedy by Vijay Tendulkar. It is indeed a great tragedy.

Protagonist or the central character is Ghashiram, a poor Brahmin from Kanauj who had came to Pune for better life. But here he faces humiliations. The city was ruled by Nana who was full of lust. He was married seven times and still continue.

Here Ghashiram works at bavannkhani, a red light area with Gulabi, who entertains Nana. Ghashiram meets Nana here. Nana  joines in dance with Gulabi and hurts his ankle and Ghashiram saves him by offering his back to rest his injured leg. Nana gives necklace in reward. But servants of Gulabi snatches away it and throws him out.

Another time in Dakshina ceremony Ghashiram tries to take alms but other Brahmins throws him out saying that he had theft a purse. He was innocence but punished.

Nobody was ready to accept him a Brahmin. People were saying, where is your shaved head? Where is your holy thread? Where is your pios look? Where is your holy book?

These kind of humiliations makes him from good person to evil man. He was angry for the society of hatred, jealousy, immorality, lust, adultery etc. and decided to take revenge of his insults and wants to make the city moral.

It is turning point of the play. Ghashiram comes to know that Nana is womaniser and can do anything for getting woman. So he uses his own daughter Lalita Gauri as a bait. In a religious ceremony Nana sees Gauri and goes mad for her. Ghashiram knows this and deals with Nana that he will give his daughter but he wants to become Kotwal(police) of Pune. Nana agreed and Ghashiram becomes Kotwal of Pune.

Ghashiram does his job sincerely and gives orders like no whoring without permit, no cremation without permit, eat with a lower caste is a crime. These type of rules makes people angry. Ghashiram believes he had bring peace in the city. Now he had power and he thought he will find husband for his daughter and will arrange wedding. But he soon came to know about his daughter's death because she was pregnant by Nana and so he was interested no more and was going to another marriage. Ghashiram shatters. He repents but what can he do now?

The play goes to end when some Brahmins comes to Pune. They were hungry and eat mangoes from the garden without asking Ghashiram. Ghashiram gives order of lock them into jail, but it was very small and twenty two Brahmins dies because of suffocation.

People complaints to Peshwa. Peshwa meets Nana and Nana gives sentence to death for Ghashiram. Ghashiram before dying repents which shows how he was feeling guilty. He says, "I danced on your chests but I wasted the life of my little daughter. I should be punished for the death of my daughter. Beat me. Heat me. Cut off my hands and feet. Crack my skull. Come on. Look! I'm here. Oh, that's good. Very good"

Here tragedy of Ghashiram ends. Themes of the play is revenge, lust for power, politics, search for identity, etc. It follows the rules of Aristotelian tragedy. In this play we have tragic hero who is not thoroughly bad or fully good. He has hamartia like ambition of power, revenge. His position was high in society so his fall affects whole city of Pune.

Othello By William Shakespeare

                   

                                           

                                          Along with Hamlet, king Lear  and Macbeth Othello is one of  Shakespeare's four great tragedies. Othello is unique and often been described as a " Tragedy of Characters". Shakespeare's tragic tale opens in Venice where the villainous Iago plots against othello the Moor. Iago  poisoned othello's ears that Cassio has an illicit relationship with Desdemona. Desdemona is completely innocent and extremely faithful to Othello. Iago gives handkerchief that Desdemona dropped to Cassio then suggests othello that Desdemona gave it to Cassio as asymbol of love. Mad with jealousy, othello kills Desdemona his grief drives him to suicide. Iago arrested but never reveals his true motive for manipulating Othello.

                                        

    Iago's dazzling display of villainy have long fascinated students and critics of the play. the relationship between these characters is another unusual feature of Othello. othello and Iago bears the greater responsibility for the tragedy.      More than anything else what distinguish othello from it's great tragedies peers is the role of it's villain, Iago is a character who essentially writes play's main plot. and takes a key part in it. Written in 1604 othello is one of Shakespeare's tightly constructed tragedies. The fall of proud, dignified man, the murder of loving and graceful woman and the unreasoning hatred of a " motiveless " villain all have evoked  fear and pity in audiences throughout the centuries. 

                                      " OTHELLO THE MAN OF ACTION "

                                      

                                                    if we compare othello with Hamlet then we came across the truth that if we replace both of this protagonist then play must have peaceful and happy end. Because othello kills his wife without thinking even if she was innocent and Hamlet takes much time in thinking even if he knows that Claudius is a murderer.   

From the Amoretti

One day I wrote her name is a sonnet by Edmund Spenser.

The poet starts with romantic scene. He and her beloved are at the strand. The speaker writes her name upon the strand but wave comes and washes that away. But poet again writes now with second hand. But again wave washes it.

After seeing this speaker's beloved tells him that he works in vain to immortalize her. She points out that one day she will die, her body will fall to decay as all living things must in that moment, she says her name will be lost, wiped out as the wave erases the letters in the sand.

But the poet knows how to make her name immortal. He says that other things may die and rot, but she will live by fame. He will make her name immortal by writing her poems, he will immortalize her so that long after her death, even the heavens will remember her glorious name.

So the poem speaks about the power of verse. It has power to make someone immortal.

She walks in Beauty

She Walks in Beauty is an eighteen line poem written in 1814 and published in 1815. This poem is not a love poem, but a celebration of a woman's beauty. The speaker never says he is in love with the lady, but he thinks she is really beautifu

In this poem, the speaker is enlisting different qualities of his beloved, viz. aspect, eye, face, grace, cheek, brow, smiles, mind, thoughts and love. This technique of enlisting is known as blazon. By using blazon, he is giving a verse-compliment to his beloved. Likewise, giving a verse compliment to a lady is a cavalier tradition which the poet has borrowed from romanticism. Using the tradition, both from cavalier poetry and neo-classical poetry, he defines beauty. For Lord Byron, beauty is both inner beauty and outer beauty. Mind at peace, pure thoughts and innocent love emphasize the mental, psychological or inner beauty. Likewise, aspects like eye, face, grace, cheek and smiles represent the outer or physical beauty. For Byron, both inner and outer qualities constitute the beauty. Thus, he defines beauty in totality.The poem continues the tradition of neo-classical tradition of form in poetry. Closed form and use of iamb are its examples. In the first sestet of the poem, the speaker compares his beloved with the night of cloudless climate and starry skies. This simile brightens the combination of the best aspect of the day and light. Bright and dark color have been harmoniously combined in her eyes and aspect to make her pleasant in appearance. Highlighting her mellowed appearance, he inversely compares her with the day, which lacks that beauty. The second stanza carries on contrasting between light and dark, day and night, to describe her beauty. The third stanza concludes that she's not just beautiful, she's "good" and "innocent," too.

The speaker has forgotten everything in the beauty of this lady. The speaker admires the effortless harmony of a woman's beauty, and tells us that it's all about the perfect balance of light and dark in her whole face and figure. He never says he's in love with her, but the reader can guess that he's attracted to her — after all, he can't stop talking about her hair, her eyes, her cheeks. By the end of the poem, it seems like the speaker is protesting a little too much. By insisting repeatedly that the lady is pure and that her "love is innocent," it is hard not to suspect that he perhaps wishes that weren't the case.

As we observe the description of the lady we realize the inclusive definition of beauty in the poem. For Byron, beauty is both physical and spiritual. Eye, face, cheek, brow, and smiles represent the physical beauty whereas mind, heart and thought to represent the spiritual beauty.

The poem is divided into three stanzas of six lines each, with an ABABAB rhyme scheme, in iambic tetrameter with the Pyrrhic form that bring variation. The contrast between night and day, and dark and light, is the image that sets up the whole poem. If we observe the form of this poem, neo-classical tradition has been continued. It shows that the neoclassical tradition has not completely lost during romanticism. It has somehow been continued, especially by Lord Byron.

Among the cavalier poets, there was the tradition of giving a verse compliment to a lady. The cavalier poets used to forget everything seeing the beauty of their beloved. The same tradition of giving a verse compliment to a lady is continued by Lord Byron. The subject matter of this poem is borrowed from cavalier poetry and format from the neoclassical poetry.  It is said that the poem is inspired by actual events in Byron’s life when he met a beautiful woman at a ball. She was his cousin by marriage. But some other critics claim that the beautiful lady might be his half-sister Augusta. Some consider this poem as the tribute to the beauty of the art.

The technique of enjambment has been used in this poem. In this technique, the first statement is presented without any punctuation marks and is followed by another line to clarify the aforementioned statement. The reinforcement of the imagery of light and dark in the poem justifies the good and bad aspects of any work of art, but still it is beautiful. Art is represented as the combination of both qualities of life. Art has contrasting parts, yet the whole art is beautiful and meaningful. In terms of the lady, she is inwardly beautiful and outwardly too, she is charming, but she may have some follies which are shadowed by her soft nature and innocent face. Byron accepts the concept of beauty as a whole that consists of both bright and dark aspects of life.

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness centers around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz. 

Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants of the have been forced into the Company’s service, and they suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of the Company’s agents.

Marlow arrives at the Central Station, run by the general manager, an unwholesome, conspiratorial character. He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. His interest in Kurtz grows during this period. The manager and his favorite, the brickmaker, seem to fear Kurtz as a threat to their position. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship, and he and the manager set out with a few agents (whom Marlow calls pilgrims because of their strange habit of carrying long, wooden staves wherever they go) and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up the river.

They reaches at the area surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire arrows from the safety of the forest. The African helmsman is killed before Marlow frightens the natives away with the ship’s steam whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtz’s Inner Station, expecting to find him dead, but a half-crazed Russian trader, who meets them as they come ashore, assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. The Russian claims that Kurtz has enlarged his mind and cannot be subjected to the same moral judgments as normal people. Apparently, Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory. The pilgrims bring Kurtz out of the station-house on a stretcher, and a large group of native warriors pours out of the forest and surrounds them. Kurtz speaks to them, and the natives disappear into the woods.

The manager brings Kurtz, who is quite ill, aboard the steamer. A beautiful native woman, apparently Kurtz’s mistress, appears on the shore and stares out at the ship. The Russian reveals to Marlow, after swearing him to secrecy, that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer to make them believe he was dead in order that they might turn back and leave him to his plans. The Russian then leaves by canoe, fearing the displeasure of the manager. Kurtz disappears in the night, and Marlow goes out in search of him, finding him crawling on all fours toward the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces him to return to the ship. They set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtz’s health is failing fast.

Marlow listens to Kurtz talk while he pilots the ship, and Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal documents, including an eloquent pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with a scrawled message that says, “Exterminate all the brutes!” The steamer breaks down, and they have to stop for repairs. Kurtz dies, uttering his last words—“The horror! The horror!”—in the presence of the confused Marlow. Marlow falls ill soon after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz’s fiancee. She is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtz’s death, and she praises him as a paragon of virtue and achievement. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow cannot bring himself to shatter her illusions with the truth. Instead, he tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her name.