Worthsworth

 

Classicism and Romanticism are two ideologies and kind of school of thoughts and something more than that. It gives us some ideas about dominance of certain things, in both era they were differents. Neo classisnm it was a period where intellect was considered most. Pope, Dryden they were neo-classicist who believed in intellectual works. But in the Romanticism, the major poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats's poetry we find more imaginative concept than intellect. Their poetry were based on their imagination. In Neo-classicist believed there should ne restraint, but romantic poets didn't believe in any kind of restraint, in fact they believed in liberty, and poets had right to write what they want to. Neo-classicists followed the masters like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates. But Romantic poets were more inspired by Medieval time's poets. In Neo-classicism urban life was represented and in Romanticism the poets were more attracted to countryside, rustic life. Classic poets believed poetry as an objective whereas romantic poets believed poetry is subjective.

According to Wordsworth the way of writing of neo-classicists was highly unnecessary ornamental. He is interested in writing the poems and lyrical ballad in the language that really used by men. He finds humble rustic life, and to be with the genuine emotions, he wants to capture yhe emotions of countryside men by his rustic words and diction he finds it very close.

Wordsworth asks what is the poet not who is poet. A poet is a man who is speaking to men. But poet is a person who differs from other people in degree, he has more tenderness, enthusiasm and a better knowledge about Human nature. Wordsworth uses a word for poet that he has a comprehensive soul. His participation in spirits of life is much more than an ordinary person.

Wordsworth' definition of "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Poetry has its origin in the internal feelings of the poet. It is a matter of passion & mood. Poetry cannot be produced ideology set by the Classicists. It must flow out naturally and smoothly from the soul of the poet. But it must be noted that good poetry, according to Wordsworth, is never an immediate expression of such powerful emotions. A good poet must ponder over them long and deeply.

Wordsworth's famous poem Daffodils, we find this poem has 4 stanzas, the first three stanzas are in past tense, he begins his poem in past tense while poem's last - the fourth stanza is in present tense. The inspiration for the poem came from a walk Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy in the Lake District. He has drawn on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". This poem beautiful, a poem that can make you happy!

Dryden as dramatic poesy

 

.1]Do you find any difference between Aristotle's definition of Tragedy and Dryden's definition of Play?

 There is a difference between Aristotle’s definition of tragedy and Dryden’s definition of play. According to Aristotle tragedy is an imitation of an action which is serious, complete and of certain magnitude; he emphasises on serious action which can arouse pity and fear in the audience. While Dryden says that a play should be just and lively image of human nature. For Aristotle tragedy is imitation of serious action and for Dryden imitation is not only “just” but “lively” also. For Aristotle the function of “catharsis” is important in tragedy, but the reading of the play hardly give catharsis. As per Dryden play is just for the delight and instruction of the audience. Play is the representation of life as it is as per Dryden and on the other hand, Aristotle did not support representation of realistic situation of life.

2]If you are supposed to give your personal predilection, would you be on the side of the Ancient or the Modern? Please give reasons.

According to my personal opinion, I am on the side of the ancients as far as literature and music are concerned. The language is the gift from the ancients through which the writing has progressed. Ancients imitated their history in their work from where we get idea of the history, and through reading them we come to know about past. It is necessary to know your past to brighten your present. The knowledge of words we use for writing is the gift of ancients. For e.g.:- Dr.Johnson’s “The dictionary of the English Language”. The root is the part which holds the tree, same way ancients are the root which helps the moderns to grow. If consider science and technology than we can see that moderns are better. In ancient times many people died due to cancer and other deadly disease. The moderns have made tremendous progress in this field which the ancients were not able to do.
We can say that modern excels in science and technology, ancients excels in art whether it is literature, music or painting. “Moderns are the dwarfs standing on the shoulder of the giants; the shoulder of the ancients”.


3) Do you think that the arguments presented in favour of the French plays and against English plays are appropriate? (Say for example, Death should not be performed as it is neither 'just' not 'lively' image, displaying duel fight with blunted swords, thousands of soldiers marching represented as five on stage, mingling of mirth and serious, multiple plots etc.)

The arguments presented in the favour of the French plays by Lisideius against English plays are appropriate at some extent. For example the death scene, it is not possible to show it. No one can express the feeling of death without going through. As per sub-plots are concerned I would like to support English plays. Audience enjoys the mixture of sub-plots with the main plot. It makes play interesting, if presented well.

4) What would be your preference so far as poetic or prosaic dialogues are concerned in the play? 

 As per my opinion, prosaic dialogues are more preferable in the play. According to Dryden, play is the representation of life as it is. Imagine if our teachers or parents or friends talks with us in poetic way. Prosaic dialogues connect the audience with the play. Poetic lines limit the thoughts of the writer as he has to complete the lines as per rhyme scheme. In day to day no one uses poetic lines. All the audience cannot understand the spirit of poetry. Gandhiji said that literature should be written in a simple way that even a farmer could read. As far as play is concerned I agree with this thing that prosaic lines bring simplicity which can be understood by all the type of audience.

kenneth branagh's Hamlet based on shakespear's 'Hamlet'

'HAMLET'  MOVIE by Kenneth Branagh is based on original play 'HAMLET' by William Shakespeare .

• How faithful is the movie to the original play? after watching the movie, have your perception about play, characters or situations changed?  

Yes , the movie is as faithful as the original  play, because the play starts with the statue of “King Hamlet”- the father of Hamlet and end with the fall of the statue of King Hamlet. In the play, the statue shows us the “Rising and Falling action” of the Throne.

Yes , after watching the movie my perception about the character of “Ophelia”. In the movie, the director doesn’t give more important the character of Ophelia, but whatever I watched about the character of Ophelia, it was very effective and tragic way throughout the movie.

• Do you feel aesthetic delight while watching the movie?

I feel aesthetic delight while watching the movie when Ophelia was gone mad not for her father’s death but for the love of Hamlet, and therefore in that scene I can see the “Tragic Beauty” of the Ophelia which feel me aesthetic delight’

• Do you feel catharsis while or after watching the film?

.
Yes, I feel catharsis while watching the movie when Hamlet’s fable minded behavior with Ophelia very badly for asking her father . And the another catharsis that I felt was that when Ophelia was gone mad and sing a mad song with full of tragic emotions.

• Does screening of the movie helped you in better understanding?

Yes, the screening of movie help me in better understanding of the play, like it help me to remember the important scenes – ghost scene, and also remember me some minor characters like Rosencrantze and Guildenstern . But somewhere I can’t get the important dialogs from the movie.

• Was there any particular scene that you will cherish lifetime

Yes, I cherish the particular scene or moment in the play.
1) Ghost scene- by technically it was very effective , eye-catchy  and feels me somewhere horrible.
2) When Hamlet acted as he was mad, that scene spread little humour in the movie.
3) And the another one is Ophelia’s character give me a long lasting effect through the whole movie that I never forgot.

• If you are a director what changes would you like to make?

If I am director of this movie, I would like to make ghost scene more horrible and another one is that I would like to change the character of Ophelia and Hamlet’s age because Ophelia was very younger than the Hamlet.

• What does the fallen statue signifies?

As my understanding , I find the symbolism in the play is “Revenge”. Because revenge itself is not a good idea and revenge never end, never sleep. And therefore Hamlet is responsible for himself to take revenge.

• While studying the play through movie, which approach do you find  more applicable?

While studying the play though the movie I would find Two approaches in the play:
1) Seeing and Knowing Approach: When Ophelia see that Hamlet as a full of mad, but reality is that she knew that he acts as he mad.
2)Feminist Approach: This approach is applicable for the character of Ophelia and the mother of Hamlet.

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Name: Joshi Riddhi
Topic: Practical and Pragmatic Criticism:
Roll. No: 37
Paper-3 Literary theory and Criticism
M.A: Sem-1
Enrolment no.: 2069108420180028
Year: 2017-19
E-mail: Www.riddhij8@gmail.com
Submitted to:
Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

 

I.A. Richards Contribution to literary work:

In the twentieth century Anglo-American criticism Ivor Armstrong Richards is the most influential critic. Among the moderns he is the only critic who has expressed a systematic and complete theory of the literary art. According to the view of George Watson, “Richards’ claim to have established Anglo-American New Criticism of the thirties and forties is unassailable.”
His reputation as a critic: His reputation as a critic lies on a limited number of critical books he wrote. The relevance of psychology to literary studies emerges clearly in his first book, The Foundations of Aesthetics (1922), written in relationship with his two friends. In this book the authors have tried to define ‘beauty’ by studying its effects on the readers.
Psychological theory: In his book The Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), Richards alone explains his psychological theory of value and explores the emotive language of poetry. He is the father of the psychological criticism as well as of New Criticism. He developed the unhistorical method of criticism. He holds that satisfactory knowledge of psychology is essential for a literary critic to enter into the author’s mind. He also gives supreme importance to the art of communication and brings out a distinction between the scientific and the motive uses of the language. Before coming to the value of imaginative literature he first formulates a general psychological theory of value, and then applies it to literature. This is scientific or psychological approach to literature.
Learning: As a critic, I. A. Richards is not only learned and abstract but also learned about revolutionary and original. He is a loyal advocate of close written and oral study and analysis of a work of art without reference to its author and the age. His method is practical and experimental.
Appreciation: According to him, poetry represents certain classification in the poet, and for a proper understanding of the poem, the critic must enter and hold this classification and experience of the poet. He should also be able to judge the value of different experiences, i.e., he should be able to separate between experiences of greater and lesser value.

His value as a critic: His value as a critic also lies in his conclusions about what imaginative literature is, how it employs language, how its use of language differs from the scientific use of language, and what is its special function and value. His conclusion, at this stage in the development of his critical ideas, is that a satisfactory work of imaginative literature represents a kind of psychological adjustment in the author which is valuable for personality, and that the reader, if he knows how to read properly, can have this adjustment communicated to him by reading the work.
Richards did a great service to literary criticism by linking it with psychology. But some people also say that psychological approach to literary criticism makes it too technical and dull a subject. Furthermore, Richards’ conclusions are based on psychology as it is today, development of psychology and our understanding of the human mind, this theory might lose its importance or vanish completely. Some people also doubt whether literary criticism based on individual psychology can ever explain fully the mystic nature of the poetic experience.
Fundamental questions of criticism: According to Richards the questions which a critic must ask are “what give the experience of reading a certain poem its value? How is this experience better than another? Why prefer this picture to that? In which ways should we listen to music so as to receive the most valuable moments? Why is one opinion about works of art not as good as another? These are the fundamental questions which criticism is required to answer, together with such preliminary questions— What is a picture, a poem, a piece of music? How can experiences be compared? What is value?—as may be required in order to approach these questions.

Practical  Criticism by I.A. Richards:

Practical criticism is, like the formal study of English literature itself, a relatively young discipline. It began in the 1920s with a series of experiments by the Cambridge critic I.A. Richards. He gave poems to students without any information about who wrote them or when they were written. In Practical Criticism of 1929 he reported on and analysed the results of his experiments. The objective of his work was to encourage students to concentrate on 'the words on the page', rather than relying on preconceived or received beliefs about a text. For Richards this form of close analysis of anonymous poems was ultimately intended to have psychological benefits for the students: by responding to all the currents of emotion and meaning in the poems and passages of prose which they read the students were to achieve what Richards called an 'organised response'. This meant that they would clarify the various currents of thought in the poem and achieve a corresponding clarification of their own emotions.
In the work of Richards' most influential student, William Empson, practical criticism provided the basis for an entire critical method. In Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) Empson developed his undergraduate essays for Richards into a study of the complex and multiple meanings of poems. His work had a profound impact on a critical movement known as the 'New Criticism', the exponents of which tended to see poems as elaborate structures of complex meanings. New Critics would usually pay relatively little attention to the historical setting of the works which they analysed, treating literature as a sphere of activity of its own. In the work of F.R. Leavis the close analysis of texts became a moral activity, in which a critic would bring the whole of his sensibility to bear on a literary text and test its sincerity and moral seriousness.
Practical criticism today is more usually treated as an ancillary skill rather than the foundation of a critical method. It is a part of many examinations in literature at almost all levels, and is used to test students' responsiveness to what they read, as well as their knowledge of verse forms and of the technical language for describing the way poems create their effects.
Practical criticism in this form has no necessary connection with any particular theoretical approach, and has shed the psychological theories which originally underpinned it. The discipline does, however, have some ground rules which affect how people who are trained in it will respond to literature. It might be seen as encouraging readings which concentrate on the form and meaning of particular works, rather than on larger theoretical questions. The process of reading a poem in clinical isolation from historical processes also can mean that literature is treated as a sphere of activity which is separate from economic or social conditions, or from the life of its author.
The classes which follow this introduction are designed to introduce you to some of the methods and vocabulary of practical criticism, and to give some practical advice about how you can move from formal analysis of a poem and of its meaning to a full critical reading of it. They are accompanied by a glossary of critical terms, to which you can refer if you want to know what any of the technical terms used in the classes mean.
Above all, however, the classes are intended to raise questions about how practical criticism can be used. Do poems look different if they are presented in isolation from the circumstances in which they were written or circulated? Do our critical responses to them change if we add in some contextual information after we have closely analysed them? Do our views of a poem change if we hear it read, if we see the original manuscript, or if instead of simply seeing the words on a page, as I. A. Richards would have wished, we see words on a screen?

The Four Kinds of Meaning

Sense What speaker or author speaks is sense. The thing that the writer literally conveys is sense. Here, the speaker speaks to arouse the readers thought. The language is very straightforward which is descriptive. This language is not poetic. Words are used to direct the hearer's attraction up on some state of affairs or to excite them. Sense is whatness of language use. Feeling Feeling is writer’s emotional attitude towards the subject. It means writer’s attachment or detachment to the subject is feeling. It is an expression. The speaker or writer uses language to express his views. This very language is emotive, poetic and literary also. Here only, rhyme and meter cannot make poetry to be a good, emotion is equally important. Especially in lyric poem, emotion plays vital role. Tone Tone refers to attitude of speaker towards his listener. There is a kind of relation between speaker and listener. Since speaker is aware of his relationship with language and with the listener, he changes the level of words as the level of audience changes. It means tone varies from listener to listener.
Intention Intention is the purpose of speaker. Speaker has certain aim to speak either it is consciously or unctuously. Listener has to understand the speaker's purpose to understand his meaning. If the audience can't understand his purpose the speaker becomes unsuccessful. The intention of author can be found in dramatic and semi- dramatic literature. There four types of meaning in totality constitute the total meaning of any text. Therefore all utterances can be looked at from four points of view, revealing four kinds of meaning are not easily separated. But they are in dispensable terms for explaining. Basically, the four meaning are interconnected in poetry.
Doctrine in Poetry Here Richards talks about the proper way of analyzing the text and what critic and reader should be like. He tends to locate the poem in readers response to it. It means readers analyze the text and respond any poetry from similar judgmental aspects. It shows every reader produces same meaning from same text as the text is organic whole obstacles and barriers the variation of meaning occurs. His ideas are oriented toward distinguishing the belief of readers from that of the poets. If there occurs contradiction between the belief of readers and the belief of poets, the readers do not get sole meaning from the text. Because of readers’ temperament and personal experience, they don't get same meaning from the text The obstacle that brings variation in meaning is doctrinal belief of readers.
Richards finds two kinds of belief and disbelief i) Intellectual belief ii) Emotional belief In an intellectual belief we weigh an idea based on doctrinal preoccupation, where as an emotional belief is related to the state of mind. He thinks that the good kind of being comes from the blending of the both. Until and unless we are free from beliefs and disbeliefs there comes variation in meaning. But to free our mind from all impurities is not possible. Therefore the reader should be sincere to get single meaning escaping from such obstacles. This sincerity is the way to success. The sincere reader has perfect and genuine mind. To be genuine mind, one should be free from impurities. In this sense the reader should be free from obstruction these obstacles is not possible.

Pragmatic Criticism:

Pragmatic criticism is concerned, first and foremost, with the ethical impact any literary text has upon an audience. Regardless of art's other merits or failings, the primary responsibility or function of art is social in nature. Assessing, fulfilling, and shaping the needs, wants, and desires of an audience should be the first task of an artist. Art does not exist in isolation; it is a potent tool for individual as well as communal change. Though pragmatic critics believe that art houses the potential for massive societal transformation, art is conspicuously ambivalent in its ability to promote good or evil. The critical project of pragmatic criticism is to establish a moral standard of quality for art. By establishing artistic boundaries based upon moral/ethical guidelines, art which enriches and entertains, inspires and instructs a reader with knowledge of truth and goodness will be preserved and celebrated, and art which does not will be judged inferior, cautioned against, and (if necessary) destroyed. Moral outrage as well as logical argument have been the motivating forces behind pragmatic criticism throughout history. The tension created between this emotional and intellectual reaction to literature has created a wealth of criticism with varying degrees of success. Ironically, much like art's capacity to inspire diligence or decadence in a reader, pragmatic criticism encompasses both redemptive and destructive qualities.  
Plato provides a foundational and absolute argument for pragmatic criticism. Excluding poetry from his ideal Republic, Plato attempts to completely undermine the power and authority of art. He justifies his position by claiming that "the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed) is surely an awful thing" (28). Because artists claim their imitations can speak to the true nature of things, circumventing the need for serious, calmly considered intellectual inquiry, art should not be pursued as a valuable endeavor. Art widens the gap between truth and the world of appearances, ironically by claiming to breach it. The artist promotes false images of truth and goodness by appealing to basic human passions, indulging "the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small" (27). Art manufactures moral ambiguity, and to Plato this is unacceptable. Because it is deceptive and essentially superficial, all art must be controlled and delegitmized for all time.
Since Plato, pragmatic critics have sought to qualify his absolute statements about the value of art. Sir Philip Sydney, for example, is aware of the fact that literature can and is abused by some. He is able, therefore, to describe literature as a tool with the greatest potential for good, but not an inherently virtuous invention in and of itself. The destructive qualities evoked by literature are products of the fallible fragile human beings who created it, rather than an indictment of the evil nature of all literature in general. Do not, as Sidney states, "say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that man's wit abuseth poetry" (150). Samuel Johnson directs his advice toward the author rather than the audience of literature. He hopes to affect the process of writing rather than reading, in order to forestall moral abuse and to build upon Sydney's assumption that literature can most effectively demonstrate and teach virtue. Johnson believes that artists should develop moral as well as aesthetic sensibilities. Because all works of literature "serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life", "...care ought to be taken, that, when the choice is unrestrained, the best examples only should be exhibited" (226). Great authors, thus develop a sense of responsibility to virtue in general as well as their audience. The immersive qualities of literature can have lasting and even permanent moral effects on a reader. Literature invites danger and delight.
Pragmatic criticism itself can be an effective means of interpretation or repression. The ability to form an intellectually powerful critique is severely limited when the morality espoused by a pragmatic critic becomes rigidly dogmatic. Tolstoy's absolute commitment to harmony and brotherhood led him to advocate art which panders solely to the lowest common denominator. Pragmatic criticism is perhaps most dangerous when knowledge of certain "moral" literature replaces or supplants the need for virtuous action. Pragmatic critics must be morally accountable as well. Pragmatic criticism should be forced to grapple with the same moral issues it seeks to discern and define in art.

Difference Between Practical and Pragmatic:

Pragmatic and practical are adjectives that are often used as synonyms. However, these two adjectives cannot always be used interchangeably even if they have similar meanings. The key difference between pragmatic and practical is their usage; pragmatic is mainly used to refer to a way of thinking whereas practical can be used to refer to people, concepts, objects, etc.

Definition:
Pragmatic: “Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.”
Practical: “Concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas”.
Parts of Speech:
Pragmatic is an adjective.
Practical is an adjective and a noun.

Usage:
Pragmatic mainly refers to a way of thinking.
Practical can refer to an action, person, concept or an object.
Although practical and pragmatic act as synonyms in some occasions, they are not always interchangeable.

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Works cited:

http://www.bachelorandmaster.com
http://www.britannica.com
http://www.differencebetween.com

Paper-2 sem-1 assignment

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Name: Riddhi Joshi
Semester: 1
Roll no.: 37
Paper no.2:The Neo-classical Literature
Topic: Robinson Crusoe as Religious Allegory
Enrollment no.: 2069108420180028
Year: 2017-19
E-mail Id: Www.riddhij8@gmail.com
Submitted to:
S.B Gardi Department of English
Maharaja krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University.

About Daniel Defoe:-

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in London, England. He became a merchant and participated in several failing businesses, facing bankruptcy and aggressive creditors. He was also a prolific political pamphleteer which landed him in prison for slander. Late in life he turned his pen to fiction and wrote Robinson Crusoe, one of the most widely read and influential novels of all time. Defoe died in 1731.
Having always been interested in politics, Defoe published his first literary piece, a political pamphlet, in 1683. He continued to write political works, working as a journalist, until the early 1700s. Many of Defoe's works during this period targeted support for King William III, also known as "William Henry of Orange." Some of his most popular works include The True-Born Englishman, which shed light on racial prejudice in England following attacks on William for being a foreigner; and the Review, a periodical that was published from 1704 to 1713, during the reign of Queen Anne, King William II's successor. Political opponents of Defoe's repeatedly had him imprisoned for his writing in 1713.
Defoe took a new literary path in 1719, around the age of 59, when he published Robinson Crusoe, a fiction novel based on several short essays that he had composed over the years. A handful of novels followed soon after—often with rogues and criminals as lead characters—including Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton, Journal of the Plague Year and his last major fiction piece, Roxana (1724).
In the mid-1720s, Defoe returned to writing editorial pieces, focusing on such subjects as morality, politics and the breakdown of social order in England. Some of his later works include Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725); the nonfiction essay "Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom" (1727); and a follow-up piece to the "Conjugal Lewdness" essay, entitled "A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed."

Plot overview:-

Robison Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in the care of a friendly widow. The second voyage does not prove as fortunate: the ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is enslaved to a potentate in the North African town of Sallee. While on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free and sail down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them up, buys the slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner and soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labor and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad.
Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and seeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar, among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes, where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel more optimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk, but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace.

I Just Can't Do It – Four Year Olds Hilarious Reaction To Homework
0:1:58

One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation. Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his life was saved, and takes him as his servant.
Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him some English words and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday, in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. The two build a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one cannibals in canoes. The cannibals are holding three victims, one of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest. Crusoe prepares to welcome them into his community permanently. He sends Friday’s father and the Spaniard out in a canoe to explore the nearby land.
Eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms Friday. Crusoe is suspicious. Friday and Crusoe watch as eleven men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the men explore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points, Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader. The men surrender. Crusoe and the captain pretend that the island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice. Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out to seize the ship. When the ship is brought in, Crusoe nearly faints.
On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to England. There, he finds his family is deceased except for two sisters. His widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable. He arranges to sell his Brazilian lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe attempts to return to England by land but is threatened by bad weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back in England, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantations has been completed and that he has made a considerable fortune. After donating a portion to the widow and his sisters, Crusoe is restless and considers returning to Brazil, but he is dissuaded by the thought that he would have to become Catholic. He marries, and his wife dies. Crusoe finally departs for the East Indies as a trader in 1694. He revisits his island, finding that the Spaniards are governing it well and that it has become a prosperous colony.

Characters in Robison Crusoe:-

 

Robinson Crusoe -  The novel’s protagonist and narrator. Crusoe begins the novel as a young middle-class man in York in search of a career. He father recommends the law, but Crusoe yearns for a life at sea, and his subsequent rebellion and decision to become a merchant is the starting point for the whole adventure that follows. His vague but recurring feelings of guilt over his disobedience color the first part of the first half of the story and show us how deep Crusoe’s religious fear is. Crusoe is steady and plodding in everything he does, and his perseverance ensures his survival through storms, enslavement, and a twenty-eight-year isolation on a desert island.
Friday -  A twenty-six-year-old Caribbean native and cannibal who converts to Protestantism under Crusoe’s tutelage. Friday becomes Crusoe’s servant after Crusoe saves his life when Friday is about to be eaten by other cannibals. Friday never appears to resist or resent his new servitude, and he may sincerely view it as appropriate compensation for having his life saved. But whatever Friday’s response may be, his servitude has become a symbol of imperialist oppression throughout the modern world. Friday’s overall charisma works against the emotional deadness that many readers find in Crusoe.
The Portuguese captain -  The sea captain who picks up Crusoe and the slave boy Xury from their boat after they escape from their Moorish captors and float down the African coast. The Portuguese captain takes Crusoe to Brazil and thus inaugurates Crusoe’s new life as plantation owner. The Portuguese captain is never named—unlike Xury, for example—and his anonymity suggests a certain uninteresting blandness in his role in the novel. He is polite, personable, and extremely generous to Crusoe, buying the animal skins and the slave boy from Crusoe at well over market value. He is loyal as well, taking care of Crusoe’s Brazilian investments even after a twenty-eight-year absence. His role in Crusoe’s life is crucial, since he both arranges for Crusoe’s new career as a plantation owner and helps Crusoe cash in on the profits later.

The Spaniard -  One of the men from the Spanish ship that is wrecked off Crusoe’s island, and whose crew is rescued by the cannibals and taken to a neighboring island. The Spaniard is doomed to be eaten as a ritual victim of the cannibals when Crusoe saves him. In exchange, he becomes a new “subject” in Crusoe’s “kingdom,” at least according to Crusoe. The Spaniard is never fleshed out much as a character in Crusoe’s narrative, an example of the odd impersonal attitude often notable in Crusoe.
Xury -  A nonwhite (Arab or black) slave boy only briefly introduced during the period of Crusoe’s enslavement in Sallee. When Crusoe escapes with two other slaves in a boat, he forces one to swim to shore but keeps Xury on board, showing a certain trust toward the boy. Xury never betrays that trust. Nevertheless, when the Portuguese captain eventually picks them up, Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. Xury’s sale shows us the racist double standards sometimes apparent in Crusoe’s behavior.
The widow -  Appearing briefly, but on two separate occasions in the novel, the widow keeps Crusoe’s 200 pounds safe in England throughout all his thirty-five years of journeying. She returns it loyally to Crusoe upon his return to England and, like the Portuguese captain and Friday, reminds us of the goodwill and trustworthiness of which humans can be capable, whether European or not.

Robinson Crusoe as Religious Allegory:-

Apart from being an exciting account of a man’s adventures on an uninhabited island, the book, “Robinson Crusoe” has been found to possess a profound allegorical significance. For many, Crusoe’s many references to God, to Providence, to sin are extraneous to the real interest of the novel. Readers through the 19th century read “Robinson Crusoe” in the light of religion. For example, a reviewer for the Dublin University Magazine called the book a great religious poem, showing that God is found where men are absent. In deciding whether or to what extent Robinson Crusoe is a spiritual autobiography and a great religious poem, one might consider the following:
In the “Preface,” Defoe announces that his intention is to justify and honor the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances.
Moreover, Robinson Crusoe can be viewed from theological and practical levels. If we see from the theological level, we will find that man’s extreme aspiration is the cause of sin. As we see in “Paradise Lost” by John Milton that Adam and Eve are banished from the Heaven because of their aspirations and disobedience to God, here in the same was Crusoe is thrown on an uninhabited island because of disobedience towards his father.
Crusoe receives warnings against the rashness of going to sea from his father and from the captain of the first ship he sails on. Both are figures of authority and can be seen as proxies for God. In ignoring their warnings, he is also denying God’s providential social order in the world. God’s providential social order in the world means that God arranged the world hierarchically, endowing the king with authority in the political realm and the father with authority in the family.
Crusoe’s conversation with his father about leaving home can be interpreted from a religious perspective. Crusoe repeatedly refers to leaving home without his father’s permission as his “original sin“; he not only associates God and his father but regards his sin against his father as a sin against God also remembering his first voyage.

Crusoe comments:-

“… my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of hardness to which it has been since reproached me with the contempt of advice and the breach of my duty to God and my father”.
In the Puritan Family structure, the father was regarded as God’s deputy, in rejecting his father’s advice, Crusoe is committing Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience. For Crusoe as for Adam and Eve, disobedience grows out of restlessness and discontent with the station God assigned.
When Crusoe is cast ashore on a deserted island, he sees his situation as the fulfillment of his father’s prediction that if Crusoe disregarded his advice, Crusoe would find himself alone with no source of help. As his father said with a little sigh.
That boy might be happy if he would stay at home, but if he goes abroad, he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born”. Alone on the island Crusoe is Everyman, aliented from God because of sin.
One way of reading Robinson Crusoe is as a spiritual autobiography. The spiritual autobiography potrays the  puritan drama of the soul. Concerned about being saved, having a profound sense of God’s presence, seeing his will manifest everywhere and aware of the unceasing conflict between good and evil. Puritans constantly scrutinized their lives to determine the state of their souls and looked for signs of the nature of their relationship with God. The spiritual autobiography usually follows a common pattern. The narrator sins ignores Go’s warnings, hardness his heart to god, repents as a result of God’s grace and mercy, experiences a soul wrenching conversion and achieves salvation. The writer emphasizes his former sinfulness as a way of glorifying God. The deeper his sinfulness, the greater God’s grace and mercy in electing to save him. He reviews his life from the new perspective his conversion has given and writer of the present and the future with  a deep sense of God’s presence in his life and in the world. Here we also find the touch of spiritual autobiography.
Crusoe throughout uses religious language, imagery and biblical references Crusoe narrates in his life story long afterwards and from a Christian perspective he looks at his pat through the eyes of the convert who now constantly sees the working of providence, he tells of his first shipwreck and of his then ignoring what he now perceives as God’s warning. “ … Providence as in such cases generally it does resolved to leave me entirely without excuse. For if I would not take this for a deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened wretch among us would confess both the danger and the mercy”. And he found “the secret hints and notices of danger. After his dream and beginning of his regeneration, Defoe reviews his life and his understanding and sense of God deepen. But reason alone is not sufficient to result. In conversion and Crusoe twins to the Bible, studying it reveals God’s word and will to him, and he finds comfort, guidance, and instruction in it for the first time in many years he prays, and he prays, not for rescue from the island, but for the God’s help.
“Lord be my help, for I am in great distress..”
After thinking about his life, he kneels to God for the first time in his life and prays to God to fulfill his promise “that if I called upon him in the day of trouble, he would deliver me” His next step towards conversion is asking for God’s grace, “ Jesus, Thou son of David, Jesus, Though exalted prince and savior, give me repentance!” He comes to realize that spiritual deliverance from sin is more important than physical deliverance from the islan. A little later, when he is about to thank God for bringing him to the island and so saving him, he stoops, shocked at himself and the hypocrisy of such  statement. Then he “sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever afflicting providence, to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my wickness and repent.” This incident indicates that Crusoe’s faith is fervent and honest.
In short we can say that Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” is a great religious allegory this shows the inner of Crusoe and portrays the puritan drama of the soul. This follows the pattern of “sin---punishment---redeem---solvation.’

 

Works cited:

http://www.josbd.com
http://www.bachelorandmaster.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paper-1 sem-1 assignmen

to evaluate my assignment click here
Name: Joshi Riddhi
Topic: Hamlet v/s Haider
Roll no: 37
Paper no 1: The Renaissance Literature
M.A: Sem-1
Enrolment no. : 2069108420180028
Year: 2017-19
E-mail: Www.riddhij8@gmail.com
Submitted to:
S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

 

Plot of Hamlet:

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.
Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.
A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once.
Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death.
In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.
The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge.
At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.

Hamlet V/S Haidar:

Two years ago to the day, the world erupted with joy celebrating 450 years of entertainment courtesy our favourite media mogul. You know the man who launched a 1,000 movies, books, plays, ads, websites, graphic novels, games, actors, writers — William Shakespeare.
The Globe Theatre embarked on an ambitious project on April 23, 2014. The Globe to Globe Hamlet took Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy on a two-year tour to perform in 205 countries around the world culminating with a performance at the Globe Theatre on April 23, 2016 marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Globe to Globe Hamlet was performed at Bengaluru’s Ranga Shankara last October. With 12 actors, including Nigerian Ladi Emeruwa playing Hamlet, the play at two hours and 40 minutes moved at a rapid pace. The iconic lines and scenes were all there. The elegance of iambic pentameter cascading down the stage reiterated the beauty of the Bard. If Hamlet felt like a rather self obsessed young man that worked too, as isn’t ironic narcissism the default setting of the modern age?
October 2014 also saw the release of the third of Vishal Bharadwaj’s movies inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedies, Haider. To say the movie is inspired by Hamlet would not convey the splendour and subtlety of the adaptation. There are the obvious similarities — Haider for Hamlet or Pervez for Polonius and Liyaqat for Laertes. Or the energetic, angsty ‘Bismil’ being the Mouse trap. There is even a grave digger song, Haider meditating on life and death with a skull and the famous ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy as ‘Main rahoon ki main nahin.’
Set in the insurgency-torn Kashmir of 1995, the film tells the story of an idealistic youngster Haider, who returns home from Aligarh Muslim University (not Wittenberg), to find his father missing and his mother, Ghazala, consorting with his uncle, Khurram, a lawyer with political ambitions.
Haider makes two major departures from Shakespeare — both dealing with the women in Hamlet/Haider’s life. By choosing to combine Hamlet’s best friend, Horatio and love Ophelia in Arshia and making her a journalist playing an active role in Haider’s life, Bharadwaj has made her a woman of substance. Eschewing the Nunnery scene however, detracted from the poignancy of Arshia’s suicide even while the unravelling red wool presented a powerful symbol of things falling apart.
The other change, the more radical one, is looking at the tragedy from Ghazala/Gertrude’s eyes. The Shakespearean Gertrude always seemed rather vapid. Ghazala on the other hand (played by a luminescent Tabu) is a conflicted character. She respects her husband, is attracted to Khurram and worries about her son. She wants to do the right thing by her family. She tells Khurram about her husband operating on a militant not knowing that he is an informer. It is the wrong deed for the right reasons and results in a chain of events that ends in blood and tears. Finally, it is Ghazala who convinces Haider about the futility of revenge.
Two characters that Hamlet junkies (like yours truly) would relish and enjoy are the Salmans and Roohdaar. Calling Haider’s childhood buddies Salmans recalls the interchangeable Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The extraordinary conversation Haider has with them where he elaborates on chutzpah is deliciously wicked. Haider’s ruthless slaying of the two when he realises they have betrayed him reveals how far gone he is.
Roohdaar, played with extraordinary stillness and strength by Irrfan Khan (with the most amazing guitar riff for theme) is a play on the ghost. Rooh means soul or spirit in Urdu.
He is the one who tells Haider that his uncle, Khurram, betrayed his father. But like Hamlet’s ghost, Haider doesn’t know if Roohdaar is telling the truth or trying to brainwash him into becoming an outlaw.
Haider, like the best of Shakespeare, is this perfect package — a complex thriller, a tender love story, a historical document backed by amazing cinematography, music acting and writing. Watching any of the many adaptations of Hamlet or reading the loaded lines confirms that increase of appetite grows by what it is fed on.

 

Thread of Oedipuse complex’ binds Haidar and Hamlet:

It is not just the two letters ‘H’ and ‘A’ that are common between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Vishal Bhardwaj‘s much-talked about film ‘Haider’ nor is the fact that the famous lines ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark‘ is equally applicable to the state of Kashmir. Haider deals with the problems of terrorism in the troubled state but I personally did not go to watch the film for that. terrorism has not been dealt with earlier in Hindi cinema and even better than what Vishal has done. It is the central theme of the film the ‘Oedipus complex‘ ( the forbidden love between a mother and a son) that bind together the play and the film.
‘Oedipus’ to the uninitiated was introduced in literature by the ancient playwright Sophocles when he wrote the Oedipus Tyrranus a story of a tragic hero who is forced to sleep with his mother through a set of circumstances that was unknown to him and out of his control.
But ‘Oedipus Complex’ was used for the first time for Hamlet in 1910 when Ernest Jones, a contemporary of Freud came out with his theory in the American Journal of Psychology. He argues that even though Claudius , the usurper of the throne of Denmark by killing King Hamlet his son Prince Hamlet was prevaricating in taking revenge because secretly he wanted no one between him and his mother Gertrude. At the same time Hamlet was jealous of Claudius for marrying Gertrude. His various soliloquies in the play support this.
There’s no mistaking this thread through the film. There is a war going on between the terrorists and the militia and Vishal has been accused of siding with the terrorists by lobbyists. But they forget that the film ends with the note ‘Inteqam se sirf Inteqam milta hai. Inteqam is bahar nikloge tabhi Azadi milegi.’
And the fact that Haider throws away his gun even when his arch enemy his uncle is lying injured and unarmed before him in the last scene proves that Vishal is with the pacifists.

The most engrossing parts of the film are those between The mother played so sincerely by Tabu, and Shahid:
When Tabu marries K K Menon, her son Shahid stages a play which shows the entire audience how the two had betrayed his father, he decides to take his revenge.
In an honest conversation both of them talk about their childhood days and she asks him” Do you remember you did not like even your father to touch me and slept between the two of us at night” to which replies ” Yes and just imagine how I will tolerate his brother touching you? Why did you remarry so soon after his death.”
And even if there is some ambiguity, it is the stand of Gertrude in Hamlet, there is an honest admission about the secret desires of Tabu who has to pretend to be the silent suffering mother. In the Kashmir of Vishal Bhardwaj the wives of ten missing citizens are called Half widows till the time their bodies are discovered. In a scene Tabu’s face is blowing with joy as she tells K K once his body is discovered, I will become a full widow and them we can marry. It is another kind of Azadi for her and several like her in the troubled valley.
And just as Ophelia in Hamlet has no place in his life, in ‘Haider’ the lovely and refreshing Shradha Kapoor has no place in the scheme of things.
In ‘Haider’ Vishal Bhrdwaj draws from ‘Hamlet’:
The Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj has made his name by adapting Shakespear into film, using the plays to reflect the violence and vicissitudes of modern India. “Maqbool,” an adaptation of “Macbeth,” was set in the Mumbai underworld; “Omkara” transported “Othello” to the feudal badlands of northern India. His latest effort, a loose adaptation of “Hamlet” called “Haider” that takes place in Kashmir during the turbulent 1990s, has become one of the most acclaimed and contentious Bollywood movies of the year.
The film, which opened on Oct. 2, sparked a fierce reaction from Hindu nationalists, many of whom called for a boycott on social media. Kashmir remains a sensitive subject in the Indian subcontinent, a disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan.
“Any movie that sympathizes with terrorists, glorifies them; insults Indian Army & justifies ethnic cleansing, goes to the bin. BoycottHaider,” one tweet read. The boycott campaign’s Facebook page included a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That was not an accident: The election of the conservative Mr. Modi this year has emboldened Indians who advocate a muscular, unapologetic nationalism.
Most journalists in India, meanwhile, gave the movie a rapturous reception. The columnist Mukul Kesavan, writing in the Kolkata Telegraph, said its “great achievement is to bring Kashmir out of the closet.” The Mint newspaper termed it an “immensely effective reimagination of Shakespeare.”

Rachel Saltz, writing in The New York Times, said the film “grafts its source story less convincingly to its setting” than Mr. Bhardwaj’s previous efforts but does provide “the occasional sharp reminder of how cinematically he can construct Shakespearean moments.”
The movie’s portrait of conflict-ridden Kashmir is radical by the standards of Bollywood. Avoiding nationalist rhetoric, “Haider” portrays the tragic human cost of the conflict and its nether world of disappearances, military torture and extra-judicial killings.
“When we saw the final edit, we prayed the movie would make it through the censor,” said the journalist Basharat Peer, who helped write the script. Censors cleared “Haider” after 41 cuts. (Mr. Bhardwaj says he made 35 of those cuts “voluntarily” for narrative purposes.)
Even as “Haider” enters its fourth week in theaters, the controversy surrounding it shows little sign of abating. It has been banned in Pakistan, where the censors claimed — surprisingly for a movie that casts a negative light on the Indian state — that “Haider” was “against the ideology of Pakistan.”
The Hindu Front for Justice, a group of rightist lawyers, petitioned India’s Allahabad High Court to seek a similar outcome in India, arguing that “Haider” was against the “national interest.” Mr. Bhardwaj and Mr. Peer have until Nov. 15 to reply. A ban would mean little, with the movie likely to complete its theatrical run in India by mid-November.
“Haider” had its origins last year, when Mr. Bhardwaj was looking to conclude a trilogy of movies based on Shakespearean tragedies. He happened upon “Curfewed Night” by Mr. Peer, a memoir of growing up in Kashmir amid the conflict, and realized his search had ended. “The stories in the book gripped me,” he said. A few weeks later, Mr. Bhardwaj met Mr. Peer in New Delhi. They began a collaboration on the screenplay, combining Mr. Bhardwaj’s knowledge of Shakespeare with Mr. Peer’s journalistic realism.

Mr. Peer was an unusual choice for a Bollywood screenwriter. Bollywood movies are, for the most part, loud rambunctious affairs, far removed from Mr. Peer’s literary sphere. Mr. Peer had his reservations too. “I knew Vishal as an accomplished filmmaker, but I did not know much about his politics.”
Bollywood has, for the most part, not been kind to Kashmir. In the years before conflict erupted in the late 1980s, it served as little more than a tourist backdrop for romantic dance numbers. In recent years, the region has been portrayed through a nationalist prism, often as a sinister haven seething with terrorists.
Yet Mr. Peer said that he felt that this project could chart a new direction. “When I told Vishal the basic premise, he had no problems with it,” he said. “I felt this is already a big start. Nobody in Mumbai, nobody in the last 25 years in the film industry, had even come close.”
Mr. Peer and Mr. Bhardwaj prepared in their own ways. Mr. Bhardwaj, who had never visited Kashmir, made several trips. “I wanted to see it from the inside,” he said.
On a trip to New York, Mr. Peer, who had never worked on a screenplay, left the Strand Bookstore with a bag of scripts, including “The Battle of Algiers” and “The Road to Guantanamo.” “I set about reading them like an earnest graduate student,” he said.
Mr. Bhardwaj said he and Mr. Peer “immediately clicked as writers.” Mr. Peer wove in tales from his experience covering the decades-long conflict in Kashmir: stories of boatmen who retrieve bodies from the Jhelum River and of heroic doctors tortured for not denying treatment to militants.
In perhaps the most chilling scene of the movie, a truck full of bodies arrives at a morgue and, as onlookers examine the grisly scene, a boy jumps from the bloodstained pile, dazed to discover he is still alive. “I was taking material from stories I had reported on and grafting them onto Shakespeare,” Mr. Peer said.
Autobiographical elements from Mr. Peer’s life seeped into the narrative. Like Mr. Peer, Haider is sent away by his parents to Aligarh, a university town in north India, to shelter him from the violence overtaking Kashmir. The movie’s plot is set in motion when he returns to his homeland to search for his father, who has been abducted by the military.
Through Haider’s search, the movie plunges into a looking-glass world, where lies and deception are common, and the government has abandoned human rights and the rule of law to crush the armed insurgency.
During an interview with Mr. Peer at a cafe in New Delhi, he checked his Twitter account almost continuously; dozens of tweets were pouring in every minute. It was mostly strong praise or vile abuse.
“I’m not apologetic, or scared, or afraid,” said Mr. Peer, who has faced these situations several times for his journalistic work. “I’m proud of a lot of stories and moments in this film. Within the limits of Bollywood, we pushed things as far as we could.”
Mr. Bhardwaj, who was preparing to take “Haider” to the Rome Film Festival at the time of this interview, spoke with the relief of someone who had survived despite flying too close to the sun. “I like to fire the shots from Shakespeare’s shoulders,” he said. “That gives me a lot of license.”

 

Works Cited:
http://indiaopines.com
http://www.thehindu.com
http://blogs.tribune.com
https://www.nytimes.com

 

 

 

 

 

Paper-4 sem-1 assignment

to evaluate my assignment click here
Name: Joshi Riddhi
Topic: Social, Political and Religious Background in Kanthapura
Roll no: 37
Paper no 4: Indian Writing in English
M.A: Sem-1
Enrolment no. : 2069108420180028
Year: 2017-19
E-mail: Www.riddhij8@gmail.com
Submitted to:
S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

 

 

 

 

 

Raja Rao:-

"I write to you, at the hour of dusk, the auspicious hour, because it is non-dual, and therefore transcendent: the moment when the day and night do not meet, but leave a depth of silence, and so the edge of sound, lingering towards its origins. It's a noble hour because it affirms the unnameable." --Raja Rao, 1988With his profound and innovative fiction, Raja Rao has enabled modern readers of English to experience the spiritual depths of Indian culture. All of his works involve a search for the fundamental reality in life, which has led him to an investigation of the very nature of writing. For Raja Rao, writing is a sadhana, a spiritual discipline whose goal is the realization of Truth itself. Words become mantras, powerful syllables whose sound and meaning can move the reader toward that goal by giving them experiences of it.
Within India and influential circles in the West, Raja Rao's reputation has been great. The audience for his work comprises general readers, readers around the world who are interested in India, and Indian readers. His writing is the voice of an ancient, insightful culture that speaks to the modern world."I am a proud Indian. It is my karma that has destined me to live more than half my life outside this Punyabhumi. India indeed is the land of the ultimate value. The Truth. Hence we can believe and shout Satyameva Jayate." --Raja Rao, 1998 According to R. Parthasarathy, poet, translator, critic, editor, and Director of the Program in Asian Studies at Skidmore College in New York,          "Rao is one of the most innovative novelists now writing. Departing boldly from the European tradition of the novel, he has indigenized it in the process of assimilating material from the Indian literary tradition. He has put the novel to uses to which it had not perhaps been put before by exploring the metaphysical basis of writing itself; of, in fact, the word. ... As a writer, Rao's concern is with the human condition rather than with a particular nation or ethnic group. ... The house of fiction that Rao has built is founded on the metaphysical and linguistic speculations of the Indians. It is to the masters of fiction in our time, such as Proust and Joyce, that we must ultimately turn for a writer of comparable stature."

The Raja Rao Publication Project is working to make all of Raja Rao's writings, especially those still unpublished, available to readers around the world who are interested in his fiction and thought. The task of the project is to organize, edit, and secure publication for Raja Rao's unpublished novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and correspondence.

 

Kanthapura :-

Raja Rao’s first novel Kanthapura (1938) is the story of a village in south India named Kanthapura. The novel is narrated in the form of a ‘sthalapurana’ by an old woman of the village, Achakka. Kanthapura is a traditional caste ridden Indian village which is away from all modern ways of living. Dominant castes like Brahmins are privileged to get the best region of the village whereas Sudras, Pariahs are marginalized. The village is believed to have protected by a local deity called Kenchamma. Though casteist,  the village has got a long nourished traditions of festivals in which all castes interact and the villagers are united.

                       The main character of the novel Moorthy is a Brahmin who discovered a half buried ‘linga’ from the village and installed it. A temple is built there, which later became the centre point of the village life. All ceremonies and festivals are celebrated within the temple premises.
Hari-Kathas, a traditional form of storytelling, was practiced in the village. Hari-Kathas are stories of Hari(God). One Hari-Katha man, Jayaramachar, narrated a Hari Katha based on Gandhi and his ideals. The narrator was arrested because of the political propaganda instilled in the story.

                     The novel begins its course of action when Moorthy leaves for the city where he got familiar with Gandhian philosophy through pamphlets and other literatures. He followed Gandhi in letter and spirit. He wore home spun khaddar. Discarded foreign clothes and fought against untouchability. This turned the village priest, a Brahmin, against him who complained to the swami who was a supporter of foreign government and Moorthy was ex-communicated.  Heartbroken to hear it, his mother Narasamma passed away.

                    Bade Khan was a police officer, a non hindu of Kanthapura. He was brought and supported by the coffee planters who were Englishmen. Considered as an outsider, Bade khan is an enemy of the people who refuses to provide shelter to him.
After the death of his mother, Moorthy started living with an educated widow Rangamma, who took part in India’s struggle for freedom. Moorthy was invited by Brahmin clerks at Skeffington coffee estate to create an awareness among the coolies of the estate. When Moorthy turned up, Bade Khan hit him and the pariah coolies stood with Moorthy.  Though he succeeded in following Gandhian non violence principle, the incident made him sad and unhappy. 

                 Rachanna and family were thrown out of the estate because of their role in beating Bade Khane. Meanwhile, Moorthy continued his fight against injustice and social inequality and became a staunchest ally of Gandhi. Taking the responsibility of the violent actions happened at the estate; Moorthy went on a three day long fasting and came out victorious and morally elated.Following the footsteps of Gandhi, a unit of the congress committee was formed in Kanthapura. Gowada, Rangamma, Rachanna and seenu were elected as the office bearers of the committee and they avowed to follow Gandhi’s teachings.
Fearing the greater mobility of people of Kanthapura under the leadership of Moorthy, the foreign government accused him of provoking people to inflict violence it and arrested him. Though Rangamma and Rachanna were willing to release him on bail, he refused. He was punished for three months rigorous imprisonment.

             While Moorthy spent his days in prison, the women of Kanthapura took charge of the struggle for freedom. They formed Women’s Volunteer Corps under the leadership of Rangamma who instilled patriotism among the women by presenting thr historical figures like Laxmi Bai of thansi, rajput princess, Sarojini Naidu etc... Moorthy was released later and he came out as strong as he was. People thronged at his house were dispersed peacefully.

            Dandi March, Picketting of Boranna’s toddy grove were other activities led by Moorthy after his release. Arrest of the satyagrhis, and police brutality to women became a part of the everyday life of the people in Kanthapura. Atrocities against women added miseries of the people. In the last part o the novel, it is mentioned that people of the village were settled in Kashipur and Kanthapura was occupied by people from Bombay.

 

(1)Political culture:

                       Raja Rao’s Kanthapura gives a glimpse of the Indian struggle for independence in a rural part of India. The novel portrayed against ‘British domination’. In novel ,
          “Nation is visualised in term of a temple; Kenchamma.”

Gandhi becomes a Puranic personal Rao turns even Gandhi into myth ,a major deviation is introduced within the structure of the novel.

“When Gandhiji is released from the prison, he likens the ever to Rama’s return from exile.”

        In above example, we find the political reality into cultural consciousness of tradition ,  race and people . Gandhi becomes ‘saviour’  not political leader.
        Politics get spiritualized – India’s most important political leaders and social reformers have all been great religious figure and social and political ends have been attained in the guise of religion.
        All activities of political things relevant to the Gandhian thought are introduced in this excellent hallowed the venue – Kenchemma Temple.Gandhism :
             Moorthy, like Gandhi does not make any distinction between offensive violence and defensive violence. The significant approach to Gandhian politics- half poetical, half whimsical the novel. Rao greatly influenced by Gandhian ideology:

“Nothing  is politically right which is morally wrong.”

            The theme of Gandhian theory also apply because in Kanthapura its concern with the impact of Gandhi on religious, social-economic and political life of a quiet and obscure
village of south India.

“Gandhi is alone stood as politician with his virtue and being good man.”

Kanthapura is the brilliant example of such voice of negation confronting the patriarchal convention.
At the end of the novel reflects the entire society’s transform Gandhian socialism to Nehruvian internationalism. However as the novel rightly captures the common, illiterate folk chose to stay with Gandhi.
According to C.D. Narasimahaiah :
“Kanthapura is no political novel any more than is Gandhi’s Movement a mere political Movement. Gandhi’s leadership; its religious character , its economic and social concerns, its political ideals. For Kanthapura is India in microcosm.”
        Sometime, there is only illusion of great political party, freedom fighters and must have its virtue though. Something can’t happen in movement through non-violence. He creates idealism and colonization in the society.
“Gandhi had a great deal of respect for the British administration of justice.”
        The Gandhian approach would have stood vindicated only if the members of the ruling British community had come to side with Moorthy in its fight. Moorthy preaches Gandhian philosophies of non-violence love of mankind, abolition of untouchability Moorthy says...
“There is something of the silent communication of the ancient books.”

        Gandhi thrust is on having faith in the enemy. However , in this novel ,Raja Rao doesn’t go into the details of socialism and does not think over the questions. In Kanthapura , there is also conflict between Gandhian fighters and the British police.

But Gandhian idealism is that,
“War without violence and battle without hatred.”
Gandhian concept:
“Good ends can be achieved only by good means.”

                Shifting from Gandhism to Nehruism and it is here that same critics raise question and it is on the integrity of Rao as Gandhian thought both Gandhi and Nehru have same destination.
Example:
Question arises another that namely-
“Which political philosophy does Raja Rao posit his belief in?”
The answer is given by Ratna to Moorthy :
“Ratna says things must change. The youths here say they will change it. Jawaharlal Will change it.”
        Gandhian impact has played a crucial role in shaping the nation. Raja Rao’s English is known for its simplicity and directness can be termed as the English of the Gandhian epoch.
“Moorthy is to Gandhi as Hanuman is to Ram.”

 

( 2)   Social culture :

                   Kanthapura has a oral structure of the play. And the time of the play is-‘Pre-independent’. The culture description always classified or compared to other.
        Reading this novel, at all levels social, political and religious and ideological that ultimately subsides giving way to the urge for a free nation.
        In Kanthapura, we find cruel hierarchical mind set of the people and time when it was written. Whole village stratified and hierarchical on the basis of caste, creed and religion. The we find the caste structure of the society like..
Brahmin street, Pariah quarter, Weavers colony, Potter’s community.
        There is dormant pattern to the treatment of castes and communities of Kanthapura. Kanthapura – the tiny village representative of any other village in south-India.
        WE find different social culture in this novel because there are social  conflict like....
1) The conflict between upper caste and lower class.
2) The internal  conflict versus Master and slave relation.
3) The effect from the rulers and the ruled.
People-who are rigid to follow the rules and regulation in the name of tradition, they never accept the one identity to forget first their caste or community.
There is also question that...
“What happens to their old identity that they are defined by their castes and   hierarchies in society when they begin identifying-themselves with nation?”
Example:
        Brahmin hear  Gandhi  Talking  of   Mixing  of castes  they offer  a-strong resistance  because they find their  old identities being consumed  the  melting pot of nationalism.         Novel reveals the sensibility of Raja Rao in his dealing with the issue of identities. 
“It may be easy to overcome One`s
Caste, consciousness is really
Difficult”

        Idea of identity as defined through Sanathana dharma and Varnasram. The beautiful example of how
One oppression an relieve another oppression. Here, three types of oppression deeply embedded in social culture.
1.  The oppression of India by the British.
2.  The oppression of lower caste by the upper class.
3.  The oppression of Women by men.
           British rule in India was blessing or disguise? 

        In society, we bind condition of Dalit and Women.  Raja Rao`s –Kanthapura with a view to find out how women are oppressed by men and how the British rule helps women and Dalit get freedom from the age-old conventions.
“Education made a difference in the caste constructed society of India.”
        In novel, Raja Rao might have drawn inspiration for his fictional character Rangamma from Rama.
“Mother or shakti is the symbol of power-the power to create and the power to destroy.”

        It is not a question of equality of rights and the privileges between men and women but it is a question of women’s awareness of self in relation to social and political set up in society.
Example:
Moorthy, who is ex-communicated from his community for his close association with the Dalits , is given shelter by Rangamma
“People who belong to upper caste who happens to play major roles in the committee.”
        Writer, depicts the truth with ardent reality, Rao does not compromise to unveil the harsh conditions women of this country existed in.Raja Rao projects the complexity of life in India by presenting the caste problem and suppression of women in his novel Kanthapura. The Indian Flora Fauna Figure either to illustrate a person or to highlight a problem.
        There are many social ceremonies and their rits or rituals to follow by women like.....
“Hair-cutting, Rice-eating, Marriage and death anniversary, natural touch and living force.

                Symbolically, oral tradition of story –telling-itself suggest that the element of narration from lower class and lesser educated person and maintains this characteristic of tradition.
        Kanthapura is a microcosm of the Indian society with division of people into castes, untouchability, poverty, exploitation by foreign rulers and ruthless tyranny at their hands.
        Rao’s elaboration of the prevalent social structure, their faith and their ignorance, their preference and their superstitious prepare a soil fit for national waking.
        It is noticeable that creative writers of each-era concentrate on the socio-political and culture dimensions of their time. India is known for its hierarchical power structure and its power of impact on people is clearly visualised by writer to his readers.
“Indianness, as  a way of life, as a culture.”
So, as above discussion, we can say that...
“A culture profile of the Indian society shows that its upper strata are more English than the English.”
        In Kanthapura, somewhere we also find the colonialism. And colonialism means...
“Psychological and cultural resistance to the idea of colonialism.”
        Society has to re-examine their personal, political, spiritual and cultural values and through them Rao frequently contrasts. Indian philosophy and spiritualism with western society’s emphasis on dualism and rationalism.

(  3)  Religious background:

                     The Indian sensibility finds further expression in the use of myth and rituals. The central myth of Kanthapura is Rama-Sita-Ravan which is used to illustrate the fight between Mahatma Gandhi and the British.
Example:
-        If Gandhi is Rama, Jawaharlal Nehru is Bharata.
               Religion was indeed a bigger defining force during that period. Because people are blindly the followers of religion and never thinking with logic.
“Culture was broadly define within the paradigmatic framework of religious systems and beliefs.”
        How we see the dignity and status of on epic or purana. It is in this way that Gandhian Movement when gradually, play develops the religious point of view turns into political view. So, Microcosm of Macrocosm of the novel- Kanthapura by  Raja Rao.

There are two kinds appropriations:
  1) Religious-issue of swaraj and Nation the tradition of the country such as ‘Harikatha’.
  2) History such as Indian National Movement and brings it to the fold of the religious tradition of India.

Myths are principally Morality tales and therefore what is mythical is also essentially Moral.
“It is often important not to remember the past objectively, clearly or in its entirety.”

        Religion is an integral part of culture has been for secular and political purpose such as attaining Independence-significance role to play in defining the identity of people and also of the nation.
“Nothing is beyond the Nation and Religion”
Nation and provided them to ultimate answers to their both sacred and profane questions.
        In novel, Every things and aspects have religious line like.

Examples:
      Kenchamma- deity of the novel ,the mother of river Himavathi
      Gandhi- invisible God as Rama
      Moorthy- incarnation ( visible Avtar)
      Red man- British
All above represents as mythically in novel Kanthapura.

Moorthy the staunch follower of Gandhi as some ‘ Bhakta’ follows the particular sect or Dharma. He is the spiritual guide , friend and philosopher of the people of Kanthapura.
“Spirituality is better than religion.”
                As above discussion, we can say that the writer of the novel- Kanthapura, Raja Rao gives its to exploit the traditional mythological novel like our epic- Ramayana and Mahabharata.
                Kanthapura concerns with the epic Ramayana and encompasses mythological and legendary stories, folk-tales and fairy tales. Readers notice turmoil at all levels social, political and religious and ideological that ultimately subsides giving way to urge for a free nation.
                As the story progresses the three threads of experience tend to be one. The religious , social and political issues become one and the same at the end of the novel.

 

Conclusion:-

The novel starts with simple narration by an old woman about one of the village in India, later it evolves to entire India. The narration starts as tale is told to children by their grandmother as it is the Indian tradition. Raja Rao has combined the myth and Gandhian Movement very harmoniously, he use Hindu epic myth for authentication of his work by putting myth in novel he easily achieved his goal. Not only the use of myth makes it popular but, his intellectual power, his imaginative power, his ability to use and utilize the Indian words, and it’s his knowledge of Indian culture and people.

 

Works cited:

http://ashavala.blogspot.in. n.d.
http://krutikazala201315.blogspot.in. n.d.
http://www.slideshare.net/meghatrivedi6/kanthapura. n.d.