Looking back at 2015!

With the year coming to a close, I realise 2015 had been the most amazing year for me, be it in the field of academics or on the personal front. Thinking over it again and again, I fail to recollect a particular year in the past which had brought with it so much happiness and excitement.

To begin with, academically, securing a first class in Masters is a difficult task to accomplish. But by God's grace, I have been extremely lucky. The gold medal does matter a lot to me. It’s not just a medal, it's something which would carry me on through the testing times of my life, through the darkest hours. Egged on by our college professors, it was the first time I tried my hands at writing a thesis for the departmental student seminar along with my friends, Ananya and Anupama. Working one’s fingers to the bone, nothing matters more than the appreciation and love you receive in the end.

Moving over, the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet, 2015 was the first of its kind, where I had the opportunity to meet some eminent authors like Mr. Sandip Roy, Mr. Devdan Chaudhuri, Mr. Abhijit Gupta, Ms. Renu Balakrishnan as well as others. Although I couldn't attend all the sessions, but it was a pleasure to hear them speak about their own works, including what goes into the making of a particular piece of writing and how the publisher-author association is crucial for a work to become a bestseller.

The number of seminars that I have attended this year, made me realise that I love to hear people speak – speak about themselves, their personal experiences, their works, about everything. Was extremely honoured to be a part of an interactive session organized by Shri Shikshayatan College in collaboration with American Center, where the honourable panellists were Ms. Freida Lee Mock, the Academy Award winning director of ‘Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision’, and Melissa Silverstein,  the founder of the website ‘Women in Hollywood’. Apart from that, I feel extremely blessed to be a part of an interactive session organised by our college with Mr. Kaushik Sen, the eminent theatrician and actor. It was, indeed, a privilege to be invited along with a few friends and teachers for the practice session of Swapna Sandhani’s play, ‘Antigone’.

 Well well, how can I forget the International Kolkata Book Fair, 2015! Going back after a long time, I didn't know Boi-Mela was in a mood to surprise me. 

On a personal note, I got to learn the ropes of blogging this very year. Until September, I was completely ignorant of what blogging is all about. But the blogging workshop conducted by Kolkata Bloggers, in association with the U.S. Consulate unfurled a new vista for me. Not only did I get to meet some wonderful people, but was a bit taken aback to find the person I admire sitting there. On a different note, I feel extremely privileged to be a part of the Kolkata Bloggers team for the Bangla Sahityo Utshob at Oxford Book Store, Park Street.

To end with, with a dear friend’s marriage close at hand, the approaching year seems interesting. But I’m quite filled with trepidation, since some revelations too, are round the corner. Let’s see what 2016 has in store for me. Till then, good-bye and a very happy new year to all of you.

Analysing Aijaz Ahmad's essay 'ORIENTALISM AND AFTER: AMBIVALENCE AND METROPOLITAN LOCATION IN THE WORK OF EDWARD SAID'

Portraying the prejudice of the western scholars, Edward Said’s ‘ORIENTALISM’ challenges those who deliberately write in stereotyped ways about the ‘East’ in order to construct an imaginary ‘Other’. According to Said, it was the widely drawn distinction between ‘rational West’ and ‘irrational East’ that paved the way for the dominance of the U.S. over the Arab world in the post-war period. Apart from generating wide-spread interest, Said’s views on Orientalism also gave rise to vehement criticism from various fronts.

In the opinion of Aijaz Ahmad, many of Said's theoretical and political problems arise from his determination to uphold the absolutely contradictory traditions, which Ahmad refers as 'Auerbachian High Humanism'. He considers ‘ORIENTALISM’ to be a “deeply flawed book”, since Said is mum about the ideas of colonialism and post-colonialism there.

Aijaz Ahmad in his essay ‘ORIENTALISM AND AFTER: AMBIVALENCE AND METROPOLITAN LOCATION IN THE WORK OF EDWARD SAID’ states that the particular texture of Orientalism, its "will to portray a West which has been same from the dawn of history to the present and its will to traverse all the main languages of Europe", derives from the ambition to write a counter-history that could be posed against Auerbach's MIMESIS, a magisterial account of the seamless genesis of European realism and rationalism from the Greek antiquity to the modernist movement. Ahmad suggests that class, gender, ethnicity and religion had been at work in every society, both European and non-European. But what gave European forms of prejudice their special force in history was not 'some trans-historical process of ontological obsession and falsity', but the 'power of colonial capitalism' which then gave rise to other sort of powers.

According to Ahmad, throughout ORIENTALISM, Said fails to decide whether he considers orientalism to be merely a product of a system of representations, in the post-modernist sense attached to it by Derrida and Foucault, or a system of mis-representation, wilfully produced by the West.

Said mentioned 2 Greek playwrights in the context of defining the qualities of the Orient. They are Aeschylus' THE PERSIANS and Euripides' THE BACCHAE. To quote Said,

"A line is drawn between two continents; Europe is powerful and articulate, Asia is defeated and distant..." It is Europe that articulates the Orient.

Said talked about eighteenth century as the starting point of Orientalism, as a construct; but Ahmad asks, " If there really is only this seamless and incremental history of orientalist discourse from Aeschylus to Dante to Marx to Bernard Lewis, then in what sense would one take 18th century as the roughly defined starting point?"  The West rather needed to constitute the Orient as Other, to make an Identity-through-Difference. The Third World takes birth in the natural course: a product of "identity through difference". As an Other it can try to emulate the superior, but will never succeed. This Third World might produce Third World literature which would be treated as marginal, non-canonical texts counterposed against Europe. The third world literature is a broad term having no boundaries of class, caste, time or culture.

In an essay entitled THIRD WORLD INTELLECTUALS AND METROPOLITAN CULTURE, Said recommends that non-western writers be seriously taken by the western readers. But the main argument rests on a rather strange distinction between the colonial or post-colonial intellectuals. Aijaz Ahmad protests against Said's generalised view that " Resistance to imperialism does not, of course, only involve armed force or band of guerillas. It is mainly allied with nationalism and with an aroused sense of aggrieved religious, cultural or existential identity..." Said says in its pantheon are renowned prophets and priests like Gandhi and a phallanx of nationalist writers like Tagore,  W.B. Yeats, Pablo Neruda as well as other renowned figures. But Ahmad argues, "Gandhi's appearance here in the category of prophets and priests is odd."

In the essay SECULAR CRITICISM, Said made a comment which later became the introduction to his book 'THE WORLD, THE TEXT AND THE CRITIC'. He wrote, "I am an undeclared Marxist afraid of losing respectability..."

According to Said, the net effect of 'doing' Marxist criticism or writing at the present time is, of course, to declare the political preference and to put oneself outside a great deal of things going outside the world, so to speak, in other kinds of criticism. Ahmad concludes this essay by refuting the aforesaid view of Said, "Said's warning which is also a self-warning – that a choice for Marxism entails putting outside a great deal of things, points towards a possible inventory of renunciation". Ahmad says that it is a pity that Said never takes stock of what "Marxism might have made possible nor what one actually loses when one puts oneself inside too many things".

Ahmad says that having access to a great deal of things always gives one "a sense of opulence, mastery, reach, choice, freedom..." But he says that resolution of the kind of "ambivalences and self-cancelling procedures which beset Said's thought require that same positions be vacated, some choices be made, some of these great deal of things be renounced".

Thus the argument of Said's view on orientalism is not an eternal order, but a peculiar predicament where one questions, can one really hope for a de-orientalisation of discourses and world order?

Satire in the guise of a Travelogue in Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver Travels'

Travel writing was one of the popular literary genres of the eighteenth century. The numerous scientific explorations during this period were motivated by the ambition to venture into unknown territories. In ‘Idler No.97’, Samuel Johnson had diagnosed a natural curiosity “to learn the sentiments, manners and condition of the rest” among the people of his age.

In ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships’, better known as ‘Gulliver’s Travels’,  the Irish writer Jonathan Swift overlays satire and parody upon the frame of travel-writing as he intends to document Captain Lemuel Gulliver’s journeys beyond the known world. A letter from Captain Gulliver to his publisher and cousin, Mr. Sympson and the latter’s reply in the preface serves to reinforce the illusion of reality portrayed in the text as well as to detach Swift’s authorial voice from that of his protagonist. Captain Gulliver claims to publish only at the urge of Mr. Sympson and asserts that he is no longer interested in reforming his countrymen. Yet the narrative, in treating several scientific, political and philosophical issues, clearly is a satire – whose very purpose is ‘reform’.

In order to convey his satire, Jonathan Swift makes Gulliver take on four adventures.

Gulliver’s first trip takes him to the 'Land of Liliputs', where he comes in touch with people just six inches in height. The institutions there seem utopic to him. “There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar”, says Gulliver.  But a soon as Swift turns to describe the politics in the land of the Liliputs, it ceases to be a utopia. “We labour”, says Gulliver’s informant, “under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home and the danger of an invasion by a most potent enemy from abroad.” In the land of the Liliputs, there are two struggling parties, the Tramecksan and the Slamecksan, distinguished by the heels of their shoes. They typify the High Church and the Low Church parties, satiric of the Tories and Whigs of England. The potent enemy of the Liliputs are the inhabitants of the island of Blefuscu, which typifies France engaged in a struggle with its neighbour for long.  Portraying the Emperor of the Liliputs, Golbasto Momaren Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue as an English Whig, Jonathan Swift says that he was “determined to make use of only Low Heels in the administration of the Government.”

During the time when the second voyage was written, ‘the Voyage to Brobdingnag’, the country of the Giants, Swift was trying to find a positive way out of the world of the pygmies, of the contradictions inherent in aristocratic world. In Brobdingnag , according to Gulliver, “The Learning of this People is very defective, consisting only in Morality, History, Poetry and Mathematicks, wherein they must be allowed to excel.” Recounting an incident, Gulliver says, he was petrified to find beggars thronging the streets and calls it “the most horrible spectacle that ever an European eye beheld.” No doubt, the description was inspired from the beggars of Dublin in Ireland which left an indelible mark on Swift’s psyche, and regarding which Swift had much to say in his sermons and pamphlets.

In the third voyage, ‘A Voyage to Laputa’, Jonathan Swift ridicules the philosophers and scientists of his time. The activities in the Academy of Lagado, which is a caricature of the Royal Society, reminds us of the doubtful value of much of what passes as science. The flying island, ‘the King’s Demesn’, in its devious and sensitive oblique movements, presents before us the relationship between the king and his countrymen in a satirical manner. Further, the relationship of the greater and lesser magnets, Laputa and Balnibarbi, suggests the limited usefulness of that understanding of the laws of the universe upon which the Newtonian era so prided itself. Moreover, in the portrayal of the Struldbrugs, Swift satirizes the human longing for immortality. 

Part 4 of Gulliver’s Travels contains some of the most corrosive and offensive satire on mankind. in this part, ‘A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms’, the Yahoos are the representative of human nature.  Described as abominable and despicable, the satire intensifies when Gulliver gives an account of the events and happenings of his own country to his master Houyhnhnm – about war, corruption and deadly ambitions. In return, the master Houyhnhnm divulges to Gulliver the way of life and habits of the Yahoos, their weakness for glittering stones, their gluttony and weakness for liquor. In contrast, the houyhnhnms ( the name means ‘Perfection of Nature’) or the horses are excellent beings whose grand principle is to cultivate reason and be wholly governed by it. Thus, Swift satirises the entire human race by attributing the houyhnhnms certain qualities expected from humans, but are actually wanting. The comic function of the houyhnhnms is to assault pride in men through shock, humiliation, insult, and most importantly, burlesquian laughter.

Northorp Frye in ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ points out that ‘Gulliver’s Travels' is written within the conventions of a Menippean satire which includes, free play of intellectual fancy, digressive narrative and use of dialogue for the interplay of ideas.

Thus in the guise of a travel-book, Swift used satirical methods perfected in his earlier literary works to create a masterpiece.

What is Power? What is Glory? - In the context of Graham Greene's novel 'The Power and the Glory'

Like Lawrence and other disillusioned travellers, Graham Greene was shocked by the sharp contrast between the promising image and the grim reality of Mexico during his travels. ‘The Power and the Glory’ by Graham Greene portrays Eliot’s vision of a “cactus land”, peopled by souls who are lost, who find themselves surrounded by shattered images of a forsaken faith. The novel draws a parallel with T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Hollow Men’. The hollow men wander about in a desolate landscape, trying to remember the line after “For Thine is the kingdom” in the Lord’s prayer. The phrase happens to be ‘The Power and the Glory’.

According to Shelden, “The hollow man in Greene’s novel finds that he is the last representative of God in a land, which recognizes neither His Power nor His Glory.” The images of seediness present throughout the novel presents before us a closed world of sin, suffering and death which defines and is defined by the protagonist inescapably caught in it.

‘The Power and the Glory’ is a story of a priest whose martyrdom lies in his consciousness of his own weakness, his own sin. Stripped of his vocation, the priest is an old Greene hero, isolated and bewildered. A fugitive from justice, he is aware of his own inadequacies, “O God forgive me – I am a proud, lustful, greedy man.” As the novel progresses we find that the whiskey-priest’s life becomes a series of missed opportunities, as he finds himself bound to his own callings.

The novel prepares us from the very beginning for the very transformation of the priest from a sinner to a martyr. His career is a contrast to Pinkie’s in ‘Brighton Rock’. While Pinkie descends and is brutalized, the priest ascends and is humanised. Moving in a world saturated with decay and corruption, the priest discovers the image of God. Basically, this novel is a narrative of human weaknesses triumphing over death into martyrdom, regarding which Greene has left his readers questioning and controverting.

In the opinion of T.S. Eliot, “The glory of man lies not merely in his capacity for salvation, it is true to say that his glory is his capacity for damnation.” In a similar way, the novel evokes the agonizing confusion of life in the twilight region between salvation and damnation.

                                          “Between the idea

                                                    And the reality,

                                            Between the motion

                                                    And the act

                                            Falls the shadow.”   (The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot)             

For Graham Greene, as far as the characters were concerned, the question of them being right or wrong, good or bad, was immaterial. What mattered was their capacity for damnation, to obtain the grace of God.

‘The Power and the Glory’ refers on one hand, to the tussle between “the power of the state” and “the glory of the Church”, while on other hand, it refers to the whiskey-priest, who under the most degenerating of circumstances, exercises his religious power to reach the glory that is nothing short of sainthood. The characters in Greene’s novels are not abstract ideas, but men in real life. By embracing martyrdom, the priest purifies the state of the Church in a diseased and decaying country.

After the whiskey-priest is assassinated, another priest arrives in the town, suggesting that the institution of the Catholic Church cannot be done away with – it is the Power and Glory of God which survives. It is the divine grace which works in a mysterious way and lifts souls fit for damnation, like that of the whiskey-priest, to sainthood.

Francis Bacon's 'Essays' as a sustained intellectual project to modify human behaviour.

Belonging to the sixteenth century which was essentially ‘The Age of Renaissance’, Francis Bacon wrote for the aspiring class – people who went out of their limited social codes, hegemonic concepts of social structures and power structures. His essays portray how young men can derive maximum benefits from the utilitarian subjects which he took up, be it ‘Of Travaile’, ‘Of Studies’, ‘Of Ambition’, ‘Of Envy’, ‘Of Truth’, ‘Of Beauty’, ‘Of Unity in Religion’, etc.

Bacon speaks about brevity as well as enhancing a man’s profitability out of a certain endeavour. This is evident in his essay ‘Of Studies’, “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” In his Dedication to the 1612 edition of ‘ESSAYS’, Bacon wrote that he meant his essays to be like “graynes of salte” which would rather give the readers “an appetite” than offend them “with satiety”. The precise and dramatic manner in which Francis Bacon presents a fact carries with it the weight of universal truth, sounding like a proverb. For instance, “a man that hath no virtue in himself, even envieth virtue in others.” (-Of Envy)

Pithy, precise and sharp, hallmarks of Bacon’s prose style are directness of approach, brevity and economy of expression. For Bacon, “the farthest end of knowledge” was not theoretical knowledge, he considered learning ought to be profitable to enlarge man’s control over his environment. His essays are nothing but 'counsels, civil and moral' intended to guide the readers. The essays reveal his deep understanding of human nature, a keen interesting in every subject and sharp observation.

Possessing the Renaissance practical spirit, Francis Bacon’s essays are similar to Horace’s assessment of poetry, serving the dual purpose of delight and instruction. In his essay ‘Of Revenge’, Bacon rightly points out that no man does a wrong except to desire a pleasure or profit out of it. Moreover, they are keen that “when they take revenge are desirous that the party should know whence it cometh.” Thus, even in an essay dealing with the instinctive desire for revenge, Bacon provides a highly intellectual treatment.

The tone of Bacon’s essays is one of calculating common sense, which prefers what is reasonable to what is generous. According to him, love is a source of trouble and ruin in this world, and is more fit for the theatre. He regards love as the “child of folly” which should not be allowed to interfere with the serious matters of life. He even goes on to say, “Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.” (-Of Love)

An examination of Bacon’s attitude to religion leads to the conclusion that he desired unity and advocated tolerance of all religions, as is clear from his part in the Marprelate controversy as well as in his essay, ‘Of Unity in Religion’. Bacon never preaches gospels through his essays: he describes what men do in actual life situations and not what they ought to do. “No action”, he says, “is good or bad per se.” His sole intention is to the modify human behaviour through his writings.

Francis Bacon’s essays are to be “chewed and digested” and not to be read by deputy. His inexhaustible catalogue of simile, metaphors and analogies are drawn from various sources- the Latin Vulgate, astronomy, natural sciences, history, geography, even gardening and domestic life. Bacon’s grave authorial voice is one of a serious counsellor. He doesn’t amuse us, he makes us think. Reading his essays is a cerebral exercise and requires the highest intellectual attention.

Advent of the Morality Plays in the 15th and the 16th century in Europe

Liturgical drama, confined to the church, paved the way for the plays in English, to be performed in the open and separate from the liturgy, though still religious in content. Such early plays were known as Miracle or Mystery plays.

The transition from simple liturgical drama to Morality and Mystery plays cannot be accurately dated or documented. It is believed that Miracle plays developed rapidly in the thirteenth century; there are records of cycles of Miracle plays in many regions of England during the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. With the Miracle plays still going strong, there emerged in the fourteenth century another dramatic form, essentially medieval in nature – the Morality plays. Flourishing in the fifteenth and the sixteenth century, it differed from the Miracle play by not dealing with a Biblical or pseudo-Biblical story, but with personified abstractions of virtues and vices contending for a man’s soul. The earliest complete extant Morality play is ‘The Castle of Perseverance’, written circa 1425. It begins with a conference between the World, the Flesh and the Devil (Mundus, Caro and Belyal).

Morality plays had several notable features:

a)   The hero represents Mankind or Everyman.

b)   Among other characters are personification of Virtues, Vices, Death , as well as angels and demons - who battle for the possession of the human soul.

c)  It had the presence of Seven Deadly Sins, a commonplace theme in medieval art and literature.

d)  It also had the theme of Mercy and Peace pleading for man’s soul against Truth and Righteousness, as well as the ‘Dance of Death’ focussing on Death as God’s messenger. ‘The Dance of Death’ is a dramatic rendition of the ‘ubi sunt’ theme, which figured largely in the literature of the Middle Ages.

In the fourteenth century, appeared the Paternoster drama, to reveal the triumph of virtues over vices. In the first half of the fifteenth century, appeared ‘The Castle of Perseverance’. For this production, a series of mansions called ‘scaffolds’ were constructed. In the centre stood Castle and encircling it were Scaffolds of Caro, Mundus, Belial, Covetousness and Deus. These characters were not taken from the Bible, they were all allegorically conceived. 

In the fifteenth century, two similar dramas developed – ‘Mankind’ and ‘Nature’, where there was an independent development of plot. The performers of the Morality plays were a group of amateurs. In the later years of the century, association of players with the names of their towns or districts received rewards for their services. It has been supposed that probably a privileged group of minstrels attached themselves to the houses of the gentry and engaged themselves in theatrical activities.

It was well into the sixteenth century that the Morality plays sustained. ‘Everyman’ is perhaps the best known Morality play. The play portrays Death, commanded by God, approaching Everyman. While all his companions, Fellowship, Kindred and others forsake him; in the end, only Good Deeds accompanies him to the grave. The next play, ‘Fulgens and Lucrece’, was intended for presentation by a group of amateurs in a private place. It presents a humanistic theme- a maiden Lucrece is confronted by two lovers, one is an aristocrat Publius Cornelius and the other is low-born but virtuous, Flaminius. The third play, ‘Hick Scorner’ differs from the other two. Intended as a performance by professionals, here Pity, Contemplation and Perseverance meet and lament the evils of the time. With the entrance of Freewill, Imagination and Hick Scorner, a jolly character the plot of the play comes to a happy conclusion.

However, the tradition of ‘amateur morality’ established in ‘The Castle of Perseverance’, ‘Mankind’ and ‘Nature’ continued in several directions. In the hands of some writers, it tended towards political rather than religious themes, as in John Skelton’s ‘Magnificence’. Written about 1515, it introduces a central character called Magnificence laid astray by Counterfeit, Countenance, Folly, etc. Brought to Poverty and Despair, the protagonist later embraces Good Hope and Redress.

On the other hand, Political Morality plays gave birth to Chronicle History plays. ‘Kynge Johan’ written by John Bale is a fine illustration of such type. Emphasising upon the evils of Catholicism, the dramatic characters in this play are Ynglond, Sedicion, Civil Order, Commonality, Private Wealth and Dissimulation. To make his arguments more powerful, Bale turned to English history.

Besides these, another type of morality play came into being, pleading for the advancement of learning and to promote humanistic concepts. Among them, worth mention are John Redford’s ‘Wit and Science’ and John Rastell’s ‘Nature of the Four Elements’. In ‘Wit and Science’, Wit, the central character enters with Study, Diligence and Instruction. But as Tediousness destroys his power, he is entrapped in the ensnaring provocation of Idleness, until at the very end, Shame rescues him. In Rastell’s play, ‘Nature of the Four Elements’, Science becomes the prime virtue conceived in terms of the discoveries being made by the voyagers, across the vast Atlantic Ocean.

Thus the growing popularity and diversity of the drama, the growth of a class of writers not a member of any holy order, led in the sixteenth century to the rise of a new phenomenon -  the emergence of secular professional playwrights. 

The tragic life of Henchard in Thomas Hardy's 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'

Just like Milton towers up between the Jacobean and the Restoration era, in a similar fashion Thomas Hardy stands between the Victorian and the Modern age. He combines the narrative interest of the Victorians with the artistic form and technique of the Modern age to portray a tragic vision of life in his novels. His highly pessimistic approach to life, to the futility of human existence links him with the ancient Greek tragedians as well as the Moderns.

As Mr. Guerard points out, “Hardy at his best is both traditional and modern, rudely archaic yet minutely observant, with a scriptural simplicity and a complex psychological insight.”

Tragedy, according to Aristotle, is the story of a man of high place and birth who having a nature not ignoble, has fallen into sin and pays suffering the penalty of his act. According to Aristotle, neither a villainous person nor an extremely noble man can be a tragic character. Starting off as a hay-trusser,  Michael Henchard rises to the position of the mayor of Casterbridge. But fate brings him down and he dies like a destitute on the plains of wind-swept Egdon Heath.

Hardy’s concept of tragedy is quite distinct from the religious orientation we find in Greek tragedies. He believed that human life is everywhere a state where much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed; as Elizabeth-Jane at the end of the novel realises, ‘Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain.’ “He (Hardy) is a fatalist”, says Symons. Hardy regarded Fate as the ‘Immanent Will’ which dominates all events and controls the course of life of every individual. That’s why in his works, we find a universal force in operation, opposed to the will and desire of his characters. According to Virginia Woolf, “Henchard is pitted, not against another man but against something outside himself which is opposed to men of his ambition and power.”

The Greeks considered Fate to be more or less a just power presiding over men and acting as a weapon in the hands of an even-headed Providence. But Hardy appreciated man’s continuous striving in a world full of gloom and disappointments. Henchard, one of the best and representative characters ever created, has the drive and ruthless power to master adverse situations. Although laborious, he is a remnant of the old agricultural world undergoing a change to give way to Industrialization. In a desperate bid to recapture his old position by depending on the weather-prophet’s forecast, he hoards corn. But the result is disastrous – he is ruined financially to not even a penny to his name. The citadel which he had built up with indomitable energy and frantic labour crushes in front of his eyes. Surrendering to Farfrae, his erstwhile manager and fortune’s favourite, Henchard says, “…You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is you.”

With destiny playing a trick, Henchard cannot be blamed for his impulsive nature or for anything he does, except for the crime he committed years ago in a drunken fury – selling off his wife years ago to a sailor. In the end, he is left with the dark knowledge, “…nothing to come, nothing to wait for.” He dies – a pitiable man rejected by men and Gods. Bonamy Dobree opines, “The end of tragedy is to show the dignity of man for all his helpless bitterness in the face of the universe, for all his nullity under the blotting hand of time.”

While Henchard’s dignity makes him ‘a man of character’, it is this dignity which forces him to acknowledge and accept Susan when she comes like a ghost from the dark background of his past. His is a story of pain, loneliness and struggle against Fate. Virginia Woolf observes, “In backing the old Mayor… Hardy makes us feel that we are backing human nature in an unequal contest.”

It is through Elizabeth-Jane that Hardy voiced his vision of life at the end of the novel, “…happiness is an occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” A writer of multifarious abilities, Hardy’s works speculate over the position of man in the universe. He regards human beings more as representative of a species than as individuals, in relation with the ultimate condition of existence. 

THE RESTORATION COMEDY OF MANNERS – AT A GLANCE

To a student of English literature, the chief interest for Restoration theatre lies in the ‘Comedy of Manners’. The title, ‘Comedy of Manners’- of course, is derived from manners, rather social manners representing the social follies and foibles of the age through comedy.

The Act of the Parliament which closed down theatres in 1642 on the grounds of moral corruption that the playhouse was breeding, in a way, hastened the inevitable. The Caroline drama had neither the grace of the Elizabethans nor did it echo the spirit of the age in the way Elizabethan drama did. Considered to be a mode of entertainment for the idle few, it came to be shunned by the people of good taste. But with the restoration of monarchy in 1660, Charles II travelled from France to England with his band of gallant court-wits and the theatre was re-opened with renewed vigour.

The sudden release from repression took yet another extreme form – the society and the court became full of vices, the theatre became the favourite hunting ground for all the gentlemen and ladies of the sophisticated society. It evidently gained the favour of the court but lost touch with the common people. In this artificial world of drama, flourished the ‘Comedy of Manners’. It grew out of a native tradition nurtured by Fletcher and Jonsonian ‘Humour Comedy’, tempered by the reminisces of Moliere.

The Restoration Comedy of Manners depict a highly sophisticated society where there is a prosperous leisured class whose preoccupation is not with the serious business of life, but with the superficialities, mainly the flirtation which relieves the boredom of idleness and the dialogues which build up the barren waste of time. “Beyond Hyde Park, all is a desert”, says Sir Fopling Flutter, one of the typical representatives of the society. The men and women of these plays move and talk not as they do in real life, but as they ought to do in the social order, to which they belong. In other words, that order being artificial, its representation must be equally so. According to Allardyce Nicoll, ‘Comedy of Manners’ thrives on some stock ingredients: presence of at least one pair of witty lovers, the woman as emancipated as the man, with dialogues being free and graceful. Love in these plays is a game played between two willing partners of the opposite sex without any kind of relation to emotion or feeling. The early impetus must have come from ‘The Wild Gallant’ (1663) and ‘The Secret Love’ (1667), the two plays of John Dryden.

But the first real exponent of Restoration Comedy of Manners was George Etherege. Known for his three comedies: ‘The Comical Revenge’, ‘She Would if She Could’, ‘The Man of Mode’, George Etherege was the first English dramatist to transpose Moliere’s wit, skill and delicacy to the English stage. ‘The Comical Revenge’ (1664) was a tentative effort, but ‘She Would if She Could’ (1668) evoked for the first time in shape and form, the restoration society of fine gentlemen and witty ladies through dialogues reflecting the very tones of civil conversation. ‘The Man of Mode’ (1676), on the other hand, has the breezy brilliance of epigrammatic wit in a cultured and thoughtless atmosphere. The plot is that of a love-intrigue, moving in a world where hearts are non-existent and polite manners accompanied with graceful expressions can cover up a multitude of sins.

William Wycherley, a Puritan at heart presented an already familiar world of fools and gallants involved in an eternal love-chase in his three comedies, 'Love in a Wood', 'The Gentleman Dancing Master' and 'The Country Wife', His play 'The Plain Dealer', first performed in 1676 is a sharp critique of the age apart from being brilliantly farcical. Though the play owes much to Moliere's 'Le Misanthrope'(1666), Wycherley's individual spirit still stands out. The protagonist of the play is not a libertine, but a gentleman whose very name Manly suggests his opposition to the elegant Dorimants (derived from Mr. Dorimant of Etherege's 'Man of Mode') of the time. As a dramatist, Wycherley does not stand very high in the Restoration period, but his criticism has the power of Jeremy Collier - it moves.

Comedy, in its truest interpretation, as George Meredith saw it, should hold up a mirror to its age and depict the eccentricities, the deviations from some agreed norms. But in the Restoration comedy, errors are not of a moral code, but of deviations from wit and good manners. William Congreve explored this aspect of comedy to its full potential with a brutal frankness. He would people his stage with two types of characters, the ‘wits’ and the ‘gulls’. The conclusion arrived at, is not a trial of good over evil, but of the quick-witted over the stupid. His most celebrated play, ‘The Way of the World’ does not have much of a plot, its charm lies in its chiselled dialogues. “There is not so impudent a thing in nature as the saucy look of an assured man, confident of success. The pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatic an air. Ah! I’ll never marry unless I am  first made sure of my will and pleasure”, says the heroine Millamant to her exasperated suitor Mirabel. Paradoxically, ‘The Way of the World’ was not a success when it was produced in 1700 forcing Congreve to go into a self-imposed exile.

The Comedy of Manners, however, did not completely disappear after Congreve. In the early years of the new century, it was humanised by competent practitioners like George Farquhar and John Vanbrugh. Two memorable plays by Farquhar are ‘The Recruiting Officer’(1706) and ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem’(1707). The first is a satire, a product of his own experience in the service during the war of Spanish succession, while the second one mixes sentiment with scintillating restoration wit and is compact in thought and dialogue. John Vanbrugh’s two notable comedies are ‘The Relapse’(1696) and ‘The Provoked Wife’(1697). An architect by profession, Vanbrugh is admired for attributing lively dialogues to his characters. 

Other important names associated with ‘Comedy of Manners’ are that of  Thomas Otway ('The Cheats of Scapin') and Mrs. Aphra Behn ('The Rover', 'Sir Patient Fancy', 'The Lucky Chance').

The Restoration Comedy of Manners flourished in an age ideally suited for it and its in-built capacity to entertain the audience in any urban civilised society has been witnessed in the stage-success of Richard Sheridan ('School for Scandal') and Oscar Wilde's works. 

REMOULDING OF THE CLASSICAL MYTH BY P.B. SHELLEY IN HIS ‘PROMETHEUS UNBOUND’

The tradition of revisionism, and more so, of mythic revisionism began with the advent of the myths.  With the myths being told and retold ages after ages, there was an inevitable change in the basic plot depending upon the intention and memory of each individual story-teller.

According to P.B. Shelley, the Greek tragedians, “by no means conceived themselves bound to adhere to the common interpretation or to imitate in story as in title their rivals and predecessors.” A lyrical drama in Four Acts, P.B. Shelley in his ‘PROMETHEUS UNBOUND’ exercises arbitrary discretion in adopting from the Greek myth such subject which he wished to apply. To sustain the moral interest of the fable, Shelley does not allow his Prometheus to obtain freedom by giving in to Jupiter. Instead, he makes the Titan bearing the tortures and the pain, resist and defy Jupiter. What Shelley did is, he altered the Aeschylean myth to fit with his own vision of the world. A close study of the two plays reveals Aeschylus in his 'PROMETHEUS BOUND' giving over the opening lines of his play to the business of chaining and tormenting the Titan, while Shelley begins his play “three thousand years” later, merely referring to the action as having already betid.

P.B. Shelley is interested not in the shackling, but with the unshackling of Prometheus. When Shelley declared himself “averse from… reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of mankind”, he wanted to make a crucial contrast in character between that of his protagonist and the Greek hero. In his opinion, the upholder of his ideas, his champion, should have no “taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandizement”.

All the disgrace and distress that the Aeschylean Prometheus had to endure was because he tried “stealing what belongs to the Gods”, the “choicest prize” of Zeus. But Shelley does not allow his Prometheus to make a compromise as demanded by tradition for the Greek hero. He attempts to abnegate all and any kind of reconciliation of his “Champion with the Oppressor of mankind.” The English lyric drama in four acts, however requires something that could be interposed between the the fall of Jupiter from the pinnacle and the unshackling of Prometheus. That’s why, Shelley introduces ‘Ocean’ and ‘Apollo’ in his play. The voice of the ‘Ocean’ is Shelley’s own creation and he sings hymn to celebrate the advent of a diviner day, “Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea/ Which are my realm, will heave, unstain’d with blood…”

Thus the basic difference is, while the Greek mythic hero trades his secret for his freedom and “unsay(s) his high language”, Shelley’s Prometheus prefers to keep mum and carry on with his rebellion against Jupiter. While in the Aeschylean myth, Zeus reigns in Athens without worrying about being dethroned, in the Shelley-ean saga, Prometheus is highly resolute to end the tyranny of Jupiter. Thus the story which began with the cry of the Titan, “Pain, pain ever, for ever!”, ends with the screams of Jupiter, “I sink / Down, ever, for ever, down.”- drawing a complete circle.

In one of P.B. Shelley’s Bodleian notebooks scribbled are the following lines: “One sung of thee, who left the tale untold, / Like the false dawns which perish on the bursting…”. Here, “One sung of thee” might be referring to Aeschylus , who left the tale ‘untold’ providing Shelley with the starting point of his lyric-drama and letting him re-discover the myth.

Drawing its inspiration from the French Revolution, Shelley's 'PROMETHEUS UNBOUND' calls for rebellion against all forms of oppression and tyranny, enslaving human mind and soul, thereby, limiting one’s imaginative capability. 

Conrad from a different perspective.

Widely popular for addressing the themes of nature and existence, Joseph Conrad was by profession, a mariner. Born to Polish parents in Ukraine, Joseph Conrad alias Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski is well-known for his novels like 'Heart Of  Darkness', 'Lord Jim', 'The Secret Agent', 'The Secret Sharer', 'The Nigger Of The Narcissus', etc.

Although a pioneer of symbolism, Conrad is known for the contradictory statements he made in his writings. For instace, in a letter to Cunninghame Graham he writes, "There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope", while in 'Notes on Life and Letters' we find, "It must not be supposed that I claim for the artist in fiction the freedom of moral Nihilism. I would require from him many acts of faith of which the first would be the cherishing of an undying hope."

Albert J. Guerard in his book, ‘Conrad, The Novelist’ offers a list of prominent paradoxes that one might find in Conrad’s writings. Some are:

“…A declared distrust of generous idealism – doubled by a pronounced idealism…;

…A declared fidelity to law as above the individual – doubled by a strong sense of fidelity to the individual…”

Conrad focuses mainly on death and isolation, the limited understanding and acrimony between one man and another. While in ‘Heart Of Darkness’ Kurtz dies and Marlowe gains enlightenment; in ‘Lord Jim’ Jim is murdered by the natives he had tried to help out; whereas in ‘The Secret Agent’ we find Winnie drowning herself after stabbing her husband.

The loneliness and the seclusion depicted in Joseph Conrad’s works is not merely the physical isolation which individuals face on ships surrounded by the endless sea or in outposts encompassed by dense jungle, it is the loneliness which occurs within crowds or within marriages, when egotism seeps in.

Since he left his motherland at an early age, Conrad was sensitive to the idea that he could be regarded as a betrayer, hence his works have a strong fixation with loyalty and betrayal - what is loyalty for one could be betrayal for another. When Jim jumps from the ship PATNA,

 believing it is going to sink and later experiences humiliation because of his act, he strives for redemption by toiling in a far-away land. Gustav Morf in ‘The Polish Heritage Of Joseph Conrad’ has speculated that Conrad was trying to sublimate his feelings of guilt by portraying such an incident in his novel 'Lord Jim'.

In a letter to Cunninghame Graham, Conrad had mentioned, “Fraternity means nothing unless the Cain-Abel business… Man is a wicked animal. His wickedness has to be organised… Society is essentially criminal - otherwise it would not exist…”

Conrad is however, not entirely consistent with his pronouncement of distrust of human nature. There is a simultaneous sense that society holds in check the ever-present tendencies to disruption. Joseph Conrad was original with his criticism of imperialism and the rivalry between various industrialized nations. He believed that man is fallible and corruptible and that civilized men are not likely to be any better than the so-called inferior masses. It was ‘one-man imperialism’ which caught his interest and his works are a proof of the same.

An early modernist, Conrad dealt with the exploration of the inner consciousness while focusing on the outer world view and his narrative technique had cast an influence on many authors including T.S.Eliot, Graham Greene, even Salman Rushdie in recent times.

Gendered Economy in Christina Rossetti’s 'Goblin Market'

The Victorian female had always been perceived as an egoless, domestic “angel” in the service of the male. Christina Rossetti tries to captivate her readers with a critical yet conflicting assessment of Victorian economics as well as sexual politics in her poem, ‘GOBLIN MARKET’ (1862). Like other female writers of the nineteenth century, Rossetti believed in the inherent redemptive power of women. Highly influenced by Florence Nightingale whose brave service during the Crimean war made her an a-typical Victorian woman, Rossetti modelled her protagonist Lizzie as a strong, resolute woman who in order to protect her sister Laura could submit herself to a metaphorical rape, “They trod and hustled her / Elbowed and jostled her / Clawed with their nails…” When Laura becomes the fallen woman after partaking the forbidden fruit from the goblins and becomes Eve-like, Lizzie becomes Christ-like in presenting herself to Laura as a kind of a Eucharist, “Eat me, drink me, love me.”

The poem begins with the goblins inviting people to buy their wares, “Morning and evening/ Maids heard the goblins cry/ ‘Come buy our orchard fruits/ Come buy, come buy’…” But exchange in GOBLIN MARKET is the province of the goblins, not of maidens. Indeed the two sisters, Lizzie and Laura seem to know instinctively that, “We must not look at goblin men, / We must not buy their fruits…” Yet Laura feels attracted to the goblins’ world of exchange. Her powerlessness in bargaining with the goblins when she fails to pay in cash, “You have much gold upon your head / They answered all together/ ‘Buy from us with a golden curl’…”, and her final giving up to the goblins’ demands suggest what a woman really lacks is a privileged term of gender. 

On the other hand, Lizzie’s “having to do” with the goblin men is particularly to save her sister Laura, whose “tree of life drooped from the root” having yielded to the eroticism offered by the goblins. Lizzie embodies a spiritual, sisterly love as illuminated by the Christian typology when The Son of God offered himself, “Take, eat this is my Body which is given for you… Drink ye all of these for this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for you.”

     Lizzie ventures “by the brook” at “twilight” with the intent of buying and carrying away from the goblin men the fruits that would alleviate her sister’s fatal condition. Although the goblins try to force her to “sit down and feast” with them on “…apples / Russet and dun, / Bob at our cherries, Bite at our peaches, / Citrons and dates …”, Lizzie arms herself from the goblins’ pushy advances by having “put a silver penny in her purse” before her entry into their glen, unlike Laura.

     The goblins’ cataloguing of their various commodities, a ‘spectacle de la marchandise’ provides a synesthetic pleasure with the iterated jingle, “Come buy, come buy: / Apples and quinces / Lemons and oranges… Come buy, come buy…”  Their calls are, “Sweet to tongue and sound to eye.” They demonstrate something of a razzmatazz or a mass-consumer desire through the process of advertising. While it was not until 1937 the term ‘ jingle’ got publicised as a genre of product advertisement, the goblins (and Rossetti) show a zealous understanding of how hype is the be-all and end-all in a consumer capitalist economy.

     According to Richard Menke, Lizzie’s acquisition of the silver penny is “the central mystery of the poem”. The trope of the silver penny has moral, religious and economic value in the Christian context, in the 'Parable Of The Lost Coin' found in the New Testament:

    “Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost. Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of angels of God over one sinner repenting.”  (Luke 15:8-10)

    What Lizzie arms herself with, then, might in fact be the knowledge of, and more so, the faith in redemption which the parable epitomizes or exemplifies. The silver penny affords Lizzie the ability to not only resist the goblin men’s advances but also allows her to fend off any kind of sexual assault. However, the text cites Lizzie as “Tender Lizzie”, characterising her on one hand, as “kind, loving, gentle”, - the traits of an ideal Victorian woman; while on the other hand, ‘tender’ also implies currency prescribed by the law as that in which transactions may be made. Bourgeoised in two ways, Lizzie becomes both the feminine ideal as well as the very material of capitalist exchange in the end.

     GOBLIN MARKET is a tale of a woman’s survival in a world led by market economy where, “the market offers itself to women and girls as a stage for the production of themselves as public beings… on particularly unfavourable terms.”