LEAR – EDWARD BOND

 

LEAR – EDWARD BOND

 

            Edward bond was born on July 18, 1934, to working class parents in Holloway, a North London Suburb in England.  Bond’s education was interrupted by the war and he left school at fifteen.  He served two years in the British army.  However, he began writing plays in his early twenties.  For Bond violence is an integral part of the society.  So, violence is inevitable in his plays.  As it is very easy to subordinate justice to power, he is against power politics, irrespective of the left or right.  As Bond is a socialist he always stresses the need for awareness and action in his plays. 

A writer’s originality is often best seen in his individual variation on a traditional theme.  That was how Nahum State (1652-1715) reshaped Shakespeare’s Lear with a happy ending.  When Samuel Johnson defended the poetic justice of Tate’s adaptation, Joseph Addison protested at the mutilation of Shakespeare.  Bond’s ‘Lear’ is also a rewrite of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’.  This is not for entertainment but to make people question their society and themselves to bring about a change in society.  Bond has designed this play with a three-act structure.  Act I shows a world dominated by myth.  Act II shows the clash between myth and reality, between superstitious men and the autonomous world.  Act III shows a resolution of this in the world they prove real by dying in it.

            In the opening scene King Lear is observing the progress of the wall that he builds to keep his enemies out of his Kingdom.  Two workers carry a dead man along with a worker who caused the man’s death.  Lear shoots the worker on considering the unnecessary delay of the building of the wall on his causing the death.  His daughters Bodice and Fontanelle object to Lear’s violence and reveal their plan of marrying Lear’s enemies, the Duke of North and the Duke of Cornwall.  They believe their marriages will bring peace.  But, Lear rejects the plan and believes that only the wall can protect his people from his enemies.  Bodice and Fontenalle join with husbands after marriage and decide to attack Lear.  Lord Warrington, who is loyal to Lear says that both Bodice and Fontenalle separately asks him to betray Lear and then the other one.  Lear prepares for war.  Bodice and Fonenelle even plan to kill their husbands as they are not up to their expectations.

            Though Bodice and Fontenelle have won in the battle with their father, they can’t kill their husbands.  Lear escapes but Warrington is arrested.  His tongue is cut and he is deafened by Bodice’s needle that has been poked into his ears.  The crippled Warrington follows Lear with a knife to kill him.  Lear is saved by the Gravedigger’s boy.  He asks him to stay with him and with his wife Cordelia.  Warrington visits the boy’s house and attacks Lear.  A sergeant and the soldiers find the body of Warrington in the well of the boy.  The soldiers kill the boy, rape Cordelia and kill the pigs of the boy.  The carpenter comes and kills the soldiers and save Cordelia.  Lear is taken to Bodice and Fontenelle.  They present him before the judge and say that he is mad.  When he behaves like a tortured animal in a cage, on seeing him in a mirror, he is imprisoned.  Bodice and Fontenelle talk about the civil war that is led by Cordelia.

            Gravedigger’s boy’s ghost appears in front of Lear.  When Lear asks the ghost to bring him his daughters, the apparitions of Bodice and Fontenelle appear as young girls.  They sit on his knees and talk but leave him soon.  The ghost stays with Lear.  The Dukes of North and Cornwall are kept in cells and a death warrant of Lear is also signed.  As Bodice needs more soldiers, he stops the pulling down of the wall and takes all the workers take all the workers to be used as soldiers.  But, Cordelia’s soldiers win and release the prisoners.  Lear says that he only wants to live to find the ghost and help him.  Fontenelle is also brought as a prisoner.  The ghost arrives but it is very weak then.  At the carpenter’s command, a soldier shoots Fontenelle.  A medical doctor, who is also a prisoner, performs an autopsy on Fontenelle.  Lear is awed by the beauty of the inside of her beauty, in contrast to her cruelty and hatred when Fontenelle was alive.

            Bodice is also brought as a prisoner and sentenced to death.  The soldiers stab her with a bayonet three times.  Cordelia, who has become the carpenter’s wife, decides not to kill Lear.  But, by using a ‘scientific device’, the doctor removes Lear’s eyes.  In horrible pain, Lear leaves the prison with the ghost.  Thus he becomes blind.  Lear meets a family of a farmer near the wall.  Their son is about to join the army of Cordelia.  Then he goes to the boy’s house and lives there with Thomas Susan and John.  He also gives shelter to the deserters from Cordelia’s wall.  Hundreds of people assemble to hear the speech of Lear.  Lear’s old councilor accuses Lear for hiding deserters.  He also advises him not to speak against Cordelia and the wall.  Lear complains that he is still a prisoner and there is a wall everywhere.  As the well is poisoned, the ghost takes Lear to a spring to drink in the woods.

Cordelia and the carpenter meet Lear and say that her government is creating a better way of life.  So, she asks Lear to stop working against her.  When Lear asks Cordelia to pull the wall down, she says the kingdom will be attacked by enemies if she does.  This was what Lear said when he had power.  The ghost wants to speak to Cordelia but it can’t.  Cordelia leaves Lear after giving him a warning.  Unless he stops talking against her, he will be put on trial. This shows the moral development of Lear.  Actually, Lear’s blindness is a dramatic metaphor for insight.  Unfortunately the ghost is gored to death by the pigs that have gone mad.  Lear reaches the wall with the help of Susan and starts to dig it up.  The farmer’s son, who is a soldier now, shoots Lear.  Lear’s body is left alone on stage at the end, when the workers on the wall move away from the body at their officer’s command.  But, one of them looks back.  So, it is to be understood that Lear’s death will not be forgotten.  It gives hope for the future.

 

EDWARD BOND’S ‘LEAR’ – A PLAY OF VIOLENCE

 

‘Lear’ is a three act play by the British dramatist, Edward Bond (born 1934-).  His plays often depicting scenes of violence aroused much controversy. His play, ‘Saved’ (1965) caused sensation because of its having a scene depicting the stoning to death of a baby. So, it was the subject of a court of action because of its violence and blasphemy.  When Edward Bond was a child, during the bombings on London in 1940 and 1944, he had to evacuate to the countryside.  This early exposure to the violence and terror of war might have shaped themes in his work.  Apart from this, the violence that he witnessed in the later years like the assassination of Martin Luther king and Robert Kennedy might have strengthened his view. Edward Bond’s ‘Lear’ is a rewrite of Shakespeare’s King Lear.  By creating a politically effective piece from a similar story, he was more likely to cause people to question their society and themselves, rather than simply to have an uplifting aesthetic experience.  Thus, his plays are not meant merely to entertain but to help to bring about a change in society. 

In Bond’s play, Lear is a paranoid, autocrat, building a wall to keep out imagined ‘enemies’.  His daughters Bodice and Fontanelle rebel against him, causing a bloody war.  Lear becomes their prisoner and goes on a journey of self-revelation.  He is blinded and haunted by the ghost of a grave digger’s boy, whose kindness towards the old king led to his murder.  Eventually, Lear makes a gesture toward dismantling the wall he began.  This gesture leads to his death.  The play also features a character called Cordelia, wife of the murdered grave digger’s boy who becomes at the end a dictator herself.  Thus, power poisons everyone who touches it in ‘Lear’.  So, it is an extravagantly horrific parable on corruption by power.  ‘Lear’ has been called the most violent drama ever staged.  That is why in his preface to Lear, Bond states, ‘I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners’.  For Bond, violence is an integral part of contemporary society.  So, writing about modern culture means writing about violence. 

Lear begins and ends with violence.  In the first scene, Lear shoots a worker who has accidentally caused another worker’s death.  In the last scene, a soldier shoots and kills Lear.  In between, there are numerous acts of brutality.  Warrington, who is loyal to Lear is captured and brutally tortured under the direction of Lear’s daughters when they first rebel against their father.  Warrington’s tongue is cut out, he is tortured and knitting needles are shoved into his ears.  The innocent gravedigger’s boy is shot and his wife Cordelia is raped.  Even the ghost of the gravedigger’s boy has a second death.  Fontanelle is shot and Bodice is gored by soldiers.  Numerous minor characters also die violent deaths.

Apart from the violence, there are scenes depicting graphic gore.  The autopsy of Fontanelle and the blinding of Lear are among the most horrifying scenes in recent literature.  A medical doctor who is also a prisoner performs an autopsy on Fontanelle.  Using a ‘scientific device’,  the same doctor removes Lear’s eyes.  Bond actually uses the violence in ‘Lear’ to highlight the violence of modern society.  Because, he was profoundly influenced by the World War II and the Nazi’s concentration camps.  So, his interest is not simply in the violence itself.  It is also in the circumstances that provoke such savagery in both reality and fiction.

Most of the violence in ‘Lear’ is directly related to the desire for power.  When the first worker is shot in Act I, the audience immediately realizes a connection between Lear’s power and the violence that has repeatedly been used in the formation of his regime.  His daughters Bodice and Fontanelle who are horrified by Lear’s violence, revolt against their father.  But, when they get power, they are every bit as violent as he.  We all expect Cordelia, who was one of the most oppressed masses, to govern without violence.  But, once in power, she is as ruthless as Lear and his daughters.  Although the rulers change, their policies of governing through violence remain the same.  The very structure of this society is violent.  It is Bond’s intention that the audience sees the violence of Lear’s society as a reflection of its own.  

Moreover, Bond’s effective use of Epic theatre and alienation methods in Lear forces the audience to use their intellect rather than their emotions in considering the themes and actions of the play.  Edward Bond finds fault with the behavior of those who prove illiterate in their understanding of societal needs.  As such life becomes a cyclic pattern with one form of tyranny replaced by another.

 

LEAR’S TRANSFORMATION

 

Lear is the play’s title character.  The action revolves largely around his growth as an individual.  When he first appears on stage, he is a cruel king, who is building a wall around his Kingdom to protect his people.  Actually, he fears the Dukes of North and Cornwall as he has killed their parents.  But, he rejects the proposals of his daughters who decide to marry the Dukes of North and Cornwall and bringing them into their family to avoid rivalry with them.  When Lear sees two workers carry a dead man, he orders the firing squad officer to shoot the worker who accidentally caused the man’s death.  When the firing squad is not quick enough, Lear himself shoots the man.  These all make Bodice and Fontanelle turn against their father.  They declare Lear is not well and is a bit unhinged.  They also join their husbands and attack the wall before it is finished.

When his daughters’ revolution succeeds, Lear flees to the countryside.  There he meets the gravedigger’s boy, who generously feeds him and gives him sanctuary.  Lear actually witnesses human ability to forgive when the boy tells him about the king who caused so much suffering for the workers building his wall and yet allows the king to stay with him.  Lear’s education in suffering is continued when he sees the boy killed, his wife raped and their livestock killed.  Lear happens to see pain outside of him.  Then when he is in prison, the gravedigger’s boy’s ghost appears to him and on his request brings him his daughters as young children.  The apparitions sit next to Lear with their heads on his knees and he strokes their hair and says, ‘My daughters have been murdered and these monsters have taken their place”.  Thus, Lear is moving towards the moral maturity and realizing the needs to practice compassion, responsibility and action.

However, when Cordelia gets power, what happened to Lear on his daughters getting power, happen to Bodice and Fontanelle.  With Fontanelle’s autopsy, Lear’s responsibility becomes even clearer to him.  He opens his eyes and sees the damage for which he is responsible.  Unfortunately at this point, when he begins to see, Lear is blinded.  The blinding of Lear is also metaphoric.  In literature blindness is often associated with greater insight.  As with the legend of Oedipus, who unwillingly killed his father, married his mother, and upon learning what he had done, blinded himself.  Similarly, Lear is blinded just as he begins to realize his own responsibility for the pain of others.  Thus, Lear’s blinding occurs at the moment when he gains full realization of his life’s atrocities.

However, the blind Lear is released and meets the farmer, his wife and his son.  Lear now realizes that he has harmed not only isolated individuals but all his society truly sees their suffering and longs to end it.  He begins to live among the people and endangers his own life by offering sanctuary to all who need it and by speaking out against Cordelia’s regime.  Lear’s last act is his attempt to tear down the wall, a futile attempt that fail and he dies in this symbolic act.  Here Lear decides to destroy not only the physical wall that he has built but the metaphoric was that he has built between himself and others.  He is killed by the farmer’s son.  Violence and evil still reign.  Yet, in Lear’s transformation and virtuous final act, an example for positive change that has been presented.

------Thulasidharan V

 

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN – JOHN ROBERT FOWLES

 

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN - JOHN ROBERT FOWLES

            John Robert Fowles, one of the greatest novelists of international stature, was born on March 31, 1926, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England.  As he grew up in the English suburban culture, his early life was intensely conventional.  After the education from the University of Edinburgh, Fowles had two years military service.  However, he realized in 1947 that military life was not fit for him.  Then he spent four years in Oxford.  Having had several teaching jobs, he served as English department Head at St. Gordic College, London. Though Fowles never identified himself as an existentialist, the writings of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus motivated him to develop a feeling that the world was absurd.

NEW HISTORICISM

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZc_8c2L1zg&t=6s

NEW HISTORICISM

 

The term ‘New Historicism’ was coined by the American critic Stephen Greenblatt (b:1943) in his book ‘Renaissance Self fashioning: from more to Shakespeare’ (1980).  New historicism is a method of literary criticism that emphasizes the history of the text by relating it to the configurations of power, society or ideology in a given time.  Though there were many critics in the 1970s with the same tendencies, this book challenged conservative critical views about Jacobean theatre and linked the plays much more closely with the political events of their era than previous critics done.  Actually, historicism is a theory in which history is seen as a standard of value or a determinant of events.  But, New Historicism is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non literary texts, usually of the same historical period.  It practices a study in which literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform and interrogate each other.  It involves an intensified willingness to read all the textual traces of the past.  It has a combined interest on both the ‘Textuality of History’ and the ‘Historicity of the Texts’.

The practice of giving ‘equal weighting’ to literary and non-literary material is the first and major difference between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ historicism.  A new historical essay will place the literary text with in the form of non-literary text.  Greenblatt’s main innovation was to juxtapose the plays of the Renaissance period with the horrifying colonialist policies pursued by all the major European powers of the Era.  Through ‘The Modernist Shakespeare’ of Hugh Grady, he draws allegation to ‘the marginalization and dehumanizing of suppressed others’, by starting an essay with the analysis of a contemporary historical document which overlaps in some way with the subject matter of the plays.  Thus, new historicism accepts Derrida’s deconstructive reading.  Whatever is represented in a text is thereby remade.  Thus its aim is not to present the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re-situating it.

As an example of ‘old’ historicism, we may consider E.M.W Tillyard’s, ‘The Elizabethan World Picture’(1943) and Shakespeare’s History plays (1944), where conservative mental attitude of Elizabethan and their outlooks reflected in Shakespeare’s plays are taken into considerations.  Here the traditional approach to Shakespeare is characterized by the combination of the historical framework with, the practice of ‘close reading’.  But, the New Historicism is resolutely anti-establishment, always on the side of liberal ideals of personal freedom and accepting and celebrating all forms of difference and ‘deviance’.   It is powerful enough to penetrate the most intimate areas of personal life.  New historicism deals with power struggles with a social system, how it affects people and also how they rebel against it.  ‘The Tempest’ is the play full of such struggles between Caliban and Prospero.  Prospero accuses Caliban of being ungrateful for all that he has taught and given.  So, he calls him a lying slave, where as Caliban sees Prospero and Miranda as imperialists who took control of his island.  Thus, according to the New Historicists ‘The Tempest’ is about colonization and freedom apart from forgiveness.  In this way, the New Historicism opens up new dimension for the reader.  The goal of new historicists is to comprehend literature through its historical and cultural context while analysing the cultural and intellectual history portrayed by the literature.

            Though the New Historicism is founded upon post-structuralist thinking, it avoids the latter’s dense style and vocabulary.  Instead it presents its data and draws its conclusions.  The data is also allowed to be interpreted.  The material itself is often distinctive and fascinating.  It is totally different from those produced by any other critical approach and immediately gives the reader the feeling that the new territory is being entered.  The political edge of the new historicist is sharp and at the same time it avoids the problems faced by the Marxist criticism and helps them to have a critical enquiry of their own and thereby enrich the process of defining, classifying and evaluating the works of literature.  In this way the past is no doubt revived for the utility of the present.  Moreover, cultural materialism is actually one of the major anthropological perspectives for analysing human societies.  But, the key difference between New Historicism and cultural materialism is that New Historicism focuses on the oppression in the society that has to be overcome in order to achieve change, where as cultural materialism focuses on how that change is brought about.  Though the methods of New Historicism are not greatly valued or admired by historians, its approach is a way of ‘doing’ history which has a strong appeal for non-historians.

------Thulasidharan V

 

 

           

THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX – CLEANTH BROOKS

 

THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX – CLEANTH BROOKS

 

            Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) is an eminent American teacher and critic.  His ‘Modern poetry and tradition’ (1939) and ‘The Well-Wrought Urn: studies in the structure of poetry’ (1947), were important in establishing the new criticism that stressed close reading and structural analysis of literature.  He made an impact on the critics of his time through his critical pronouncements that were helpful to establish suggestiveness in poetry.  He is of the opinion that the statements and images in a poem are in an organic relationships, with a part qualifying and adding meaning to the other.  So, a conscious effort is made by the poet to convey the precise meaning through the use of poetic language where words attain diverse meanings.  The referential language is incapable of representing the specific message of the poet.  So, the uses of ambiguity and paradox become inevitable.  As the language of the poetry is different from the language of science in the poet’s language, connotations play a great part as denotations.

            ‘The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of poetry’ is a collection of eleven essays and ‘The Language of Paradox’ is the first essay of this collection.  The essay begins with the statement ‘Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of Paradox’.  This happens because all consider Paradox as a mere figure of speech and fail to notice the effectiveness of this literary device.  ‘Paradox’ literarily means the assertion of the unification of opposites.  When a poet can neither present his experiences as a statement nor as an abstraction like a scientist, he uses paradox.  Here, the poet can unify the complexities of human experiences into one whole to represent the manifestation of a total experience.  Thus Paradox becomes ‘appropriate and inevitable to poetry’.  In order to ascertain his assertion, Brooks analyses several poems minutely to conclude that paradox is one of the common and a necessary structural properties contained in poetry.

            Brooks analyses how paradox works in Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’

            Never did sun more beautifully steep

            In his first splendour, valley, rock or hill…..

The paradoxical situation is depicted in the usual unattractive noisy, smoky industrial city of London and the splendour of the morning in the smokeless air.  These lives present the contrast between the mechanical and dull life of London and the freshness and glory of the morning images.  Wordsworth is shocked and amazed at the paradoxical picture of London.  Under the impression of death, the city acquires the organic life of nature.

            According to Brooks the use of paradox rests on wonder in Romantic poetry but in Neo-classics it depends on irony.  To prove this he quotes a stanza from Alexander Pope’s poem, ‘An Essay on man: Epistle II’

            Created half to rise, and half to fall;

            Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

            Sole Judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;

            The Glory, Jest, and riddles of the world.

Pope describes the pathetic condition of Man here.  Though Man considers himself the best of God’s creation, he meekly surrenders to everything he controls, and becomes a slave of all that he possesses.  Man claims to be the judge of truth, but commits errors.  Among God’s creation, man is the glory, joke and puzzle that the world has ever seen.

            Brooks is also of the opinion that paradox is a central device in metaphysical poetry.  Here he talks about John Donne’s ‘The Canonization’ where the title contains a metaphor in the form of a paradox.  Donne treats the profane love of the two lovers to be the divine love of a pair of hermits, who have renounced worldly desires and pleasures. The two lovers consider their body a hermitage.  They sacrifice everything for the sake of love and they are regarded as saints.  The comparison is carried on till the end of the poem.  Even the lovers are compared to the phoenix that rises from its ashes.  Moreover, the lovers realize that the Well Wrought Urn, ‘a pretty room’ that would hold the lover’s ashes would not be considered insignificant when compared to the ‘half acre tomb of Prince.  Moreover, he says that Donne marvellously maintains the simultaneous duality and singleness of love and the double and contrary meanings of ‘die’, that’s both sexual union and literal death in this poem.  In this way conveying several meanings with the right depth and emotion is impossible in any language without the help of paradox. 

According to Brooks the urn that holds the ashes of the phoenix as well as the ashes of the phoenix lovers is the poem itself.  He is also of the opinion that the very urn is similar to Keat’s ‘urn’ that contains truth and beauty.  Thus, an analysis of paradox in a work of art will draw inferences either to reconcile the opposites or to harmonize them.  So, he says that paradox is essential to the structure of a poem and also claims that the language of poetry is the language of paradox.

-------Thulasidharan V

 

MARXIST CRITICISM

 

Marxist Criticism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29aJYf7Q9z8&t=3s

Marxist Criticism extended 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjKhs10_BB4&t=11s

MARXIST CRITICISM

 

Karl Marx (1818-1883) a German Philosopher and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) a German sociologist were the joint founders of Marxism.  They themselves called their economic theories ‘Communism’.  They designated their belief in the state ownership of industry, transport etc rather than private ownership.  They announced the advent of communism in their jointly written ‘Communist Manifesto’ of 1848.  As Marxism is a materialist philosophy, it looks for concrete, scientific, logical explanations of the world of observable fact.  It doesn’t believe in the existence of a spiritual world ‘elsewhere’.  The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.  Though they did not put forward any comprehensive theory of literature, Marxism stresses that a writer’s social class and its prevailing ‘ideology’ have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class.

In 1905, Lenin argued that literature must become an instrument of the party.  So, experimentation was banned then.  So, there were two streams, ‘Engelsian’ stream that stressed the necessary freedom of art and the ‘Leninist’ stream that insisted an art that committed to the political cause of the Left.  In 1920s and 1930s ‘Engelsian’ which was also called ‘Russian Formalism’ flourished.  The most prominent members of the group were Victor Shklovsky and Boris Eichenbaum.  The familiar world appear new to the common man through Shklovsky’s idea of ‘defamiliarization’.

The French Marxist thinker Louis Althusser (1918-1990) developed the Marxist approach through the introduction of various concepts like 'Overdetermination' and 'Ideology'.  Overdetermination that borrowed from Freud refers to an effect that arises from various causes rather than from a single factor.  This concept undercuts simplistic notions of one-to-one correspondence between base and superstructure.  Ideology is another term of him.  ‘Ideology’ is a system of representations of images, myths, ideas and concepts endowed with an existence and has a historical role at the heart of a given society. It obscures social reality by naturalizing beliefs and by promoting values that support it.  The civil society spreads ideology through law, text books, religious rituals and norms so that the people imbibe them without their knowledge.

'Decentering' is the key term of Althusser to indicate structures which have no essence or focus or centre.  Art has a relative autonomy and is determined by the economic level only ‘in the last instance’. Althusser then talks about 'Interpellation', a trick where all are made to feel that they are choosing when really they have no choice. Interpellation makes us feel like a free agent when things imposed upon us. He also makes a distinction between the state power and state control. State power is mentioned as repressive structures that include the law courts, prisons, the police force and the army.  They are the external forces.  But, the power of the state is also mentioned by their internal consent.  Althusser calls them as ideological structures or state ideological apparatuses.  They are such groupings as political parties, schools, the media, the churches, the family and art that foster an ideology, a set of ideas and attitudes.  Then they feel that they are freely choosing what is in fact being imposed upon them.  This is where the writers and critics of Leninist stream focused their attention and tried to utilize literature as an instrument of the party.  Apart from Althusser Terry Eagleton, the best known British Marxist critic has also had his contributions to Marxist criticism.

The founder of Italian communist party Antonio Gramsci (1861-1934) was a politician, philosopher, and linguist.  He introduced concepts like 'Hegemony' and 'Subaltern'.  'Hegemony' is the domination of particular section of the society by the powerful classes.  Most often it works through consent rather than by power.  It is the moral and intellectual leadership of the upper class in a particular society.  The term 'Subaltern' is a collective description for a variety of different and exploited groups who lack class consciousness.  But, now it is being used to represent all marginalized sections like Dalit, women and minorities.

Marxist criticism emphasizes on class, socioeconomic status, power relations among various segments of society and the representations of those segments.  Marxist criticism is valuable because it enables readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text.

So, Marxist criticism has basically its conflict with Post-Structuralism and Post –Modernism.  Moreover, it is against Psycho analysis that isolates individuals from the social structures in which they exist.  The Marxist critics make a division between the ‘overt’ (surface) and the ‘covert’ (hidden) content of the literary work and then relate the covert subject matter of the literary work to basic Marxist themes, such as class struggle, the progression of society through various historical stages, such as the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism.  Thus, the conflicts in King Lear is made to be read as being ‘really’ about the conflict of class interest between the rising class (the bourgeoisie) and the falling class (the feudal overlords).  Moreover, they also succeed in their explaining the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the social period which ‘produced’ it.  But they never discuss the details of a specific historical situation and relate it closely to the interpretation of a particular literary text, like the critics of new Historicism and cultural materialism with an archeological spirit.

 

 -----Thulasidharan V

FEMINISM

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt01kZtxzcM&t=14s

FEMINISM

 

          Feminism is the belief in full social, economic and political equality for women.  Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over years and represented different viewpoints and aims since 19^th century.  Charles Fourier, a French philosopher is credited with having coined the word ‘feminism’ in 1837.  Depending on the historical movement, culture and country, feminists around the world have different causes and goals.  However, the feminist movements are divided into four ‘waves’ and through these movements won right to vote, legal and social equality, individuality and diversity and fight against violence against women now through ‘me too’ movement.

          The woman’s movement of the 1960 greatly influenced by Virginia Woolf’s ‘A room of one’s own (1929)’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second sex (1949)’.  The feminist literary criticism of today is the direct product of the ‘women’s movement’ of the 1960s.  The representation of women in Literature was felt to be one of the most important forms of ‘Socialization’ and ‘Conditioning’.  In 1970s Elaine Showalter coined ‘gynocriticism’.  She defined it as ‘the history, styles, themes, genres and structure of writing by women, the Psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution or laws of a female literary tradition’.

          However, there are divisions within feminism on its aims, goals methods, theories and inspirations apart from the waves of it.  The ‘Cultural feminism’ believes that the contributions of ‘female culture’ such as child care, domestic work etc have been disregarded and greatly devalued in society as the social systems have evolved with ‘Male culture’.  Liberal feminism stresses the importance of gender norms and gender socialization in the society.  Similarly Marxist feminism too argues for gender equality.  Radical feminism focuses on the violence that women suffer and fights against gender related violence. Ecofeminism believes that it is the patriarchal system that causes the oppression of both women and the environmental.  The men in power are able to take advantage of both women and the environment because they see them passive and helpless.  Post colonial feminism that emerged in the third world countries believe that they have to work for gender equality within the logic of their own cultural models.  Post-modern feminism believes that there is not one unique absolute definition for gender.  So, there is no single basis for women’s subordination and no single method of dealing with the issues.

          Apart from this, Showalter has also detected in the history of women’s writing a feminine phase that covers 1840-1880, in which women writers imitated dominant male artistic norms and aesthetic standards.  Another feminist phase in between 1880 and 1920, in which, radical and often separatist positions are maintained.  Finally, a female phase that from 1920s that looked particularly at female writing and female experience.  Yet another issue was also there concerning the existence of a language that is inherently feminine.  According to Virginia Woolf, as the language use is gendered, when a woman turns to novel writing, she finds that there is ‘no common sentence ready for her use’.  She quotes many sentences from Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot.  But, Jane Austen rejected it and instead ‘devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use.  However, Elaine Showalter in her essay, ‘Towards a feminist poetics’ advocates a new way of reading.  She stresses that women should turn to female experience as the source of an autonomous art.  The feminist criticism, free from the divided consciousness of ‘daughters’ and ‘sisters’ is to be made a permanent home.

          Feminist criticism can be divided into two varieties.  The first one is concerned with woman as a reader of male produced literature.  It is a historical grounded enquiry.  Its subjects include the images and the stereotypes of women in literature, the omissions and misconceptions about women in criticism and the exploitation and manipulation of the female audience in popular culture and film.  The second type is concerned with women as a writer.  That is with woman as the producer of literature.  Its subjects include the Psychodynamics of female creativity linguistics and the problems of female language.  This Gynocriticism is a type of criticism designed by feminists to evaluate works by women as feminist works.  It takes into consideration the circumstances in which a work of art is produced, the point of view of the author, and the motivation and attitudes of the characters.  One of the problems of feminist critique is that it is male-oriented.  If we study the stereotypes of women and the limited roles play in literary history, we are trying to learn what not women have felt and experienced, but only what men have thought women should be.  So, the task of feminist critics is to find a new language, a new way of reading that can integrate women’s intelligence and experience, their reason and their suffering.  This enterprise should not be confined to women.  Women are not only the daughters and sisters of men but also their teachers, publishers and many others.  So, all women who are also critics, poets and philosophers should also share it with them.  So, as Showalter says feminist criticism is not simply a visiting criticism, it is here to stay.

-----------Thulasidharan V

Archetypal Criticism - The Archetypes of Literature - Northrop Frye (1921-1991)

 

https://youtu.be/El381SQnQ1M

          Archetypal Criticism - The Archetypes of Literature - Northrop Frye (1921-1991)

 

Northrop Frye was born in Southern Quebec province Canada.  He studied theology and was keenly interested in Canadian literature, culture and education.  Though his critics charge him with arbitrariness in his taxonomy and catergorisation of literary works, his influence as a literary critic, theorist and educator extended worldwide.  His first book on William Blake won him fame.  In his second book, ‘Anatomy of Criticism’, he articulated the role of archetypal symbols, myths and generic conventions in creating literary meaning.

 

The word ‘Archetype’ was derived from the Greek word ‘Archetypon’, means, “beginning pattern”.  According to Frye Archetype in literary criticism refers to a recurrent image, character, plot, theme or pattern that have passed through by its repetitions in many works across the centuries.  To prove his point, Frye draws sources from different areas including Bible.  The detailed studies of primitive myths by James Frazer and Jessie Weston have also helped him.  But, the main source for Frye, perhaps, was the Psychologist Carl Jung, particularly Jung’s account of the ‘Collective Consciousness’.

 

          In defining genuine criticism, Frye says that it is connected to but different from philosophy, theology, history and the social sciences.  Knowledge of ‘archetypes’ enables us to perceive the shared myths that literary works rely on and explore.  Through this awareness, we can glimpse the underlying ‘Structure’ of the structures of all works.  Creative writers have used myths in their works and critics analyse texts for a discovery of “Mythological patterns”.  This kind of critical analysis of a text is called Archetypal Criticism.  T.S. Eliot has used mythical patterns in his creative works.  The waste land is a fine example for it.

 

          There is a type of criticism, which focuses only on an analysis of a text.  Such criticism confines itself to the text and does not give any other background information about the text.  This type of criticism is called formalistic or structural criticism.  In historical criticism the background information helps the reader to understand the text.  So, the reader needs both these criticisms to have a better understanding of the text.  Archetypal criticism is a synthesis of structural criticism and historical criticism.

 

          Owing to Jealousy, Othello, in the Shakespearean play inflicts upon himself affliction.  This is the particular truth of the drama from which the reader learns the general truth of life that Jealousy is always destructive.  This is called the inductive method of analysis under structural criticism.  Similarly, the historical inductive method that helps the reader understand the genre of drama originates from Greek religion.  So, Archetypal criticism, the combination of both these criticisms is an all inclusive one.  It involves the efforts of many specialists.  An editor analyses the text.  A rhetorician analyses the narrative pace.  A literary social historian studies the evolution of myths and rituals.  Thus, a thorough understanding of the text is possible under archetypal criticism.

 

          As a matter of fact, the world of nature is governed by rhythm and it has got a natural cycle.  The seasonal rhythms in a solar year are spring, summer, autumn and winter.  This kind of rhythm is also there in the world of animals and human beings.  Crops are planted and harvested rhythmically every year and they have their seasons.  During planting and harvest, sacrifices and offering are made which are rituals.  Actually, works of literature have their origins in such rituals and the archetypal critic discovers and explains them.

 

          A writer usually gets a concept or idea of his work in a moment of inspiration.  Then he expresses what he has ‘perceived’ in the form of proverbs, riddles and folktales.  He uses myths either deliberately or unconsciously, and it is the critic who discovers the archetypes, myths in a work.  Every myth has a central significance in a myth centre.  That may be God, Demigod, Super human or Legend.

 

          Frye classifies myths into four categories.

 

1.     The Dawn is spring and is said to be birth phase.  The birth of a hero, his revival and resurrection, his defeating the powers of darkness and death are all the happenings here.  The father and mother are the subordinate characters here.  This phase is with archetypes of comedy and rhapsodic poetry.

 

2.     The Zenith is summer and is said to be marriage or triumph phase.  Myths of Apotheosis of the sacred marriage and of entering into paradise are found in this phase.  The companion and the bride are the subordinate characters.  This phase has the archetypes of romance and pastoral poetry.

 

3.     The Sunset is autumn and is said to be the death phase.  Myths of fall, of dying God, of violent death and of sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero are found in this phase.  The traitors are the subordinate characters here.  This phase has the archetypes of tragedy and elegy.

 

4.     The darkness is winter and is said to be the desolation phase.  Myths of the triumph of these powers, myths of floods and the return of chaos and the myths of the defeat of the hero are seen in this phase.  The witch and ogre are the subordinate characters here.  This phase has the archetypes of satire.

 

These are the four categories of myths that Frye identifies in different types of works written by different writers.  Thus, Frye classifies the literary universe into four categories, corresponding to the four natural seasons: Comedy corresponds to spring; romance to summer; tragedy to autumn and satire to winter.  Apart from these Northrop Frye says that there is a quest–myth that makes the hero goes in quest of a truth or something else.  In this way a critic can analyse myths and finds how a drama, a lyric or an epic has been evolved.  Moreover, Frye is also of the opinion, that there are twelve brand archetypes namely, The Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Orator, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage.

 

Moreover, according to Frye, to attain perfection the comic and tragic visions of life that are used in the creation should be analysed.  In a comic vision of life in a myth the human world is presented as a community.  There a here is presented as the representative whereas in a tragic vision of life, the human world is in tyranny.  Similarly, in the comic visions of life, in a myth, the animal world is presented as a community of domesticated animals like a flock of sheep with pastoral images.  But, in the tragic visions of life, there are vultures, serpents, dragons and so on.  According to Frye all who deal with literature need two powers, a power to create and a power to understand.  As criticism has every characteristics of a science, it should have a systematic study with any piece of literature that it deals with.  Moreover, every poet has his private mythology, his own spectroscopic band or peculiar formation of symbols, of much of which, he is quite unconscious.  So, the critic should take over, where the poet leaves off and with the help of literary psychology he should connect the poet with the poem.  No doubt, this is quite possible if he applies archetypal criticism here.

-----Thulasidharan V

 

T.S. ELIOT’S LITERARY CRITICISM – TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

https://youtu.be/_fyPfsg5RPY

 

T.S. ELIOT’S LITERARY CRITICISM – TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

          Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1915) was a versatile genius who during his lifelong span of literary activity achieved distinction as a poet, playwright, journalist and critic.  In 1948, he was awarded Nobel Prize for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present day poetry.  As he said, his criticism was merely a 'by-product' of his 'private poetry work shop'.  The value of Eliot’s criticism arises from the fact that he speaks with authority and conviction and his prose style is as precise and memorable as his poetry.  The critical concepts like ‘Dissociation of sensibility’, ‘Unified Sensibility’ and ‘Objective Correlative’ have gained for him wide popularity and appeal.

          The phrase ‘Objective Co-relative’ was first used by Eliot in his essay on ‘Hamlet’.  Eliot defines ‘objective co-relative’ as ‘a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events’, which shall be the formula for the poets’ emotion, so that ‘when the external facts are given, the emotion is at once evoked’.  In his opinion the emotion can best be expressed in poetry through the use of some suitable objective co-relative.  For example in ‘Macbeth’ the dramatist has to convey the mental agony of Lady Macbeth and he does so in, ‘The sleep, walking scene’, not through direct descriptions, but through an unconscious repetition of her past actions.  Her mental agony has been made objective so that it can as well be seen by the eyes as felt by the heart.  Here the external situation is adequate to convey the emotions.  Instead of communicating the emotions directly to the reader, the dramatist has embodied them in a situation or chain of events that suitably communicate the emotions to the reader.  But, ‘Hamlet’ is an artistic failure as the external situation does not suitably embody the effect of a mother’s guilt on her son.  The disgust of Hamlet is also in excess of the facts as presented in the drama.

          Another popular phrase ‘Dissociation of sensibility’ and ‘Unification of Sensibility’ were first used by T.S. Eliot in his essay on the Metaphysical poets of the early 17^th century.  By ‘Unification of Sensibility’ he means ‘a fusion of thought and feeling’, ‘a recreation of thought into feeling’.  Such fashion of thought and feeling is essential for good poetry.  Bad poetry results when there is ‘dissociation of sensibility’.  There the poet is unable to feel his thoughts.  Eliot finds such unification of sensibility in the metaphysical poets, and regrets that dissociation of sensibility set in the late 17^th century.  According to him, 'Tennyson and Browning are poets; and they think, but they do not feel their thoughts as immediately as the odour of a rose.  But, a thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility'.  Similarly Eliot’s 'The Theory of  Impersonality of poetry’ is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.  According to him poetry is not letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion, not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality.  Moreover as he considered drama as one among several forms of poetry, he always advocated for a revival of poetic drama in the modern age.

 

TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

          The ESSAY ‘Tradition and Individual talent’ was published in 1919 in the Times literary supplement, as a critical article.  The essay is divided into three parts.  The first part gives us Eliot’s concepts of Tradition and the second part deals with his theory of the impersonality of poetry.  The third part sums up the whole discussion.

          According to T.S Eliot the word ‘tradition’ is disagreeable to English ears.  Because, when they praise a poet, they praise him for those aspects of his work, which are ‘individual’ and ‘original’.  Actually they praise the poet for the wrong thing here.  If they examine the matter critically with an unprejudiced mind, they will realize that the best and the most individual part of a poet’s work is that, which shows the maximum influence of the writers of the past.  Here, tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of the previous generations.  For Eliot, tradition is a matter of much wider significance.  Tradition, in the true sense of the term, cannot be inherited.  It can only be obtained by hard labour.  This labour is actually, knowing the past writers.  It is the critical labour of shifting the good from the bad.  A writer who has the historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day, including of his own country, forms one continuous ‘literary tradition’.  As tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages, its knowledge is essential for really great and noble achievements.

          The sense of Tradition doesn’t mean that the poet should try to know the past as a whole, take it to be a lump or mass without any discrimination.  The past must be examined critically and only the significant in it should be acquired.  The poet must also realize that the main literary trends are not determined by the great poets alone.  Smaller poets also are significant.  According to T.S. Eliot, knowledge does not merely mean bookish knowledge and the capacity for acquiring knowledge differs from person to person.  Shakespeare, for example could know more of Roman history from Plutarch than most men can from British museum.  Such awareness of tradition sharpens poetic sensibility and is indispensible for poetic creation.

          In the second part of the essay Eliot develops further his theory of the impersonality of poetry.  He compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction.  Suppose there is a jar containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.  These two gases combine to form sulphurous acid, when a fine filament of platinum is introduced into the jar.  The combination takes place only in the presence of the piece of platinum, but the metal itself does not undergo any change.  It remains inert, neutral and unaffected.  The mind of the poet is like the catalytic agent.  It is necessary for combinations of emotions and experiences to take place, but it itself does not undergo any change during the process of poetic combination.  The experiences which enter the poetic process, says Eliot, may be of two kinds.  They are emotions and feelings.  Poetry may be composed out of emotions or feelings or out of both.

          As Eliot believes that poetry is not letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion and it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality, it doesn’t mean that he denies personality or emotion to the poet.  Only he needs the poet depersonalize his emotions.  There should be an extinction of his personality.  This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done.  It is possible only if he acquires a sense of tradition and the historic sense along with the sense of the present moment of the past.  This is how the separation of art from artist is achieved. 

-----Thulasidharan V

SIR. PHILIP SIDNEY’S AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY/THE DEFENCE OF POESY (CRITICISM 5)

 

SIR. PHILIP SIDNEY’S AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY/THE DEFENCE OF POESY

(CRITICISM 5)

 

          Sir Philip Sidney was born on 30th November 1554 in Kent.  In 1582 he was knighted and became the member of Parliament.  In 1586 he was mortally wounded in the battle field and succumbed to it.    It is said as he lay dying Sidney composed a song to be sung by his deathbed.  In the last quarter of the 16th century, the need for a proper understanding of the nature and function of poetry was widely felt.  Moreover, in 1579, Stephen Gossen, who was a puritan published a treatise, ‘The School of abuse’, in which he attacked poetry and drama of the age.  The book was also dedicated to Sidney.  So, Sidney besides being a public servant, who was also a man of letters of great reputation, wrote his Apology for poetry in order to vindicate poetry against the onslaughts of the puritans.  Though it was written in 1583, it was published in 1595 by Henry Olney with the title ‘Aplogy for poetry’ and in 1598 by William Ponsonby with the title ‘Defence of Poesy’ posthumously.

          In ‘Apology for poetry’ Sidney talks about the antiquity and universality of poetry.  Apart from discussing the kinds of poetry and their usefulness, he strongly objects tragicomedy and the violation of the unities.  Moreover his remarks on style, diction and versification are very effective.  He defines poetry as an art of imitation.  As it is representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth, it is really a speaking picture and so its end is to teach and delight.

          Sidney divides poetry into three broad divisions namely religious poetry, philosophical poetry and true kind of poetry.  Religious poetry praises God, where as philosophical poetry imparts knowledge of philosophy, history, astronomy etc.  He is of the opinion that as it is “The sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge”, it is not to be condemned.  The third kind of poetry are divided into lyric, pastoral, heroic, tragic, comic and satiric etc.  Pastoral poetry deals with the loneliest life and thus arouses sympathy and admiration for simple life.  Similarly elegiac poetry arouses sympathy for the suffering and the miserable.  Thus, they soften the heart.  Comedy and satire laugh at follies and imitate common errors in a ridiculous fashion and so are effective in warning men against such errors.  Tragedy reveals the wickedness of men and women and reveals the uncertainty of life.  Lyric hymns praise God and Men and thus, enkindle virtue and courage.  The Epics present the pictures of heroic men and heroic action and thus inspires men to heroic action.    Thus, he argues and proves that there is no any evil in any of these kinds of poetry.

The aim of poetry is accomplished by teaching most delightfully a notable morality.  Since the object of all arts and sciences is to lift human life to the highest altitudes of perfection, in a way they are all servants of poetry The philosopher teaches virtue and vices in abstract arguments where as the historian by showing them through examples and experiences of the past ages.  But, the poet gives perfect examples of vices and virtues and makes virtue succeed and vice fail in his poetry.  Thus, Sidney demonstrates the superiority of poetry over history and philosophy.

The Senecan drama and the Aristotelian precepts were the sources of Sidney’s theory of tragedy. He follows the medieval tradition and says that tragedy should show the fall of tyrants.  He condemns modern tragedy for the incongruous mingling of the comic and tragic and the gross violation of the unities.  However, the rule of the three unities of action, place and time were not followed in England even after his strict demand. Sidney defines comedy, “as an imitation of the common error of life which are represented in the most ridiculous and scornful manner.  So, that the spectator is anxious to avoid such errors himself”.  So, he condemns contemporary farcical comedy and is in favour of a comedy of a more intellectual kind.  According to him the proper material for comedy are the weaknesses, follies and foibles of mankind of a harmless kind.  Thus, he considers comedy a weapon of social reform.

          Sidney is unique as a critic.  He is judicial, creative and original.  He inaugurated a new era in the history of English literary criticism. His practical criticism is an illuminating piece of literary criticism.  Doubtless, his treatise is a landmark in the history of English criticism in England.  So, more truly than Dryden he is the father of literary criticism in England.

 

------Thulasidharan V