Bridge Course: Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

 Wordsworth’s Preface

What is the basic difference between the poetic creed of 'Classicism' and 'Romanticism'?

Classicism:

"The following of ancient Greek or Roman principles and style in art and literature, generally associated with harmony, restraint, and adherence to recognized standards of form and craftsmanship, especially from the Renaissance to the 18th century."

Romanticism:

 "A movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual."

In general, Classicism can be defined Art or literature echoing elements of the styles of ancient Greece or Rome.  Classicism is based on the idea that nature and human nature could be understood by reason and thought. It has attached much more importance to reason than imagination. More broadly, Classicism refers to the adherence to virtues including formal elegance and correctness, simplicity, dignity, restraint, order, and proportion. Toward the end of the eighteenth-century, Romanticism emerged as a response to Classicism. While the Classicists thought of the world as having a rigid and stern structure, the romanticists thought of the world as a place to express their ideas and beliefs.

As the definition suggests that the Romantic movement was all about imagination in art and literature. This movement emphasized on inspiration and subjectivity. Unlike the classicism there were no restrictions. They gave much importance to imagination, interest in common man and childhood, celebration of individuals, love of nature, and rustic life. Romanticism was influenced by The French Revolution. This revolution was about the rights of the third regime (peasant or common people). Most of the poets of the romantic movement were influenced by the French Revolution. The best-known expression of French revolutionary ideas was the slogan “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity”, though this was simplistic and did not span all ideas of the revolution.

To understand this concept better watch this video.

Why does Wordsworth say 'What' is poet? rather than Who is poet?

In the preface to the “lyrical Ballad” William Wordsworth asks the question that ‘what is poet’ rather than ‘who is poet’. In the preface he explains that what is poet,

He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness.  He has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind.  He is a man pleased with his own passions and volition, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volition and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find them.

In short, what Wordsworth tying to prove is that a poet is man of more comprehensive soul. He is different from others because he has more lively sensibility and passions are more enthusiastic and powerful. He can create new ideas and present them to us. Th poet can depict human life in different ways. The poet seeks the truth about life and nature. His main purpose is to give pleasure by painting out the different branches of knowledge of this vast universe.

What is poetic diction? Which sort of poetic diction is suggested by Wordsworth in his Preface?

Poetic diction is the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry. In the Western tradition, all these elements were thought of as properly different in poetry and prose up to the time of the Romantic revolution, when William Wordsworth challenged the distinction in his Romantic manifesto, the Preface to the second (1800) edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798).

 Poetic diction means the choice pf words. The choice that is different for each poet. He defines poetic diction as a language of common men. It is not the language of the poet as a class but the language of mankind. It is the simple expression of pure passions by men living close to nature. The poetic language is the natural language; therefore, it must be spontaneous and instinctive. The real poetic diction, in the view of the Wordsworth, is the natural overflow of the feelings, therefore, it is immune to the deliberate decoration of the language. Wordsworth’s aim was to write poetry which symbolizes the life in its simple and rustic state. The poetry, for Wordsworth, must be like the part of daily life speech. It should be written in such language that anyone who wants to read it could comprehend it easily.

What is poetry? With the reference to the 'Daffodils - I wandered lonely as a cloud' 

According to Wordsworth,

 

‘Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all science’.

Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry as

 

"The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility".

In the above given definition Wordsworth says that, when he the beautiful view like the field of long and bustling row of daffodils, his mind overflows with the powerful feeling. Later, when he set in tranquility on his couch, he recollects the image and words. We can understand this definition with the reference to his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". The poem has total of 4 stanzas. The first three stanza are in the past tense; the fourth stanza is in the present tense.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

"For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils"

Dryden's Essay on Dramatic Poesy

 John Dryden’s “An Essay on Dramatic Poesy” presents a brief discussion on Neo-classical theory of Literature. He defends the classical drama saying that it is an imitation of life and reflects human nature clearly. 

An Essay on Dramatic Poesy is written in the form of a dialogue among four speakers: Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander. The four speakers are Sir Robert Howard [Crites], Lord Buckhurst or Charles Sackville [Eugenius], Sir Charles Sedley [Lisedeius], and Dryden himself (neander means "new man" and implies that Dryden, as a respected member of the gentry class, is entitled to join in this dialogue on an equal footing with the three older men who are his social superiors). Eugenius favors the moderns. Crites favors the ancients, blank verse French vs English. Lisideius Favors French drama. Neander favors the modern-English plays, rhyme 

Do you any difference between Aristotle's definition of Tragedy and Dryden's definition of Play? 

“Aristotle says that "Tragedy is an imitation [mimesis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions.” 

As Aristotle suggest that poetry is mere copy of an action or whatever one has seen, poetry is not pure creation. Dryden on contrary uses the words like ‘lively image’. Advancing his definition, he says that it is representing its passion and humors and it is for delight and instruction of mankind. 

Dryden defines Drama as: 

"Just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humors, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind." 

According to the Dryden, drama is an ‘image’ of ‘human nature’, and the image is ‘just’ and ‘lively’. By using the word ‘just’ Dryden seems to imply that literature imitates (and not merely reproduces) human actions. For Dryden, ‘poetic imitation’ is different from an exact, servile copy of reality, for, the imitation is not only ‘just’, it is also ‘lively’. 

 

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

If I were to give to give my personal preference, I would be on the side of the modern. Ancients has already played their role. They have paved the way for the future generation. Now the moderns are not supposed merely copy them but we have to create a better way for next generation and also have to show the realty in every possible way. In short, we should not live in the past, that would be in vain. The world should always move forward not backwards. 

Do you think that the arguments presented in favor of the French plays and against English plays are appropriate? 

Lisideius speaks in favor of the French. He agrees with Eugenius that in the last generation the English drama was superior. The French are superior to the English in various reasons. One of them being they follow the Ancients. They favor the Unity of time and they observe it so carefully. When it comes to the Unity of Place, they are equally careful. In most of their plays, the entire action is limited to one place. 

The French do not burden the play with a fat plot. They represent a story which will be one complete action, and everything which is unnecessary is carefully excluded. But the English burden their plays with actions and incidents which have no logical and natural connection with the main action so much so that an English play is a mere compilation. Hence the French plays are better written than the English ones. 

It is wrong to believe that the French represent no part of their action on the stage. Instead, they make proper selection. Cruel actions which are likely to cause hatred, or disbelief by their impossibility, must be avoided or merely narrated. They must not be represented. The French follow this rule in practice and so avoid much of the tumult of the English plays by reducing their plots to reasonable limits. Such narrations are common in the plays of the Ancients and the great English dramatists like Ben Jonson and Fletcher. Therefore, the French must not be blamed for their narration, which are judicious and well managed. 

In short, the English drama has decayed and declined because they live in an awful age full of bloodshed and violence, and poetry is an art of peace. The French dramas did not decline because they stick to the ancient unities. The English tried to do something new in order to differ from them. 

Aristotle's Poetics

This is the response to the understanding of  Bridge course: Aristotle’s poetics allotted by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. in this blog I am going to answer some of the question given in the task.

How far do you agree with Plato’s objection to freedom of expression and artistic liberty enjoyed by creative writers? 

Creative writer has artistic sensibility. He observes the world like any common men. But his vision observes the world quite differently. He can perceive from life-experience what common man cannot see at all. This experience and observation get imaginative colours with the help of artistic sensibility. He creates a world of imaginative reality. His world is more beautiful and artistic than the real world. 

As we know that any art can be at its peak if the artist has a strong felling or connection toward the art on which he is working. If the artist has no freedom of expression or artistic liberty the piece of art cannot be accomplished. The artist, in future may be hesitate to work on that type of thing in which there are many restrictions but there is not freedom. 

With reference to the literary texts, you have studied during B.A. programme, write brief note on the texts which followed Aristotelian literary tradition.

ALL MY SONS 

All My Sons” by Arthur Miller is one of the texts which I have studied in my B.A. programme and it also follows the Aristotelian Literary Tradition. Joe Keller as the tragic hero of the play undergoes and faces the characteristics that Aristotle's theory suggests. 

According to Aristotle, in a good tragedy, character supports plot. The personal motivation / actions of the characters are intricately involved with the action to such an extent that it leads to arouse pity and fear in the audience. The protagonist / tragic hero of the play should have all the characteristic of a good character.  

Joe Keller is neither good or bad protagonist. We cannot say that he is as evil character.  He is man of mixed character, neither blameless nor absolutely depraved. He is a good man coming to bad end. 

Hamartia- He makes a terrible error of dispatching the faulty parts in his limited views for his business and his family. This way Joe suffers not as a result of any wise but as a consequence of his error in judgment. 

Catharsis- an essential function of tragedy is arousing pity and fear in a way to accomplish Catharsis of emotions. In ‘All my Sons’, pity for characters is felt through the hardships of Larry Keller and the future of family members after Joe’s suicide. 

 

OTHELLO

 

Another example can be Othello by Shakespeare, which follows the Aristotelian literary tradition. Othello is a tragedy of an ideal situation wherein the protagonist is a rather good man who meets terrible end. The protagonist- Othello is a moor with the higher rank of the general. He is a strong warrior with a great physique but he does not give any second thoughts before acting. He has a very strong character of virtue and nobility that is intact up to the horrid end.  Iago’s deceit and trickery are more the cause of Othello’s tragic fall than any fault of Othello himself. 

Hamartia- Othello is a man of action; his tragic flaw is extreme jealousy. It is this jealousy that leads to his catastrophic downfall. The villainous deeds of Iago and his constant poisoning of Othello’s ears with monstrous jealousy serve as a medium for murdering his own wife. 

Catharsis- Othello’s cruel act of murdering Desdemona arouses pity and fear in reader/spectator’s and causes catharsis in such a way that a group of emotions is disturbed. 

Have you studied any tragedies during B.A. programme? Who was/were the tragic protagonist/s in those tragedies? What was their ‘hamartia’? 

Tragedies	Tragic Protagonists	Hamartia
All My Sons	Joe Keller	Shipping of faulty parts
Tughlaq	Muhammad bin Tughlaq	Idealistic vision of Tughlaq
Othello	Othello	Extremeness of jealousy, Blind trust on Iago
The Hairy Ape	Yank	Excessive pride in his dominant nature

Thinking Activity: The Importance of Being Earnest

"The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People"

This blog post is a response of thinking activity on "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde, which is given by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad Sir.

“[The Importance of Being Earnest] is exquisitely trivial, a delicate bubble of fancy, and it has its philosophy…That we should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

— Oscar Wilde, from a January 1895 interview with Robbie Ross, published in the St. James Gazette

 The Importance of Being Earnest: A trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. The play was first published in 1895 at the St. James’s Theater in London. It is regarded as one of his finest works. Like most of the Victorian literary works, the main theme of the play is the triviality with which it deals with the institution of marriage, resulting in a satire on Victorian society and its aftermath. Although The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy, there is a serious subtext about Victorian hypocrisy. The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs, marriage, and the pursuit of love in particular.

Wilde explained its philosophy:

"That we should treat all trivial things very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality."

The Importance of Being Earnest tells the story of Jack Worthing who use clever deception to adjust their social interest. Jack has created a fictional brother Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from country to town. While another character Algernon, who lives in the town, uses the same technique, by creating a friend, Bunbury. This fictional friend provides him opportunities for taking adventures in the country. His intentions are totally different from that of Jack. Algernon basically uses this fictional friend because he wants to live or behave freely. It seems that he is tired of living the life of a gentleman. While Jack uses the name Ernest to sound like a gentleman, and because he started loving Gwendolen Fairfax, Algernon’s Cousin. Later in the play, Algernon disguised as Ernest to meet Cecily, Jack’s ward. When both the girls found their identity, they refused to marry them only because none of them are named Ernest.

Throughout the play, Ernest is a name that encompasses qualities of the ideal man, honourable, passionate, sincere, and deeply trustworthy. Gwendolen says,

“We live in an age of ideals . . . And my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest. . .. The only really safe name is Ernest.”

When Jack asks her that what if his name is something else besides Ernest. He gave his real name as an example, but instantly regrets that. Gwendolen thinks that the name John has no harmony that Ernest consists of.

"I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude."

Both Gwendolyn and Cecily dream of marrying a man named Ernest seems more than a coincidence. Cecily admits,

 “It had always been a girlish dream of mine to love someone whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence.”

Wilde seeks to mock many aspects of Victorian society in this play. He is satirizing the normal views of people in the Victorian era, as they focus more on very minor and unimportant things, highlighting their superficiality. Wilde wanted to make people more aware of the more important things in life, which he does by satirizing Victorian society’s views and ideals such as things like religion and marriage. Religion and marriage are usually two things that are held in very high regard by others, but by mocking them, Wilde is making people aware of how nonsensical they are acting and how stupid they look at times. This is done by the clever usage of epigrams, paradoxes, irony, and sarcasm.

 The Metaphysical Poetry 

What is a Metaphysical poem? 

 Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole experience of man, but the intelligence, learning and seriousness of the poets mean that the poetry is about the profound areas of experience especially about love, romantic and sensual; about man's relationship with God the eternal perspective; and, to a less extent, about pleasure, learning and art. 

The term “metaphysical poetry” was first coined by the literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson [1709 -1784] in his book titled “Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets” [1781]. Therein began the study of poems composed by a group of 17th-century British poets that included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan.

 General Features: 

A group of poets emerged in the second half of the 16th century whose poetry is identified as metaphysical poetry. It was Dr Samuel Johnson- a classicist of the neo-classical age who named the poetry of Donne and his School as metaphysical poetry.  Johnson used this term while writing about the life of Abraham Cowley in his biographical work with the title “The Lives of English Poets" Dr Johnson wanted to criticise the poetry of Donne and his followers by using the term metaphysical poetry. But with time the passing of time the same term became a term of appraisal for their poetry. Dr Johnson has passed one remarkable comment that the metaphysical poets stood a trial of their finger but poetry failed in the trial of the ears. But what Dr Johnson wants to state is that there is no music poetry and rhythm in their poetry.  

The metaphysical John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvel made a conscious attempt to differ from others and particularly from their predecessors, so that their poetry may be noticed by the readers. One critic Helen C White mentions that it was the demand of time for the metaphysical poets to differ from the poets of the previous age. Had they continued writing poetry just like the former poets, their poetry would have been rejected by the readers. Due to new learning and reformation of the Elizabethan age, the intellectual level of the readers had gone upward and so the metaphysical poets tried to be intellectual in the writing of their poetry. 

The best way for the metaphysical poets to differ from the poets and to be intellectual in the writing of their poetry was to use farfetched images conceits. They tried using images from those fields which were thickly associated with the theme of their poetry. To express either love or their faith in Christianity, they brought their images from different. fields just like Biology, Architecture, Engineering, Agriculture, Geometry, Geography and even political science this gave a unique identity to their poetry. Several examples can be given about how they brought images from distant and remote fields the first example is of John Donnel who made use of a biological image of the flea the express the love in this title of that poem is "The Flea”. George Herbert made use of an image from the field of mechanical engineering to express his faith in Christianity. The example is of a poem with the title “The Pully”. pully is an Image of the field of mechanical engineering but in this poem that image is used to state that restlessness is about a pully that gives a connection between the creator and creation. Andrew Marvell made use of geometrical images for the expression of love. The example is "To His Coy Mistress” in brief on metaphysical poets who made extensive use of farfetched images in their poetry. 

Highlighting one remarkable feature of metaphysical poetry Dr Johnson States that their poetry stood a trial of their finger but not ears, this means that music in there is poetry which they wrote there is no rhythm to be found in the poetry of the metaphysical poets. 

 The Sun Rising by John Donne:

The sun Rising by John Donne is an example of the use of the metaphysical image to deal with the theme of love. Donne employs the image of the rising sun for dealing with the theme of love. The rising sun is an image that is generally used for the expression of new hope and optimism but Donne employs the image for expressing love. The poem is addressed by the lover to the rising sun and the tone of the poem is to criticise the rising sun. The rising sun is generally welcomed by people but here in the present poem, the lover is unhappy with the rising sun. He rebukes the sun because the sun is a “busy old fool, unruly sun.”