Literature M. A

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BHARATHIAR UNIVERSITY
DISTANCE EDUCATION –M.A.ENGLISH LITERATURE –STUDY MATERIAL .
PAPER.II.BRITISH LITERATURE.II (ROMANTIC AGE TO MODERN PERIOD)
UNIT –I – POETRY
Detailed –Wordsworth : Tintern Abbey , Immortality Ode .
Coleridge –Kubla Khan.
Browning :Rabbi Ben Ezra .
W . B .Yeats :Easter 1916.
G. M .Hopkins :Windhover .
Non-detaild:
Shelley – Ode to the West Wind .
Keats – Ode to the Nightingale .
Arnold –Rugby Chapel .
Tennyson: Lotus Eaters .
Francis Thompson : The Hound of Heaven .
UNIT-II-PROSE.
Detailed – George Orwell Selected Essays –ed .N.G.Nayar(Macmillan).
The following Essays :Reflections of Gandhi .
New Words .
Why I Write.
The English Character.
Bookshop Memories .
Shooting an Elephant .
Non-detailed :
Wordsworth –Preface to the Lyrical Ballads .
Thomas Carlyle’s –Hero as Poet .
UNIT –III –DRAMA .
Detailed - Shaw – Pygmalion .
Non –detailed – Osborne –Look Back in Anger .
UNIT –IV – FICTION .
Thomas Hardy – Far From the Madding Crowd .
Graham Greene :The Power and the Glory .
UNIT –V –CRITICISM .
Helen Gardner :The Sceptre and the Torch I.A . Richards –Four Kinds of Meaning
.Compiled by :Dr . (Mrs .R . PADMAVATHI,Reader in English,
P.S.G.R.Krishnammal College for Women.Coimbatore.
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UNIT I
POETRY
Contents
1.0 Aims and Objectives.
1.1 Detailed Study
1.2 ODE: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.
1.3 Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan.
1.4 Robert Browning Rabbiben Ezra – Introduction
1.5 W.B.Yeats –Easter 1916.
1.6 Gerard Manly Hopkins – (1844-1889)
1.7 Let us Sum Up
1.8 Lesson End Activities
1.9 Points for Discussion
1.0. Aims and Objectives.
By learning this unit on The Romantic and The Modern Age (Poetry) the student can
acquire a comprehensive knowledge of the major poets of both the ages and attempt any textual
or general question based on the prescribed poems.
1.1 Detailed Study
WORDSWORTH-LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TITERN ABBEY.
LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE

TINTERN ABBEY
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion: and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.'
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,"
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves, and copses. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoie
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owned to them,

In hours of weariness sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We sec into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again;
While here 1 stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led—more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements ail gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes ,r
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make;
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ‘tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er preval against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ectasises shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! Then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief

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Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance –
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence – wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service; rather say
With warmer love – h! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor with thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape; were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!.
Written and published in 1798 ,this poem records Wordsworth’s interest in Nature .In1798 he
revisited the river Wye after a lapse of five years.The renewed presence of a remembered scene
excites past memories and makes the poet acutely conscious of a change in his attitude to
Nature.The poem which records different stages of his love for Nature was composed on his way
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to Bristol from Tintern .In a note he declared ,’No poem of mine was composed under
circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this .I began it upon leaving Tintern ,after
crossing the river Wye , and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening ,after a
ramble of four or five days with my sister .Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it
written down till I reached Bristol’.
The poem written when Wordsworth was at the height of his poetic powers,is of vital
importance for,”an understanding of his maturing faith, of his change from young passion for
Nature to a haunting comprehension of the lovely universe that holds ,the still sad music of
humanity”. Wordsworth first visited Tintern in 1793 when as a young man. All that time he
could enjoy the sensuous beauty of Nature. Now when he visits it for a second time he finds that
his attitude to and love of Nature had taken a sober colouring. During his first visit, the sights
and sounds of Nature intoxicated him .Nature was then a passion with him and spontaneous joy
of senses thrilled him. On his second visit he found that the earlier delight was lost to him .The
beautiful sights of Nature no more throws him into that rapture, that ecstasy which he had known
five years back. This change in his attitude towards Nature is to be traced to the sad events of the
French Revolution which had left Wordsworth a thoroughly disillusioned and sad man.
Wordsworth in his early life was an ardent ardent supporter of liberty and republican principles.
When French revolutionaries tried to overthrow the crushing yoke of monarchy, Wordsworth
greeted the new movement with great enthusiasm and vigour. To him the Revolution symbolized
the regeneration of the suffering humanity .Therefore when he visited Tintern a second time he
was not the same person who had come there five years ago. Now he was a sad person, one who
had submitted himself to the chastening influence of suffering. Gone are the ‘dizzy raptures‘ and
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‘glad animal movements‘ of his early years ;now he hears the ‘still sad music of humanity ‘in
Nature.
Though Wordsworth was deprived of his early raptures, he was compensated by Nature
in other ways. The impact of suffering on his mind had quickened his sensibilities and sharpened
his insight into the life of things. He discovered a spiritual life in Nature in contemplation of
which he seeks his consolation. He realizes the truth which was to sustain him in his after life .It
was the firm belief of Wordsworth that there was a pre-conceived harmony between Nature and
the mind of man, since the all pervading spirit which informs the different phenomena of Nature
also animated the soul of man.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM: The poem can be divided into four parts. The first consists of lines
1-22. The poet visiting the river Wye a second time realizes that even though the scene was the
same, his reaction to it was different .The repetition of the words ‘again’, ’once again’ make us
acutely conscious of the unchanging aspect of the scene which the poet visited after a lapse of
five years. Once again he hears the murmur of the waters, once again the mountain tops loom
into his view connecting as it were, the landscape with the sky. He beholds all familiar sights-
the orchard –tufts, wild woods, hedge-rows making earth seem one spot of green.
The second part runs from line 23- 59. The poet acknowledges his debt to this particular
landscape and reflects on the significance it had for him in the interval. The beautiful landscape
had been a source of comfort to him and had sustained him during his exile amid the din and
disturbance of cities and towns .Whenever he was oppressed by unprofitable and meaningless
business of the world he had turned to the ever sustaining memory of this lovely scene for
consolation and comfort.

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The third part comprises of lines 60-113 .The poet passes from the particular landscape to
Nature in general and distinguishes the several stages of his education by Nature and the several
phases of his love for her. Four main phases of his love for Nature can be traced. The first phase
(75-76) takes us back to his childhood .Then the love of Nature was simply a healthy boy’s
delight in freedom and the open air. To him Nature was then a mere playground for his boyish
activities which he characterizes as ‘coarser pleasures‘ and ‘animal movements‘. The second
stage corresponds to his youth. So long he had loved Nature for the sports they provided but
now he loved Nature for her own sake .It turns into ‘an aesthetic passion,intense,absolute, and
self – sufficing .The sounding cataracts now haunt him like a passion and his hungry soul feeds
itself on the lovely forms and beautiful colours of woods,trees and flowers . Yet his passion for
Nature was untouched by intellectual interests or associations. The third is that of the man who
has been initiated in the mystery of pain and darkness, who ‘has seen enough of life to realize its
pervading sadness’ and by an imaginative understanding was able to transmute this impression
into a ‘still sad music ‘.The last stage is marked by mystical experiences .The quickened
sensibilities of the poet provided him an insight into the life of things and in moments of
illuminations he apprehended the one spirit pervading the whole universe ,both material and
intellectual .
Lines 111-162 form the fourth part. The poet now turns to his sister Dorothy , who is
travelling with him on the same boat .In her eyes he could still see gleams of pleasure which he
had also known five years back .She still retained the delight ,that spontaneous joy in the
beauties of Nature .She was like a mirror in which Wordsworth could see his former self and his
past experience .He thanked Nature for her benign influence and believed that the experience of
standing before the beauties around Tintern will prove to be a source of great comfort and
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happiness in later life .It is his intense and all absorbing love of Nature that distinguishes him
from other poets. Other poets had sung of the beauties of Nature; but Wordsworth found a new
meaning in Nature.
CRITICAL OPINIONS:
This is the first poem in which Wordsworth’s genius finds full expression: the blank verse, low
toned moves with a sureness and inevitable ease from phase to phase of his mood. It has the
quiet pulse, suggesting central peace, which i s felt under all his great poetry. – HELEN
DERBISHIRE.
In ‘Tintern Abbey‘ it is at once apparent that we have a poem written in altogether a higher style.
The air of familiar anecdote is abandoned, and the embarrassing playfulness that appears in
Wordsworth’s pieces totally disappears. – Graham Hough.
1.2. ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY

CHILDHOOD.
The first four stanzas were written in 1802; the rest the poem in 1805 or 1806. Despite its
irregularities of metre and occasional lapses into something declamatory, the Ode I is one of the
greatest achievements of Wordsworth. Wordsworth’s own remarks upon the poem are s o
illuminating that they form the best commentary on in: “This was composed during my residence
at Towns-End, Grasmere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas
and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains
itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own
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mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in
childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being”
The poem was written in 1803 when Wordsworth was at the height of his poetic powers ,
yet was conscious of its gradual decline .Nature had been the main source of his poetic
inspiration.It was the source of those ‘visionary experiences‘ which Wordsworth regarded as ‘the
source of the deepest illumination . Undoubtedly they were to him the most real valuable thing in
life‘. As he grew older these visionary experiences became less and less frequent; and since these
visions and their “recollection in tranquility“ were the main source of his poetic inspiration ,their
departure from him filled him with sadness and perplexity . The realization that he was missing
‘something‘ , that Nature had somehow lost its magic for him ,oppressed him and troubled his
mind with obstinate questionings .It was this mood of questioning which finds its compulsive
utterance in the Ode. The realization of the decline of his poetic never dawned on him all of a
sudden. He had been for sometime feeling the gradual loss of his poetic powers and the
knowledge that Coleridge was also facing the same problem gave a ‘sharpness ‘ to his own
sorrow and made him vocal . The Ode states the spiritual crisis, explains the cause of the loss of
glory and describes the resolution of the crisis.
From the point of development of the thought the poem can be divided into three parts. 1. I-IV
stanzas, 2. V-VII stanzas 3. IX-XI stanzas.
First part – This part of the poem was written in 1802. It was written in a mood of obstinate
questioning and states the spiritual crisis which overwhelmed the poet with sorrow . he was
actuall conscious of the great loss ;

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“Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or by day,
The things which I have seen I can see no more”.
Although he still feels and appreciates the beauty of Nature, yet a feeling that Nature had lost its
magic for him, that he is missing something which he values so highly, persists. Therefore he is
unhappy even amidst the joyful surroundings of a bright May morning,”Until now he had lived
in the glory and the freshness of the senses; but with the advancing years the glory becomes dim.
What he had lost was variously called ‘celestial light‘, ‘visionary gleam‘,’the glory and freshness
of a dream‘. His acute sense of the loss makes him ask the question:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?, ’the glory and the dream?”
PART –II -The question ‘whither is fled the visionary gleam?’ Directly leads to the second part
of the poem. “The middle stanzas V-VIII examine the nature of this glory and explain it by a
theory of reminiscence from a pre – natal existence‘ .Taking the idea of pre- natal existence from
Plato and the doctrine of gradual loss of celestial powers from Henry Vaughan, Wordsworth tries
to explain why , how and where this ‘splendid vision’ fades away with the passage of time . The
Soul has had previous existence, and recollections of immortality remain clinging to it even after
birth. The childhood is ,therefore, seen as a time when ‘splendid vision ‘ is normally with us and
it clothes whatever we see in a celestial light ,reminding us of our immortal source . The vision
however, fades away with our immortal source. The vision fades away and the flashing of this
visionary gleam become less and less often until in manhood, it disappears altogether. Cares and
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anxieties of the world soon obscure the celestial vision of the growing child and sometimes he
totally forgets his Divine origin.
PART –III- The last three stanzas are the answer for the question Wordsworth had asked .The
poet consoles himself with the thought that although the vision has perished life has still a
meaning and value . The vision does not perish totally, something of the old glory of childhood
remains. The freshness and the glory of the dream may be missing ,yet there are moments in life
when we see ‘through the veil of earthly reality into the reality that lies beyond ,moments of
exaltation in which we are lifted up to transcendent height “. With this thought the poet again
resumes his jubilation which was interrupted in stanza IV. He is able to find a new course of
strength in Nature .He loves Nature more than before, though his love is now chastend through
“experience of frailty and the changes of human nature “an experience which gives him rich
human sympathies, so that the humblest Natural objects for him are suggestive of the thoughts
that lie too deep for tears.
Lines 1-9 – When the poet was a child all Nature seemed to be clothed in radiant splendor, but he
can no longer see that glory.
Lines 10-18 – The outward shows of Nature are still fair but the old splendor is gone .
Lines 19-36 – The poet realizes that his grief is out of key with the joyous scenes around him ;he
strives to put it from him and force himself into a sympathetic gaiety .
Lines 37-58 – He is determined to rejoice in the gladness around him ;but ‘a certain Tree’ and a
‘single Field’ forcibly brings back the acute sense of loss. ‘Whither is fled the visionary gleam ?’
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Lines 59-77-The poet now proceeds to trace this feeling of loss. ‘The soul has had a previous
exististence and brings with it some shadowy recollections of a divine origin. This feeling visits
our infancy, it transforms the world around us, but gradually dies away until, in manhood it
disappears altogether ‘.
Lines 75 – 85- Earth tries to wean the child away from Heaven by offering all the pleasures and
pleasant pursuits she can give and to make him forget his celestial glory and home.
Lines 86-108- Thus the child soon finds himself absorbed in the worldly pursuits and occupies
himself in imitating the actions and pursuits of the elders.
Lines130 -168 the child is unaware of his own greatness. He has the ‘hold on the spiritual life,
conviction of immortality and the visionary outlook” yet he parts away with his treasure.
Lines 169-187 – The poet derives a new strength ,consolation from the thought that though the
old splendor is gone ,the early sympathy with the Nature remains and with riper years some
strength and calm after sorrow and a faith in a future life .
Lines 188-204 “Nor is there any weakening of the poet’s love of Nature. To compensate for the
loss of the ‘visionary gleam’, there is a communion with Nature made wiser ,if sadder by
philosophic meditation .There are the feelings of the human heart –a link with Nature –whereby
the ‘meanest flower‘ becomes a symbol of the inexhaustible mystery .
CRITICAL RE MARKS :
“The ode on the intimations of Immortality is a triumph of art in its variety and splendor of
diction and its magnificent command of metrical effect …”.HELEN DERBISHIRE.

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“After all, there is no man ( as Wordsworth himself says )who has not his God like moments
;and the transition from there to the ‘light of common day’ is a universal experience .It is
Wordsworth’s achievement to have interpreted this phase of life in the language of the greatest
poetry. ” BERNARD GROOM.

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1.3 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - KUBLA KHAN.
KUBLA KHAN
In Xandau did Khubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense – bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh? That deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athward a cedarn cover!
A savage place! As holy and enhanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By women wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceasless turmoil seeting,

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As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A might fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half – intermitted burst
Huge fragments valuted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the threasher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a many motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

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In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she payed,
Singing on Mount Abora,
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight t’would win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there.
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
The supreme power of Coleridge lay in his marvelous dream faculty. Kubla Khan had its
origin in a dream which Coleridge had dreamt in a sleep induced by opium. On awakening from
the dream he had a distinct recollection of the dream and taking his pen he instantly and eagerly
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wrote the lines that he had composed. At this time of composition he was called out by a person
on business and was detained by him for an hour. On his return he found that the rest of his
dream had passed away from his memory and he could not finish the poem.
The poem contains fifty four lines, yet this itself is an edifice of the dream. It is an
emanation from a dream – soaked imagination and does not posses any rational viewpoint or
logical consistency. It is a procession of images coloured in rainbow tints. Much of the poem
seeks to be a pure romance and dream. It is an invitation to a city of which Tennyson says:”. The
city was built /to music, therefore never built at all / and therefore built for ever“
The first part of the poem tells us about a stately palace of pleasure as has never existed
before: Lines 1-11Kubla Khan ordered a beautiful pleasure palace be built for him at Xanadu.
The palace was to be situated on the bank of the river Alph, which flowing through wast deep
caves, ultimately sank into a dark subterranean sea. Apiece of fertile land, ten square miles in
area, was enclosed with its walls and towers. This place had beautiful gardens, winding streams
and aromatic trees bearing sweet-smelling flowers .There were also forests as old as hills,
enclosing in their midst sunny spaces full of green spots .
Lines 12-16 - The most remarkable remarkable thing at this place was a deep mysterious
chasm that ran down the slope of green hill across a wood of cedar trees .It was a wild and awe
–inspiring place as holy and bewitched as the one haunted by a woman wandering in search of
her demon- lover in the dim light of a wandering Moon . The demon appeared to the woman as
her lover and after making love to her disappeared. The woman unable to forget him but fully
realizing that he was a demon haunts such wild places to look for him.
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Lines 17-24 –A powerful spring of water gushed forth from this chasm at momentary
intervels making an incessant roaring sound. The spring violently emitting huge masses of water
looked like the heavily gasping earth .The powerful outbursts of water threw up huge pieces of
rocks that fell on the earth and sounded like hail stones striking the earth and flying off like
grains leaping up from the earth when beaten with a flail by a farmer trying to separate them
from the chaff.
Lines 25-36 The sacred river Alph flowed a five mile long winding course through woods
and valleys. Then, it entered the immeasureable deep caves and finally sank in the dead sea
producing a loud noise. Amidst this noise, Kubla Khan heard the voices of his ancestors
prophesying future wars. The pleasure palace was built somewhere midway between mighty
spring and the caves measureless to man. From the palace could be heard the mixed sounds of
water gushing forth from the spring and the water noisily flowing through the caves. The
pleasure palace was a specimen of amazing architectural skill. I t had sunny domes but icy cold
underground caves.
Lines 37-54. Once in a strange vision, the poet saw an Abysinian maid playing on her dulcimer
and singing a sweet song about Mount Abora. The poet says that if he could recapture the sweet
melody of the Abyssinian maid, it would fill him with such a divine inspiration of Kubla Khan’s
pleasure palace and all those who heard him would be able to see that palace in the air in their
imagination. They would then think of the poet to be a mighty magician . They would see this
hair and his flashing eyes and would be filled with awe and fear . They would go round him
thrice to protect themselves from his magical powers .His poetical frenzy would make them
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think that he was a superhuman being fed on the honey dew and the milk of paradise and they
would warn one another to keep away from him.
The poem really belongs to the dream –territory of art; and is made of the stuff of dreams
.According to Freud ,the psychologist the stuff of dreams is much more colourful than the stuff
of humdrum dry life that we live . Though Kubla Khan is less directly concerned than Christabel
or The Ancient Mariner with the supernatural, which is the basis of all Coleridge’s poetry, still
the supernatural has found its way into its wild magnificence whether in the’ woman wailing for
her demon lover’ and the ‘ancestral voice prophesying war‘or in the magical close when the poet
seems to break the bounds of human kind and become a wild spirit of song. Both Kubla Khan
and Christabel are fragments and we can only imagine what they might have been. Moon,
Moonlight, half gloomof Moon are associated with the creative activity of imagination. The
Moon is called ‘The mother of wildly working visions’. The imagery associated with the Moon,
stars, clouds, and uncertain lights is associated by Coleridge for mysteries and uncertainties of
mental life .The river in Kubla Khan, is the sacred river signifying life given condition of human
life – an imaginative symbol of the abundant life in the universe which begins and ends in
mystery represented by the chasm .
The poem is a feat in supernaturalism. It is a poem of magic and
supernaturalism. The caverns measureless to man ,the deep romantic ,chasm ,the intermittent
burst of water from the fountain ,the sunless sea –they all create a world of wonder and
enchantment .The atmosphere of strangeness and mystery has effectively and skillfully been
created in the poem . Coleridge fused the Natural with the supernatural.
26
Kubla Khan is a delightful blend of imagination, emotion, mystery, sensuousness, romantic
description, sweet melody and exquisite diction. Sensuous phrases and images are used in the
poem. It is a purely romantic conception of the poetic imagination. Kubla Khan has been
universally appreciated for its haunting melody.
Xanadu - The province known at Shantung in China . Kubla Khan –Founder of the Twentieth
Chinese dynasty, that of the Mongols or Yen . He was the grand son of Chengiz – Khan .He was
proclaimed Emperor and in 1279.
1.4 ROBERT BROWNING. RABBIBEN EZRA – Introduction
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ‘A whole I planned,

'Youth shows but half; trust God: sec all nor be afraid!'
Not that, amassing flowers,

Youth sighed ' Which rose make ours,
‘Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned ‘Nor Jove, nor Mars;
‘Mine be some figured flame with blends,
transcends them all!’

27
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, them
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop – full bird? Frests doubt the maw –
crammed beast?
Rejoice we are allied
To that which doth provide
And to partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must receive.

28
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three – parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe.
For thence,-—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,'—

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be, 40
And was not, comforts me:

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.
What is he, but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play ?
To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way ?
Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse

29
Of power each side, perfection every turn:.

Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once ' How good to live and
learn ?'
Not once beat ‘Praise be Thine!
‘I see the whole design,

’I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
' Perfect I call Thy plan:
' Thanks that I was a man!
' Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt

do!’
For pleasant is this flesh;

Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;
Would we some prize might hold.
To match those manifold

Possessions of the brute,-—gain most, as we did best!
Let us not always say

’Spite of this flesh to-day
' I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!'

As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry " All good things

30
' Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh
helps soul!'
Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,

Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed

From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.
And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,

What weapons to select, what armour to indue.
Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame: -

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know; being old.
For note, when evening shuts,

31
A certain moment cuts

The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:
A whisper from the west
Shoots—" Add this to the rest,

' Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.'
So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,

Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
' This rage was right i' the main,
' That acquiescence vain:

' The Future 1 may face now I have proved the Past.'
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt

32
From strife, should know, than1 tempt

Further. Thou waitcdest age: wait death nor be afraid I
Enough now, if the Right

And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,

With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel

alone.
Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,

Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,

Right ? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,

They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?
Not on the vulgar mass

33
Called " work, " must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
Put all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature, .
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's
amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be, ,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth-to God, whose wheel the pitcher

shaped.
Ay, note that Potter's wheel,

34
That metaphor! and feel

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,

' Since life fleets, all is change; the P; st gone, seize to-day!'
Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:

Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thec forth, sufficiently impressed.
What though the earlier grooves
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What though, about thy rim,

35
Scull-things in order grim

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?
Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash ; nd trumpet's peal,
The new mine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips a-glow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou
with earth's wheel?
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;

And-since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I,—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,

Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
So, take and use Thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
36
This poem appeared in Dramatis Personae (1864) and is based on the teaching and beliefs
of Ben Ezra who was a famous Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages) Ben Ezra was born in Spain
in 1092 in a poor family. He showed great aptitude for learning though little for the practical-
business of earning a livelihood. In middle life, he was forced to leave Spain, and he spent the rest
of his life in foreign lands. He had a deep interest in theology, science and linguistics. He was a
strong believer in the immortality of the soul. He became renowned, as an astronomer, physician
mathematician, teacher, philosopher", poet, and anthologian. He made his greatest impression
upon the world by his scholarly commentaries upon the books of
the Old Testament.) He died in Rome in 1167. Browning's know ledge of Ben Ezra's works did
not most probably extend far beyond a general, idea of the temper and doctrine of that
philosopher's Opinions.
The poem asserts man's nobility. It applauds alike the passionate energy of youth and
the tempered confidence of maturity. It interprets pain and care as forms of discipline. It
demands the utmost effort from, man, but is broadly tolerant of failure. It points I after the brave
adventure of death to a life perfected for sublimer uses
Critical Summary
Rabbi Ben Ezra declares that old age is the best period of one's life. Old age is intended
to complete the life of man. Human destiny is in the hands of God who planned a whole design
of which the period of youth is only a portion. The Rabbi calls upon us to trust God, to acquire
an experience of the whole of life (including old age), and not to feel afraid. (Stanza I)
37
Youth is always dissatisfied with the actual. It longs for the attainment of ideals. It toys
with some flower of desire, rejects it and returns to it. Or, youth pursues some vast ambition beyond
mortal conception, - "some figured flame" or star more' splendid than any known to experience.
But the longings and the ideals of youth are not something to complain about. The pursuit of
ideals gives rise to hopes and fears;" but these hopes and fears are not to be deplored. These hopes
and fears distinguish man from lower animals. Life would have been a poor show it man were
created merely to enjoy pleasures. The difference between man and lower animals is that man
cannot attain his desires and ideals while the lower animals are content when their physical appetites
are satisfied. [Stanzas II III, IV).
We should be glad that we are akin to God. A divine spark , stirs the clay of which we are
made, we claim our rank from our relation with God, not from that with His creatures. We should
therefore welcome disappointments which seem to give a rough shape to the smoothness of our
lives on earth. These disappointments are a goad to further effort. We should not mind the pain
and the suffering that we have to endure in the course of our endeavours. The pain and suffering
which we have to undergo should be regarded as the price to be paid for knowledge and progress
it we adopt this attitude, even a failure will be seen to have the character of success. It is a
paradox, but a comforting one, that the possibility of failure is the hallmark of greatness. The
Rabbi draws comfort, from the thought of what he desired to attain even though he could not attain
it. (Stanzas V, VI, VII).
A man whose soul only- works to support physical needs is no, better than a brute. The
spirit of man should go far beyond those aims which tend in physical satisfaction. Yet man should
feel grateful for his physical endowments also and for the experiences which he goes through
38
during his youth. It is worth while to live and learn. Youth sees and enjoys widespread evidences of
creative power. Old age realises the complete design of life. Youth has the vision of the power
and perfection of the universe; old age realises how love also is all- pervading. That being
so, the Rabbi is thankful to God for having made him a man, and has full faith in what God
shall do. (Stanzas VIII, IX, X).
The Rabbi looks upon the soul as being in a state of pleasant captivity to the body. In
accordance with this view, the Rabbi wishes that there might be some reward for the
soul's struggle to rise, which would counter-balance the grosser pleasures enjoyed by the
brute without pain or strife. The Rabbi asks us not to consider the soul to be either
subordinate or hostile to the body, but as being in alliance with the body. (Stanzas XI, XII).
The Rabbi invites old age to give him the wider outlook and capacities for which he,
after having gone through the years of his, youth, has now become fit. Old age will put
upon him the stamp of maturity and manhood. The gifts which old age brings will distinguish
him from the developed brute and will give him the character of god in the germ. Old age
means' his getting ready for the new adventure of death, for fighting the next battle of life in
a fearless and unperplexed state of mind, with suitable weapons. With the end of youth, it
will be possible for h i m t o d e termine what he has gained and what he has lost. He will
know how much pure gold has been smelted out of the fire of the years of youth. During
the years of youth, the whole thing was a matter of dispute. But in old age it will be
possible for him to weigh his achievement and to give to life the praise or the blame it
deserves. (Stanzas XIII,XIV, XV).

39
The glory of sunset disappears suddenly, at a certain moment. When the sun has set, we
can pass a judgment on the day. In the same way, when old age (which is the sunset of
life) comes, we are in a position to form a judgment on our life. In old age it becomes
possible for us to determine wherein we were right and wherein we were wrong. Having
proved the past, we are in a position to face the future. All that is within the power of
man is to prepare himself for the future. In youth we strive, through imperfect or faulty
actions, towards certain purposes. In old age, when striving is no longer possible, we
acquire knowledge in order to be able to face death without being afraid of it. (Stanzas
XVI, X VII, XVIII, XIX).
It is enough now if we learn to discriminate clearly the good and infinite, without
being subjected to the uncertainties created by the fools who crowded our years of youth.
In youth,, we were perhaps accused of misdeeds by the world; An youth we perhaps felt
contemptuous of the world. In old age we shall understand our correct position in relation to
the world and thus attain peace. In youth it is not possible to reach definite conclusions,
because we find that there are differences 'between our views and those of the world. In the
press of life, we have nothing but conjectures, no one having more authority than another to
confirm our conclusions. We do not know whom to believe. It is only afterwards (that is,
in the years of old age) that a proper judgment born of full knowledge can be passed.
{Stanzas XX, XXI, XXIT).
A man is not to be judged by the visible output of his life. The world has a blunt
understanding which can appreciate only actual accomplishment. But, beneath the visible
accomplishment of a man, there are hidden motives striving for noble expression, purposes
40
sincere but frustrated, dim inuitive fancies which stir goodness without finding a language.
The blunt understanding of the world ("the world's coarse thumb and finger") cannot
perceive these "instincts immature" and "purposes unsure" which did not contribute to a
man's visible output but which yet add to his achievement. In the eyes of God, all these things
(not known to the world and therefore not appreciated by the world) have value. (Stanzas XXIII,
XXIV, XXV).
The Rabbi then employs a scriptural metaphor. He compares God to a potter, and a
human being to a pitcher being shaped by the Potter. Like the clay which is shaped into a pitcher
by a potter, a human being is subject to fashioning or moulding by God. The Rabbi condemns the
doctrine of Omar Khayyam, according to which we should seize the present moment and fill our
cups with wine because the past gone and the futures unborn? The Rabbi believes that the past can
never die. All that existed continues to exist for ever, though we may not be able to recall it.- Earth
changes, but the human soul and God stand sure. There are perishable elements in life, but they
are simply to test and try the soul which is enduring. The soul has the power to shape
circumstance and is not its victim. . The teaching of Omar Khayyam is foolish, because it
overlooks the fact of the immortality of the soul, and makes the soul a mere counter in the play"
of circumstances which are in reality transient. (Stanzas XXVI, XXVll, XXV111).
It does not matter if the enjoyments of youth pass with the coming of old age. It does not
matter if old age brings anxieties, sorrows and trials. A man should not by any means be
discouraged or depressed by old age. He should look not down but up. When man enters old
age, the earth will no longer deserve attention because he must look heaven-wards; Man is a cup
of wine to which God will press his lips in order to quench his thirst with the wine in it. The
41
Rabbi says that he needs God now in old age as he needed Him in his youth. The Rabbi places
himself completely in the hands of God and offers a perfect surrender of himself to God. He
appeals to God to remove his flaws and imperfections and to complete the, design which He has
in mind about the Rabbi. "Let age approve of I youth,-and death complete the same". (Stanzas-
XXIX to XXXII)
Critical Appreciation
Rabbi Ben Ezra is one of the most beautiful and profound poems of the Dramatis
Personae volume. It is one of the most famous and popular of Browning's poems. While the
poem does reflect the historical Rabbi's teaching, Browning has put into the mouth of the
speaker an impassioned outpouring of his own philosophy. It expresses better than any other poem
by Browning the peculiar quality of robust hope and cheerfulness which is Browning's
contribution to s the spirit of English Literature.
The poem opens with a first stanza in which a stanza-form of
unexampled brilliancy holds its perfect content:
Grow old with me !
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made: etc. etc
It is perfection. There is actually nothing more to be said, though

42
Browning goes on to say a great deal more (much of it controversial). The poem ultimately leads to
the Potter’s Wheel and half a dozen concluding stanzas of fine lyrical quality. Browning’s reply to
Omar Khyyam is passionate, emotionally, mystically and lyrically :
Look thou not down but up !
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master’s lips a-glow !
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth's wheel?
Images of light, sound, and motion are combined in the triumphant close of the poem, where the
philosophic argument of the Jewish sage takes imaginative wings. The whole poem" is a "master
piece of argumentative and imaginative passion". It is possible that Browning felt the urge to write
this poem by reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (by Edward FitzGerald). The philosophy of
life contained in the poem meets effectively the way of life laid down b y Omar Khyyam.
Remembering the fine robust spirit of Ben Ezra, Browning has used the general ideas of the
Jewish philosophy to refute FitzGerald and Omar Khayyam. The ideas expressed in this poem
have their counterpart in several others of Browning's poems, notably Saul and Andrea del Sarto.
The poem is a survey of youth, old age and the future from the vantage ground of age, "the
last of life";- According to the speaker (Rabbi Ben Ezra), man's life is to be viewed as a
whole. God's plan in our creation has arranged for youth and age, and no view of life is
43
consistent with it which ignores the work of either. Man is not a bird or a beast, to find joy
solely in feasting. Care and doubt are the life stimuli of man's soul. The divine spark within
man is nearer to God than are the recipients of His inferior gifts:
A spark disturbs our clod ;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
The rebuffs of life should be regarded as stings to urge us on. Our strivings, and the pain
that we have to endure, are a measure of our ultimate success. Aspiration, not achievement, divides
us from the brute. The body is intended to subserve the highest aims of the .-soul: it will do so
if we live and learn. The flesh is pleasant, and can help soul as soul helps the body. Youth must
seek its heritage in old age. In the repose of old age, man is to take measures for his last
adventure. This he can do with the prospect of success proportionate to his use of the past. Man
should wait for death without fear, as he waits for old age. Judgment will not be passed on mere
work done. Oar purposes, thoughts, fancies, all that the coarse methods of human estimates
failed to appreciate, will be credited to our account. God is the Potter; we are clay, receiving our
shape and form by every turn of the wheel and the faintest touch of the Master's hand. Man is no
passive recipient, but a striving essence fired by a spark from God. "Man's soul is like a cup from
which God* drinks the foaming wine of joy. The uses of a cup are not estimated by its base or by
its rim but by the bowl which presses the Master's lips to quench the divine thirst. We cannot
see the meaning of the wheel and the touches of the Potter's hand and instrument; we know this,
and this only, that our times are in His Hand who has planned a perfect cup.
44
In form, the poem is a monologue, revealing the mind and temper of the speaker. The
mood of the poem is calm, serene and tranquil because the speaker is free from all doubt and
uncertainty.There is absolutely no stress or strain in the poem which states and elaborates a happy
and pleasing philosophy. Alike in substance and form it belongs to the highest order of
meditative poetry; and it has an almost unique quality of grave beauty, of severe restraint and
measured enthusiasm. It is like a light through the darkness, a lantern of guidance, and a beacon of
hope. The emotion and the measure of the poem have the chastened, sweet gravity of wise
old age.
The poem, embodying as it does, Browning's philosophy of optimism and hope, is a
source of inspiration to the reader. It j has a tonic effect upon minds which are disturbed by
doubt and scepticism. It makes life seem nobler, richer and braver. The poem I expresses an
unflinching faith in the existence of God and in immortality. It justifies not only old age but the
whole of life. In fact it justifies the ways of God to man. It also teaches us not to feel dis-
couraged by failure because we shall in the long run be judged not by our achievement but the
ideal that we had in mind. Nor is the word properly qualified to judge us, because we possess
certain instincts, purposes and fancies which the world has no means of measuring or assessing :
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
It must, however, be pointed out that the poem has the effect of strengthening and
fortifying the Christian beliefs of those readers who already believe, or are inclined to
45
believe, in God and the immortality of soul. Most of us in the present age happen to be
torn by the scientific spirit of questioning and by doubt. This poem is a statement of
unadulterated faith; it does not seek to rationalize or prove the correctness of that faith. It
does not therefore possess the power to convince doubters and skeptics, much less non-
believers and atheists. But the poem is certainly valuable for those who are on the border-
line between faith and doubt It also helps us not only to reconcile ourselves to old age but
to accept it as the last of life, for which the first was made. Whatever else in the poem
may not convince us, the following line does carry conviction: "Youth shows but half; trust
God : see all nor be afraid I" It is the soul that distinguishes human beings from birds and
beasts, though the body or the flesh cannot be completely ignored : "All good things are
ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul !" It may be pointed out that it
is such statements of positive faith that have made certain critics and commentators speak
of Browning's complacency and facile optimism. And there is no doubt that the poem
preaches an optimistic philosophy in a casual, off- hand, untroubled manner, as if no reader
can entertain the least doubt about its truth and even inevitability. But there are readers
who do not just skim the surface of life, readers who think deeply and experience spiritual
distress and anguish. For such readers, this poem brings no comfort because they remain
unmoved and untouched by its "unthinking" optimism. If readers believe the speaker in the
poem, it is not because he convinces them but because he has expressed for them their
own intuitions or made articulate their own desires. It would be better for us to accept
the poem, not as philosophy but as an imaginative experience enlarging our sympathies
and widening our understanding of the thoughts and moods of men.

46
The figure of the potter's wheel, Browning knew in Isaiah Jeremiah also uses
this figure which may be found again in Romans, - where St. Paul says, "Hath not the
potter power over the clay, of, the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and
another unto dishonor ?"- It is possible that when Browning read of the potter and the
pot in the Rubaiyat, he thought at once of Isaiah's words "But now, O Lord, Thou art
our father; we are the day, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand",
and that he thought also of Ben Ezra's commentary on Isaiah. If we have complete, fifth
in God and his beneficence, we shall find a special appeal in the figure of the potter and, the
clay’.
The poem is free from the obscurity which "vitiates much of Browning's poetry. It is free
also from eccentricity and grotesque-ness. But, though not obscure, it is not among his
easiest poems. The construction in several stanzas is far too involved to be under-, stood by
the reader without guidance. Such are the second and the third stanzas, as also the ninth,
eleventh, twelfth, twenty- first, and twenty second and the twenty-ninth stanzas. And there is at
least one line in the poem which has been singled out by practically all critics as an example of
Browning's characteristic inclination towards inversions:
Irks care the crop- full bird? Frets doubt the. maw-crammed beast?
This is a particularly ugly and revolting line and represents that aspect of
Browning's style which brought him into disrepute.

47
1.5 W.B.YEATS –EASTER 1916.
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among gray
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe1
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good will,
48
Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers1 ?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought,
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Vet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned Ks part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn

49
Transformed utterly;
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moorhens dive,
And hens to moorcocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.

50
O when may it suffice ?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had ran wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all ?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died ?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green1 is worn, .

51
Are changed, changed utterly:
Easter 1916. an organized body of Irish Nationalists had occupied key points in the city
of Dublin and proclaimed an independent Irish Republic with Patrick Pearse as provisional
president. The rising was put down in a week by British troops and sixteen of the leaders
were executed. Yeats, encouraged by the fiery and beautiful Maud Gonne, had taken some
part in Nationalist politics, but in the years preceding the Easter Rising had become
increasingly disillusioned. In To a Shade (1913) he had evoked the spirit of Parnell only to
dismiss it bitterly:
You had enough of sorrow before death —
Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.
In September 1913 he had contrasted the heroism of Robert Enunet and Wolfe Tone with
the dull shopkeeping priest-ridden Present and concluded:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone.
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
The Rising came, therefore, as a surprise to Yeats as it did to most Irishmen, In a letter to
Lady Gregory he wrote "I had no idea that any public event could so deeply move me and I am
very despondent about the future". Romantic Ireland had returned with a vengeance; the heroic past
to which Yeats had appealed was now disturbingly present. The first section of Easter 1916 is a
52
recantation of what has been said in September 1913, The similarity in the titles makes the com-
parison irresistible.
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
The mention of "counter or desk" recalls the shop-keeping world of September 1913, and the
contrast between "vivid faces" and grey houses is an admission that the poet has mistaken
appearance for reality. The adjective "eighteenth-century" has more than a descriptive significance;
it connects the modem rebels with the heroic Dublin of Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet.
It is worth noting that the poem begins with the personal pronoun. Yeats is not only an Irishman
writing about Ireland, but a man commemorating friends whom he has perhaps misunderstood or
misjudged. This union of public and personal themes provides an insight into the effect of the
rebellion on the individuals concerned and gives the poem a particularly satisfying completeness.
The rhythm, based on a three-stressed line, shows how far Yeats had come from the languid lines
of Morris and the iambic pentameter which is the stock-in-trade of Victorian verse. Being, both
taut and flexible, it allows him to keep a balance between rhetoric and naturalness. On the one
hand we have the firm rhythm and formal syntax of
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:

53
On the other hand we have the casual and deliberately unrhythmic
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club
Another kind of balance is achieved by the rhyming which moves between full rhyme (day/grey,
head/said, worn/born) suited to the solemnity of a public theme, and half-rhyme (faces /houses,
done/companion) required by the poet's own uncertain and complex attitude.
The word "motley" contains a self-directed irony. Yeats had become convinced that Nationalist
ideals were a romantic pose masking the dull reality of "counter or desk"; now it is precisely the
"counter or desk" which turn out to have been "motley". The section ends with the memorable
lines
All changed, changed utterly:
This is a statement of the theme of Easter 1916; what follows is a definition of it.
The second section catalogues the individuals, known personally to the poet, who have stepped
out of the world of motley, "changed utterly" in the light of a "terrible beauty.
The first is Con Markiewicz, whom Yeats had known as Constance Gore-Booth and who had
been imprisoned for her part in the Rising. The complex and personal nature of Yeats's attitude is
now made clear. Instead of a celebration of Nationalist ideals we have only the recognition that
Nationalism has changed a beautiful aristocratic woman into a shrill- voiced demagogue. The lines
are relevant not only to Con Markiewicz but also to Maud Gonne whom Yeats had loved and
54
lost. As a result of this experience Yeats conceived an intense dislike for women in politics. In A
Prayer for my Daughter he remembers:
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
The catalogue continues with Pearse and Mac Donagh. the two dead poets. MacDonagh is
presented as one who "might have won fame in the end", and the modifying "might" is further
evidence of Yeats's refusal to simplify the issue. Finally we come to MacBride with whom
Yeats is more intimately concerned. (MacBride had married Maud Gonne, but : the marriage
had been a failure.
Yeats does not seek to minimise his dislike:'
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart

55
The verb “dreamed” is not an attempt to modify the brutal description of a "drunken,
vainglorious lout"; it is an admission that the personal relations of pre-revolution times have been
rendered unreal and dreamlike by subsequent events. MacBride, by his death, has moved out of
the world of motley:
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
This repetition of the refrain leads us on to the next section which is a discussion of
change. By a dramatic reversal the rebels are now seen through the unchanging nature of their
purpose, contrasting with and opposed to the constant flux of life:
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The images that follow are brought together in a single changing landscape, unified in a
single process of movement and generation. The permanence of this process is underlined by the
repetition of the image words:
A horse- hoof slides on the brim,

56
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive.
And hens to moor-cocks call;
The threefold reiteration of "minute by minute" does more than strengthen the effect; the way
"Minute by minute they change" becomes "Minute by minute they live" stresses the identification of
change with life,
Finally the image of the stone is repeated and its relevance to the rebels is made
even more explicit:
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
The lines seem conventional enough, but the suggestions of the image and the
implications of the phrase have been carefully worked out in the preceding passage. In
this way Yeats reanimates the dead metaphor; what would normally be a cliche takes on a
precise and moving significance which is, at least in part, a definition of the "terrible
beauty" born of the Easter Rising.
But the death of the heart, turned to stone, is also a real physical death. Yeats
develops what threatens to become a sentimental comparison only to abandon it abruptly:

57
our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
The sentimentality of the comparison makes the harsh facts of the case stand out
with greater poignancy. The rebels are not sleeping children, but dead men; their sacrifice
may. have been unnecessary. But Yeats cannot remain content ,with a judgment based on
political expediency. The sacrifice may be inexpedient, it may turn the heart to stone, and it
certainly. leads to death; nevertheless it derives from an essentially noble emotion:
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
In the progress from "excess of love" to bewilderment and death lies all the beauty
and tragedy of Easter 1916. With a touch of balladry, Yeats recites the litany of names and
concludes with the familiar refrain which now contains all the complexity of his attitude.
58
It has been objected that by celebrating the Rising and, at the same time, making
a rational criticism of it, Yeats is trying to have the best of two worlds. What this really
means is that the poet does not take sides, and this, in a situation where people tend to
take sides all too easily, may well be a virtue. The objection does, however, draw our
attention to the dual nature of Yeats's poetic personality. On the one hand we have
visionary art and the supernatural and on the other hand a strong streak of realism and a
sense for the natural. At best these two aspects become fused into a complete and satisfying
whole. In Easter 1916 they enable Yeats to appreciate the dream of the rebels while seeing
its political and human limitations. This is far from an attempt to have the best of both
worlds; it is an admission that neither world is, of itself, satisfactory.
1.6 Gerard Manly Hopkins – (1844-1889)
WINDHOVER
or
To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of

daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon,
in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and
striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling
wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

59
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth en a bow-bend: the
hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the
thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume,
here
Buckle, AND the fire that breaks from thec then, a
billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
The Jesuit poet of remarkable originality, used a kind of disciplined free verse
in which the line is based, not on any conventional metrical foot, but on an
irregular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables .Hopkins this
“Sprung Rhythm”and claimed that it was the rhythm of commonspeech.
Hopkins also rejected conventional poetic diction and used called ‘current
language heightened ‘.He is thus the pioneer of modern poetry although he
wrote long before such poetry was written by anyone else. Briefly, however.
Sprung Rhythm is based on the fact that English is a highly stressed language
and its rhythms depend on syllables being heavy or light rather than long or
60
short. For Hopkins every stress constitutes a metrical foot and may be
accompanied by any number of unstressed syllables. A stress may also
constitute a metrical foot without the addition of unstressed syllables,
whereas in the more normal English metres a foot consists of a stress together
with one or two unstressed syllables/This Sprung Rhythm can be seen in
nursery rhymes, proverbs, and early English alliterative verse, and traces of it
can be found in the work of some major poets, but Hopkins was the first to
elevate it into a consistent principle. He enriches it with complex patterns of
alliteration, assonance, interior rhyme and half-rhyme without which, as W. H.
Gardner says, "Sprung Rhythm tends to degenerate into doggerel or even
bad prose"'. In the use of all these technical devices there is an avoidance of
mere tunefulness: Hopkins is capable of creating an elaborate music without
any suggestion that music is being indulged in for its own sake. The music is
part of the meaning and the words that create the music have a precise
significance. Sprung Rhythm, therefore, is dictated by meaning and reinforces
meaning. The rhythm becomes obvious once the meaning is understood.
The Windhover, like God's Grandeur, dates from 1877 and the poet
himself referred to it as "the best thing I ever wrote'O It is certainly one of his
most complex poems and has attracted an enormous amount of critical
attention. The complexity derives from a conflict between Hopkins'
aesthetic devotion to Nature and his ascetic devotion to the religious life. This
61
point, sometimes exaggerated, has been made by most critics and is often
regarded as being basic to much of Hopkins' work. Robert Bridges speaks of
"the naked encounter of sensualism and asceticism which hurts the Golden
Echo"' and F. N. Lees refers to "the aesthetic thus seeking union with the
ascetic" in The Habit of Perfection. In God's Grandeur this union is attained
easily enough because Nature, the object of aesthetic emotion, is "charged
with the grandeur of God". In the Windhover there is an evident tension.
The poem begins with an exact aesthetic celebration of the Falcon,
called the Windhover because he hovers upon the wind. Lie is associated with
freshness, daylight and morning; he is "dapple-dawn-drawn", drawn forth by
the dappled dawn and dappled himself. He is compared to a man on
horseback — more than a man, a "dauphin" in his "riding / of the rolling
level underneath him steady air". The "rolling level" indicates both the nature
of the landscape and the air itself. Like a rider7, ihe bird controls the "rolling
level" of the air so well that it seems to be steady. The wing with which he
rides the air is like the rein of the horseman: "how he rung upon the rein of a
wimpling wing". But the Windhover demonstrates not only power and control
but also grace as the image changes to that of a skateryjunally with the
words "hurl and gliding", equally applicable to both skater and bird, we are
brought back again to the air, "the big wind", the element in which, unlike
skater or rider, the bird lives.

62
So far we have had a very precise sensuous appreciation of the qualities of
the Windhover; but this creates a problem for the poet:
My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, — the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
The key word here is "thing'' and it is a perfect example o f t h e
interdependence of music and meaning mentioned above. I The meaning of
this word illuminates the whole poem and Hopkins takes care to draw
attention to it. The rhyme of the octave has been based on 'ing' and 'iding'
and the sound has been echoed by "morning'', "rolling" and "wimpling". In the
sestet the 'ing' sound does not appear at all. When a sound has been used
so assiduously it is natural enough that on its last appearance it should take
a strong stress. fThe stress on "thing" would be unnatural if the word were used
in its normal casual sense; but if we consider Hopkins' vocation as a priest we
shall see that it assumes a special significance. In religious terminology "thing"
can be taken as suggesting the "things of this world" which must be rejected-
for the sake of the next. The poet may be moved by the qualities of the bird,
but the Windhover is still a "thing", a creature; and the love of the creature for
its own sake can be dangerous if it distracts from love of the Creator.
This is why the poet's heart is "in hiding": he is confessing a secret, almost
forbidden love> We see in these lines the same over-scrupulous conscience

63
which led Hopkins, on entering the Jesuit novitiate in 1868, to burn his poetry
"as not belonging to my profession". This crisis was solved by the belief, seen in
God's Grandeur, that Nature reflects the power of God and is therefore a
fitting subject for praisej; The solution was encouraged by a study of Duns
Scotus and his doctrine of "inscape", the individuality or particularity of a
thing, and "instress", God's presence in it.
But in the octave of this sonnet the Windhover has been celebrated for its
own sake alone, for its "inscape" without reference to the "instress" of God;
hence the conflict. And so the sestet is an attempt at sublimation, an attempt
to enlist the qualities of the bird in the spiritual life which he has chosen to
lead.
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride,
[plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee
[then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
The first line summarises the qualities of the bird, the "brute beauty", and
the verb "Buckle" is an imperative meaning 'let them be buckled on, like
armour, here in my heart'. The result will be a "fire that breaks" from God
64
even more impressive than the power of the'Windhover.. The "thee" refers to
the "Christ our Lord." of the dedication, and "my chevalier" connects Christ with
the bird continuing the image of the horseman and the chivalric associations
of "dauphin". There is an essential difference between the earthly dauphin, the
bird, and ... the heavenly chevalier, Christ. The bird was described in the third
person, but Christ is addressed directly as "thee" a n d "my chevalier"
because a personal relationship is involved.
But Hopkins' life as a priest is not going to consist of beauty and
danger in the obvious way demonstrated by the Windhover. It is going to be
lived in the world of God's Grandeur, where "Generations have trod, have
trod, have trod". It is going to be "sheer plod". Nevertheless, if the spiritual
qualities have been truly buckled on, this life will have an underlying beauty,
just as the dull earth shines when cut by the plough, just as the "blue-bleak
embers" of a fire hide a glow.
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
The last line is extraordinarily suggestive. The colours of gold a n d
vermilion suggest the martyr's crown and the martyr's 'death. The "gash" is a
wound and the "gall" recalls the gall offered to Christ on the cross. These
65
violent images prevent any accusation that the sublimation of the bird's
qualities has been too easily attained; in the same way the exact sensuous
description of the Windhover itself convinces us that the experience is not
simply being used as an excuse for sublimation. It is a measure of Hopkins'
poetic integrity that his solution is convincing precisely because it takes
account of the difficulties involved.
The "sheer plod"., "blue-bleak embers" and "gall" in the last lines of The
Windhover provide a bridge between the confident faith of God's Grandeur
and the desolation of the later sonnets. Hopkins never lost his faith or
regretted his vocation, but his later life was dogged by a sense of frustration,
a natural melancholia increased by deteriorating health. In his creative
work he found it difficult to complete a poem and in his spiritual life he felt
estranged from the presence of God. Much has been said about the tension
between Hopkins the poet and Hopkins the priest and there can be no
doubt that sometimes the two vocations conflicted/ More important, ho-
wever, is the fact that in both fields he set himself impossibly high standards
and suffered from his failure to achieve them.
If as a poet he strove, as Bridges said, for an 'unattainable perfection
of language', as a man he desired what was perhaps for him an
unattainable perfection of sanctity.

66
With this in mind we can approach / wake and fell the fellof
dark. We know from his letters that Hopkins suffered from insomnia and
perhaps this accounts for the physical reality of the first line. Here "fell"
means the fur or skin of an ani- m a l ; the darkness is so thick that it
seems tangible. Since "fell" as an adjective means evil or cruel we
have the image of Hopkins waking to the darkness as one becomes
a w a r e o f a fierce threatening beast. The repetition of "hours" gains
s t rength from the diaer e s i s o v e r the second indicating that it is to be
pronounced as two syllables like "power". In the fourth line the "light's
delay"' is both the delay of the actual dawn and the delay of the light of
God. In the next four lines Hopkins moves away from the physical
experience of waking at night, but first he vouches for its actuality:
With witness I speak this.
But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life.
The witness may be Hopkins himself but it may also be G o d , t h e
assumption being that only God and the poet know what has actually
occurred. He then claims that the experience of darkness applies not
only to one night, but to his whole life. The theme of the poem,
estrangement from God, is now stated openly with the simile of "dead
letters", the least immediate form of human contact.

67
And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! awav.
The interjection of "alas" serves to throw the emphasis onto "away" in the
same manner as "ah! bright wings" in God's Grandeur.
It is important to note the progression of sense impressions in this sonnet. We
start with the sense of touch; the poet "feels'' the dark. This is an appropriately
immediate sense because the poet is speaking of a darkness that is actual as
well as metaphorical. As Hopkins approaches the subject of his relationship with
God, the sense images become progressively more remote, through sight, "sights
you, heart, saw", and hearing, "cries countless", until sense disappears altogether
with the simile of "dead letters". But when he returns from God to himself the
sense image is the most immediate of all, taste:
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
The "gall", as in The Windhover, recalls the gall given to Christ on the cross;
and "heartburn" has the double sense of spiritual suffering and the pain that
results from eating something indigestible. The use of this popular term for indi-
gestion in such a serious context is a risk which succeeds in avoiding the ridiculous
68
only because of its appropriateness in the general metaphor of taste. Hopkins
attributes his isolation to two causes; first, a divine decision, "God's most deep de-
cree"., and second, his own personality, "Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood
brimmed the curse". This line can be understood in two ways, either that his
isolation is the result of a physical condition or that it is as inherent and
inevitable as bones, blood and flesh. The image of taste is continued with
"Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours". This recalls the Gospel of Saint Matthew:
The Kingdom of Heaven is like to leaven, which
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal,
until the whole was leavened, (xiii, 33)
The reference is a bitter one; it demonstrates a contrast between the ideal
of the Kingdom of Heaven and the poet's own position, because in his case the
leavening action does take place, impeded by his own "dull dough".
The sonnet reaches its climax when Hopkins compares his isolation to that
of the damned in Hell:
I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

69
The lines are perilously close to hysteria, but are saved by the addition of
"but worse", the realization that, of course, the damned are worse off than
himself. What would otherwise be a banal self-dramatization is rendered
completely convincing by this last rational act)
The sanity of this ending prepares us for the next poem to be discussed.
Hopkins had the objective good sense to realize that his introspection was in itself
a fault. He knew that although examination of conscience and self-accusation
play a part in the spiritual life, there are times when self-forgetful-, ness in called
for.
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind.
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
The Christian virtues of pity, kindness and charity must be exercised not only
towards others, but also towards himself. The advice is not of the kind most of tfs
need, but it is certainly relevant to the over-scrupulous conscience revealed in /
wake and feel the fell of dark. The two poems, in fact, are found together in
manuscript on the same piece of sermon-paper, and though undated, were
probably written at the same time. It is not unreasonable to suppose that My own
70
heart was written as an antidote to I wake and feel the fell of dark. The threefold
repetition of "torment" is not simply rhetorical emphasis. The line could be
rearranged as 'not live with this tormented mind still tormented by my tormented
mind'. The repetition achieves a circular movement to convey the vicious circle of
introspection, the endless self-destruction in which the mind torments itself and
ends where it began.
The same device is used in the next four lines:
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Here "comfortless" is used as a noun meaning "comfortless self", and "day" is
of course a verb. This is the kind of liberty that Bridges objected to, and certainly
Hopkins takes unprecedented advantage of the flexibility of the language: but
here, as in God's Grandeur, the gain is one of immediacy. One can see the loss of
strength that would result from "comfortless self;' or "can find day".
Introspection is fruitless because it seeks comfort in the self which is
comfortless. The first image used to illustrate this recalls the dark and day of the
71
previous sonnet discussed; the second that of thirst in "a world of wet", recalls
Coleridge's lines in the Ancient Mariner:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
In these lines, however, "Thirst's all-in-all" is the biblical water of life, and the
"world of wet" suggests the Christian vale of tears.
The sestet brings an abrupt change of mood. Instead of the long phrases and
obsessive repetitions of the octave, we now have a series of short ejaculations
separated by semicolons. The tone becomes almost jocular and the tormented
self is even given a nickname, "Jackself". "Leave comfort root-room" refers back to "I
cast for comfort" in the octave. Introspection fills the soul with self, leaving no
"root-room" for comfort from outside. To make room he must "call off thoughts
awhile / Elsewhere". The phrase "let joy size / At God knows when to God knows
what" has a colloquial ring, but the cliche "God knows" is revitalized. In this
expressly religious context it has not only the conventional meaning of 'I don't
know', but also the literal one, 'even if I don't know, God does'. The word "size" here
means measure of conformity in the sense that we speak of 'sizing' things up or
down to meet certain requirements. The whole phrase could be glossed as 'let
my joy be measured by God's will in God's time'. This comfort from God,
therefore, cannot be "wrung" or forced, but will be unexpected:

72
whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather
[— as skies
Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.
"Betweenpie" is an unfortunate compound of 'between' and 'pied' and is used
here as a verb. A-possible paraphrase of the last sentence would be that God's
smile is as unforeseen as the sky that lights and dapples the land between
mountains. Apart from this rather unsuccessful conclusion the sonnet is, on the
whole, an effective piece of self-criticism. The rejection of introspection in the
octave and the lightness of touch in the sestet prevent it from being self-
pitying in the normal unpleasant sense of the word.
Thou art indeed just is Hopkins' last religious sonnet, written in 1889, the year
of his death. The language is so direct that it requres little or nothing in the
way of paraphrase. Instead of the exuberant originality of metre and diction
seen in poems like/ The Windhover we now have reserve and austerity. This
does not mean that Hopkins outgrew or rejected his experiments; the
austerity of the language reflects the almost chronic feeling of aridity that
dominated hi s s p i r i t u a l life. The technical gifts are still there, but the
73
excitement in the use of them has gone. The result is by no means negative.
The bareness of the style is admirably suited to the theme which is nothing
less than the justification of a man before his God.
The poem is prefaced by a quotation from the Book of Jeremiah (xii, 1)
and the first three lines are a verbatim translation. The process of self-
justification beginning with "so what I plead is just" is carried even further by
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me?
Though the poem began, as for a Christian it had to, with an acceptance
of God's justice, this reads like an open accusation. The insertion of "O thou
my friend" serves to emphasize the contradiction between the poet's belief in
the love of God and his experience that the servants of lust thrive more than
the servant of God.
The last section of the sonnet presents a contrast between the poet's own
unfruitful life and the fruitful world of Nature.
See, banks and brakes
Now, leaved how thick! laced they are again

74
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
A s i n The Windhover, we see an ambivalent attitude to Nature, (in The
Windhover the power of the bird was seen both as a challenge to the
religious life and as a stimulus to the practise of heroic virtue. In the lines
quoted above the natural scene acts simultaneously as a reproach and a-
consolation; a reproach because it contrasts with the poet's own aridity,
and a consolation because it demonstrates the existence of a creative
force, the "lord of life" who can also "send my roots rain".
The aridity discussed by Hopkins can be taken as applying both to his
poetry and to his religious duties. The phrase "Time's eunuch" recalls a letter
he wrote in 1888:
Unhappily I cannot produce anything at all, not
only the luxuries like poetry, but the duties almost
of my position... I am a eunuch — but it is for the
kingdom of God's sake (2 )

75
Hopkins' faith, as this passage shows, never faltered; he was an
unhappy, but not a doubting Christian. The tension is not between faith and
reason, but between faith and experience. In Thou art indeed just, above
all, we are made aware of the painful contrast between the optimism of his
Catholic creed and the lack of fulfilment whch he felt as his personal
destiny. The five sonnets discussed in this chapter can be taken as stages in a
spiritual autobiography ending with an honest and passionate self-
justification. This final uncompromising statement of his case may be a long
way from the confidence of God's Grandeur, but it is equally far from the
near-despair of / wake and feet the fell of dark.
Much of what has been written about Hopkins is bedevilled by the
problem of criticism and belief. Those who do not share Hopkins' religious
position frequently discuss him in Freudian terms. The weakness of this
approach is most evident in the work of William Empson who discusses at
length an ambiguity in The Windhover, where, he believes, 'buckle' has the
two meanings of "buckle like a military belt for the discipline of heroic action,
and buckle like a bicycle wheel, 'make useless, distorted, and incapable of its
natural motion'". (3) Empson admits, of course, that Hopkins' intention was
limited to the first meaning, but defines the whole thing as a Freudian use
of opposites, where "the two values, of the ambiguity are the two opposite
meanings defined by the context, so that the total effect is to show a

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fundamental division in the writer's mind". ( 4 ) This is ingenious, but highly
dangerous: what il really demonstrates is Empson's personal dislike of Hopkins'
Catholicism. Catholic critics, on the other hand, tend to treat Hopkins as a
mystic, and the desolate later sonnets are defined in terms like 'the dark
night of the soul'. -This kind of terminology is, to say the least, suspect. When
we speak of Saint John of the Cross or Teresa of Avila as mystics-we mean
that they claim to have experienced some kind, of spiritual illumination or
union with God. The sense of desolation, 'the; dark night of the soul', is a
stage in the progress toward this union. In Hopkins the illumination never
comes, the union I is never attained. A quotation from Saint John of the
Cross will make the point clearer.
Lost to myself I stayed,
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing,
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade. (°)
There is no parallel in Hopkins he remains inescapably tied to his own
personality:
I see
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The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse
Hopkins' obsessive concern with his own isolation and the limited
nature of the experience presented may sometimes give rise to a feeling of
claustrophobia in the reader, but it ' quite possibly saved him from
influences that could have modified or emasculated his originality.
Moreover, it may well be the intensity of his introspection as much as his
technical experiments, that made him, thirty or forty years after his death,
so readily acceptable as a contemporary.
NON-DETAILED-POETRY.
1.7 KEATS -ODE TO THE NIGHTINGALE
INTRODUCTION
The ode was composed in the spring of 1819 while the poet was staying with his friend
Brown at Wenworth place, Hampstead. It was inspired by the song of a nightingale that sang
near by. However, it celebrates not any particular nightingale, but the race of nightingales.
Stanza 1
The poet listens to the song of the nightingale and his heart aches with excess of joy. A
drowsiness overtakes him, as if he had drunk some opium preparation or any other intoxicant.
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He envies the happy lot of the bird and wishes to reach the ‘beachen green’ where the supposes
the bird is singing with such full – throated case. He wants to partake in her happiness.
The poet is fascinated by the song of a nightingale singing in a groove near the home of
his friend brown, where he was staying at the time. The poet’s heart feels pain due to the very
excess of his joy, so sweet is the song of the nightingale. He feels intoxicated with his sweet
melody, as if he had drunk to his fill some opium preparation or the juice of hemlock. A
drowsy numbness overtakes him. His senses become dull and lethargic and he forgets
everything of the past, as if he had drunk the water of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the
under – world.
In these lines, the poet has described the mood of complete lethargy, when fibres of the
mind and body are completely relaxed, and one reclines half – sleep with the mind conscious
of nothing but its own vacuity.
Stanza 2
The poet longs for a draught of cool wine, which has been cooled by being buried for a
long time in the deep – dug earth. He longs for the precious wine made in South France, wine
which reminds him of the Roman goddess, Flora, and the festivities in her honour. Under the
effect of such wine, the poet will escape from this world into the happy world of the
nightingale.
The poet listens to the song of a nightingale and his heart aches with the very
excess of joy at the sweetness of the song. He longs for a draught of cool wine, which
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has been cooled for a long time by being buried deep down in the earth. He wants a
breaker full of the precious wine made in South France The southern Districts of
France, known as Provence, are famous for , their wine. They are also known for their
singing, dancing and merry- making on the occasion of the yearly festival of the goddess
Flora, the Roman goddess of spring. The wine reminds him by association of this
merry- making, and of the goddess Flora.
This red wine will inspire him just as the water of Hippocrene, the Fount of the
Muses, was supposed to inspire those who drank of it. The poet then lingers to describe
the beaker full of the rich red wine, which suggests to him the picture of a dancing girl,
blushing and winking at her lover, so to say. The wine is as red as the blushes of the girl and
the bubbles rising and breaking on the surface remind the poet of the closing and
opening of her eyes. The edges of the cup are also red, as red as her lips dyed red.
The poet wants to drink such precious wine, and under its intoxication to escape unseen
from this unhappy world to the thickly shaded grove of breech tress where the nightingale
is singing.
Comments
The passage throws valuable light on the sensuousness of Keats. It is specially
remarkable for its multi- colour pictures which succeed one another. It reveals the poet’s
sense of colour and his voluptuous imagination.
Stanza 3
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The poet longs to escape from this miserable world to the happy world of the
nightingale. He wants to forget in this way the sorrow and suffering which the bird has
never experienced in her grove of beech trees
Stanza 4
In the previous stanza the poet had wished to fly to the nightingale under the
effect of wine. However, now he rejects the idea. He now intends to fly there on the
viewless wings of poetry. He would escape from this wretched world on the wings of his
poetic imagination. Such is the power of imagination, that the very next moment he finds
himself in the, "beechen- grove", listening to the song of the bird.
Stanza 5
It is so dark that the poet cannot see what sweet smelling flowers are growing at
his feet and on the trees round him. He can only guess them by their sweet smell. He
gives us an account of the various flowers he supposes to be growing in the grove, and the
nightingale and her song are for the moment forgotten.
Stanza 6
The poet listens to the song of the nightingale in the dark. He has always loved a
painless death, but now death seems to be m ore welcome than ever before. He wishes
that he may die at midnight a painless death with the sweet song of the nightingale pouring
into his ears. He will die, but the nightingale would continue to sing. In this way the
transitoriness of human life is contrasted, "with the permanence of the song-bird’s life,
meaning the life of the type.

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Stanza 7
The nightingale will never die. It will continue to sing for ever. The song was heard
in ancient time, both by emperor and clown. It is the same song which was hea r d b y
Ruth as she stood, sick for home, with tears in her eyes, in the cornfields of her husband.
It is the same song which must have been heard by maidens imprisoned all alone in
magic castes in fairylands. The permanence of art is thus emphasised as against the
transitoriness of individual life.
Stanza 8
The use of the word "forlorn" in the previous stanza reminds the poet of his own
loneliness. The charm is broken, and the poet again returns to reality. He realises that
imagination cannot make one forget the facts of life for any length of time.
The sad song of the nightingale' gradually dies away. The poet is not sure whether it
was all a dream or did he, in reality, hear the sweet song. He is not sure whether he was
awake or asleep all the time.
Keats as a Romantic poet or The union of Romanticism and Classicism in Keats’s policy
The Second Generation of the Romantics
Keats, along with Shelley and Byron, belongs to the second generation of the romantic
poets—a generation which began to create after the first—Wordsworth and Coleridge —had
already given their best to the world. The younger poets differed from the elder in several
important respects. While Wordsworth and Coleridge could achieve respectability and
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recognition in their own life times, Byron and Shelley remained social out casts up to the
end. Keats, a lso, could not gain any recognition in his life. Whatever name and fame he
could get, was won only after his death. During bliss life, even Shelley believed that Keats,
"would never be a popular poet."
Keats : A Unique Phenomenon
In the history of English Romanticism, Keats is a unique phenomenon in more ways than
one. He was the last to be born and the first to die. His powers matured rapidly and all his
work was done within the short period of three years. Moreover, while all the other
romantics were influenced profoundly by the political and social aims of the French
Revolution, Keats remained unaffected by them. The ideas of the Revolution awoke the
youthful passion of Coleridge and Wordsworth, stirred the wrath of Scott, inspired Byron to
creative activity, and kindled the revolutionary ardour of Shelley, but there is not one
solitary trace of them in Keats. "// is not that they are consciously laid aside", says S.
A. Brooke, "It is as if they had never existed in the world." In his poetry, he ever tries to
escape from "the weariness, the fever, and the fret" of life, into an imaginary world of
Beauty.
Addition of Strangeness to Beauty
All poets love Beauty, and it is Beauty which inspires them to create. But the
romantics, as Walter Pater points out, "added Beauty. “They were always curious to
enjoy the charms of unknown. The remote, the distant and the unfamiliar had a special
fascination of its own for them and they were curious to experience the pleasures of the
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unknown imaginatively, if not actually. This is also the attitude of Keats. Love of Beauty is
Keats’s differentia, but it is the Beauty of the unknown which attracts him the most. A
study of Chapman's Homer fires his
Imagination and, says the poet,
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a mw planet swims into his ken ;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes.
He stared at the Pacific and all Mi men,
Looked at each other with a wild surmise.
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Pursuit of the unknown, the invisible, and the infinite, impels all the romantic poetry of the
world." In Keats also we find this pursuit of the unknown beauty in ample measure. He
is of imagination all compact and imaginatively he can enjoy Beauties which were hidden
from the physical eye. Thus the song of the nightingale because from him a symbol of
eternal Beauty and imaginatively he can reach the 'melodious plot' of beachen green where
the bird is singing and, enjoy the manifold natural charms of the place. Not only that, he
can even imagine the various people—Ruth, emperor and clown, etc.—who must have heard
the sweet song, and we get the following suggestive lines :
charmed magic casements, opening on the foam,

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Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
The lines are the quintessence of Romanticism. Like Shelley, he too isinspired before and
after and pines for what is not; on the wings of ': imagination he is constantly Dying to
distant ages and lands in the quest of beauty.
Dissatisfaction with Reality
Dissatisfaction with the present order of things is the key note of romanticism.
Frustrated with life in the present, Keats escapes imaginatively into the ancient world of
Hellas, or into the middle ages. While Shelley imagined a Golden Age in times to come,
Keats finds it in the past. The Greek myths, their literature and art, their life, fascinate him.
They form his habitual reading and it is there perfection he tries to capture in his own
poetry. Similarly, the tales of love and chivalry, of knighthood and adventure, the pomp,
pageantry and colours of the Middle ages, all hold his heart captive, and in one poem after
another he returns to them. The dreamy atmosphere and leisurely pace of the medieval Fairy
Queen is also the key- note of his own poetry. He goes to Sparser for inspiration and uses his
stanza in a masterly manner.
His Super naturalism
Romanticism has also been defined as the, "'Renaissance of wonder'' i.e. re-awakening of
interest in the supernatural. For the romantics, there are more things in heaven and earth than
people dream of. There is a world of the unseen behind and above the world of the senses.
Keats is also fully alive to this super sensuous world. It is the magic and mystery, the belief
in ghosts and fairies, of the Middle Ages, that captivate Keats’s heart. The Eve of St. Mark
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and the Eve of St. Agnes are based upon two different medieval superstitions, and in the La
Belle Dame Sans Merci we get the medieval belief that certain cruel fairies entangle mortals
in their love and then betray them and ruin them. Lamia is based on the superstition of
those dark ages regarding the serpent- women, and the harm they could cause by their
beauty.
Love of Nature
The romantics were all great lovers of nature and Keats was no exception. He loved the
sensuous beauty of nature with all the glow of a lover. While Wordsworth spiritualized
nature and Shelley intellectualized her, Keats is content to render her through the senses.
Her colours and tastes, specially, fascinate him and he communicates these charms to his
readers While Shelley loved the wilder and vaster in nature, he flutters butterfly fashion
over the homelier and the familiar. His personifications of nature are extra-ordinarily vivid,
and like the Greeks, he peoples all nature with the gods and goddesses of pagan mythology.
His Music and Melody
The poetry of Keats also, like that of the romantics in general, is an spontaneous out-
pouring of the heart. An object of beauty inspires him to instant creative activity. He hears
the song of a nightingale, is thrilled by it, and within a few hours composes the Ode to the
Nightingale, one of the richest Odes in the language. While 'correctness' was the key- note
of the Pseudo-classics, music and melody are the characteristics of romantic poetry.
Keats' poetry has a haunting music of its own, and this captivating music comes to him by
nature. . The !8th century classics confined them-selves to one metre i.e. the heroic couplet,
Keats, along with the other romantics, uses a number of metres with great effect and
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mastery. He is equally an adept in the use of blank verse, the Spensarian Stanza and the
ballad metre.
The Romantic Melody
In short all the characteristic qualities of romanticism f i n d their full and free
expression in the poetry of Keats Legcius and Cazamian aptly remark that in his
poetry, "Romanticism attains its final stage of progress." He is the most fragrant
flower of English romanticism, one with whom romanticism is not merely a revolt, "but a
subtle, permeating essence of the soul." The favourite themes of Keats' Romanticism are
set forth in the Odes in short and elaborate forms: they reveal the anguished
yearning of the soul to find a Beauty which endures. Keats has already come into
contact with the fact of human suffering, as realised the temporary nature of things
human, and so a veiled melancholy permeates the great Odes. His yearning for
beauty that endures is here fused with the "bitter-sweet voluptuousness enclosed in the
impassioned meditation of death." In the Odes we see the beginning of that psychological
morbidness which was to develop further during the course of the century. Keats is a
poet par excellence of the pain of joy, and the joy of pain. "His pessimism is deeper and
more significant than that of Byron ; it has not its secret source in any tragic mystery, and
it is thus much more inevitable." It is made up of the unconquerable feeling of the
fragility of beautiful forms, as of the futility of the effort through which desire seeks to
achieve its aims. The seeds of his melancholy lie in bitter realism.
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It may also be mentioned that romantic suggestiveness reaches the acme of its
development in the poetry of Keats. He suggests much more than he describes. Each one of
his countless images opens up to our view far-reaching perspective. Each epithet is
extraordinarily rich in suggestiveness. He lingers lovingly over each word and loads it
with a wealth of meaning.
Union of Classicism and Romanticism
The extreme of romanticism exists in his poetry along with a rote of classicism, not the
Pseudo-classicism of Pope and his school, but the true classicism of the Greek masters.
Greek themes, themes taken from Greek literature and mythology, are treated in the
manner of the romantics. At Lcgoius puts it, "Keats effects that rare union of classical
discipline, guided by the example and precepts of the ancients, with [he more intrinsically
precious matter which the artist finds in romanticism". The watch- words of the 18th
century classics were "correctness", 'reason' and "good-sense"; the watch- words of Keats are
freedom and music. 'He achieves perfection of firm along with the positive substance of
poetry. His poetry is characterized by emotion, spontaneity, inspiration and imagination,
as well as with that restraint, self- control and polish which are the hall marks of classicism.
Music and melody, highly suggestive words and images in short, perfect felicity of expression
come to him as spontaneously as the emotional and imaginative context of his poetry. Even
the romantic themes of the marvellous and the wonderful, and of medieval superstition,
are enclosed by him in forms of classical perfection. The melancholy which runs through
his poetry arises from his yearning for Beauty, Beauty which was also the quest of Hellas.
Conclusion: A True Classic

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Poetry consists both of matter and manner, of form as well as of substance. In true
classicism, a perfect balance is maintained between the form and content of poetry. When
this balance is disturbed in favour of substance we get romanticism; when it is disturbed in
favour of form we get Pseudo- classicism. In Keats poetry the two are kept in perfect
harmony. We get classical restraint, discipline and perfection of form in union with
unlimited range of sensation and emotion.
In this respect, as in many other respects, Keats stands alone and supreme in the
history of English Romanticism. With longer life, he certainly would have been the greatest
of the romantics.
1.7.1 Keats As A Writer Of Odes or Greatness As A Writer Of Odes
Keats' Odes: Their Universal Significance
The Great Odes: Their Significance
Keats - greatest writer of odes in English literature. His Odes are the finest fruits of
his maturity. They represent Keats at his best. All the characteristic qualities of his poetry
find full and vivid expression in them. As has been well said, Shelley’s genius finds perfect
expression in the lyrics, Keats’ genius in the Odes as odes and then briefly examine matter
and manner.
The Ode : Definition : Chief Features
The word ‘ode’ is simply the Greek word for 'song'. It was used by the Greeks for any
kind of lyric v e r s e , i.e. for any song sung with the lyre. However, as far as English
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literature is concerned the idea of some musical accompaniment has been given up, and the
term is now applied to only one particular kind of lyric verse. An English Ode may be
defined as, "a lyric poem of elaborate metrical structure, solemn in tone, and usually taking
the form of an address", very often to some abstraction or quality. Edmund Gose defines the
ode as, "a strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyric verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and
dealing progressively with one dignified theme" From these definitions, the essentials of an
English Ode may be summed up as,
1. It is in the form of an address, often to some abstraction. It is no' written about but
written to.
2. It has lyric enthusiasm and emotional intensity. It is spontaneous overflow of the
poet's emotions.
3. Its theme is dignified and exalted. It has’ 'high seriousness.
4. Its style is equally elevated; it is also sufficiently long to allow for the full
development of its dignified theme.
5. The development of thought is logical and clear.
6. Its metrical pattern may be regular or irregular, but it is
always elaborate and often complex and intricate.
Keats' Odes,—at least the six great ones—have all the significant characteristics of
the ode. They are always in the form of an address ; their theme is exalted and dignified
and their style equally elevated ; their splendour of imagery and fine phrases is matchless;
their metrical pattern is complex and length is sufficient for their thought ; their
development is marked by clarity and logic. Thus they have all the peculiar excellencies
of the ode, but not the blemishes which disfigure the odes of other English poets from
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Cowley to Shelley. They are not marred by any rhetorical declamation, rhapsody,
artificiality, stiffness of phraseology, o\er-ehboration, etc.
Keats' Odes: Opinions Of Critics
Hence it is that the Odes have been universally praised. The great Odes of Keats,
writes Sidney Colvin, "constitute a class apart in English literature." Prof. Selincourt
admires the Odes for their indefinable beauty and emotional intensity arid writes, "but
nowhere in our literature, save in some of Shakespeare's sonnet?, do these emotions affect
us with the Jams haunting pathos, for nowhere else do they find such intensely imaginative
expression." Robert Bridges praising the Odes says, "Had Keats written only his 'odes, his
rank among the poets would not he lower than it is, for they have stood apart in literature,
at least. The six most famous of them." ' I n the odes", says Downer, "he is at his best, and
they will live as long as English poetry is read " Swinburne's tribute is evil more noble ;
''Greater lyrical poetry the world may have seen than any that is in these odes ; lovelier it
surely has never seen nor ever can it possibly see." Admiring the art and music of the Odes..
Legouis Cazimian comment, "The most original character] of his art is its density ; each
epithet is cxtra-ordinarily rich in\ suggestion ; the long lingering of each word in a thought
which lovingly enfolds it, has loaded it with a whole spiritual crystallization. Bach of the
images, which by an exquisite act have been selected from among the most evocative, opens
up to our view far-reaching perspective." In these poems of his maturity, the language of
Keats scintillates with all the gems of speech, without their' brilliance predominating over
the conciseness and nervous exactness of the whole. "The rhythms, handled by an artist
who is alive to the power of music, are not so much new creations as perfect adaptation to
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the supreme unity of an impression". Thus the six great odes of Keats, The Odes to Psyche,
to Melancholy, to Nightingale, to a Grecian Urn, to Indolence, and to Autumn, have received
the highest praises from all the critics of Keats. To these we may add a seventh one ; the
fragmentary Ode to Maia, which, too. reveals Keats art at its best. These great odes are a
unique phenomenon in English literature. Nothing like them existed before ; and in them
Keats may be said to have coated a new class of lyric poetry. They are Keats' greatest claim
to immortality.
The enjoyment of Beauty
The Odes represent at its best the poet's sensuous enjoyment of Beauty— beauty of art,
of nature, and of the ancient world of the Hellas. It was Beauty, and Beauty alone, which
inspired him and made him create. In the Ode to Nightingale the poet enjoys the immortal
Beauty of the nightingale's song, in the Ode to Autumn the mellow fruitfulness of nature in
that season of golden mists, and in the Grecian Urn his imagination is fired by the perfect
Beauty of a piece of Greek sculpture. In the Ode to Psyche, the Beauty and romance of the
beautiful goddess, more beautiful than Venus herself, fires him and he builds a fane for her
worship. Not only does he enjoy sensuous Beauty, but he goes a step further and identifies
Beauty with Truth. Here is the message of the Grecian Urn ;
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty—that is all
You know on earth, and all Ye need to know."
Thus in the Odes we find his conception of Beauty taking on a spiritual turn, a fact
which is amply evidenced by his letters.

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Tone of Melancholy
But this enjoyment of Beauty in the Odes mingles with an undercurrent of deep
melancholy. By the time of the Odes, the “poet had already come in contact with the fact
of human sorrow and suffering, and his personal experiences colour their thought. His
brother George, to whom he was deeply attached, migrated to America with his wife ; his
brother Tom, whom he loved equally well, and whom he affectionately nursed during his
last illness, was just dead. His financial prospects had been ruined by the brutal attacks of the
Reviewers on hi s poetry, and the first symptoms of tie terrible disease, which was soon to
cut short his life, were beginning to appear. Moreover, his hopeless passion for Fanny
Browne was devouring his life and energy. All this personal suffering finds reflection in a
number of passages in the odes. In the Ode to a Nightingale we get:
"The weariness, the fever and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad last Grey hair.
Where youth grows pale, and spectre thin, and dies ;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despair,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.
Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow. Equally autobiographical are these lines
from the Grecian Urn :

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"A burning forehead and a parching tongue.
When old age shall this generation waste", etc.
“Gone are the joyousness of youth and brimming vitality ; through all the great odes
is heard a note of solemnity, deepening now and then to poignant suffering." The Odes were
thus written at a time when the world of pains and troubles had schooled his intelligence and,
"made it a soul." He had realised the supreme truth that the deepest melancholy is to be
found, not where it is popularly supposed to be, but with Beauty which perishes, with Joy
which is fleeting, and with love that is nowhere to be found :
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die
And Joy whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu.
Keats enjoys Beauty, but his enjoyment of her charms is tinged with sadness, for
Beauty is short lived. The mingling of joy with sadness—joy in sadness and sadness in joy—
constitutes one of the greatest charms of the Odes. " This spirit of sadness", says Weekes, "is
not the whole philosophy of Keats, but it is this side of his thought that predominates in
the last yean of his life ; It strikes the key-note of the Odes."
His Realism : Negative Capability
The Odes thus represent Keats' realism—his calm acceptance of the fact of suffering.
Both joy and sorrow are the realities of life and so the poet must be equally at home in
both of them. In other words, in them the poet achieves "Negative Capability"', that
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imaginative sympathy, that perfect mood of self- effacement in which the poet views with
equal calm both good and evil, sorrow and suffering, a mood in which he can create both an
Iago and an Imogen with equal gusto. Commenting on this aspect of the “Odes”, Graham
Hough writes "Odes", Graham Hough writes that they do not represent any great
philosophical synthesis, but they are not certainly merely decorative and descriptive poems "as
parts of them appear to be " "They are in fact supreme examples of Negative Capability, when a
man is capable of bearing uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reacting after
fact and reason." The Ode to Autumn remains the best example in literature of that repose, calm
and contentment which is born of Negative Capability, and with the poet finds even in a reason
which heralds winter, cold winds and snow, a period essentially of suffering for both man and
beast.
The Temporary and The Permanent : Contrast
Another peculiar feature of the Odes is the contrast between the permanence of Art and
the transitoriness of human joy, between the ideal and the real. Thus the song of the
nightingali an art—is permanent, and no hungry generations can tread it down. It has continued
since times immemorial and would continue till eternity. This feeling for the eternity of art finds
its most complete expression in the Ode to the Grecian Urn :
Fair youth, beneath the treesi thou cam! leave
Thy song, nor ever can these trees be bare.
Bold lover, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal— yet, do not grieve ;

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She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
It is art which confers eternity on human passions, passions which otherwise cloy and leave
behind, "A burning forehead, and a parching tongue1".
Escape : Disillusionment
Again and again the poet tries to escape from the disagreeable! world of reality into the
beautiful land of romance, but always he realises the futility of such attempts, la the Ode to the
Nightingale, he realises,
…………..fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
In the Grecian Urn he escapes imaginatively into the world of art but cannot forget
reality for long. The illusion is soon broken| and he finds the pastoral cold
Thou silent form, dost tease us out of thought.
As doth eternity : cold pastoral !
In the Ode to Autumn also the poet asks, "where ore the songs of spring ?" However, he
concludes, we must accept reality as it and accept such music as the autumn has. We must
take beauty with ugliness, joy with sorrow, the ideal with the real, as all attempts at escape
from the hard facts of life are bound to result in disillusionment.
Artistry : Union of Opposites

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The Odes are perfect specimen of Keats' artistry. His love of fine phrases, his habit of
loading every rift of his subject with ore, his power of word-painting, his use of suggestive,
sensuous epithets, his music and melody, in short every aspect of his art finds a rich and full
expression in the odes. Their workmanship in flawless, the development of thought
logical, and the language clear and well-chiselled. Praising the art of the great Odes
Swinburne writes, "of these perhaps the two nearest to perfection, the triumphant
achievement and accomplishment of the very utmost beauty possible to human words, may be
the Ode to Autumn and the Ode on a Grecian Urn ; the most radiant, fervent and musical
is that to a Nightingale • the most -pictorial is that to Psyche ; the subtlest in sweetness of
thought and feeling is that on Melancholy.'1 '' However, all this exquisite art of the odes is
not the result of conscious artistry ; it cams spontaneously to the poet, for the ode- form was
the most natural expression of his genius. Tina in the odes the poet has also achieved the rare
union of art and spontaneity.
Metrical Form
As regards the stanzaic form of the great odes, Keats follows neither the Pindaric nor the
Horacian models. His odes are of the modern regular type. "His most characteristic form "
writes Weekes, "consists of a group of stanzas of highly complex structure, but regular, or nearly
regular, in their resemblance to one another." Prof. Garrod has examined their form in detail and
ha^ concluded that the typical stanza- form used by Keats (of course, with individual variations)
constitutes a union of the first quatrain of the Shakespearean sonnet with the Sestet of the
Petrarchan. He thus gets rid of the too elegiac character which he found in the Shakespearean
sonnet, and the "pouncing rhymes" of the Petrarchan sonnet, and invents a new stanzaic type
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more suited to his genius. The poet most akin to Keats in metrical form is Spenser and it is
from him that our poet has learnt to use, as he docs in the odes the long-drawn-out line, which
seems to brood over its sweetness,'' with such mastery and effect.
Thus whether from the point of view of manner or of mutter, e great odes touch
perfection. They an; things of Beauty and i ;IK Keats puts it, "toy for ever.” They bring us
into intimate contact with the mind of Keats. They will be read and enjoyed as long as English
language is read and its literature admired. “The Odes,” says Long, “are like an invitation to a
feast; one who reads them will hardly be satisfied until he knows of more such delightful poetry”.
1.8 SHELLEY- ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
Ode to the west wind is the most symmetrically perfect as well as the most impassioned of
Shelley’s minor lyrics. Referring to the external circumstances and the inner mood of Shelley vhen
this finest of his perfect lyrics was written, Stopford Brooke remarks :
"He has been walking by the Arno, in the wood which skirts it, among the fallen leaves, and
has seen the congregated clouds rising from the south-west to usher in the yearly-storm with which
the autumnal rains begin in October in Italy, and the tempestuous motion of the trees and the
clouds awakens the tempestuous passion of his heart, so easily raised, so stormily uplifted, so
transient when its power was. spent. Then the impulse from without and the awakened impulse
within, mingling in passionate embrace, brought forth the poem. I can well imagine the first
lines leaping from his lips in a moment—thought, emotion, metre, movement—all rushing
together into a self-creation."

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In the first three stanzas Shelley praises the West Wind, the great symbol of force and power, of
its destructive and creative might. In the first stanza the Wind is the destroyer of leaves and of
seeds which are buried under the earth in autumn and in 'winter to be regenerated in spring. Here
he describes the Wind flashing through the wood like a living river. The same theme is repeated
in the second stanza, where this praise; and invocation is continued with the change-over to the
description of the wind as bringer of clouds, vapours, rain, hail and lightening, Shelley sees in the
sky, where the storm is beginning, the same kings he has .seen in the wood. The clouds are the
leaves of this- forest of the sky, and are shaken clown upon the stream and .surge of the wind.- He
looks upon the coming clouds like the pageant of the burial of the year •; a vast sepulchral dome,
an' out of which black rain and fire and hail will burst.
In the third stanza the praise and description of the Wind as the source of power and thought
rises to a crescendo, with .the twin images of the exertion of the force of-the wind, first on the blue
Mediterranean and than on the still mightier Atlantic, 'whose level powers' in the path of the wind
cleave themselves into chasms and which is shaken to its very distant depths for
…………….. far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which bear
The sapless foliage of ocean, know
They voice …………….and suddenly grow gray with fear ;
And tremble and despoil themselves ………………

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In the forth stanza Shelley addresses his prayer to the Wind. Enthralled by the swiftness
and strength of the Wind he wishes to be lifted and borne on the river of its strength This is an
outpouring of his anguish and suffering—the torture borne by the spiritual idealist in a world of
indifference which culminates almost into a shriek of agony in the image:
I full upon thorns of life I bleed !
In the last stanza comes the mighty prophecy of Hope am Faith in the triumph of love and
the spirit over tyranny and forces of darkness which faith is in evidence in The Revolt of Islam, in
Prometheus Unbound and elsewhere in his work. This prophecy is the message to man of the re-
birth of soul. Beyond the storm, beyond the winter, the Wind ushers in the new awakened
world, the birth of all the seeds, the outburst as of : spring of humanity :
O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
This ode is most characteristic of Shelley's revolutionary fervour and his idealism, and is a
masterpiece of lyric art. The sweep and flow of the verse in this poem has something of the force
and tempestuous rush of the West Wind itself. Now where does the torrent, of similes, metaphors
and symbols pause for a moment, or is there any feeling of arrested speed or descent to the-
commonplace. In: its structure and imagery and in- the expression of exalted spiritual rapture it
is the greatest of the ties of Shelley. There is nothing like its force and power and its tidal waves
of rising inspiration, in the English, language.
Clutton-Brock remarks about this poem :

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"The poem is scarcely more fit to be illustrated than a piece of music; and it is much nearer
to music than to painting, being so full of sound and motion. Yet it gives us a more vivid
sense of experience than we could get from any pictorial description. The metre, which is
terza rima devided into short periods, is managed with complete mastery. No one has ever
made the ordinary heroic line move so swiftly as Shelley, and here, as the lines rush through a
complicated system of rhymes they express the irresistible power of the wind, and the music of
each period is varied as if with sudden changes of instruments in an orchestra."
The Ode to the West Wind originates directly in that impassioned intuition which is
the first condition of poetry ; the wild autumn wind sweeping through the forest possesses
his imagination and becomes a living symbol of ; the spiritual forces which regenerate the
fading or decadent life of nations, bring succour and 'alliance' to forlorn heroic spirits, and scatter
their burning words, 'like ashes from an unextinguished hearth' among mankind. Nowhere
does Shelley's voice reach a more poignantly personal note or more perfect spontaneity. Yet,
this ode is no less his masterpiece of calculated symmetry of structure, matching here, the
artistry of Keats's Grecian U rn.
A General Estimate of Shelley as a Poet
Giving an estimate of Shelley as a poet Walter Bagehet has observed in his Essay on Shelly:
Shelley's is probably the most remarkable instance of the pure impulsive character. Some men are
born under the law : their whole life is a continued, struggle between the lower principles of their
nature and the higher. These are what arc called men of principle, each of their best actions is a
distinct choice between conflicting motives. In extreme contrast to this is the nature which
has no struggle. It is possible to conceive a character in which but one impulse is ever felt in
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which the whole being, as with a. single breeze, is carried in a single direction. Of course
this may be a quality of the highest character ; indeed in the highest character it will certainly be
found ; no one will question that the whole nature of the holiest being tends to what is holy
without let, struggle, or strife—it would be impiety to doubt it. Completely realised on earth this
idea will never be ; but approximations may be found and one of the closest of those ap-
proximations is Shelley. We fancy his mind placed in the light of thought with pure subtle
fancies playing to and fro. On a sudden an impulse arises; it is alone and has nothing to
contend with, it cramps the intellect, pushes aside the fancies, constrains the nature. It bolts
forward into action. Such a character is an extreme puzzle to external observers. From the
occasionally of its impulses it will often seem silly ; from their singularity strange ; from their
intensity fanatical. It is absurdest in the more trifling matters. There is a legend of Shelley,
during an early visit to London flying along the street catching sight of new microscope, buying it
in a moment, pawning it the instant afterwards to relieve someone in the same street in
distress. The trait may be exaggerated, but it is characteristic. It shows the sudden irruption of
his impulses, their abrupt force and curious purity.
"The predominant impulse in Shelley from a very early age. It was a passion for reforming
mankind. The impulse was upon him. He would have been ready to preach that mankind were
to be 'free, equal, pure and wise,' in the Ottoman empire, or to the Czar or to George III. Such
truths, were independent of time and place and circumstance ; some time or other something or
somebody would most certainly intervene to establish, them. It was this placid undoubting
confidence which irritated the positive and sceptical mind of Hazlitt. 'The author of the
Prometheus Unbound,' he tells us, 'has a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a magott in his brain, a
hectic flutter in his speech which mark out the philosophic fanatic. He is sanguine-complextioned
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and shrill- voiced. As is often observable in the case of religious enthusiasts, there is a
slenderness of constitutional stamina which: renders the flesh no match for the spirit. His
bending flexible form appears to take no stronghold of things, does not grapple with the world
about him but slides from it like a river. The shock of accident, the weight of authority, make
no impression on his opinions which retire like a feather, -or rise from the encounter unhurt,
through their own buoyancy. He is clogged by no dull system of realities, no earth-bound
feelings, no rooted prejudices, by nothing that belongs to the mighty trunk and hard husk of
nature and habit ; but is drawn up by irresistible levity to the regions of mere speculation and
fancy, to the sphere of air and fire where his delighted spirit floats in seas of pearl and clouds of
amber.'
"Another passion, which no man has ever felt more strongly than Shelley—the desire to
penetrate the mysteries of existence (by Hazlitt profanely called curiosity) is depicted in
Alastor as the sole passion of the only person in the poem. He is cheered on his way by a
beautiful dream and the search to find it again mingles with the shadowy quest. It is remark-
able how great is the superiority of the personification in Alastor through one of his earliest
writings over the reforming abstractions of his other works. The reason is its far greater close-
ness to reality. The one is a description of what he was ; the other of what he desired to be.
Shelley had nothing of the magic influence, the large insight, the bold strength, the permeating
eloquence which fit a man for a practical reformer ; but he had in perhaps an unequalled and
unfortunate measure, the famine of the intellect, the daily insatiable craving after the highest
truth which is the passion of Alastor.

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"We have shown that no character except his own and characters most strictly allied to his
own, are delineated in his works. Tho tendency of his mind was rather to personify isolated
qualities or impulses—equality, liberty, revenge, and so on—than to. create out of separate parts
or passions the single conception of an entire character. Shelley evinces a remarkable tendency
to-deal with- mythology in this simple and elementary form. Other poets have breathed into
mythology a modern life ; have been attracted by those parts which seem to have a religious-
meaning, and have enlarged that meaning while studying to embody it. With Shelley it is
otherwise ; the parts of mythology by which he is attracted are the bare parts, the simple stories
which Dr. Johnson found so tedious. When not writing on topics connected with ancient.
Mythology, Shelley shows the-same bent. The Cloud and The Skylark are more like mythology—
have more of the impulse by which the populace, if we may so say, of the external world was first
fancied into existence—than any other modern poems. There is indeed no habit of mind more
remote from our solid and matter-of- fact-existence ; none which was once powerful, of which the
present traces are so rare.
"His success, as we have said, is in fragments; and the best of those fragments are lyrical. The
very same isolation and suddenness of impulse which rendered him unfit for the composition of
great works rendered him peculiarly fit to pour forth on sudden the intense essence of peculiar
feeling 'in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.' Mr. Macaulay has said that the words 'bard' and
'inspiration' generally so meaningless when applied to modern poets have a meaning when
applied to Shelley. An idea, an emotion grew upon his brain ; his breast heaved, his frame shook,
his nerves quivered with the 'harmonious madness' of imaginative concentration. 'Poetry', he
himself tells us, 'is not, like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the
will. A man cannot say, "I will compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it ; for the
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mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence like an inconstant wind,
awakens to transitory brightness ; this power arises from within like the colour of a flower which
fades and changes as it is developed and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetie
either of its pproach or its departure."
"In most poets unearthly beings arc introduced to express peculiar removed essences of Lyrical
rapture ; but they are generally failures. Lord Byron tried this kind of composition in JIanfred,
and the result is an evident failure. In Shelley such singing solitary beings are almost
uniformly successful ". while writing his mind really for the moment was in the state in which
theirs is supposed always to be. He loved attenuated ideas and abstracted excitement. In
expressing their nature he had but to set free his own. Human nature is not, however, long equal
to this sustained effort of remote excitement. The impulse fails imagination fades, inspiration
dies away...'The world,' says Mr. Emerson, 'is mundane'. A creeping sense of -weight is part of
the most aspiring nature. To the most thrilling rapture succeeds despondency, perhaps pain. To
Shelley this was peculiarly natural. His dreams of reform of a world which "was to be, called up
the imaginative ecstasy ; his soul bounded forward into the future ; but it is not possible even to
the most -abstracted and excited mind to place its happiness in the expected realisation of
impossible schemes...No man can always dream of ever altering all which is. It is characteristic
of Shelley, that at the end of his most rapturous and sanguine lyrics there intrudes the cold
consciousness of this world. In many of his poems the failing of feeling is as beautiful as its
short moment of hope and buoyancy."
Giving an estimate of Shelley as a poet Compton Rickett ha.s observed in A History of English
Literature : "Shelley exhaled verse as a flower exhales fragrance, and just as the fragrance of a
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blossom varies in quality and power, so did Shelley's verse vary in poetic merit. The essential
point is that there was no effort or laborious artistry about it any time. He may not always
have been a great poet; much in Quetfi Mab is second rate poetry but he was always a poet.
Rhythm came as naturally to him as breathing. This distinguishes him at once from his
contemporaries, several of whom served a laborious apprenticeship to the poetic Art, Keats
especially, whom one always thinks of in connection with Shelley, for personal reasons, strove
long and arduously before he arrived at that consummate art that conceals art in -such (lawless
gems as the Ode to Autumn.
"One other thing distinguishes Shelley, from his contemporaries. He in a reformer an well as a
poet. Little interested in the past, mindful only of t h r i l l present when it jarred on his social
idealism, His eyes are fixed intensely on the future. To renovate the world, to bring about
Utopia, that is his constant aim and for this reason we may regard Shelley as emphatically the
poet of eager, sensitive youth, not the animal youth of Byron, but the spiritual youth of the
visionary and reformer. In his earlier years Godwin was the figure who most readily impressed
his mobile imagination, and in many of the poems. Dealing with social subjects—Queen Mab,
and The Revolt of Islam—he is little more than Godwin made musical. In later life
Wordsworth's influence is more clearly discernible. But the most potent inspiration came from
Greek literature, first brought before his notice by his kindly friend and critic, Peacock.
Shelley, like his admirer Browning, needed the sunshine of the South to rouse his finest powers,
Alastor is the splendid product of his first acquaintance with the Alps ; and his loveliest lyrics
were written under Italian skies.

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Two noted characteristics dominate all Shelley's work, epic, narrative and lyric alike—his
devotion to liberty and his wholehearted belief in love as the prime factor in all human progress.
The Revolution to Shelley was much more than a political upheaval it was a spiritual awakening
the beginning of new life. All that was evil in life he traced to slavery. Natural development for
him was the only development. He believed that men would never be men, never give what was
best in them until they could give it out freely. Master yourself, he cries, and external freedom will
enable you to realise your utmost capabilities. These are the thoughts underlying. The Revolt of
Idam, The Masque of Anarchy, Julian and Maddalo, and the noble Lyric drama, Prometheus
Unbound. Liberty in Shelley's eyes was freedom from external restraint. It is opposed to licence, for
to 'rule the Empire, of self was, with Shelley, a moral necessity. What then, if force is withdrawn
from society, is to take its place ? Shelley's answer is, Love. Love is to reign supreme, for only
in an atmosphere of love can liberty efficiently work. Love is, with Shelley, a transcendental force
kindling all things into beauty. In his treatment of it we miss the more concrete touch of Keats and
the homeliness of Wordsworth's steady affection.
But Shelley was no ordinary human being. There is a touch of elfin magic about all his
work he sings of human passions, yet as one almost aloof from them or feeling them only in
some etherealised way. This is at once his great merit and. his weakness. Consider, ; for instance,
the Epipsychidion, where the poet pictures certain influences that have come into his life. Here
surely is a subject wrought out of the poet's most intimate experiences which might have been
profound, vital and stirring: the love of woman and the power of that love in shaping, human
life how poignantly and graciously has Browning dealt with this in his .dramatic romances; with
what .quiet strength, does Wordsworth suggest its spiritual aspects, with what fierce ardour does
Byron surround its physical manifestation ; or look, on the other hand, at the subtle witchery of
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Sex that Keats gives us in La Belle Dame and Coleridge in Christabel. Yet none of these
things move Shelley. No poet felt more deeply the dynamic influence of love in moulding
human destiny ; none realised more utterly the insignificance of life devoid of love ; yet
Shelley's women are merely lovely wraiths that greet us to-the strains of delicious music. For
instance:
See where she stands a mortal shape induced With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change but cannot die ; An image of some bright eternity
; A shadow of some golden dream ; a splendour Leaving the third sphere pilotless :
tender Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love Under whose motions life a dull
billows move ; A metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning A vision like incarnate
April, warning With smiles and tears, Frost the anatomy Into his summer grave.
"A mortal shape, the poet assures us. Can we believe him. The-shape is moral impersonal than
the princess of some old fairy table. The poet has visualised a thing of beauty, but surely not
a woman, merely an exquisite abstraction, a charming metaphor. The only touch of reality in
the poem comes with, the scenic setting ; that indeed is palpable enough and has no peer in
English verse save in the Lotus land of Tennyson.
And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ;
The light clear element which the isle wears
Is heavy with the scent of lemon flowers,
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers,

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And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odour through the
brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam and
tone, With that deep music is in unison ; Which is a soul within the soul—they seem Like
echoes of an antenatal dream— It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, earth, and Sea, Cradled and
hung in clear tranquillity ; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue
Oceans of young air,
"But if, when dealing with human passions the dreamlike quality of Shelley's verse is a defect
rather than a merit ; yet given a note of fantasy to start with, no poet can compel our imagination
as he does. The spontaneity, the splendid abandonment, the musical rush of the lines, these
things make us his willing captives. He has made our hard sibilant language a thing of fire and
air. The beauty of the visible world strikes his prismatic imagination and is dissolved into rainbow
colours ; the very personality of the singer melts into his song, until he ceases to be a man and
becomes a voice, a lyric incarnate.
"Yet, for all the visionary quality of the verse, for all that strange aloofness, there is no
vagueness of effect or intellectual mistiness. The outlines may be faint, but they are unmistakable
and in such incomparable lyrics as The Cloud and the Ode to the West Wind, there is a logical
development of idea that blends perfectly with the exquisite music, making it a thing of thought
and beauty all compact."
Giving an estimate of Shelley as a poet Williams has observed in English Literature—A
Critical Survey : "Like Byron Shelley too chose self-exile after a legal action which deprived him
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of the custody of his children, and he lived for the last four years of his life in Italy. His first
important poem, Alastor, in blank verse, appeared in 1810 and ranked with the best that the
romantic movement had yet produced, in it we can already discern the poet's passion for
humanity and his belief that only through the imagination, can man be healed of this ‘gloom and
misanthropy'. 'A man to be greatly good', he said ''must imagine intensely and
comprehensively. …. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination ; and poetry,
administers to the t fleet by acting upon the cause' (Defense of Poetry). Shelley believed in
the perfectability of man.. He was ruly in the tradition of Rousseau and the French Revolution.
Yet he sought the salvation of the human soul, not through programmes and creeds, but through
intellectual, beauty which he identifies with abstract love. His religion developed into a kind of
pantheism based on the hypothesis of a pervading spirit. Shelley's philosophy, fully elaborated
in Prometheus Unbound, envelops all he wrote with a kind of iridescent haze.
"The only poem belonging to Shelley's youth in England which need be mentioned here,
other then Alastor, is the Revolt of Islam, a romance in Spenserian stanzas, which is also a
manifesto for revolutionaries. His greatest works were ! written abroad : the dramas,
Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci ; The lyrics, The Cloud, Ode on The West Wind and The
Shylark ; elegy on Keats, Adonais, ; the political poem, The. Masque of Anarchy, and the
Platonist love-song Epipsychidionr which contains the essence of Shelley's nature philosophy.
"Prometheus Unbound is possibly the greatest product of Shelley's lyrical and philosophical
genius. The myth which was the basis of the play by Aeschylus is here transformed into an
allegory of man's destiny, and in it we have the finest expressions of the poet's cosmic
conception of nature. The Cenci written in the same year (1819), is modelled rather on
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Shakespeare than on the Greek playwrights. The story is Italian and the treatment is more
realistic than in any other work by Shelley. The Characters are of flesh and blood, and in
Beatrice we have a figure of great dramatic force. The Cenci even if it be difficult to act, is held
by many to come to nearer to being a tragedy of the first order than anything written in
England for a century and a half previously.
"Adonais (1821) is an elegy modelled on Bion and Morchus who had also served Milton for
his Lycidas. Bion, of the Third century R. C. was a pastoral poet of Sicily who wrote a lament
for Adonis, and Morclms was his disciple. But Shelley is less classical in spirit. In place of the
fauns and satyrs he uses spiritual presences and mourners
and others came ……………….. Desires and Adorations,
winged Persuasions and violet destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Phantasies,
Arfd sorrows with h& family of sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam of her own dying smile instead of eyes. Came
in slow pomp :—the moving pomp might seem like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.
"The phrase 'pageantry of mist' will serve to describe the •atmosphere of Shelley's poetry ; and
a stanza near the end of the poem will equally serve to sum up his philosophic outlook—
The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows
fly ; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until
Death tramples it to fragments—Die, If thou would'st be with that which thou dost seek !
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Follow where all is fled !—Roraes' azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statutes, music words, are weak.
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak
1.9 MATHEW ARNOLD –RUGBY CHAPEL
The date of composition of Rugby Chapel is not known. Arnold could have begum
writing it soon after the publication of Tom Brown’s school days (1857) by Thomas Hughes, in
which Arnold’s father Dr. Arnold is celebrated as a Carlylean hero. Arnold’s letter to his mother
in August 1867 shows that the poem was a reply to Fitzames Stephen’s review of Hugh’s novel
in the Edinbufgh review : “It was Fitzames Stephens thesis, maintained in the Edinburgh review,
of Papa’s being a narrow bustling fanatic, which moved the first to the poem”. But Arnold’s
view of his father expressed in the poem was formed much earlier, in a letter to his mother as
early ad February 1855 the said : “But this is just what makes him – great that he was not only a
good man saving his soul by righteousness, but that he carried so many others along with him in
hand, and saved them. Along with himself’, it is one of those elegies of Arnold like Haworth
churchyard and Heine’s Grave which combine critical reflections with a ‘composition of place’.
The school chapter of the poem is from the closing pages of Tom Brown school days and
the journey on the mountains from a passage in Jane Eyre. Moses of Exodus has been cited as a
prototype of Dr. Arnold, the leader. The scholar gipsy, stanzas from and Thyrsis and Rrugby
chapel from a cluster of spiritual poems, sharing a common quest motif and imagery. They trace
Arnold’s spiritual progress, culminating in Rugby chapel.
Arnold recollects his schooldays at Rugby Dr. Thomas Arnold was buried below the floor
of the school chapel of Rugby on 17th June 1842, five days after his sudden death. Dr. Arnold
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was only forty seven when he died. Arnoldian conception of the world of souls is one of intense
activity, each soul striving for perfection. Arnold’s faith in the world of immortality is not firm
enough, as it is based on the idea of conditional survival, expressed in his poem, immortality and
also in his letters to Clough. The poet pays a great tribute to his father for his most remarkable
ability to distinguish between vice and virtue, a task in which he is engaged beyond the grave by
endowing confused spirits, with a sense of discrimination to accomplish the difficult tak of
separating right from wrong.
Using the journey image, Arnold includes himself in a group of people who strine to lead
a life of purpose. For them, the path of life is hard and dangerous like a journey across show –
capped mountains on a strong day. Arnold has in mind the Israelites, ‘The chosen people of god’,
who after their liberation from solvency in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness before reaching
the promised land Arnold has used ‘The city of God’ poetically to mean ‘righteousness’ which
should be the goal of all men.
1.10 TENNYSON –LOTUS -EATERS.
The followers of Ulysses, who have eaten the Lotus, sit down on the beach of the
island and sing a song in chorus wherein they bring forward arguments for staying in he
island. There is sweet music in the island, which falls a the ears, more softly than the petals
of roses' on the grass ore softly "than the dew falls at night on the waters between rocks."
It is a music "that brings sweet sleep from the blissful skies." There are cool mosses in
the island, and there are long- leaved flowers that weep in the stream, and there are poppy
plants that sleep from the ledges of rock

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All things have rest. The Lotus- eaters, therefore, argue that it is not proper that man
alone should court distress by labour. Man is the best of all created beings: he is "the roof
and crown of things". Why should he not then listen to the cry of the inner spirit which sings
'"There is no joy but calm"?
Toil and pain seem to be the lot of man alone. For there is nothing else in nature that
toils and suffers pain. The leaf in the wood which is folded over the buds "takes no care"
but grows green and broad, turns yellow, falls and floats down the air. The full- juiced apple
and the flower too lead a restful life free from toil-Death is the inevitable end of life. Why
should life then be vexed with labour ?There in nothing that will endure for ever. Everything
perishes and becomes a thing of the past. The man who would labour, asks only for pain and
disappointments; for his labour is only warring with evil- There is no peace "in ever
climbing wave. The Lotus- eaters would, therefore, have long rest or death, dark death or
dreamful ease."
The Lotus-eaters find it very pleasant to fall asleep in a half-dream with half-shut eyes
listening to the sound of the falling stream. It will be sweet for them to hear each other's
whispered speech while every day they eat the Lotus. They can watch the curly ripples on
the beach, and the curving lines of spray. They can lend themselves entirely "to the influence
of mild- minded melancholy," brooding over those friends of their childhood who have died
and who live only in memory.
The memory of their married lives, and of the parting caresses of their wives, is dear to
the Lotus- eaters. But at this distance of time, everything will hnvc suffered change. Their
estates will have passed into the hands of their sons, or into the hands of the Island princes.
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The ten years' war in Troy, and the great deeds they performed in t h a t war, will be sung of
in the islands as ibnui'.h fhev have already become half- forgotten- Very likely, there is
confusion in the island. There is trouble on trouble, pain on pain, and labour lasting all the
life through. Surely, they who have worn themselves out in the long war, and in the long
voyage are not fit to face such a strenuous life once more.
For such men as they are, there can be nothing better than life in this island where they
can live "propt on beds of amaranth and moly" and watching "the long bright river" flowing
slowly or hearing the echoes of the dew-drops falling through the entangled vine. The
mariners have had enough of action and motion on the high seas, where they have been
engaged in incessant battle with the waves. Now is their time for rest. Therefore they will
swear an oath, which they will keep with an equal mind, to live for the rest of their lives in
the Lotus- land. For, after all, such is the life led by the gods, who live together on Mount
Olympus, caring nothing for the manifold woes of mankind.
Description in "The Lotus-Eaters"
Or Landscape in "The Lotus-Eaters"
There is hardly an English poet who shows a greater mastery of the art of poetry than
Tennyson. Tennyson took infinite pains not only to write the most faultless and graceful verse,
but even took care to provide in each poem, a fitting background or atmosphere to the action.
The Lotus-Eaters is a good example of the way in which Tennyson has managed to make the
background suit the human characters wonderfully. T h e Lotus- eaters lead, and love to
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lead a life of rest and dreamy ease. The landscape of the poem is in one that answers, in
every respect, to such a life.
In the Lotus- island, there seems to be nothing of the freshness or briskness of morning.
There it seems to be always afternoon. Even the air appears to be languid and it breathes
over the coast as feebly as a man who has a weary dream. It is a land full of streams. Some
of these streams appear like a downward smoke. They do not fall down all at one leap.
Their descent is broken—they appear to fall and pause and fall- Some of those
streams- have the movement of' slow dropping veils of thinnest lawn". Others while falling
meet wavering lights and shades and create rolling sheets of stagnant foam below.
From the inner land a bright river flows into the sea. Prominent in the island stand three
mountain tops—
'Three silent pinnacles of aged snow
Stood sunset- flush'd "
Above the tangled wood rise dark pine- trees wet with dew. The bewitching beauty of
the landscape seems to cast a spell on the sun, for instead of sinking below the horizon at
once the sun lingers for a time.
Through gaps in the mountains that stand on the coast the dales can be seen far inland.
The plains are bordered with palm trees. The winding valleys and meadows are full of
slender galingale. The land has a look about it which suggests that all things there would
ever be the same.

116
The beauty of the island haunts the inhabitants. There is sweet music to be heard there,
which is softer than the fall of the rose-petals on the grass, softer than the fall of dew on
still waters, softer even than the closing of tired eyelids on tired eyes- The music is so lulling
that it "brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies." The island is full of deep and
cool mosses through which ivies creep. In the stream stand long- leaved flowers which seem
to weep into the water. On rocky ledges are poppy plants hanging down as though in sleep.
In all this we see how nature sympathises with the Lotus-eaters, providing for them just
the atmosphere which they need. We have more of it in the poem. There is the "amber light"
which does not leave the myrrh-bush on the height. There are the beds of amaranth and
moly, which seem to invite the Lotus-eaters to recline on them and take their ease. There
is the Lotus, which blooms everywhere below the barren' peak and by every winding creek.'
On the whole it is just the land, where one may well feel that he will forget his troubles
and dream till death.
The ideal of Life as presented in
" The Lotus-Eaters "
Ever since the beginning of the world, mankind has been actuated by two opposite
systems of philosophy. One of them, realising the utter futility of man's efforts and the
seeming purposelessness of life, is content to let things drift and merely look on at the doings
of this world with unconcern. On the other hand, there have not been wanting men who have
had a lively responsibility of their own duties, who have felt that life has a purpose and
aim, the mere effort towards it is always ennobling. It is to this latter attitude that we owe
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all the progress, material and moral, that our world has so far achieved. This philosophy is
exemplified in Tennyson's own Ulysses.
The Lotus-Eaters places the former ideal before us. Here, the mariners, who have eaten
the Lotus, feel inclined to lead a dull and idle life, which was so distasteful to Ulysses. To
the Lotus- eaters, it seems useless that man, the "roof and crown of things", should toil.
The Lotus- caters adopt that philosophy under the influence of the enchanted fruit they have
eaten. Even inferior beings enjoy rest from toil. Therefore, it is foolish of m:in not to enjoy
repose, while his inner spirit cries for happiness which .consists in rest:
" Death is the end of life. Ah, why
Should life a l l labour be '."
So ask the Lotus-eaters. With this we should contrast Ulysses' reflection:
Death closes a l l : but something ere the end
Some work of noble note, may yet be done.
The Lotus-eaters say (here is no use toiling, since there is nothing tli-'it will endure
for ever. Since everything is destined to perish, there is no achievement worth the pursuit.
So. the Lotus-eaters ask. for "long rest:,or;dark;death of dreamful ease.
Life appears to the Lotus-eaters to be only an endless succession of pain and trouble.
They have no wish to engage themselves in pain and trouble. They wish to avoid all
confusion and labour- Their ideal of life is to lead a life of complete abandon, of
complete indifference to the things of the world. They wish to live-as the gods are supposed
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to live on Mount Olympus, where sitting far above the world of human beings they live
caring nothing for the troubles that vex mankind.
If we were asked which of the two ideals is inherently nobler, we would declare, without
any hesitation, that the nobler ideal is that of Ulysses. A life of striving, whether successful or
not, brings with it its own joy and consolation. Such a life brings strength to the soul. A life
of dullness and idleness, on the other hand, seems to be a life of cowardice, as if having been
given a great trust by God, we had betrayed that trust.
An Appreciation of " The Lotus- Eaters "
The philosophy of standing aside from all the cares and responsibilities of the world and
leading a life of dreamful ease has nowhere been set forth more attractively than in
Tennyson's Lotus-Eaters. Tennyson was no doubt indebted to Homer for the story of the
poem. He also owed something to the Greek idylls. At any rate, the soft melody of the
verse, "the dreamy languor of the tone", as well as certain sentiments and turns of phrase
remind us of the pastoral poetry of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. But, after all, the debt
Tennyson owed to Homer and other poets was light. That perfect blending of atmosphere and
human sentiment, which constitutes the chief merit of the poem, is entirely Tennyson's
own achievement. Homer has nothing to say about the scenery of the land of the Lotophagi.
Every detail of the landscape in the poem is Tennyson's own invention, and how
marvellously he manages to make £'11 these details of landscape contrilnilc to produce the right
atmosphere for this story!

119
Tennyson's, achievement:* has"' been Well assessed by the critic Lyall who says: "In the
Lotus-Eaters, we have an old Greek fable of wandering sailors reaching an unknown land of
fruit and flowers; and the poem's rich long -drawn melody with its profusion of scenic
description, is in strong contrast to the quiet tone and feeling of the Homeric narrative,
where the impression is created by describing not the envi ronment, but its effect upon the
men. 'Whosoever did eat the honey - sweet fruit of the Lotus had no more wish to bring
tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide w i t h t h e Lotus- eating men ever
feeding on the Lotus a n d forgetful of his homeward way.' Out of this the modern poet
creates a splendid choric song of war - worn mariners overcome by dreamy languor in a
beautiful island to whom their homes and their fatherland are becoming no more than a far -
off memory."
Tennyson's poem is indeed a highly wrought piece of art in which metre, style,'
atmosphere and character are woven into a harmony we have already noted. As for the
form of the poem, the choric song is appropriately enough in lyric form. The stanzas
which lead up to the choric song are on the model of the Spenserian stanza, which with its
long-drawn languorous movement is well suited to the theme of Tennyson's poem. It
is significant in this connec tion that Thompson ch ose the same stanza form for his
Castle of Indolence. As for the style of the poem, Tenny son shows here his usual
sensitive ear and fastidious taste. Sentences and phrases like "the languid air did
swoon." "mild-eyed melancholy Lotus-caters," the long - leaved flowers weep,"
"crisping ripples" and "tender curving lines of creamy spray" illustrate at once the poet's
accuracy of observation and his meticulous care in the choice of words. Passages in which
the sound echoes the sense are also not wanting. The slowness of a river's movement
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has never been brought out more skilfully than in the words, "the long bright river
drawing slowly his waters, . . ."Then there is the description of the stream whose fall from
a height m broken :
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
.Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
Roden Noel has an illuminating note on Tennyson's art as illustrated in this passage.
He says, "What a deli cately true picture have we here, where we feel als o the poet's
remarkable faculty of making word and rhythm and echo and auxiliary of the sense! Not
only have we the. three caesuras respectively after 'fall' and 'pause' and 'fall' but the length
and soft amplitude of the vowel sounds with liquid consonant s aid in the realization of the
picture. ."
NOTES
Lotus-Eaters:— A translation of the Greek word, Loto-phagi which is the name given by
Homer to those people who ate the fruit as well as drank the juice of a plant known as the
Lotus. Homer describes the Lotus- fruit as having: the effect of making those who ate it fall
into a languid condition losing all inclination for exertion of any kind. It is believed that
some island on the north coast of Africa is meant by the land of the Lotus-eaters.
Lines 1 to 27 describe the land of the Lotus-eaters and the meeting of followers of
Ulysses with the natives of the land.

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1. "Courage!" he said: Ulysses asked his followers to take courage. The men had
become faint- hearted, because they had been in the open sea for nine days without water.
2. This mounting wave. . . .soon: This rising wave will quickly carry us to the shore.
4. it seemed always afternoon: The afternoon is the part of the day when people feel
tired and dull and are inclined to rest. The poet therefore c onveys the idea that there was
nothing fresh and bracing in the atmosphere of the land. In that languid and heavy
atmosphere, one would be only inclined to lead a restful life. 5. the languid air did
1.11 THOMPSON -THE HOUND OP H EAVEN
This is a mystical poem. It is the commemoration of an experience that transcends
logic and reason. It reveals God's love at work to possess the souls of men, whether they accept
His love or not. Man, seeking happiness, tries to find it apart from God. He suffers and fails;
and suffering and failure lead him back to God and not away. There is no way to lasting
happiness and peace in this world except through complete surrender to God and the giving of
our love and trust first to Him. The poem is an allegory in which God is the Hound pursuing
man, the fugitive.
1. Him: the Divine Hound—God. Man is narrating the chase.
2. down the arches of the years: along the road of Time, the arches representing the years
((me figurative usage).

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3 labyrinthine ways: intricate, complicated thoughts of man. The labyrinth refers to die
confusing pattern of caves in which King Minos of Crete kept a monster called the Minotaur
slain by Theseus. 4-5: He tried to escape God in sadness .as well as joy.
6 vistaed hopes: A vista is a view of a road seen to a long distance. He ran up the endless
pathway in the hope of escaping the Hound.
7 shot: was thrown headlong.
precipitated: hurriedly.
8 titanic glooms of chasmed fears: vast, deep recesses of sadness and fear.
9: The line echoes the relentless majestic pursuit.
10-12: These lines describe die calmness, the determination, the urgency of the chase.
15: the majestic Voice Divine.
16 outlaw-wise: like an outlaw.
17-18: Note the picturesque imagery. The appeal is to other human beings to save him from the
Hound.
20-21: his misconception. He was afraid that if he took God's love, he must renounce worldly
pleasures.
24 Fear wist not... pursue: beautiful line. The hunted impelled by fear could not run as fast
as the Hound impelled by love, ('wist': archaic for 'knew'.)
30 I said to dawn... soon: He did not want the night to be curtailed by dawn; he wanted the
evening to come quickly. The desire for darkness to hide himself.

123
31 skyey blossoms: another fine turn of expression: it could mean the stars, it could
mean the coloured wisps of cloud at sunset.
35-37: fine examples of the figure of speech called Oxymoron —words of opposite meaning or
conveying opposite ideas are placed side by side. All things of the universe, being true to God
were necessarily false to Thompson.
39 Clung to the whistling mane of every wind: another bold metaphor: a rider in a hurry
holding the flowing mane of the horse.
41. savannahs of the blue: the grasslands of the sky—the picture of the wind-swept clouds.
45 Fear wist...: the repetition. He is constantly reminded of his weakness.
46-48: We seem to hear the echo of the beating of the feet.
51: another warning to him about die futility of his flight.
52 that after which I strayed: what I was in search of,
viz. happiness away from God.
61-62: Failing to find shelter among the children, he sought Nature's companionship.
65 Wantoning: playing with. -
66-72: picturesque description of the beauty of Nature.
79 Spumed of the wild sea-snortings: the froth on the crest of the waves—figurative
expression.
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80-90: the poet identified himself with the goings-on in Nature, his own moods changing
with those of Nature.
93 And share commingling heat: like the child clinging to her mother's breast to find
comfort in the warmth, he
clung to Nature to share her warmth.
99: The idea is that he failed to find shelter, get solace from Nature. Hence the reference to
Nature as 'poor step-dame'.
drouth: thirst.
Ill Naked... stroke: the suggestion of complete surrender. The Hound has overpowered him,
he is on his knees and
waits for divine love.
117-19 In the...upon me: The poet compares himself to Samson who, in the fulness of his
physical prowess pulls the
temple down and in the process destroys himself. Note the religious bias of the imagery.
120: his life lies in ruins, all reduced to smoke and ashes.
124-25: 'dream' and the 'lute' symbolise poetry. Even poetry has failed to give him comfort.
131 amaranthine weed: 'amaranth' is a purple flower— God's love is called a beautiful,
never- fading weed that does
not allow anything else to grow around it.

125
134 Designer infinite: the Divine Draughtsman.
141 Such is; what is to be?: Such has been my life; what lies in store for me ?
142 The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?: a striking metaphor. Life is pictured as
a fruit. Youth is the pulp and old age the rind of the fruit. If the youthful years, that should be
so sweet are so bitter, how would the rind— the advancing years—(old age) be?
143-45: Though time like a misty curtain hides eternity,
every now and then, he hears the sound of a trumpet from the hidden battlements of eternity. 147
turrets: towers.
150-51: before the clouds close, he is able to catch a glance of the divine Trumpeteer in His purple
robes. It is Christ.
152: Thompson knows the meaning of the message.
156-57: The sound of the Hound comes close on him and is like a deafening sea roaring all around
him.
159 shard: broken fragment.
164: one must be worthy of human love.
171-76: Man is purified through suffering. - His suffering leads him along the path to God. All
the happiness he seeks can be attained only through Him.
178-79 Is my gloom... caressingly ?: a profoundly optimistic idea. All his suffering has only been
a prelude to joy and happiness that God has now bestowed on him.
126
1.12 Letus Sum Up
The poems in this section are unique in style and represent the age in which the poets
lined in. The transition from the romantic age to the modern age is reflected in the poetry of
W.B.Yeats and G.M. Hopkins. It is necessary for students to notice the different types of
verification used by the five poets. Their choice of imagery and diction also shows variety. A
comparison of their approach to the reader will provide insights to the reader.
The section on non-detailed provides us a panoramic view of the poetsw of the
romantic and transition age. The information enables the readers to make comparative studies
on the romantic poets.
1.13 Lesson End Activity
1. Compare and contrast Wordsworth’s “Attitude towards Nature” with that of
coletidge.
2. Comment on Browning’s musings on the glory of old age with refernce to Rabii
Ben Ezra.
3. The romantic age celebrates nature in all its splendour – Discuss with reference to
the odes of keats.
4. Elucidate the traces of transition in Yeats, Hopkins and Thompson.

127
1. Discuss the use of similies, metaphors and symbols by the poets.
2. Discuss the stylistic features of Hopkins.

3. Write an essay on Keats as a writer of odes.
4.Show that the does of Keats bring out all the characteristic features of
his poetry, at its kept.
5. Estimate the significance of Keats in the history of the English Ode
6. From your study of the Odes of Keats illustrate his love of beauty and his sensuousness.
7. “In the “Ode on Melancholy” and the “Ode on Autumn, “Keats returns to ordinary
human experience, and to the problem of human happiness in life Discuss.
8. “The aestheticism of Keats has also an intellectual side. “Discuss with reference of the
Odes.
9. “The Bringing together of the opposites of life is an essential feature of the odes”.
Discuss with suitable illustrations.
1.15 Lesson-end Activities
1. Elucidate the chief features of romanticism with reference to Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge
and Shelly.
2. Compare and contrast the fantastic elemet in Kubla Khan and Lotus Eaters.
3. Comment on the didactic element in Hopkins and Thompson.
128
UNIT II
Contents
2.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
2.1 DETAILED - GEORGE ORWELL-ESSAYS.
2.2 GEORGE ORWELL'S LIFE INDIAN BACKGROUND
2.3 GF.ORGE ORWELL'S NOVELS
2.4 GEORGE ORWELL'S ESSAYS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS

2.5 CRITICAL ESSAYS (1946)
2.6. REFLECTIONS ON GANDHI
2.7 SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT
2.8 NEW WORDS
2.9 BOOKSHOP MEMORIES
2.10 THE ENGLISH CHARACTER
2.11 WHY I WRITE
2.12 PREFACE TO THE LYRICAL BALLADS.
2.13 THOMAS CARLYLE – THE HERO AS POET .
2.14 LET US SUM UP
2.15 LESSON END ACTIVITY

2.16 POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
2.0 Aims and Objectives
By learning this unit on Romantic and Modern age (Prose )the student can acquire a
comprehensive knowledge of the different critical theories and critical tendencies of the age .
129
2.1 Detailed - GEORGE ORWELL-ESSAYS.
THE AGE OF GEORGE ORWELL
The Era of Violenc---The volume of The New Cambridge Modern History which
covers the years 1898-1945 (nearly enough Orwell's own dates) is entitled 'The
Era of Violence'. Its editor sees the period in terms of a blossoming of the
seeds of violence and dehumanization scattered in the 19th century—a
blossoming which showed the following main characteristics. It was an age of
two great world wars, a period of large-scale destruction and annihilation,
killings and violence, gloom and wasteland, pessimism and frustration.
Technological and Scientific Advancement
There was a tremendous technological and scientific advance,
increasing the pace of industrialization and the numbers of town-dwellers.
There was a growing belief in the necessity of long-term economic planning.
There was the early spreading and, after 1918, rapid withering away, of
democratic values and such structures as labour organization or parlaimentary
socialist parties associated with the search for social justice. There was the rise of
the revolutionary movements of Fascism and Communism leading to what they
called, according to their various jargons, the corporative state, the Reich of a
purified Volk, or the monolithic one-party state.
A Period of Crises
130
T h e h a l f -century witnessed a chain of crises with their constant
representations of instability and dislocation. Through these was shown the
hopelessness of the general English assumption of 1900 that the future lay with
parliamentary institutions—a hopelessness hammered home in the late thirties
when the League of Nations collapsed through the failure of its attempts to stop
some of the most savage reversals of civilized values ever known. Within thirty
years there were two major wars separated by an economic disaster. In
country after country the Rule of Law was replaced by that ,of the Leader, or of
his torture chambers, concentration camps, mass propaganda and carefully
drilled youth movements. Ironically the half-century also saw that at its end
most Europeans were far more materially comfortable than they or their
counterparts had been at its beginning.
Great Britain as a World Power
Orwell's early boyhood was lived in that pre-war England which is called
Edwardian. "Edwardian England, built on the foundation of what is sometimes
called the Great Peace of 1815-1914, was a liberal capitalist society. It was 1
he most highly industrialized region of the world; it was the centre of an Empire
covering one quarter of the world's surface, containing one quarter of its
population, and owning one half of its merchant-shipping tonnage...
Largely,on the basis of naval power, Great Britain was a world force; largely
o n t h e basis of the strength of sterling. London was the centre of world

131
finance, insurance and investment." England was really Great Britain; it had a
large empire; its sun never set.
Problems of Industrialization
Internally such a society was in many ways an unjust one. The
distribution of wealth is said to have been about as unequal as it has ever
been, and the main social fact of the time (it is still present in the society
described in The Road to Wigan Pier which was published in 1937) was the
clear rift between the eighty per cent working class and the rest. This is the
last period of English history in which domestic servants figure as a
considerable social group. But it is also the first period in which poverty came
to be studied seriously and regarded as something remediable, just as it is the
first to worry itself about the problem of chronic mass unemployment.
England continued with the rise of the middle classes. Yet several major
industries were virtually nationalized. Education was made much more open.
The pre-war years also saw the growth of a belief indirect action' rather than
in parliamentary processes : the idea of a general strike, the work of a
militant suffragette movement, the Irish nationalism which came to its climax
in.the Easter Rising of 1916.
The First World War and its Impact

132
Orwell was born in 1903. Thus at the outbreak of the First World War he
was a boy of eleven, a pupil at a snobbish prep school in the south of
England, being trained for scholarship success. In 1917, when Lenin and the
Bolshevika forced the Russian Revolution away from any possibility of
democratic government, he was in his first year at Eton. In 1922, when the
League of Nations was dealing with its first problems, when Stalin became
General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party and Mussoline became
dictator of Italy, he was on the verge of adult life and a five-year career in
the Indian Imperial Police.
The Decay of Capitalism
The England to which Orwell came back in 1927 was a country suffering
from what has been called 'capitalism-in-decay'. A song at the end of the First
World War had asked 'What shall we be when we aren't what we arc ?' and
the answer for many turned out to be 'The unemployed'. In fact between,
1922 and 1940 the unemployment figures never dropped below one million,
and the presence of these unemployed men seemed to many to prove the
Marxist view of the essential degeneracy of capitalism. The class bitterness still
hanging in the air from the 1926 General Strike, and from the much longer
coal strike, was exacerbated by the coming of the Depression and the
economies in the social services brought about by the financial crisis of 1931.
Any account of the early thirties, when Orwell, living on his leave pay, was trying
133
to establish himself as a writer, will use again and ' again its familiar vocabulary
r dole, depressed areas, malnutrition, slum, public assistance committee,
means-t'est. All this is symbolized by the plight of one town in the north-east —
Jarrow, where in 1936 nearly three-quarters of all insured workers were out of
work. It was from this place, which came to be known as 'the town they
killed', that there, set out the most famous of the many protest marches of
the time
The main visual images of these years are those Of derelict dockyards,
lines of back-to-back houses, and men waiting for nothing at the street
corners of mining towns where there was no Work. It is the scenery of some
of W. H. Auden's early poetry, of Walter Greenwood's novel Love in the, Dole
(1933), of the second half of J.B. Priestley's English Journey (1934), or of the first
part of Orwell's own The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).
From this state of capitalism-in-decay sprang three features of the
thirties in England which Orwell was mainly concerned : the growth of
the British Labour Party to replace Liberalism as the main force of
democratic opposition; the growth and tactics of the Communist Party of
Great Britain (C.P.G.B.), particularly insofar as these were symptomatic
of Russian Stalinism; and the growth of' British Fascism, again particularly
insofar as it was symptomatic of certain continental developments.

134
The Growth of Socialism
The British Labour Party provided a very brief minority government in 1924,
and another slightly more lasting one in 1929-31, when for the first time it was
the largest single party in the Commons, though still without an overall-
majority. In 1918 it had adopted a constitution containing the Clause Four
which was to become notorious in Party Conference debates forty years later,
and which defined the Socialist aims of the Party :
To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their
industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be
possible, u p o n t h e b«"° OI tne common ownership of the means of
pruuuetion and the best obtainable system of popular administration
and control of each industry or service.
In 1928 the Party adopted new programme, denying that it had any
sentimental aspiration for an impossible Utopia' or that it was merely 'a blind
movement against poverty and oppression' :
It is a conscious, systematic and unflagging effort to use the weapons
forged in the victorious struggle for political democracy to end the
capitalist dictatorship in which democracy finds everywhere its most insidious
and most relentless foe.

135
The Orwellian Utopia
Orwell also wanted to end a capitalist dictatorship which seemed to him
t o d e g r a d e human life as much its colonialism (lid. But he wanted to be
sure that the weapons forged in the struggle for democracy were in better
hands than those of many of the members of the Labour Party as he saw
them in the mid-thirties. And he wanted to be certain that other forms of
dictatorship should be recognized as possibly more insidious and certainly
more relentless than the traditional one. After 1935-36 it became clear to him
that the nature of the dictatorship was in fact altering. The alteration
corresponds to a shift in interest from home affairs to one in foreign affairs.
Appeasement, re-armament, collective security through the League of
Nations, economic sanctions against aggressors—these are the phrases of the
second half of the thirties that replace the vocabulary of the Depression—just
as Addis Ababa, Madrid, Munich and Prague seemed to be the places
where things were happening, rather than Jarrow and the mining vns of
South Wales.
The Contemporary European History
The British Communist Party was founded in 1920. During thirties its
membership increased from just over 5,000 to and the peak was reached
in 1942 after Hitler's invasion of sia when there were 56,000 members.
136
Despite references to the i.xist mood of a pink decade, it is clear that the
party, composed for example with the very strong French, German and
Italian Parties, has never been a considerable factor in British politics.
Throughout the period only a handful of men has ever represented it in
parliament, and its election record has been generally disastrous. The failure
has been attributed to the fact that the party was a revolutionary group
having to work in a non-revolutionary situation. The frustration of this position
was increased by what is known as the 'bolshe-vization' of the party,
completed by 1929, which entailed its complete subservience to a tacital line
formulated in Moscow. The necessary adherence to this line produced
that intellectual flexibility (Orwell was eventually to christen it 'double-
think') by which, for example, what had been defined as a struggle against
Fascism could again become an imperialist war (after the signing of the Nazi-
Soviet Pact in 1939), and could again become a struggle against Fascism
(after the German attack on Russia in 1941).
Above all, the C. P. G. B. was the English representative of a foreign
totalitarian system known as Stalinism. This system was exemplified, for those of
Orwell's time who did not regard it as the greatest social experiment ever
undertaken, by the first two Five Year Plans (1928-37), which collectivized and
starved out millions of Russian peasants, as well as building Russia into a 20th
century industrial power. It became so by internal upheavals such as the Purge

137
Trials (1936-38), and by foreign policy reversals such as the non-aggression
pact with Germany (1939). To Orwell's own disgust such, to him, criminal
activity could be conveniently forgotten when Stalin became a glorious ally in
1941. He noted in his diary for July of that year : ; could not have a better
example of the moral and emotional shallowness of our time, than the fact
that we are now all more or less pro-Stalin. This disgusting murderer is
temporarily on our side, and so the purges, etc., are suddenly forgotten.' It
was because Orwell could not forget, and could not accept Stalinist
Communism as a possible remedy for that chaotic suffering of capitalism-in-
decay, that he is now frequently referred to as 'the conscience of the Left.
Even more clearly the third symptom of capitalism-in-decay, British
Fascism, was important as a reflection of what was happening in Italy and
Germany rather than as a factor in British politics. The movement never had
anything like the influence, for example, of the extreme right-wing French
party Action Franchise, which had been founded in 1899, was especially
important in the thirties, and was a ' prominent influence on the Vichy
government of France during the German occupation.
Orwell and the Second World War

138
When the Second World War broke out, Orwell had just over ten years
left to live. The War came to a close in 1945. "By 1945 German and Italian
Fascism had been defeated. By 1947 one of the major features of British
imperialism—the one with which Orwell himself had been associated—had
gone. India was independent and partitioned; Burma was independent and
out of the Commonwealth. The defeat of the one and disappearance of the
other authoritarianism made all the clearer the growth of a third. Behind what
was now christened the Iron Curtain, stretching across eastern Europe, a victo-
rious Stalinism began building up a chain of satellite states. Within Russia itself
there was a re-imposition of a Party-discipline which had been relaxed during
the war, a new stress on the need for orthodoxy and the closer control of
ideology. One aspect of this—of special concern to Orwell himself, as a writer
—was the increased control of literature, expressed in such a statement as
the following Decree of the Communist Party Central Committee in August,
1946 :
The Soviet system cannot tolerate the education of youth in a spirit of
indifference to Soviet politics, to ideology, with a couldn'l-careless
attitude. The strength of Soviet literature, the most advanced literature
in the world, consists in the fact that it is a literature in which there are
not and cannot be interests other than the interests of the state. The
task of Soviet literature is to help the state to educate youth correctly,

139
to answer its requirements, to bring up the new generation to be strong,
believing in its cause, not fearing obstacles, ready to overcome all obs-
tacles.
Add to this the physical sadism and it does not seem very far from what
O'Brien tells Winston Smith in the Ministry of Love, in Nineteen Eighty-four.
Much of Europe had been spiritually and physically obliterated. One
historian estimates that twenty-five million soldiers and twenty-four million
civilians were killed during the war. Many were left starving or 'displaced'
after' it. Frightful documents and photographs were Emerging front the
archives at Auschwitz and Buchenwald as they were needed at the
Nuremberg war trails; a new weapon that altered the whole scale of war had
been used in Asia; the United Nations seemed to be going the same way as
the League of Nations which it had replaced. Another aggressive
totalitarianism was apparently preparing itself in Europe. Events seemed to
continue to run in the pattern of the age of violence— ind by now Orwell
himself was seriously ill. He died in February 1950.
2.2 GEORGE ORWELL'S LIFE Indian Background
Eric Arthur Blair who wrote under the pseudo-name of George Orwell
was born at Motihari (Bengal : India) in 1903. He spent the first four years of
his life in India and was then sent to England for his education. He was the
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second offspring of Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Limouzine. His
father was at that time an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil
Service. His paternal grandfather had served in the Indian Army and had later
become a clergyman. His maternal grandfather had been a timber-merchant
in Burma and later a rice-grower.
Unhappy Childhood
When Eric Arthur Blair was four, the family returned to England and settled
at a place called Henley-on-Thames though Richard Blair himself continued to
work in India until his retirement in 1912. Eric Blair attended the local primary
school at Henley-on-Thames and lived in the strange atmosphere that Anglo-
Indian families recreated in order to protect themselves from the realities of
life in England. Eric Blair (or George Orwell) later wrote that even while at
home his early childhood was not altogether happy. "One ought to love one's
father," Orwell wrote, "but I know very well that I merely disliked my father."
Nor did Orwell feel any deep affection for his mother. He saw in his
childhood poverty, loneliness and lack. His father's pension was barely
adequate to keep up appearances and Orwell soon discovered that in such a
shabby-genteel family as his own, there was "far more consciousness of
poverty than in any working-class family above the level of the dole." As a
child, a lonely child affected by bad health, Orwell found difficulties in

141
personal relationships which aggravated the nightmare of rent, clothes, and
school-bills that haunted his parents.
Most of his school males were the sons of rich parents and Orwell like
Gordon Comstock in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, soon realized that he was an
outsider. Apart from receiving less pocket-money than the other boys and
constantly being reminded of his penury, he was hounded by the
headmaster's wife, before whom "one seemed as helpless as a snake-
charmer." She once said to Orwell in front of the whole school : "You know
you're not going to grow up with money,. don't,you.?. Your people aren't
r i c h . Y o u must learn to be' sensible; ' Don't get above yourself: ' "The.
humiliation of. it, no wonder, Orwell saw life as a series of money rackets;
Such, such were the joys of school-days. Such, Such Were the Joys is the title
of Orwell's essay on his school-days. Such was "his life at St. Cyprian's School.
142
Life at Eton
From St.. Cyprian's School, Orwell proceeded to the public school at
Eton where he spent the next four and a half years. Here one of his teachers
was Aldous Huxley who was teaching English and French, but Huxley's
influence on Orwell was very much limited. Orwell gave no signs of any
genius during his entire school-life. In fact, there was nothing very unusual
about him at that time, little to suggest that he would one day become one
of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. He was poor even at
games, though he did serve in the Officer Training Corps.
Orwell preferred Eton. Of the years he spent at Eton, he wrote : "I did not
work there and learned very little and I don't feel that Eton has been much
of a formative influence in my life." But he admitted in an article in the
Observer in 1948 that Eton had "a tolerant and civilized atmosphere which
gives each boy a fair chance of developing his own individuality." It was at
Eton that he made the beginning of developing contacts with his
contemporaries such as Cyril Connoly, Richard Rees and John Strachey.
Early Readings
Orwell was a voracious reader. He won scholarships at both Eton and
Wellington. At the age of eleven he had read Gulliver's Travels. At the age
of fifteen, he was immersed in The Way of All Flesh and the atheistic
143
arguments of Androcles and the Lion. By the age of eighteen he had read
the complete works of Shaw, Galsworthy and H.G. Wells. The influence of Wells
was particularly strong and remained as such even in his last two books.
Joining the Burmese Police
From Eton, Orwell should normally have gone to the University of
Cambridge, but his aversion for study compelled him to choose a different
career altogether. He appeared in 1922 in a competitive examination held for
the selection of officers to be trained for the Burmese police. As a result of
this examination, he was appointed a probationer in the Burmese Police and
sent to Rangoon where he studied Burmese, Hindustani, law and police
procedure. Mr. Tom Hopkinson says that Orwell was advised by one of his
tutors to find a job abroad, make plenty of money, and at the age of forty
retire and choose whatever way of life appealed to him.
Acting on this advice, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and served in
Burma from 1922 to 1927. His experiences arc embodied in Unrmese Days, a
hard-hitting, ever contemptuous condemnation of British imperial
administration and n'uministralors, written under the ache of disillusionment
a n d f rustration. A H a n g i n g and Shooting on Elephant also record his
experiences in Burma.
144
Resigning the Police Job
Outwardly, Orwell acted the Sahib, shouldering the while man's burden
efficiently; inwardly he was disapproved of his job, obviously embarrassed and
unhappy, depressed by the absence of freedom, particularly freedom to say
what he really thought. Malcolm Muggeridge considers that it is an over-
simplification to say that Orwell was revolted by his police duties; he feels
that "there was a Kiplingesque side to his character which made him
romanticize the Raj and its mystique." He also says that the picture of the
European community in Burmese Days is exaggerated and unreal.
But there is no doubt that the lash of authority he used, strung Orwell
himself. "I never went into jail," he wrote, "without feeling that my place was
really on the other side of the bars." Certainly no young man with a
conscience, like Orwell's, could happily accept the tyranny of an imperialist
police force over a native population; "not only were we hanging people
and putting them into jail and so forth; we were doing it in the capacity of
unwanted foreign invaders."
So after five years of service as a police officer in various cities of
Burma, Orwell went on horde-leave from August 1927. But he had not
developed any liking for his police job and so he decided to resign partly for
that reason and partly because of his hatred of imperialism. Still another
145
reason for this decision might have been the shabby treatment that he
received from one of his British bosses. Orwell asked for permission to resign his
post (of an Assistant Superintendent of Police) with effect from January 1,
1928. Although his officers were annoyed because he gave no reason for
resignation, they accepted his request and his brief career in the Burmese
Police came to an end.
His Life in London and Paris with the Poor
In the autumn of 1927, Orwell had been moving, when on leave from his
Burmese job, among the poorer sections of the population-of London in
order to observe their conditions of life. After resigning his job, he went to
France and rented a shabby room in a working-class quarter of Paris. He
published his first article, on the subject of censorship in England, in a weekly
newspaper called Monde. In February 1929, Orwell had an attack of
pneumonia and had to spend some time in a Paris hospital as a charity
patient. His stay in this hospital left certain memories which were as bitter as
those of his life at St. Cyprian's.
As a Journalist
Between 1928-35 Orwell earned his living as a private tutor, a teacher in
cheap private schools, as well as by books and journalism.

146
By 1935, he was making enough from his writings t o escape to the
country. Free-lance journalism was bringing in a certain amount. During this
period he retired to the country. In tile country he kept hens, ran a pub for a
while and set up a small general store. He made on an average one pound a
week as shopkeeper, but then he left the shop and went to the North of
England to write a report on the effects of unemployment upan the people.
The work was published under the title The Road to Wisan Pier. Besides this
work, his novel A Clergyman's Daughter appeared in 1935, and the novel
called Keep the Aspidistra Flying was published in 1936.
Orwell's Marriage and Visit to Spain
In June 1936 Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy, a rather frail but
attractive student of psychology at the University of London, who was three
years younger than he. She was sophisticated, fastidious, highly intelligent
and intellectual. In December of the same year he went to Spain where the
Civil War had broken out five months before and was continuing. Orwell's
sympathies were on the side of the leftist cause and he offered himself for
training as a soldier to fight for the revolutionaries. His wife Eileen
O'Shaughnessy joiipcd htm in Spain in February 1937 and started working at
the Labour Party Office in Barcelona.

147
Orwell fought as a volunteer on the Aragon front in north-cast Spain
and was badly wounded in the throat in May 1937. When h e began to
recover from his wound the following month, he volunteered to return to
battle. But, being chased by the Communist police, he and his wife escaped
arrest and crossed the frontier into France, and found themselves safe in
England. These events became the subject of one of his best books, called
Homage to Catalonia which was published in 1938.
His Stay in Morocco
In March 1938, Orwell fell ill with tuberculosis, a disease from which he
had suffered as a child. He and his wife spent the winter of 1938 in Morocco
where he wrote the book Coming up for Air which was published the following
year in 1939. In June 1938, Orwell's father died of cancer at the age of
eighty-two.
His Role in the Second World War
Orwell returned to England, and lived quietly in Hertfordshire for the two
years before the Second World War broke out. He offered himself to be
recruited in the British Army but was rejected by the Army as medically unfit.
This disappointed him deeply. Eventually he found himself in the B. B. C, and
he joined the Home Guards. As Sergeant, Orwell, with Corporal Warburg, ran
148
an international platoon in St. John's Wood. In the Indian Service of the B. B.
C, Orwell \vas invaluable for the News Bulletins in Hindustani. In January,
1941 Orwell wrote a number of war-time articles for a magazine. From
August 1941 he spent about two years as Talks Producer for the Indian
Section of the B..B. C. Afterwards, he used his B. It. C. experiences as the
basis for the bureaucratic Ministry of Truth in his novel Nineteen Eiglilyfour.
The Success of the "Animal Farm"
In February 1944, Orwell completed his novel Animal Farm, and was
shocked when a leading publisher rejected it on political grounds. Eventually
the book was brought out in 1945 by a different publisher. T. S. Eliot praised this
book for the literary merit of its satire against Russia which was in those days
an ally of Britain. Animal Farm proved to be a very successful book, and for
the first time in Orwell's life there was plenty of money.
The Death of His Wife and Second Marriage
His wife Eileen died in February 1945 on the operation table in a
hospital. She had been in poor health throughout the war. Thereafter Orwell
went to the island of Jura in the Hebrides. There he led an arduous and taxing
life. It was there that he wrote his swan song. Nineteen Eighty/our (which was
published in 1949). But Orwell's health had been getting steadily worse. By the
end of 1948, he was seriously ill and was hardly able to write anything. In
149
September 1949, he went back to London and entered a hospital. In
October of the same year he married a girl by the name of Sonia Brownell.
His Last Days and Death
In the last days of his life Orwell was very ill. He feared that he was
suffering from tuberculosis. He entered a sanatorium in Gloucestershire. Later,
he moved to a London nursing home. In this period of his life, his second
marriage, was a great help to him. In his last days he was writing about
Conrad. He planned to go to Switzerland to recuperate, but a day or two
before he was due to fly there, he had a sudden haemorhage and he died
on January 23, 1950. He was buried, at his special desire, in an English village
churchyard.
2.3 GF.ORGE ORWELL'S NOVELS
The six novels written by Eric Blair or George Orwell are : ' Burmese
Davs (1934); 2. A Clergyman's Daughter (1935); 3. Keep Aspidistra Flying
(1936); 4. Coming Up jor Air (1939); 5. Anin, Farm (1945); and 6. Nineteen
Eightyfour (1949). Each of the six now deserves a separate examination.
1. Burmese Days (1934)

150
Burmese Days, published in New York in 1934, is a moving a.., painful
picture of frustration and humiliation born out of t h e Briti.v and Burmese
interaction. The novel is also autobiographical in natui, and can be treated
as a volume of pleasant reminiscences of his lif in Burma. But actually it is the
story of a man's suffering and destrt tion as a result of his involvement with
Burma and with his felly Englishmen who rule it. This man is Flory, the hero
of the novi In the words of Edward M. Thomas, "Burmese Days, written when
was back in Europe but projected much earlier, is Orwell's only no" to draw on
his experience in the East. He later suggested that it w.(, written as a
necessary exorcism, and certainly it is predominantly, though not entirely, a
painful book. Unlike the essays it is written entirely from inside the
situation, though not in the first person. There is no one to draw Orwellian
conclusions, for Flory, the hero, like Orwell's later heroes, is Orwell without his
quality of moral courage—perhaps one could say without his dimension of
writer, since this was the role in which he most often chose to oppose
injustice.
The central character, Flory, is an English timber-merchant in Burma of British
imperial rule. He is a bachelor in early middle age, quite cut off by now from
all contacts with family or friends in Britain, and isolated also by
temperament from the small community of British officials and others in the
place. • He realizes the hypocrisy of British imperialism; and he knows that his
151
colleagues' values arc shallow and narrow though he himself has nothing to
offer in their place. He wants to recreate the Burmese national character
and return the country to its primitive culture, something which the native
politicians, like the corrupt U Po Kyin, do not want. Under the pressures of the
system, Flory's moral character has deteriorated as well, and therefore he
believes his only hope for survival in Elizabeth Lackersteen's love. He is
painfully wrong about her and
*Each of the books marked with an asterisk is a novel. All the
other works are non-fictional.
The novel, as described by Orwell is "about the future—that is, it is in n
sense a fantasy, but in the form of a naturalistic novel." Orwell also called this
book "a Utopia in the form of a novel." What Orwell means is that his novel
should be treated as a warning, not as a prophecy. The intention is not
prophetic but admonitory.
In 1984 there was the rule of Ingsoc (or English Socialism) in Oceania.
England was one of the states of Oceania. It was a sort of dictatorship of
Big Brother. But the Inner Party did all the functions of Big Brother. Winston
Smith (born in 1944 or 1945) was thirty-nine at this time. He was a member of
152
the Outer Party (a sort of the Middle Class). Emanud Goldstein was reported
to be the enemy of the people.
2.4 GEORGE ORWELL'S ESSAYS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
It is George Orwell's first book of autobiography. "The first and least mature
of the autobiographies, Down and Out in Paris and London, was published in
1933. This book comprises two distinct parts. The first deals with Orwell's time
in Paris in the twenties; it describes his experience of poverty and near
starvation there and his subsequent jobs as a scullion first in the kitchens of a
very large hotel and then in a fashionable and "atmospheric" restaurant. The
second part of the book treats of his continuing poverty upon his return to
England and his experiences living down and out and tramps in and around
London.
"Orwell's emigration to Paris was his first act in following his own bent. The
three most formative experiences of his earlier life, his pre-school, Eton and
then his career as a policeman in Burma, were all events which happened
before he was Sufficiently adult to think and to decide for himself. The reason
why Paris should be the object of Orwell's first free essay in experience are not
far to seel^ Given his aspirations to be a writer and his s t rong admiration for
Zola and especially for symbolist writers, such, as Baudelaire and Proust, it
153
follows that lie should wish to know at first hand the city which appeared to
him to be the origin aud still the home of all that was important in modern
literature. The somewhat romanticised idea of the Paris of the artists which
the young Orwell appears t0 have cherished in his intellectual solitude in
Burma finds expression in a passage in Burmese Days." The idea is grossly
caricatured ; but this does not necessarily deny its attraction for Orwell at one
stage of his life. The speaker is Flory who may be seen as the surrogate of
Orwell himself as a young man. He is speaking to Elizabeth Lacker-steen who
has just come to Burma from Paris where her mother is “being an artist" :
"Paris ! Have you really lived in Paris ?...l've never seen it. But, sood
Lord, how I've imagined it ! Paris—it's all a kind of jumble of pictures in
my mind ; cafes and boulevards and artists' studios and Villon and
Baudelaire and Maupassant all mixed up together. You don't know
how the names of those European towns sound to us, out here. And did
you really live in Paris ? Sitting in cafes with foreign art students,
drinking white wine and talking / about Marcel Proust ?"
The pathetically conventional sentimentality of this idea is something
which Orwell could obviously see through (clearly, he is very determined to
let us know that he can see through it) at the time that he wrote this novel.
Certainly, by then, he had already spent some time in Paris and inevitably had
found it different from his expectations. For at that time Paris was not in one
154
of those stages of literary ferment important to Anglo-Saxons. All vestiges of
the nine of the Paris of Zola and Villiers and Mallarrne and Yeats and W,
linger though they might in Orwell's mind, were gone. The which he knew
was one which could not easily be romanticised by the men of letters. In
the essay "Inside the Whale" Orwell desa ed his time there as "a story of
bug-ridden rooms in working-men's hotels, of iighls. drinking bouts, cheap
brothels, Russian refugees, cadging, swindling and temporary jobs."
Throughout the Paris section of the book Orwell stresses heavily and
repeatedly the unr^m-antic features of the city as he knew it. "Poverty is
what I am writing about," he announces early on and then follow detailed
accounts of what it is like to live in Paris without money, of the several dealings
which Orwell and his friend Boris had with the state pawn shops, of the sordid
details of extreme hunger and near starvation, of the fiith-iness of hotel
kitchens and the prostrating hard work of a scullion.
But despite his tendency to debunk the Paris of romance, Orwell clearly
remained enthralled by the idea of it which he had gained from books. In
Paris there are two Orwells, one who seek'*0 prevent himself from being "taken
in'1 and another who cannot hide his preoccupation that Paris must provide
with commonmorebale experience. If Orwell often dwells upon the mundane
and the squalid, he also at times insists on making Paris conform to his idea of
what it should be on seeing it through the eyes of earlier writers. The opening
155
paragraphs of the book, for instance, in which Orwell sets o u t i n
impressionistic and often verbless sentences "lo convey something of the spirit
of the Rue de Coq d'Or," "the atmosphere of the street," could be indebted
to any one of a host of writers about Paris from Hemingway to Elliot Paul.
And throughout the book there are numerous literary echoes. Murger's Vie
de Boheme appears to have coloured many of the anecdotes as well as the
pictures of working-class merry-making. The story of Roucolle the miser is
straight Balzac, and Boris, the most important character in this first half of the
book, is very much of the world of Ninolehka and Jacques Dcval's Tovaritch.
Most important of all, we have, in Charlie, Orwell's obviously fascinated
account of a latter-day and somewhat vulgarised Axel. There is nothing in
Orwell's autobiographies which more clearly reveals his early infatuation with
the French nineties, the decadence, the period that saw the birth of le
symbolisme than the many descriptions of Charlie, his life and loves and table
talk.
"From what we are told in Down and Out in Paris and London it would seem
that Orwell became a down-and-out purely as a result of a sequence of
circumstances over which he had no control. His troubles in Paris begin, it is
suggested, when the greater part of his money is stolen one night from his
hotel room. This brings* him to what he terms "the suburbs, as it were, of
poverty", a situation in which, predictably, he still struggles "to keep up

156
appearances." Soon after, however, the English lessons which he gives and
which we assume are his only source of income come to an abrupt end. He
is now completely impoverished and is forced to pawn most of his clothes. In
an effort to get help in finding a job he seeks out an old acquaintance, Boris, a
white Russian officer turned waiter. But Boris is in even more desperate straits
than Orwell himself. The Russian seeks help from his creditors, but without
avail, and so Orwell and Boris together experience a lengthy period of
poverty and extreme hunger. Eventually, however, Boris finds employment at
the Hotel X, where he also manages to get Orwell a job as a scullion. Here
and later in the kitchens of the Auberge de Jehan Cottard Orwell
experiences the sort of intense hard work that makes him "neuas-thenic with
fatigue." Since he does not feel "equal to going on with a seventeen hour
day," he writes to his friend B in London to ask if he can find him a job in
England. B replies that there is a job available looking after a congenital
imbecile. Orwell immediately accepts it. On his return to London, however, he
finds that his future employers together with the imbecile have gone abroad
and that there will be a three month delay before he can take up his strange
new employment. With only nineteen shillings and six pence in his pocket,
Orwell finds himself once again compelled to live "in some hole and corner
way." He exchanges his clothes for those'of a tramp and lodges fin a
succession of sever cheaper and dirtier lodging-houses.

157
Finally he has recourse to the casual wards, the "spikes," of the London
area ; and we are given accounts of those at Roniton, Edbury, Crowley,
and Lower Binlield. Orwell also finds a new "male" in Paddy, a tramp whom
he meets in the first casual ward that he visits. And through Paddy he is
brought into contact with numerous "characters" in the pegging and
tramping community. With the help of a loan of two pounds from B,
Orwell is able to survive until it is time for his job to begin. And here the
book ends."
A critic observes : "Reading through Orwell's account of these adventures,
one cannot but note some implausible elements in it. For instance, when
speaking of his decision to go and seek out Boris, Orwell remarks with a
ponderous irony calculated to emphasize the extremity of the situation that
"It was a great relief to remember that 1 had after all one influential friend to
fall back on." But the reader recalls that in the preceding chapter Orwell
had mentioned at least one "prosperous friend" in Paris and must wonder
if the road to Boris and lo poverty was really the only open to Orwell at that
time. It also appears improbable that it was absolutely necessary for Orwell to
go down and out among the tramps of London. Surely with the firm
prospect of a job it would have been possible and proper for him to borrow
enough from B to live "respectably" during the months before his
employment was due to begin. The suspicions we/may come to have

158
about this whole episode are confirmed by Orwell's restatement of it in The
Road to Wigan Pier, a book which differs from its predecessor above all by
virtue of the greater frankness and confidence with which it is written.
Speaking there of this earlier book, Orwell first of all concedes that
"nearly all" the incidents described there actually happened, though they
have been rearranged. "However, in the light of the new version which
henow gives of his entry into poverty in London, this would appear very
much an understatement. For he now reports that his joining the down-
and-outs was a deliberate decision on his part. His experience as a
police officer in Burma, he tells us, had created in him a deep guilt about
belonging to the ruling class : "What I profoundly wanted at that time, was to
find some way of getting out of the respectable world altogether." There
follows a sentence which tells us much about Orwell, even something of
the reasons for his adoption of a pseudonym : "I meditated upon it a great
deal, I even planned parts of it in detail ; how one could sell everything,
give everything away, change one's name and start out with no money and
nothing but the clothes, one stood up in." And in the event, his
execursion into poverty was carefully pre-arranged. "One evening," he
tells u s , "having made ready at a friend's house, I set out and
wandered eastward till I landed up at a common lodging-house in
Limehouse Causeway. It was a dark, dirty-looking place. I knew it was

159
a comman lodging-house by the sign "Good Beds for Single Men" in the
window. Heavens how I had to screw up my courage before I went in."
"So much then for the story of the conpenilal idiot. Quite obviously Orwell's
experience of povcrly occurred not as a result of circumstances, but rather in
answer lo the demands of his own psychological condition. Il is equally clear
that Orwell was unable at this time to be frank about this condition, and felt
o b l i g e d t o disguise it as a set of uncourted picaresque adventures
calculated to win the reader's tolerance by amusing and entertaining him.
The extent of Orwell's authorial difficulties with the whole situation can be
gauged by the extreme fatuousness of the device of the congenital idiot. In
the later autobiographies this embarrassment disappears. There he will be
able to identify his deep impulse lo know the underworld of the poor not as a
ludicrous or morbid piece of eccentricity, but rather as one of his several
impulses lo extend his awareness and to find liberation from the constricting
illusions of middle class life. It is an impulse that will stay with Orwell
throughout his life. The occasion described above uns nol the only one upon
which Orwell was to go to a friend's house. Sir Richard Ress had described
another:
He came to my house one day and asked if he might change his
clothes. Having left his respectable suit in the bedroom, he went off
again dressed more or less in rags. He wanted, he said, to know about

160
prison from the inside and he hoped that if he were picked up drunk
and disorderly in the East End he might manage to achieve this. Next
day he appeared very crestfallen. He had duly got drunk and been
taken to a police station. But once there he had received a fatherly
talk, spent the night in a cell and been left out next morning with a
cup of tea and some good advice.
This brings out very clearly the comic aspect of Orwell's quest, the
comedy of the cloth-capped Quixote. It is the sort of comedy endemic to
any situation in which there is anxiety to know things "from the inside " But I
have cited the incident chiefly because it illustrates Orwell's perseverance in
his quest. In some sense all the autobiographical volumes and a great
number of the essays are similar accounts of an unceasing effort lo exorcise
delusions by gaining access to the reality, however harsh it may be, that
underlies them."
2.5 Critical Essays (1946)
In 1946 Orwell published Critical Essays which contain ten essays, i.e.,
Charles Dickens, Boys' Weeklies, Wells, Hitler and the World State, The Art of
Donald McGill, Rudyard Kipling, W. B. Yeah; Benefit of Clergy, Arthur Koestlei;
Raffles and Miss Blandish, In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse. Writing about this
work Laurence Brander says, "The Critical Essays contains a number of short
161
pieces which require brief comment. Bertrand Russell has quoted the
essence of the essay on Wells, Hitler and the World State : "sensible men have
no power," and comments : "Orwell faced it, and lived, however bleakly and
unhappily, in the actual world. Elderly Radicals, like Wells and myself, find the
transition to a world of stark power difficult."
The Art of Donald McGill does for comic postcards what Boys Weeklies
does for children's journalism. Rudyard Kipling and W.B.Yeats arc good
example of Orwell's method of dealing with literature as written material in a
political world. The Kipling has a brief comment on the Indian Empire, then
turns lo a discussion of •good bad poetry' from Thomas Hood to Kipling. 7"he
Yeats is a brief review pointing out (hat Yeats' 'Fascism' (or desire for the rule
of an aristocracy) and occultism frequently go together. Benefit of Clergy is
a review of the autobiography of Salvador Dali, and his work. Arthur Koesller is
a useful analysis of Darkness at Noon and the other 1 books, and it is still more
interesting if it is used as a commentary on 1984. Raffles and Miss Blandish is
an examination of crime fiction to show that there has been a great
deterioration in moral standards. In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse is another
pathological study, written when the broadcasts from Berlin were still being
discussed.
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These essays collectively show the contemporary human mind which by
and huge views life as a scries of defeats. Orwell shows the squalor of the
human mind.
The English People (1947)
This work is full of praise for England. To a foreigner the remarkable
features of the English people are unconscious but pro-/ found patriotism
and an inability to think logically. It was true of the English nation as well as
true of Orwell. Occasionally during the war years, however, his patriotism
took on a ranting, aggressive form, as in some of his London Letters to the
Partisan Review, but towards the end of the war it seemed to recede into^thc
half-conscious, like a fish sinking down into the depths of a pool.'
2.6. REFLECTIONS ON GANDHI
This essay on Mahatma Gandhi is actually a review of his
autobiography. The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Written as it is by one
who is no mere uncritical admirer of the great W,, it enables us to see how the
Western rationalist views life and doctrines of the Mahatma. Orwell believes that
Gandhiji was 'an unusual man who enriched the world simply ly being alive'. While
admiring Gandhiji's uncommon phya-U courage, his incorruptibility and political
integrity, Orwell finds in Ac high moral values held sacred by Gandhyi, especially
163
in the doctrine of non-attachment, a vein of anti-Unanism-a quality which
made him more samtly than human.
Compromise: make concessions involving the sacrifice of tome of one's own
principles.
Coercion: compulsion.
Fraud : deception.
This partial autobiography : The Story of My Experiments with Truth, originally
published in two volumes, the first in 1927 and die second in 1929.
Unregenerate : spiritually-unreformed; unenlightened.
Indian newspaper: Young India.
viable: capable of existing or surviving.
In 1942 Gandhiii refused to co-operate with Britain in the war effort,
though he gave moral support. In 1942 he launched the Quit India Movement.
'The different conqueror refers to tht Japanese, for in 1942 the Japanese had
over-run_Burma and were at the eastern border, of India. When Gandhiji was
stoked how the Japanese could be resisted non violently, he gave his
reply through the Harijan (14 June 1942): ‘Neither food nor shelter is to be
given, nor any dealings to be established with them. They should be made to fee
164
that they are not wanted... the people... must evacuate the infested place
in order to deny compulsory service to the enemy.'
after a fashiom: in a way.
malice: spite; ill-will.
his own skin: his own safety.
maniacal: mad or crazy; extreme.
Edward Morgan Former (1879-1970) s distinguished English novelist; author of A
Passage to India.
besetting sin: sin that persistently tempts a person.
when he first...South Africa: Once Gandhiji was kicked by a policeman for
using the pavement set apart for Whites; on another occasion he was pushed
out of a first class railway compartment.
There...was a time: As a student in England, Gandhiji was for a time
infatuated with the idea of living like a fashionable English gentleman; for this
purpose, he wasted a lot of time and money, learning French,. elocution,
dancing and playing the violin. But when the foolishness of all this dawned on him,
he gave up his idea of playing the English gentleman.

165
Eiffel Tower: iron tower in Paris, 300 metres high, built for the Paris Exhibition of
1889, named after its builder A.G. Eiffel (1832-1923). Gandhiji visited^Paris during
the Exhibition, and stayed there for a week
assimilating: absorbing.
phenomenal: extraordinary.
sensational: creating sensation (wonder and excitement).
debaucheries: indulgence in sensual pleasures.
ethical: pertaining to moral conduct,
adroit: resourceful; clever; skilful.
indefatigable: untiring.
antihnmanist: The strict observance of his moral doctrines is impossible for
ordinary human beings; Gandhiji insisted that others desirous of serving God or
humanity also should adhere to the rigorous code of morality that he himself
practiced.
be squared with: balanced; (i.e. here, incompatible with).
the measure: the standard or the unit of measuring.
compromise on milk: Gandhiji had taken a vow that he would not use milk.
Once when he was convalescing after a serious illness, the doctor suggested he
166
should take milk, but he refused. However, he accepted Kasturbai's suggestion
to take goat's milt, On this Gandhiji himself says: '... I contented myself with
adhering to the letter of my vow only, and sacrificed its spirit... I had only the
milk of the cow and she-buffalo in mind when I took the vow....'
backsliding: relapsing (falling back) into sin.
condiments: spices etc. used to add flavour to food.
it makes clear...: When his second son, Manilal, had a severe attack of
typhoid, the doctor suggested he should be given eggs and chicken broth.
Gandhiji objected and the patient refused to take animal food. Once, in
South Africa, when the doctor prescribed beef-tea for Kasturbai, Gandhiji had
her discharged from the hospital and treated at home.
wary: cautious.
Boer War (1899-1902): In this war between Britain and two South African
States (Transvaal and the Orange Free State), Gandhiji rendered valuable
service as head of an Indian Ambulance Corps. abjaareds vowed to give up.
•You're another* typeiSTou're another' is a vulgar retort to one who calls names;
here, jthe reference is to eminent persons who, easily irritated by inconvenient
questions of interviewers, escape answering them by snubbing the interviewers,

167
Louis Fischer (b. 11896) A An outstanding American journalist, admirer and
biographer of Gandhiji. His works on Gandhiji include Gandhi and Stalin (1947),
The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950) and Gandhi, His Life and Message for the World
(1954). -
staggered: deeply shocked.
forbearingly: patiently; considerately.
the Ukraine famine: During 1931-32 there was a severe drought in Russia
which affected the production of crop go acutely that a famine resulted,
causing the death of three million people.
appeasement: conciliation through concesiions (often involving sacrifice of
one's principles).
gauge: measure,
kindred: related; similar.
cut across: conflict with.
Labour government (1945-1951)« during the Premiership of the leader of the
Labour Party, Clement Attlee.
Churchill (see notes on 'The English Class Syitem'). Being a staunch Conservative
who glorified the British Empire and was anxious to perpetuate it, he naturally
168
opposed Gandhiji and was contemptuous of the 'half-naked fakir'. la 1935 he
said: 'Gandhism and all it stands for must ultimately be grappled with and finally
crushed.' In 1942, when he wai Prime Minister of England, he declared: 'I have
not become the King's First Minuter in order to preside over the liquidation of the
British Empire.*.
2.7 SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT
This essay enables us to get a glimpse of the author's experiences in Burma where
he was employed in the British Imperial Police (1922-1927). Orwell had already
come to regard imperialism 'as very largely a racket', and he knew he was ill
fitted for the role he was called upon to play. During this period of Imperial
service a sense of guilt continually haunted him. While secretly he condemned
imperialism as an evil, he was embittered by the anti-European sentiment
among the natives who hated him as a representative of British Imperialism. The
incident described here brought home to him the tyranny that imperialism
imposes on the ruler as well as the ruled.
It was as he marched at the head of an expectant crowd, rifle in hand,
to shoot the mad elephant, that the irony of his own position struck him. He
instinctively recoiled from the destructive act to which he had committed himself,
but, should he fail to carry it out, he knew he would be ridiculed by the crowd
that followed him. It was therefore imperative that he should impress them in
169
order to be considered firm, fearless, imperturbable and capable of rising to the
occasion in a crisis. Torn between the immediate need to play the 'Sahib' and his
own ingrained aversion to the role thrust upon him, he set about the task of
shooting the elephant, though it bad never been his intention to kill the animal.
Finding himself thus caught between two tyrannies—the tyranny of the ruler and
the tyranny of the ruled that seemed to push him to and fro as if he were an
absurd puppet—he realized the futility of Imperialism that deprives the tyrant
himself of his free will.
imperialism! (lit.) the rule of an emperor; here, it refers to the despotic way
authority is exercised by a nation over its colonies or subject peoples.
bait: tease (by making insulting remarks or gestures).
got on my nerves: annoyed or irritated me.
chucked up: abandoned or gave up (in disgust).
cowed faces: faces that showed timid or fearful submission to authority.
get nothing into perspective: get no idea of the matter in all its aspects.
damped down: rendered stable.
in saecula saeculorem: (Latin) for ever.

170
.44 Winchester: a kind of rifle used by hunters of big game; (.44 refers to the
width of the bore; the rifle is named after its inventor).
in terror em i (Latin) in terror; i.e. to terrify.
must': (from Hindi) the state of sexual frenzy in an animal (especially the male)
in the mating season
mahout: (from Hindi) elephant-driver
labyrinths: a complicated system of passages; a maze (here, i the passages
between the innumerable huts).
squalid mean. '
stuffy: unpleasantly devoid of fresh air.
the rains: the rainy season.
scandalized: shocked.
switch: a slender rod or stick.
shooing: uttering a cry (shoo) which is often used to away birds and animals.
soggy: wet (and muddy).
conjurer: magician.
171
Sahib: (from Hindi) a term of respect used to add refer to persons in authority
(the Europeans during rule).
garish: (tastelessly) colourful.
squeamish: so sensitive as to be easily offended or dis
my own skin: my own physical safety.
magazine: chamber in the rifle for containing cartric
cross-hair: fine crossed filaments fitted to the gun-sig rifle (to aid in taking aim).
the shot that did for him: the shot that overpower killed him.
trompeted: produced a loud cry.
dah: a kind of knife (its blade Is narrow at the handle broad at the tip).
Coringhee: Madrasee; Indian (from Coringa, a small at the mouth of the
Godavari.
2.8 NEW WORDS
In this essay (1940), Orwell dwells on the need to coin new words to
communicate certain feelings that are too subtle for expression. There is a
considerable province of human experience that lies beyond the descriptive
power of words, especially aesthetic and moral feeling, our likes and dislikes
and all that concerns our inner life. Expressions like 'words fail' point to this verbal
172
inadequacy inherent in every language; .the atmosphere of a dream that
defies description is yet another example that makes this insufficiency glaring.
As a result, we are driven to falsify experiences, especially those that concern
o u r i n n e r life, in our effort to communicate them to others, though this
falsification is quite unconscious. Orwell here discusses the possibility of bridging
these gaps in language by inventing new words. After pointing out the possible
objections that may be raised, he refers to certain methods by which words
may be coined. Of course, the sources of the methods suggested are familiar to
students of language-analogy, onomatopoeia and slang. But, while these
processes of word-making operate unconsciously in the natural development of
a language, Orwell hopes, if large numbers of people were to think on the same
lines and apply themselves to the task of inventing new words on the basis of
common experience, we would be able to overcome this verbaljnad&-quacy
and 'give an objective existence' to our thoughts.
condition, reflex: an example is conditioned refltx, i.e. response to a stimulus to
which an organism is not naturally subjected, e.g. the watering of a dog's mouth
at the sound of a feeding-bell.
unamenable to language: what language cannot deal with.
Anthony Trcilope (1815-1882): English novelist. His best-known novels are
Barchester Towers (1857) and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). Besides other
173
novels like Dr Thome (1858) and The Eustace Diamonds (1873), he also wrote books
of travel, a monograph on Thackeray and his Autobiography which appeared in
1883.
Mark Twain (1835-1910): the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
the famous American humorist whose most famous novels are The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Regent Street: a street in London.
Henry George Bonn (1796-1884): British publisher and author. A crib is a word-
for-word translation of a foreign work used (surreptitiously) by students of that
language. Bohn has published several such works.
disordered, unverbal world: The confused, vague feelings and images clinging
to the mind (after a dream) which cannot be described accurately in words,
(verbal is the adjective of 'word'.)
Why do you do, or not do, so and so?: for example, Why do you hate him?
or,Why do you not like her?
star-like isolation: i.e. as far removed from us as the stars in the sky.
flank-attack: (military term) attack on the side.
cadences: the rhythm (rise and fall) of sounds in uttering words.
The mortal moon .. . presage: Shakespeare, Sonnet 107, II. 5-6.

174
grand climacteric: 63rd year. According to superstition, certain periods in the
life of a person are critical, especially
those years which are the multiples of 7, 63 being considered to be the most
critical.
Manon Lescaut: Historie du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, a
famous French novel of the picaresque type by
Abbe Prevost (1697-1763), published in 1731.
rigmarole: tedious, rambling tale.
cray fish: a shell-fish like a lobster found in rivers.
picaresque novel: (picaresque from Spanish picaroon, meaning, a rogue) tales
dealing with adventurers or rogues; the earliest of such novels were Spanish
and they were much in vcgue in the 17th century.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889): an English poet of remarkable originality
who introduced new patterns of rhythm into English poetry. He was also a
Greek scholar and occupied the Chair of Greek at the University of Dublin. . His
poems were posthumously published by his friend and fellow-poet, Robert Bridges.
ballad writers: The authorship of the old ballads (chiefly of the 15th century) is
unknown. A ballad is a spirited poem that vividly narrates a story of adventure or
love or both. Simplicity of diction is common to all ballads of the past. cant:
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hypocritical talk; here, it refers to loose talk in which words are used for fashion
without any clear idea of their meaning.
Lumpishness: clumsiness; (the opposite of what is conveyed by the word subtle
or fine).
'Vie Amonreuse da Docteur Watson' stuff: critical stuff (study) like The Love-life of
Dr Watson, probably attempted by some obscure, eccentric Frenchman. Orwell
is here making fun of the Continental critics who assiduously investigate obscure
and irrelevant aspects of an author's works. Dr Watson is the constant
companion of the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, in the detective stories
of Sir Arthur Gonan Doyle. He is an admirer of Holmes and takes a personal
interest in the cases inquired into by the detective. The love-life of Dr Watson is
not likely to interest any sane critic, for he hasn't any worth inquiring into.
dead language: a language up more in ordinary use (like ancient Greek or
Latin).
Vixie puellis nuper idoneus: (Latin) from Horace's Odes—Book III, 26th
Ode, line 1. The line means 'I have lived my life, a lover with the best'. idoneus:
(Latin) apt; suitable (the best). Horace (65-8 B.C.): ancient Roman poet. His
works are Satires, Odes and Ars Poetica.
stultifying feeling: the feeling that the effort is futile and absurd.
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jiggery-pokery: (colloq.) humbug.
subtler words: words capable of communicating finer shades of meaning.
crank: eccentric person.
pedantic: characteristic of a pedant, i.e. one who gives undue importance to
book-learning, delights in parading it and insists on formal rules in speaking and
writing.
made-up: artificial.
Esperanto: artificial language for international communication, designed by Dr
Zamenhof in 1887.
non sequitor: (in logic) it does not follow (said of a conclusion that does not
follow from the given data); generally, any statement that has no relation to
what has gone before.
question-begging: taking for granted or assuming as proved, what needs to be
proved.
bosh: (slang) nonsense.
muddling through: achieving one's aim by sheer tenacity, not by skill.
all the squashy... intellect: all the arguments (based on religion and
superstition) brought against ideas that are scientifically sound; these arguments
177
are meant to squash or suppress all scientific thinking which, being ungodly, will
bring down the wrath of God upon all those who entertain such thoughts.
au fond: at bottom.
presumption: arrogance (here intellectual boldness).
I the Lord ... God: 'For I Jehovah the Lord thy God am s jealous God, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the
fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing loving-kindness unto
thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.1
[Exodus, 20:5-6]
pride . . . fall: 'Pride goeth before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.'
[Proverbs, 16:18]
David was punished: King David incurred the wrath of Jehovah for having
found out how many people lived in Israel and Judah. Jehovah sent a
pestilence upon Israel.

178
[2 Samuel, 24:1-15]
ectogenests: (biological term) production of structures or bodice outside an
organism.
James Joyce (1882-1941) s modern novelist noted for his daring innovation in
the form and structure of the novel and for his use of the technique of 'stream
of consciousness'. His famous novels Ulysses (1922) and Finmgans Wake (T939) are
remarkable experiments in language—making use of words from Old and Middle
English, other languages, portmanteau words and allusions.
bergamot: a kind of perfume extracted from an aromatic tree that has the
same name.
verbenas a kind of oil obtained from the plant known as lemon-scented
verbena.
Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939): American film-s t a r w h o won fame by his
swashbuckling role in Black Pirate.
The Cabinet of Dr Caiigari: the first horror-film (1919).

179
props: (abbreviation) stage properties.
Volapoki artificial language for international communication invented by
J.M. Schleyer in 1879.
Deeper than ... sound: from Shakespeare's Th* Tampesi (ActV, scene i, 1.56)
Past the plunge of plummet: from A.E. Hcu3man's poem, A Shropshire Lad
(XIV, 1.5)
A.E. Housman (1859-1936): A classical scholar of eminence, he was the author of
two volumes of lyrics—A Shropshire Lad
(1896) and Last Poems (1922).
The unplombed, salt, estranging sea: from Matthew Arnold's poem To
Marguerite (the concluding line).
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888): poet, scholar and critic; he wrote two famous
elegies—The Scholar Gipsy and Thyrsis and
other poems like Schrab and Rustum and The Forsaken Merman. His best-known
critical work is Essays in Criticism.
dilettantish: amateurish; (i.e. the idea of one who has only a superficial
knowledge or a smattering of the subject).
crankish: somewhat cranky or crazy.

180
utter incomprehension: total lack of understanding.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902): famous for his satirical novel Erewhon and the
autobiographical novel, Tht Way of AU Flesh.
must be Jived... another: owing to the inadequacy of words, perfect
understanding is possible only throughjmagi-
native identification with-our fellow-beings.
2.9 BOOKSHOP MEMORIES
After his return to England from Paris, before he could earn enough to live
on bis writings, in the early thirties, Orwell worked as a part-time assistant in a
London bookshop, where he worked for about a year. Though it was drudgery for
him, he had opportunities of observing customers of various kinds, ~ including
eccentrics, their habits and tastes. Here he records his impressions of such people
with a half-humorous, half-indulgent attitude which, incidentally, enables us to
get a glimpse into his own tastes and habits of reading. The essay reveals one
curious fact—that Orwell lost his love of books. The changing literary tastes of the
reading public are also brought out.
Browse: flit.) feed on young shoots of plants, grass, etc., as cattle do; here, read
for enjoyment. Calf-bound: bound in calf-skin or soft leather. Folios: large
volumes.
181
First edition snobs: persons who collect first editions of works by famous authors
as a hobby; as they find pleasure and take pride in the mere possession of such
books, the real value of which does not concern them, they are called sobsn.
Paranoiacs: those suffering from paranoia, a psychological –aberration which
makes them live under various delusions— of grandeur or of being persecuted in
some way—and behave
as if the delusions were the reality.
Grandiose: making an impression of grandeur; pompous.
Certifiable lunatics: persons who are not known to be mad, but likely to be
certified insane if they were to be medically
examined.
Gravitate towards: be attracted to.
Bang about: loiter; remain idly.
Horoscopes: booklets containing prediction! (based on one’s sign of the
zodiac).
Japanese earthquake: a major earthquake that caused much havoc in
Tokyo in 1923.
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Remainders’i copies of books remaining unsold owing to lack of demand and
often offered at reduced price,
Petronins Arbiter: a satirical romance in prose by the ancient Roman writer
Gaius Perronius who was one of Nero ’s companions.
Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up: a drama tic fantasy by Sir James
Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), famous English dramatist. Barrie’s best-known play is
The Admirable Crichton
touts: persons who promo te \the sale of articles by meeting p e o p l e a n d
persuading them to b uy.
Two-penny no deposit library: library that does not require its subscribers
to make any deposit but charges only two pence for every book borrowed.
Hampstead and Camden Town: localities in London.
]John Boynton Priestley (b. 1894): noveli st, playwright and essayist. Angel
Pavement and Good Companions are his best-known novels. Time and the
Conways, Dangerous Comer and An Inspector Calls are among his well-known
plays.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961): American novelist who was awarded the
Nobel Prize in 1954. His famous works are ‘ A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the
Bell Tolls, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea.
183
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941): English novelist; some of his well-known works are
Fortitude, The Dark Forest, Jeremy and Mr TraUl.
Pelham GrenvilleWodehoose: prolific writer of humorous novels. His works in the
Jeeves scries—The MmitabU Jeeves; Thank You, Jeeves; Cany on, Jeeves, are
as popular as A Damsel in Distress, and the Psmith series.
Ethel M. Dell: F.nglish rom antic novelist, - author of The Way , of an Eagle (1912)
and Sown Among Thorns (1939).
George Warwick Deeping (1877-1950): English novelist, He turned to writing
after having been a _étier_ing p h y s i c i a n . His earliest works were historical
romances. In 19 2 5 h e published his best -known novel Sorrell and Son which
was a best-seller. His works include novels like Roper’s Row (1929) Exiles (1930), and
Laugking House (1947).
John Jeffery Farnol (1878-1952): English novelist. A picaresque romance, The
Broad Highway (1910), made him so famous that he made writing his career. Some
of his novels like The Amateur Gentleman (1913), The Chronicles of the Imp (1915) and
Our Admirable Betty (1918) are very popular.
John Galsworthy (1867-1933): English novelist and dramatist who was awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1932. His best-known works are the trilogy The Forsyte Saga and
the plays The Silver Box, Strife, Justice and Loyalties. After his death in 1933, his fame
184
has suffered an eclipse. Orwell refers to his novels as good-bad (neither good nor
bad) and water (insipid).
Charles Dickens (1812-1870): famous English, novelist whose works like David
Copperfwld, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities and The Pickwick Papers are among the
classics in English literature.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863): greatEnglish novelist whose best-
known work is Vanity Fair.
Jane Austen (1775-1817): English novelist. Her best-known works are Prid: and
Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility.
Anthony Trollope: (see notes on ‘New Words’).
Bill Sikes: in Dickens’s Oliver Twist, is a villainous character —a brutal burglar in
the gang of thieves led by the Jew, Fagin. He murders another member of the
gang, Nancy, and in trying to escape, is accidentally hanged by a rope.
Mr Wilkins Micawber: a well-known humorous character in Dickens’s David
Copperfield, whose name has become a synonym for easy optimism. He is
fond of good living and improvident by nature but always hopeful, waiting for
something to turn up.
Moses… bulrushes: When Moses was born, his mother, Levi’s daughter, hid him
because she was afraid that the King (Pharoah) would punish her for not putting
185
him to death. (He had ordered that all male children should be killed as soon as
they were born). She hid the child for three months, b u t when she could no
longer conceal him, she put him in ‘an ark of bulrushes (papyrus), and daubed
it with slime (bitumen) and with pitch;… and laid it in the flags by the river’s
brink… ” ‘The Pharoah’s daughter who came to bathe in the river saw the ark
among the flags and sent her maid to fetch it.’ Taking pity on the child, she
entrusted it to the care of a nurse. It so happened that the nurse was the
child’s own mother. The child was named Moses because it was drawn out of the
water. {Moses from Hebrew Mosheh, and mashah in Hebrew means to draw out.)
[Exodus 2, 1-10]
saw the “back parts’ of the Lord: When Jehovah first appeared to Moses, he hid
Ids fact; for he was afraid to look upon God (Exodus, 3: 6). Saw the back-parts
probably is a misinterpretation of this.
Get into a stew: (colloq.) arc perplexed or embarrassed. Fag: tiresome toil.
David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930): He is among the best of modern novelists,
his well-known works being Sons and Lovers, The White Peacock, The Plumed
Serpent and Lady Chalterlie’s Lover. He is also a distinguished poet and short-story
writer,
a bookseller de _étier: a bookseller by trade or profession,

186
a good pitch: a good place of business.
Trade papers… wants: Booksellers advertise in commercial newspapers and
magazines to procure rare or out-of-print, works for their customers. Ad:
(abbreviation) advertisement.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: by Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the
celebrated English historian.
James Boswell (1740-1795) < He wrote the most famous biography in English
literature, The Life of Samuel Johnson. Dr Johnson was the most prominent
literary figure in the 18th century. His Lives of the Poets, edition of Shakespeare’s
works and poems like The Vanity of Human Wishes and London axe well known.
George Eliot (1819-1880) i the pen-name of Mary Ann Cross (nee Evans), the
author of the famous novel The Millon the Floss. Her other works like Silas
Mamer, and Adam BtJt are also famous.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965): the most influential of modern English poets.
The Waste Land is his most widely-known poem. His critical studies have exerted
tremendous influence on modern criticism. His verse-drama Murder in the
Cathedral is also equally famous.
If you don’t see…Eliot: Here Orwell exposes the ignorance of those who deal
in books regarding the authorship or the contents of the books.

187
Vulgarized beyond a certain point: However ignorant the booksellers may
be, the profession will always have a certain dignity.
Combines: groups of persons or commercial firms collaborating and
monopolizing business in various fields of trade. The independent tradesman is
helpless against the powerful combines that control prices and distribution of
articles; they have dominated other fields like milk supply and grocery and driven
small businessmen out of the field, but in the bookselling business this will never
happen.
Bluebottle: a kind of insect also known as meat-fly or blow-fly.
A job lot: various articles bought together in a lot, for example, at an auction.
A c ountry auction: i.e. an auction at which books in the library of some
wealthy person in the country are sold.
Gazetteers: geographical dictionaries.
Bound numbers… sixties: volumes of back-numbers of ladies’ magazines of
the years 1860-1869.
There is nothing to touch: there is nothing to approach or equal in excellence.
Girl’s Own Paper: a popular journal for women. Junk: worthless articles (here,
books); trash.
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2.10 THE ENGLISH CHARACTER
In this essay Orwell perceptively analyzes the general characteristics of
the English people with a remarkable degree of objectivity. The usual
generalizations about the English character are vitiated by pre-conceived
notions of the British aristocracy that is often drawn upon to typify the national
image. Orwell draws our attention to the hitherto ignored majority—the English
cemmoners—whose exclusion from the picture has so far tended to perpetuate
misleading notion* about the race as a whole. The racial characteristics
described like artistic insensibility, xenophobia, snobbery and hypocrisy are
common to the entire race. The picture that emerges is no idealized image but
a true one, as sharp and well defined as the-reflection in an undistorting mirror
held up before English humanity as a whole, apt to jolt them out of their
complacency I rather than flatter their national pride
the English accent : (see nots on ‘Propaganda and Demotic speech).
monocle! single eye-glass, fashionable in the 19th century and the early years
of the 20th century.
sinister: evil; forbidding.
top-hat a tall, cylindrical silk hat (which has come to be associated with the
rich upper classes).

189
Borberryt a kind of coatmade of water-proof cloth; (the name of the material
is derived from the manufacturer's name)
Refugee : Continental people including Jews who sough jews who sought
asylum in England before and during the Second World War
Piccadilly! street in the West End (where wealthy people live) of London
the Derby t the famous horse-race at Epsom (a town in Surrey South East
England) held every year (named after the 12th Earl of Derby).
blitzedt subjected to air-raid; (blitz means a sudden violers air-raid).
guidebooks book for tourist* containing information above various places of
interest
Blackpool: a country borough in Lancashire, England—a industrial area
where working class people live in large numbers.
Ascot! a parish in Berkshire, England, famous for the annual race-meeting at
Ascot Heath.
moth-eaten: old-fashioned.
BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation.
language of the BBC : (see notes on 'Propaganda and Demotic Speech').
unspectacular: not easily attracting public notice; obscure; common.

190
lanky physique: tall and lean constitution of the body.
dumpy: short and fat.
fresh eyes: the eyes of one seeing them for the first time; unprejudiced.
mnemonic rhymes: rhymed verses intended to assist memory.
masquerading: appearing disguised.
helped on and off: helped to get in and out.
gendarmerie: (French) the French police.
litigation: taking legal measures; going to law.
Ratcliff Highway: the filthy street between Wapping (the place where criminals
were hanged) and Ratcliff along the bank of the Thames, with alleys of small
cottages, inhabited by sailors and victuallers.
Habeas Corpus: a writ ordering body of the person t o b e brought before
court to inquire into the lawfulness of his imprisonment. The Habeas Corpus
Act was passed in 1679. It is suspended during a national emergency or peril, as
was the case during the First and Second World Wars.
the Tubes the underground railway of London.
xenophobia: morbid fear or dislike of foreigners or strangers.

191
intern: confine foreigners to certain areas or camps, restraining their movement
within the country during war-time.
sample: taste.
French Foreign Legion: a body of foreign volunteers in the French army
(organized in 1831).
the ranks: the lower ranks of the armed forces (i.e. ordinary soldiers below the
rank of officers).
effeminate: unmanly; womanish.
Dos cemetery : place set apart for the burial of dogs.
Kensington Garden : in west London; originally the gardens belonged to
Kensington Palace, but they were thrown open to the public in the 18th
century.
Stoke Poges : a village in Bucking hamshire, England where Thomas Gray (1716
– 1771) wrote the celebrated Elegy Written in a country Churchyard. The poet
was buried there.
Animals ARP : special arrangements (Air Raid Precautious) made to protect
domestic animals during air – raids; even small stretchers for carrying wounded
cats and dogs were provided during the second world war.
192
Dunkirk evacuation : (see notes on “Propaganda and Demotic speech).
The animal cult : the love of pet animals carried to crazy extremes.
Bird – fancier : a person who has special knowledge of birds and who breeds
and sells them.
Canary seeds : grain to feed pet birds kept in cages.
Profanity : offence against religious sentiment
Blatant : quite obvious
‘placed’ :recognized or identified (as belonging to a particular class)
Percy Wyndham Lewis (1884 – 1957) : novelist and critic; author of the satirical
novels Tarr (1918) and the triology The Human Age,
‘branded on the tongue’ : Branding was the ancient practice of burning a
mark on criminals. This mark would be a permanent disgrace. The English
working class by their accent (the permanent mark on their tongue) betray
their social status the moment they begin to talk.
Magna Carta : The Great Charter of English liberty was signed by King John on
5 June 1215. The King was forced to sign it by the feudal lords (barons). It was
a revolutionary document, the foundation of all the political and personal
liberty the English people enjoy.

193
Between – war years : the years between the two world wars (1918 – 1939)
football pools: betting or gambling on the result of "football matches, a part of
the entry money being set apart as prizes to those who correctly predict the
results of these matches.
jockey: professional rider of a race-horse.
carried... lengths... press: carried to such stupid extremes as one would think
by reading the sports-columns of newspapers which tend to lionize the
sportsmen.
Sabbatarianism: the religious practice of observing the seventh day of the
week as Sabbath or day of rest.
Parliament... foreigner: The awareness of the liberties assured by Parliament,
the sanctity of the Sabbath and social status is inculcated by English tradition; a
foreigner is likely to wonder how this awareness becomes ingrained in the
Englishman.
D.H. Lawrence: (see notes on 'Bookshop Memories').
Blake: (see notes on 'Why I Write'). Dr Johnson: (see notes on 'Bookshop
Memories').
194
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936): well-known English essayist, critic, novelist
and poet. His Father Brown stories are famous. He has written a biography of
Robert Browning and a critical study of Charles Dickens.
persona: the various qualities that make a person what he is.
the proletarian has no country: The communists regard the proletarians—the
members of the working class—of all countries as akin to one another, and so a
proletarian does not belong to any particular nation or country.
phlegmatic: slow to act.
rattled: excited or agitated.
hysteria: here, a state of morbid excitement or agitation.
fuss: excitement over trifles.
Wordsworth's sonnets...this one: The reference is to the sonnets included among
the Poems Dedicated to National Independence and Liberty; they reveal the
poet's patriotism and love of freedom. The sonnet beginning 'Milton! thou
shouldst be living at this hour', is one of them. In another we have the famous
lines
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare
spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.

195
2.11 WHY I WRITE
In this essay originally written in 1946 for publication in the journal Gangrel,
Orwell discusses the impulses that prompted him to take to creative'writing as a
profession. The motives that urged him to turn author are mainly those that
urge every artist, namely, egoism and aesthetic pleasure. Like other writers,
Orwell too had a passion for truth. What he calls the historical impulse is Ms
concern for truth—the truth about things as they are. In Orwell's case, it was
chiefly a concern for finding the truth about political institutions and
movements as he understood them. In fact, the political purpose was strong
and it bestowed on his writings a certain verve without affecting his aesthetic
and intellectual integrity.
outraging my true nature: doing violence to my natural instincts. He felt that
he was born to be a writer and so, to give up the idea of writing was to go
against his very nature.
barely saw my father: Orwell's father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was in the Indian
Civil Service, while his family stayed in England. He seldom visited England until
his retirement in 1912.
feeling... undervalued: At the Boarding School in Sussex, England, Orwell was
not treated properly and he was far from being happy. While the pupils of rich
families received privileged treatment, Orwell felt he was neglected. The head-
196
master of the school never let him forget he was poor. Such treatment at quite
an impressionable age left a scar on his mind.
get my own backs have my revenge. In the (imaginary) world he created
for himself, he could easily take imaginative revenge on those who ill-treated
him in real life, and thus seek compensation for his failures in everyday life.
plagiarism: literary theft. .
William Blake (1751-1827): famous English poet in whose j poetry there is a-vein
of mysticism. The well-known poem
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright is from the collection of poems Songs of Experience
(1794).
Field Marshal Kitchener (1850-1916): distinguished British soldier. He was
Commander-in-Chief, India, from 1902 to 1909 and Secretary of War from 1914
to 1916. He was drowned on 5 June 1916 on his way to Russia pn board the
Hampshire which was torpedoed.
Georgian style! The poetic style of the Georgian period in English literature
(roughly 1912-1922). Such poets as W.H. Davies, Walter de la Mare and Rupert
Brooke belong to this period. Here, the reference is to the simple delight of these
poets who loved to deal with rustic scenes and rural life in their poems.
would-be serious work: work that was intended to be serious.

197
vers d' occasion: verses written for a special occasion.
Aristophanes(5thcenturyB.G.)tGreek writer of comic plays.
burlesque stuff: (worthless) writings in imitation of well- known writers.
Robin Hood: English highwayman celebrated in legend and ballads for his
generosity to the poor and downtrodden. He is supposed to have lived in
Sherwood Forest during the days of King John who had declared him a n
outlaw.
narcissistic: lost in admiration and love for one's own self. In Greek mythology
Narcissus is said to have fallen in love -with his own beautiful image reflected in
water.
Paradise Lost: the great epic poem in English by John Milton. The lines
quoted arc from Book II (1021-1022).
tortoise-shell cat: cat wilh mottled (brown or black and yellow) skin.
meticulous: careful even in the minutest of details.
scat... backbone: thrilled me.
naturalistict (in literature) true to nature; realistic,
arresting: striking. ' '

198
purple passages: passages written in a flowery or highly ornamented
language
Burmese Days: novel by George Orwell (1934).
snubbed: rebuffed.
typography: art or style of printing.
fluctuate: vary.
pamphleteer: writer of pamphlets, i.e. brief treatises on topics or questions of
current interest, for propaganda.
I underwent... failure: After a period of about five years of service in Burma in
the Indian Imperial Police, he came back to England in 1927. Soon he resigned
from the Imperial j-Service and went to the Continent. For about a year and
a half he lived in Paris. When all his money was spent, he had ± to work as a
dish-washer and live in squalid penury.
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): It started with the revolt of General Franco
against the Spanish Republic which had come into existence in 1931. While
the Republic enjoyed the support of the working classes, Franco received help
from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. An International Brigade was
constituted to help the Republic, but Orwell did not choose to join the
Brigade. He joined the small Left Wing opposition group known as POUM
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(Partido Obero dt Unification Marxists) and fought against the rebels. In battle
he sustained a serious bullet injury. When the POUM was denounced by
the Spanish Communists, Orwell with his wife escaped to England, disillusioned
by his Spanish experiences.
ingrained: deeply rooted in one's nature.
Homage to Catalonia: autobiographical work,by Orwell! (1938) in which he
describes his experiences in Spain during the Civil War.
Trotskyists: supporters of Leon Trotsky (whose real name was Lev
DavidovichBronstein, 1879-1940). He was one of the leaders of the Russian
Revolution and a close associate of Lenin. Later he became War Minister, but
owing to differences on policy he was dismissed in 1925. He sought political
asylum in Mexico where he lived until he was assassinated.
Franco: General Francisco Franco, who became dictator or Spain after the
Spanish Civil War.
Animal Farm: a satirical fable by Orwell (1945).
N on – detailed – PROSE.
2.12 PREFACE TO THE LYRICAL BALLADS.
Wordsworth was writing a new kind of poetry which was more to deal with nature than
with man, was to treat higher rather supernatural things, in a natural manner. This could be done
200
by using a simple nature language of the common people. This meant a revolt against the pseudo
classical theory of poetic diction which recommended the use of very much refined, accurate
and extract kind of language, the artificial language such as that of the school of pope as a
“Masquerade of tricks, quaintness, hieroglyphics and enigmas.”
In words worth’s opinion the language of poetry must not be separated from the language
of men in real life. Figures metaphors and similes. And other such decorations must not be used
un necessarily as was the case with the artificial 18th century poetic diction. In a state of
emotional excitement men naturally uses a metaphorical language to express themselves
forcefully. The earliest poets used only such metaphors and images as result naturally from
powerful emotion. Later on poets used a figurative language which was not the result of genuine
passion. They Merely imitated the manner of the earliest poets, and thus arose the artificial
language and diction of the psedo-classics. A stereo typed and mechanical phraseology thus
became current. The poet must avoid the use of artificial diction both when he speaks in his own
person and when he speaks through his charters, He must not use it when he speaks in his own
person for it is not real language of men and he is a man charters for in that case he must vary it
according to the nature rank and status though and emotions of the charter who speaks it.
Main Tenets of the theory
After a study of his prefaces to the 1798 and 1800 editions of the lyrical Ballads, we can
say that the following are the main recommendations of words worth:
1. The language of poetry should be the language really used by men, especially by simple
rustic people who live close to nature. But it should be a selection of such language , All
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the words used by the people cannot be employed in poetry. Only selected and chosen
words used in common parlance can serve the purpose of poetry.
2. It should be the language of men in a state of vivid sensation it means that language used
by people in a state of animation can form the language of poetry. In other words. It
should be a lively language expressing living emotions or real, Life- like men.
3. It should have a certain coloring of the imagination.
4. There is no essential difference between the words used in prose and in a metrical
composition.
A Critique of Wordsworth’s Theory of Diction
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the first critic of Pounce upon words worth’s theory of
language and to expose its many weaknesses. In fact it was on the weak places of words worth’s
theory that Coleridge fastened. And he put the case for cultivation a special diction for poetry.
Coleridge argues:
1. That a language so selected and purified as words worth recommends, would differ in no
way from the language of any other men of commonsense. After such a selection there
would be no difference between the rustic language and the languages used by men in
other walks of life.
2. Wordsworth permits the use of meter, and this implies a particular order and arrangement
of words. It does so differ in the poetry of word worth himself. Meter medicates the
whole atmosphere and the languages of poetry is bound to differ from that of prose. So
Coleridge concludes that there is and there ought to be an essential difference between
the language of prose and metrical composition.

202
3. The use of metre is an artificial as the use of poetic diction and if one is allowed it is
absurd to forbid the use of the other. Both are equally good sources of poetic pleasure.
4. Coleridge objects to the use of the word real: “Every man’s language varies, according to
the extent of his knowledge the activity of his feeling. Every man’s language has first its
individualities secondly the common properties of the class to which he belongs and
thirdly words and phrases of universal use. The world real therefore should be substuted
by ordinary.
5. It is not correct that the best parts of our language are derived from the nature. The best
words are abstract nouns and concepts. These are derived from the reflective acts of the
mind and reflection grows as man advances from the so called primitive state. As man
has advanced in though he has acquired new ideas and concepts which cannot be
expressed through the use of wants to use the rustic language, he must also think like the
rustics. The language of rustics is curiously inexpensive .It would be putting the clock
back. Instead of progressive it would be retrogression.
T.S. Eliot criticized words worth for not practicing his theory in all poems. For example such
as intimations Tintern Abey, Ode to Duty, Laodamia do not follow words worth’s
prescription about the language and languages in these poems is richer and more
sophisticated than those of the rustic people. Theory are not written in a selection of
languages really used by men.
Although words worth’s theory of diction has its weaknesses, yet it has its significance
too. He put an end to the use of false poetic diction “The worst of all the diseases which have
afflicted English poetry. He relieved poetry of an artificial and unnatural diction through
which it had lived its un natural diction through which it had lived its un natural life of hot-
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houses for over a hundred years. He certainly bid much to bring the language of poetry to its
natural beauty and simplicity. To quote Wyatt he did poetry a valuable service he took stock
of the language of poetry cleared out a lot of old rubbish which had long ceased to have any
but a conventional poetic value and made available for poetic use many words that has long
been falsely regarded as unpoetic”.
Points to remember
1. Wordsworth revolted against the psedo-artifical diction of the neo-classical poets by
recommending and practicing the use of real language.
2. The language should be simple and free from unnecessary ornamentation.
3. The language of poetry should be the language of men in a state of vivid sensation.
4. It should have a certain coloring of the imaginations
5. It should not be different from the languages of prose.
6. Main objects against words worth Theory of diction as raised by Coleridge.
a. That such a language will not be different from the language of common men.
b. There is an essential difference between the languages of poetry artificial.
c. The Use of meter makes the languages of poetry artificial.
d. Meter is the source of pleasure it is absurd to forbid it.
e. The languages of the rustics are curiously in expensive of advanced thoughts
and ideas.
Show that “The preface is a landmark in the history of critism

204
Significance of preface to the Lyrical Ballads.
Wordsworth’s preface to the lyrical Ballads is a critical document of abiding significance.
His aim in writing it is to demonstrate the need of writing a new kind of poems and to revaluate
the poetry of the bygone period. As mentioned by Derek Roper, his immediate objects were to
attack the guideless and inane phraseology of contemporary poets.
Wordsworth’s fundamental objection to what he elsewhere calls a Vague glossy and
unfeeling language is that to separate poetry from ordinary speech is to separate it from human
life. For him the great value of poetry is that it permits the sharing of experience the
communication of truths, carried alive into the heart by passion.
Of equal interest and significance is words worth view of the nature and function of
poetry and the process of poetic creation.” It is the honorable charteristic of poetry, He writes in
1798, That its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind” and
his attitude underlies the whole preface, In this way words worth seeks to extend the scope of
poetry by bringing within its folds themes chosen from common life.
Traditionally, the function of poetry was supported to be both to instructed and delight,
but for words worth the function of poetry is to give pleasure. However his conception of
pleasure is an exalted one. Poetic pleasure is not mere idle amusement like rope dancing or
sherry drinking. Serious poetry provides a pleasure of a more exalted kind. It is the pleasure
which results from increased knowledge and understudying. He considers poetry superior to both
history and philosophy of all writings, the impassioned expression that is the countenance of all
205
science. The appeal of science is merely to the intellect, poetry complements science by adding
feeling to its truths, and by its imaginative treatment it makes people more fully aware of them.
Speaking about the nature of the poet he says in a passage in the 1802 edition of the
Ballads that the poet is essential a man speaking to man’s he differs from other men not i n
nature, but merely in the degree of his gifts. He is a man of greater imagination and greater
powers of communication. He can, therefore comprehend truths to which others remind blind.
He can see into the heart of things.
To words worth poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. The process of
poetry begins in a state of clam with the recollection of some past emotional experience.
Excitement gradually increases until the poet is almost relieving the experience yet with a
difference. The difference is that an emotion has now been modified by thoughts. Thought and
emotion conscious and unconscious elements continue their intimate interaction until the
spontaneous overflow begins and until these elements are ready to combine in a poet.
Then the preface gives us a theory of poetic diction and justifies the use of meter in
poetry. This preface gave birth to future criticism by proving controversies. It gave valuable new
sights into the nature scope and function of poetry and into the creative process above all, it set
new standards for the discussion of such matters by its intense seriousness and by its inward
experience. By comparison with words worth’s preface all previous writings on poetry seem
superficial. It is the first comprehensive attempt to build up theory of poetry. The preface indeed
is a rich piece of writing. Its Themes are manifold and its raises many questions. Its discusses
beautifully the relationship of poetry and science, the use of meter, the place of pleasure in art,
Aristotle and poetry in general.

206
To quote Margaret Drabble, the preface’ Marks’ the beginning of a new age. It is
unofficial manifesto of the English romantic movement . It explained the aims and objectives of
romanticism and thus gave to the romantic movement a definite direction and programme. As
smith and Parks point out : It raised a wall between the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, it
dated a new era it served to make intelligible for ever the dividing line between the religious in
critism that might otherwise have seemed to flow into one another. We do not often have many
such dividing walls, The preface is a great irritant to thought, it poses numerous questions and
provokes discussion. It heralded the new dawn of democracy in literature and critism. It was a
death-knell of Augustan poetic tradition and a beginning of a revolution in poetry. It established
the poet as a mere copier but as a creator as a man with an intense sensibility not rationality. He
is no longer interested in city life. The poet wants poetry to deal with the essential passions of
the heart and for this nature is a better subject than man in the city.
2.13 THOMAS CARLYLE – THE HERO AS POET .
Thomas Carlyle was born in 1775 at Ecclefechan, Dumfrieshire,
where his father was a stone mason. He sprang straight from the rugged Scottish peasantry,
and the stern doctrines of the old Calvanism in which he was born left, in spite of all his
intellectual growth, a lasting impression on his mind. From the academy at Annan, where he
received the rudiments of his education,'he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he
matriculated in 1809. Leaving wilb it taking a degree, he then taught for a time at Annan £ i
Kirkaldy. His parents' design had been that he should enter the Scottish Church, but radical
changes in his religious views made this impossible. Endowed with a passionately earnest
nature, he suffered agonies from the doubts which assailed him during the many dark years in
207
which he wandered in the 'howling wilderness of infidelity,' striving vainly to recover his lost
belief in God, in life and in himself, and then suddenly there came a moment of mystical
illumination, or 'spiritual new birth', which restored him, not indeed to his former religious
convictions, but at least to the mood of courage and faith. . The history both of the protracted
spiritual conflict and of the strange experience by which it was ended, is written with
immense power in the second book of Sartor Resartus, Unfortunately though mental relief
was now obtained, he was already the victim of dyspepsia which was henceforth to make his life
miserable and to colour much of his thought. Private teaching and hack-writing (which
included a translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meistef) provided him with a scanty and precarious
livelihood, and in 1825 he published in book form his first important piece of independent
work, his admirable Life of Schiller. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, a woman of brilliant
intellectual parts, and for some years contributed much to the magazines, especially on subjects
connected with German literature-a literature in which he had found 'a new heaven and a new
earth'. On hef father's death, Mrs. Carlyle inherited a small farmhouse amid the dreary
moorlands of Craigenputtoch;«.in Dum- friersshire, and it was while living here that he produced
his most characteristic book, which is one of (he most remarkable and vital books in modern
English literature, Sartor Resartus. In the summer of 1834 he moved to London. His French
Revolution appeared in 1837; his lectures on Heroes and Hero-Worship, (delivered in 1839-40)
in 1841; Past and Present (the most penetrating and influential of all the many books which were
inspired by the critical, social and industrial conditions of the time) in 1843; the Letters and
Speeches of Oliver Cromwell in 1845; Latter Jay Pamphlets (a piece of ferocious social
criticism) in 1850; the Life of John Sterling (a valued friend who died several years
before) in 1851; the History of Frederick the Great, his last important work, in instal-
208
ments of two volumes a time, in 1858, 1862 and 1865. The death of his wife in 1866 was
a blow from which he., never recovered, and as he was now hopelessly pessimistic in
regard to the movements and tendencies of the world about him, his remaining years
were filled with sorrow and bitterness of soul, lie died in 1881 and was buried, not in
Westminster Abbey, as was suggested, but in accordance with his own wishes, at
Ecclefechan. (From Hudson's An Outline History of ENGLISH LITERATURE)
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The Hero as Divinity and the Hero as Prophet are" productions of the past. But the
character of the Hero as. Poet does not pass.
The Hero as Divinity of old ages : The conception of the Hero as a god and the
Hero as inspired by a god is based on lack of knowledge. Growth and advancement of
scientific knowledge has made such a conception as. baseless and even ridiculous. So it
has no place in the modern age.
They presuppose puts an end to : The conception of the Hero as a god or
as one god- inspired is rather uncivilised and primitive. The progress of scientific
knowledge and of civilisation has put an end to such ideas. a world vacant of scientific forms : a
world without any- scientific knowledge, ideas and methods.
loving wonder : the sense of wonder at the achievements, of the Hero, as also love for him.
fancy : imagine.
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one speakiug with the voice-of a god: A Prophet was believed to be god-inspired and was
believed to be the mouth-piece of a god.' Mahomet believed himself to be such a great
Prophet.
Divinity and Prophet are past : The idea that a Hero is a god or that he is a Prochet belongs to
age that has gone by. There is no place for such ridiculoos ideas in the modern world.
less ambitious : The word 'poet' does not sound to be as great as the words 'divinity' and
'prophet'.
but also less questionable : less to be doubted. The Hero as a Poet does not seem as ambitious
as the Hero as Divinity or the Hero as God. At the same time, it is also not as likely to be
disallowed as in the case of the other two.
a character which does not pass : The character of the Hero as a Poet is a lasting one. No progress
of scientific knowledge can make such an idea seem unsound.
when Nature pleases ; According to Carlyle, the true Poet is a product of Nature. All academic
institutions and all scholarship cannot by themselves make a true Poet.
Let Nature send be shaped into a Poet : It is Nature's business to produce a Hero. When
once he is produced, whatever is the age in which he is produced, he can be easily moulded
into a Poet.
It is the sphere of activity that constitutes the grand origin of such a distinction as
Hero, Prophet and Poet greatness is a dumb one.''; He has had no voice of genius to be heard
of all men and times. A nation that produces a great poet, as Italy has done in Dante, is bound
210
together as a nation, while a nation that has not produced a voice of its genius cannot remain
as a unity for long, as is the case of Russia.
ESSAYS
The Distinction and Identity of Poet and Prophet
Carlyle says that Hero, Prophet and Poet are the various terms we give to great men in
various times and places, depending upon the varieties we discover in them and upon the
spheres of activity in which they display themselves. . Such a distinction arises especially from
the; sphere of activity. It may even be said that a truly great- man can be all sorts of men. He
could be at once Poet, Prophet, Priest and King. A true poet is, in some degree-or other, a
politician, a thinker, a legislator and a philosopher, all rolled into one. Mirabeau could have
become a great poet, had the course of his life and education led him in that direction.
Napohon and the Marshals of Louis Fourteenth could have been great poets. The great
heart and the clear deep-seeing eye are the fundamental qualities of a great man. No
wonder that: Petrarch and Boccaccio did diplomatic service. The poet Burns could have made
a better Mirabeau. Shakespeare could have worked in any capacity to a supreme degree.
It is true that Nature has a part to play. Nature does, r/ot shape all great men in the same
mould. Varieties of aptitude and circumstances have their part in making; the great men,
Most often it'is the circumstances that -are to be taken into consideration. Aptitude of
Nature has nothing to do in the cases of a wiry porter carrying &eavy loads and sturdy tailor
handling a bit of cloth and -a tiny needle. The destiny of a hero too depends more Upon
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circumstances than upon aptitude. A hero becomes ipoet or prophet depending upon the world
he lives in.
Poet and Prophet differ much in our loose modern understanding of them. But in some
old languages the titles are synonyms. The word Vates means both p o e t and prophet.
Fundamentally they are still the same in so far as they both penetrated into the sacred
mystery of the universe. The mystery is open to all, but is discerned •only by a few. Prophet or
poet is sent into the world to penetrate into this divine mystery, and make It clearly known to
us. He finds himself living in this sacred mystery and is bound to live in it. Poet and
prophet are one in so far as they arc participators in the 'open secret'.
The prophet seizes the sacred mystery on the moral side, wLils Vaz post seizes it on the
aesthetic siuc. The former may c.: culled the revealer of what we are to do and the latter
reveals of what we are to love. These two provinces merge with each other-the prophet too has
an eye on what wo are to love, as otherwise he cannot know what we are to do. Goethe said:
"The Beautiful is higher than the Good; the Beautiful includes in it the Good".
Poets and Poetry
In ancient and also in modern times, a few poets have been regarded as perfect and
faultless. But it is an illusory notion; for there is no perfect-poetjri A trace of poetry is
found in every heart' but no heart, is made-altogether of poetry. We are all poets, if we have
any degree of imagination in us. A person is called a poet, if the poetic vein in him becomes
prominent and noticeable^ Universal poets too have become such much in the same way. One
becomes a universal poet, if he rises'above the general level of poets. Still it is an arbitrary
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distinction. All poets, all men, have some touches of the universal, and no man is wholly
made of that. - Most pcets are soon forgotten. In the long run even Shakespeare and Homer
will have been forgotten.
Many things have been written on the point of difference between true poetry and true
speech that is not poetical. The German critics say that the poet; has an infinitude in
him, and that he communicates it to whatsoever he delineates. There is considerable meaning
in the old vulgar distinction of poetry being a song. The delineation will be poetical, if it is
musical not in words only, but in its very substance. A musical thought is one spoken by a
mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing, and discovers the melody and
harmony in it. All inmost things are melodious and express themselves in a song.
Even the communist speech has something of song in it. Every accent is a kind of
chanting, and all passionate language by itself becomes musical. Even the zealously angry
utterance becomes a song. AH deep things are song. Song seems to be the very essence of us.
When the Greeks spoke of the harmony of spheres, they meant that the soul of all Nature was
perfect music. Poetry may therefore be called 'musical thought', The poet is he who thinks in
that fashionl»qOne who sees! deep a'ad''sees' music is a poet. It is this depth of vision that
makes one a poet.
The Life of Dante
Dante was born in Florence, in the upper class of society, in the year 1265. His
education was the best, then available. With his earnestness and his intelligence, Dante must
have learned better than most all that was learnable. With his clear and cultivated
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understanding and great subtlety, he learnt well and accurately whatever was within his reach.
IQ life, Dante was within his reach. In life, Dante had been twice out campaigning as a soldier
for the Florentine state and been an embassy. At thirty- five he had become one of the Chief
Magistrates of Florence.
At ten he had met one Beatrice, a beautiful little girl of his own age and rank. She
becomes a great figure in Dante's poem as also in his life. His marriage with another woman
does not seem to be a happy one.
If everything had gone well, Dante would have been Prior or Podesta, and the world
would have lost the most aotable words that havs ever been spoken or sung. I n Dante's
Priorship, some disturbances rose to such a height that Dante with his friends was thrown into
exile, and had from then onwards to lead a life of woe and wandering. His property was all
confiscated. His attempt to get reinstated only made bad things worse. There is a civic
document condemning Dante to be burnt alive, wheresoever caught. Another document is a
letter of Dante to the Florentine Magistrate, written in reply to their proposal that he should
return on condition of apolozing and paying a fine. He replied with his usual stern pride that if
he could not return without calling himself guilty, he would never return.
Dante wandered from patron to patron, and. from'_ place to place. But such a man
as he, with his proud silent ways, with his sarcasms and sorrows, was not made to succeed at
court. He very soon realized that he. had no resting - place in the world. For his sore miseries,
there, was no solace on the earth. It was but natural that the world of Eteraity should
impress itself on him. The Eternal World seemed an awful reality and the 'real' world a
mere shadow. The great soul of Dante, homeless on earth, made its home more and more
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in the awful: other world. It had become the one fact important'for him. The result of all
these speechless thoughts is the Divine Comedy, the most remarkable of all modern works.
Dante must have felt proud of his work. He knew that it was great. The labour of
writing was great and painful for him. In many senses his book ha s been writ ten with his
heart's blood. It is his whole history. He died after finishing it, at the early age of fifty -six,
rather broken - hearted, lie lies buried in his death - c i t y o f Ravenna.
Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy)
Dante's poem was a song. It is, as Tieck calls It, a mystic unfathomable song. All old
poems are songs. It s only when the heart of the men is rapt into true passion Of melody, that
we call him a poet. The Divine Comedy h a genuine song. It proceeds as by a chant. It could
not be otherwise, for the essence and material of the work are themselves rhythmic. Its de'ptb,
and' rapt passion and sincerity, makes it musical. A true inward symmetry, an architectural
harmony, reigns in it. The three kingdoms, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso are like
compartments of a great building, of a great supernatural world-cathedral. It is the sincerest of
all poem*. It came deep from the author's heart. He had been in Hell, in long severe sorrow
and struggle, so that he could make his Comedy indeed divine. No work has been so
elaborated as Dante's. Every part of it is worked out with the greatest earnestness : each has its
proper place. It is the rery soul of Dante, reflecting the soul of the Middle Ages.
Modern criticism prefers the Inferno to the two other parts of the Divina Commedia. The
Purgatorio and the Varadiso, especially the former, is even more excellent than it. Purgatorio
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is an emblem of the noblest conception of that age. Repentence is the grand Christian act. It
is beautiful how Dante works it out In Purgatorio.
The three parts support one another and are indis-pensible to one another. The Inferno
without Paradiso would be untrue. All the three make up the true Unseen World, as figured in
the Christianity of the Middle Ages. It was perhaps delinated in no human soul with such
depth of veracity as in that of Dante. To him the real world was but the threshold to a far
higher fact of a world. In fact, the one was as preternatural as the other. A man not only will
be a spirit, but is a spirit.
Dante's Hell, Purgatory and Paradise are an emblematic representation of his belief about the
Universe. It is a sublime embodiment of the soul of Christianity. It expresses how the
Christian Dante felt good and evil as he two principal elements of creation. . All Christianism
is emblemed there. But all is done, without any consciousness of embleming.
Ten silent, centuries had found a voice in Danie''. The DMna Commedia belongs to
the tea centuries after Christ. The thought of the Middle Ages had expressed itself in
everlasting music through Dante. This mystic song is the utterance at once of one of the
greatest human souls, and of the highest thing that Europe had known till then. The noblest
idea is sung and emblemed forth lastingly by one of the noblest men. The deep sincerity of
Dante's thoughts, woes and hopes have an abiding appeal to all true souls of all ages. Danta’s
words come from his very heart, like those of the "prophets of past ages. His poem will
prove itself to be the most enduring one, for nothing so endures as a truly spoken word.
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Dante's Genius
The prevailing character of Dante's genius is intensity. His greatness, in all senses,
has concentrated itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He is world- great not because
he is world- wide, but because he is world- deep. He pierces to the very heart of all
things. He has a great power of vision; seizes the very type of a thing; and presents only
that. The first view he gets of the Hall of Dite is vivid and visible at once and for ever.
It is an emblem of the whole genius of Dante. Tnere is a brevity and precision in him,
rarely equalled by any. What he says he says in a few effective words ; and what he
leaves unsaid is more eloquent than words. The very movements in Dante have something
brief, swift and decisive. This -kind of painting is the inmost essence of his genius.
Though the painting is one of the outermost development of a man, it comes like all
else from the inmost, faculty of him— it is the index of his mind. A maa' without worth
cannot give the likeness of any object. Indeed, intellect expresses itself in the power of
discerning what an object is. Whatever of faculty a man's mind may have will come out here.
The gifted man is he who sees the essential point, and leaves all the rest aside. To the mean eye
all things are trivial.
Dante's painting is not graphic only ; it is every way noble, and the outcome of a great
soul. Splendid qualities are depicted in the portrait of Francesca and her lover. It is indeed
a paltry notion that regards that Dante put those into Hell whom he could not be avenged upon
on earth. If ever pity was in the heart of any man, it was in Dante's. But a man who does riot
know rigour cannot even pity. Dante's is a longing, pitying love.

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Dante is intense in all things ; he has got into the essence of all. His intellectual
insight as painter is but the result of all other sorts of intensity. Above all, he is morally
great. His scorn and grief are as transcendental as his love. For rigour, earnestness and depth,
there are no parallels to him except among the ancient Hebrew-prophets.
The Greatness of Shakespeare
It has been accepted all over Europe that Shakespeare is the chief of all poets so far and
the greatest intellect who has left record of himself in the way of literature.. No; other, man
showed such a' power of ,vision and such as faculty of thought. Shakespeare understands
as by instinct what conditions he works under, what his materials are, and what his own
force and its relation to them is. It is a calmly seeing eye and a great intellect.
It is in portrait-painting, in delineating of men and things, especially men, that
Shakespeare is great. His -calm creative perspicacity is un-exampled. He discerns the
perfect structure of the thing he sees. It is grand how- he takes in all kinds of men and
objects, and sets them all forth to us in their round completeness. Among Modern
men there is almost nothing of the same rank. The degree of vision in a man is the true
measure of him. Shakespeare's faculty may be defined as superiority of intellect.
When it is said that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, everything is said
concerning him. Shakespeare's intellect is an unconscious one. There is more virtue in it
than he himself is aware of. His dramas are products of Nature and are deep as Nature
himself. Shakespeare's art grows up from the deeps of Nature, through his noble sincere
soul, who is a voice of Nature. The latest generations of man will find new meanings in
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Shakespeare, new ellucidations of their own human being. It is Nature's highest award to a
true single great soul, that he should thus become a part of herself. Such a man's works
grow up unconsciously from the unknown deeps in him.
The joyful tranquillity of Shakespeare is notable. He had his own sorrows, as are
evident in his Sonnets. It is a heedless notion that he did not know the troubles of other
men. He could not have written such splendid tragedies without knowing sorrow. He could
not have delineated so many suffering heroic hearts, if his own heroic heart had never
suffered. In contrast with all this is his mirthfulness his genuine love of laughter. Laughter
comes out iD floods from him; and it is always a genial laughter. It is never at mere weakness,
misery or poverty, that his laughter is directed. It is some poor character only desiring to
laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so.
Schegel calls Shakespeare's Historical plays a kind' of national epic. There are indeed
very beautiful things in these plays, which indeed together form a beautiful thing. The Battle
of Agincourt is one of the most perfect things. A true English spirit breathes through the whole-
business. Shakespeare's works do not give us a complete picture of him. A note of the full
utterance of the man is. given only here and there. He had to write for the Globe, theatre and had
to crush his soul to suit its needs.
In his own way Shakespeare was a prophet. He; has iasight similar to the
prophetic. Nature seemed divine to him also. Shakespeare is not unpatriotic, though he
says little about his patriotism ; he is not sceptic, though he says little about his faith. His,
'indifference' was the fruit of his greatness.

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Shakespeare and Dante
Shakespeare and Dante, says Carlyle, are saints of poetry. They are a peculiar two.
They dwell apart, in a kind of royal solitude ; none equal to them, and none even second to
them. In the general feeling of the world, a certain transcendentalism and a glory as of
complete perfsction invests both of them. Carlyle says that they are indeed canonized,
though no Pope or Cardinals took hand in doing it.
Dante, says Carlyle, is the 'voice of ten silent centuries', and sings 'his
mystic unfathomable song'. His cook, the Divina Commedia, in many senses, has been
written with his heart's blood. It is a song in which the essence and material of the work
are themselves rhythmic. Its depth, and rapt passion and sincerity, makes it musical. The
three kingdoms, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, look out one another like compartments
of a great edifice. It is also the most sincere of all poems. It is the result of pain, sorrow
and long struggle. Every part of it is worked out with intense earnestness into truth and
clear visuality.
The prevailing character of Dante's genius is intensity. His greatness has concentrated
itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He is world- great not because he is world wide, but
because he is world-deep. Through all objects he pierces as it were down into tne heart of
being. Considering the way in which he paints, he shows a great power of vision and seizing
the very type of a thing, presents that and nothing more. It is strange with what a sharp
decisive grace he snatches the true likeness of a matter. The very movements in Dante have
something brief.Though word-painting is one of the outermost developments of a man, it
comes like all elsa from the essential faculty of him. Dante's painting is* not graphic only; it is
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everyway noble, and the outcome of a great soul. For rigour, earnestness and depth, Dante is
not to be paralleled in the modern world. On the whole, the Divine Comedy is an utterance
at once of one of the greatest human souls, and of the highest thing that Europe had till then
realized for itself.
Carlyle states that as Dante, the Italian, was sen t into the world to embody musically
the religion of the Middle Ages, the religion of modern Europe, and its Inner life; so
Shakespeare embodies the outer life of Europe as developed then, its chivalries, courtesies,
humour, ambitions, what practical way of thinking, acting, looking at the world, men then
had. In Shakespeare and Dante, one can understand what the modern Europe was, even after
thousands of years. Dante has given the faith or soul, while Shakespeare has given the
practice or body.
Carlyle considers Shakespeare as the chief of all poets so far, and the greatest intellect,
who has left record of himself in the way of literature. It has been said, that in the
construction of Shakespeare's dramas there is an understanding manifested, equal to that in
Bacon's Novum Organum. Shakespeare knows as by instinct what eondi- tiens he works under,
what his materials are, and what his own force and its relation to them is. Shakespeare is
great in portrait-painting, in delineating of men and things, especially of men. The calm creative
perspicacity of Shakespeare is unexampled. The thing he looks at reveals It inmost heart to
him. It is Indeed spectacular how his great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects.
When it is said that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, everything is said
concerning him. His. is an _ unconscious intellect: there is more virtue in it than he

221
himself is aware of. Shakespeare's act grows up from the deeps of Nature. It is Nature's
highest award to a, true simple great soil, that he get thus to be a part of herself.
Shakespeare was a prophet in his own way. He had an insight similar to the rophetic.
Dante was the melodious priest of mediaeval Catholicism, whereas Shakespeare was the still
more melodious priest of a true Catholicism, of the Universal Church of the future and of all
time.
Carlyle's Style
Carlyle has been highly praised and also condemned as a writer.' The grammarians
picked his prose... Carlylese' as it is called...to pieces, with its ellipses, /gestures,
capitals, interjections, iterations and se on. But it does not matter much. The truth is
that; Carlyle predominates in the field of the English prose of the nineteenth centuryy
With all his tricks, with certain real and manifest defects of language, he has not only an
abundant stock and fund of speech, but a Tightness in the use of it. Carlyle allowed
himself to be misjudged, because in the region of ideas his power of expression is so much
greater than his range of thought
Some of the strictures passed on Carlyle's prose are : barbarous coinages, new and
erroneous locutions, the •constant recurrence of some words in a quaint and queer
connexion, Germanised compounds, frequency of in version, fatiguing over-emphasis,
occasional jerking and almost spasmodic excitdnerit. To these can be added the* sentences of
telegraphic cast, whimsical archaic use of' oapitals, italics, and so on.
"Two features stand out from the rest. One is the? Boise of the style, and the
strident emphasis betokened by the trick of italicising which Carlyle uses more and more
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to the last ;'and the other is the intense self- consciousness of all his writing, good and bad
alike ; the.-self- reference, the self- lashing, the self-scrutiny, the self-distrust; a quality which
is deep down in the man, and which sometimes mars the form, even as egoism of another aad
nobler cast does not mar the form of Dante. On the- whole, Carlyle's much debated 'style' ishis
natural spaech,. not something effected or excogitated, and he could not and would not
ahange it, any more than the tones of his. voice, for a hundred sterlings or a thousand
reviewers.
Cazamian considers Carlyle's style as one of the most personal in its sincerity, for it
testifies to a fondness for violent habits of mind and feeling. He says that it is a style that has
been moulded into shape by the maturing of his genius under the action of an exalted sense
or prophecy, of a spiritual enthusiasm, and under the influence of an intimate contact with
German thought.
On Carlyle's prose style, Saintsbury says "The style which he used for this purpose,
and which undour btedly had not a little to do with the success of the method, could hardly
have come into existence except at the time of revolt of the prose, following that of poetry,
against the limitations and conventions of the eighteenth century. Representing,’ as- it did,
that revolt pushed toits very furthest, it naturally shocked precisions, some of" whom are not
reconciled to this day; and must be admitted that it was susceptible of degradation
and- mannerism even in' its creator's hands, and has proved, almost without exception, a
detestable thing in those of" imitators. But Carlyle himself at his best, and sometimes.; to his
last, could use it with such effect of pathos now and then, of magnificence often, of vivid
and arresting- presentation in all but a few cases, as hardly any prose-writer has excelled.
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His expression, like the matter conveyed in it, may be too strong for the weak, too
varied and elusory in its far-ranging purport for the dull,, too much penetrated with ethical
gravity and clean eyed recognition of fact for those who like mere prettiness and mere
aesthetic make-believe; but both are of the rarest and greatest.
"Its characteristics, like those of nearly all great styles, are partly obvious, partly recondite,
or altogether- fugitive, even from the most acute and preserving Investigation. In the
lowest place come the mechanical' devices of capitals...revival, of course, of an old habit...
Italics, dashes, and other resources to the assistance of the: printer. Next may be ranked
certain stenographic tricks as regards grammar...the omission of conjunctions,
pronouns, and generally all parts of speech which, by relying strictly on the reader's
ability to perceive the meaning without them, can be omitted, and the omission of which
both gives point and freshness to the whole and emphasizes those words that are left.
Next and higher-;ome exotic, and specially German, constructions, long; compound
adjectives, unusual comparatives and superlatives like "beautifuller", unsparing employment of
that specially English idioms by which, as it has been byper-bolically said, every verb can be
made a noun and every noun a verb, together with a certain, not very large, admixture of
actual neologisms and coins like 'gigmanity'. Farther still from the mechanical is that art of
arrangement in order of words and justaposition of clauses •cadence and rhythm of
phrase, all of which go so far to make up style in the positive. And beyond these again comes
an idefinable part, the part which always remains -and defies analysis. "
2.14 LET US SUM UP

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The section introduces us to the prose of the transistion age. The essays selected for
detailed study provide us with a taste of the crisp and humorous style of Orwell. At the same
time one is able to unearth the pungent satire in essays like “The English Character” and
“Shooting an Elephant”.
The section enables the student to get an idea of the major critical theories of the age.
Reading such texts the students can cultivate divergent critical thinking for analyzing literary
master pieces.
2.15 Lesson End Activity
1. Attempt a critical estimate of George Orwell.

2. Bring out the way humour in “Shooting an Elephant”.
3. Enumerate Orwell’s estimate in “ The English character”.
4. Comment on Wordsworth’s concept of poetic language.
5. The preface to Lyrical ballods is a land mark in the history of criticism – Elucidate.
6. Attempt a critical assessment of Carlyle’s hero as a poet.
7. Comment on Carlyle’s view on Shakespeare
8. Comment on Carlyle’s view on Dante.
1. Comment on Carlyle’s style.
2. Comment on the autobiographical element in Orwell’s essays.
3. Comment on Orwell’s Satire.

4. Comment on the significance of the preface to the Lyrical Ballads.
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UNIT III
DRAMA
Contents
3.1 A general summary
3.2 Note on the title of the play
3.3 Detailed summaries
3.4 Narrative Afterword
3.5 Commentary
3.6 The characters
3.7 Introduction
3.8 Conflict: Its Impact
3.9 Death of His Father : Its Impact
3.10 Death of Mrs. Tanner : His Sense of Betrayal
3.11 His Need for Love : Alison's Failure
3.12 His Relationship with Helena
3.13 Altitude Towards Sex
3.14 His Sense of Injustice : Attack on the Upper Classes
3.15 Attack on the Establishment
3.16 Jimmy : Both a Type and an Individual
3.17 MRS. ALISON PORTER Alison : Her Thoughtless, Unfortunate Marriage
3.18 Their Mutual Incompatibility
3.19 Regeneration Through Suffering
3.20 Conclusion : Her Instinctive Tendency to Love
3.21 CLIFF LEWIS
3.22 His Lack of Education and Culture
3.23 His Essential Good Nature
3.24 His Affection for Alison
3.25 Jimmy's Consciousness of His Solid Worth
3.26 A Foil to Jimmy
3.27 HELENA CHARLES
3.28 Her Boldness
3.29 Her Moral Code
3.30 Her Attachment lo Jim : Reasons for It.
3.31 Letus Sum up
3.32 Lesson End Activites

By learning the plays written by the leading dramatists of the age the student during that
period.
226
By reading Shaw they willget a taste of strire and its use as a tool by writers of modern
age.
Detailed –G.B.SHAW – PYGMALION.
A poor flower-seller from the slums of London hears a conversation between two linguistic
scholars (phoneticians) in a crowd sheltering from a rain storm after the opera. One of them
has demonstrated his skill in identifying local dialects and boasts of his ability to teach people of
lower class origin to talk like ladies and gentlemen. The flower-girl, Eliza Doolittle, decides to
use the excessively generous tip she is given to buy herself some lessons, and she turns up at
Professor Higgins's house next day to make the necessary arrangements. Higgins is with
Colonel Pickering, the friend he met the previous night, and the two bet on his chances of so
transforming Eliza's speech in six months that she can pass for a duchess at an ambassador's
garden party. Higgins and Pickering are both bachelors, and the housekeeper, Mrs Pearce,
has misgivings about the irresponsible way in which they are proposing to amuse themselves
without thinking out the consequences for Eliza. However, when Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle,
arrives to protest at the immorality of their abduction of his daughter, it soon becomes evident
that he has no real objection, but merely wants to gain something for himself from the situation.
They easily buy him off and he, who would naturally and legally have the main responsibility
for Eliza, is happy to leave her in their hands. The transformation of Eliza starts with cleaning
her up and dressing her nicely, this involving her first introduction to the way of life of the well-
to-do middle and upper classes. Speech lessons follow, and she proves to be a quick, intelligent,
hardworking pupil.
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Higgins organises her first public test by having her attend his mother's 'At- Home'. Apart
from Pickering and himself, the other visitors are a widow and her son and daughter of the
name of Eynsford Hill. Mrs Eynsford Hill is a gentlewoman with very little money, thoroughly
respectable but acutely aware that she can only barely keep up appearances and that her son and
daughter have lacked the usual advantages of the upper class. The son, Freddy, falls in love
with Eliza on seeing her beautifully dressed and now most attractive. The daughter, Clara, is
dazzled, too, and accepts her as a young woman of high fashion. Mrs Kynsford Hill knows
belter, as does Mrs Miggins, for liliza's conversation veers between ridiculously formal and
stilted banalities, such as remarks about the weather, and beautifully pronounced expressions
of low class ignorance and superstition. The clash between Eliza's new manner and her view of
life teaches Higgins the lesson that he cannot create a lady without paying attention to her mind
and soul. He still does not realise, as his mother does, that the consequences of training Eliza
in ladylike habits and tastes may be disastrous for her.
He wins his bet with Colonel Pickering: at the end of the six months, the two of them take Eliza
into high society (to a garden party, followed by a dinner party and a visit to the opera, in the
original play; to an embassy ball in the screen version), where she is universally admired. (In
the screen version, she is suspected to be a foreign princess whose English is perfect in a way
that the English of native speakers never is.) Shaw does not indicate precisely how the change
has been brought about. There is something miraculous about the transformation of the sham
lady who went to visit Mrs Higgins into the real lady Eliza has now become. Higgins takes all
the credit to himself, and even Pickering sees Eliza's triumph as a reflection of Higgins's
professional skill. This angers Eliza, who sees that her own efforts are undervalued and that
Higgins does not regard her as a human being with real feelings, but as something inert, a doll
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that it has amused him to pass off as a living woman. He seems scarcely aware of her presence.
Provoked, she ceases to be the obedient pupil and rebelliously asserts her independence. By
leaving the house in Wimpole Street, Eliza forces Higgins to realise how much he has come
to rely on her. He traces her to his mother's apartment, where she has taken refuge, and tries to
persuade her to come back.
At this juncture Eliza's father puts in another appearance. He, too, is transformed:
outwardly, from poverty to prosperity; inwardly, from cheerfulness to misery. It is a change
that parallels Eliza's, but in his case it is the result of a legacy from a deceased millionaire,
obtained for him through some careless words written by Higgins. The practical solution to the
problem of Eliza's future is thus easily found: her father can do the conventional thing and
keep her in the comfort to which living in Wimpole Street has accustomed her. Eliza
recognises that she has the alternative of marrying Freddy Eynsford Hill. Higgins wants her
back but, being a confirmed bachelor, makes no offer of marriage to her. Eliza herself is
determined that she will never again go back to being subservient to him. The play has a
teasingly inconclusive end: Eliza goes off with Mrs Higgins to church to see Alfred Doolittle
properly married as a respectable plutocrat should be. Higgins stays behind, obviously
confident that Eliza will come back as before.
3.2 Note on the title of the play
T h e t i t l e . Pygmalion, refers to a character from ancient Greek legend. I n t h e
Metamorphoses, a famous collection of stories by the Latin author Ovid (43BC- AD17),
Pygmalion is presented as a sculptor who scorns living women and makes a statue of ideal
beauty. He falls in love with this, kisses it, addresses it in Mattering speeches, brings gifts to it,
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then dresses its nakedness in robes and jewels. Finally he prays to the goddess of love to give
him the statue for his wife. He returns home and finds that the statue has come to life. The
goddess herself is present at the marriage. Shaw introduces a character called Pygmalion into
the last part of his longest play, Back to Methuselah. There Pygmalion is a young scientist at
work on the task of creating human beings in his laboratory, in a fable of the far distant future.
His own creation turns on him and kills him. The main source for the Pygmalion episode in
Back to Methuselah seems to be Goethe's (1749-1832) Faust (First part, 1808; second part
1832).
A great many theatre goers who have enjoyed Shaw's play have very little knowledge of the
story of Pygmalion and no direct knowledge of Faust. Yet these people recognise a general
similarity between the plot of Shaw's play and one of the best known stories in the world, that of
Cinderella, a favourite with children and the basis of a very popular pantomime entertainment,
still revived every Christmas in some British theatres. A number of references to Cinderella are
made in these Notes, and a full account of the story and the parallels in Pygmalion is given on
pp 54-5. If you do not know Cinderella you may find it helpful to read these pages now.
Preface
When Shaw came to publish his plays, he supplied them with prefaces to make the volumes
easier to sell, as they offered buyers two items for the price of one, an essay as well as a play.
The relation between Preface and play is variable: sometimes the Preface gives an account of
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the origins of the play; sometimes it is a quite independent essay on one of the themes
occurring in the play. The connection between the two is more often oblique than direct, and it
is certainly never safe to suppose that the Preface is a key to the play, telling in straightforward
terms what that is about.
The Preface to Pygmalion is an aside to the play. It gives information about the actual
phonetician-Henry Sweet, whom Shaw used as a model for his character Henry Higgins. It is
misleading in its statement that Shaw decided to have a phonetician for his hero because of the
vital importance of making the English speak their language properly; and it is misleading in
its later insistence that the play's 'subject is esteemed so dry' and that it is an 'intensely and
deliberately didactic' work. Phonetics is not the subject of the play, but part of its plot-
machinery; and the dramatist does not expound Higgins's phonetic system. In fact, Shaw is
taking an indirect way to advertise his skill in interesting and pleasing audiences, whatever topic
he chooses. He docs not distinguish carefully between the descriptive science of phonetics and
the teaching of elocution, the art of speaking well.
Differences between the original Preface and the revised version issued with the film script
include: addition of a passage on Gregg shorthand and considerable changes in the final
paragraph of the text; removal of references to Thersites and Ajax (characters from Homer), to
the Academy of Dramatic Art and to Forbes Robertson (a well-known actor who played the
lead in Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra and The Devil's Disciple)
3.3.1. Act I: First Section

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Mrs Eynsford Hill and Clara (as we later discover them to be) are waiting for Freddy
to bring them a cab. They have come out of a theatre to find the rain pouring down, and they
have taken shelter in: the portico of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden. Freddy returns to say
that all the cabs have been taken. They send him off once more but, as he goes, he bumps into
a young flower seller (Eliza). Mrs Eynsford Hill is suspicious, when she hears this creature
address her son as Freddy, and attempts to find out how she knows him by paying her
sixpence. Eliza simply points out that she used 'Freddy' by chance as a typical name for a
young man-about-town. The group sheltering in the portico is joined by Colonel Pickering.
When he gives the flower-girl three- halfpence, all the loose change he has, a bystander draws
attention to another man who is taking notes of whatever Eliza says. The girl's alarm is
increased when people in the crowd accuse this man of being a police informer, though a
closer look at him reveals that he belongs to the upper classes and his notes turn out to be
written in phonetic symbols. The general hostility to this man (Higgins) turns into wonder and
amusement as he demonstrates his skill in identifying speakers' places of origin from their
pronunciation; but Eliza remains uneasy. The rain stops; Mrs Eynsford Hill and Clara go to
catch an omnibus, and the rest move off various directions leaving Eliza, Pickering and Higgins
alone.
3.3.2 Act I. Second Section
The Note Taker (Higgins) explains to the military Gentleman (Pickering) that he is a
professional phonetician and that his study is profitable to him on account of the newly rich,
or self- made, men who will pay him for lessons in speaking standard English. He boasts that
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he could teach the flower girl so successfully that, in three months, she could pass for a
duchess, or get a job serving the middle and upper classes.
It turns out that the other gentleman is also a student of languages and that the two of
them are familiar with each other's work and have been eager to meet. They go off together,
but not before Eliza has had a chance to hear where Higgins lives. She tries again to sell her
flowers to them before they leave and is rewarded with a handful of money from Higgins,
who apparently wants to make up to her for the insulting things he has said of her. Thrilled to
discover.how much she has been given, she takes the cab Freddy has eventually found and goes
off in style to her lodgings"?
3.3.3 Act II: First Section
In Wimpole Street, the next morning, when Higgins has just finished ' o w i n g his
equipment and explaining his researches to Pickering, the housekeeper, Mrs Pearce, announces
the arrival of a young woman. This is Eliza, specially dressed for the occasion, and come to
propose taking lessons from Higgins so that she may be able to get work as a lady in a shop.
Higgins's first impulse—to get rid of her quickly—is checked when he realizes how serious she
is and what a considerable sum, by her standards, she is prepared to pay. Pickering, similarly
impressed, confirms Higgins's interest and determination by challenging him to prove that he
can transform her into a great lady. They bet on it, and Higgins is eager to start at once. He
drops his openly bullying manner to Eliza and, instead, starts coaxing her with exaggerated
fantasies of the life in store for her if she agrees. Mrs Pearce's sensible warnings are swept aside
by Higgins's enthusiasm. Eliza, overwhelmed and alarmed, is given into the housekeeper's
charge and sent away to be thoroughly cleaned up"

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3.3.4. Act II: Second Section
Higgins explains to Pickering why he is a bachelor and also that he has a professional
code of honour as a teacher which guarantees Eliza's safety with him. Mrs Pearce, the
housekeeper, warns Higgins of the need to set Eliza a good example by not swearing and being
tidier and cleaner in his personal habits than he usually is. Higgins's view of himself is belied
by his handling of Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, who has called at Wimpole Street in the hope
of making some profit for himself out of the gentleman's interest in Eliza. Doolittle, who
arrives dressed in the working garb of a dustman, is a strongly individualistic personality who
speaks eloquently on behalf of the social type he represents, which the middle class condemns
as 'undeserving'. But, formidable as Doolittle may seem, Higgins is more than a match for
him, using various forms of threat and intimidation, together with a five pound note, to
ensure that Doolittle will not trouble them again. As the dustman is about to leave, Eliza
appears transformed into a lovely girl hardly recognisable to the others as the shabby flower
seller they knew. She points out that a luxurious bathroom is not available to poor women, but
her puritanical sense of shame over nakedness and sex emerges again. Doolittle now does
actually leave, making it plain that he is handing control of Eliza over to Higgins, and
recommending the use of a strap to keep her in order. Pickering's polite way of speaking to her
is a contrast that Eliza appreciates. She shows signs of contempt for her old associates, and this
prompts Higgins to warn her against snobbery. Her vanity is aroused, too, by the new clothes
supplied for her to wear.
3.3.5 Act III

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Higgins visits his mother when she is officially at- home to friends. She asks him to leave
because his bad manners offend her guests; but he tells her that Eliza will be among the
callers and explains the nature of the task he has undertaken and the problems that remain.
While he is talking, Mrs and Miss Eynsford Hill are announced. Colonel Pickering is the next
to arrive, followed by Freddy Eynsford Hill. While waiting for Eliza, Higgins makes tactless
conversation and, in particular, comments on the dangerousness of speaking one's thoughts
honestly in society. Eliza enters, looking so beautiful that everyone is impressed and Freddy
falls in love with her on the spot. It is now that Higgins recognises the Eynsford Hill family
as people who were present when he first met Eliza. His pupil follows his instructions to talk
only about the weather and people's health (the usual small talk of English polite
conversation), but her manner of doing so is not at all what he had in mind, and it bewilders
the Eynsford Hills. The climax comes when Eliza rises to go and utters the swear word that
Mrs Pearce, in Act I, had warned Higgins to stop using in Eliza's hearing. Clara accepts
Higgins's mischievous explanation that Eliza's way of speaking is the latest fashion, and she
is prepared to imitate it herself. When Mrs Higgins is left alone with her son and Colonel
Pickering, she tries to make them realise how irresponsible they are in playing their game
wi th Eliza without considering what is to become of her afterwards. She compares the girl's
probable future with the plight of Mrs Eynsford M i l l as a poor gentlewoman; but the two men
brush her anxieties aside.
3.3.6 Act IV
Eliza, Higgins and Pickering return to Wimpole Street after their evening in high
society (after a garden party and a dinner party, in the original version). The two men talk to
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each other about the day, as though Eliza was not in the room. Higgins expresses relief that
the whole experiment is over, and Pickering congratulates him on his triumph. They go off to
bed, Higgins giving Eliza his orders for the morning, just as if she were his servant. When he
returns for the slippers he has forgotten, Eliza is so angry that she throws them at him. This
leads to a scene between them, in which Eliza voices her feelings and her present view of the
whole affair. Higgins shows his arrogance and insensitivity, his absorption in himself and his
own affairs, Eliza succeeds in upsetting him by asking in the most scrupulous way just what
belongs to her, and preparing to give the rest back, as though she is about to leave. He goes
out of the room at last, in a fit of bad temper. Eliza looks for the ring he gave her, which she
has flung down. The original version of Act IV ended at this point, with the implication that
Eliza still values her relationship with Higgins. In revising the text for the Collected Edition of
his plays, Shaw added two sentences of directions to Eliza which show his anxiety to avoid
finishing the scene in a sentimental way: Eliza, even angrier than Higgins, is to throw the ring
down again, after she has found it.
3.3.7 Act V
Higgins and Pickering call on Mrs Higgins, next morning, with the news that Eliza
has disappeared from Wimpole Street. They have called on the police to help find her and they
are justifying this action to Mrs. Higgins, when the maid announces the arrival of a
gentleman called Doolittie. This turns out to be Eliza's father transformed by expensive
clothes, but complaining about his bad luck. He accuses Higgins of ruining his life by
carelessly recommending him to an American millionaire. This man has recently died and
left Doolittie a considerable annual income. The new wealth has taken him out of his old
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social class and turned him into a member of the middle class with a new sense of
responsibility. As a result, his happy and carefree approach to life has given way to
melancholy. Mrs Higgins is pleased to think that Doolittie will be able to support his
daughter, but Higgins is unwilling to give her back to her father. Mrs Higgins reveals that
Eliza is upstairs and makes clear to her son and Pickering Eliza's reasons for running away.
She asks Doolittie to go out on the balcony, then asks Eliza to come down. The girl begins
by treating Higgins and Pickering with conventionally pleasant politeness, as if they were just
slight acquaintances. She goes on to talk to Pickering as if Higgins wasn't there, and she
criticises the latter's whole manner of treating her. But her composure breaks down
completely for a moment, when she catches sight of her father. He tells her that he has not
only come into money, but that he is also on his way to his wedding; for Eliza's 'sixth
stepmother' has reacted to their new prosperity by wanting to be respectable in the middle-
class manner. The others agree to go along to see him married. Eliza is left alone with
Higgins for a while, and they start arguing in a way that is almost a courtship on Higgins's
part, while Eliza defends her claim to respect as an equal and independent human being.
The two now seem equally matched in strength, and neither is prepared to give in and admit
defeat; at the same time, their liking for each other and basic good humour are apparent. Mrs
Higgins reappears and takes a still defiant Eliza off to church, leaving Higgins to mock at the
idea of her marrying Freddy.
3.4 Narrative Afterword
The play is, of course, complete without this, and is to be judged apart from it. Shaw
seems to have written the Afterword to check criticism of his ending to the play. He argues
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that a marriage between Eliza and Higgins would be unsuitable and unlikely, in view of the
nature of the two characters. Then he turns his attention to establishing, as fact, Eliza’s
marriage to Freddy. He tells the story of their financial difficulties and ultimate success with a
flower shop, and of their continuing relationship with Higgins and Pickering. Incidentally, he
indicates how Alfred Doolittle is taken up by the aristocracy and how Clara Eynsford Hill
changes gradually but radically after learning the truth about Eliza. The account ends with a
more precise explanation of Eliza’s continuing attitude to Higgins.
The reader who has been satisfied by the play may well grow impatient with the
Afterword and feel that Shaw is himself infatuated with the characters he treats in this way, out of
their dramatic context Indeed there seems to be an autobiographical dement in his description
of Higgins here; and a reading of the correspondence between Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell
can lead to the conclusion that the Afterword presents a view of the dramatist’s relationship
with the actress (who married George Cornwallis West as Eliza is supposed to marry Freddy)
under the guise of Higgins’s relationship with Eliza. Although there are many interesting and
amusing comments in the Afterword, the piece as a whole seems to lead the attention away
from the play.
3.5 Commentary
The general nature of the play
Realism and fantasy
Pygmalion is set in London near the beginning of the twentieth century. Shaw's
descriptions of the scene for each act imply that he wanted a realistic representation, first of the
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area close to St Paul's Church in Covent Garden, and then of rooms such as might be found in
the houses of the upper-middle class. By giving directions for a taxicab to be driven on to the
stage in Act I, he seems to be carrying the principle of realism rather far. In fact, the
unusualness of this in a play is striking and likely to cause amusement rather than making
the stage seem more like an actual street. (When the play was made into a film, the taxicab in
the street was a conventional sight on the screen, and Shaw had to bring it back later to make
sure that the audience would notice it particularly).
The realistic settings give support to Shaw's presentation of his characters as real
people who might well have been living in London when he was writing. He introduces the
main characters in Act I, as members of a crowd, and associates them with various districts
likely to be familiar to the audience watching the play in a London theatre. The cumulative
effect of naming so many actual localities is to create an illusion that the events of the play
take place in the actual world in which we live. But we are not altogether deceived. A number of
highly improbable things happen in the course of the play, and Shaw has recognised this fact by
describing Pygmalion on the title page as 'A Romance'. It is easier in some societies than
others for a person of humble origins to make his or her way into a higher social class. Eliza
Doolittle's original notion of what she might achieve is fairly modest: from selling flowers in
the streets she might graduate to employment in a florist's shop. Higgins's skill as a teacher
would have been demonstrated adequately if it had helped her to become a shop-assistant in a
West End store. Instead, she is mistaken for a duchess, or a princess, at the end of a quite
brief process of education, most of which is supposed to have taken place in the intervals
between acts of the play. Thus Shaw has sacrificed realism to make the drama more exciting
and. amusing. When he adds to the transformation of Eliza an even more surprising, because
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less prepared, change in her father, it is quite evident that this play is not consistently
representing life as it is. It comes nearer to day-dream and wish- fulfilment than to observation
and experience. Indeed the contrast between Eliza in Act I and Eliza in her ball gown, and
between Doolittle in his dustman's clothes and in his wedding finery, could be described as
magical.
Coincidences sometimes happen in real life, but in a novel or play they very easily
suggest that the author is arranging incidents as he wants them. Shaw makes use of
coincidence at several points in his play:
a. Pickering meets the scholar he has come to England to find, in the crowd at Covent
Garden where Eliza can overhear them;
b. the guests who meet Eliza at Mrs Higgins's flat were also in this crowd;
c. Doolittle comes into a fortune at the same time as his daughter achieves her great
success in society.
The second of these coincidences does not seem particularly necessary to the plot of the
play; and the effect of the third is exaggerated by the suddenness with which Shaw reveals the
change in Doolittle. It is evident that the dramatist is drawing attention to the fact that this is
not life but art and under his control. We are invited to enjoy the way he organises events and
the patterns he designs. We can be confident that the characters' fates are in his hands and
that he will dispose of them as he thinks fit; they are not struggling unaided against society,
nature, time and chance.
3.5.1 Comedy and seriousness

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One effect of bringing an element of fantasy into the play, and keeping us conscious
that this is a play, is to make our approach to the whole less solemn and serious. We can relax
in response to signs that Shaw is offering us entertainment and that he means us to enjoy
ourselves. Day dreaming is usually a lazy business and can leave us in an almost drugged state.
To counteract this Shaw brings in another form of entertainment that is a great energiser: he
makes us laugh. The main source of comedy in the play is the character of Professor Higgins,
and he is comic:
a. because he is a clown in social situations, bumping into furniture, failing to observe
polite manners and, on occasions, being out rageously tactless;
b. because he is determined to get his own way and we can see him manipulating and
deceiving others to this end, with a mixture of the innocent selfishness of a baby and
the wiliness of a rogue;
c. because he is full of verve, energy, high spirits which are infectious and make us
euphoric, too.
He enters on the business of teaching Eliza as a game, and this light- hearted, essentially
irresponsible spirit colours the play. Doolittle provokes laughter by turning upside down
accepted opinions and ways of thinking, introducing confusion in place of a clear-cut
distinction between what is reasonable and nonsense. In addition, there are many incidental
jokes scattered throughout the play, as when Eliza reverts to her Cockney exclamation of
surprise at seeing her father:

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LIZA . . . I have learnt my lesson. I dont believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried.
(Doolittle touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her self-possession
utterly at the spectacle of her father's splendor) A-a-a-a-a-ah-ow-ooh!
It is commonly felt that works which offer amusement and entertainment are inferior to
those which approach obviously important themes in an earnest manner, present unpleasant
truths, communicate sadness or pessimism, and perhaps demand considerable effort of
concentration from audience or readers. Yet Shaw breaks down the distinction between
amusement and enlightenment, jest and earnest. (Higgins, the character, pursues his work with
tireless enthusiasm, for the fun of it, and reflects the dramatist's own outlook in so doing.)
Pygmalion is a thoughtful play which challenges commonly- he!d beliefs and prompts a
reconsideration of some of the central assumptions on which British society has been based.
An incidental example of this is Doolittle's presentation of himself, in Act II, as 'one of the
undeserving poor':
Think of what that means to a man. it means that he's up agen middle class morality
all the time.
This is amusing in its unexpectedness: instead of describing himself as a victim of
poverty, Doolittle complains that he is a victim of morality. He backs up this claim by pointing
out that middle class people (or the government) undertake to help the needy but, in fact, are
only prepared to give rewards for what they consider moral behaviour:
If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: 'Youre
undeserving; so you cant have it1 .

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He reflects on the fact that receiving money that has not been earned is not always
regarded as wrong;
my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of
six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband.
Then he argues that the things he wants money for are not vicious but necessary to the
physical and spiritual well-being of the human nature all men share (though moral men,
according to middle-class orthodoxy, curb and suppress that nature):
I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than
him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking
man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low.
When Higgins proposes to give him a five pound note, Pickering comments: 'He'll
make a bad use of it. I'm afraid1 . These words imply that the dustman will squander the money
on drink; but Doolittle challenges Pickering's moral judgment (middle-class morality again)
by referring to the virtues and benefits of such squandering:
one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and
employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it's not been throwed
away. You couldnt spend it better.
He refuses'an additional five pound note on the grounds that it is too much for such a
spree, and he shows a firm grasp of the idea that those for whom the future is uncertain tend to
make the most of life in the present, whereas a degree of financial security leads to anxiety
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about the future. In fact, Doolittle's remarks reveal another consistent morality, contrary to that
accepted by the middle class. The opposition can be expressed in these terms:
The values of capitalism The values of the underprivliged
work idleness
thrift open- handedness
respectability high spirits
abstinence festive eating and drinking
preudence happiness
responsibility freedom from care
Puritanism (self – denial) hedonism (pleasure-seeking)
We soon gather that Doolittle also approves a form of serial polygamy in opposition to
the middle-class ideal of strict and chaste monogamy; and his current 'missus' enjoys more
independence and respect from him than if they were legally married.
This analysis, though tedious compared with Shaw's dramatic method, serves the
purpose of showing how much serious matter is implied in the passage, and how it leads the
mind towards the conclusion that all morality is relative to some particular condition of life. In
Shaw's presentation, Doolittle is not tedious but entertainingly comic. If there was no serious
content in what he says, we should quickly find him silly and stop laughing. As it is, the
realisation that there is a good deal of matter for thought packed into his words intensifies our
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sense of the comedy, which in turn prevents us from separating out the ideas from our
amusement.
3.5.2 Pygmalion and Cinderella
Shaw has invented the specific story of Eliza and Higgins, but it is a variant on one of the
best known basic, or archetypal, stories in the world. He has not needed to mention this openly
for its presence to be recognised whenever the play has been performed. As the story of
Cinderella it is told to children in their nursery days, and has been the favourite story for
treatment in Christmas pantomime. The devisers of pantomimes had taken it over from the
nineteenth-century extravaganza tradition which, in turn, had borrowed it from Perrault's
elegant eighteenth-century French version of a very widespread and ancient folk tale. The
same basic narrative pattern is found in a number of other traditional European stories,
including the tales of Griselda (retold by Chaucer (1340-1400) in The Canterbury Tales) and
of King Cophctua and the beggar maid. It is easy to understand the reason for the story's
popularity: it tells how a humble, despised and ill- treated girl had her goodness and beauty
recognised and rewarded by being made a great lady, loved and married by a prince or king; as
such, it satisfies the longings of the neglected among women and men's dreams of the power to
be gracious, magnanimous and protective; it affirms the supreme value of goodness and implies
that it may be perceived and rewarded by a supernatural power.
The essentials of the Cinderella story in its pantomime and nursery forms arc:
a. the heroine is motherless, and her father is impoverished, weak,
and neglectful of her;

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b. she is the youngest of three sisters, the two elder being ugly and
cruel;
c. at the centre of the story is the grand ball given by,the Prince, to which the Ugly
Sisters go, leaving Cinderella in the kitchen,wishing that she could be there, too;
d. her fairy godmother appears and, by her magic, conjures up a beautiful dress and a
splendid coach for Cinderella to go to the ball, but warns her that she is to leave at the
stroke of midnight, or her finery will turn back to rags;
e. Cinderella is greatly admired as some unknown princess;
f. the Prince dances with her and falls in love with her; she stays till the clock is striking
twelve and then, in running away, loses one of her glass slippers;
g. the prince succeeds in rinding her again when the glass slipper, which has been tried
on all the other girls around, proves to fit her perfectly;
h. the fairy godmother arrives again and dresses Cinderella fitly for her marriage to the
prince;
i. the family's other servant, a clown called Buttons in the pantomime, is Cinderella's
loyal friend throughout;
j. the prince also has a friend and confidant, a courtier named Dandini.
Listing these particulars makes it easier to see what Shaw has included in Pygmalion and
what alterations he has made.
He has simplified the plot by cutting out the Ugly Sisters, and he has made the story more
realistic by omitting the Fairy Godmother and her magic and the business of leaving the ball at
midnight. He has also left out the finding of Cinderella through the glass slipper, and her
subsequent marriage to the Prince. Yet he seems to have been at pains to keep a connection
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with the fairy tale, for a closer look reveals that some of the apparent omissions arc to be found
in the play in another form or displaced, in another context. The most obvious instance is the
magic coach, replaced by the taxi which Eliza sees as the grandest mode of transport. The
striking clock is heard in Act I; the slippers remain important, though they now belong to
Higgins and are not made of glass. These are now Cinderella motifs, rather than essential
elements in the story. Eliza, like Cinderella, runs away and is found again by Higgins, though
this episode has been stripped of its fairytale quality. The play also ends with a wedding:
Doolittle's, not Eli/a's. Shaw seems to have introduced new elaborations by bringing the
Eynsford Hill family into the story, but it is possible to see Mrs Eynsford Hill ami Clara as
replacing the Ugly Sisters, who also do not recognise the Cinderella they know when they see
her in her fine clothes; and the omission of Buttons has made room for Freddy. The part played
by the Fairy Godmother in transforming Cinderella is substantially taken over by Higgins with
the assistance of Pickering. Though Mrs Pearce does the initial cleaning up and dressing of the
girl, and Mrs Higgins takes over as her female friend and protector. Thus:
a. The ball is replaced by the garden party, or embassy reception;
b. Cinderella's coach is replaced by the taxi;
c. the Cinderella motifs of the striking clock and the slippers remain in Pygmalion;
d. the marriage of Cinderella and the Prince is replaced by the marriage of Doolittle;
e. the roie of the Fairy Godmother in magically transforming Cinderella is taken over
by Higgins, with the help of Pickering;
f. the practical aspect of the Fairy Godmother's role in dressing Cinderella for the ball
and generally acting as her friend and protector is shared between Mrs Pearce and Mrs
Higgins;
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g. as Cinderella runs away and is found again by the Prince, so Eliza runs away and is
found again by Higgins;
h. Pickering is Dandini to Higgins's Prince;
i. the Ugly Sisters are replaced by Mrs Eynsford Hill and Clara;
j. Buttons, the clown, and Cinderella's loyal friend, is replaced by Freddy.
Shaw has achieved a double effect through this combination of altering and yet retaining
details from the Cinderella story: he has created his own, new and individual story, more
realistic than Cinderella; and he has given this new story a more universal quality and a more
general appeal, all the stronger for its reminiscence of childhood half-beliefs in good magic and
happy endings. The freedom with which he has altered and displaced details corresponds more
closely to the folk processes which anthropologists have discovered in studies of multiple
versions of particular myths than to ihe learned, literary process of simply modernising an
ancient legend.
3.5.3 Shaw's use of the legend of Pygmalion
The alterations have also made possible the combining of Cinderella material with other
mythic elements. Shaw's choice of title prompts recognition that he had another legend in mind
while shaping the play. These are the main similarities and significant differences between the
story of Pygmalion as told by Ovid and the story of Higgins and Eliza:
Pygmalion is a sculptor; Higgins is a student of linguistics,
a kind of scientist;
Pygmalion shuns women; Higgins is a confirmed

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bachelor
Pygmalion makes a statue of an Higgins trains Eliza to the
ideally beautiful woman; point where she talks and
behaves like a beautiful automaton;
Pygmalion falls in love with his Higgins cajoles Eliza with
statue, pays court to it, showers deceitful promises, gives her
it with gifts and dresses it in robes chocolates, buys her clothes,
and jewels; gives her a ring and hires
jewels for her to wear
the statue comes to life, in answer Eliza becomes a real lady
to Pygmalion's prayers to the god- and asserts her independence
dess of love; of her teacher
Pygmalion marries his ideal Higgins evades marrying
beauty. Eliza.
Again Shaw has avoided bringing the'supernatural element of the original (the part
played by the goddess) into his play. So the bringing of Eliza to life has to be figurative, not
literal, and it is appropriate that Shaw's substitute for Pygmalion should be a teacher. Making
him a teacher of speech determines that Eliza must be changed into an articulate young
woman, able to use words fluently and well: the statue must be made to speak. As articulacy and
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intelligence are conventionally associated, it follows that her intelligence also should seem to
come alive. Most importantly, Higgins's profession gives Shaw the opportunity of widening the
implications o f Eliza's story to bring in the theme of speech habits as marking class
distinctions.
3.5.4 Other legends recalled in Pygmalion
By giving Higgins a laboratory Shaw has introduced a point of s imilarity with the
character he calls Pygmalion in his later play. Back to Methuselah. There the sculptor of the
classical legend is replaced by a scientist who creates human beings through application of
his advanced scientific knowledge. These beings, like Eliza, go through the phase of being mere
automata, or robots, before becoming fully alive, at which point one of them kills Pygmalion.
In outline, this is very like the story of Frankenstein (3 818) the fable of modern science
written by Mary Shelley (1797-1851) daughter of the pioneer feminist Mary Wollsionecraft
(author of A Vindication oj the Rights of Women, 1792), and wife o( the romantic poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley which has been the basis of innumerable modern plays and horror
films. Of course, Eliza does not kill Higgins, but merely throws his slippers at him (‘I
would have thrown the lire irons', says Mrs Higgins). The suggestion t h a t the recipient
does not find the life she has been given altogether good accompanies the presentation of
the scientist as an arrogant, presumptuous being who imitates the creative acts of God, and
about whose death there lingers a hint of due punishment. Higgins is certainly portrayed as
arrogant and presumptuous in the way he takes over Eliza as if she were a worthless object and
tries his 'experiment' with her, regardless of what the consequences for her may be.
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Since the Renaissance, the outstanding legendary figure taken to represent the human
search for a knowledge and power equal to God's has been Faust. The Elizabethan dramatist,
Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), and the greatest of German writers, Goethe (1749-1832),
were responsible for the most famous literary versions of the Faust legend, in each case
linking the pursuit of human perfection with primitive superstitions about black magic,
derived from the devil and bringing evil and destruction in its train. The form, or simulacrum,
of the most beautiful woman of all time. Helen of Troy, is conjured up for Faust's (in Marlowe's
version, Faustus's) delight, and the scholar falls in love with this 'statue'. In Goethe's Faust,
Part II, Helen is not the only figure of ideai beauty that appears: another is Galatea, whose
name has become associated with the statue in modern versions of the Pygmalion story and
who is mentioned by Shaw, with reference to Eliza, in the last sentence of his Afterword to
Pygmalion. Faust's fellow student, Wagner (Pickering is the equivalent in Shaw's play), also
creates a new being artificially, a little man. (The poet Shelley whose work was well known to
Shaw, translated scenes from Part II of Faust into English verse.)
Shaw had a particular interest in yet another legend involving a statue: the legend of Don
Juan, which he knew best through the opera, Don Giovanni (1787) by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart (1756-91) but also from Festin de Pierre (The Stone Banquet) (1665) by Moliere
(1622-73) and the epic poem, Don Juan (1819-24) by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-
1824). Shaw presented his own version in modern terms in one of his best known plays, Man
and Superman (1903), but the Don Juan type appears over and over again in his novels and
plays and gets frequent mention in his non- fictional writings. The Don Juan of tradition is a
seducer of women who eludes capture by any of them, but meets his end through a supernatural
vengeance exacted by a statue of the father of one of his victims. Moliere represents Don Juan
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as a rebel against God, a challenger of all laws and conventions. Shaw's Don Juan typically
strives to be a philosopher, and to free himself from women and their emotional claims: the
form of seduction he indulges in is achieved by persuasive talking and argument which brings
the will of others under his control. Certainly Higgins conforms to this type,—and it is his
mastery of the art of speech that gives him power over Eliza. What is more, the lengthy
dialogues between him and his former pupil, when they are alone together in Acts IV and V,
are excellent examples of what one of Shaw's earlier Don Juan characters, Valentine in You
Never Can Tell (1895-97), calls 'the duel of sex', and indeed they are closely comparable with
the verbal exchanges between Valentine and Gloria in that earlier play.
A closer look at Act I brings to light certain details which suggest a supernatural
presence of a grander kind than any fairy godmother:
a. A blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder,
orchestrates the incident;
b. Higgins's advice to Eliza to 'seek the shelter of some other place of worship', with its
allusion to the visual setting beside the church;
c. his hearing of 'the voice of God, rebuking him for his Pharisaic want of charity to the
poor girl' in the striking of the clock at half-past eleven.
Higgins still has reverence for a greater being than himself, at this point. It is in Act II
that he succumbs to the temptation to play the god in others' lives. To this extent he is certainly
excessively ambitious, an 'overreacher' like Faust, a rebel against the divinely established
order of creation like Moliere's Don Juan.

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Modern scholarship has established connections between the Faust myth and the Don Juan
legend in the cultural tradition of Western Europe.* It is doubtful whether Shaw was
objectively aware of the link; and he may even have been unaware that Galatea provided a
connection between Pygmalion and Faust. What Pygmalion reveals is the drama- list's
imaginative grasp of how dominant aspects of modern consciousness are caught up and
symbolised in certain key figures from literature. The mythic, or legendary, patterns embedded
in Shaw's play operate beneath the surface, and give depth and some variety of emotional
relevance to what is superficially light entertainment. They suggest ideas within ideas, further
questions lurking unresolved within the more obvious questions. This is, perhaps, the most
powerful means Shaw uses to enlarge the scope of his drama, giving its particularities a much
more general and profoundcr relevance.
3.5.5 Themes implied by the various legends
The sources or parallels to Pygmalion ottered by these stories illustrate certain
abstract ideas, or themes, which are thus brought within t h e range of Shaw’s play:
Source Parallel themes
the Cinderella story From rags to riches: the elevation
of the lowest to highest position;
the Pygmalion legend The bringing of the ideal to life
(by art);
the Faust legend Man usurps the power of the Creator

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(and can expect punishment for doing so);
Don Juan (Shaw’s version) The rebel against established order
uses speech and logical a r g u m e n t t o
d e f e n d h i m s e l f against the emotional
claims of women, and to subdue them to his
will.
3.5.6 The shaping of the plot
Shaw's choice of incident for representation on stage needs to be sharply distinguished
from what was shown in the film. In both media, what comes first has the quality of a
prologue, leaving the proper beginning of the action to Act II. Most of the characters in Act I
are representative social types and never again appear in the play. Their presence allows Shaw
to set Eliza's story in its London context; it also establishes certain aspects of social awareness
to which that story can be related, for example:
a. the Sarcastic Bystander refers to the great difference between the lives of the rich and
those of t h e poor (Tark Lane, for instance. I'd like to go into the Housing Question
with you, I would');
b. most of the group are suspicious of the Notetaker as likely to be connected with the police,
whom they regard as harrying the poor in order to protect the rich.
Meanwhile, the background of the church, which has room for all men and women, and the
public nature of the scene, gives warning that the play is concerned with society as a whole, not
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just with a few particular individuals. Interest focuses now on Higgins's demonstration of his
powers (and some reminiscence of Faust demonstrating his magic may lurk in the scene). No
one escapes untouched by his skill.
As far as the story is concerned, Act 1 is essentially static; instead, all that goes on among
Ihe group outside the church is part of Shaw's animated image of classes and types in the
London society of the day. Events begin to move in Act II, from the point where Eliza enters to
demand her lessons, and continue through Act III and her first major test. After this, the
Cinderella-type story is virtually abandoned, though tokens of it remain as indications of how
far from it Shaw is taking his characters. The struggle between Eliza and Higgins now comes to
the fore, successive stages of it appearing in Act IV and Act V. This struggle is unresolved at
the end. In the second half of the play, narrative interest has given way to a more purely
dramatic conflict, not only between persons but between distinct points of view which yield
separate truths that we may be able to reconcile, but which the play does not reconcile.
This account neglects Doolittle. Though his first appearance fits into the narrative at an
appropriate point, the way he takes the centre of the stage distracts attention temporarily from
Eliza and has the effect of stopping the action for a while. The effect is repeated in variant
form when he enters in Act V. It is as though Shaw is introducing a pause for thought and
discussion at two points in the development of his play. Instead of interweaving a secondary
plot involving Doolittle with his main plot concerning Eliza, he has used Doolittle to cut
sharply across the main plot on those two occasions. There is an obvious parallel between
what happens to Eliza and what happens to her father: both are raised from the dust to some
eminence in society, and in each case the change in social status appears visibly in a striking
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change of costume. As we have seen, Doolittle talks of his position in general terms of class
morality. What he says acts as a commentary on Eliza's situation, too, bringing out the general
significance Shaw wants us to see in her story. The means whereby the two characters are
elevated in society are not the same: Eliza becomes a lady through the acquirement oi a new
way of speaking, new manners and a new style of behaviour; the sudden acquisition of wealth
turns Doolittle into a gentleman. Shaw has established a contrast, as well as a parallel,
between father and daughter. The parallel is on class lines; the contrast corresponds to a
distinction of sex.
3.5.7 The play of ideas
A movement away from the particular towards the general, and from realistic detail
towards the discussion of abstract ideas, is characteristic of many of Shaw's plays. It is never
complete, in that Shaw lets his characters stay vivid and full of energy, caught in their
particular situation. The ideas he raises have topical relevance, but his drama is never reduced
to being propaganda for Socialism, or propaganda for or against feminism. He claimed that
what he wanted at the Court Theatre was 'a pit of philosophers', and his plays are designed to
set audiences thinking about principles in an objective, dispassionate way. In many respects,
Shaw was the precursor and master of the political dramatist, Bertolt Brecht. Shaw himself
thought of the philosophical dialogues of the Athenian philosopher Plato (428/7-348/7 BC) as
the ultimate model for his plays.
3.6 The characters

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Eliza, Higgins and Alfred Doolittle are the major characters in the play; all the rest
are minor, less memorable than those three, as they are not individualised in the same detail.
3.6.1 Alfred Doolittle
Doolittle belongs to a different category from all the others. He is more immediately
recognisable as a stage character, not realistically presented to give the effect of an actual
human being. In performance, the part is like a mask that the actor wears: with simpler, more
boldly drawn lines than we can find in an actual human face. Furthermore, what he says
matches what he is with an exactness and completeness we should not expect to find in real
people. He is the spokesman for that section of the lower classes he refers to as 'the
undeserving poor', and he is much more clear-sighted and articulate in talking about the values
and beliefs of such people than any actual members of this sub-class are likely to be (a point
that Shaw recognises and turns to account in his plot, by having Doolittle's extraordinariness
recognised by the bequest of a small fortune, on condition that he gives public lectures). In
fact, Doolittle makes explicit in his words what Shaw has seen implied in the behaviour of
the 'undeserving poor'.
Shaw has made the character attractive and amusing, whereas a realistically presented
drunkard who beat up his daughter and cared nothing for her, and who preferred blackmailing
gentlemen to earning money by working, would very probably be repugnant to us; or, if
treated sympathetically, would be a pathetic or even tragic character. It is Doolittle's frankness
and lack of shame, and his self-confident ease in the company of very different people, that
make him attractive in Act II. These are all positive characteristics suggestive of good health
and good temper, as such negative characteristics as self-consciousness, fear and guilt never are.
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We laugh with Doolittle in Act 11; we laugh at him in Act V. For on his second
appearance, he asks for sympathy and appears somewhat pathetic. The recognition that this
character is not real, but a device of the author's, controls the degree of pathos he arouses and
allows us still to laugh. Indeed we laugh all the more because the sharp contrast between
Doolittle in Act V and Doolittle in Act I is very unlikely, and because we are at least vaguely
aware of the paradox that this character is happy in circumstances that would make most people
miserable, and he is miserable in circumstances that would bring joy to others.
His appearances stand out in the structure of the play like turns by a comedian or a
clown put on in the intervals of a continuing play.
3.6.2 Eliza
In Act I the flower girl whom we know later as Eliza Doolittle seems rather like a
heroine in a melodrama, a favourite nineteenth- century type of play which encouraged
audiences to indulge their emotions and presented its heroines (often poor girls) as helpless
innocents in distress, claiming the audience's pity. A cliche describing such heroines was' 'She
was poor, but she was honest'. The flower girl describes herself as 'a poor girl' and keeps
insisting that she is 'a respectable girl', meaning 'honest'. She is, in fact, seeing herself as this
conventional type of character, but is also capable of exaggerating the impression she makes, as
if deliberately playing a role. Thus, when the crowd starts reacting with pleased interest to
Higgins's display of skill, she does not respond with them but remains apart, repeating her
grievances over and over:
Aint no call to meddle with me, he aim;

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He's no gentleman, he aint, to interfere with a poor girl;
He's no right to take away my character.
She even speaks of herself in the third person:
Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without being worrited and
chivied.
Such insistent self-pity is unattractive, and Higgins is extremely irritated by it. But
suspicion that Eliza may not really be like this, but just acting, is raised when she is caught
out in a lie:
Buy a flower, kind gentleman. I'm short for my lodging.
“Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown', is Higgins's response”. When she has a
handful of gold and silver coins to put in her purse, she appears quite different: cheeky, bold,
proud of herself; and her spirit attracts the taxi driver's admiration. It appears that the
distortion of character was related to Eliza's poor circumstances; when these change, so does
she.
Through the rest of the play, Shaw presents the gradual development of Eliza's character, and
she seems most natural and least comic when she has turned into a lady. It is at this stage that
the character betrays genuine feelings which touch us, instead of showing off false or exag-
gerated feelings. There is a quiet desperation in her that prompts us to think more gravely
about the plight of the lady in Edwardian society, and the plight of women in relation to men.
In place of her earlier self-pity, she shows a genuine modesty in comparing her ignorance with
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the learning of Higgins and Pickering. Vanity and boastfulncss turn into sell- rcspcct and a
demand for fair treatment that becomes justifiably aggressive in reaction to Higgins's
treatment of her. We can perceive a consistency in Eliza's character, a continuity from Act I to
Act V, despite the evident changes.
3.6.3 Higgins
Higgins is the clown of the play. He is full of tricks and antics which are amusing to
watch. Shaw comments explicitly on the fact that he is like a spoilt baby. His bursts of temper, his
generally noisy behaviour, his egotistic sense of his own importance, his careless untidiness, his
rudeness, his self- indulgence (indicated at the very beginning of Act II by the presence of the dish
piled up with fruit and chocolates), are all childish features. He does not seem to know himself at
all well; certainly he does not recognise himself in Mrs Pearce's view of him. His energy comes
across very strongly, through his restless physical movements; the swift and ready movements ot
his mind that enable him to outwit others and get his own way all the time; through his verbal
readiness and fluency; and, not least, through the assertive vigour of his style of speech with its
swift twists and turns, its exaggerations, and its constant use of slangy expressions or striking and
usually comic metaphors and similes. We accept the fact that he is exceptionally clever at his job,
but this is not an excuse for his arrogance and vanity, for the way he exploits women, or his
readiness with lies and other forms of deceitful behaviour to further his own ends. As with
Doolittle, it is partly the comic treatment that enables us to like a character with so many vices.
Eliza's and Mrs Higgins's interest in him and affection for him also help us to see Higgins as a
likeable person. His self-dramatising postures, and the exaggerated way in which he expresses his
reactions, convey a sense that there is a real Higgins hidden behind all the play-acting bluster. At
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times, we may suspect that the hidden self is benevolent, generous and trustworthy; at other
times, we may suspect this self of being treacherous and entirely selfish.
It is possible to see Higgins as Shaw's satirical portrait of himself, and to see the
Professor's cat-and- mouse game with Eliza, in Act V, as a reflection of the dramatist's evasive
flirtation with Mrs Patrick Campbell, the actress who played Eliza in 1914. In so far as Higgins
stands for Pygmalion, the artist, he must also represent the dramatist, whose play is the product of
a creative process and will, when finished, stand independent of him. The laughing figure of
Higgins then stands at the end of the screen version like the signature of the author, or of his
Muse of Comedy.
3.6.4 Colonel Pickering gives the impression of being an ideal gentleman, though he is not
drawn in any detail. He has served his country overseas; he is always courteous to women, and his
politeness is not just a style, but conveys true respect; and he is thoroughly trustworthy. He is also
older than Higgins, and the correctness of his manners makes him seem rather old-fashioned and
conservative. As Higgins's fellow scholar, Wagner to the other's Faust, he can be roused to an
enthusiasm that makes him lose sight of realities temporarily. The bachelorhood of the pair
enables Shaw to suggest that intellect flourishes most when women are kept at a distance and the
emotional claims of love and the responsibilities of marriage can be avoided. The comradeship of
Pickering and Higgins contrasts with the turbulent relationship between Higgins and Eliza; but
on the whole Pickering's presence in the play serves to set off the character of Higgins by
contrast.
3.6.5 Mrs Higgins is the ideal mother, wise, tolerant, caring for others, yet self-contained,
detached and contented in her quiet, orderly life. Her room expresses her sense of beauty and
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testifies to her culture. Altogether she is a figure of stability and comfort and her presence in the
play acts as a guarantee that nothing will go seriously wrong.
3.6.6 Mrs Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper, belongs to the respectable lower classes that, through
close contact as servants to their social superiors, have come to adopt middle-class standards of
behaviour and morality. Her concern with cleanliness and tidiness is partly a mark of her
profession, and partly characteristic of a mother looking after a small boy, which seems to be her
principal role in Higgins's bachelor household. This character is defined almost exclusively in
terms of the way she relates to the others in the household.
3.6.7 Mrs Eynsford Hill is a less vivid portrait of an older lady than we have in Mrs Higgins.
This is a comment on her personality as well as on Shaw's delineation of her. She is more
conventional than Mrs Higgins, and only comes to life as a human being in those moments when
she speaks as the anxious mother, concerned about Eliza's seeming to know Freddy, in Act I, and
apologising to Mrs Higgins for Clara, and seeking her approval of Freddy, in Act III.
3.6.8 Clara is the most individualised member of her family. She is brash and clumsy in society,
stronger-willed than her mother and her brother, both of whom she tends to nag and scold. By
contrast with her, Eliza's natural grace and sensitiveness shine more brightly, but Clara is not
without spirit, and the improvement in her that Shaw describes in the Afterword begins in the play
with her imitation of Eliza.
3.6.9 We see little of Freddy except a stereotype of the foolish and futile young-nun-about-town.
He may be good- hearted, but he h good for nothing apart from his love for F.iiza. Indeed, falling
in love, which makes most people look foolish, is the brightest thing Freddy does. His failure to get
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a taxi, in Act I, is a pointer towards his usdessness. Clara's crossness may make us feel a little
sorry for him, but Freddy proves that men can be weaker than women, less competent, less
capable of independence. Eliza recognizes that, if she marries Freddy, she will have to support
him.
Non-detailed – OSBORNE– LOOK BACK IN ANGER .
3.7 Introduction
John Osborne's brilliant play Look Back in Anger highlights the class conflict that existed
in English society and elsewhere after World War II. In essence, it is the story of an angry
and frustrated young man. This angry young man, Jimmy Porter, is educated beyond his
social origin in the working classes. He has been given a liberal education. As a result, he
has come to expect certain things, especially a set of values, which he finds lacking in the
society of which he is a member. The consequent frustrations turn his home into a battlefield
because his wife belongs to the upper middle- class. From the picture of Jimmy Porter's
personal life one can generalize upon the conditions existing in post-war English society.
Jimmy Porter
Jimmy Porter, the central figure of the play, is a tall young man of twenty five years of
age. He has received education at one of the many new universities set up by the
government as a part of its drive to create a Welfare State in Britain. However, his
education does not enable him to find employment suited to his educational qualifications.
He tries his hand at a variety of jobs—among them the selling of vaccum cleaners, journalism
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and advertising. Finding all of them equally unsuitable, he turns to running a sweet stall.
Jimmy's Marriage with Alison : Parental Resistance
Jimmy falls in love with and marries Alison, the daughter of Colonel Redfern, an officer
retired from the British Army in India, a man who is discontented with the changed
England he sees on his return from India. Colonel Redfern is a member of the ruling class
which dominates most of the career opportunities and jobs available to the educated people.
His son Nigel has taken up politics as his profession. The set of social values to which the
Colonel, his family and his social circle subscribe are different from the social values of
Jimmy Porter's class. Alison is attracted to him mainly because all the male members of
her set are inclined to treat Jimmy with contempt. Her mother is shocked when the
marriage is proposed. She makes every conceivable effort to thwart the plans of the young
couple. She even employs private detectives to go into Jimmy's past and discover something
discreditable or unsavoury so that Alison may be turned against him. Both Alison and Jimmy
become all the more determined to fight such opposition. They finally succeed in marrying,
inspite of the disapproval of Alison's parents and social equals.
3.7.1 Jimmy's Married Life : Troubled Beginnings
Alison is aware that she may have taken on more than she could chew, but she
completely fails to anticipate the kind of married life waiting in store for her. Immediately
after marriage, Jimmy and Alison go to live in the flat of one of Jimmy's friends, Hugh
Tanner. Shortage of money compels them to take this step. Unfortunately, Hugh and
Alison dislike each other at first sight. Hugh's mother is profoundly moved by Alison's
beauty, but Alison herself is too much obsessed with the old woman's ignorance and
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simplity to be able to like her. On his side, Jimmy is pathetically anxious that Alison should
be accepted by his social circle, but she is not. In consequence, a very tense atmosphere is
generated. Jimmy, under Hugh's influence, comes to regard Alison as a hostage from the
upper social classes. In Alison's company, using Alison as an excuse, Hugh and Jimmy carry
out raids into what they regard as enemy territory. They visit the houses of Alison's friends
and acquaintances uninvited, and consume their food and drinks. These people are too well-
mannered and formally polite to throw them out. Perhaps their behaviour is influenced by
their mute sympathy for Alison. However, Alison is completely disgusted with such barbaric
behaviour. She finds it impossible to believe that two educated people, like Jimmy and Hugh,
could be so ruthless, savage and uncompromising as her husband and friend. Class Conflict :
Rejection of Alison
Because of Hugh's obvious antipathy towards Alison, and his habit of making subtly
instilling remarks, tin- relationship cannot survive for long. Hugh Tanner decides to leave
England. He feels that 'Dame Alison's mob', that is, the upper classes, are back in power and
it is impossible to liberate the working classes. He makes up his mind to go abroad and carry
out his rebellion there. Unfortunately, both Jimmy and Hugh's mother come to regard
Alison as responsible for Hugh's departure. Both of them feel that if Alison had not come
among them, Hugh would not have felt compelled to leave them. This feeling is never
expressed, but Alison is conscious of the antagonism towards her. As a result, Jimmy
comes to dislike his wife. He also feels that she is incapable of abandoning the social
values she acquired before marriage. He becomes obsessed with a sense of betrayal.
3.7.2 Cliff Lewis' Unsuccessful Mediation

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After Hugh's departure, Jimmy and Alison take another flat. Cliff Lewis, another of
Jimmy's friends, comes to live near them. Fortunately for them, Alison and Cliff become
genuinely fond of each other. Cliff is a very good- natured, humorous, gentlemanly
individual. He tries his best to minimize the conflict between the married couple, trying to
pacify Algon and to turn Jimmy's thoughts away from the causes of their mutual misunder-
standing. He reacts with good humour to all of Jimmy's insulting remarks directed at himself.
He has no inhibitons resulting from his lack of education. He frankly admits that he is
ignorant. When Jimmy turns his critical view and abusive vocabulary upon Alison, Cliff tries
his best to protect her.
3.7.3 Jimmy's Continuing Animosity
But, inspite of Cliff's determined efforts to prevent the conflict from flaring out, Jimmy's
insults steadily become more and more unbearable. Whatever the subject under discussion,
Jimmy twists it into a criticque of either Alison or her family. Even the most mild reaction
on part of Alison ends in a vicious, abusive tirade against her. If she fails to attend to one of
his remarks, Jimmy abuses her for lacking enthusiasm and for encouraging other people
also to disregard his remarks. Jimmy dubs her the Lady Pussilanimous because the adjective
'pusillanimous' strikes him not merely as an adjective but the perfect name of his wife. Even
worse, he is crilical of every little movement that she makes. For example, it is inevitable that
there should be some noise when Alison is ironing clothes. But Jimmy feels that she is making
the noise deliberately because, like all women, she is insensitive to noise and clatter while his
senses are assaulted by it. Even the movement of the curtain appears to Jimmy to be
expressive of her innate distructiveness. Jimmy sees the noise as being equivalent to the
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launching of a battleship. Cliff tries to prevent such attacks by diverting Jimmy's attention
or by appealing to him directly to stop making such remarks. He even indulges in silly
horseplay to get Jimmy's mind off Alison. On one such occasion, the two of them manage to
bump into Alison's ironing board which collapses and the iron burns her arm. Jimmy
expresses his sorrow in a perfunctory manner, while Cliff feels really concerned. He covers
the burn with soap and bandages the arm for her.
3.7.4 Jimmy's Unreasonable Expectations
There is little doubt that Jimmy loves Alison. He himself admits that even after four
years of married life he is aroused by the sight of Alison doing something such as leaning
over the ironing board. Despite this, he cannot forgive Alison for feeling alienated from
members of his social circle. He expects blind loyalty from his wife. He expects her to love
and accept everyone close to him. But unfortunately, he knows that she is incapable of doing
this, as he has seen in Hugh Tanner's case.
3.7.5 Deterioration in Jimmy's and Alison's Relations
The life of these people continues in this troubled manner for sometime without any
substantial change, However, when Alison announces that a friend of hers, Helena Charles,
is coming to stay with them, Jimmy is furious. He hates Helena because Helena has never
accepted him, and because she is superciliously conscious of her social superiority, which
Jimmy is unwilling to grant to anyone. Helena's entry acts like a catalyst. Jimmy's remarks
become even more critical. In fact, he crosses all limits of decency in debate and idulges in
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outrageously abusive and insulting remarks about Alison's family and Helena, and their
social world in general. Helena is sickened with loathing and contempt but there is nothing
she can do to stop Jimmy. She wonders how her friend Alison can bear up under such a
perpetual assault upon her feelings. After a week of this, she finally sends a telegram to
Alison's father, asking him to come and fetch Alison home as she wants to return. The
same day towards the evening, Jimmy receives a telegram that Hush's mother has
suffered a stroke. He wants that Alison should accompany him on his visit to the old lady,
but Alison tactly declines the suggestion. She goes off with Helena to the church. Jimmy has
already been incensed by Helena's influence upon Alison. He considers such an influence
detrimental to his authority because Helena appears to be undoing whatever little change he
has brought about in Alison's thinking. Alison's refusal to accompany him is the last
straw. He argues that the old lady is alone without any one to look after her, and reminds
her that Hugh's mother loves her, but Alison does not respond. Jimmy feels heart-broken at
this apparent betrayal.
3.7.6 Alison's Departure
The next day, Colonel Redfern arrives in response to the telegram. He arrives in Jimmy's
absence. Alison begins her packing, while packing, she converses with her father, who
has never been able to understand the rational behind her marriage with Jimmy. Despite
social difference, he does not have any deep-rooted dislike for Jimmy. In fact, he appears
to have a certain sympathy for the young man. He is not distressed when Alison repeats
some of the many insulting things that Jimmy has said about him and about her mother.
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He seems to feel that he and his wife were to some extent responsible for Jimmy's violent
reactions, because they hid tried their best to thwart their marriage. Nevertheless, the plan is
carried out and Alison leaves with him. Cliff is deeply moved by her departure. H e i s
genuinely fond of her as well as of Jimmy, and he has no wish to see them hurt, liut there
is nothing he can do to prevent Alison's departure. He, too, blames Helena as the prime
cause of this separation.
3.7.7 Jimmy's Reaction
Jimmy returns very soon after Alison's departure. He is terribly furious because Colonel
Redfern had almost run him down in his car. The letter that Alison had left for him excites
him to make some caustic remarks about her hypocrisy. Helena's pretence annoys him even
more. He calls her an 'evil- minded virgin' at which Helena slaps him on the face. Jimmy is
stunned by her outrageous act, but a moment later she kisses him passionately and draws
him down into her arms.
3.7.8 Helena Supplants Alison
Helena now lakes tin- place of Alison in the Jimmy Porter household. She
lives in with him, as his mistress. Apparently, they get on well enough together. Helena,
being more courageous than Alison, is better able to with-stand Jimmy's habit of abusing
everything connected with upper middle classes. At times, she admonishes him to stop
talking about politics or religion at least for a day. Cliff, however, is unable to talk to
Helena as he had done to Alison. His good humour cannot reconcile him to the misery
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brought upon Alison because of Helena's intervention. Consequently, he decides to leave
Jimmy and set up on his own. Jimmy accepts this with outwardly calm. He appears to
be unmoved. But he, too, is deeply fond of Cliff and attached to him, and Cliff's intended
departure fills him with unhappiness. He seeks to reassure himself about Helena's love for
himself. Just as they decide to go out and enjoy themselves for the evening, Alison comes
in quite unexpectedly. Jimmy is momentarily stunned by her reappearance, but taking control
of himself, tells Helena that a friend of hers is there to see her, and leaves the room. Alison's
Return
Helena greets Alison with self-control. Alison feels guilty at having come back, but she
says that she could not resist the temptation. Helena then learns that Alison has lost her
child, which awakens Helena to the sinfulness of her present existence. She immediately
decides to leave Jimmy. Alison does not want this, feeling that she should not ruin Jimmy's
life, if he really has come to love Helena. But Helena is convinced that her behaviour has been
wrong, according to her own moral code. She immediately packs her belongings and leaves,
after informing Jimmy of her decison and explaining her reasons. Reconciliation
Jimmy is disappointed with Alison because she had not even sent flowers for Mrs. Tanner's
funeral. He feels that she dislikes poor people because of their ignorance, simplicity and
l a c k o f social grace. But Alison's views have undergone a change due to her painful
experience. She has come to realize the need for love and mutual symp.ithy. When her child
died, she had needed Jimmy and his reassurance. She tells him that she is now completely
committed to him. This brings the couple together again. The dramatist does not tell us so,
but we hope that the couple could live in peace ever afterwards.
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3.7.9 JIMMY PORTER
The Central Figure
Jimmy Porter is the central figure of the play. Every situation and person revolves around
him. To a very great extent, it is the behaviour and thought of Jimmy that has a decisive
influence upon the situations and the other individuals in the play. Frustation and Anger
Jimmy's character must necessarily be seen within the framework of the social and
psychological compulsions that make him what he is. He is a highly educted person from that
lower orders, or the working classes of England. The extent of education he has received is
quite uncommon among, working class youth. Few, if any, of them usually arrive at the
university level. This education plays a considerable role in making him an angry young
man. Because of his enhanced perception, he cannot accept the wide chasm that separates the
working classes from the aristocracy and the upper classes. The consequences of this
unbridgeable gap is responsible for his consistent and virulent attacks on anything that is
reminiscent of the higher classes. Unfortunately for his own domestic harmony, he
considers his wife, Alison, herself a member of the upper middle class, his natural enemy
and she has to bear the brunt of his vituperations and almost unceasing vociferation.
3.8 Conflict: Its Impact
The class conflict that colours Jimmy's outlook on life so profoundly is responsible for ruining
his career. An educated man like him has been unable to find an occupation better suited to his
education and intellect than the entirely unintelligent task of running a sweet shop. Before
turning to this occupation, Jimmy had tried his hand at journalism, advertising, and even the
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selling of vacuum cleaners. It is conceivable that his inflexible views on the class conflict and
the irony pervading almost every sentence that Jimmy speaks, must have n.ade it impossible
for him to continue as a journalist.
This is not in the least surprising. Leading newspapers almost everywhere are owned by
the rich. In England, they were and are owned by rich industrialists who have a stake i n
maintaining the supremacy of the aristocracy, since many such individuals are yearly elevated
to this class. Obviously, Jimmy could not have had any intellectual sympathy for such people,
nor they for him. Such experiences must inevitably lend greater inflexibility to. Jimmy's
sentiments. As Alison points out, Jimmy is almost as happy in managing a sweet stall as he
had been in any of his earlier occupations. This is sufficient to suggest that his occupation
does little to alleviate the misery of his existence. His intellect finds no sustenance either in his
work or in his leisure, much of which is spent in reading newspapers, going out with his wife
or chatting with his friend Cliff.
In view of the socio-economic circumstances that surround Jimmy, it is all surprising that
his outlook on life is sour. An educated young man like him should have been able to raise
himself to a higher life style, but society denies him this elevation. Education does not bring
him the prosperity he may have expected. Of course, to a certain extent, he himself is
responsible for this. But society also undeniably plays an important part in his frustration.
On the one hand, the doors to progress in many fields are closed to Jimmy and his kind. On
the other hand, society actively denies him access to many avenues. This fact is apparent from
the resistance that Alison's parents put up to Alison's marriage with Jimmy.
3.9 Death of His Father : Its Impact

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On the personal plane, too, Jimmy's life has not been happy. He has been exposed to bitter,
disillusioning experiences, both before and after marriage. At the young age of ten, he had
sat besides his father, watching him die slowly. He says,
"For twelve months, I watched my father dying—when I was ten
years old. He'd come back from the war in Spain, you see.
And certain god-fearing gentlemen there had made such a mess
of him, he didn't have long left to live. Everyone knew it—even
I knew it. But you see, I was the only one who cared. His
family was embarassed by the whole business. Embarassed and
irritated. As for my mother, all she could think about was the
fad that she had allied herself to a man who seemed to he on
the wrong side in all things. My mother was all for being associated
with minorities, provided they were the smart, fashionable
ones. His family sent him a cheque every month, and hoped
he'd get on with it quietly, without too much vulgar fuss. My
mother looked after him without complaining, and that was about
all...Every time I sat on the edge of his bed, to listen to him
talking or reading to me , I had to fight back my tears. At the

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end of twelve months I was a veteran...You see, I learnt at an
early age what it was to be angry—angry and helpless. And I
can never forget it. I knew more about—love...betrayal and
death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever
know all your life.'1 ''
Such an experience must be enough to make even the most insensitive individual bitter,
frustrated and disillusioned. At the tender age often, Jimmy's mind is darkened by the
knowledge of death, the ebbing away of life, the unconscious and unavailing struggle for
survival. The experience is rendered even more bitter by the indifferent and a pathetic
attitude of his mother and her relatives towards her husband. Being frustrated with her own
disappointment at being unable to associate with the fashionable set, she must have been
utterly incapable of sharing in her husband's agony or abating it in any way. This complete
lack of sympathy between husband and wife leaves Jimmy with a distorted view of the
husband-wife relationship. His mother's callous behaviour strikes him as nothing less than a
betrayal.
3.10 Death of Mrs. Tanner : His Sense of Betrayal
Unfortunately, Alison only helps to underscore this sense of betrayal by her indifference
towards Hugh Tanner's mother. Jimmy and Alison receive the news of Mrs. Tanner's illness,
and Jimmy immediately resolves to go and see her. He wants to take Alison along with him.
He cannot forget that Mrs. Tanner had been deeply impressed by Alison's beauty and had
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loved her, but he finds that Alison does not respond to the old woman. He feels that Alison's
indifference is due to the old woman's inferior-social status, not because of any innate defect
in her personality. Besides, in Jimmy's view, Alison symbolizes the effete aristocratic society
which is incapable of genuine feeling. In this view, Jimmy is quite right. In contrast to Alison,
who has known Mrs. Tanner, Cliff immcduitely oilers to accompany Jimmy, though he does
not know her well and Mrs. Tanner would probably not remember him at all. However,
Cliff's response is the spontaneous, generous gesture of a person who feels for another in
the latter's distress. Alison, brought up on fixed notions of propriety, does not respond
naturally. And this is what Jimmy really resents. Besides, he feels that Alison has never
been able to regard the people close to him as being related to him in any way. She has not
been able to dissociate herself from ner upper class origins. He explicitly says that he wants
Alison to accompany him to Mrs. Tanner's bed-side, but she declines.
Towards the end of the play, we hear that Alison had not even sent flowers at Mrs.
Tanner's funeral. This naturally lacerates the wound in Jimmy's mind and turns him even
more against her. His dislike for her is exacerbated by such callousness towards one whom he
loved so deeply.
3.11 His Need for Love : Alison's Failure
Seen from the psychological angle Jimmy possesses a deep ingrained, yearning for love. He
wants love, sympathy, understanding and a big heart far more than any agreement with his
views about the upper classes. Of course, symathy with his intellectual and emotional
leanings is one way in which love for him can be expressed, but he does not consciously or
unconsciously, lay this down as a precondition. This is clear from his attitude towards and
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his opinion of Cliff, his friend. He finds Cliff an ignorant boor, but he loves lum because of
his large- heartedness. When finally Cliff finds it impossible to remain a member of the Porter
household and decides to leave, Jimmy and he talk banteringly about his going. Apparently,
Jimmy does not believe that Cliff is really leaving them but he is compelled to believe it
when Helena informs him about Cliff's impending departure. He says of Cliff :
"He's a sloppy, irritating bastard, but he's got a big heart.
You can forgive somebody almost anything for that."
This shows the value Jimmy places upon genuine, good feelings Unfortunately for him, this is
just what he dojs not get from Alison. Whatever her other virtues, a big heart is certainly not
one of them. She learns the value of sympathy only when the death of her child teaches
her the need for it. In (hat vulnerable state she yearns for Jimmy's company and love.
Thereby she learns that other people ar<j often in ;is much necil oriuve ;is she is, at that
moment. Her first confrontation with a bitter experience teaches her a very important
truth.
3.12 His Relationship with Helena
Jimmy's desire for love is reinforced br his awareness that his generation has no more
good causes left to fight for. All the fighting has been done by earlier generations. He feels
that if the big bang does come, it will not be for the purpose of bringing now, better world,
but just as inglorious and pointless as stepping in front of a bus. Such a view naturally
engenders great frustration and makes him seek love with a kind of covert voracity.
Although he had hated Helena for owing the principal cause of the estrangement between
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Alison and himself, he accepts her company and her expressions of love when Alison leaves.
She supplants Alison in his house, at least temporarily. Knowing well that Helena's views
are jn complete contradiction to his own, he accepts her as a companion. In her company, he
seeks solace from the frustrations of life in sexual love.
3.13 Altitude Towards Sex
Jimmy's attitude towards sex is marked by a curious ambivalence. On the one hand, he sees
women as butchers, devourers of men. His remarks arc made with reference to Alison, but
almost invariably they turn into generalizations about women. For instance, he says,
'When you see a woman in front of her bedroom mirror, you
realise what a refined sort uj a butcher she is...Thank God they
don't have many women surgeons I Those primitive hands would
have your guts out in no time... You've got to be fundamentally
insensitive to be as noisy and as clumsy as that."
That is not all. He has worse things to say of them. He regards them as blood tuckers
who devour the male. He feels that the postmaster must be campaigning for women
when he persuades people that they should donate blood. However despite this element of
hatred, Jimmy's almost desperate need for love makes it impossible for him to live without
female companionship. Helena is even more removed from his altitudes and upbringing
than Alison is, and yet as soon as Alison leaves him, he accepts Helena as his substitute,
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though without the formality of marriage. That he is conscious of his need for Alison is
obvious. As he says to Alison :
"There's hardly a moment when I'm not—watching and wanting you. I've got to hit out
somehow. Nearly four years of being in the same room with you, night and day, I still
can't stop my sweat breaking out when I see you doing—something as ordinary as
leaning over the ironing board"
This makes it clear that Jimmy's antagonism towards the opposite sex is born of his
frustartion. His targets are Alison, Alison's mother and Helena, that is "members of Dame
Alison's mob", as he refers them. He sees them as representatives of a predatory, selfish,
ignorant and insensitive society. He is acutely conscious of the contempt in which he
himself is held by such women. On the other hand, he has nothing but love for Mrs. Tanner,
Hugh's mother and his erstwhile girl friend, Madeline, both of whom belonged to the
working classes and possessed its virtues of loyalty, generosity and sincerity. Clearly then,
Jimmy's diatribes against the fair sex have their roots in class conflict. They do not, in any
sense, reflect a personal resentment against women. Nor do they reflect any psychological
paradox, as one critic has pointed out. This is further substantiated by Jimmy's acceptance
of Alison after she has cast her lot with him, subsequent to her searing experience of losing
her baby. Experience of pain, humiliation and suffering develop in Alison the realization
that she needs Jimmy. Once she does realize this, Jimmy accepts her and promises to guard
her from pain in the future.

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3.14 His Sense of Injustice : Attack on the Upper Classes
The most obvious question every reader would like to ask is : what is Jimmy Porter so angry
about ? Apparently, his outbursts seem to have no sequence, order or rationale. The objects of
his diatribes seem to change with bewildering rapidity, leaving one with the feeling that
Jimmy may be a neurotic, psychopathically inclined to hate everyone and everything.
However, such a view is clearly not justified. He has hardly a single word to say against either
Hugh Tanner's mother or his friend Cliff. He does speak sarcastically to Cliff all too
frequently, but the sarcasm is addressed not to Cliff personally but to his social
shortcomings. The major share of Jimmy's anger is directed against Alison and her mob, that
is the upper classes, the ruling elite, the aristocracy. Jimmy is at his most vituperative when he
speaks of Alison's parents, particularly her mother. His remarks border on the abusive
when he speaks to Helena.
At the individual plan, Jimmy's immediate targets are, first, Alison and then Alison's
parents and finally Helena. Through them he generalizes his wrath against an unjust social
order in which an young man, because of his working class upbringing, cannot find a suitable
place in keeping with his intellectual attainments and aspirations. Jimmy's annoyance with
Alison stems from Alison's failure to abandon her ruling class prejudices and cast her lot
completely with him. In the beginning she fails to commit herself entirely to his system of
values. Consequently, Jimmy treats her as a hostage from the ruling classes. Alison
explains this to Helena, thus—

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"They both (Jimmy and his friend Hugh Tanner) came to regard me as a sort of hostage
from those sections of society they had declared war on...they started inviting
themselves—through me—to people's houses ...It was just enemy territory to them
In my name, we'd gatecrash everywhere—cocktails, weekends, even a couple of
houseparties. I used to hope that one day, somebody would have the guts to slam the
door in our faces, but they didn't. They were too well-bred, and probably sojry for me
as well. Hugh and Jimmy despised them for it."
On her side, Alison feels as if she had descended into a jungle by marrying Jimmy. She
couldn't imagine that two educated people could be so savage, uncompromising, or ruthless.
However, the fact central to this situation is that the headlong collision between two people
with social values of such great difference can only result in disaster. Jimmy cannot
reconcile himself to Alison's loyalties to her parents and thus to her class, while Alison cannot
adapt herself to the new social world in which she finds herself.
3.15 Attack on the Establishment
At the social plan, Jimmy's anger is directed against the establishment. He finds society
static, incapable of changing. Despite the increase in education and economic prosperity, he
finds that English class or caste system is as rigid and inflexible as ever. Despite his
education, he finds himself excluded from the higher classes. The traditional division of society
into the working classes and the ruling elite continues to reign supreme. Alison perceptively
points out to her father that while he was surprised (hut everything h:id changed, Jimmy was
angry that nothing had changed. He attacks the Establishment with almost demoniacal
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vigour—the social system, the Sunday papers, the Conservative Members of Parliament,
Alison's mother, the Church, T. S. Eliot—in fact everything that represents or symbolizes
the establishment. Jimmy finds this society drab, passion less, completely lacking even in
enthusiasm, devoid of any causes worth fighting for.
3.16 Jimmy : Both a Type and an Individual
Jimmy, thus, has both individual and symbolical significance. As an individual, he leads a
frustrated life. His frustration has its roots in his meaningless occupation and his constant
conflicts with his wife, who belongs to a different social order. As a symbol, Jimmy represents
the post-war angry young man belonging to the working class, who has been unable to strike
roots in a higher class though his education has uprooted him from his own class. He is thus
alienated from his traditional social background, and is also unable to commit himself to
any other social order. The latter is due to the rigidity of the English class structure in which
the feudal influences refuse to be exterminated, thereby firmly refusing admission to aspirants
with working class origins. Jimmy is one of innumerable such young men, whom the new
universities, set up as part of the welfare measures introduced by the government, have
turned, or churned, out
3.17 MRS. ALISON PORTER Alison : Her Thoughtless, Unfortunate Marriage
Alison, Jimmy Porter's wife, gives the reader the impression of a young lady going through
life with an expression of complete bafflement and bewilderment etched on her face. A
product of the upper classes, the ruling class elite, she is married to an educated young man
who has emerged from the working classes. She marries Jimmy in complete defiance of the
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wishes of her parents and members of her own class, but not until it is too late does she
realize what she has got hold of. She is very much like the person who catches hold .of a
tiger by its tail, and does not kno«" whether to hang on to or let go.
3.17.1 Her Disillusionment
Alison's marriage with Jimmy brings about an astounding change in her social world. In
her parent's home, she has been used to politeness, courtesy, a quiet acceptance of the girlish
things of life, a life without any overt responsibility, a life completely free from any intense
involvement, a life in which there are no real issues to fight for. Her father had been a
Colonel in the British Army in India, and had spent the best years of life exercising
authority over a servile population, living in a world in which everything had been for the
best. His return to England had brought with it a certain amount of disillusionment, but his
daughter's life had not been beset with such difficulties. After marriage, she finds herself in a
totally different world. As she explains to Helena, her friend,
"Those next few months at the flat in PopI ar were a nightmare 1 suppose I must be
soft and squeamish, and snobbish, but I felt as though I'd been dropped in a jungle. I
couldn't believe that two people, two educated people could be so savage, and so—so
uncompromising Hugh takes the first prize forruthlessness. Together, they (Hugh
and Jimmy) were frightening'
It is only after marriage that Alison becomes aware of Jimmy's deep- rooted class prejudice,
his hatred and detestation of the upper class of which she is a member. She then realizes
that Jimmy's marrying her was more akin to revenge than to love. Through his marriage, he
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had sought to avenge himself upon the upper classes by seducing away from them a member
of their class. What little of love encouraged his marriage appeared to evaporate soon
after. Jimmy and his friend Hugh Tanner came to regard her as a hostage from the upper
classes. Alison finds it difficult to accept this role, but there is nothing she can do about it.
The social values of Jimmy's world are completely alien to her system of social values. She
finds it impossible to adapt herself to these changed circumstances. Her life is made more
difficult by the lack of money, which must have been quite a novel experience for her.
3.17.2 Her Escapism
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Alison should have sought refuge in
submissive escapism. She explains to Helena,
"It was the one war of escaping from everything—a sort of unholy priesthole nf being
animals to one another. We could become little furry creatures with little furry
brains. Full of dumb, uncomplicated affection for each other. Playful, careless creatures
in their own cozy zoo for two. A silly symphony for people who couldn't bear the pain of
being human beings any longer. And now, even they are dead, poor silly animals. They
were all love, and no brains."
Jimmy and AHson take to playing with each other like animals who can react to each
other with love. At the intellectual plane, there are no points of contact between the two
married partners, so their only recourse is to communicate with each other at the emotional
level. Alison does not have the intellectual fortitude to stand up to Jimmy's unremitting,
perpetual insults flung at her family and her social world. She has no answer for his verbal
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thrusts. Whatever the subject being discussed, Jimmy finds ways and means of turning it into
an insult to her father or her mother. Alison cannot repel these violent thrusts. Silence is her
only alternative. More often than not, she pretends not to have heard, or to have caught his
meaning. Even this infuriates Jimmy who wants that Alison might display some enthusiasm
about something. But poor Alison's springs of enthusiam have completely dried up under the
assault on her senses. She comes close to the breaking point on more than one occasion, but
she just manages to bottle up her fury.
3.17.3 Her Motives for Marrying Jimmy
In Alison's case, the natural question is : why did she marry a person like Jimmy Porter at
all ? Her answer—
"There must be about six different answers.../ didn't have much to worry about. I didn't
know I was born as Jimmy says. I met him at a party...It had been such a lovely day,
and he'd been in the sun. Everything about him seemed to burn, his face, the edges of
his hair glistened and seemed to spring off his head, and his eyes were so blue and full
of the sun...I knew I was taking on more than I was ever likely to be capable of bearing,
but there never seemed to be any choice. Well, the howl of outrage and astonishment
went up from the family, and that did it. Whether or no he was in love with me, that did
it. He made up his mind to marry me..."
It seems fairly obvious that Alison herself is not very certain why she married Jimmy,
She may have been in love with Mm, but the principal factor seems to have been his novelty.
He must have appeared very different from the set of youny men she was used to. He must
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have appeared to be far more vigorous, independent and vivacious than the over-polite,
snobbish young men of her acquaintance. The other factor seems to have been a sub-conscious
desire to defy her family. One may deduce from this that these were insufficient grounds for
entering upon such a relationship, particularly when she was aware that she was taking on
more than she was capable of bearing. But in most cases, it is difficult to rationalize and
explain the motives that lead a couple to mar'iage.
3.18 Their Mutual Incompatibility
The conflict between Jimmy and Alison begins with Alison's inability to cast her lot,
finally and irrevocably, with Jimmy's. She never really learns to adopt his set of values and
abandon the ones inculcated in her since birth. She cannot bring herself to accept and love
Mrs. Tanner. She admits that the old woman is very sweet, but she cannot love her because
she is also very ignorant. Unfortunately for Alison, she and Hugh Tanner dislike each other
on sight. As a result, the friendship between Hugh and Jimmy comes to an end when Hugh
leaves England and goes abroad. Jimmy holds Alison responsible for this, just as much as
Hugh's mother does. Jimmy resents the comfortable and trouble- free life that Alison has led
so far. He thinks that she must be bapti'.ed in pain and suffering before she can learn to think
as he does.
3.19 Regeneration Through Suffering
In the end, Jimmy's view seems to be right since Alison does come back to him and he does
accept her after she loses her child. She explains that when she had lost the child, she
yearned for his lovo. She had realized that Jimmy had wanted her to feel pain, suffering
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and deprivation so that she may wake up out of ! er intellectual lethargy and see the world
as it is. Finally, she does wake up to reality after her painful experience, and Jimmy accepts
her.
3.20 Conclusion : Her Instinctive Tendency to Love
Thus, we find that Alison is a poor girl caught up in social circumstances that
stultify her natural instincts and deny them suitable expression. She is quite as alive to the
value of a large. Heart as Jimmy is but she never gets the chance to manifest this awareness. She
is conscious of Cliff’s goodness. She knows that her married life must have been infinitely
worse had it not been for Cliff’s presence. But this _nstinctive tendency to love is frustrated
by Jimmy’s vituperative expression of his antagonism towards her.
3.21 CLIFF LEWIS
A Simple Well-adjusted Youngman
Cliff, Jimmy Porter's intimate friend, is a healthy young representative of the average
working class young man. Having been deprived of the doubtful be nei5ts of a university
education, he appears to be quite unaware of the class conflict that colours Jimmy's awareness
of life. He is not bothered by the difference between his own life style and that of the upper
classes. He is inclined to accept people at their face value or to judge them by their conduct,
rather than by what they do or do not believe. As a result, his life is far simpler and less
complicated than his friend's.
3.22 His Lack of Education and Culture

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Cliff has no inhibitions on account of his lack of education. He accepts his ignorance and
lack of learning with a friendly grin. He addresses Alison as 'dullin', without feeling any
disgrace because he uses the dialect rather than the language of the educated. He is equally
casual about his dress. He wears his new pair of trousers sloppily, thereby managing to ruin
them, but this does not worry him. Unlike Jimmy, he has no interest in violin concerts or
classical music in any other form. Instead, he finds casual horseplay more congenial. He
indulges in a casual wrestling bout with Jimmy, as a consequence of which Alison burns her
arm on the iron. However, he is not worried by the boorish impression such horseplay might
make on others.
3.23 His Essential Good Nature
Despite his genuine working class origin, Cliff has more of the qualities of a gentleman
than Jimmy. His remarks to Alison are invariably marked by spontaneous politeness and
affection. He not only avoids making any hurting comments, he does his best to prevent a
conflict between Jimmy and Alison. He is constantly on the watch to head off Jimmy
whenever he finds his friend becoming insulting. He hardly ever succeeds in preventing
Jimmy from hurting Alison's feelings, but he invariably makes an effort. Cliff's essential good
nature is evident from the playful manner in which he takes Jimmy's insults directed at him.
He smilingly accepts the charge of being ignorant and uneducated.
3.24 His Affection for Alison
Cliff's attitude towards Alison is marked by a desire to protect her from Jimmy's perpetual
verbal barbs. That he really does have deep affection for both of them is evident. He does not
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want to see either Jimmy or Alison hurt, and for this reason he tries to come between them
whenever Jimmy baits Alison and tries to stimulate her into open conflict with himself.
Alison also feels deeply attached to ClifT though it is not a case of being in love, as she
explains to Helena. They are just fond of each other, and Cliff helps her around the house
quite a lot, unlike Jimmy who docs not, apparently, move a finger to do anything in the
house. Cliff's explanation of his exact position in this household is perfectly true. He says.
"This has always been a battlefield, but I'm pretty certain that if I hadn't been here,
everything would have been over between these two long ago. I've been a—a no man's
land between them. Sometimes, it's been still and peaceful, no incidents, and we've all
been reasonably happy. But most of the time, it's simply a very narrow strip of plain
hell. But where J come from, we've used to brawling and excitement. Perhaps! even
enjoy being in the thick of it. I love these two people very much...Ami I pity all of us."
Having been born with the instincts of a gentleman, Cliff avoids interfering in Jimmy's and
Alison's marital conflicts as long as possible. As he explains to Helena, he is not the District
Commissioner. Me has no real right to come between them, but because of his love, he is
compelled to intervene when things go too far. Cliff's innate gentleness is also evident from
his behaviour towards Jimmy when Jimmy hears about Mrs. Tanner's illness. He wants to
know if he can do anything to help Jimmy. He even offerts to accoropanyhim to
London to see Mrs. Tanner, dcspiie the fact that he is hardly acquainted with the old
woman. It is obvious that his solicitude is directed more at Jimmy than at Mrs. Tanner, but his
kindliness cannot be questioned.
3.25 Jimmy's Consciousness of His Solid Worth

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Both Jimmy and Alison are aware of Chill's innate good nature. Alison appreciates the
help he provides her in running the house. He often shows deep intimacy in his conduct
towards her. He kisses her in a friendly manner and embraces her without any sense of
embarrassment. Jimmy is no less conscious of his friend's true worth. When Cliff outlines
his plan of leaving them and finding a girl to look after him, Jimmy behaves with apparent
casualness and almost indifference, but there is no doubt that he is deeply touched. His
unexpressed unhappiness is evident when he learns that Cliff's plan has already been outlined
to Helena. Speaking to Helena, Jimmy says,
"He’s (Cliff) a sloppy, irritating bastard, but he's got a big heart. You can forgive
somebody almost anything for that. He's had to learn how to take it, and he knows how
to hand it out.'"
Jimmy may have often used Cliff as a butt for his cruel jokes and insulting remarks, but he
is conscious of his friend's solid worth.
3.26 A Foil to Jimmy
Cliff, then, can be seen as a kind of foil to Jimmy. Had Jimmy not received the kind of
education that he had, it is conceivable that he could have been a person very much like
Cliff— friendly, affectionate and generous, ft is Jimmy's consciousness of the class
differences that sours his outlook on life. Cliff, luckily for himself, is able to adopt a more
sanguine attitude.
3.27 HELENA CHARLES

Her Intellectual Courage
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Helena, Alison's friend, belongs to the same social class as Alison's before her marriage,
but, as an individual, she is a person of a different stamp altogether. In contrast to Alison,
Helena is marked by a far greater degree of intellectual courage and clarity of views, though
it is her conduct which appears to be the more inexplicable.
3.28 Her Boldness
Helena's courage is apparent from the manner in which she faces Jimmy's insulting
remarks, if she disagrees with him, and that happens often enough, she is not afraid of
telling him that his views are rubbish. Otiec, she even asks him bluntly why he tries to be
so unpleasant. She is intelligent enough to realize that Jimmy's belligerence is a matter of
poiicy rather than instinct. When Jimmy's remarks about Alison's mother pass from the
insulting to the actively abusive form, Helena tells him that he has no right to speak of
Alison's mother in such language. Alison never shows such spirit in answering Jimmy's
insults. In fact, she hardly ever even reacts to them. She takes refuge in silence, which only
infuriates Jimmy further. On the other hand, Helena is vocal in her opposition to Jimmy.
When Jimmy attacks her religious beliefs and blames her for trying to win Alison back into
her religious fold, Helena says bluntly that had he been sitting near her, she would have
slapped him. Jimmy tells her to be careful since he has no gentlemanly scruples about
hitting women. Helena says that she is not likely to mistake him for a gentleman. And, after
Alison's departure, she does slap him when he addresses her as an 'evil- minded virgin'.
3.29 Her Moral Code

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The other obvious quality of Helena is her intellectual courage. She has a fairly clear
understanding of what is right and wrong, and she prefers to live by the code book. She
may have lived in sin with Jimmy for some time, but that does not destroy her faith in her
own views of morality. She knows that her liason with Jimmy is immoral, and she says so.
When Alison returns, Helena admits that Alison has more right tu be in Jimmy's house
than she has. She realizes that she must leave Jimmy because he is not her husband. She
docs not decide on this only to make way for Alison's return to her rightful place, she docs
it because of her conviction. She falls in love with Jimmy, she knows that she will never be
able to love anyone else with the same intensity, but realizes that she cannot have him. She
docs.not accept the modern, rather, casual attitude to marriage, l- 'or her marriages is not
just a social contract which can be broken at will, but a permanent bond. Her views are
profoundly influenced by religious principles, and she adheres to them.

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3.30 Her Attachment lo Jim : Reasons for It.
What surprises the reader is that Helena can fall in love with a man whose conduct she
detests. She says to Cliff that none of them knows how to behave in a civilized manner. She
is aware of Jimmy's social failings, and his tendency to insult everybody and everything.
The only explanation for this curious attachment if that she wants to see what makes Jimmy
behave in such a rude manner. It is her curiosity about Jimmy that leads her into this extra-
marital affair with her friend's husband. Passion seems to play its part, but above all it seems
to be the unconscious desire to understand Jim whose standards of behaviour are so
completely Alison to her own.
3.31 Letus Sum up
The section enables the student to get a wide knowledge of the transition in society as
reflected in the plays. The plays are representative of the age. The transistion from the romantic
to the modern age reflects the change in men and manners. The students will be albe to make a
compartitive study of the characteristics of the Elizabethes plays with these plays.
Pg.no. Behind 194 & 222
3.32 Lesson End Activites
1. Attempt to character sketch of Higgins in “Pygmation”.
2. Critically analye the character of Eliza Doolittle.
3. Trace the transformation of Eliza from a common flower girl to a lady.
4. Humour is the life line of Pygmation - Explain.

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5. Attempt a character sketch of Jimmy Portes.
6. Attempt a character sketch of Alison.
7. Comapare and contrast the character of Helena and Alison.
1. Explain the allusion of shaw’s “Pygmalion” to the Pygmalion of Ovid.
2. Shaw’s “Pygmalion” in an Allussion to Cinderella – Eluciolate.
3. Trace the vein of satire in shaw’s “Pygmalion”.
4. Comment on the theme of love and attitude towards sex in Osborne’s “Look Back in
Anger”.
5. Comment on the theme of regeneration through suffereing in “Look Back in Anger”.

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UNIT IV
Fiction
Contents

4.1 THOMAS HARDY'S LIFE
4.2 THE EARLY 1870S
4.3 A GENERAL SUMMARY
4.4 DETAILED SUMMARIES
4.5 STYLE
4.6 GRAHAM GREENE- THE POWER AND THE GLORY .
4.7 SELECTED WORKS OF GRAHAM GREENE:
4.8 LET US SUM UP
4.9 LESSON-END ACTIVITIES
This unit on fiction helps the student to understand the social political life of the age through the
leading novelists of the age .
THOMAS HARDY –FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD .
INTRODUCTION
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

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Thomas Gray: 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard', 1750.
4.1 Thomas Hardy's life
In August 1871 Hardy sent to the publishing house of Macmillan the manuscript of
Under the Greenwood Tree. In writing this 'story of rural life' Hardy says that he was prompted
by reviews of his earlier, less successful works; 'they indicate powers that might, and ought, to
be extended largely in that direction' (unsigned review, Spectator, 22 April 1871, pp. 481-3). In
most of his following novels Hardy was to accept this insight into his special power and to adopt
as a setting that portion of south-west England with which he was most familiar. In Far from the
Madding Crow*/this is, for the first time, referred to as'Wessex'. In this rural setting, 'far from the
madding crowd', Hardy was, ironically, to examine all sorts of' noble [and ignoble] strife' and
to reveal that the countryman's surroundings are not necessarily 'cool, sequester'd' and that his
inner life may be by no means 'noiseless'. He was particularly fitted for this task by his birth
and upbringing.
Thomas Hardy was born in the village of Higher Bockhampton in Dorset on 2 June
1840. His father was a builder and mason, and his mother, albeit a former serving- maid, was a
well-read woman of strong personality and intelligence. From an early age this impressionable
country boy was both surrounded by the traditional aspects of rural life- with its superstitions,
folklore, culture and pastimes - and given an education, first in Bockhampton, then in
Dorchester, which was the basis for his further self- education. In 1856 he was articled to a
Dorchester architect but continued his studies with the guidance and advice of Horace Moule,
the son of a neighbouring parish rector. Moule was a classical scholar, eight years Hardy's
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senior, whose friendship Hardy greatly valued, and whose suicide in Cambridge in 1873 may have
affected the tone of Far from the Madding Crowd, which Hardy was writing at the time.
4.2 The early 1870s
A brief look at Hardy's activities and interests in the year or so before publication of
Farfrom the Madding Crowd'in 1874 will give some id e a o f the spirit in which it was
conceived; its publication both coincided with, and contributed to, a turn in Hardy's
fortunes.
After setbacks (with the rejection of The Poor Man in 1868) and adverse criticism
{Desperate Remedies of 1871 was considered to be over-complicated) Hardy had achieved
some success with Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873). In fact
Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), editor of The Cornhill Magazine, was so pleased with the former
that he wrote to Hardy in 1872 indicating that he would be happy to make use of further
work by the young author. Hardy replied that he had a pastoral tale in mind, gave its title, and
said that the main characters would probably be a young woman- farmer (Hardy may have
known of Catherine Hawkins who managed her own farm near Weymouth), a shepherd, and a
sergeant of cavalry. Stephen received the first dozen chapters on 1 October 1873 and was so
pleased with them that he suggested publication should begin in January.
This success imparted confidence to Hardy in adopting his new career, but other
events occurred in these years which also contributed to his sense of purpose. The suicide of
Horace Moule in September 1873 was a culmination of years of increasing depression. It was
a terrible shock to Hardy but it roughly coincided with the advent of Leslie Stephen as
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perhaps a more constructive literary mentor, Stephen advised the removal of several
superlluous scenes from Far from the Madding Crowd, including one for the bailiff,
Pennyways, and an episode concerning foot-rot in sheep as a source of miscalculated
confrontation between Troy and Oak.
While Emma Gilford had been a source of much support and material aid in the
preparation, particularly, of Desperate Remedies in the autumn of 18709, Hardy saw little
of her in the autumn of 1873 while he was writing Far From the Madding Crowd (although it
was partly owing to its success that they were able to be married in the following
(September). Instead Hardy composed the novel, which was finished in July 1874, at home in
Dorset among the sort of people about whom the was writing. They were the models for his
characters as he created the neighbourhood of Weather bury; and it is possibly his mother’s
influence which affected his view of the marriageable, female and imparted the stock of folk –
wisdom an country superstition on which he drew. Always praised for the accuracy of his
rural descriptions, Hardy was able to re – create the true flavor of country life because he had
come from it and lived with it.
For the purposes of this general summary, the novel is divided into five sections.
4.3.1 Oak and Bathsheba (Chapters 1-11)
Gabriel Oak is a young farmer of sound character who is steadily bettering himself by
careful management of his sheep. One December he happens to observe the vain self-
admiration of a girl - Bathsheba Everdene- who is moving into the neighbourhood. They
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meet occasionally; he watches her at work and finally proposes marriage, which she refuses.
She moves away and takes up the tenancy of her late uncle's farm at Weatherbury.
Meanwhile Oak's flock has been accidentally destroyed and he moves away to seek work. He
passes a rick fire and, after helping to extinguish it, offers himself as shepherd to the farmer,
who turns out to be Bathsheba. She hires him. That evening he passes a timid girl on the road.
We later discover that this was Fanny Robin running away to Casterbridge where her lover,
Sergeant Troy, is stationed with his regiment; he agrees to marry her. Meanwhile Bathsheba
has dismissed her bailiff for stealing and decides to manage the farm herself.
4.3.2 Boldwood and Bathsheba (Chapters 12-23)
A neighbour, Farmer Boldwood, calls to enquire after Fanny, but Bathsheba cannot
see him. Next market day Bathsheba is. the centre of interest at the cornmarket; Boldwood
alone pays no attention. Because of this, and in an idle moment, Bathsheba sends him a
valentine which stirs and fascinates him. At about this time Troy and Fanny wait by mistake
at different churches on their wedding day. Troy is humiliated and angry and will not name
another day. Boldwood hesitates to speak to Bathsheba until the end of May, when he makes
a proposal oi marriage to her, which she refuses. Bathsheba asks Oak for his views which he
gives bluntly, and he is consequently dismissed. The next day, however, Bathsheba's sheep fall
ill and she begs Oak to return to cure them. After the shearing supper Boldwood proposes
again and Bathsheba replies that she hopes to be able to accept him.
4.3.3 Troy and Bathsheba (Chapters 24-38)

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That night Bathsheba's dress happens to tangle in the rowel of Troy's spur as they
pass on the same footpath. She is ruflled but flattered by his impudent admiration of her. He
speaks to her again at haymaking and helps her with some bees; finally he demonstrates his
dashing military sword-drill to her. Oak tries to warn her about the reputation of Troy, who
has now left for Bath, and speaks up for Boldwood. But Bathsheba is desperate to hear only
good of Troy and writes to Boldwood saying she cannot marry him. Bathsheba and
Boldwood meet by chance, and so fearful is Boldwood's anger that Bathsheba sets out that
night for Bath to renounce Troy. They return separately a fortnight later and Boldwood is
overcome by rage and grief to discover that they are married. Troy celebrates the harvest
supper in August and makes the farmworkers so drunk that they are unable to help Oak to
cover the ricks against a dreadful storm that night, although Bathsheba aids him. Boldwood's
ricks are neglected.
4.3.4 Fanny, Troy and Bathsheba (Chapters 39-48)
In October Bathsheba and Troy pass Fanny on the road. Troy arranges secretly to
meet her later in Casterbridge. She struggles to the workhouse but dies in childbirth that
night. Bathsheba sends a farmworker to fetch her coffin, but he delays at an inn and the
coffin is brought into the house for the night. Bathsheba has her suspicions, although Oak
has tried to forestall them, and she finally opens the coffin, discovering Fanny with her
child by Troy within. Troy returns and repudiates Bathsheba, declaring that the dead Fanny
is morally his wife. Bathsheba rushes out into the dark. Next day Troy remorsefully orders a
tomb for Fanny and plants the grave with flowers which are washed away in a downpour.
Feeling the pointlessness of this repentant gesture he leaves Weatherbury and, reaching the
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coast, is swept out to sea while taking a refreshing bathe. He is picked up by a passing boat,
although back at home many conclude that he is drowned.
4.3.5 Boldwood, Troy, Oak and Balhsheba (Chapters 49-57)
Oak manages both farms as winter and spring pass, and by the summer Boldwood has hopes
of being able to speak again of marriage to Bathsheba. Meanwhile Troy is back in Wcssex
alter much travelling and appears in a circus act at the autumn sheep-fair. Bathsheba does not
recognise him there and Troy prevents her from being warned of his presence. Boldwood
escmls her home that evening and asks her again to marry him when she I I - . IM II V can
(Tniy's death never having been proved). She promises an answer at Christmas.1 Boldwood
gives a Christmas party in Bathsheba's honour and, from a sense of debt and fear, she
agrees to marry him in six years. Troy suddenly appears, however, to claim Bathsheba, and
is shot down by the frenzied Boldwood who then gives himself up. Bathsheba has the body
carried home where she lovingly prepares it for the grave. The death-sentence on Boldwood
is commuted to life- imprisonment. Bathsheba lives as a recluse for many months. In August
Oak warns her that he will be leaving in the spring. She receives his resignation after
Christmas, and goes in her desolation to his cottage. There they resolve misunderstandings
and agree on a wedding, which is celebrated quietly some time later.
We are told that Oak is a bachelor of twenty-eight years. He is of sound judgement and
good character, lukewarm of faith, but modest and unassuming. This December morning he
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passes a wagon carrying a handsome girl (we discover in Chapter 4 that this was Bathsheba
Everdene). He watches as she looks at herself in a mirror and notes her fault of vanity.
4.4.1 Introduction
'I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets . . . whoso
pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her'.
(Ecclesiastes 7:26)
Oak repeats the first words of this passage from Ecclesiastes inwardly after he thinks that
Bathsheba has been trifling with him and is about to marry Boldwood (Chapter 22). Hardy
tempers the anger of it, however: 'This was mere exclamation - the froth of the storm'.
Nevertheless the quotation- from Ecclesiastes does form a good introduction to the subject
of the novel, albeit one which must be tempered as Hardy himself has tempered it.
Oak suffers hurt and disappointment from Bathsheba's irresponsible and often ignorant
behaviour. But he is a man who possesses the qualities, of patient fortitude and
unselfishness which enable him sometimes to transform adverse circumstances, always to
endure them. By contrast Troy and Boldwood (in a sense both are 'sinners') are destroyed. As
for Bathsheba, Hardy is at pains to illustrate and explain her complex nature - her heart is not
intentionally 'snares and nets' to trap and destroy the men around her-and she does attain
greater wisdom and humanity.
In assessing the novel, then, the reader needs to examine these characters, asking certain
questions about them. What qualities does Oak possess which enable him to survive disaster?
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Why are Troy and Boldwood destroyed? How much does Bathsheba learn from adversity and
how far does she change? What does the setting contribute?
In addition you should consider the way in which the story is treated; style should be a
reinforcement of meaning, not mere embellishment. Here specific passages should illustrate
Hardy's modes, but an examination ol the use ol allusion lo paintings and to other literary
works, and of imagery would be fruitful too.
Finally you can extrapolate I he themes which emerge, possibly finding them of
witter application th;m Ihe outline of the story might initially suggest.
4.4.2 Characters
Oak
His surname is the first clue to his character; English oak is renowned for its strength
and durability. But his Christian name should not be ignored either. A study of the novel's
symbolic structures will reveal the continual juxtaposition of dark and light, Oak and Troy;
and within this structure Gabriel emerges as the good angel of God, opposed to the satanic
Lucifer.
The tone of Hardy's initial description of him is affectionately comic; he is unwordly,
slightly muddled, solid and unpretentious. But 'thoughtful people* (and the tone changes)
find him modest, rational and openminded. Hereafter we see him in action and learn both
from what he does and thinks as well as from Hardy's own comments as author.
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One theme which will emerge is the power individuals hold over their circumstances
and what they derive from them. Oak's strength here is obvious. His sheep are destroyed by a
disastrous combination of events, but we are told that his strength of character is confirmed
by this happening; it leaves him with a 'dignified calm' and an 'indifference to fate' which is
the basis of sublimity (Chapter 6). In other matters - ones which materially affect Bathsheba-
he is able to avert or mitigate disaster: he extinguishes her fire (Chapter 6), cures her sheep
(Chapter 21) and covers her ricks (Chapter 37). He achieves these things by his courage,
endurance and good sense, as well as by sympathy with and understanding of the natural
world in which he lives.
He has the humanity of the good shepherd; he lives with his lambing ewes and knows
the stresses of the new-born lambs. In addition he understands nature's tokens of the coming
storm (Chapter 36) and regulates his life by the movement of the stars (Chapter 2). But his
appreciation is not wholly utilitarian: 'he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful
instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful'
(Chapter 2).
For all his sympathy with the natural world, however, Oak betrays a lack of tact in his
treatment of people. Examined baldly, tact is the compromise which intelligent and sensitive
people may sometimes have to make with their sense of honesty. Tact does not have to be the
lying flattery of Troy, although it may not absolutely express one's true feelings. Hardy tells
us that Oak's qualities will not grant him success with Bathsheba -'his humility, and a
superfluous moiety of honesty' (Chapter 4). We see this clearly as he admits that marrying her
would not be wise and again when, 'torturing honesty to her own advantage', she asks his
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opinion o\' her conduct towards Boldwood (Chapter 20). It is ironical that she asks him because
she counts on his* disinterestedness of opinion* but is angry 'because the lecturer saw her in
the cold morning light of open-shuttered disillusion.' As her predicament becomes more
pitiful so Oak learns to treat her with greater sympathy, however, and to temper his strict
honesty with humanity. He erases the chalked words 'and child' from Fanny's coffin 'in a last
attempt to save Bathsheba from ... immediate anguish' but with a troubled sense of his own
powerlessness to counteract the ironical circumstances accumulating for her (Chapter 42).
Towards Boldwood he behaves with absolute generosity although he" speaks his mind as he
warns the farmer of women's fickleness, 'Her meaning may be good; but there - she's young
yet' (Chapter 52).
With Troy the matter is different. Oak justifiably suspects his nature and motives and
has eveiy cause for antagonism. Coggan perceives a source of disastrous confrontation if
Oak is honest, and advises hypocrisy, 'say "Friend" outwardly, though you say
"Troublehouse" within' (Chapter 35). In the next chapter Oak's treatment of Troy is remote
but civil, and thereafter Hardy keeps them apart.
Bathsheba perceives that Oak's strength is derived from his unselfishness, 'among
the multitude of interests by which he was surrounded, those which affected his personal
well-being were not the most absorbing and important in his eyes' (Chapter 43). Indifference
to fate can only arise from thissort of unselfishness; but his self-effacement nearly ends in
losing him Bathsheba. So concerned is he for the preservation of her good name and so
apparently set on his vow at the end of Chapter 4 ('Then I'll ask you no more') that he nearly
withdraws from her life. In her 'hunger for pity and sympathy' it is Bathsheba who finally
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seeks him out as he had forced her to do once before over the sick sheep. Their courtship is
concluded with the 'good- fellowship' which Oak, but not Bathsheba, had understood as
necessary as early as Chapter 4, 'And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I
shall be- and whenever I look up, there will be you'.
4.4.3 Troy
We are introduced to Troy via Funny although our knowledge of him is initially
limited. The Notes to Chapter 15 explain why we should suspect her judgement ot him, and
in Chapter 16 we have our suspicions confirmed as he rejects her in a spirit of callous pride
and with a selfish sense of hurt dignity.
After Troy's impudent flattery of Bathsheba in the fir plantation (Chapter 24) a whole
chapter is devoted to an analysis of him. What Hardy actually says may at times appear
complicated but he is not, in fact, describing a very complex character. The reader is
constantly aware, in the novel, of Hardy's distrust of absolutes; as an author he is conscious of
the way in which moral qualities fade and merge, of the complicated origin and mixture of
emotion; and that this blurring and intermingling is often apparent in nature, too. With Troy,
however, the case is different. He lacks the subtle refinement of spiritual feelings and the
qualities he does possess are 'separated by mutual consent' (Chapter 25). Thus he is a man of
intelligence and determination but is 'without the power to combine them' and consequently
his intelligence is wasted on trivia] matters and his determination employed unprofitably.
This really is tied up with Hardy's earlier explanation that Troy is a man of present concerns -
he is neither able nor willing to look forward and assess consequences; he is 'the erratic child
of impulse' (Chapter 26). This is also why he can be an unscrupulous liar to women and why
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he is so good an actor; he has no sense of responsibility for his actions. To reinforce his acting
ability Hardy always gives him daylight scenes or ones which are brilliantly lit - "His sudden
appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet is to silence1 (Chapter 24).
The trivial employment of his intelligence, regardless of consequences, can be observed
in his flattery of Bathsheba (Chapters 24 and 26) and his unprofitable use of courage and skill
in hiving her bees and the sword-exercise (Chapters 27 and 28). Equally, although he certainly
knows the extent of Boldwood's infatuation, he gives no imaginative thought to consequences
as he prepares to join the Christmas party: 'I must go and find her out at once- 0 yes, I see
that' (Chapter 52).
His reform is a weak and temporary affair. He chooses flowers for Fanny's grave as a
means of adjourning his grief and after they are washed away he has to face the fact that
matters do not always 'right themselves at some proper date and wind up well' (Chapter 46).
He has no moral strength to continue the reform in the face of adverse fate: 'He threw up the
cards and foreswore his game for that time and always'.
Although he may seem to be happy and successful, he is a vain dissembler who wastes his
intelligence and perverts his will-power, who gives no imaginative thought to consequences
and can profit nothing from his mistakes; hence he is bound for disillusionment and disaster.
The disaster occurs when Troy meddles in the unbalanced passion of Boldwood.
4.4.4 Boldwood
To an outsider Boldwood is marked by the pre-eminent characteristic of dignity
(Chapter 12) and certainly he is desperately concerned about the way his infatuation must seem
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to others. Bathsheba is pained to observe how love has deprived him of this'chief
component'(Chapter 23). Later he expresses to her his feeling thai the whole world is sneering,
'the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush shamefully for my folly' (Chapter 31)
and to Oak that he must be 'a joke about the parish' (Chapter 38).
This concern with outward dignity and reserve arises because Boldwood's inner nature is
so sensitive; it is a protective shell against the world whose mockery he fears. Hardy describes
a man whose emotions are held in a fine balance-'His equilibrium disturbed, he was in
extremity at once' (Chapter 18) and whose nature is 'a hotbed of tropic intensity'.
He is also a man naturally disposed to melancholy; before his party he is cheerful but
'almost sad again with the sense that all of it is passing away' (Chapter 52).
Once his equilibrium is disturbed and his judgement distorted by infatuation, his
introspective mind occupies itself with morbid assessments of his own folly and idealisation
of Bathsheba. This leaves no room for the practical matters of farm management which
increases the sense of folly. Winning Bathsheba will mean possession of the physical beauty
he observes in Chapter 37, and as he describes his envisaged marriage state it is clear that
Bathsheba would be a possession to him, with no activities and employments of her own -'you
shall never have so much as to look out of doors at haymaking time'. To possess her also
means relief from his gnawing sense of indignity. This introspective nature becomes wholly
selfish as Boldwood presses his suit by a form of blackmail on one whom acceptance will
clearly make unhappy.

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Oak does not think that Boldwood was really out of his mind when he shot Troy
(Chapter 55) and certainly the idea was in Boldwood's head as early as Chapter 34. On the
other hand Bathsheba expresses fear for his sanity (Chapter 51); Oak wonders if there had
ever been insanity in his family (Chapter 35); and certainly the collection of garments
labelled with Bathsheba's name is evidence of an unwholesome preoccupation with her. As
the shot is fired Boldwood is without the 'rule' which regulates instinct - the same rule which
regulates Troy's sword-drill and keeps it from simple mayhem (Chapter 28). Hardy anticipates
the derangement as soon as Bathsheba's valentine arrives, 'the large red seal became as a blot
of blood on the retina of his eye' (Chapter 14).
4.4.5 Bathsheba
If Boldwood's passionate nature is only controlled by a vulnerable reserve, Troy, by
contrast, is a child of impulse and spontaneity: 'his embellishments fare] upon the very
surface' (Chapter 29). Neither possesses a true moral principle for control and guidance.
Bathsheba, however, is not static as they are; this 'fair product of Nature' (Chapter 1) with l*in
impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect' (Chapter 20) comes to speak of the 'rash acts of
[her] past life' asserting that she does 'want and long to be discreet' (Chapter 51). In this she
needs guidance.
The episode of the looking- glass in the first chapter is presented as an idle action: it
would be 'rash to assert that intention had any part' in it at all. Equally, the valentine to
Boldwood is sent in an idle and unreflecting spirit, without any of the intention which
Boldwood assumes must be there. In explaining Bathsheba's love for Troy, Hardy describes
it a s being really the same sort of irrational drifting; 'she felt her impulses to je pleasanter
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guides than her discretion .. . Her culpability lay in her making no attempt to control feeling
by subtle and careful inquiry into onsequences' (Chapter 29). We know her capable of
making this nquiry since she is 'a woman who frequently appealed to her
:nderstanding for deliverance from her whims' (Chapter 20) and this is why the sending of
the card and the eloping with Troy are culpable.
At the end of the book we are perhaps less convinced that thisimpulsive nature has
undergone transformation than that she has now icquired the wisdom and humility to accept
Oak's correction. She has ilways known the value of his advice and has always been enraged
or at east irritated by his air of disinterestedness. At the grinding he tells her he has ceased to
think of marrying her (Chapter 20); speaking of Troy he aggravates her by 'letting his wish to
marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good' (Chapter 29); and after Troy's 'drowning'
when she asks his advice 'there existed at this moment a little pang of disappointment... Oak
had not wished her free that he might marry her himself (Chapter 51). She has come to
regard 'the possession of hopeless love from Gabriel' as an 'inalienable right for life' and on
these earlier occasions her vanity is wounded by his apparent independence.
She is impulsive, then, but she is also vain, and this is indicated too by the episode of the
looking- glass. Vanity is an essentially selfish quality and one which makes the possessor
peculiarly vulnerable to those with clearer sight. It is because she is vain that Bathsheba
wishes to conquer the reserved farmer who ignores her presence in the cornmarket: 'it was
faintly depressing that the most dignified and valuable man in the parish should withold his
eyes' (Chapter 13), If it makes her self-centred, her vanity also opens her to the flattery of
Troy. Her reason tells her that he is dissembling and forbids her to listen, but her vanity longs
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to hear more and prompts her to admit that she enjoys it. She captivates Boldwood and
capitulates to Troy wholly blind to the possible consequences of her actions.
Although we may not be convinced that her impulsiveness has been magically transformed,
we do gather that her vanity is tamed. She is anxious to appear plain at the Christmas Ball
(Chapter 52) and Boldwood's praise of her beauty 'had not much effect now' (Chapter 53). In
Chapter 56 the loss of Oak appears less as the loss of an admiring lover than of a supporting
friend - "He who had believed in her and
argued on her side', with whom she had had 'the only true friendship she^ had ever known',
'she was bewildered ... by the prospect of having to . rely on her resources again'.
Hardy is at pains to indicate that there is no absolutely simple solution to Bathsheba's
nature, that she is a woman of fine feeling and strong" character who nevertheless makes two
rash and disastrous mistakes. She-is genuinely and deeply distressed by the consequence
of the valentine - 'I am wicked to have made you suffer so' she says to Boldwood (Chapter
19), and later she is pained by the change in him (Chapter 23) though her conquest is 'not
without a fearful joy'. She is also prepared to pay a highly uncongenial penalty for her
thoughtless prank. She suffers, too, for the hasty marriage to Troy because she does actually
love him and her happiness with him is threatened by a threefold irony. He still loves Fanny
(he tells Boldwood so and we see it demonstrated over the coffin); Bathsheba's affection is
not reciprocated by him - for Troy, finally, 'A ceremony before a priest doesn't make a
marriage'. And Troy regards Fanny as morally his wife. When these facts are brought home
to her Bathsheba suffers in the throes of chaotic emotion; 'she had sighed for her self-
completeness then, and now she cried aloud against the severance of the union she had
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deplored'. Waiting in the swampy hollow next morning she revives as the natural world
awakes around her just as, after the final calamity and her period of apathy and indifference,
she 'revived with the Spring' (Chapter 56).
Whether she has completed in herself all the attributes ot Wordsworth's 'Phantom
of Delight' (see Notes to Chapter 49) is arguable. Certainly she does end by demonstrating
an inner strength and fortitude; 'she was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made'
(Chapter 54) and, with the 'kindly light' of Oak to guide her, has the means towards greater
control and reasonability. Because it has been.a romance 'growing up in the interstices of a
mass of hard prosaic reality' (Chapter 56), their love has a spiritual quality ('they spoke very
little') which transcends normal pleasurable passion and which 'many waters cannot quench,
nor the Hoods drown.'
4.5 Style
Perhaps the most straightforward way of tackling the difficult subject of style is to
divide the subject under the headings of description, reflection, and dialogue, in order to make
an initial assessment. Finally, an examination of allusion and imagery will be helpful.
4.5.1 Description
Hardy's technique lies in appealing to certain of the reader's senses so that the scene
may be re-created in the imagination. He does this by the use of particularly vivid and
evocative words. Where movement is involved the words are mainly verbs, and where all is
still they are adjectives.

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In Chapter 2, for instance, the wind 'smote the wood and floundered through it'. It grumbles
and gushes, simmers and boils, ferrets and rattles. It is movement for the ear; the grasses rub
and rake and brush, the trees wail, chant and sob. The tumult of the scene is enhanced
because these are human activities, but they are out of control and chaotic. It anticipates the
tumultuous emotion to follow later in the novel. By contrast, Chapter 19 begins with the
sheep-dipping. Hardy invites us to use our eyes; it is 'a sight to remember long' and the
movement of moisture is almost 'observable to the eye'. The adjectives are those of lush
fulfilment; the sod is rich and damp, the reeds are swelling and flexible, leaves are new, soft,
moist and, for the ear, three cuckoos are sounding their notes of peace and reassurance. This
Arcadian sweetness and ripeness is suitable for the 'mild sort of apotheosis' Boldwood has
made of Bathsheba and for the setting of his first proposal to her.
Hardy achieves his vivid effect by the use of words that are particularly concrete as
well as clear and vigorous. In Chapter II he describes the onset of winter; 'the retreat of the
s n a k e s , t h e transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, the rising of fogs, the
embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.' The process is
precise and inevitable, ft is also appropriate to a scene which furthers Fanny's disaster.
Circumstances transform her too; she fades, collapses, and sinks towards death.
4.5.2 Imagery
Sometimes Hardy's use of simile and metaphor gives deepersignificance to a particular
episode, and occasionally he sustains the use of a particular metaphorical idea

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throughout the novel.
After the destruction of his flock, Oak thinks of Bathsheba as he stands beside a
pond-'over it hung the attenuated skeleton of a chrome- yellow moon ... the morning star
dogging her on the left hand . . . a breeze blew, shaking and elongating the reflection of the
moon without breaking it, and turning the image of the star to a phosphoric streak upon the
water' (Chapter 5). With the pool glittering 'like a dead man's eye' the whole scene evokes a
feeling of exhaustion and collapse. The moon is a 'skeleton' and the word 'dogging' implies
threatening and patient pursuit. The whole passage could be regarded as a depressing
metaphor for Bathsheba's future relationship with Troy. She, the moon, is not broken by the
buffetings she receives from fortune and he, the star ('How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning!') has a short, but dashing, career. The connection of
Bathsheba with the moon is made again later by Hardy; 'Diana [the chaste moon- goddess]
was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively adored' (Chapter 41) and when Bathsheba
makes her final visit to Oak he opens 'the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead'
(Chapter 56). This metaphor is connected with Hardy's use of light and darkness and will be
drawn into the specimen essay answer on this subject (see page 84).
From the sixth paragraph of Chapter 42 Hardy creates a similar atmosphere for the
return of Poorgrass with Fanny's c o f f i n . As it approaches, the mist takes the nature of
fungus; spongy, rooted, elastics* The clear air becomes like an eye blinded by opacity, and
the trees take* on human attributes: intent, but indistinct and shadowless like spectres, r
beaded grey with the mist like old men. The words 'grey' and 'dead' are : repeated and the
sound of a drop on the coffin only serves to intensify : the silence. Here Hardy has
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endowed the woodland with life only to -transform it to the grey stillness of death. The
description is appropriate r to the action but it serves also to frighten into delay the man who,
when * lost by night, once spoke to an owl (Chapter 8).
By contrast, in Chapter 6, Hardy begins his description of the rick- fire in the simple terms
of colour, shape and sound. But the passage ends with the evocation of devilishness as the
fire takes on the Gothic, gargoyle face of evil. As with the doings of the church gargoyle
(Chapter 46) .here is suddenly a sense that man's efforts are being thwarted by some
malign power.
The evil and destructive redness of the flames is associated with an image which Hardy
maintains throughout the novel for Troy; that of a man whose whole appearance is of a
dazzling red. Bathsheba finds herself hooked to him 'brilliant in brass and scarlet'
(Chapter 24) ana when she goes to meet him for the sword-drill he is 'a spot of artificial
red' in the distance (Chapter 28). Boldwood watches him return to Weatherbury, 'the lamp
... illuminated a scarlet and gilded form (Chapter 34) and he keeps a scarlet jacket even as
a farmer- he shines 'red and distinct' as Oak looks at the sleeping revellers (Chapter 36) and
Hardy is careful to mention the jacket as they all emerge later. But when he dies 'scarcely a
single drop of blood' has flowed; his association is with the brilliant redness of hell- fire,
not with bloody destruction.
4.5.3 Themes
Troy is equally independent. The aid he lends with the hay and the bees is simply a
convenient gesture. He has chosen not to belong to the community and returns in a spirit of
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moral irresponsibility to wreak havoc as 'the impersonator of Heaven's persistent irony'
towards Boldwood (Chapter 53).
Boldwood's sense of responsibility is demolished by his passion. Practically, his affairs are
neglected by his preoccupation with Bathsheba, and finally his moral sense is overturned by
the jealous impulse which prompts the murder of Troy.
Bathsheba is also handicapped - by her sex. Although her presence as a farmer in the
cornmarket is accepted, it is also 'unquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden' (Chapter
12). As her farming career progresses it becomes clear that she does need practical assistance
with farmyard crises: the- burning ricks, the sick sheep, the uncovered grain. These call for a
strength and skill which she simply does not possess. As mentioned earlier, Hardy views her
womanliness as a handicap to her sense of moral responsibility too. She needs the 'kindly light'
of Oak as a guide 'amid the encircling gloom' of the final loneliness, desperation and fear
brought about by her earlier acts of female irrational wilfulness.
A reader might feel that a spirit of anti- feminism directs Hardy's portrayal of Bathsheba.
This would not be just, since he is clear that she is a woman of commendable qualities who
makes irresponsible mistakes but who comes to understand her own deficiencies which are
made up by the partnership of marriage.
4.5.4 Structure
The structure of the plot of Farfrom the Madding Crowd is really based on Bathsheba's
activities. The general summary has indicated how divisions may be made although you
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should be wary of applying them too rigidly; they are indicative of emphasis and are not
exclusive.
The novel also has a sub-structure, however, which serves both to create the pastoral
setting and, in a symbolic sense, to reinforce the mood of the action. This sub-structure lies in
the passing of the seasons. Oak loses his flock, and Bathsheba, in the winter. As summer
approaches his material fortunes rise and so do Boldwood's hopes of winning Bathsheba. At
the height of summer Troy arrives, but fortunes begin to wane as he woos and wins
Bathsheba. As winter approaches Fanny dies, Troy is lost and Bathsheba lives on in a spirit of
apathy. Oak still increases his social standing and advantages. Bathsheba revives with the
spring and as summer waxes so do Boldwood's renewed hopes of winning her. By the autumn
sheep- fair more disaster is brewing; and in the dead of winter Troy is murdered, Boldvvood
imprisoned, and Bathsheba left in even deeper desolation and despair. With the second spring
come new hopes, founded on the prospect of a truly happier and unthreatened future.
In the second reading you should be ready to note down matters of more detail which
are going to be of use in discussion of the novel.
At first sight a reader might think that Fanny's role is very small, and certainly it is a
curiously negative one. She appears in only fivechapters and is anonymous (except as 'Fan' in
Chapter II) in all of them. With one exception these are also night scenes. In three later
chapters her corpse is the subject of much discussion and the cause of a turbulent and
emotional scene between Troy and Bathsheba. In a further chapter, memory of her affects
Troy's doings.
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In the first place, then, she serves to introduce a feeling of unease and mystery
concerning her future and Troy's character. Oak is aware of the stress she is under (Chapter
7) and we gather this ourselves in Chapter 11 where the timid girl has made all the practical
arrangements for the wedding; some great fear must be prompting her resource and effort.
All this seems to be resolved, however, when Oak receives her cheerful and optimistic letter
in Chapter 15. But then she makes her fatal mistake over the churches and is abandoned by
Troy. From his treatment of her we discover his callousness, selfishness and vanity. The
mystery surrounding her trouble returns with her secrecy on the Casterbridge road, and the
resolution of the 'throb of tragic intensity' is anticipated by the difficulty of her journey
and the bleakness of the night.
If, alive, her role was passive, after her death she dominates the thoughts of all;
first of Oak and Boldwood who wish to preserve Bathsheba from knowledge of Troy's
perfidy; then, erratically, of the local people; then of Bathsheba herself; and finally of
Troy.
Most impressive is the gamut of emotions which Bathsheba runs in Chapter 43. She
thinks of Fanny without charity and of herself as mocked by fate: 'events were so shaped
as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet effectual manner'. But after Troy
appears all her indignant feelings about ‘compromised honour, forestament, eclipse in
maternity by another' are 'forgotten in the simple and still strong attachment of wife to
husband'. The presence of Fanny's corpse its to heighten the emotional tension by which
both Bathsheba and y come to express the truth of their feelings for each other 'I love you U
than she did', 'You are nothing to me - nothing'.

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Finally, Troy makes an impulsive gesture of temporary remorse by orating Fanny's
grave. When this effort seems spurned by idence he gives up such reformation
and re-embarks on his ,vard and reckless life.
Fanny’s role, then, is vital both for the plot- bringing events to a i- and for the
aspect of the novel's symbolism which deals with 'ce and fate. However hard she may try to
direct the practical affairs er life (her marriage, her safety in the workhouse, the second
meeting i Troy) circumstances thwart her. Indeed she is finally used as a kind instrument in
the hands of fate. Ironically, 'the panting heap of ihes' achieves 'The one feat alone - that of
dying - by which a mean jndition could be resolved into a grand one'.
4.5.5 APPROACH
These notes may serve to show how you can marshall ideas nd quotations before embarking
on the topic.
(i) Hardy's continual use of light effects: the effect of silhouette; for example, Oak's dog and
Fanny's dog.
(ii) The nature of light: natural; for example, moon, stars, daylight,
etc.; artificial; for example, lamps, flashing material, ...
(iii) The juxtaposition of Oak and Troy: Oak - natural light; steady, helpful, illuminating;
Troy - artificial light; dazzling, blinding, deceiving; Bathsheba 'dazzled by brass and
scarlet'
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4.6 GRAHAM GREENE- THE POWER AND THE GLORY .
GAHAM GREENE the English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and journalist, in his
novels treat moral issues in the context of political settings. Greene is one of the most widely read
novelist of the 20th-century, a superb storyteller. Adventure and suspense are constant elements in
his novels was a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times, but he never received the
award
Graham Greene was born born on October 2, 1904 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, to Charles Henry
and Marion Raymond Greene, the fourth of six children. His father had a poor academic record but
became the headmaster of Berkhamsted School, following Dr. Thomas Fry. Greene was educated at
Berkhamstead School and Balliol College, Oxford. Graham's brothers included Hugh, who went on
to become a Director General of the BBC, and Raymond, an accomplished mountaineer involved
in the 1931 Kametand 1933 Everest expeditions. One of Marion's distant cousins happened to be a
person called R L. Stevenson
He wrote quite regularly in Student Magazines, and was an editor of The Oxford Outlook. His first
work, a collection of apparently forgettable poems, Babbling April, was published during his last
year at Oxford. It was followed by two novels in the style of Joseph Conrad.
After graduation, he worked briefly for the Nottingham Journal. He was baptized a Catholic in
February 1926. In March, he returned to London, as the Sub Editor for The Times.
anti-American comments, Greene gained access to such Communist leaders as Fidel Castro and Ho
Chi Minh, but the English writer Evelyn Waugh, who knew Greene well, assured in a letter to his
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friend that the author 'is a secret agent on our side and all his buttering up of the Russians is
"cover",
Greene left the Service in May 1944, and joined the Political Warfare Executive, editing a literary
magazine intended for France. After the War, Greene was commissioned to write a film treatment
based on Vienna, a city occupied by the Four Powers at the time. He collaborated with Carol Reed
in writing The Third Man, a skillful tale of deception and drug trafficking. The film went on to win
the First Prize at Cannes in 1949.
In the 1950s Greene's emphasis switched from religion to politics. He lived at the Majestic hotel in
Saigon and made trips to Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1953 he was in Kenya, reporting the Mau
Mau upraising, and in 1956 he spent a few weeks in Stalinist Poland, and tried to help a musician to
escape to the West.
The Asian setting stimulated Greene's The Quiet American (1955), which was about American
involvement in Indochina. The story focuses on the murder of Alden Pyle (the American of the
title). The narrator, Thomas Fowler, a tough-minded, opium-smoking journalist, arranges to have
Pyle killed by the local rebels. Pyle has stolen Fowler's girl friend, Phuong, and he is connected to a
terrorist act, a bomb explosion in a local cafe. The Quiet American was considered sympathetic to
Communism in the Soviet Union and a play version of the novel was produced in Moscow.
Our Man in Havanna (1958) was born after a journey to Cuba, but Greene had the story sketched
already much earlier. On one trip he asked a taxi driver to buy him a little cocaine and got boracic
powder. The novel was made into a film in 1959, directed by Carol Reed. During the filming
Greene met Ernest Hemingway, and was invited to his house for drinks. Th^Comedians (1966)
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depicted Papa Doc Duvalier's repressive rule in Haiti, and The Honorary Consul (1973) was a
hostage drama set in Paraguay. The Human Factor (1978) stayed on the New York Times bestseller
list for six months. In the story an agent falls in love with a black woman during an assignment in
South Africa.
Greene died in Vevey, Switzerland, on April 3, 1991. Two days before his death Greene signed a
note that authorised Norman Sherry to complete an authorised biography. The first part of the book
had appeared in 1989 under the title: The Life of Graham Greene.
4.7 Selected works of Graham Greene:
• Babbling April (1925)
• The Man Within (1929)
• The Name of Action (1930)
• Rumour at Nightfall (1931)
As a writer Greene was very prolific and versatile. He wrote five dramas and screenplays for several
films based on his novels. In the 1930s and early 1940s he wrote over five hundred reviews of
books, films, and plays, mainly for The Spectator. His film criticism career actually stretched back
to his Oxford days, with an "Outlook" article in 1925. He also had written a few essays on films for
The Times.
It's a Battlefield was published in early 1934. Greene started travelling extensively in 1934 - brief
trips to Germany, Latvia and Estonia preceding an arduous journey overland through Liberia, in the
company of his cousin Barbara, which was chronicled in Journey without Maps. He returned in
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April 1937; England made Me. written before he had left, was published soon after. A Gun for Sale
came next, in 1936. Francis Greene was born in September 1936.
Greene's religious convictions did not become overtly apparent in his fiction until Brighton Rock
(1938), which depicted a teenage gangster Pinkie with a kind of demonic spirituality. In the same
year, Greene made a trip to Mexico, to investigate into alleged atrocities against the Catholics. The
result of the journey was two books, The Lawless Roads in March 1939, and The Power And The
Glory, perhaps his finest book, in September 1939. The latter won for him his first major literary
prize, The Hawthornden.
The Confidential Agent (1939) included a strange piece of Anti-Semitic characterization, in which
the mysterious Forbes/Furstein, a rich Jew, plans to destroy traditional English culture from within.
However, in 1981 the author was invited to Israel and awarded the Jerusalem Prize.
Religious themes were explicit in the The Power And The Glory, The Heart of the Matter (1948), a
story of a man trapped between the emotional demands of two women, which Greene characterized
as "a success in the great vulgar sense of that term," and The End of the .Affair (1951), which
established Greene's international reputation. This novel was partly based on Greene's affair with
Catherine Walston, whom he had met in 1946. She was married to one of the richest men in
England, Henry Walston, a prominent supporter of the Labour Party. Catherine was the mother of
five children. Greene's relationship with her continued over ten years and produced a book, After
Two Years (1949), which was printed 25 copies. Most of the copies were later destroyed.
During World War II Greene worked "in a silly useless job" as he later said in an intelligence
capacity for the Foreign Office in London, directly under Kim Philby, a future defector to the
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Soviet Union. One mission took Greene to West Africa, but he did not find much excitement in his
remote posting - "This is not a government house, and there is no larder: there is also a plague of
house-flies which come from the African bush lavatories round the house," he wrote to London.
Greene returned to England in 1942. His old friend, Philby, Greene met again in the late 1980s in
Moscow. After the war he travelled widely as a free-lance journalist, and lived long periods in Nice,
on the French Riviera. With his weakness in his central characters, instead of a clear definition
of them, which was also the feature of his earlier books like Brighton Rock (1938). Greene's
concern with adultery and physical love in his novels makes the Catholics unhappy. Even the
non-Catholics find Greene's sense of sin, distasteful to them, because they think that the
suffering he emphasizes is pointless and artistically unjustified. The struggle that Greene
analyses in his later books between salvation and damnation is often tortuous. It was Christ,
who declared himself more particularly satisfied with the repentance of a sinner than with the
orthodoxy of the natural.
In later novels, the themes of betrayal has come to be transformed into a picture of
the world which shows Catholicism. In later novels he shows how a Catholic, knowing "the
mechanism can hope to read the indicator in a different light attaching a private and second
on to the first" (21). The sin and evil are closely related and human life comprises of both
good and evil. According to Greene, man not only commits sin but also makes up for his
sins by repentance. He also points out with great psychological insight the tension in the
minds of his catholic characters as a result of the consciousness of their guilt.
Greene's novel is a constant query into damnation or salvation. The priest dies in a
state of sin because padre Jose, who has been terrified into renouncing his priesthood, refuses
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to hear his confession. He knows that he is weak and sinful and denies that he is a martyr: They do
not think all the time if "I had drunk more brandy I shouldn't be so afraid" (11). Greene of course
thinks that the priest is not only a hero and a martyr but even a possible saint.
The Power and the Glory is a story of pursuit. In this case the quarry is a priest, the last
priest left in the province after the others have been driven out or killed or forced to abandon their
faith. He is neither good nor brave nor attractive he is a whisky priest, father of an illegitimate
daughter, weak-willed, and often afraid. The lieutenant, who is ruthlessly determined to the religion
from the province. Twice the lieutenant has the priest in his power but fails to recognize him. We
know that the third time will come and that there will then be no escape. The priest has known this
from the beginning when, in order to attend upon a sick woman, he missed the boat that would have
taken him to safety and when he had said: "I shall miss it. I am meant to miss it" (11). Later he is able
to leave the province and to act as a parish priest again in security. He is lured back howsoever, by a
half caste in order to hear the dying confession of an American criminal. When he arrives, the
criminal does not confess and the lieutenant is waiting for him.
The Power and the Glory is concerned with the theme of isolation. The theme of Graham
Greene is good and evil, god and the devil which fight over man continually and they are never sure
who wins, for the ways of god, by their very nature, are inscrutable.
This conflict in the form of the pursuit: the pursuit of a criminal by the police, a traitor by
those whom he has betrayed, a victim by his persecutors became the main theme of his novels. It
symbolised the pursuit of man's soul, his inner self, by God. Later, the religious theme became more
explicit. God was the pursuer from whom there could be no escape, even when despair dictated a
way out that looked, from the catholic point of view, like damnation. Caught between pain and
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tormented by pity, afraid of damnation, Greene's characters are often the victims only of their own
unforgettable love for God.
Greene's views of evil and sin and his imaginative and sympathetic view of the darker side
of man provide the real source to many of Greene's fiction. It is the deep study of evil that prompts
Greene to think of the redemption of the sinner. Greene suggests that a true believer, seeks out the
devil and in the process he finds the presence of God. In this process. Greene seems to say that even
if, one has committed a mortal sin, it is quite possible that he would be redeemed by the touch of the
Grace of God.
The Power and the Glory has two themes. The first is the conflict between the Church
and the state, and the victory of the Church. But interwoven with this is the theme of evil which is
worked out largely through the portrayal of the whisky-priest, a portrayal which not only pertains to
the outward actions of this protagonist but also includes a probe into his mind and his innermost
thoughts. There is a certain element of evil or sinfulness in the composition or nature of this priest,
which tends to thwart his nobler side but cannot over come it completely. The question, therefore
arises whether the priest will be ultimately damned or forgiven by God and received in heaven.
When the final search begins to close all the ways of escape against the priest he flees.
He is involved in a series of adventures and misadventures which stamp him with loneliness and
helplessness. He hides like a tramp in the Banana Station of Captain Fellows, whose daughter
Coral gives him food. She is secretive by nature, she hides the priest in the barn and tells lies to the
Lieutenant. This she does not out of cunning but out of kindness. Bold and courageous, she
assures the whisky-priest to teach him the Signal Code by which he could know the enemy
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movements. And the priest finds a bone with some flesh on it and he thinks Coral is like his
daughter Brigitta, the priest says : "Come back! Come back! He cried in grief across the stormy
water: and I'll forgive your highland chief My daughter, o my daughter. (PG 142).
The realization of the Mortal Sin he has committed, by giving into his fleeting passion,
tortures him even more and makes him aware of how short of the Glory of God he has fallen. The
priest sees in his daughter's face his own Mortal Sin looking back at him. She is the incarnation of
his lust. He feels an overwhelming sense of responsibility for her. He can hate his Sin, but he cannot
hate the result of it. As a priest, he has no right to be partial to one particular person, his duty being
to love everyone. And in Brigitta's case, the error is even graver. She is born in Sin. When the
priest meets her in Maria's hut, he feels the shock of human love. When he sees the child standing,
there watching him with cunningness and contempt, he remembers how Maria and he had felt no
love in her conception. He remembers how it was fear and despair and half a bottle of brandy and
the sense of loneliness that had driven him to the act which now horrified him. Instead of depicting
the quest of a good man for nature or for the heavenly city of god, Greene depicts the quest of a
sinner who stumbles along the way to the heavenly city. His concern is for the Christian marginal
man. The whisky — priest is a sinner who qualifies for the position of nearly a saint. He frankly tells
the fellow prisoners that he is a bad priest and a bad man living in a state of mortal sin. He is not
only a drunkard but that he has also begotten a child. He feels that he will be dammed. He is a proud
soul and it is because of pride that he has stayed in that country. At last he thinks that he has to go to
the kingdom of heaven empty — handed.
The theme of evil is worked out through the whisky - priest. The little girl, Brigitta ,
already shows signs of evil like the small spot of decay in a fruit. Then these is the couple in the
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prison who are shamelessly copulating on the floor. These is the American gangster who offers a
contrast to the priest in so far as he is wanted by the police for certain crimes of violence while the
priest is wanted by the police for his Christian beliefs which included the belief in peace and non
violence. Finally, these is the Mestizo who is the very embodiment of evil because of his hypocrisy,
cunning greed and treachery. The prison is over crowded with lust and crime. Even the chief of the
police and the governor are not without evil. Thus evil constitutes one of the chief themes in the
novel.
Greene seems to suggest in his early novels that Catholics have extraordinary inner
resources to fall back on. In his works he sees that the profound sense of evil and good which his
Catholic characters posses often leads to a mental conflict between religious duty and desire. His
books deal not only with man in relation to himself, but fundamentally relation to god. He shows that
human relationships are never satisfying one has finally to surrender to God who pursues. Greene's
works deal fundamentally with moral problems, and behind his social comments lie the moral
implications. Greene draws a sharp distinction between "wrong" at the human level and "evil" at the
spiritual level. Sometimes he even seems to praise wrong doing, merely because it is not a divine
transgression. Greene repeatedly shown in his works that faith is ineradicable.
The priest in The Power and the Glory, may have found God and be martyred towards the
end of his spiritual struggle and repentance. He is a bad priest and is haunted by his failure and
corruption. One of his dreams reveals he was never a very devout priest. In his days, he was
surrounded by the influences. He has failed in a series of priestly vows and has played into the
hands of the devil. He loves his sin and therefore cannot bring himself to repentance. "That was
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true: he had lost the faculty. He could not say to himself that he wished his Sin had never existed,
because the Sin seem to him now so important — and he loved the fruit of it" (165).
The Lieutenant of police is a Christian who has revolted. He wants to wipe out everything
connected with Christianity from this world. Though he is against the priest, he appeals to us like the
hero himself. He is the representative of man's or state's power on earth with his revolver in his
hand. But the revolver ultimately fails. He, however, has his own faith in the secular ideology of the
state. He gives a five peso coin to the priest when the latter is released from the prison. He also goes
to invite Padre Jose to hear the whisky-priest's last confession.
He is a man with an ideal, who feels great sympathy for the poor and the ignorant masses.
His anti-clericalism is no mere negation; for him the chief barrier to his ideal political state is the
Church. So, he is a man with an ideal and a mission. He is a symbol of temporal power standing in
contrast to God's glory. The Lieutenant is opposed to Church and priests and religion. His mission is
to get The state rid of the priest's. He advises the villagers:
you're fools if you still believe what the priests tell you. All they want is your money.
What has God ever done for you? Have you got enough to eat? Instead of food they talked
to you about heaven. Oh, everything will be fine after you're dead, they say. I tell you
everything will be fine when they are dead...this child is worth more than the pope in
Rome (69).
This speech of the Lieutenant not only shows his condemnation of priests and the Church but
also his humanism, his concern for the poor, his ere desire to see the reform in the condition of the
poor. He also lashes out at :lergy, saying to the priest:

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you're so cunning, you people. But tell me this. What have you ever done in Mexico for
us? Have you ever told a landlord he shouldn't beat his peon...? you come out and have
dinner with him at its your duty not to know why he has murdered a peasant (110).
The Lieutenant has a great love for children. It is for them he is fighting. He would
eliminate from their childhood everything which had made him miserable. He would drive
out everything that brought misery, poverty, : superstitions, and corruption.
they deserve nothing less than the truth a vacant universe and
a cooling world, the right to be happy in any way they chose.
He was quiet prepared to make a massacre for their sakes
(111).
The Lieutenant is inhibited by his childhood experiences. He is such a lost soul
because there had been a combination of suffering and deprivation in his childhood. He
knew that the priest was more dangerous than the American gangsters because the priest was
possessed by an idea. It never occurred to the Lieutenant that he himself was equally
possessed by an idea and was, as such, equally dangerous. They find the Lieutenant a mystic
in his own sense.
There are mystics who are said to have experienced God directly. He was a mystic
too, and what he had experienced and was vacancy...a completely certainly in the
existence of a dying cooling world of human-beings who had evolved from animals
for no purpose at all (112).

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Greene points out in The Power and the Glory that it is difficult to find a substitute for
God when God is deserted. It is a paradox in Greene's novels that the Catholic characters are not only
great sinners, but they are frequently less happy in the state of grace than they are in the state of sin.
The conflict in the minds of these characters seems to reflect to some extent the
conflict between religion and desire in Greene's own mind. Greene's pre - occupations with the
themes of sex and sin are an indication of the conflict in his mind between his modern ideas and his
belief in the teachings of traditional Catholic religion.
Greene also presents the paradox of the priest in The Power and the Glory, reaching
the selflessness which is required of the saint, through his sin. It is through his illegitimate child,
Brigitta , that the priest learns the power of love and the immense load of responsibility that all
parents feel in the matter of protecting their children against all evil and corruption in this world.
You only had to turn up the underside of any situation and out came scuttling these
small absurd contradictory situations. He had given way to despair and out of that
had emerged a human soul and love - not the best love, but love all the same. (128).
The whisky-priest has many of these characteristics of the sick soul. He feels an
extraordinary affection for the inmates of the prison. Then he remembers his illegitimate daughter
Brigitta , and prays to God for her salvation, he realizes that this is the love for every soul in the
world. He tries to
turn his brain away towards the half-caste, the Lieutenant, even a dentist he had
once sat with for a few minutes, the child at the banana station, calling up a long
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succession of faces, pushing at his attention as if it were a heavy door which
wouldn't budge. For those were all in danger too. He prayed, God help them (270).
The most significant of all the sources of suffering is that which
comes from the realization of the great distance between the actuality of man's
condition and the purity and splendour of the nature of God. The priest prays:
O God, forgive me -1 am a proud, lustful, greedy man. I have
loved authority too much. These people are martyrs -
protecting me with their own lives. They deserve a martyr to
care for them not a fool like me, who loves all the wrong
things (121).
Greene points out in these works that they are born to suffer in this world. Only
suffering can save us and only death can end our suffering. The novels of Greene are of loss and
suffering. He shows that he who avoids this glorious suffering shuts himself out from salvation and
wallows in selfishness. Greene approaches the problem of evil from the point of view of Christian
theology and the fact of suffering, evil and even sin. Evil is rooted in man himself and poses a
constant temptation to his worst inclinations, as well as a constant threat to his spiritual security.
There seems to be two causes for man's suffering; God's will and man's sin. The bad man suffers as
a punishment for his sin while the good man suffers as a test from god.
Christian religion teaches that pride is the fountain of all sins. Pride takes one away from
God and brings about ruin. This is the essential irony of sin. It is inevitable that failure to obey god's
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commandments will lead not only to disappointment but also to the deepest suffering, which is
alienation from god. Greene interprets human suffering leading to spiritual growth and creative
human service. In his novel they can see the characters discuss Catholic concepts like Sin and Grace,
Salvation and Damnation. Greene makes reference to some of the Catholic Concepts in his novels.
Man is aware of the divine, eternal God and he thinks that he is sure to be dammed. Though he
thinks like this he is unable to abstain from the sin of which he is aware.
The performance of his pastoral functions, his duties as a priest, only make worst his sense
of guilt and suffering. His state of mind is of a man, who believes in the reality of hell because evil
has entered his body. "A virtuous man can almost cease to believe in Hell, but he carried Hell about
with him sometimes at night he dreamed of it…….. Evil ran like Malaria in his veins (167).
One notable thing about the whisky-priest is that he harbours no llusions about himself. He
is constantly aware of the extent of his degradation, of being in a state of Mortal Sin. Yet, there is in
him, a positive longing for forgiveness and reconciliation with God, which issues forth in his
humility . His work in carrying out the work of a priest in a state, which has abolished religion and
God, has quite a significance in himself. The work of the priest in such a situation is dangerous,
since it can result in his death. This shows lat the priest, though propelled by pride has at the same
time a sense of duty to God and to the people who have been forced by a dictator to become
atheists. His mtinued practice of his vocation, makes himself a martyr, and a better man and a better
man and better priest than Padre Jose.
Padre Jose is a great coward. He is a counter foil of the whisky-est. He has been a priest
for forty years. Though a very humble priest once, he low become a coward and always lives in a
grip of the unforgivable sin, pair. He leads a life without proper respect. He is a ridiculous figure.
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He is inted by a sense of guilt for God. Like the Lieutenant, he also has an ospective mind and
thinks of his past and present. He considers himself only fit hell, and worse than the whisky-priest.
When Lieutenant comes to him with a lest to hear the whisky-priest's confessions, he does not
agree to the proposal. He is afraid of his wife and the state law. He suffers from a sense of
desolation and unworthiness. Padre Jose breaks the vow of celibacy by getting married at the age of
over sixty.
Thus, he lives in a life of Mortal Sin. whisky-priest committed fornication only once.
Padre Jose is fed and fattened by his wife like a prize boar, where as the whisky-priest leads a life of
austerity. He is afraid of dying in a state of Mortal Sin as he believes in a God and Christianity. The
Catholics believe that Christ conferred upon their Church the authority not only to teach his doctrines
but also to administer his sacraments. The sacraments are the channels through which he fruits of the
redemption are applied to the individual soul. The Catholics believe that the graces and fruits of the
redemption are applied through each of the seven sacraments to the soul of the individual. 'Baptism'
removes original sin; ‘Confession' forgives actual sin.
According to Christian doctrine to which Greene refers very frequently is that of "original
sin". Besides the original sin, there is actual sin lich they commit to them selves. Actual sin is of
two kinds, Mortal and Venial. Mortal sin is a grievous offence against the law of god. Venial sin is
a less serious offence against the law of god. God's mercy, even if it sometimes looks like
punishment, ahs no limits. Greene insists on the fact that they have no right to sit > judges in thus
matter. Greene repeatedly stresses the infinite mercy of god.
Greene believes in the Mysterious power of prayer. Faith can move mountains. The
prayers offered to God by the characters at some crucial moments in their lives are answered without
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fail. This happens in The Power and the Glory. The priest in The Power and the Glory is so
concerned with the future of his illegitimate daughter, Brigitta that he prays; "Oh god, give me any
kind of death without contrition, in a state of sin - only save this child". (103). The priest's death in a
sate of Mortal sin suggests that the first part of the prayer at lest is answered. They have to believe
that this perhaps is the means of redemption for his illegitimate child.
In The Heart of Matter. Greene describes very vividly Scobie's reluctance to go for the
communion and to take God in a condition of Mortal sin. He makes many excuses to Louise to
postpone the event. He even pretends have a pain in his chest to avoid going to communion. He
becomes aware "of the pale papery taste of his eternal sentence on the tongue" (217). When at last he
is forced by Louise to go to communion and to take God in his mouth in a state of Mortal sin.
Although the Holy Eucharist is a great mystery, and consequently beyond human understanding, it
exercises a very great effect on the mind of the believer. The believer sees, with a eyes of faith, Jesus
Christ in the Holy Eucharist. He feels that the Holy Eucharist is the body and the blood of Jesus
Christ. At every communion, the believer mystically experiences the divine grace which comes from
union with God.
On several occasions in his works, Greene has referred to the Catholic Concepts of the
resurrection of the dead, and immaculate conception. Greene feels that even though these may seen
improbable to modern man, these are among the central beliefs of Christianity. Greene often refers
to the Catholic belief in miracles. Greene's views adopt that a society that is untouched by Catholic
grace has abandoned charity and has put a spurious morality in its place.
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The pain of loss, the irony of human aspiration, the root of evil in the will of man - are
conceptions which are central to Christian theology. Greene has clearly drawn from its doctrines the
ideological bases for his portrayal of modern psychological concepts to throw light on the inner life
of his character.
The Lieutenant in The Power and The Glory believes in the totalitarianism state. He
would drive out everything that brought misery, poverty, superstition, and corruption in his state.
He thinks of the poor children around him.
They deserved nothing less than the truth a vacant universe and a cooling world, the right to
be happy in anyway they choose. He was quite prepared to make a massacre for their sakes-
Grst the Church and then the foreigner and then the politician-even his own chief would one
day have to go. He wanted to begin the world again with them, in a desert(70- 71).
Greene's sinning protagonists have full faith in Christ. In the whisky- priest it is not virtue that
appears as the opposite of sin but faith in God which is the opposite of sin. He above in the whole
land of Mexico upholds his faith in god. It is the priest's faith in God that perfects him in charity and
he sees body sanctified. The awareness of his sin leads him to god. Throughout his novel, the priest
is aware of his sin and his sense is guilt with remorse ful brooding. His fear and trembling, his
charity, his loyalty and his sacrifice establish his penitence which makes him turn towards god. The
priest comes to hear his confession, is true repentance. 'Tears poured down his face, he was not at the
moment afraid of damnation, even the fear of pain was in the background. He felt an immense
disappointment because he had to go to God empty handed with nothing done at all. He knew that at
the end there was only one thing that counted to be a saint. The priest's personal acknowledgement
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of guilt and responsibility, the acceptance of his destiny in a spirit of complete humility and
helplessness, the ay perhaps to trust fully in God and to reach Salvation is intended by to be a prelude
to the visitation of divine mercy.
Greene is of the belief that it is better to keep hold of the comfort provided by religion than be
disillusioned by the happiness based on materialism. He points out that man will be left with the
absence of belief in god. In The Power and the Glory,. Greene accepts the traditional Catholic views
on poverty and suffering in the place of the radical tendencies of his earlier works. The priest tells the
Lieutenant.
We have facts too, we don't try to alter - that the world unhappy whether you are rich
or poor — unless you are a saint and these aren't many of those. It's not worth
bothering too much about a little pain here (252).
Greene often condemns modern civilization with its deceptive gloss. He repeatedly shows
the sordidness that lies behind the outward show of civilization. In Brighton rock. Greene has made
use of every opportunity to introduce the macabre or squalid detail. Greene stresses the idea that
seediness is the true symbol of modern civilization. The maladjustments in society are the facts of
life rather than the so - called great achievements in which men put their trust, forgetting god, the
only reality.
The whisky-priest in The Power and the Glory is the last priest in the state, whether the
priest will be ultimately damned or forgiven by God and received in heaven his fellow priests
having been outlawed, killed or forced to marry, in a purge by a local dictator. The whisky-priest can
try to escape or he can live a married life which will then reveal the absurdity and hollowness of his
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former vocation. He can thus either save his soul or save his body. The whisky-priest reluctantly
stays on, but he constantly reminds himself that he is not worthy of the role of a martyr. If Christ is
his ideal, he sadly fails to live up to this high conception because he drinks to excess, has
begotten a child, and is not even sure th at he can practice his profession when fear overtakes
him; in brief he is, according to Greene, a sinner ready to achieve sainthood. Full of pride,
the whis ky- priest, like a hero in a Greek tragedy, is partially ennobled through doubts
suffering, and self- realization. The priest is made aware of the depths to which has fallen,
aware that the devil indeed contains the seeds of his attachment to god0 . This sinner not
only proves to be a true martyr but seems to qualify to a great exte nt even for the status of a
saint.
Greene emphasizes the priest's awareness of his own sinfulness. On his way to
Maria's village, for instance, the priest meditates upon his past l ife. He thinks of the past
few years of life which were marked by other sinful actions, other "Surrenders" as he calls
them Feast days and fast days and days and fast days and days of abstinence had been the
first to go; then he had ceased to bother about his breviary, then the altar - stone had gone
because he had found it too dangerous to carry with him even though he knew that he had
no business to say without it. He recalls also that five years ago he had given way to
despair- the unforgivable sin". He realizes the fact that he is a bad priest, a whisky -priest.
Maria is a woman who once slept with whisky - priest and became the mother of his
child. She has true love for the priest. When the priest appears at maria’s village, Maria
receives him well, and when he is under suspicion, she tells the Lieutenant that the whisky -
priest is her husband. The Lieutenant thus rests his d oubt, because the Catholic priest cannot be
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a married man, and hence he gives up the idea of arresting the priest. Maria is a practical woman
with no sentimental nonsense about her. She always calls a spade a spade. She is important in the
novel not only for saving the priest from the police capture but also for proving the whisky-priest's
fornication and fall. She is a character who wins our sympathy and admiration.
When the priest is traveling towards Carmen and has to spend a night at a hut in the
company of the Mestizo, he again gets into a meditative and reminiscent mood. He thinks of the
days of his prosperity at conception, when he used to be a very proud and self important man having
an in ordinate ambition. He then compares himself mentally to Padre Jose and thinks the latter to be
the better man of the two because of his humility. It seems to him that his very offer of his shirt to the
Mestizo has been prompted by a feeling of pride. Even his attempts at escape had beep halfhearted
because of his pride - the sin by which the angels fell. The priest tells that the people deserve a
martyr to care for them and not man like one who loves ail the wrong things.
In the prison where the priest has to spend a night on a charge of having been found in
possession of a bottle of having been found in possession of a bottle of brandy, they again find him
brooding upon his own worthlessness and sinfulness. He frankly tells his fellow - prisoners that he
is a bad priest and a bad man living in a state of mortal sin. When a female prisoner refers to him as
a martyr, he says that martyrs are not like him but that they are holy men. He says that he is not
only a drunkard, a whisky-priest, but that he has begotten a child. He then falls to thinking and
realizes that he is hardly in a position now to perform any spiritual duty, and that he is still afraid of
death.
The Mestizo is a half-caste. He has two teeth left in his mouth, and these are so prominent
that the novelist refers to them several times. He is cunning and tricky. He knows the real identity of
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the priest. He gives a false assurance of is goodwill to the priest that he has no evil motive, that he
himself is a good Christian, and that he is a reliable man, but the priest is convinced that the Mestizo
plans to betray him. The Mestizo turns up again when the priest, after having arrived in a village
where he is perfectly safe, is ready to proceed to the city of Lascasas where he proposes to start life
afresh as a priest. The Mestizo informs the priest that the American gangster who had been chased
by the police lies seriously wounded and would like to make a dying confession in a village, which
is not very far from here. The priest knows that he is going to hear the dying Yankee's confession
would mean risking his own safety, the Mestizo lures the priest back into the territory where he is
an out law. The police is waiting for priest to arrive, and after the priest has vainly urged the
Yankee to make a confession and the Yankee has died, the Lieutenant appears and takes the priest
into custody. Thus, the Mestizo is directly responsible for the capture of the priest. He is remarkable
for his betrayal. It is the Mestizo who brings the novel to its end and causes the priest's capture. He
is a thorough hypocrite and a traitor. He is a villan of the piece and deserves all contempt.
In the course of his conversation with the Lieutenant after he has been captured, the priest
frankly tells the police officer that he is a bad priest and that he is afraid to die. "But I am not a
saint. I am not even a brave man" (191). He says to the Lieutenant that he still has the authority to
offer god's pardon to person's who confess their sins to him. He then tells the lieutenant that he has
been guilty of pride which was largely the reason why he has stayed on in this country, at a great risk
to his life. "Because pride was at work all the time. Not love of god. Pride was made the angels fall. I
thought I was a fine fellow to have stayed when the others had gone" (191).
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He goes on to say that martyrs are not men like him. Indeed, the priest shows him self to be
his own worst accuser when he says : "But I do know this - that if there's ever been a single man in
this state damned, then I'll be damned too" (191). Thus, in his own judgment, the priest will be
damned for his sins
The priest's final assessment of himself is made during the last night in the prison before his
execution. He thinks of himself as a useless man who has done nothing for anybody. He experiences
an "immense disappointment because to go to God empty - handed, with nothing done at all". (191).
He feels like someone who has missed because happiness narrowly because, if he had exercised a
little self- restraint and shown a little courage, he could hare achieved the grace of god.
Luis is significant as a representative of the coming generation for which both the
Lieutenant and the priest are struggling. The Lieutenant is of the opinion that after the death of the
whisky-priest there would be nobody to function as a representative of God to carry on God's work.
In the beginning, Luis is sceptic about God and religion. He shows no interest in the religious story
which his mother is reading to him. His asking of questions perturbs his mother and shows his belief.
He also meets the Lieutenant and takes the interest in his revolver. Later he takes interest in Joan
and begins to hate the Lieutenant for having captured the whisky-priest. When he welcomes the new
priest, it is a kind of miracle. Greene himself says
More than the shadow of the priest should be there. It is the important to have the
dialogue of the new priest with the child to show the change of mind in the child
towards the dead priest whom he did not respect until his death, and also to indicate
that the Church goes on (191).

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The evidence would convict the priest of sinfulness and lead to his damnation. Greene
makes his own view in the matter even though he has delineated the character of the priest with a fair
degree of detachment. The priest is capable of great self — sacrifice, and he has in him the seeds of
true mortal greatness. In the opening chapter they find him giving up his plan to escape to safety
because he feels that he must remain in order to attend upon a dying woman and hear her confession.
Towards the close of the novel, we find him again deliberately spurning the golden opportunity to
start a new life in a safe country, and this time again he makes the sacrifice because he feels it more
important to go and hear the dying confession of a gangster, though he knows full well that the police
has laid a trap for him through the Mestizo. Thus his sense of priestly duty transcends all
considerations of personal comfort and personal safety. When, therefore, he is captured and
executed, the witness a true martyrdom.
The Mestizo is the most important character from the point of view of the story, and his role
is crucial. But for him, the priest could not have been captured, but for him the priest would have
gone to the city of Lascasas and begun a new life. It is therefore, the Mestizo who brings the crises
or the catastrophe in the novel and causes the priest's tragedy. However, if the priest had not been
captured the novel would have lost its meaning. Therefore from another point of view, the Mestizo
plays a constructive role. The fact, however, reminds that the Mestizo is Judas as the priest
repeatedly tells himself. The Mestizo is a thorough Hypocrite and a traitor. He is the villan of the
piece.
Greene shows, however, that man is not only doomed to sin, but is also capable of salvation.
God's infinite mercy turns even evil into good. God created man in his own image, "after his
likeness", and nothing can ever completely erase the image of God in man.
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It is like a birth - mark that cannot be rubbed out; it is our true self, never to be realised
fully in time, but always present even when concealed under superficial layers of
borrowed garments (79).
The same idea crosses the Priest's mind in the power and the glory when he sees the
religious persecution in Mexico. He thinks:
If God had been like a toad, you could have ridden the globe of toads, but when God
was like yourself; it was no good being content with stone figures you had to kill
yourself among the graves (130).
Sin implies a consciousness of God and only those who live permanently in the presence of
God can have a clear consciousness of sin. Greene repeatedly points out the nature of the sin. Sin is
an impediment to loving god. At the same time it can pave the way for greater love of god. Through
subsequent guilt, confession, and repentance it can finally perhaps lead to redemption. A Catholic
has this special knowledge always in his heart.
In the novel The Power and the Glory, the priest's sins are many chronic alcoholism
negligence in observing religious rituals, and worst of all begetting an illegitimate child. Still the
priest becomes a martyr in the end by dying for his Church and Greene leaves little doubt that he
ought to be considered a saint as well. At the moment of his execution, the Priest was not afraid of
damnation. He felt only an immense sense of failure. It seemed to him, at that moment, that it
would have been quite easy to be a saint. It would only have; needed a little self- restraint and a
little coverage. He felt like some one who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place.
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They may believe that the priest becomes a saint because of his repentance for his sins and also his
absolute resignation to god's will.
The good qualities in the priest wins our admiration and respect, There is, for instance, his
profound love for his child Brigitta and his deep concern about her future. This girl seems to him
more important than a whole continent, and he implores Maria to look after the child well. Then
there is almost spiritual bond which is somehow established between him and the teenage girl, Coral.
There is the tenderness and sympathy which he offers to the woman whose child has been wounded
by a bullet and dies. There is his appreciation of the goodness of the police Lieutenant who has been
chasing him. The theme of evil is, worked out through the elaborate portrayal of the whisky-priest.
But there are other examples of the evil in the novel also.
Greene believes that man by nature is not criminal and it is only the circumstance that makes
him so. In the concluding pages of the novel, Greene gives the opinion of Catholics in general and
also his opinion about redemption and damnation. The priest in the end of the novel tells rose that
Catholics are more capable of evil than anyone. "This is perhaps because they believe in god, and
they are more in touch with the devil than any other people". (BR 332). He also says that the
Catholic Church does not believe that any soul can be cut off from the mercy of god. To illustrate
the beginning mercy of god, the priest narrates the story of Charles Peguy, who could not bear to see
any body damaned and there fore violated the laws of the Church.
The central theme of the book The Power and the Glory is a prolonged chase of the priest,
by the Lieutenant. Thrice the priest meets the Lieutenant. First, in the village, secondly in the prison
and the third time at his final execution. The half caste, Mestizo forces him to attend to a dying
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solider, who is supposed to be a Catholic. The real motive of half- caste is revealed to the priest,
only when he goes there. But, however he gets arrested and finally executed.
The real battle between the forces of evil and good, takes place in the soul of the priest; in
his death, the evil is defeated and the forces of good transforms the whisky-priest a saint converting
even the boy Luis, the pious mother at this stage speaks of the priest not only as a martyr but also as
a possible saint, and the boy Luis is transformed from a sceptic and a mocker into an earnest believer
who receives the new priest with a deep reverence. The appearance of a new priest, symbolizing the
perpetuation of the religious spirit, and the boy's respectful reception of him, mark the final climax
in the novel, learning no doubt in our minds that the whisky-priest is intended by Greene to be a
hero, a martyr and a possible saint.
The whisky-priest is left with an option to marry or to leave the profession or to escape to
other states. But he stays in that state, being aware at every point of the depths to which he has
fallen. He is also aware of the fact that the devil has indeed entered his body and driven out god. But
Greene says that the very fact of denial of all the above choices contains the seeds of his attachment
to God himself. The priest not only proved to be a true martyr, but also to a certain extent, a saint,
because he sacrificed his life for God and other people.
Salvation or damnation is one of the main themes of the novel and this is worked out
through the character of the whisky-priest. But the case of a whisky - priest is a striking example of
the spiritual enrichment that may follow a life of sin and suffering. The great sufferings of the priest
teach him humility and love. Only through his sin, the priest reaches the selflessness which is
required for a saint. It is through his illegitimate child, Brigitta , that the priest learns the power of
love.
344
The Catholic references is found when the priest tells the Lieutenant that it is his pride that
made him to settle in that state, in spite of the threats. They can say that it is the pride, though it is a
sin, which helped the priest to stay in the
state and perform his duties. Though he is fully aware that pride is the work of all sins, he is still
proud of being the only priest in the state. It is one of his
weaknesses, for which he regrets in the end.
Repenting of his past evils, the priest thinks that if he had exercised a little self restraint and
shown a little courage, he could have received the grace of god. But Greene's views in that matter
is that despite all the priest's weaknesses and short comings, the priest redeems himself in our eyes
and also in heaven's eyes. In his prosperous days he was proud and arrogant still, in spite of all
these, he truly believed in God's mercy.
The priest performs his duties faithfully. He never fails to respond to
the call of duty. Even the lieutenant is so struck by the sincerity and t h e
convictions of the priest that he goes out of his way not only to provide him with
brandy, but also to make an effort to bring Padre Jose to hear the priest's
confession.
The whisky — priest gets arrested, while doing his religious duties, which he was not legally
allowed to do. He hears confessions, say mass, Christian children etc while traveling to various
places. He is very keen to hear confessions of people at their death - beds and because of this
dedication he goes to the bed -side of a Catholic soldier who is dying. As a result, he gets arrested.
He makes a vain attempt to confess his past evils. This incident makes us to believe, that it is his
sense of duty that leads to his end.

345
Greene, in his novels, treats religion in a secular way with having some references to
Roman Catholic beliefs and their rituals. Among those, the lost primary one is "the absolution of
sins through confessions". (40). A sinner /ho confesses his sins to a priest, is thought to be absolved
of his sins, that is, he is forgiven by god. Confession while dying is considered to be very essential to
save a man from damnation. A reference to this is found in the case of the whisky-priest who hurries
to hear confession from a dying soldier and gets caught by the police.
Graham Greene deals with the main Roman Catholic beliefs and rituals that were found in
Greene's works. A Roman Catholic priest has to take "a vow of celibacy". He must not marry and
he must have no intimate relations with any woman. Bu the whisky-priest as a Catholic priest did
not follow this rule. His wrong relationship with a woman called Maria resulted in the birth of a
child. later he was arrested. He attempts vainly to confess these sins of his.
Another reference to the Roman Catholic doctrine is the reference to ‘the mortal sin'. This
is actually the sin of a very serious kind, such as fornication and its spiritual death. The whisky
- priest repeatedly says that he is living in a state of mortal sin. The "act of contribution"
is also one of the imperative du ties among Roman Catholics which means 'to repent for
one's sins'. The priest repents for his past evil actions.
'Breviary' is a religious book from which the portions are recited by
a priest for various purposes. The whisky -priest had been carrying a bre viary for
sometime, but he gave it up because of the fear of discovery. The term 'mass' occurs in
several places in the novel. It refers to the religious ceremony which is a kind of thanks
346
giving and prayer. The priest arrived in a village, where the villa ges needed a priest badly
in order to 'baptise' a boy and to say mass'. After doing this, he departs from that village.
Greene frequently refers to the Christian doctrine 'one soul can a tone for
another'. By suffering for another, one can earn redemption for others. The whisky -
priest's sacrifice has not been in vain. Even through he is executed another priest takes
his place. The Lieutenant tries his best to capture the priest and to wipe out religion
from the state. But it is religion that triumphs in the end.
Though the whisky-priest is executed, his prayer to god, asking him to send
some - one who is more worthwhile than himself to endure the suffering is answered, and
another priest takes his place. Thus the very victory of the lieutenant over the Churc h
proves to be the lieutenant's defeat.
The whisky-priest sacrifices himself for the people he serves. "He had a great love for
god. His love extends even to the half caste..." (PG 269). The relationship between the priest and the
Mestizo is a close parallel to the Christ -Judas theme. "As Christ was aware of the Mestizo's yet
none rebukes the betrayer". (His mind and art) P.60. though the priest is not a fully realised human
being, he is a 'a good man' in the novel which portrays the world of evil.
The lieutenant wants to wipe out from the state, everything connected with religion. But
the very intensity of his hatred for religion makes is to suspect that 'belief still lingers in his own
mind, in spite of all his desperate efforts to eradicate it. Unless a man believes in the existence of a
thing, he will not hate that so much. The Lieutenant loses the unshakable conviction in his ideas, and
the boy Luis is turned towards the Church by the martyrdom of the priest.
347
In The Power and the Glory. Greene pictures a situation, "Where
religion is prohibited and only cruelty, corruption and evil prevail in the land,
along with crime, lust and unhappiness" (44). This novel is set in a world of sin
and suffering and shows the condition of the protagonist, who is leading towards
his ultimate sanctification. The faith of the whisky-priest, not with standing' his
sin, is a scintillating evocation of man's faith, it is the awareness and belief in love
of God that makes the sinful redeemed. According to Greene, the pain of sin is a
means to the ultimate salvation.
The Priest is fully aware of his evils and sins and is unable to do any thing to save himself
from the impending damnation. It is only the unshakable faith in the mercy of the lord that saves him
from the sin of despair. He is depressed, but they are made to realise that the Lord is near him.
Greene takes pains to make it clear that the Priest, had any other admirable qualities like unshakable
faith in God, immediately attending to people's call etc., but still physically, he is a coward. The
whisky-priest, indulges in doing good to others having a strong belief in god. He is ready to suffer for
the sake of others. He is such a curious amalgam of good and evil, and is not an easy task to label
him.
For Greene sin and evil are closely related and human life comprises of both good and evil.
Greene deals with nature of human life in his novels. According to Greene, man not only commits
sin but also makes up for his sins by repentance. Greene writes as a sensitive catholic, for whom the
moral law exists. Some do not agree with Greene's views on sin and redemption, they consider him
as the pearl which is inimitable to the oyster, just as he is to the Church.

348
The preoccupation with the theme of evil and good rather than the problem of right and
wrong is recurrent in his novels. In the words of Trivedi "evil permeated the novels, there is hardly
any good" (800). Greene presents the theological beliefs with a significant difference. He also points
out with great psychological insight into the minds of his Catholic characters as a result of the
consciousness of their guilt. It seems that Greene believes that it is God's justice that is predominant
in all man's actions.
The action of any character is a part of the total; pattern of the plot slowly unfolds itself.
The whole motif is complex bordering the rational mind. Most of Greene's novels are apparently
based on Catholic dogmas and beliefs on sin and the presence of god, with grace even in this
rationalistic age. Greene pictures God as one who can still perform miracles even in the modern
world.
The novel is directly concerned with the issue of salivation and damnation. The hero of
the novel is a week priest who has broken the rules of the Church by fathering a daughter and by
having formed that habit of drinking. Greene shows almost with eager care how unworthy this man
is to be final representative of the Church in a province cleared of priests. He is condemned and
scolded, he faces humiliation. Captain fellows calls his act of begging brandy "shameless". His
mistress Maria virtually forces him to go out of her village and rebukes him: the sooner you are
dead the better. Yet he gets salvations through sacrifice and suffering; he dies the death of the
martyr.
In the above attempt, Greene has to satisfy two conflicting options. The Catholic dogmas
are looked upon as Greene's attempts to convert the non-Catholics. The Catholic feels that he has
been fully successful in presenting the Catholic concepts. Greene's presentation of Catholicism is
349
not merely a public system of laws and dogmas. It is in fact, a privately worked out system of ideas
and concepts. In novel after novel, Greene says the message that 'god is not dead' by picturing the
mercy of God worked out in a mysterious way.
Greene believes that then is no other suffering as great as the suffering from guilty
conscience. He also says that if a person regrets for his past evil deeds, he will attain salvation,
moreover, that greater the suffering, the greater he is nearer to god. For more beaten gold becomes
more flexible. Marine Beatrice Mesnet also points out that "man is not only doomed to sin, but is also
capable of salvation". (78). The main theme of The Power and the Glory is sin and salvation, and the
novel demonstrates that God's glory is more powerful and permanent than man's or state's power.
4.8 Let us Sum Up
The section on fiction gives us a clear idea of the change in society and the character are life
like. The clash of ideals in the society is reflected in the characterization and plot construction. This
enables the students to make critical comments and comparative studies.
4.9 Lesson-end Activities
1. Attempt an analysis of Hardy’s plot construction.
2. Attempt a comparative study of the characters of Oak and Troy.
3. Comment on Hardy’s symbolic use of light and dark in “Far from the madding crowd”.
4. Attempt a character sketch of Bathsheba.

350
5. The power and the glory is a story pursuit – Elucidate.
6. Analyse Green’s view on evil and sin with reference to “The power and the glory”.
7. Analyse the character of the “Whisky Priest”
8. Analyse the role of character in “The Power and the Glory”.
4.12 Points for discussion
1. Hardy is a master story teller – Elucidate.

2. Comment on Hardy’s Style.
3. Comment on the themes of Greene’s “The Power and the Glory”
4. Comment on characterization in the Power and the Glory.

351
UNIT V
CRITICISM
Contents
5.1 THE SCEPTRE AND TORCH
5.2 I.A.RICHARDS - FOUR KINDS OF MEANING.
5.3 POINTS TO REMEMBER
5.4 LET US SUM UP
5.7 References

By studying this unit the student learns about the critical theories that can be applied to judge the
literature of the age.
CRITICISM - HELEN GARDNER
5.1 THE SCEPTRE AND TORCH
I. The professions of a critic – criticism has became professionalized. It is the accent of someone
who feeds himself to speak with the authority which a certain discipline or training gives. A
certain severity and sensuousness reigns. The amateur in being squeezed out in every field by the
immense extensions of knowledge. Problems which did not exist for Johnson confront the
modern critic.
A critic can find it only too easy to defer making up this mind while he studies what is
ironically called ‘the literature of the subject’. The discipline of literary criticism seems
352
uncertain. Three questions are answered. Like law and medicine are professions, but criticism is
not one – if is an art, although a minor one.
The primary critical act is a judgements, the decision that a certain price of writing has
significance and value. The critic’s functions then is to assist his readers to find the value which
he believes the work to have. Taste differs, but the greatness of a work is decided by time. King
hear – has long ago passed the test of ‘length of duration and continuance of esteem’. All the
works cannot stand the test of time.
The rudiment of criticism according to T. S. Eliot is the ability to choose a good and
reject a bad poem. In Johnson’s allegory in the third number The Rambler criticism is the eldest
daughter of labor and truth. Justice bestowed a scepter upon her, to be held in her right hand,
with which she could comfort importability or obvious. In her left hand. She bore an
inextinguishable torch, manufactured by labor and lighted by truth. But confused she wanted the
support of time. Before returning to heaven she broke her sceptre – one and was seized by
Flattery and the other by malevolence.
So the young should be daring and inventive and should rejoice in their inventions, even
though correctness and severity are still to be acquired true personal discrimination or taste
develops slowly and probably best unconsciously. Knowledge begins in wonder and wonder will
find and develop its our proper discipline.
The torch rather than the scepter would be Helen Gardner’s symbol for the critic.
Elucidation or illumination is the critics primary task. Any obstacle which prevents the work
having its fullest possible effect must be removed. The beginning of the discipline of literary
353
criticism lies in the recognition of the work of art’s objective existence as the product of another
mind, which exists not to be used but to be understood and enjoyed. There should be liberty of
interpretation, all art, including contemporary art is historical. Attempts have been made in this
century to ignore these truisms or to depreciate their importance’s. If a poem of Donne is to be
learnt Donne’s by itself actually knew a good deal about Donne and the history and literature of
his age, I. A. Richards undertook the experiment of presenting poems by ‘themselves’, so
practical criticism was introduced.
Proper use of historical and biographical information must be made by the critic. When
we are unfamiliar with the art of epoch all its products tend to seem alike. As Milton said books
are not absolutely dead things. Although much biographical information why be irrelevant, the
critical cannot afford to be ignorant of facts which may assist him to learn the habit of an
author’s mind or the circumstances in which a work was written. Biographical knowledge can
sharpen the sense of the work’s objective existence.
The new critics have rejected the historical aspect of a work of art. But according to
Helen Gardners, the ultimate and of scholarship and literary history and biographical study is the
assistance it will give to the elucidation of a work of art.
All the works of Shakespeare should be read. The discovery of works centre, the source
of its life in all its parts and response to its total movement is to Helen Gardner is the purpose of
critical activity. Helen Gardner says for my own sake and not for any other purpose, that I hold
up the torch, manufactured by labour and lighted, I hope by and truth .
5.2 I.A.RICHARDS - FOUR KINDS OF MEANING.

354
A study of Richard’s practical criticism. A study of literary judgment reveals that Richards is a
staunch advocate of a close textual and verbal study and analysis of a work of art. Similar
interest in the study of words is revealed in his books meaning of meaning. Total meaning of a
poem is combination of several contributory meanings of different types – sense, feeling, tone
and intention.
Sense means to make reference to something’s, that is when the writer says something he
wants to direct his hearer’s attention upon some state of affairs, to present to them some items for
consideration and to excite in them some thoughts about some thoughts about these items.
Feelings refers to the feelings of the writer or speaker about these items, about the sate of
affairs he is referring to, He has an attitude towards it, some special direction , bias or
accentuation of interest towards it some personnel favour of coloring of it, and he uses languages
to express these feelings, this announce of interest.
Tone means the attitude of the writer towards his readers, the writer or the speaker
chooses and arranges the words differently as his audience varies, in automatic or deliberate
recognition of his relation to them.. We may distinguish between the tone of authority in some
persons when speaking to their subordinated or inferiors and the tone of friendship when
sparking to their equals. Besides all these things, the speaker’s intension or aim, conscious or
unconscious should also new taken into account. Ordinary the speaker speaks with a purpose and
his purpose modifies his speech. The understanding of its part of the whole business of
apprehending his meaning. Unless we know what he is trying to do, we can hardly estimate the
measure of his success. We may distinguish here between the inflammatory speeches of the
political readers where the aim is to excite the listeners and classroom lectures when the aim is to
355
make certain things intelligible to the students. No one function among these functions differ in
different types of writings. Only this much can be said that generally sense predominates in the
scientific language and feelings in the poetic language.
Richards says “ Originally language may have been almost purely emotive, that is to say
a means of expressing feelings about situations a means of expressing impersonal attitudes ,and a
means of bringing about concerned action. In poetry affects feelings, the statements in poetry are
there as a means to manipulation and expression of feelings and attitudes. Hence we must avoid
an intuitive readings and also an over literal reading of poems words in poetry have an emotive
value and figurative language used by poets conveys those emotions efficiently and forcefully.
Words also acquire a rich associative value through their use by different poets in
different contexts. The contest in which a word has been used is all important. “Words have
different meanings in different contexts. Words are symbols or signs and they deliver their fully
meaning only in a particular context. They work in association and within a particular contest.
He writes “A context is a set of entities related in a certain way, these entitles have each a
character such that other sets of entities occur having the same charters and related by the same
ration. And these occur nearly uniformly. Meaning is dependent on context but his context may
not always be apparent and easily perceptible. Literary compositions are characterized by rich
complexity in which certain links are suppressed for concentration or effective and forceful
expression. Frequent mention is therefore made of the “Missing context” and ambiguity. In
ordinary blemishes in writing but in poetry or even in artistic prose they are a source of
embellishment and a means of effective communication of meaning. The literacy is expected to

356
understand and expand the content so that the odium may become intelligent and its full value
may be grasped.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. Sense and feelings hava a mutual
dependence. The sound of a works has much to do with the feeling it evokes. First it may arise
from the meaning and be governed by it. The feeling is the result of grasping the meaning.
Secondly the meaning arises from the feeling evoked. Thus the word ‘gorgeous first generate a
feeling from its sound. Thirdly sense and feeling may be related because of the context. A
complete poem can influence a single word or phrase contained in it either through the feelings
or thought the sense. The feelings already occupying the mind limit the possibilities of the new
words. This is because words are ambiguous in themselves and they acquire new meanings when
they are charged with feelings. Hence Richards argues that we need one careful reading to find
the meaning and another to grasp the feeling.
The meaning of words is also determined by rhythm admire Rhythm results from the
repletion of particular sounds and the expectancy this repetition arouses in the mind. Meter is a
specialized form or rhythm. It is rhythm made more regular and cast into set and well formed
pattern. Both rhythm and meter are organic and integral parts of a poem, for they both determine
the meaning of the words used by the poets. For they both determine the meaning of the words
used by the poets. Richards remark in this occasion are interesting and deserve to be quoted in
their entirety.
“Rhythm and its specialized form, meter, depends upon repetition and expectancy.
Equally where what is sported recurs and where it fails all rhythmical and metrical effects spring
from anticipation as a rule this anticipation is unconscious sequences of syllables both as sounds
357
and as images of speech movements leave the mind ready for certain further sequences rather
than to another, just as the eye reading print unconsciously expects the spelling to as usual, and
the fount to type to remain the same, the mind after reading a line or two of verse or half a
sentence of porse prepares itself ahead fro any one of a number of possible sequences at the
same time negatively incapacitating itself for others.
“we may turn now to that more complex and more specialized form of temporal rhythmic
sequence which is known as meter. This si the means by which words may be made to influence
one another to the greatest possible extend. In metrical reading the narrowness and definiteness
of expectancy, as such unconscious as ever in most cases is very greatly increased reaching in
some cases, if Rhyme also used, almost exact precession, Future more what is becomes through
the regularity of the time intervals in meter virtually dated. This is no mere matter of more or less
perfectly correspondence with the beating of some internal metronome” Rhythm meter and
meaning cannot be separated they form together a single system. They are not separate entities
but organically related. Therefore a paraphrase or an over literal reading can never convey the
total meaning of a poem.
Successive readings are necessary to understand the poetic meaning; poetic truth is
different from scientific truth. It is a matter of emotional belief rather than intellectual belief. It is
not a matter of versification, but of attitude and emotional reaction.
For the purpose of communication the use of metaphoric language is all important. “A
Metaphor is a shift, a carrying over of a word from its normal use to a new use”. Metaphor may
be of two kinds.
358
1. Sense- metaphors.
2. Emotive metaphors.
In a sense – metaphor the shift is due to a similarity or analog between the original object and
the new one. In an emotive metaphor the shift is due to a similarity between the feelings the
new situation and the normal situation arouse. The same word in different contexts may be a
sense metaphor or an emotive one.
“Metaphor” says Richards is a semi –sureties method by which a greater variety of
elements can be brought into the fabric of the experience. With the help of a metaphor. The
writer can crowd into the poem much more than would be possible otherwise. The
metaphorical meaning arises from the inter reactions of sense, tone, feeling and intentions.
“A Metaphor is a point at which many different influences may cross or unite. Hence its
dangerous in prose discussions and its treacherousness fro careless readers of poetry. But
hence at the same time, its peculiar qusi- magical sway in the hands of a master certain
conjunctions of metaphors through their history partly and through the collocation of
emotional influence that by their very ambiguity they effect have a power over our minds
that nothing else can excerpt or perpetrate.
5.3 Points to remember
1. Richards an advocate of a close textual and verbal study of a work of art.
2. Words are very important for communication have four kinds of meaning-sense feeling,
tone and intension.
3. Sense means to make reference to something.

359
4. feelings means the emotions of the writer.
5. Tone means the writer towards his readers.
6. Intention means the writer’s object
7. In poetry language returns to primitive condition.
8. words in poetry have an emotive value and figurative language used by poets conveys
those emotions effectively and forcefully. The context in which words are used is very
important words have different meanings in different contexts.
9. Rhythms and meter also plays a role in commutating meaning, hence a prose paraphrase
or an over literal reading can never convey the total meaning of a poem.
10. Successive reading of a poem are necessary to understand the poetic meaning, poetic
truth is different from scientific belief. The latter Intellectual.
11. For the purpose of communication the use of metaphoric language is important.
Metaphors are of two kinds sense and emotive metaphors.
5.4 LET US SUM UP
By learning these essays the candidate is prepared for the research work in future ,since these
essays help to interpret a work of Literature in the right perspective. These texts will also enable
the student to attempt an analysis of stylistic features.
1. The torch is symbol for the critic – Explain with reference to Helen Gardner.
2. Comment on the importance of Historical and Biographical information with
reference ot Helen Gardner’s “The Scepter and the Torch”.\
3. What are I.A.Richards’s Views on practical criticism ?
360
4. Write a note on the importance of the study of words for the evaluation of a poem
5. Discuss Richards as a staunch advocate of a textual and verbal study of a work of
art.
6. Summaraize the main ideas of I.A.Richards on Rhythm : Metre, Mutaphor and
Meaning.
7. Explain various kinds of meanings envisaged By I.A.Richards.
1. Comment on Helen Gardner’s symbol of Torch and scepter in literary analysis.
2. I A. Richards is the father of Modern criticism - Elucidate.

361
5.7 References
1. A critical study of the Great odes by Dr. Raghukul Tilak
2. Twentieth century views – Grahman Greene a collection of critical essays
3. Graham Greene – A study – Dr. K. S. Subramaniam
4. Six English poets – Macmillan’s Annotated classics edited by V. Sachithananadam
5. Pygmation – Show by Margery Morgan
6. Far from the madding crowed Thomas Hardy by Barabara Murray
7. Carbyle’s Hero as Poet by A. Chalapati Rao M.A.,
8. Modern Poetry by Naraian’s English Literature
9. Cabridge selected poems ed. By Dr. R.L. Varshey
10. Keats selected poems by Narain’s English literature
11. Joys of Poetry by Biyat Kesh Tripathy
12. Lyrical Ballads by A.N. Parasuram. M.A
13. The Golden Quill – An Anthology of Poetry ed. By P.K. Seshadri
14. Inside the whale and other essays by R.L. Varshney
15. Principles and history of literary criticism – Dr. Varshney

362
PRIMARY TEXTS
POETRY-
Five centuries of Poeyry-Ed.by Dr. C.N.Ramachandran&
Dr.Radha Archar –Mangalore University .
The Faber Book of Modern Verse-Ed.by Michael Roberts .
The Winged Word – An Anthology of Poems for Degree Course .
Ed . by David Green ,B.A.(LONDON)
PROSE-
Essays of Orwell,Ed .by M.G.Nayar- Macmillan.
Wordsworth – Preface to the Lyrical Ballads –English Critical Text –E.Chickera .
Thomas Carlyle –Hero as Poet –On Heroes and Hero worship – Carlyle-(Macmillan)
Drama-
Shaw – Pygmalion-Modern Plays for Students –Oxford University Press .
Osborne – Look Back in Anger –Faber and Faber .
Fiction –
Thomas Hardy – Far from the Madding Crowd – Macmillan College Classics .
Graham Greene –The Power and the Glory –Macmillan College Classics .
Criticism –
Helen Gardner-The Sceptre and the Torch –Critical Essays on English Literature .-
V.S.Sethuraman .
I.A.Richards – Four Kinds of Meaning – Critical Essays on English Literature –
V.S.Sethuraman .
363
BHARATHIYAR UNIVERSITY
DISTANCE EDUCATION –M.A-ENGLISH LITERATURE .
Paper –II – British Literature –II(Romantic age to Modern Period )
Time- 3 hrs . Marks -100.
ANSWER ANY FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING .
ALL QUESTIONS CARRY EQUAL MARKS .
1 . Bring out the salient features of Romanticism as seen in Wordsworth or Coleridge
or Keats or Shelley .
2 .Attempt a critical appreciation of Easter 1916 by W. B .Yeats .
3 .Give an account of Orwell’s contribution to e English Prose through his Essays .
4 .Give an account of Carlyle’s views on Dante and Shakespeare .
5.Comment on the role played by Professor Higgins in Shaw’s ‘ Pygmalion’ .
6. Justify the title ‘ Far From the Madding Crowd ’.
7. Sum up I.A.Richard’s views in ‘ Four Kinds of Meaning ‘ .
8. ‘Helen Gardner preferred the Torch than the Sceptre in Criticism’-Elucidate .
………………………………………………………………………………………
364
BHARATHIYAR UNIVERSITY
DISTANCE EDUCATION –M.A-ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Paper –II- British Literature –II(Romantic age to Modern Period )
Time-3hrs Marks-100.
ANSWER ANY FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING .
ALL QUESTIONS CARRY EQUAL MARKS .
1 . Comment on ‘The Willing Suspension of Disbelief ’as built by Coleridge in ‘Kubla
Khan’.
2 . Consider Keats as a great writer of Odes .
3. Give an account of ‘The English Character ’as portrayed by George Orwell in his Essays
4. Comment on the views of Wordsworth on Poetic Diction .
5. Attempt a critical appreciation of the angry young men portrayed by Osborne in his Look
Back in Anger .
6. Justify the title ‘The Power and the Glory ‘ by Graham Greene .
7. Sum up Helen Gardner ‘s ideas of Criticism as given in ‘The Sceptre and the Torch ‘.
8. Give an account of I.A.Richard’s views on ‘Four Kinds of Meaning ‘ .
……………………………………………………………………………….

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DISTANCE EDUCATION –M.A.ENGLISH LITERATURE –STUDY MATERIAL .

PAPER.II.BRITISH LITERATURE.II (ROMANTIC AGE TO MODERN PERIOD)

1.0. Aims and Objectives.

or general question based on the prescribed poems.

1.1 Detailed Study

WORDSWORTH-LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TITERN ABBEY.

LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE

Five years have passed; five summers, with the length

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion: and connect

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owned to them,

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul;

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We sec into the life of things.

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again;

While here 1 stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led—more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads than one