Dr.M.Mazumdar

1) Characteresitics of Victorian Poetry: In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from June 1837 until her death on January 1901. The Poetry written in England during this phase is referred to as Victorian poetry. The most prolific and well- regarded poets of the age include Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold. The Victorian age was an age of material prosperity. The British Empire spread far and wide during the rule of Queen Victoria. Naturally, the Victorians became highly complacent. The age refers to contradictory qualities of the mind and the spirit. It was outwardly materialistic but inwardly also guided by a deep spiritual vitality. This period was marked by the tremendous cultural upheaval. There were a drastic change and development in the form of literature, art and music. Although the Victorian Poetry was quite different from that of the preceding era, yet there were s...

Emerging discourses on North-East India encompass debates on the region's integration and contestations, identity and autonomy, national and regional political dynamics, developmental challenges, and the socio-cultural impact of globalization on tribal identities. Key Themes in Emerging Discourses History of Integration and Contestations: Scholars and policymakers revisit colonial and post-colonial governance experiments and militant movements in North-East India, highlighting the region's contested integration with the Indian mainland and peacebuilding efforts . Identity, Autonomy, and Citizenship: Discussions focus on complex ethnic identities and aspirations for autonomy among various tribal groups. Citizenship issues, magnified by policies like NRC and CAA, shape ongoing debates . Political Shifts: The rise of the BJP-led regime since 2014 has influenced the federal structure and regional political power, affecting the representation and dynamics of North-East India in nati...

Periodisation of Neoclassicism (1660-1790) In England, Neoclassicism flourished roughly between 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, and the 1798 publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, with its theoretical preface and collection of poems that came to be seen as heralding the beginning of the Romantic Age. NEOCLASSICISM Definition ● Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism; from Greek ‘nèos,’ "new" and Greek ‘klasikόs,’ "of the highest rank") was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. ● The writers of the age consciously adopted the genres and conventions of ancient literature and applied ideas and techniques derived from the classics to their own literary practice. ● Neoclassical writers modeled their works on classical texts and followed various aesthetic values first established in Ancient Greece a...

The 1950s was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959. The Movement was a term coined in 1954 by J. D. Scott, literary editor of The Spectator, to describe a group of writers namely Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, Thom Gunn, Robert Conquest, and John Holloway.  The Movement was quintessentially English in character; poets from other parts of the United Kingdom were not involved. It has been a small group of young, lower-middle-class, anti-experimental writers. It saw the rise of backlash against modernism and against New Romanticism and can be seen as an aggressive, sceptical, patriotic backlash against the cosmopolitan elites of the 1930s and 1940s. The poets in the group rejected modernism, avant-garde experimentation, romanticism and the metaphorical fireworks of poets such as Dylan Thomas. Their verse was ironical, down to earth, unsentimental and rooted in a nostalgic idea of English ident...

The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the cavalry charge of the same name at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story. Tennyson was an English poet who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign. The Charge of the Light Brigade was a military action undertaken by British light cavalry against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, resulting in many casualties to the cavalry.  The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily & Piedmont was appanage or grant of the County of Savoy of Holy Roman Empire)  from October 1853 to February 1856. The Charge of the Light Brigade” was written ...

Rabindra Nath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, India. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful” poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore’s poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his “elegant prose and magical poetry” remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is the person who gave the national anthem of India and Bangladesh. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair- Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are some of his best known works. This essay "The Religion of the Forest" and his work on "Tapovan," Rabindranath Tagore advocates for ...

Booker T. Washington was a well known Negro leader of the United States of America. He was born in a poor family in 1856. Being poor and black he had to stuggle hard for his education and progress. He was a good writer and famous orator. His two autobiographies brought him much fame. These are : Up from slavery (1901), and My larger education (1911). He breathed his last in 1913.  The writer of this lesson was a poor negro boy. He worked in a coal mine. But he had a strong desire for education. So he managed to seek admission to a good school in Hampton. The present lesson is an autobiographical piece narrating the hardships the author had to face while working to fulfil his aspirations of progress. "My Struggle for an Education" is an autobiographical narrative by Booker T. Washington, detailing his journey to obtain an education, which began with his efforts to earn money in salt furnaces and coal mines before walking to and attending the Hampton Institute in Virginia, wher...

Neo - Marxists: Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Frankfurt Scholar's Herbert Mercuse (One-dimensional Man: Consumer culture makes us obedient) & Cultural critic Raymond Williams: Culture is the class-struggle and ideologies.

1. Discuss Eliot's assimilation of individual talent of a poet with tradition. 2. What view of literary merit does Eliot seem to be arguing against? What does he propose as an alternative? 3. What does he mean by "tradition"? How can we tell what is traditional? What relationship should the writer have to the writings of the past? 4. Does Eliot believe that art is progressive? If not, how does it change? What limitations should the writer avoid in his use of the past? 5. What kind of art does Eliot seem to admire? What may be inferred from the fact that all the examples chosen are poetry? 6. What are the qualities of Eliot's style? What may be some reasons for the longstanding influence of his essays? 7. What context may be suggested for Eliot's views by the fact that he was an American expatriate in England who published this essay in 1919? 8. Are there any implications to Eliot's repeated use of "he" to describe the poet, or is this just common pra...