Novel

Main tendencies in modern English novelThe modern age is essentially the age of the nov-

el. The novel has gained an ascendancy over other artforms in the modern age. The great writers of the periodare Henry James, Samuel Butler, John Galsworthy, Ar-nold Bennet, Joseph Conrad, H.G.wells - they are tech-nically known as the Edwardians, (Edward VII). In theGeorgian period there are J.B. Priestley, Hugh Walpole,Somerset Maughom, Frank Swinnerton etc. Gpaham,Greene, Ivy Burnett, Henry Green are the prominent postwar novelists.

The 20th century novelists have laid great stresson the art form of the novel. They rejected the irrelevan-cies of the victorians, their moralisings and direct appealto the dear reader of the story. These novels have a com-pactness of their own. In the first decades of the 20thcentury, the novel was mainly confined to the discus-sion of problems confronting in social life. The Edward-ian novel was essentially "a novel of ideas", including inits scope a free discussion of all kinds of ideas, scientific,social, political, industrial and so on. The 'Edwardiannovelists considered it to be a sin to escape into a worldof romance and Psychology when the gaping wounds ofsocial life were clamouring for reform and healthy treat-ment e.g. H.G. Wells 'John and Peter, The history of Mr.Polly, Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga.

The 29th century novels were coloured with thetouch of realism. H.G. Wells realistically presented thesorrows and sufferings of draper's assistants in 'Kipps'and 'Mr. Polly'; George Moore, an Irish novelist made arealistic study of the poorer classes in our society in 'AModern Lover', Sprang Days etc. John Galsworthy pre-sented Victorian materialism and lust for poetry is 'For-syte Saga'.

Against this realism stands the tendency for thecriticism of material values, and a love for romance andadventure. Aldous Huxley exposes postwar disillusion-ment and immorality in 'Yellow Crome'. E.M. Forster's'Howards End'. is a bitter attack on the business mindand the worship of business in industrialised England.

Among the writers who popularised romance, Conrad,Kipling, Flaggard, Hewlett were prominent. J.M. Barrieand Kipling were romancers of a different sort.

During the Georgian period, a new tendency cen-tred around glorification of sex and primal human emo-tions and passions. In this respect the works ofD.H.Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Maugham and J. Joyceneeds special mention. These novelists treat of the phys-ical side of sex in a blunt, matter of fact manner withoutattempting to hide the naked facts. In the years ad-vanced, the psychological tendency became more pro-nounced in English fiction. A new technique was de-veloped 'the stream of consciousness' which was culti-vated by William James, Dorothy Richardson, JamesJoyce and Virginia Woolf. They laid extreme emphasison subjectivism and the passive states on the mind.Transitions are sudden, and progression is hampered.They followed the expressionist techniques of present-ing the characters.

Closely allied with this trend is the science fiction.The very texture of the novel has been modified by thenovelist's scientific exactness of observation and scru-pulous regard for details. H.G.Well's Time Machine, TheInvisible Man are saturated in scientific Love. Huxley'sThe Brave New world is written under the influence ofBehaviourism or Determinism.

Detective Fiction, popularised by Arthur ConanDoyle in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, followedby G.K. Chesterton, Edgar Wallace, Dorothy sayersand Agatha Christie. The Father Brown stories of G.K.Chesterton are very popular. One prominent trend inmodern fiction is the growth of regionalism which hadbeen set in vogue by the Wessex novel of Hardy. Bio-graphical novels and novels dealing with family life havealso won recognition.

The future of the novel cannot be ascertained withany definiteness. The modern age is dominated by politicsand science. The quality of a work of a fiction depends onthe quality of thought of times in which it is written.

r The modern age is the age of

- Novel

TWENTIETH CENTUR Y LITERA TURE

r The Edwardians are

- Henry James, Samuel ButlerJohn Galsworthy, ArnoldBennet, Joseph Conrad,H.G.Wells.

r Major tendencies in modern novels are

- They are compact

- Realistic

- Psychological approach

- Science fiction

- Detective fiction

- Regionalism

r Detective fiction was popularised by

- Arthur Conan Doyle in 'TheAdventures of SherlockHolmes'.

r Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are the twocharacters in

- The Adventures of SherlockHolmes

r 'The Father Brown Stories' is written by

- G.K. Chesterton

r The Invisible Man, Time Machine' are sciencefictions of

- H.G.Wells

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) He was a Scottish author most noted for his sto-

ries about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which aregenerally considered a major innovation in the field ofcrime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challeng-er. He was a prolific writer whose otherworks include science fiction stories, his-torical novels, plays and romances, poetry,and non-fiction.

Conan was originally a middle name buthe used it as part of his surname in his lateryears.From 1876 to 1881 he studied medicineat the University of Edinburgh. His medicalpractice was not very successful, so whilewaiting for patients, he began writing stories.His first significant work was A Study in Scar-let, which appeared in Beeton’s Christmas

Annual for 1887 and featured the first appearance of Sher-lock Holmes, who was modelled after Doyle’s former uni-versity professor, Joseph Bell. In 1893, in order to dedi-cate more of his time to more “important” works Doyaldecided pitting Holmes against his arch-nemesis Profes-sor Moriarty.

They apparently plunged to their deaths togetherdown a waterfall in the story “The Final Problem”. Pub-lic outcry led him to bring the character back; Doylereturned to the story in “The Adventure of the EmptyHouse”, with the ingenious explanation that only Mori-arty had fallen, but, since Holmes had other dangerousenemies, he had arranged to be temporarily “dead” also.Holmes eventually appears in a total of 56 short storiesand four Doyle novels (he has since appeared in manynovels and stories by other authors).

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was bannedin the Soviet Union in 1929 for supposed occultism.This ban was later lifted.

Henry James (1843-1916)Henry James, occupies a distinctive place in the

history of English novel. He was a prolific writer and heproduced novel, travels, sketches, short stories, criti-cism and autobiographical sketches. His works include'The American, The portrait of a Lady, The Awkwardage, The wings of Dove, The Beast in the Jungle', TheBirth place, Notes of a son and brother, The art offiction etc.

He set forth his theory of the novel in his famouscritical work 'The Art of Fiction' According to him themain business of the novelist was to provide his im-pressions of life in such a manner as to create the illu-

sion of reality in his work. He chose the inter-national subject and the conflict of man withhis surrounding or the social milieu as the twosubjects for his novels. He paid no attentionto plot, and was essentially an impressionist.He belonged to the intellectual school of nov-elists. His characters belong to the brother-hood of intellectuals like himself, sensitive,refined, sophisticated, controlling impulse byreason and endowed with a faculty of a cuteself analysis.

James is a novelist's novelist. AmongArthur Conan Doyle

writers of English fiction, he considered the problem ofimaginative narration with the most unwavering sceri-ousness, the most scrupulous discrimination . No oth-er novelist has devoted so much high thoughtfulnessto the problems of point of view and structure.

J.M. Barrie (1860-1937)J.M.Barrie was a novelist, journalist and prose writ-

er. His fame rests on his famous novel. 'The Little Minis-ter'. Other works are Better Dead, Suicide club, Sentimen-tal Tommy, Tommy and Grizel etc. He was the movingfigure behind 'The Kailyard School' of fiction in scotland.The writers of this school of fiction sought to representthe folk - scenes of scotland and transmuted the ruralsides with the colour of their romantic imagination.

Rudyard kipling (1865-1936)Kipling was a prolific and a very versatile writer.

He was a poet, journalist, novelist and a teller of tales.He achieved distinction in tales and stories. Kim, Cap-tain courageous, Plain Tales from the Hills, The Phan-tom Rickshaw, The Jungle books, etc. His fame restsprincipally on his short stories, dealing with India, thesea, the jungle and its beasts, the army, the navy, and amultitude of other subjects.

Kipling was both a realist and a romancer. He gavethe air of realism by his settings as well as by his char-acters. His tales are saturated with Indian touches. Hewas the first interpreter of Indian life to the west. Indiais reflected in Kim, The man who was the head of theDistrict, The phantom-Rickshaw and Jungle Books. Hewas an imperialist at heart and the note of imperialism issounded in his works with a touch of Jingoism. Kiplingwas the laureate of the animal world. He interpreted theconduct of wolf, lion, bears, jackal, panther, monkey,sespent, elephant and translated their language intoEnglish.

Development of regional novels in the 20th century

Regional novel is the national novel carried to onedegree further of sub division. It is a novel which con-centrating on a particular part, a particular region of anation, depicts the life of that region in such a way thatthe reader is conscious of the characteristics which areunique to the region and differentiate it from others inthe common motherland.

Arnold Bennett began his regional work in 1902

with 'Anna of the Five Towns'. E.C.Booth, Mary webb,Thomas Moutt, Sheila Kaye Smith, Constance Holme,Stella Gibbon are the popular writers of this type. Theregional novel has its merits. Its brilliant illumination ofEnglish landscape, with the extent and variety which itoffers. Its transluscent merit is that of verismilitude. Adetailed faithfulness to reality, a conscientious presen-tation of phenomena as they really happen in ordinaryeveryday life on a clearly defined spot of real earth, afirm rejection of the vague, the high flown and the sen-timental, and equally firm contract with the real. Theseare the marks of the regional novel.

The regional novel is essentially democratic. Itexpresses a belief that the ordinary men and the ordi-nary women are interesting and worth depicting ; itsuse of the Craftsman type as main characters is one ofits great contributions to human progress. Locality, re-ality and democracy are the watchwords of the regionalnovelist. A strong love of the homeland, a firm belief inreality, a respect for Craftsmanship, and the convictionthat each individual has his rights are the qualities of anation to produce best literature of this kind.

r Rudyard Kipling is the brain behind

- The Jungle Book

r ––––– was the first interpreter of Indian life to theWest

- Rudyard Kipling

r Kipling was the laureate of the –––– world

- animal

r Regional novels are

- Novels concentrating on aparticular part, region of anation, or life of that region

r The features of regional novel

- a detailed faithfulness ofreality

- a conscientious presentationof ordinary everyday life

- rejection of high flown andsentimental

r The regional novel is essentially

- democratic

r ––––––, ––––– and ––––– are the watchwords ofthe regional novelist

- Locality, reality, democracy

John Galsworthy (1876-1933)Galesworthy was one of the prominent men of let-

ters during the 20th century. He was a man of versatilegenius and achieved distinction in varied branches ofliterature. He was a novelist, dramatist, journalist, es-sayist and a short story writer.

His first great successful novel 'The Man of Prop-erty' forms the first book of the family novel, The Forsyte saga. 'In chancery, To Let, The White moneky, Thesilver spoon, Swan song are other works. The CountryHouse, Fraternity, The patrician are his social novelswhich reveals his interest in contemporary society.

He was primarily the novelist of social life, andwas interested in the presentation of the victorian scene,particularly belonging to the upper middle class soci-ety. His technique in presenting the picture of societywas that of observing the spectacle of life from themiddle of the road, keeping his balance without tiltingto either sides. This 'see though' method is perceptiblein all his later works. His style is civilized, quiet, reticentand assured without trick or fuss.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946)Herbert George wells was one of the most prolific

writers of the modern age. He was a novelist, journalist,pamphleteer and a writer of serious books. His worksfall under three heads.

Fantastic, scientific and imaginative novels.He was inspired by the fantastic and

imaginative tales of Jules Verne, the conti-nental writer of the romances. His first bookis Time Machine. It describes a contrivancebased on the theory that time is the fourthdimension, Travelling on the time machinewe go back to the past and to the future. Oth-er works of this group are 'The WonderfulVisit, The Wheels of Chance, The InvisibleMan, The War of the Worlds, The First Manin the Moon, When the Sleeper Wakes etc.

Novels of character and humourLove and Mr. Lewisham was the first book of this

period, a painstaking work, rich in autobiographical ref-

erence depicting, Wells's life as a teacher, 'Kipps', AnnVeronica, Tono Bungay are other words.

The discussion novels or commentariesThe novels of this period are based on discus-

sions of social problems. Marriage, The passionateFriends, The wife of Sir Issac Harman, The new Machi-avelli, The Research Magnificent, After Democracy,Science and the world mind etc. are some of them.

He didnot believe in giving a story well plannedand well executed in his novels. He created a rich vari-ety of characters - men, women and children in his nov-els. But his chief skill lies in the presentation of odd,eccentric and humorous characters. His humour isunique. He was concerned with contemporary prob-lems and he ranks with shaw as a leader of advancedthought of his day. As a socialist, he was concernedfirst with reconstruction of modern society, on a moreequitable basis. Wells was an optimist and he believedin the intelligence and disinterestedness of men pro-moted by education.

r –––––– is the social novel of John Galsworthy- The Country House

r Galsworthy presented –––––– in his works- Victorian upper middle class

societyr H.G. Wells' Time Machine is

- Science fiction based on thetheory that time is the fourthdimension.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)Conrad was by birth a citizen of Poland , but later

on he adopted England for his country. Hewas not concerned with the problems of so-cial and economic life, but was principally in-terested in the presentation of his own richexperience of life in Malaya, Pacific islandsand exotic lands. Underlying all his novels thereader can detect a moral tone emphasisingthe necessity of practising the principle of fi-delity in all human relationship.

The sea provides the setting of most ofhis works. Mirror of the Sea, An Outcast ofthe Islands, Lord Jim, The Nigger of the Nar-

cissus. Youth, Heart of Darkness, Typhoon, Nostromo,The Secret Agent, Under Western eyes, Chance, The

Joseph Conrad

Rescue, are some of his works. As a novelist he wasinterested in two subjects. He chose to make his ownexperiences of sea life and tropical areas as the subjectmatter of his novels. He was a laureate of sea life andthe life of jungles. An atmosphere of sombreness andpessimism broods over the novels of Joseph conrad.Life in his novels is grim and gruesome and sometimesthe monstrous and uncouths works of Nature oppress-ing humanity appear to be extremely painful to the read-ers. This characters are mostly drawn from the ranks ofsailors, adventurers and explorers. He preserves objec-tive detachment in creating his characters.

r 'Lord Jim' is the popular work of

- Joseph Conrad

r The –––– provides the setting of most of Conrad'sworks

- Sea

r An atmosphere of ––––– and –––– broods overConrad's novels

- Sombreness, pessimism

r Glorification of sex and primal human emotions andpassions is the new trend in

- Georgian Period

r Conrad emphasised –––– and –––– in his works

- the principle of fidelity inhuman relations

- greater stress on moral values

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)Bennet is popular for his novels and

short stories. He owes his place in litera-ture to his picture of provinicial life. TheOld Wives' Tale, the trilogy of Clayhang-er Hilda Lessways, These Twain make upa central fresco round which other talesgroup themselves. This originality residein the fact that composed with his prede-cessors he is himself more modern, moreconscious and wishes to be freed from theinfluences which interfere with the objec-tivity of the artist.

NOVEL FROM 1918 TO 1985

D.H. Lawrence (1855-1930)D.H. Lawrence was one of the most remarkable and

striking figures in the literary world between the twowars. He was the novelist of sex life, physical passionsand animalism. His first novel was The White Peacock.The Trespasser, Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Womenin Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover are some of his works.

D.H. Lawrence was essentially the novelist of sex-life and it was the avowed object of his life to glorifysex and primitive instincts in his works, His White Pea-cock, The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley's Lover arenovels of sex and two of them were suppressed forbeing obscene. In his novels it is the woman who hasbeen castigated and attacked ; He was a critic of mod-ern materialism and artificial conventions of our sophis-ticated society. He treated his theme in impassionedmanner. His finest characters are those in whom heprojects his own personality and views about life. Sonsand Lovers is considered an autobiographical novel ofLawrence. He was the novelist of instinct, sense andfeeling. This stress was more on feelings, passions andinstinct than on intellect, wit or reason.

He remains in many respects a disturbing and con-troversial figure because geniuses refuse to trod thebeaten path. He was not easily recognized and accept-ed. Modern psychologists and critics opined that hisworks were psychoanalytic in nature. The chief contri-bution of Lawrence as a novelist lies in the fact that hepresents men and women in their true relation with their

circumambient universe. He is still admired as anovelist and short story writer who not onlyrecords the social scene with unusual quick-ness and immediacy, but also explores the hid-den recesses of emotional life.

Stream of consciousness novelStream of consciousness novel is a mod-

ern development and reflects recent interest inthe analytical school of Jung, Freud and Adlerand the 'free association' used by psychiatry.The psycho-analysis had developed by the firstdecade of the 20th century, the idea of a sub-conscious mind as a repository, for the sup-

pressed elements. Freud's 'Ego' denotes the waking part

Arnold Bennett

and 'Id', the irrational sub-conscious part of the humanmind.

In 'Stream of Consciousness Novel' everything ispresented through an apparently unorganized succes-sions of images and ideas connected by associationrather than by logical argument or narrative sequence.The action takes place and the plot develops throughthe mind of the principal character and his stream ofconsciousness reflects all the forces of which he is aware as they are playing upon him at any one moment,an outside event and the associations being presentedmore or less simultaneously.

The first modern novelist who employed this tech-nique was Dorothy Richardson in 'Pointed Roofs'. JamesJoyce employed this in his multidimensional novel ' Ul-ysses'. Another figure was Virginia Woolf who wrotefour such novels - Mrs. Dalloway, To the Light house,The waves and Between the Acts.

r Lawrence was a critic of –––– and ––––– in thesophisticated society

- modern materialism

- artificial conventions

r D.H Lawrence was essentially the novelist of

- Sex life

r D. H. Lawrence's ––––– is considered an autobio-graphical novel

- Sons and Lovers

r Modern psychologists and critics opined thatLawrence's work were –––– in nature

- Psychoanalytic

r The term 'stream of consciousness' was coined by

- William James, in his 'Princi-ples of Psychology' to describethe flow of inner experience

r Stream of consciousness in literature refer to

- the depiction of the thoughtsand feelings which flow withno apparent logic, through themind of a character

r The first modern novelist who employed stream ofconsciousness technique was

- Dorothy Richardson in 'Point-ed Roofs'.

r –––– is the special technique of the stream ofconsciousness method

- Interior monologuer The stream of consciousness novelists follow the

technique of presenting characters- expressionist

r Psychological novels, stream of consciousnessnovels reflects the interest in psycho-analyticalschool of

- Jung, Freud and Adler and the'free association; used bypsychiatry.

r 'Psychoanalysis' is the thesis of ––– that attractedthe modern writers

- Sigmund Freud

Somerset Maugham (1874 -1965)Maugham is one of the prominent literary figures

of the 20th century. He was a novelist, a dramatist, anda writer of short stories. As a dramatist he followed thetradition of the writers of the Restoration comedy andproduced comedies scintill- ating with wit and humour.Lady Frederick is one of his finest satirical comedies.

He has written many novels. Mr. Craddock, TheMagician, The Narrow Corner, Christmas Holiday,Human Bondage, The Moon and Six Pense, Cakes andAle, and The Razor's Edge etc. Of Human Bondagehas been considered the best work of Maugham. In theopinion of Charles Towne Of Human Bondage is oneof the classics of our time, a monumental novel, a deep,rich penetrating book packed with beauty." In this novelthe novelist represents the life of Philip Carey, the iso-lated man with his club foot. The total effect of thenovel is depressing. Carey's utterance seem to be cyn-ical," Life had no meaning. It was immaterial, whetherhe was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased tolife. Life was insignificant death without consequence."

Maugham is considerably influenced by Frenchnovelists. He is interested in the problems of renuncia-tion, and materialistic craze for possession, the problemof love and the problem of the futility, and meaning-lessness of human life. His novels are narratives re-counting experiences in detail in a rambling manner. Hischaracters fail to impress us. His style is cold, matter offact and realistic. He makes us think about life and Loveand forces us to view life in a philosophic way.

r 'Lady Frederick' is one of the finest satiricalcomedies of

- Somerset Maugham

r 'Of Human Bondage' has been considered the bestwork of

- Somerset Maugham

r The life of Philip Carey, the isolated man with hisclub foot is represented in the novel

- 'Of human Bondage'

r "Of human bondage' is one of the classics of ourtime, a monumental novel, a deep, rich penetratingbook packed with beauty"

- Charles Towne

r "Life had no meaning. It was immaterial, whetherhe was born or not born, whether he lived or ceasedto live. Life was insignificant death withoutconsequence"

- Philip Carey (the protagonist)

- in 'Of Human bondage'

r Main themes of Maugham's works

- problems of renunciation

- materialistic craze forpossession

- problem of love and futility

- meaninglessness of human life

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)The most representative figure of the 20's, an

intellectual of the Bloomsbury group, was Aldous Hux-ley. He is remembered mainly for his novels. His mainworks are Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, Those BarrenLeaves, Point counter point, The Brave New world,Eyeless in Gaza, After many a summer, Time must havea stop, The perennial philosophy etc.

His novels mirror the empty lines of the peoplemostly of the high cultured classes, chasing illusionsand marked pretensions, his novels are novels of ideasand characterisation follows suit. In his novels we donot find well developed plots. They are often formless,sprawling and diffused. One characteristic of Huxley'snovel is the sub-plots. His novels are full of them. Hisnovels are often heavily weighted with science. Fromthe very beginning Huxley was haunted by the dangers

inherent in scientific progress, as it was being shapedby the blind and egoistical men in power. The vision ofthe future human society as envisaged in his scientificutopia, The Brave New world and Ape and Essence, isanything but optimistic.

r An intellectual of the Bloomsbury group was

- Aldous Huxley

r –––– is the greatest satirist of the age

- Aldous Huxley

r Huxley's novels are remarkable for

- Philosophical depth and Iron-ical brilliance

r The vision of the future human society as envis-aged in his scientific utopia –––– is anything butoptimistic

- The Brave new world

r In 'Brave new world' Huxley satirises

- Scientific domination of modernage in which, mind body, litera-ture and practically everythingis controlled by science.

r The hero of 'Brave new world' Savage John pleadsfor

- Greater freedom of the individual

E.M.Forster (1879-1970)Forster began his career as a novelist and pro-

duced his first novel Where Angels Fear To Tread in1905, followed by The Longest Journey in 1907, A Roomwith a View, Howard's End, A Passage to India. A Pas-sage to India is considered the finest and best work ofForster, the novel seeks to portray the relations of theBritish with the Indians round about the year 1924. Heseeks to bring about a reconciliation between the Eastand the West, but fails at the end.

The novel is mystical as well as symbolic in char-acter. The novel is divided into three parts - Mosques,Caves and Temple' This three fold division of the bookis symbolic, they are related respectively to the sea-sons of spring, summer and the wet monsoon autumnof India, and to man's emotional nature, his intellect andhis capacity for Love. The characters of this novel seekto represent these three attitude towards life. Dr. Aziz

stands for emotion, Fielding and Adela Quested standfor intellect, and the Hindu Professor Godbole is thesymbol of love. Mrs. Moore is the embodiment of allthose three aspects of life. With her impulse towardsemotion and her involvement in things of the intellectForster represents through these characters the threeways to leading life.

The plots of Forster are intricate and dif-ficult to follow. His characters are types ratherthan individuals. They are the embodiment ofcertain values life. There is a detachment inthe character of his portrayal, he paints themwith impartiality keeping himself as a bystand-er. As a moralist he is opposed to convention,money, worship, hypocrisy, snobbery andprim affected manners. He is against all shams,cants and falsehood.

He is a critic of modern civilization rearedon material values of life. He relied on heartand culture as an antidote against modernmaterialism. He is a symbolist. A durable linkwith Britain has snapped with the death ofE.M. Forster. He was for decades the authentic exegeteof British - Indian relations, a man whose name auto-matically cropped up in any conversation about thereal nature of Indian middle class and the manners ofwhite sahibs. His single novel 'A passage to India didmuch to make India intelligible to Britain.

He is a fine and enduring artist and the only Brit-ish novelist who can be discussed without fatuity. For-ster will rank high among 20th century novelists.

r Where Angles Fear to Tread is the first novel of- E.M. Forster

r –––– is considered the finest and best work ofForster.

- A passage to India

r The theme of A passage to India is

- the relations of the Britishwith the Indians round aboutthe year 1924. Forster seeksto bring about a reconcilia-tion between the East and theWest, but fails.

r A Passage to India is –––– and ––––– in character

- mystical, symbolic

r Dr. Aziz is the central character of

- A Passage to India

James Joyce (1882-1941)James Joyce has an important place among the

literary figures of the 20th century. He was the mainexponent of the psychological novel based on the rep-resentation of the stream of consciousness. He wrote

short stories in his early career, Dublin-ers. Another work is A Portrait of the Art-ist as a Young Man, it is an autobiogra-phical work and the artist Dedalus is therepresentative of the novelist in whomthere was a conflict between the forces ofasceticism and aestheticism.

Ulysses is considered the best workin Psychological fiction and the stream ofconsciousness theory finds its best ex-position in this novel. Another work ofimportance is Finnegan's Wake. Joycebelongs to the group of Psychological cum- realistic novelists. His novels are form-less, incoherent and rambling in character

and provide fleeting glimpses of the life of Dublin whichhe knew so intimately.He is a comedy writer and hisnovels are rich in scenes of playful comedy. His style ismarked with directness and simplicity in Dubliners, inhis later works his style undergoes change and drifts tothe side of complexity, subtlety and allusiveness.

r Ulysses is a novel which is written under ––––technique

- stream of consciousness

r Ulysses is the story of

- the experience of wanderingsof Leopald Bloom and StephenDedalus through the city ofDublin on a particular day.

r In Ulysses Joyce uses the –––– style

- Impressionistic

r James Joyce was the main exponent of the ––––novel

- Psychological novel

r A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is anautobiographical work of

- James Joyce

James Joyce

r The artist Dedalus in A Portrant of the Artist as aYoung Man is the representative of

- the novelist himself in whomthere was a conflict betweenthe forces of asceticism andaestheticism.

Women novelists of the 20th century

The prominent women novelists of the period areHenry. Handle Richardson, Dorothy Richardson, MissHumphrey Ward, Sarah Grand, Rose Macaulay, Eliza-beth, Bowen, Ivy compton Burnett, Katherine Mans-field and Virginia woolf.

Katherine Mansfield : (1888-1923)Katherine Mansfield is a writer of short stories

and during her life time five volumes of her stories werepublished. As a writer she followed the foot steps ofthe Russian writer Anton Chekhov, whose work sheadmired in ordinately. She was an impressionist in herart and sought to portray with objectivity. She studiedlife objectively and understood characters widely di-vergent from herself in both temperaments and acci-dentals. Her stories are marked with a note of somber-ness and are characterised with a hunting sense ofpathos. She was at her best in the dilineation of youngchildren, adolescent girls, old women perhaps becausethe experiences and observations of her own adult lifewere two close to her to view in perspective.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)The most popular modern English writer of detec-

tive stories is Agatha Christie.She wrote purely as an enter-tainer, and her ingenuity per-sisted through more than fiftydetective novels from TheMysterious Affair of Styles. Shefollows the English detectivestory formulae of intricate plotsand an eccentric private detec-tive such as Belgian Herculepoirot, who speaks a kind ofschool boy imitation Anglo-French. Her most famous work is The Murder of RogerAckroyd.

r The Doll's House is a famous short story of- Katherine Mansfield

r In detective fiction, the prominent femalerepresentation is

- Agatha Christier The private detective of the Agatha Christie

mysteries is- Hercule Poirot

r Agatha Christie's famous work is- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

r Agatha Christie followed the style of- Arthur Conan Doyle

Virginia woolf (1882-1941)Virginia Woolf occupies a position of importance

in 20th century fiction for she gave to the stream ofconsciou- sness novel a newtwist. Her major works are TheVoyage out, Night and Day,Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway,To the Light House, TheYears, The Waves, Orlandoetc. To the Light House is con-sidered as the best novel ofthe celebrated artist. Thisnovel is divided into threeparts. The windows, Timepasses, The Light house. Theexperiences of Professor Ram-

say and his wife on a holiday are presented graphically.

She rejected the conventional conception of thenovel as a realistic, Portraiture of life from the objectivepoint of view and attacked the work of Bennett andGalsworthy with characteristic frankness. She followedthe technique of the internal monologue and the streamof consciousness. There is a poetic quality and a loveof lyricism in her writings. The range of her charactersis small. She could not paint characters who did notshare her own unusual qualities she was a great loverof beauty and her novels exhibit her aesthetic delight inthe lovely aspects of life. She presents real life, in herwork but her conception of reality was different fromthat of other writers. She is a prose writer of high order,her prose sparkles with flashes of poetic beauty andcharm.

Agatha Christie

Virginia woolf

r To the Light house, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando etc.are some of the major work of

- Virginia Woolfr In Mrs. Dalloway Woolf portrays

- the life of an aristocratic ladyin London during the courseof a single day

r ––––– technique finds its most perfect expressionin Virginia Woolf

- Stream of consciousnessr To the Light House is a symbolic novel which is

divided into -- three parts (1) The window(2) Time Passes (3)The Light

Houser –––– is Woolf's greatest artistic and literary

achievement- To the Light House

The Irish literary revivalIreland was an integral part of the British nation

early in the 19th century. But the English never regard-ed the Irish as equal partners in the nation. They wereexploited mercilessly. The Irish therefore agitated forHome Rule. The national fervour of the people got anoutlet in literary activities. Irish nationalism was the maininspirer of the Irish literary revival.

Up to the end of the 19th century there was hardlyany creative urge in Ireland. No one had leisure for liter-ary activities. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Irelandmade a contribution to British drama in the plays ofGoldsmith, Oscar wilde and Shaw, but they wrote theirplays in England and these dramas did not representIrish life. At the beginning of the 20th century a groupof young enthusiastic patriots led by W.B. Yeats, LadyGregory, George Moore, Maud Gonne and others start-ed a movement for reviving Irish drama and poetry.

r Irish literary revival' is a movement aimed at

- Reviving the ancient folk lore,legends, and traditions ofIreland, and diffusing andpreserving them by means ofnew literary works.

r Irish literary revival is also known as- Irish Renaissance and Celtic

Renaissance.

r The major figures of Irish Renaissance are- W. B. Yeats, J.M.Synge, Sean

O' Casey, Lady Gregory, LordDunsany etc.

r The outstanding achievements of the IrishRenaissance was

- Establishment of Irish LiteraryTheatre (1899)

- Abbey Theatre (1910)r ––– was the main inspirer of the Irish literary

revival- Irish nationalism

Experiments in the modern novelThe modern English novel has been affected by

many historical and social influences. Its literary devel-opment has influenced by the fiction of other coun-tries, notably of France - In England, the exploitationof a vastly enlarged reading public by the mass mediaincreased the separation between the 'high brow' andthe 'Low brow'. This separation coupled with the in-creasing social and political dominance widened thegap between the writers and society. No writer sinceDickens, has been both the best and the most popular.

The greatest modern novelists bear the stigma ofalienation and dissent. The increasing separation of themodern novelist from the values and attitudes of thesociety is reflected not only in the subject but also inthe structure of the modern fiction and its modes ofrepresenting the society. Scott had given the novelistthe dignity of the historian. Stendhal aspired to be thechronicler of his century. Balzac setout to be the scien-tific naturalist of the human species. Flaubert's MadameBovary gave a pattern of conscious technical expert-ness to the novel. The name 'realism' was given to theschool of Flaubert, it rejected the idealisation of reality.With naturalism the process went further. Emile Zolacodified the analogy of the novelist and the scientist.The reader's desire to refinement and edification wasscorned. The novelists worked in the spirit of sciencewith its ideal of thorough dispassionate enquiry. Newlabels came into being - naturalism, impressionism, ex-pressionism, the stream of consciousness etc.

r Stendhal is the penname of- Henri Beyle, French novelist

(1783-1842)

r Stendhal one of the first of the great ––– novelists- Psychological

r Stendhal was the contemporary of- Scott, Balzac, Goethe

r Real name of Goethe- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German poet (1749-1832)r Emile Zola is associated with ––– in literature

- naturalism

Graham Greene (1904-91)Greene's reputation as an outstanding novelist

among the younger group ofnovelists is established withThe Power and the Glory. Thereason for his success is notso much his versatility as theway in which he unifies hisvarious and wide interestsunder a single outlook and ex-presses them in a prose stylethat is almost startling in itsstarkness. His sentences cutlike broken glass. He delightsto expose the rawnerves of evils, showing it as a posi-tive force in the world, a skeleton like figure workingvisible mischief in the ordinary, everyday affairs of menand women and children. He satirises the evils of 20thcentury urban civilization but he does not preach.

His major works are The Man Within, The Name ofAction, England Made Me, A Gun for Sale, The Confi-dential Agent, The Power and the glory, The Heart ofthe Matter. Loser Takes All, The Quiet American, ABurnt-out Case etc. Outstanding among them is ThePower and the Glory It is a political religious novel.The scene is laid in a communist state in Mexico. Thebook deals with the seamy side of life, the painful andthe squalid, the vice and the poverty. The two maincharacters are the communist Lieutenant and the 'whis-key Priest', the father of an illegitimate child.

C.P.Snow (1905-80)Snow is a contribution of the post second world

war literature . He is an author of a number of novels.Strangers and Brothers, The Light and the Dark, TheMasters, Home coming, The affair, Corridors of power

etc. Snow is primarily concerned with the inner workingof traditional institutions and the ways these elements ofsociety are perpetuated. His fiction is somewhat similarto the victorian novelists. He turned the novel to thedirect representation of moral, social and political issues.

George Orwell (1903-50)Orwell was the conscience of

his generation. His fame as a nov-elist rests on his three novels,Down and Out in Paris and Lon-don, Burmese Days, and 1984.The world of the first novel is aneconomic nightmare to the indi-vidual, the world of the last novelis the political nightmare to thehero. He reports impressionistically and does not at-tempt false Obectivity.

r The Power and the Glory is an outstanding work of- Graham Greene

r –––– is a political, religious novel of Graham Greene- The Power and the Glory

r –––– is one of the reputed post - war exponents ofthe largescale fictional sequence

- C.P.Snowr The Masters, The Corridors of Power, The Light

and The Dark are the best novels of- C. P. Snow

r The pen name adopted by Eric Arthur Blair is- George Orwell

r George Orwell was born in- India

r ––––– is a political satire of George orwell- Animal Farm

r 1984 is Orwell's last completed novel, it describes- England ruled over by a

totalitarian dictatorship ; asociety in which thought iscontrolled and language ismanipulated in the interests ofthe state.

William Golding (191 1-93)Golding established his individual genre in 'Lord

of the Flies', in which a group of boys, stranded ondesert island after an air crash, regress to savagery. In

Graham Greene

George Orwell

reversing the pattern of children's adenture stories andlocating evil in the boys themselves, Golding re-ener-gized the notion of original sin. The Inheritors, PincherMartin, Free Fall, The Spire, The Bell, are his impor-tant works.

r The year in which William Golding was born- 1911

r Lord of the Flies is the first novel of- William Golding

r Who is the titular character or Lord in the Lord ofthe Files ?

- Beelzebub - according to theJewish hierarchy of demongods Beelzebub is consideredto be the Lord of the Flies.

r William Golding received Nobel Prize for literature in- 1983

r –– is the main source for Golding's Lord of the Flies- The Coral Island, a 19th cen-

tury adventure story of R.M.Ballantyne.

r Who is the visionary character in the Lord of theFlies ?

- Simon, a young boy of twelver What is Lord of the Flies ?

- The Pig's headr The echoes of which play of Shakespeare are to

be traced in Lord of the Flies- The Tempest

Angry young menThe post war socialism gave university education

to youngmen from the working classes and then leftthem cut off from elitist circles, social and cultural ordoubt helps to explain the rise of the anti-hero, venom-ously, comically or patronizingly dismissive of estab-lishment mores and inhibitions. William cooper has beencredited with ushering in the antihero of the fifties inScenes from Provincial Life but it was Lucky Jim byKingsley, Amis that provided the journalists with a pro-test hero. Room at the Top by John Braine, SundayMorning by Allan Sillitoe, Hurry on Down' by JohnWaine are popular ones in this category.

r The anti hero concept was brought into literature by- William Cooper

r Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim provided the Keyword- Angry Youngmen

r Lucky Jim is the masterpiece of- Kingsley Amis

r Stream of consciousness in literature denotes- A mode of narration that

captures the full flow of acharacter's mental process.

r Surrealism was a movement in art and literature.Which originated in France around 1924, It was

- A revolt against the restraintsof reason on the subconscious.

r Who wrote To the Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf

r Shaw's plays are known for- Social criticism and play of

ideasr Caesar and Cleopatra is a play of

- Bernard Shawr Henry James's ciritical work on novel is

- The Art of Fictionr 'Erewhon' is an anagram for

- nowherer The author of Jungle Books

- Rudyard Kiplingr Time Machine is written by

- H.G.Wellsr D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is an example of

- Mother - fixation or OedipusComplex

r James Joyce's Ulysses is a perfect example inmethod

- Stream of consciousnessr Aldous Huxley's novels are often heavily, weighted

with- Science

r In A Passage to India Forster seeks to bring about

- A reconciliation between the

East and the West.

r Graham Greene satirises the evils of 20th century

urban civilization in

- The Power and Glory

TWENTIETH CENTURY PROSEDuring the 20th century there has been a revival

of the periodical essay and the personal essay.

G.K.Chesterton (1874-1936)G.K.Chesterton was a

critic, novelist, poet and an es-sayist of repute. He was a se-rious writer and he had nofaith in art for art's sake. Hewas a satirist and spent his lifein vigorously attacking theconclusions arrived at by in-tellectuals. There was an en-gaging pugnacity even in hislighter essays. His chief weap-ons are wit and paradox andthese he employed with dexterity and ease. His strengthas a writer lies in the clear and witty way in which heexpresses common place truths. In short, the quizzicalhumour, the scintillating wit, the delight in mental gym-nastics, in paradox and epigrams, and the wholehearteddefence of whatever is old or gay or romantic, are thingswhich distinguish his writing from that of any of hiscontemporaries.

He had a great skill in dialectical writing, with pe-culiar simplicity and beauty and clarity. Anti-thesis washis governing passion. Rechard Church called him "thegreatest essayist of his time."

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)Belloc was a master of many styles of writing. He

published his first book, a collection of verses in 1895.He enriched the literature of non-sense with The BadChild's Book of Beasts, More Beasts for WorseChildren. The Modern Traveller is a series of historicaland biographical studies which forms his greatest con-tribution. Emmanuel Burden was a satiric novel. TheServile State was his most important political book. Hewas a reviewer too.

His sense of humour was unfailing. He was al-ways careful to distinguish prose from rhetoric. He hada sense of rhythm in which, he was unrivalled. His strongpoints as a writer are his vigorous and elegant styleand his gift for the picturesque.

E.V. Lucas (1868-1938)E.V.Lucas is a great master of the essay proper, of

the light personal essay. He is recognised as the pre-eminent editor of Charles Lamb's works and biographerof Lamb.

The essays of Lucas are found in Characterand Comedy, Old Lamps for New, Loiterer's Harvest,Cloud and Silver. His essays are marked by fancy, liter-ary artifice, common sense, lightness of touch, easeand humour. They are mainly characterized by his ur-banity, ruthlessness of observation and fancy. He is aborn essayist who finds it completely easy to movewith in the confines of the personal essay. Sir EdmundGosse says "Since the death of R.L. stevenson, no oneso proficient in the pure art of the essayists as Mr. E.V.Lucas". His essays are remarkable for its brevity - inword, sentence - structure, thought and in the make upof the whole essay.

r The chief weapons of G.K. Chesterton are

- Wit and Paradox

r Richard Church calls ––– 'the greatest essayist ofhis time'.

- G.K. Chesterton

r Emmanuel Burden was a satiric novel of

- Hilaire Belloc

r –––– was Hilaire Belloc's most important politicalwork

- The Servile State

r ––– is the great master of light personal essays

- E.V. Lucas

r ____ is recognised as the preeminent editor ofCharles Lamb's works and biographer of Lamb

- E.V. Lucas

Robert Lynd (1879-1949)Robert Lynd is one of the most outstanding es-

sayists of the 20th century. He began his career as ajournalist and for nearly 20 years under the name of 'YY'appeared his weekly essays in The New Statesman andNation. His essays are to be found in The Pleasures ofIgnorance, Collected Essays, The Money Box, TheGreen Men, It is Fine World etc. His essays are person-al in character and reveal his likes and dislikes on a

G.K.Chesterton

variety of subjects. They are marked with a note of sin-cerity. He wrote about his memories and experience, buthis essays are not disfigured by egotism. It is a charac-teristic of Lynd to be timeless. The charm of his essayslies in the twinkling humour which is not away fromirony. Lynd is a writer of fine, critical prose, and hisessay on "Modern Poetry" exhibits his insight intomodern poetry and poetic trends.

His style is thoroughly conversational, pleasingand not unmixed with humour and irony. His love ofepigrammatic sentences, his clarity and lucidity, hissense of balance, the use of similes, the Phrase- makinggift are the outstanding qualities of his prose style.

A.G. Gardiner (1865-1946)Popularly known as 'Alpha of the Plough',

A.G.Gardiner was a journalist and an essayist of greatrepute and wide appeal. He wrote a book on the promi-nent personalities of time and called it Prophets ; Priestsand Kings. His typical collection of essays such asPebbles on the Shore and Leaves in the Wind are thelight easy talk of an ordinarily thoughtful man.

The essays of Gardiner are marked with anote of pleasant humour. His humour is not awayfrom satire. He criticised the system of justice inhis country. In the essay 'On Rumour', the schoolmaster was the prey of the 'lying tongue of rumour'.His wife committed suicide. And the jury did notsay 'Killed by Slander' they said 'suicide while ofunsound mind'. "Oh ! cautious Jurymen !" Onlythree words they are but they speak volumes oflegal system of England.

His Prose Style is the secret of his charm - thechoice of words, the happy phrasing and the simplesentence construction. The effortless ease is the firstquality of his style. He also makes wonderful use ofadjective. His sentence structure is very simple thatthe reader feels that he has often thought of it but nevercould express it so well. Simple words, simple phrases,and simple sentences have a magic of their own. And inthis lies the wide appeal of A.G. Gardiner.

r Robert Lynd wrote nearly 20 years under the name of

- Y. Y

r Lynd's essays are –––– in character- personal

r A.G. Gardiner is popularly known as

- Alpha of the Plough

r Modern Poetry is a critical prose of Lynd exhibits

- His insight into modernpoetry and poetic trends.

r The effortless ease is the quality of ––– style

- Gardiner's

r Leaves in the Wind is a collection of essays by

- A. G. Gardiner

Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)Max Beerbohm who won thundering popularity

by his Zuleika Dobson which shook Oxford was a de-lightful essayist, an entertaining parodist and a dramat-ic critic. In the Christmas Garland he has parodied thestyles and writings of A.C. Benson, Wells, Conrad,Bennett, shaw and others. He had the art of picturepainting and could portray the mind of a contemporaryin a phrase. He had the vision of penetrating critic. Heexcelled in wit, irony and exposure of the foibles of hisown times and that of the Victorian age.

Simplicity, economy, rhythm, and balance are thehall marks of Beerbohm's prose style. His diction is assimple as the Bible.

J.B.Priestley (1894-1984)Priestley, the critic, is also a

fine essayist. His essays findplace in I for One, Open House,Apes and Angles and other es-says, and self-selected essays.His essays are literary and criti-cal and his studies on T.L. Pea-cock and Meredith, are penetrat-ing and sharp. In English ComicCharacters he produced a very happy varieties of theEssay in evoking some of the great comic figures likeToby Belch and Mr. Collins.

Dean inge (1860-1954)Dean Inge has to his Credit Lay Thoughts of a

Dean and Outspoken Essays. His finest work is to befound in his Outspoken Essays. Each Essay bears thestamp of his story mind. He had an argumentative wayof putting things and advocated emigration to decrease

J.B.Priestley

the facts and dates into throbbing life.

He possessed a rare skill of making for characterslive again as men and women. He emphasizes the hu-man element in his characters. His popular works areThe eminent Victorian, Queen Victoria etc.

Philip Guedalla, Osbert sitwell, Lord David Cecit,Virginia, Woolf, Sean O' casey, Edmund Gosse, GeorgeGuissing, H.G.Wells, Kipling, are other famousbiographers of the period.

r Biography is

- the history of lives ofindividual men as a branch ofliterature

r Biography in the modern sense is defined as

- The faithful portrait of a soulin its adventures through life.

r –––– is a great modern biographer

- Lytton Stratchey

r The function of a biographer

- to create the personality of hissubjects by transmuting thefacts and dates into throbbinglife.

r The Eminent Victorian is the popular work of

- Lytton Stratchey

Writers of nature and country life

The writers who have chosen to glorify nature andcountry life in their works are many of number, theprominent of them being W.H.Hudson, Edward Thomas,George stuart, H.J. Massingham, Henry Williamson etc.

W.H. Hudson (1841-1922)Hudson was an eminent naturalist, romancer, and

an essayist. The remarkable variety of his work makes itdifficult to buckle Hudson on the belt of conventionalclassifications. His passionate sense of devotion oftruth, with his absorption in nothing natural phenome-na, joined to a supreme power of self expression iswhat enlarges and enriches his special contribution toEnglish literature.

Hudson has many books to his credit, Far awayand Long ago, The Naturalist in Laplata, Green Man-

over population and the study of emergencies to im-prove the racial stock. He attacked vigorously war -mongers and miltarists and expressed the opinions ofInge which exhibit his confidence in himself and thesurety of touch with which he expressed them.

Other writers who contributed to the field of essaywere , E.V. knox, Alice Meynell, A.A. Milne, CharlesMorgan, Rebecca West, C.E.Montague, Maurice Bar-ing and Aldous Huxley. Huxley is well - known for hisnovels and he has written quite a good number of es-says, short and witty, his essays are interesting andpleasing to read. His essays are collected in Music atNight and Do What You will.

r Max Beerbohm became popular through his

- Zuleika Dobson

r –––––, –––––, –––––––, and –––– are the hallmarks of Beerbohms prose style

- Simplicity, economy rhythm,balance

r J. B. Priestley is rightly regarded as the '–––– ofthe Present day'.

- Dickens

r Priestley's novel restored Dickensian qualities of- Crowded life character

adventure.

r The Good Companian is an entertaining novel of- J. B. Priestley

r Outspoken Essays is the finest work of

- Dean Inge

Twentieth Century biographers

The Oxford Dictionary defines biography as 'thehistory of lives of individual men as a branch of litera-ture'- This means that biography must be a truthfulrecord of an individual and composed as a work of art.The modern biography has been defined as 'The faith-ful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life'.

Lytton stratchey (1880-1932) is truly a great mod-ern biographer. He follows the direct method of pre-senting his characters. The basis of all good biographymust be firmly held the humanistic respect for menStrachey was greatly influenced by the great Russiannovelist, Dostoevsky. The duty of the biographer is tocreate the personality of his subjects by transmuting

sions, British Birds, Birds and Man, The Land's End, Ashepherd's life, A Hind in Richmond Park etc.

Henry Williamson (1895-1977)Williamson is another great lover of the country-

side and wild life. The Chief of his books are The LoveSwallows, The Old Stage etc. This observation of na-ture was careful and his expression of the charm of na-ture was sincere.

Historical prose

Many famous historians of the age have broughtthis kind of Prose writing to a very high standard.H.G.Wells, Winston churchill have been professional,academic historians. Sir James Frazer and Arnold Toyn-bee are other remarkable figures. Frazer was scientificand Toynbee is philosophical in his approach to histo-ry. Frazer's The Golden Bough is a great work of histo-ry. Toynbee's A study of history in 6 volumes studiedthe entire history of ancient civilization and by his studyof the rise and fall of previous civilizations he sought todeduce comprehensive philosophy of history. His out-look is religious and he gives us the warning that if theforces of militarism and materialism continue to advance,with the stupendous speed with which they are goingapace, the day is not far off when the whole fabric ofcivilization will topple down and once again man willrelapse to the old days of barbarism and animism.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)Among the philosophical

and scientific writers, Russelloccupies a very high place. Hewas a scientist, mathematicianphilosopher and political think-er of the highest order. Thesweep of his mind and the ver-satility of his talents placed himamongst the truly greatmen ofhis times. He collaborated withA.N. Whitehead wrote Princip-ia Mathematica a classic workwhich argued and demonstrated that mathematics andformal logic are one and that the whole of pure mathe-matics can be deduced from a small of logical axioms.He was good in logical analysis. Among the semanti-cists he was a pioneer.

His questing mind probed almost every aspect ofhuman experience and behaviour. He was a non-con-formist both in thought and deed. His pacifism alsolanded him in jail. The style and manner of his expres-sion evoke our applause. He has the gift of summing upa very complex situation in a few, clear and simple wordsand sentences.

r Green Mansions is the work of- W.H. Hudson

r The Golden Bough is a great work of- Sir James Frazer

r A Study of History, in 6 volumes, is the study ofentire ancient civilization is written by

- Arnold Toynbeer Principia Mathematica is a classic work of ––––

In collaboration with A.N. White head- Bertrand Russell.

G.M. Trevelyan (1876-1962)He was an English historian, son of Sir

G.O.Trevelyan and great nephew of Thomas Babbing-ton Macaulay. Some of his works were guiding lights,such as England under Queen Anne (3 vols), which isconsidered. Trevelyan's greatest mature work. EnglishSocial History, Shortened History of England. etc. arehis other works.

LITERARY CRITICS OF THETWENTIETH CENTURY

Arthur Symons (1865-1945)Symons, the poet is also a literary critic. Symon's

The Romantic Movement in English Poetry is a valu-able contribution to the understanding of the Romanticpoets. Baudelair, Hardy, Walter Pater, Symbolist Move-ment in Literature' are his popular works. Symons is animpressionistic critic and continued the tradition of WalterPater. He is remarkable for his extremely poetical style.

A.C. Bradley (1851-1934)Bradley will be known to posterity for his famous

Shakesperean Tragedy, Oxford Lectures on Poetry.He is an authority on Shakespeare's tragedies.In his Shakespearean Tragedy, he makes a scholarlyand critical survey of the principal tragedies of the greatdramatist.

Bertrand Russell

Sir Walter Raleigh (1861-1922)Raleigh will be remem-

bered by his English Novel,Milton, Wordsworth, Shakes-peare and Six Essay onJohnson. He is a master of hissubject and his manner of pre-sentation is extremely lucidand clear. He has nothing ofthe charms of modern criti-cism and he is essentially atraditionalist. But he has noneof the defects of modern crit-icism too.

George Saintsbury (1845-1933)George Saintsbury is a great name in the world of

literary criticism. He was a great scholar and a man ofimmense learning. His monumental works are Elizabe-than Literature, History of English Prose, History ofEnglish Criticism, History of European Criticism, AShort History of English Literature, History of EnglishProse, Rhythm and English novel etc.

His criticism is remarkable for its rare charm ofscholarship and style. He read immensely and had pro-lific memory. He was a man of very strong tastes and hecould speak very authentically about things withoutinjuring the sensibilities of his readers.

G.K. ChestertonChesterton is known by his Browning, The Victo-

rian Age in Literature, Dickens and Chaucer etc. He isnot at all a scientific critic and he is too subjective to beaccurate.

Sir Arthur Quiller - couch (1861-1944)Quiller-Couch is a critic of distinction. He pub-

lished many volumes of stimulating literary apprecia-tion and criticism which were originally given in theform of lectures. His works are Studies in Literature,Shakespeare's Workmanship, On the Art of Readingetc. His pages talk to the reader just as their authorspoke to his audiences arousing interest.

r Arthur Symons's –––– is a valuable contributionto the understanding of the Romantic poets

- The Romantic Movements in

English Poetryr ––––– is an authority on Shakespeare's tragedies

- A.C. Bradleyr ––––– is a remarkable name in the world of literary

criticism- George Saintsbury

r History of English Criticism, history of Europeancriticism, A short history of English Literature aresome of the monumental works of

- G. Saintsbury

Winston Chur chill (1874-1965)Soldier and statesman,

Churchill was also an historianwho found time, despite the callof public life, to publish not onlya series of works an the twoworld wars. (4 volumes of TheWorld Crisis (First World War)and 6 volumes beginning withThe Gathering storm 1948, (Sec-ond World War). He won Nobelprize for literature in 1953.

Lytton Strachey (1880-1932)He is a biographer, a critic of literature and man-

ners. His biographical studies have set up a pattern inEnglish Literature that of concentrated, stripped narra-tives, governed by a careful sense of truth and harmo-ny. Stratchey's work short as it is, but highly finished,will live as the most pregnant token of an intellectualtransition.

Eminent Victorians (1918), Queen Victoria (1921),Books and Characters, French and English (1922),Elizabeth and Essex (1928) are his works.

F.R. Leavis (1895-1978)Dr. Leavis is a man of very strong tastes. He loves

clarity, solidity and hardness. He is an analytical criticand does not believe in making sweeping generalisa-tions. The strength of his convictions can be seen inhis evaluation of Milton and Shelley. He has done toliterary criticism what T.S. Eliot has done to Englishpoetry.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)Eliot is one of the greatest figures in the history of

Winston Churchill

Sir Walter Raleigh

literary criticism. Eliot owed his inspiration as a critic tothe movement in American criticism called the move-ment of Humanism led by Professor Irving Babbit andPaul More. Inspired by the protagonists of this newwave of Humanism, Eliot also modelled his critical prin-ciples and judgements on it and his, The Sacred Woodis practically the same as that of the humanists. He wasalso for classicism and tradition, and stood against thetide of romantic criticism, which he characterised as frag-mentary, immature and chaotic.

r ––––– is the first critic who recognised the geniusof T.S. Eliot

- F.R. Leavisr ––––– is one of the most controversial critics of

literature- F. R. Leavis

r New Bearings in English Poetry and Revaluationsof D.H. Lawrence are the main critical works of

- F. R. Leavisr T.S. Eliot was inspired by the movement of

- Humanismr Movement of Humanism was led by

- Prof. Irving Babbit and PaulMore

r The Sacred Wood, Point of View, The SelectedEssays on Poets etc. are critical works of

- T.S. Eliotr T.S. Eliot denounced Shakespeare's play Hamlet

as artistic failure because- it lacks objective correlative

r Objective correlative is- The only way of expressing

emotion in art, by finding anobjective correlative, ie ; a setof objects, which shall be theformula of that particularemotion, such that when theexternal facts are given theemotion is at once evoked.

r Unified Sensibility- a fusion of thought and

feeling, a recreation ofthought in feeling

r Dissociation of sensibility- When the poet is unable to

make a fusion of thought andfeeling, results in thedissociation of sensibility.

New criticismThe modern movement in criticism is called New

criticism. The earliest to propound New criticism in En-glish Literature was Eliot. In his essay Tradition andIndividual Talent sowed The seeds of a revolution incriticism and in poetry. The new critics believe that apoem should be treated as poem and should not refer tothe biography of the author. They advocated close read-ing. The distinction between literary genres, is not es-sential in the New criticism . Its principle is basically ver-bal. I A. Richards, Allen Tate, J.C. Ranson, R.P.Blackmur,Cleanth Brooks are the popular New critics.

New criticism taught the generation how to readpoetry. It made revaluations of the poetry of the past. Itfocussed attention on contemporary achievement asreflecting contemporary consciousness. It enlarged thefrontiers of criticism by showing the necessity for aknowledge of other disciplines than literature proper. Itturned the attention, to the modern tradition and valuesand provided the readers certain broad tools with whichto approach literature.

I.A Richards (1893-1979)He was an influential critic and rhetorician. His

books, especially, The Meaning of Meaning, Principlesof Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism, and The Phi-losophy of Rhetoric were among the founding docu-ments of the New Criticism, and most of the eminent crit-ics were Richards' students. Richards is one of thefounders of the contemporary study of literature in En-gland. While his theories of poetic interpretation andpoetic language have been surpassed, his initial impuls-es shaped 20th literary studies into what it is today. "TheFoundations of Aesthetics, Science and Poetry, ThePhilosophy of Rhetoric are some of his other major works.

The Chicago critics or the Neo - AristoteliansIt was reaction against the New criticism, under

the leader ship of Ronald S. Crane in the late thirties inthe Chicago-School of neo-Aristotelians. The Chicagocritics gave an authoritative expression to their criticaltheories and practice in a book 'Critics and Criticism :Ancient and Modern (1952).

r New critics aimed at certain norms- a poem should be treated as

poem and should not refer tothe biography of the author

- close reading is necessary

r The popular New critics are- I.A. Richards, Allen Tate,

J. C. Ransom, CleanthBrookes.

r Neo-Aristoelians was against- New Criticism

r Chicago critics expressed their theories in- Critics and Criticism ;

Ancient and Modern (1952)

r Modernism is- A mixture of a wide range of

artistic movementsr –––– was a reaction against the main characteris-

tics of Victorian culture in the 1890's

- Modernism

r The cardinal principle of aestheticism was

- Art was the Supreme God

r –––– was the master of aestheticism

- Walter Pater

r Impressionism

- A person has only theimpression of the particularobserver from his particularrelation to the object at aparticular, moment in time

r The Byzantium poems of Yeats are example of

- aestheticism

r Symbolism is the term used to describe ––– and ––– poetry

- Post Romantic, Victorian

r –––– coined the word Imagism

- Ezra Pound

r Imagism has been described as the grammar schoolof modern poetry, the instruction and drill in basicPrinciples'

- David Perkins

TWENTIETH CENTURY DRAMARise of the new drama

The first half of the 19th century was a barren pe-riod for English drama. The professional theatre of thisperiod was in a low state. The middle of the 19th centu-ry witnessed a significant development. This movementtowards realism received great impetus from the work ofT.W.Robertson. He was connected with modern revivalof English drama. He introduced in his plays the idea ofa serious theme underlying the humour characters anddialogue of a more natural kind. In the nineties the influ-ence of Ibsen was making itself felt and shaw producedserious play of social, domestic and personal problems.In the closing years of twentieth, the word 'NEW' wasoften applied to denote a change of attitude and ideas.The 'new woman' wanted franchise, and earn their ownliving as career woman. The 'new man' is independentminded, The new morality stood for more free views onsexual relations, and the the new drama is about all these'new' ideas. The 'new drama' was thus the 'intellectualdrama of which Shaw was the pioneer in Britain andIbsen had been in Norway, where the 'New Drama' be-gan. The themes of drama became the problems of reli-gion, of youth and age, of labour and capital and sex.

Thus the writers of the New Drama re-establishedthe English Literary drama breaking away from the triv-ial and romantic theatre.

r –––– is the reviver of modern English drama- T. W. Robertson

r –––– popularised realism in modern drama- Norwegian dramatist, Henrik

Ibsenr ––––– presents a realistic picture of life by giving

a detailed discussion of the burning socialproblems of the time

- Modern dramar 19th century was the declining period of

- Dramar The decline of drama in the 19th century was due to

- Major poets failed to bringgood drama

- Professional theatre was in alow state

- Middle class despised drama- Standard of the plays were low

The trends and currents in the modern drama

RealismRealism is the most significant and outstanding

quality of modern drama. The post war generation ofmen and women started the demand for reality aboveall things. It was Ibsen who popularised realism in mod-ern drama. This example was followed by Robertson,Jones, Pinero, Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw in theirplays. In their drama, we get glimpses of real life, withall its warts and sordid ugliness. They deal with prob-lems of marriage, justice, law, administration and strifebetween capital and labour and use the theatre as ameans for bringing about reforms in the conditions ofsociety prevailing in their days.

Modern drama has developed the 'problem play'.Shaw, Barkar, Galsworthy are the writers who have giv-en a spurt to problem play. In their hands the problemplay became a powerful and effective medium of socialcriticism and generally indicated the right of the indi-vidual to shape his life and destiny, unfettered by theprejudices and convention of society. The problem playwas a new experiment in form and technique, and dis-pensed with the conventional devices and expedientsof the theatre.

Drama of ideasModern drama is essentially a drama of ideas. The

stage is employed by dramatists to give expression tocertain ideas which they seek to propagate in societywith the treatment of actual life the drama became moreand more a drama of ideas.

RomanticismRomanticism found its way on modern drama, main-

ly due to Sir. J.M. Barrie's effort. Barrie kept aloof fromsordid and squalid realities of life and made excursionsinto the world of Romance, fantasy, magic and super-naturalism in such plays as Mary Rose, Peter Pan, AKiss for Cinderella, Admirable Crichton and DearBrutus have charmed his readers by the tender whimsi-cality of his imagination and provided them an escapefrom the drab and dull realities of life.

Poetic playsT.S.Eliot espoused the cause of poetic plays

against the realistic prose drama of the modern age.Among those who promoted poetic plays are stephen

phillips, J.E. Flecker, John Drinkwater, John Masefield,W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Christopher Fry'.

r Modern drama has developed the ––– play

- Problem

r The exponents of problem play are

- Bernard Shaw, GrenvilleBarker, John Galsworthy

r The special feature of problem play is

- It is the drama of disillusion,for it stripped life of falsesentiment and revealed theugliness and squalor that laybeneath the false glitter ofsuperficial life

r ––––– is essentially a drama of ideas

- Modern drama

r ––––– in modern drama provided an escape fromthe drab and dull realities of life

- Romanticism

r Romanticism in modern drama is revived by

- J.M. Barrie

r ––––– espoused the cause of poetic plays againstthe realistic prose drama of the modern age

- T. S. Eliot

r Poetic drama was inaugurated by

- W. B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot

r "Poetry is the natural and complete medium fordrama"

- T.S. Eliot

Historical and biographical playsThere were many beautiful historical and biograph-

ical plays in modern dramatic literature. Shaw's Caesarand Cleopatra, St. Joan are of great importance. JohnDrinkwater's Abraham Lincoln, Mary Stuart, OliverCromwell, Robert Lee etc; Clifford Bax wrote Mr Pep-ys, Socrates. The Lady with the Lamp is based on thelife and achievements of Florence Nightingale.

The Irish movementThe Irish dramatists brought about the Celtic Re-

vival in literature. In the hands of W.B. Yeats, J.M. Syn-ge, Leanox Robinson, T.C. Murray and Edward Martyn

drama became an expression of the hopes and aspira-tions of the Irish people from remote days to their owntimes. The imaginative realism, the love of passionateand dreamy poetry, the belief in the fairy world, of theIrish people found their way in Irish drama.

r –––– and –––– plays are another feature of moderndramatic literature

- Historical and biographical

r –––– and –––– are the historical plays of BernardShaw

- St. Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra

r Barrets of Wimpole Street a biographical play byRudolf Besier is based on the true life of

- Browning and Mrs. Browning

r The Lady with the Lamp is based on the life andachievements of

- Florence Nightingale

r The Irish dramatists brought about the ––– inliterature

- Celtic Revival

r Irish movement was essentially ––– in character

- National

r The result of the Irish revival was

- The imaginative realism, thelove of passionate and dreamypoetry, the belief in the fairyworld, symbols, legends,mythology of the Irish peoplecame back to Irish drama.

ImpressionismIn the impressionistic plays of W.B. Yeats, the main

effort is in the direction of recreating the experience ofthe artist and his impressions about reality. Impression-istic drama of the modern age seeks to suggest the im-pressions on the artist about the objective character-isties of things and event.

Expressionism It is another important feature of the modern dra-

ma. It marks an extreme reaction against naturalism. Themovement started in Germany and several modern dra-matists Sean o' Casey, C.K. Munro, H.F.Rubinstein, J.B.Priestley, Elmer Rice and Eugene O' Neill have made

experiments in the expressionistic tendency. Expression-ist drama was concerned with man. It aimed at to offersubjective, psychological analysis not so much of anindividual as of a type, and it made much of the sub-conscious. Their dialogue was often cryptic and pat-terned and was in every way far removed from the nat-uralistic prose.

The comedy of mannersThere is a revival of the comedy of manners in

modern dramatic literature Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward,Somerset Maugham have done much to revive the com-edy of wit.

Stage directionsIn modern drama there are elaborate stage direc-

tions. These stage directions considerably ease thework of dramatic production on the stage. eg : plays ofGalsworthy, Bernard Shaw.

TechniqueIn modern drama, the three classical unities of time,

place and action are maintained. Dialogues are shortand trenchant. The lack of action is made up by the finedialogues. Soliloquies, asides are completely avoided.

r Impressionistic drama is- to suggest the impressions on

the artist about the objectivecharacterisation of things andevent.

r Expressionism is an extreme reaction against- naturalism

r Expressionism started in- Germany

r The exponents of expressionism are- Sean O' Casey, C.K. Munro

H.F. Rubinstein, J.B. PriestleyEugene O' Neill

r Expressionist drama aims at- Offering subjective, psycholo-

gical analysis not so much ofan individual as of a type andit made much of the subcon-scious

r Comedy of manners was revived by- Oscar Wilde, Noel coward,

Somerset Maugham

r Techniques of modern drama

- Three unities are maintained

- Dialogues are short and tren-chant

- Soliloquies, aside are com-pletely avoided.

The problem playThe problem play is also known as 'the drama

of ideas and the serious drama. The problem play is thepresentation of contemporary questions through real-istic technique. The dramatists of the problem play werepre occupied with the vital problems of contemporarylife and morality. The realistic movement was strength-ened by the growth of the scientific spirit stimulatedthe desire for facts and fostered an attitude of dispas-sionate observation. The foreign influences too accler-ated it. Ibsen and Emile Zola encouraged the spirit ofnaturalism. The term 'problem play' was coined by Syd-ney Grundy. The play ends with a question mark.

r The problem Play is also known as

- the serious drama or intellectualdrama or drama of ideas

r ––– was influenced by the realistic movement

- The problem play

r –––– and –––– influenced the English dramatists

- Ibsen and Emile Zola

r The term 'The problem play' was coined by

- Sydney Grundy

r The problem play end with a

- Question mark

r Bernard Shaw defines problem play as

- "the presentation is parable ofthe conflict between man's willand his environment'

r The significance of the word ' problem' in problemplay is

- the play usually ends with aquestion mark

r The function of a problem playwright is

- to state his problem clearlyand effectively and not to

present a ready - madesolution or to suggest aspecific remedy

r The drama of ideas dealt with the

- Problem of religion, of Youth,and age, of labour and capitaland sex.

Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934)Pinero was a pioneer in the

field of introducing realism andsatire in drama. His realism wastempered by conventional melo-dramatic intrusions, Mawkishsentimentalism and footlightexpedients. Pinero's real geniusas a dramatist is unfolded in TheProfligate, The Second MrsTanquerary, The Thunderbolt,and The Notorious Mrs Ebb-smith. These plays are seriousin tone and tragic in theme ; and represent life in realis-tic colours. The Second Mrs. Tanquerary poses thequestion of the social acceptance of the woman with a'past'. The Money Spinner, The Magistrate, The SchoolMistress Dandy Dick, The Princess and the Butterfly ,The Weaker Sex are his other plays. He had an effectivesense of stage situation. Plays are well-written and hischaracters are more life -like.

Henry Arthur Jones, John Galsworthy, BernardShaw, Granville Barker are other famous writers of thisgenre.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)Galsworthy is one of the great literary figures of the

century. He was a novelist, an essayist, a short storywriter, a critic and a dramatist. His major works are TheSilver Box, Strife, The Show, The Skin Game, The For-est, The Joy, A Familyman, Justice, The Mob, A Bit ofLove, The Eldest Son, Loyalties and Foundations etc.

He played a conspicuous part in popularising theproblem play. He was a dramatist of social life and con-centrated his attention on problems facing us in soci-ety. He found his material and inspiration in the worldof everyday life and affairs. He deals with the problemsof life with impartiality. He had sympathy, for the down

Arthur Wing Pinero

- trodden and the under dog. The plots of Galworthy isbased on ideas and hang on characters, they are real,critical, pleasant climaxes and surprises one special fea-ture of his plot, Construction is the employment of thetechnique of parallelism. His characters are drawn fromcommon life and evolved from the impact of situations.He lays great emphasis on dialogues.

r ––––– introduced realism and Satire in moderndrama

- Pineror –––– of Pinero poses the question of the social

acceptance of the woman with a 'past'- The Second Mrs Tanquerary

r –––– is an exponent of problem play- John Galsworthy

r The Silver Box of Galsworthy deals with- the inequality of justice

r Galsworthy lays great emphasis on ––– in his plays- dialogue

r The themes of Galsworthy's plays include- Family relationship, social

injustice, class feelings andconflicts and tragedies ofidealism.

Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)Life and main plays of George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw(1856-1950) was born in Dublinof Irish Protestant stock, andthere received a somewhatscanty education at a numberof local schools, including theWesleyan Donnexional School.Most of his cultural back-ground he owed to his mother,a talented woman with whomin 1876 he came to London. Herehe became an active member ofthe Fabian Society soon after it was founded in 1884,and he not only wrote pamphlets on politics and eco-nomics but did much platform speaking as his part inthe campaign to disseminate the ideals of Fabian so-cialism. From 1885 to 1901 he won fame as a journalist -with the Pall Mall Gazette (1885) ; The world as an ArtCritic ; The Star (1888), as a music critic ; The World

again (1890-94) this time as a music critic ; and mostimportant of all, as dramatic critic for the Saturday Re-view (1895-98). It was for this paper that he wrote thewell-known articles attacking the sentimentality andinsincerity of the theatre of the nineties. In the mean-time, after an abortive attempt to become a novelist (hewrote four unsuccessful novels : Immaturity, The Irra-tional Knot, Love among the Artists, and Cashel By-ron's Profession). Shaw commenced dramatist with Wid-ower's Houses (1892). But none of his ten plays of thenineties met with success on the stage. Indeed, recog-nition was delayed for over the years, and then it camefirst from aborad - on the Continent and in America.Then in 1904-6 the Court Theatre, under the famousVedrenne Barker management presented his plays con-sistently and his reputation was assured. By the end ofthe First World War Shaw had become a cult. In 1925 hewas awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and fouryears later Sir Barry Jackson founded the Shaw Festivalat Malvern, for which Shaw wrote new plays until 1949when his last full length play, Buoyant Billions wasperformed there. At the time of his death in 1950, suchwas the strength of the 'Shaw legend,' there were fewwho did not know him as a personality though, manymay not have known his work.

Bernard Shaw wrote a number of plays. The fol-lowing are prominent plays of the celebrated dramatist:

Widower's House (1892), Arms and the Man(1895), Candida (1895), The Devil's Disciple(1897) Mrs.Warren's Profession (1898), You NeverCan Tell (1899), Caesar and Cleopatra (1899),Captain Brass-Bound's Conversion (1900), Manand Superman (1903), John Bull's Other Island(1904), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor'sDilemma (1906), Androcles and the Lion (1913),Pygmalion (1913), Heart Break House (1919),Back to Methuselah (1921), Saint Joan (1923),The Apple Cart (1928), On the Rocks (1933).

r Bernard Shaw was an active member of ––– society

- Fabian

r The Fabian Society was founded in

- 1884

r Shaw was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in

- 1925

Bernard Shaw

r The first play of Shaw was

- Widower's House

r Saint Joan and Caesar and Cleopatra are thehistorical plays of

- G.B. Shaw

Let us critically examine some of the plays.

Widower's House (1893)Shaw's first play Widowers' Houses was not fin-

ished till 1892, although he had made an unsuccessfuleffort at dramatic collaboration with William Archer sev-en years earlier. This play is written on the subject ofslum landlordism. Shaw himself describes it thus. "Iperversely distorted it to be a grotesquely realistic ex-posure of slum landlordism, municipal jobbery, and thepecuniary and matrimonial ties between them and thepeasant people with 'independent' income who imaginethat such sordid matters do not touch their own lives."The satirical invention of the author was combined witha good deal of triviality with the result that a serioussubject was treated with a degree of annoying non-seriousness. This play should be described as an eco-nomic treatise in dramatic form. The characters are most-ly and intentionally represented as hypocrites and hum-bugs. The Englishmen brought out in his play are ob-tuse, thick-skinned, unimaginative and humourless.These Englishmen, like Cokane "might be compared withthe buffoons of an earlier tradition : the Vice of medievaldrama and the Fool of the Elizabethan before the Foolhad been transformed by Shakespeare from a buffooninto a philosophic and poetic genius."

The PhilandererIt is a telling satire upon physical science, though

enlivened with fine strokes of comedy. Dr. Paramore is ayoung strenous physician, who has discovered a newdisease, and is delighted when he finds people suffer-ing from it and cast down to despair when he finds thatit does not exist. In other words, it is a sharp exposureof the dangers of 'idealism', the sacrifice of people toprinciples. He points out that excessive idealism existsnowhere so much as in the realm of physical science.The scientist seems to be more concerned about sick-ness than about the sick man. This theme of Dr. Par-amore's disease is at once a most farcical philosophicthing in the play.

Mrs Warren's ProfessionIt is a play based on the theme of prostitution.

G.K.Chesterton comments on it thus : "It is concernedwith a coarse mother and a cold daughter : the motherdrives the ordinary and dirty trade of harlotry: thedaughter does not know till the end the atrocious originof all her own comfort and refinement. The daughter,when the discovery is made, freezes up into an icebergof contempt, which is indeed a very womanly thing todo so. The mother explodes into pulverizng cynicismwhich is also very womanly. The dialogue is drastic andsweeping ; the daughter says the trade is loathsome;the mother answers that she loathes it herself; that ev-ery healthy person does loathe the trade by which shelives. And beyond question the general effect of theplay is that the trade is loathsome, supposing anyoneto be so insensible as to require to be told of the fact.Undoubtedly, the upshot is that a brothel is a miserablebusiness, and a brothel keeper a miserable woman. Thewhole dramatic art of Shaw is, in the literal sense of theword, tragi-comic. I mean that the comic part comesafter the tragedy. On account of the theme of play "itwas banned by the Censor of plays and aroused a stormof protest from several quarters.

r Widower's House was written in

- 1893

r The 'Widower's House' was based on the subject

- Slum landlordism

r 'The Philanderer' is a satire upon

- Physical Science

r Dr. Paramore is the central character of

- The philanderer

r 'Mrs. Warren's Profession' is based on the themeof

- Prostitution

r The play ––––– of Shaw was banned by the censorof plays and aroused a storm of protest from severalquarters

- Mrs. Warren's Profession

Arms and the Man (1894)It was acted for the first time in April, 1894. It is an

amusing exposure of the glory of war and romanticlove. The story is based on an incident in a war be-

tween Bulgaria and Austria in 1855. The Petkoffs repre-sent an aristocratic Bulgarian family consisting of Ma-jor Petkoff, his wife Catherine and his daughter Rainawhose head is full of romance and who is in love withSergius claimed to be a military hero. Into this circleenters a common soldier Bluntschli, a Swiss, who hasjoined the Serbian army as a mercenary soldier. He hasno illusions about war, places the naked truth about itwhen he happens to seek shelter in Raina's bedcham-ber one night from the ruthless shooting of the Bulgar-ians. "The Swiss soldier behaved as Shaw maintaineda soldier actually does behave, not as the conventionsof Victorian melodrama would have a soldier behave :the play exhibited what Shaw called "natural morality"as against the "romantic morality" of those who object-ed to it. The plot is cleverly developed to show that thehero of Raina's dreams, Sergius is really a humbug, andhis so-called military exploits and glory are mere sham.He is not only a false hero on the battle - field but alsoin love. Though he is in love with and engaged to Rai-na, he flirts with the servant - maid Louka. in course oftime it is found out that Raina herself cares more for her'chocolate cream soldier. Bluntschli, than for her pro-fessed lover, Sergius. Thus Shaw tears the mask off theface of sentimentality surrounding war and the equallyfoolish approach to love. Shaw's satire is summed up inthe words of Sergius, "Oh, war the dream of Patriotsand heroes - a fraud, Bluntschli, A hollow sham, likelove."

Caesar and CleopatraCeasar and Cleopatra is a puritanial play based on

war against romance and heroism. In this play Shawhas produced a play of artistic creation in the portrait ofCaesar. Caesar is a Shavian hero. Shaw represents Cae-sar not so much as "best riding the earth like a colos-sus" but rather walking the earth with a sort of sternlevity lightly touching the planet and yet spunning itaway like a stone. Caesar and Cleopatra is a note-wor-thy play from many points of view. It began a new wayof handling historical subjects, material, informal, hu-morous, yet full of meaning. The play contains manybrilliant scenes and fine phrases. There is no play ofShaw more certain to hold its own on the British stage.This play does not aim at proving any general proposi-tion and comes much nearer to being a play than mostof his works written in dramatic form."

r 'Arms and the Man' was written in- 1894

r The background of the play 'Arms and the Manwas'

- the war between Bulgaria andAustria in 1855

r Main characters of the play 'Arms and the Man'- Capt. Bluntschli and Miss

Raina Petkoff

r 'The Chocolate Cream Soldier' in the play 'Armsand the Man' is

- Capt. Bluntschli

r In 'Arms and the Man' Shaw dares to- tear the mask off the face of

sentimentality surroundingwar and the equally foolishapproach to love.

r " Oh, war the dream of patriots and heroes - afraud, Bluntschli, A hollow sham, like love" is thewords of

- Sergius (Arms and the Man)

r –––– is a puritanical play based on war againstromance and heroism

- Caesar and Cleopatra

r In 'Caesar and Cleopatra' Shaw presents Caesar as- Walking the earth with a stern

levity lightly touching theplanet and yet spunning itaway like a stone

r 'Caesar and Cleopatra' paved the way for the newtradition ––– in English drama

- of handling historicalsubjects, material, informal,humorous yet full of meaning.

Man and Superman (1903)With the appearance of this play in 1903, Shaw

proved himself a fully matured dramatist. His appren-ticeship in the realm of drama was over, and he was ableto tackle the theatre and the dramatic form with unqual-ified success. In Man and Superman observes Ward'the ideas are more memorable than the character, andthere is little reliance upon stage situation : but the tre-mendous stirring of moral and intellectual passion iscompensation enough". Described by the author as 'A

Comedy and a Philosophy' this play was Bernard Shaw'searliest full statement of his conception of the way ofsalvation for the human race through obedience to theLife Force, the term he uses to indicate a power contin-ually working upon the hearts of men and endeavour-ing to impel them towards better and fuller life. UnlikeHardy's Immanent Will Shaw's Life Force is representedas a power marking consciously towards a state of ex-istence far more abundantly vital than anything yet ex-perienced by mankind. But the Life Forces does notpropose to work unaided. Men and women are requiredto act as willing and eagar agents for the furtherance ofits great work. The existing race of men, however (soShaw thought in 1903) was too mean spirited and tooself-centred to serve the Life-Force, which would con-sequently be compelled to supersede Man by a moreeffective instrument of its - the Superman. The meanslikely to be adopted for the production of that highesttype were suggested in Man and Superman, wherewoman is indicated as 'Nature's contrivance for perpet-uating its achievement' and Men as 'woman's contriv-ance for fulfilling, Nature's behest, that the Supermanshould born to replace, the existing 'feverish selfish lit-tle clod of ailments and grievances.'

Heartbreak House (1919)Shaw's doctrine of the Life-Force is developed fur-

ther in two plays Heartbreak House and Back to Meth-uselah (1921), In Heartbreak House he gives forth aterrible warning that 'cultured and leisured Europe willmeet its doom if it did not undertake the mission of theLife Force.' This play, began in 1913, proved to be pro-phetic. It was completed in 1919 and by that time Eu-rope had witnessed the holocaust of the World War. Ageneration which ignored the purposes of the Life Forcewas like the drunken skipper to whom come the smashof the ship on the rocks, the splintering of rotten tim-bers, the tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of thecrew like rats in a trap'.

Back to Methuselah (1921)In Back to Methuselah Shaw once again consid-

ered the purpose of the Life Force and pronounced agreat warning that if Man did not come up to the markhe would be replaced by another set of beings. Shaw'sdoctrine in this respect was contrary to the theory ofNatural Selection expounded by Darwin. Shaw wrote,

"This does not mean that if man cannot find the reme-dy, no remedy will be found." The power that producedMan when the monkey was not up to mark can producea higher creature than Man if man does not come up tothe mark". What it means is that if man is to be saved,Man must save himself. "The play is pretentious anddull showing a most undramatic desire to reduce allhuman life to disembodied speculation." It lays empha-sis on creative evolution.

r 'Man and Superman' is described by Shaw as- A comedy and a philosophy

r Shaw's concept of Life Force is seen in- Man and Superman

r The message Shaw gives through 'Heart breakHouse' is

- In fact, it is a warning thatcultured and leisured Europewill meet its doom if it did notundertake the mission of theLife Fore.

r Play of Shaw –––– proved to be prophetic, Europehad witnessed the holocaust of the World War

- Heartbreak House

r The three plays of Bernard Shaw that developedthe doctrine of Life Force

- Man and Superman

- Heart break House- Back to Methuselah

The Apple Cart (1930)In this play Shaw deals with the problem of monar-

chy in a democratic country like England. He comes tothe conclusion that the attempt to do away with theinstitution of monarchy represented by King Magnusin the play will ultimately spell ruin in society. The kingis necessary to exercise a check on the activities ofdemocratic leaders. In this play Shaw is neither op-posed to monarchy nor democracy but to capitalism,and his diatribes are directed against Breakages andCompany that stands in the way of all social and eco-nomic progress. "The Apple Cart is one of the wisestand most genial pieces, wise not so much because ofthe political acumen of King Magnus as for the dictumon the art of self -sufficingness in the opening dialogueand on the art of human relationship in the interlude,

which is also a passage of sparkling comedy rarelyequalled in the modern English theatre."

Candida (1895)It is in some ways Shaw's masterpiece. It tackles a

domestic problem and shows that it is not sentimental-ism but intelligence that governs life. This explains whyCandida eventually chooses the strong man Morel andnot the poet, Marchbank, her sentimental lover.

John Bull's Other Island (1904)In this play Shaw is directing his satire at the con-

ventional Englishman, who is never so silly or senti-mental as when he sees silliness and sentiment in theIrishman. Broadbent, the hero of the play, is an English-man, who believes that he brings reason in treating theIrishmen, whereas in truth they are all similing at hisillusions.

"This play" observes Ward, "remains one of hismost effective pieces, displaying his dramatic power -mastery of rhetoric and exalted prose, effective han-dling of stage situation, skill in depicting character andsense of comedy."

r In 'The Apple Cart' Shaw deals with- the problem of monarchy in a

democratic country likeEngland

r ––––– is one of the wisest and most genial piecesof Shaw

- The Apple Cart

r –––– is considered the masterpiece of Shaw- Candida

r 'Candida' shows that -- It is not sentimentalism but

intelligence that governs life

r –––––– is one of the most effective pieces,displaying the dramatic power of Shaw

- John Bull's Other Island

Major Barbara (1905)It reveals the materialistic pessimism of Shaw. Here

he depicts poverty as the epitome of all vices. 'Peoplesay that poverty is no crime ; Shaw says that provertyis a crime. It is a crime to endure it, a crime to be contentwith it, that is the mother of all crimes of brutality, cor-ruption and fear. Here the dramatist shows that eventhe noblest enthusiam of the girl who becomes a Salva-

tion Army Officer fails under the brute money power ofher father who is a modern capitalist. The political phi-losophy of Major Barabara is essentially Marxist.

On the Rocks (1933)In his latest play On the Rocks Shaw returns to the

subject of democracy though he changes metaphor andalso thinks of new plots and plans of attack. In thiscomedy he shows how a programme of socialism is ac-ceptable only to aristocrats and is rejected by the lead-ers of the proletariat. The play is a failure both as anexposition of Shaw's philosophy and as a work of art.

Saint Joan (1924)Saint Joan is one of the greatest works of Shaw.

Here he presents the life of the French girl St. Joan whodefied British power and fought valiantly for the free-dom of her country. Saint Joan is captured and is burntas a witch. Later on the greatness of Saint Joan under-stood by the people and she is cannonised in the Chris-tian Church. The play is on a great subject and has agrandeur of style fully worthy of it The trial scene inthis play is one of the greatest scenes in the whole ofdramatic literature. "In Saint Joan Bernard Shaw reach-es a higher level than elsewhere because for once thegrander emotions are involved the theme is a universalone lending itself to tragic drama."

r ––––– reveals the materialistic pessimism of Shaw,here he depicts poverty as the epitome of all vices.

- Major Barbara

r "Poverty is a crime. It is a crime to endure it, to becontent with it, that is the mother of all crimes ofbrutality, corruption and fear"

- Bernard Shaw

r The political philosophy of Major Barbara is- Marxist

r –––– was a failure both as a work of art andphilosophy of Shaw

- On the Rocksr –––– is one of the greater works of Shaw

- St. Joan

r St. Joan presents the story- Life of the French girl Joan

who defied British power andfought valiantly for thefreedom of her country

r The –––– scene of St. Joan is one of the greatestscenes in the whole of dramatic literature

- Trial Scene

George Bernard Shaw as a dramatistBernard Shaw was one of the greatest dramatists

of the 20th century, and by some critics he is consid-ered next to Shakespeare in the hierarchy of Englishdramatists. At the time when Shaw made his debut onthe English stage, drama was slowly struggling to risefrom the torpor into which it had fallen during the nine-teenth century. The period between 1779 and 1876 isdramatically barren and hardly a play produced duringthis sterile period has survived except as a literary curi-osity. It was Shaw's great contribution that he gave toEnglish drama a new life-force which it had lacked evenin the hands of revivalists like Arthur Henry Jones andPinero. He created not only the new dramas of the 20thcentury, the drama of ideas and problems but also pre-pared the audience ready to accord a hearty welcometo what the dramatists of the new age were intending togive to the public. He revolutionised the whole conceptof drama as it was supposed to be in the earlier agesand made it essentially a medium of discussion andreform rather than pure relaxation and fun. It was Shaw'sgreat achievement that he gave the air of seriousnessand purposiveness to drama without sacrificing the el-ement of fun and gaity that the audience hungrily cravedfor. He gave his philosophic pills a nice sugar coatingof joyousness and fun.

Shaw had begun his career as a dramatic critic quitein the style of William Archer, but he failed to bringabout the regeneration that he sought to introduce inthe field of drama. "Finally, having for three and half -years made mincement of the sentimentalities and es-sential falsities that contemporary dramatists contin-ued to offer to their convention - ridden audiences, andseeing no sign of a regeneration, he abandoned criti-cism, and more from a sense of duty than vocation, setout to show that he could do what he had upbraidedPinero and his school of drama for not doing.' Beforeturning seriously to dramatic production, Shaw triedhis hand at fiction and wrote five novels: Cashel By-ron's Profession and the Unsocial Socialist (1883), whichfailed to achieve the desired success. These were re-garded by Shaw as "The novels of my nonage" and

their cold reception damped his enthusiasm for furtherproduction of works of fiction. He turned to drama ashis saviour and made it the main force to his literarycareer.

r Shaw had begun his career as a- Dramatic Critic

r –––– deals with the transformation of animpoverished illiterate and neglected London girlinto a fashionable Lady.

- Pygmalion

r St. Joan is a ––––––- Tragedy

r When does the St. Joan play take place- 1429

r Shaw's plays are known for- Social criticism

- Play of ideas

Absence of Action in Shaw's PlaysA dramatist who lays emphasis on talk of conver-

sation in his play cannot be expected to give action theprominence it deserves in drama. Action is wanting inmany plays of Shaw, and whatever action is present issmothered by the sallies of wit and bouts of intellectualswordsmanship. The want of action is made up by anextra dose of dramatic dialogue. "If the dramatic dia-logue is good enough" says Joad, "what of the action?There is something faintly vulgar about the alterationof position of matter in space which is, after all whataction is."

Lack of conflict in Shaw's playsConflict, which has been adjudged by critics as

the life-breath of drama, is lacking in Shaw's plays. In-stead of the dramatic conflict the dramatist introducesmental conflict in his plays. His importance lies in thefact that he transferred conflict of modern drama fromthe physical to the mental plane. To quote A.C.Ward. "A great deal of critical disapproval of Shaw's plays hadbeen based upon the supposition that they lack theprimary element of conflict. If conflict in drama neces-sarily implies a clash involving either violent physicalaction or intense emotional disturbance, then conflictin that sense is often lacking in the Shavian drama. It is,however, intentionally lacking, and its place is taken bymental action, which to Shaw is far more exciting for the

conflict of passion. Shaw subsitutes the conflict ofthought and belief or rather, he brings moral passion tothe stage to break the long monopoly of physical andsensual passion."

CharacterisationShaw has enriched dramatic literature by creating

a variety of characters drawn from all classes of peoplein our society. "After Shakespeare, no English drama-tist equals Shaw in the variety and vividness of hischaracter, though he lacks almost entirely that interestin the individual person which is one of Shakespeare'squalities. "The characters of Shaw are representativesof certain ideas which the dramatist seeks to propoundthrough them. Some of his characters are mere mouth-pieces of his theories invented to supply a necessarycontribution to an argument while others are really pro-jections of his own personality. It is very nicely pointedout by Scott James "that there was at least one humancharacter that he could depict to the life, and that washis own. In half of his plays there is one human beingwho is copied from life and appears under different dis-guises and that is the infinitely various yet always thesame George Bernard Shaw."

If Shaw's characters are merely puppets standingfor certain ideas, speaking their parts not as life but asShaw's arguments dictate, how they give the air of veri-similitude, still less the less, which the enjoyment ofdrama requires. This is a pertinent question. Shaw'scharacters, inspite of being puppets and mouthpiece ofthe dramatist have life in them because "he is so witty,because his stage craft is good ; and especially be-cause he has prepared the minds of his audience bywritten prefaces to his plays which are far more con-vincing than the plays themselves."

"His characterisation sometimes lacks the powerof fully convincing us, because it does not always arisefrom such immediate creative insight so does the gen-eral ideas of the play, but is to some extent dependenton that idea for the nature and variety of its figures. Butonce started on their career, his people share the vitali-ty of the whole even when that is a vitality not of actionbut of talk. They may, indeed, be carried away by thezest of the argument and talk too much like. Shaw andnot enough as individuals, but this only enhances theunity of the play and its dramatic effectiveness.

Shaw, inspite of making his characters talking ma-chines, has been able to give some outstanding indi-vidual characters such as Bluntschli, Father Keegan,Shotover and Saint Joan who can well be placed in thegallery of signal individual characters in British drama.His Alfred Doolittle in Pygmalion. Tanner in Man andSuperman, Larry Doyle in Joan Bull's Other Island.Magnus in Apple Cart are memorable additions to thenational heritage. Some characters of Shaw are intense-ly vital, and stand on their own right as masterly cre-ations of the great dramatist. Energy Straker, Laza Dol-little Rummy Mitchens, and Brother Martin are reallygreat creations. We may not come across Shaw's char-acters in the streets and buses, in the cinema hall andthe public pub, but in their own world they are as 'live'as the characters of Dickens are in their own world.Shaw's characters are never mere dummies or conven-tional types. They are lively, vigorous and witty.

Shaw's portrayal of women is masterly. Shaw in-vented the modern woman before he discovered him-self. "Woman, above all he read and presented with acunning unromantic realism which suggests that, likethe novelist Richardson, he understood women evenbetter than men : to Saint Joan may be added among hismany vividly realised women, Raina, Cleopatra, Candi-da, Anne Whitefield, Major Barbara, Jennifer Dubedatand Eliza Doolittle, to name only a few." In the opinionof Harison, "Barring Candida and Lady Cicely (CaptainBrassbounds' Conversion) Shaw's women from Blanchehis heroine in Widowers' Houses to Vivie Warren inMrs. Warren's Profession, are distinctly unpleasant,practically unsexed women. Their bodies are as dryand hard as their minds, and even where they run aftermen, as in the case of Anne in Man and Superman, thepersuit has a much sex appeal as a time table. Whethersuch women ever existed is an open question."

"Shaw's men when they are popular heroes, areoften pretentious weaklings. He pulls Shakespeare,Napoleon, and Caesar from their pedastals, and revealsthem to us as human beings with all the frailties of theflesh. He laughs at the athletic type of socialist personwho, for all his popularity in the pulpit, is really a greatbaby. He pokes fun at the foreign missionary. He isamused by the Spanish bandit. He chuckles at the PrimeMinister the soldier, the aggressive Labour man andthe devil."

In two directions Shaw's characterisation had spe-cial attraction and power. He successfully evoked thesympathies of the readers in unattractive people likeMrs. Warren and Louis Dubedat. He created with en-thusiasm characters of broad comedy like those of Dick-ens such as Candida's father Straker and Eliza's fatherAlfred Doolittle. In these humorous figures idiosyncra-cies are emphasised to create pure fun.

There were no conventional heroes or villains in hisplays. Like the plays of Galsworthy the dramas of Shawhold the audience as the villain. David Daiches says."And often the real villain is not a character in the playbut the audience. For the audience the average play-goer represents that thoughtless complacent sentimen-tal society which, for Shaw was responsible for so muchdistortion of vision and so much evil and suffering."

r The plots of Shaw are ––––

- Loose

r Absence of Action is a peculiarity of the plays of

- Shaw

r Shaw's plays lack

- Conflict

r Shaw presents –––– conflict rather than dramaticconflict

- Mental

r After Shakespeare, no English dramatist equals ––– in the variety and vividness of character.

- Shaw

r There were no conventional heroes of villains in –––– plays

- Shaw's

Shaw's place in English dramaShaw is undoubtedly a great dramatist. "His great-

ness consists in being irreplaceable. Bernard Shaw'sgreatness is assured. It was not long before people be-gan to talk about him as the English or Irish Moliere, orthe Voltaire of the twentieth century, and undoubtedlyhe combines in himself some of the qualities of boththese great men. Shaw's name will not be forgotten aslong as their's are remembered, and what is best in hisinfluence may well become part of our common humanheritage."

The fact is that Shaw remained an entertainer anda master of all the tricks of the entertainment trade andhis wit and intellectual brilliance were never fully ab-sorbed into a dramatic form of appropriate depth andscope. This is not to say that Shaw was a great writerwhose plays do not fit into any accepted category, butrather that he was a dramatist of immense talent andprodigious wit whose limited view of the nature of liter-ary art prevented him from seeking the limitations of hisown artistic imagination and from seeking a dramaticform which could contain all he had to say about menabsorbed wholly into the dramatic texture.

"When all deductions are made, and when Shakes-peare has been put at the head of the roll of Englishdramatists, who is to be placed second if not Shaw ?Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Congreve, Webster, Tourneur,Sheridan ? The failings of any one of these are no fewerthan those of Shaw, though they may be different fail-ings, their achievements seem less than his. Not one ofthem directed and dominated the thought of the earlytwentieth century in England and beyond. Not one ofthem was mixed by a blaze of moral passion, as Shawwas. Not one of them had a greater command of rhetoricor a more brilliant wit. Some of them were great poets -as Shaw was not ; yet none of them commnded a betterprose style than Shaw at his best. Shaw's place is un-doubtedly next to Shakespeare."

r Shaw is master of ––– rather than emotion

- Wit

r –––– is the very essence of Shavian Comedy

- Wit

r –––––– is a master of dramatic dialogue

- Shaw

r Shaw's place in English drama in undoubtedly nextto

- Shakespeare

Revival of comedy of mannersThe 20th century comedy bears a close relation to

the Restoration Comedy in its witticism and sparklingdialogues. Among the comedy writers of the period areShaw, Oscar wilde, Noel Coward, S. Maugham, Sutro,James Bridie, and Frederick Londadale.

Oscar wilde was the main reviver of the comedy of

manners and it, was his object to provide entertainmentand artistic delight to his readers through his comedies.He was an apostle of the theory of Art for Art's Sake.The main feature of his comedies are their witticism andsparkling dialogues. His plots are melodramatics, hismajor works are 'Lady Windmere's Fan, A woman of noimportance, An ideal husband, The importance of be-ing Ernest, Salome etc. Salome and The Duchess ofPadua are his poetic dramas.

Noel Coward (1899- 1973)His comedies are lighter in vein and satirical in

content. His wit and flashes of scintillating dialoguesare well presented in 'The Red Trap', the Vortex, FallenAngels, Easy virtue, Bitter sweet, Private Lives,Cavalcade, Blithe Spirit, etc.

Somerset Maugham (1874-65)Maugham the novelist is also a comedy writer of

repute. All his comedies are based on his observationof life. His comedies successfully catch the mannersand ways of the upper class society. They are better inplot. Construction, and characterisation this main playsare 'A man of Honour', Lady Frederick, Mrs. Dot, JackStraw, Home and Beauty, The circle, Our Betters andConstant wife etc.

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)The work of Yeats as a dramatist belongs to the

Irish literary movment and the Abbey theatre. He wasprimarily a poet and it is quite natural that his dramaticwork should have been imbued by the spirit of lyricismand poetic fervour. His plays dealing with Irish life are'The counters Cathleen,' The Land of Heart's desire, TheShadowy waters, Cathleen in Houlihan, The King'sThreshold, The Hour glass, Deirdre and his mystical andphilosophical plays are cavlary, The Resurrection, Pur-gatory, The Death of cuchlain etc. These plays are sym-bolic in character. The popularity of his plays dependedmore upon poetic charm and strangeness than upon dra-matic power. 'Four plays of Dancers' is his poetic drama.

r ––––– is the reviver of the comedy of Manners- Oscar Wilde

r Oscar Wilde was the apostle of the theory- Art for Art's Sake

r 'Lady Windermere's Fan' is a play of the

- Woman with a past

r Duchess of Padua is the poetic drama of

- Oscar Wilde

r Cathleen in Houlihan is the play of

- W.B. Yeats

r 'The Resurrection' is the mystical and philosophicalplay of

- W.B. Yeats

J.M.Synge (1871-1909)Synge was the greatest writer in the rebirth of the

Irish theatre. He played an important part in giving toIrish life both in its tragic and comic aspects, a tangibleform and shape in his plays. He studied life objectivelyin its beauty, its comedy and its tragedy, and gave ex-pression to his feelings in a language that is poetical,rich and natural. His style has the vitality of the greatgenius. The main plays of Synge are 'The Shadow ofGlen, Riders to the sea, The jikers wedding, The will ofthe saints, The playboy of the western world and Deir-dre of the sorrows. The play of the western world andThe shadow of Glen are his poetic dramas.

r –––– is an Irish national dramatist

- J. M. Synge

r ––––– is the masterpiece work of J.M.Synge

- Play Boy of the Western world

r Synge's –––– is a tragic short play

- Riders to the sea

r The Play boy of the Western world is the –––– ofSynge

- Poetic drama

Sean O' Casey (1884-1964)O'casey was a worthy successor of Synge. He pre-

sented the life of slums of Dublin bringing out all thesordidness and drunkenness of the Irish men and wom-en His main works are The Shadow of a Gunman, Junoand the paycock, The plough of stars, The Silver Tass-ie, Within the Gates, The star turned Red, Purple Dust,Red Rose for me. Oak leaves and Lavender etc. Thetragedy and comedy of the irish life is well brought outin dialogues, which are vivid, racy, rhythmical. His 'Shad-ow of Gunman, Juno and the paycock, Plough and thestars are poetic dramas.

Lady Gregory, Lennox Robinson, T.C. Murray, Pad-

ric column, Edward Martyn, Lord Dunsany are otherpopular Irish writers.

Poetic DramaT.S. Eliot is largely responsible for the revival of

the poetic drama. 'Murder in the Cathedral, Familyreunion, Cocktail party and confidential clerk are hispoetic dramas. His is a name to conjure with in moderndrama. He has dealt with religious, secular, and psycho-logical themes in his plays in a poetic style, varying hisverse according to the theme of plays.

W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood havecollaborated to write plays. Their works are The Dogbeneath the skin or where is Francis ?, The Ascent ofF6, On the Frontier etc. These dramatists have raisedsocial issues to a mythological plane. There is a socialpropaganda in them with a leftwing bias. These threeplays reflect the disillusionment and despair of man inthe face of the stark realities of life. The technique inthem is borrowed from German expressionists. They areblunt in their satire.

r The poetic plays of T.S. Eliot are

- Murder in the CathedralFamily Reunion, CocktailParty, Confidential clerk

r –––– was the worthy successor of Synge

- Sean O' Casey

r 'Juno and the Paycock' is the play by

- Sean O' Casey

r In his plays O' Casey presented the life of

- Slums of Dublin, bringing outall the sordidness anddrunkenness of the Irish menand women.

r ––––– is largely responsible for the revival ofpoetic drama

- T.S. Eliot

r Juno and the Paycock' is the poetic drama of

- Sean O' Casey

r –––– is a verse drama written by Eliot for the canterbury festival of June 1935.

- Murder in the Cathedral

r The theme of 'Murder in the Cathedral' is

- The martyrdom of St. ThomasBecket, Archbishop ofCanterbury

r W.H. Auden collaborated with ChristopherIsherwood to write

- The Dog Beneath the skin

r Who were the most striking, intellectual influenceson Auden ?

- Marx and Freud

Stephen Spender (1909-1977)He is the most renowned communist playwright of

modern poetical plays. His poetic play is 'The trial of ajudge. He is definitely a popular front communist. Herepresents the frustrating condition which producedNazism in Germany.

Stephen Phillips's Herod, Ulysses, Faust, Paola,Francesca ; John Davidson's The Theatocrat, MannonTrilogy ; James Flecker's Hassan, Culbin sands ; JohnMasefield's Good Friday, The trial of Jesus, Easter : Aplay for singers and A play of St. George, John Drink-water's Paris and Oenone are other poetic dramas of theperiod.

Samuel Beckett (1906-89)Beckett writes in both English and French. Mur-

phy, Watt are his English novels. Molloy, Malone Dies,The unameable are French novels. The characteristicposture of a hero of a Beckett novel is immobility, re-duction on the physical level. Beckett's plays developsfurther the character of the naked, poor helpless, immo-bile characters. His greatest success is 'Waiting forGodot'. Krapp's Lose Tapes, Happy Days reveal in dif-ferent ways Beckett's obsession with reducing charac-ters to immobile object who recognize their own exist-ence only by talking or listening.

Beckett is primarly known for his contribution tothe Theatre of the Absurd, and in this respect 'Waitingfor Godot' made international history. It is a prose playwith poetic overtones. The simplicity of its design, itssevere structural economy its poetic quality and theelement of universality make it a great play. The play isnot about Godot, but the waiting for him, it is about lifeon earth, not hereafter.

r –––– is leftist in his views

- Stephen Spender

r 'The Trail of a Judge' is a poetic play of

- Stephen Spender

r The characterstic feature of a Beckett novel is- Immobility

r 'Waiting for Godot' is a famous work of- Samuel Beckett

r The plays of Sean O' Casey is about- the irish life

r The play 'Waiting for Godot' is- not about Godot, but the

waiting for him, it is about lifeon earth, not hereafter

John Osborne (1929-94)John Osborne began his career as an actor and

wrote plays - Look back in anger, Epitaph for GeorgeDillon, The Entertainer, The world of paul, Luther, playsfor England, The blood of the Bamberge and under plaincover" In admissible Evidence, A patriot for me, Timepresent, Hotel in Amusterdam etc.

Look back in anger was a sensation. It was readilyrelated at the time to social, and political topicalities theunease, discontent, and frustration of English Societyin the backwash of the Suez War. The ranting TimmyPorter became its spokesman.

Harold Pinter (1930 -His major works are 'The

Birth day Party, The Room, TheCaretaker, The Dumb waiter, Aslight Ache, The collection andthe Lover, The Home coming arehis plays. He wrote three novels-The servant, The Pumpkin Eat-er, Accident. His plays areclassed as comedies of menace',have claustrophobic settings,drab and occasionally sinisterthe characters fail to communicate with one another,and the truth about their situations is not always clear.Pinter has an uncanny ear for dialogue, investing pro-saic conversations with intensity, suggestiveness andambiguity. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

in 2005. In its citation, the Academy states that “HaroldPinter is generally regarded as the foremost representa-tive of British drama in the second half of the 20th cen-tury.”

r Jimmy Porter is the protagonist in- Look back in Anger by Os-

borner –––– is regarded as a land mark in the post war

theatre- Look Back in Anger

r The rebellious and iconoclastic hero Jimmy Por-ter' was the representative of

- Angry Young Manr 'Look back in Anger depicts

- The disillusionment and re-bellious tendency of the youth.

r Harold Pinter, the famous dramatist concentratedon

- Problems of communicationdeviating from the traditionaltheatrical devices

r –––– elevated Pinter to the rank of a major crafts-man.

- The Caretaker

Terence RattiganHe is an extremely efficient craftsman, he remains

one of the most reliable entertainers in the English the-atre. French without tears, While the sun shines, Thesleeping Prince ; The deep blue sea etc are some of hisworks. He has also written successful television playsand film scripts.

Drama in post war England and after

With the disintegration of the novel and the intel-lectualization of poetry, drama is the one literary genrewhich fully reflects the sensibility of post -war England.With the coming of a new generation of dramatists, dra-ma is once again alive. The break through came withosborne's Look back in Anger, Brendan Bechan, Ar-nold wesker, Shelagh Delaney, Doris Lessing, BernardKops, Harold Pinter and other followed.

The robustness of the new English dramatists aris-es from the fact that most of them come from the work-ing classes who have acquired a new status in the En-glish welfare state. They are all fighting against the val-

Harold Pinter

ues of the consumer society which have a strangleholdon them and on the people whom they represent in theirplays. They wrote in contemporary idiom, vocabulary,syntax, and rhythm.

Major post war Dramatists are Alan Ayckburn,Howard Barker, Robert Bolt, Edward Bond, DavidEdgar Christopher Hampton, Peter Nichols, StephenPoliakoff, etc.

Theatre of the absurd

The Theatre of the Absurd is a term derived fromAlbert Camus' essay 'The Myth of sisyphus'. It is a termapplied to a group of dramatists in the 1950's who didnot regard themselves as a school, but who all seemedto share certain attitudes towards the predicament ofthe man in the universe. It was Camus who first realizedthe absurdity of existence during the second world warand gave a vociferous expression to the meaning less-ness of in his novels and drama. He defined the absurdas the tension which emerges from man's determinationto discover purpose and order in a world which stead-fastly refuses to evidence either.

The main characteristics of the absurd drama islife is essentially meaningless, hence miserable. Thereis no hope because of the inevitable futility of man'sefforts ; reality is unbearable unless relieved by dreamsand illusions, Man is fascinated by death which perma-nently replaces dreams and illusions. There is no actionor plot, very little happens because nothing meaningfulcan happen. The final situation is absurd or comic.Absurd drama is not purposeful and specific as itsolves no problems. It is like an abstract painting whichis supposed not to convey a definite meaning.

Major writers of absurd drama are samuel Beckett,Ionesco, Arthur Adamov, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter,Edward Albee.

r The comedy of menace has

- Claustrophobic settings

r The Theatre of the absurd is a term derived from

- Albert Camus' essay ' TheMyth of Sisyphus'

r Waiting for Godot is an example of

- Absurd drama

r Absurdism derives its roots from the existentialphilosophy of

- Jean Paul Sartre and AlbertCamus

r The plays of the French writers ––––, –––––, –––are labelled ' 'Absurdist'

- Eugene Ionesco

- Jean Genet

- Jean Anouilh

r The dramaturgy of the Absurd was shaped by

- Comic view of Ionesco, the useof ritual by Genet, visual useof the stage by Beckett

r The content and method of the absurdist play is

- The concept of isolation ofman in a hostile universe

r The word 'absurd' literally means

- Out of harmony

r 'Theatre of the Absurd' is an influential book by

- Martin Esslin (1961)

r According to Martin Esslin, the plays of the absurdare

- those that shared a presenta-tion of man's metaphysicalabsurdity in strange dramaticstyle which reflected the situ-ation

r Beckett's –––– created a metamorphosis in thecontemporary Theatre

- Waiting for Godot

r The features of the Theatre of Absurd

1. There is no distinct plot orstory.

2. Violates all the canons of thetraditional drama.

3. Dream and fantasy are largelymade use of

4. The play does not have subtlecharacters.

5. The origin of this school isFrance.

TWENTIETH CENTURYPOETRY

The main tendencies in modern English poetryPoetry today can be written on almost any sub-

ject. Astounding variety of themes is its speciality. Thewhole universe is the modern poet's experience. Hewrites on themes of real life and also makes excursion inthe world of religion, mysticism and fairyland. Modernpoetry is marked with a note of humanitarianism anddemocratic feeling. The modern poet, is interested inthe life of labourers, toilers and workers in the field.

The poetry is also marked with realism. It was theproduct of a reaction against the pseudo-romanticismof the last century over and above the influence ofscience. He tears the veil which the romanticisists hadhung between life and art. The spirit of romanticismcontinues to sway the minds of certain poets like walterde la Mare, W.B.Yeats, etc. The works of these poetshave the fact that the spirit of romance is as old as lifeitself.

There is a note of pessimism and disillusionment inmodern poetry. The modern poet has realised the petti-ness of human life and the tragedy and suffering of thedown trodden have made him gloomy and leaden eyed.The modern age is the age of science but there are po-ems written on the subject of religion and mysticism.Love forms the subject of many modern lyrics. Naturecaptivates the modern poet, but not in the mystic level.He does not find spirtual meaning in Nature. He is elatedand exalted at the sight of nature's loveliness.

Complexity and psychological approach is alsoseen in modern poetry. Longingness is at the root of allpoems and the poets preferred simple and direct ex-pression. Words are chosen for their association andonly those words are employed which convey the mean-ing and chosen to be free in the use of metre.

r Modern poetry is marked with a note of

- humanitarianism and democr-atic feeling

r There is a note of –––– and –––– in modern poetry

- Pessimism, disillusionment

r Modern poetry is highly ––– and ––– is nature

- experimental and Complex

r Major themes of modern poetry

- Real life, religion, nupticismfairy land, science, psycholo-gy, love, nature, pastoral life,birds, animals etc.

r 'Symbolist movement in Literature' is a book of

- Arthur Symons

English poetry of the nineties (1880-1914)

The DecadentsThe poets of the nineties for their passion to

keep alive the claims of art and luxuriousness alive in anage of growing realism have been denounced as Deca-dents. They sought to escape from the world of ma-chinery, industry and banal morality to the world of art.They followed the gospel of Art for Art's sake. ErnestDowson, Lionel Johnson, Arthur symons are the prom-inent decadent poets.

RealistsThe period between 1880-1900 was the age of real-

ism and impressionism in Europe as well as in England.William Ernest Henley, Kipling, Wilfred Blunt kept alivethe claims of realism.

PessimistsThe two great pessimistic poets of the nineties are

Thomas Hardy and A.E.Housman. They kept alive thespirit of questioning about sense and outward thingsand gave a jolt to the feelings to self complacency andcheap optimism of the Victorians.

Hardy's Wessex poems, Poems of past and present,The Dynasts, Time's Laughing -stocks, Satires of Cir-cumstance Human Shows etc are very famous. 'TheDynasts' is Hardy's monumental work.

Transitional poetsRobert Bridges, G.M.Hopkins, W.B.Yeats, Francis,

Thompson, were the main transitional poets. The Testa-ment of Beauty' is the swan song of Bridges' life and ishis lasting contribution to the poetic world. Hopkins isa religious poet. 'The wreck of the Deut schland' is hislongest and difficult poem. He made experiment withsprung rhythem. The basic principle of this is that eachfoot contains one stress, followed by any number ofunstressed syllables.

Yeats was a great poet. The wandering oisin, po-ems, The wind among the Reeds, The shadowy waterare his best works. He was a dreamer in his earlier po-ems but the later poems show seriousness, sufferingand sadness. The entire poetic production of Yeats ismarked with limpid and langurous ease. The verse bearsthe qualities of the Irish national character - moody,showy, and dreamy. His artistry is unchallenged. Hismelody and music, the singing - quality in his poetry,rings through all his poems.

r Decadents are

- Poets of the nineties, theysought to escape from theworld of machinery industryand banal morality to theworld of art.

r The gospel of the Decadents

- Art for Art's Sake

r 1880 - 1900 was the age of

- realism and impressionism

r The two great pessimistic poets of the nineties

- Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman

r 'The Dynasts' is the monumental work of

- Thomas Hardy

r The main transitional poets are

- Robert Bridges, G.M. Hopkins,W.B. Yeats, Francis Thompson

r Yeat's verse bears the Irish national character

- Moody, Showy, dreamy

r 'The Wind among the Reeds' is a great poeticcollection of

- W.B. Yeats

r Sailing to Byzantium is one of the finest poems of

- W.B. Yeats

r The second generation of modern English poetsare

- W.H. Auden, Stephen SpenderC. Day Lewis, Louis Macniece

r Yeats was awarded Nobel Prize in

- 1923.

G.M. Hopkins (1844-1889)Hopkins stand out as re-

ligious poet with religious pro-clivities. His early verses re-veal his love for religion, Godand nature. 'The wreck of theDeutschland' is his popularpoem. He continued to writein verse the glorification ofGod and his creation. He willbe remembered for his dictionand rhythmic innovation. Hemade experiment with 'sprungrhythm'. His imagery is richand precise. He employs im-age of suggestive character, and his pictures suggestmore than one interpretation. He combines emotionaland intellectual figures which reminds us of the 17thcentury metaphysicals.

Though he lived and died in the Victorian Age, heis included in the Modern Age because his first Poeti-cal collection appeared in 1914.

r Hopkins coined the term 'inscape' to describe

- the unified set of qualities inan object which inseparablybelong to it

r The term instress' means

- the energy which keeps a thingin existence and makes it striveafter continued existence

r Hopkins's poem ' The Windhover' is subtitled as

- To christ our Lord

r Hopkins called ––– the best thing he ever wrote

- The windhover

r –––– is Hopkins' first poem in sprung rhythm

- The wreck of Deutschland

r Sprung rhythm is

- The verse consists of feet andevery foot has a minimum ofone strongly stressed syllable.

r The windhover is

- Falcon

G.M. Hopkins

r ––– introduced sprung rhythm in poetry

- G.M. Hopkins.

r –––– is a religious poet

- G.M. Hopkins

r –––– is Hopkins' popular poem

- The Wreck of Deutsehland

Francis Thompson (1860-1907)Among the religious writers of the age Francis

Thompson holds a very high place. He is known by histwo poems. 'The Hounds of Heaven and' In No strangeland. His other poems are to be found in 'New Poem's.

Georgian poetsGeorgian poetry covers the period from 1910 to

1935 when George V was the King of the British Empire.The prominent Georgian poets are Rupert Brooke,G.K.Chesterton. W.H. Davies, Walter De la Mare, JohnDrinkwater, James Elory Flecker, D.H. Lawrence, JohnMasefield, W.J. Turner etc.

The Georgians had a positive aim, it was to treatnatural things in a clear, natural and beautiful way. Theydiscarded the use of archaic diction. They dropped allgorgeous and grandiloquent expressions and general-ly avoided pomposities of thought and expression. Theywrote neat and melodious poems on domestic and wildanimals. They longed for the good old days and ways.

John MasefieldMasefield is a poet, novelist short story writer,

dramatist and essayist. He is the poet of the people andhis poetry in surcharged with democratic sympathy fordowntrodden and the miserable. Suffering people hismain works are Ballads and poems, The EverlastingMercy, The window in the Byestreet, The Daffodil fields,Lolling down, Right Royal, Midsummer Night etc. Hispoetry is marked with a strong feeling for realism, ro-manticim and love of beauty. He is the laureate of sea.

Osbert Sitwell (1892-1969)Has won great renown not only as an autobiogra-

pher, but also as a poet. Winter, the huntsman (1924),England Reclaimed (1927), Four Songs of the ItalianEarth (1948) and On The Continent (1958) are a seriesof concise and roguish portraits. He excels in the emo-tional satire which animates political and moral pas-

sion. He also wrote Novels and Short Stories; TripleFigure, Before the Bombardment, The man who losthimself, Miracle on Sinai. Demos the Emperor etc.

Cecil Day Lewis (1904 - 1972)He is a brilliant critic (A

Hope for Poetry, 1934, Start-ing Point (1937) The PoeticImage 1947), An inspiredtranslator (The Third Geor-gics, The Marine Cemetery,The Aeneid) and under thepseudonym Nicholas Blake,a highly popular author of de-tective stories. But it is as apoet that he has done mostfor English literature, by pio-neering the movement of the thirties with TransitionalPoems, From Feathers to Iron, The Magnetic Moun-tain, Overtures to Death, Word Overall, Pegasus aresome of his works. He is a 'misguided Georgian' to over-look the curiosity of a mind ever on the alert. He is aGeorgian with a difference - one who has read Eliot,Marx and Hopkins.

Walter Dela Mare (1873-1956)He is essentially the laureate of the fairy land, cre-

ating in his poetry world of dramas, fantasies and imag-ination appealing to children and grownups. In 'The

Listener and other poems, Peacock pie, The Fleeting

and other poems, Poems for children, Bells and Grass;The traveller we have the best of his poetic genius.

Charming innocence is one of the specialities ofhis poems. Another is the note of fantasy and dreami-ness. His lyrics and melody are captivating at the same

there is a note of wistfulness and sadness in it.

Edmund Blunders, Aber crombie, James Flecker,Hodgson, W.W.Gibson, W.H. Davies, Alfred Noyes,G.K.Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc are other significant Geor-

gian writers.

r Georgian poetry covers the period

- 1910 - 1935 when George Vwas the king of the BritishEmpire.

Cecil Day Lewis

r Prominent Georgian poets are- Rupert Brooke, Chestertion

Walter Dela Mare, D.H.Lawrence, John Masefield etc.

r The Georgians aimed

- to treat natural things in aclear, natural and beautifulway.

r ––––– is the laureate of Sea

- John Masefield

r ––– , –––– and –––– are the specialities of walterDe la Mare

- Charming innocence, note offantasy and dreaminess.

Imagist movementThe term 'Imagism' was coined by Ezra Pound to

denote the principles agreed on by himself and the othermembers of the literary group which was formed in Lon-don in 1912. Imagism signals the beginning of Englishand American modernism and a definite break with theromantic victorian tradition. They aimed at hard, clear,brilliant effects instead of the soft dreamy vagueness ofthe 19th century poetry. They defined poetry as the pre-sentation of a visual situation in the fewest possibleconcrete words. The imagist movement had the follow-ing objects : 1) to employ the language of commonspeech, prefering the exact word to the merely decora-tive. 2) to create new rhythms, including free verse, asthe expression of new moods. (3) to allow absolute free-dom in the choice of subject (4) to replace vague descrip-tions by an exact image (5) to effect the utmost economyin the use of words. Ezra pound, F.S. Flint, Richard Ald-ington and Army Lowell are the popular Imagists.

War poetsThe greatwar 1914-1918 exercised a considerable

influence on english poetry of the Georgian period.Those who wrote gloriously of war and patriotisim, ofsacrifice and victory were the elder poets - Kipling Free-man, Hardy, Lawrence Binyon. These poets sang of thenobility of self sacrifice and the sublimity of patriotism.They regarded war as a call to duty and a time of trial ofthe nation. Kipling's 'for all we have And we are, 'Free-man's 'Happy is England now , Rupert Brooke's 'Solid-er' were examples.

Siegfried sasson was the first great soldier poetwho revealed the horrors and ugliness of war. 'CounterAttack' is an example Wilfred owen was inspired bysassoon. In his popular poem 'Strange Meeting' thepity of war is brought out touchingly. He introducedpara rhyme.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)He was an English poet and author. He became

known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during WorldWar I, but later won acclaim for his prose work.

At the Grave of Henry Vaughan, war poems Mem-ories of a Fox - hunting Man, Memories of an InfantryOfficer, The Old Century, The Weald of Youth, and Sieg-fried's Journey are some of his works.

r Popular Imagists are

- Ezra Pound, F.S. Flint, Rich-ard Aldington, Amy Lowell.

r War poetry

- Communicated the shockingexperiences of the two wars,and explored a new range ofhuman feeling and sensibility

r The key note of war poetry is

- Pity

r The elder poets who glorified war are

- Kipling, Freeman, Hardy,Lawrence Binyon

r '1914 and other poems' is a poetic collection of

- Rupert Brooke

r ––– was the first soldier poet who revealed thehorrors of war

- Siegfried Sasson

r 'Counter Attack' is a realistic vision of poems ofwar by

- Siegfried sassoon

r ––– was the greatest of the war poets

- Wilfred Owen

r "I am not concerned with poetry. My subject iswar, and the pity of war" These are the words of

- Wilfred Owen

r –––– introduced Para rhyme

- Wilfred Owen

Robert Frost (1874-1963)Teacher, Cobbler, editor, and farmer Robert Lee

Frost described as the purestclassical poet of America andher greatest farmer poet. His po-ems give details of natural ob-jects and rural characters. Hispoems transcend the immediaterelationships of the individualto self, to others, to nature, tothe universe. He was awardedthe Pulitzer prize for poetry fourtimes. His works include 'Moun-tain Interval', New Hampshire,A further Range, A Masque of Reason, A witness Tree,Steeple Bush, A Masque of Mercy and Complete poems.

T.S.Eliot (1888-1965)His contribution to English Poetry, drama, and crit-

icism has been substantial and solid. He was consider-ably influenced by a number of writers - European andOriental, and by a variety of movements in the world ofpoetry. The main poetical works of T.S.Eliot are 'LoveSong of J. Alfred Prufrock, The poems, The waste Land,The Hollow Men, Ash wednesday, Journey of the Magi,Four Quartets etc.

Eliot is a difficult poet and it is not an easy game tounderstand the complexity of his thoughts and the sub-tlety of his expression. 'The waste Land' is considered agreat work of his poetry is a kind of spiritual experience,a struggle of the soul to pass through the seethingstrife and turmoil. His poetry is of intellectual character.He would be remembered as one of the greatest renova-tors of English poetry. The odour of bookishness iseverywhere in his poetry.

r Frost's poetry is a new kind of

- Pastoral

r West Running Brook, A Masque of Reason,'A Witness Tree' - are some of the major works of

- Robert Frost

r –––– is described as the purest poet of America

- Robert Frost

r T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize for literature in

- 1948

r Who described 'The waste Land' as the longestpoem in the English language owing to its densityand concentration of meaning.

- Ezra Pound

r Who praised 'The waste Land' as embodying theinclusive consciousness of the age ?

- F.R. Leavis

r Eliot dedicated The Waste land to

- Ezra pound

r By objective correlative' Eliot means

- Objects and events that evokean emotion

r The five sections of the waste land are

- 1. The Burial of the Dead

2. A Game of Chess

3. Fire Sermon

4. Death by water

5. What the Thunder Said

r The chief protagonist in 'Waste Land' is

- Tiresias

r –––––, –––– and –––– are the three Sanskrit wordsused in Waste Land

- Datta (give), Dayadhvam(Sympathise), Damyata(control)

W. H. Auden (1907-1973)His early poetry was

marked by a considerable em-phasis on social and personalproblems. Auden is one of themost versatile and witty ofmodern writers. Besides an-thologies, he has written plays,social criticism, travel books,satirical and lyrical poetry. Hisreal importance lies in his po-etry which is of the school ofT.S.Eliot. This form range fromfree verse strict stanzas of rime

Robert Frost

W. H. Auden

royal to a free adaptation of the alliterative verse of oldEnglish poetry. His tone can be sober, bitter, ecstatic, orflippant, and his most effective devices is a suddenshocking shift of tone. His important works are Poems,The orators, For The Time Being, The Age of Anxiety,and A Baroque Ecologue (1948), an ironic idyll on man'sisolated condition when without tradition or belief,which won the Pulitzer prize.

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)He was an American ex-

patriate poet, musician andcritic who along with T.S. Eli-ot, was a major figure of theModernist movement in early20th century poetry. He wasthe driving force behind sev-eral modernist movements,notably Imagism and Vorti-cism.

Pound's early poetrywas unspired by his readingof the pre-Raphaelites and other 19th century poets.As a poet, Pound was one of the first to successfullyemploy free verse in extended compositions. As criticeditor and promoter, Pound helped the careers ofW.B.Yeats, T.S.Eliot, Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, RobertFrost, Ernest Hemingway, D.H.Lawrence etc. Innumer-ous are his works and Cathay Poems, The Cantos, Thesongs, are some of them. He wrote, essays translations,and one act plays too. He defined poetry as melopoeia(melody making), phonopoeia (image-making) and lo-gopoeia (world or thought making). He was a powerful,vigorous imagist poet who learned a great deal from theJapanese Haiku which combines thought and picture inhighly concentrated form.

Louis Macneice (1907-1963)Louis Macneice, the classical scholar is a poet of

repute. He was dissatisfied with present daylife andturned his gaze to the old classical world. He was op-posed to the interference of politicians on the personalfreedom of the individual and his poems give expres-sion to his broad human compassion and his protest.He is gifted with wit and is mostly in high spirits in hispoetry. His poetry can be found in 'Poems, The Earth

compels, Autumn Journal plant and Phantom, SpringBoard etc.

Edith SitwellShe was mainly responsible for making traditional

Georgian poetry outmoded. Glown's Houses, The wood-en Pegasus, Bucolic comedies are her early poems. Thesleeping beauty, songs of the cold, the canticle of thesun are her other poems. Her early poetry had beenaloof, aristocratic and a little human. Her later poetrywas compassionate, committed and tragic. She was agreat writer with her style and vivid imagery.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)Dylan Thomas has been recognized as the father

of the neo-romantic poetry of the forties. He wrotestrongly emotional poetry full of fervour and vigour. Hewas at heart a religious man. He believed in immortalityand perpetual life in cosmic eternity. It was his missionin poetry 'to embrace the unity of a man with nature ofgenerations with each other, of the divine with the hu-man, of life with death, to see the glory and wonder of it.His main works are 18 poems, 25 poems, The Map ofLove, verse and prose. Deaths and Entrances etc.

Post -War poets

Philip larkin (1922-1985)Larkly is generally considered as the central figure

of the The movement, The virtues of the movement areall examplified at their most striking in Larkin's work. Apiercing reasonace of feeling which reveals a melan-choly sensibility given originality to his poems. TheLess Deceived, The whitsun weddings, High Windows',Carry important collection of his poems.

Ted Hughes (1930-98)He is generally regarded as one of the two most

important English poets to appear since the war. Hisanimal poems are great. His recent poems implies arerecantation of materialism and its world of death, suf-fering and woe 'crow', oedipus, Lupercall, Meet My folks,Earth Owl and other moon people, season sangs, careBirds etc are his major works.

Thom Gunn (1929-2004 )He is one of the most interesting poets of his gen-

eration. He writes with the formal precision and ele-

Ezra Pound

gance of a 1950 poet but with the interest in energy andviolence of a 1960s one. His poetry may be described asa poetry of isolation. "Fighting terms', My sad cap-tains, Poems (1950-1966) are hiscollection of poems.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)Her first collection of poems

'The Cellossus' came in 1960, Ar-iel, came posthumously, in 1966.Her poems, written in a state ofextreme neurotic excitement andcreative tension are almost with-out parallel in the English lan-guage. She committed suicide in1963.

r ––– is considered as the father of the neo -romantic poetry of the forties

- Dylan Thomas

r Donald Davie, John Gunn and Philip Larkin arecalled are

- The Movement Poets

r 'The whitsun wedding' is a popular poem of

- Philip Larkin

r The movement poets were against

- the Apocalyptic excessescountering them with a strongadvocacy of reason, irony andtraditional forms

r –––– animal poems are remarkable

- Ted Hughes's

r ––– poetry is regarded as a poetry of isolation

- Tom Gunn's

r Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symonsbelong to the group of poets called

- The Decadents

r Significant note in Kipling's poetry is

- Imperialism

r Thomas Hardy is a –––– poet

- Pessimist

r W.B. Yeats is a ––– poet

- Transition

r Walter de Ia Mare is formally and by profession

- A children's Poet

r The term 'Imagism' was coined by

- Ezra Pound

r The poet who said "I am not concerned withpoetry' is

- Wilfred Owen

r Louis Mac Neice is one of the

- Pink poets

r ––– is considered as the father of the neo-romanticpoetry of the forties

- Dylan Thomas

r Seamus Heaney was influenced by the 'naturepoetry' of

- Ted Hughes

r The symbolist movement has its origin in

- France

r The poets sassoon and Wilfred Owen are called

- Soldier poets

Seamus Heaney (1939 )His early poetry is effective

in vividly conveying scenes fromhis childhood. He has been affect-ed by the nature poetry of TedHughes. His verbal and physicalprecision, fresh eyes and freshphrases are notable. "Death of anaturalist', Door into the park,Wintering out, Funeral rites arehis major works.

Stevie Smith, John Betjeman, Peterporter, AdrianMitchell, Ian Hamilton, R.S. Thomas, Keith Douglas,William Empson, Donald Davie, C.H.Sisson, Jon Silkin,are the other postwar poets

r –––– is a postwar poet

- Seamus Heaney

r 'Death of a naturalist' is one of the major work of

- Seamus Heaney

Sylvia Plath

Seamus Heaney

r According to T.S. Eliot involve a perception notonly of pastness of the past, but of its presence.

- The historical senses

r The term ' dissociation of sensibility' is associatedwith the critic.

- T.S. Eliot

r George Orwell was born in

- India

r Name the woman W.B.Yeats had once loved andlost

- Maud Gonne

r Who is the messenger of Godot ?

- A goat -herd boy

r The term 'Absurd' means

- Out of harmony

r ____ contains the famous statement 'All animalsare equal, but some animals are more equal thanothers

- Animal Farm

r ___ drama is an attempt to prove that plot is notimportant in a play

- Absurd

r Eliot dedicated the poem 'The Waste Land ' to- Ezra pound

r Shaw portrays Joan of Arc as a pioneer of

- Protestantism and Nation-alism

r The Biblical name of 'The Lord of the Flies' is

- Beel Zebub

r Virginia Woolf was a member of the ___ group

- Bloomsbury

r ____ is often described as chronologicallyVictorian and qualitatively a modern poet

- G.M. Hopkins

r ____ described 'Hamlet' as the 'Monalisa' ofliterature

- T.S. Eliot

r Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in- 1925

r C B E L stands for

- Cambridge Bibliography ofEnglish Literature

StructuralismThe term structuralism refers to a movement by a

few French authors and their counter parts on the con-tinent. A structuralist examines a work to discover howmeaning is shaped or how meaning is made possibleand thereby discovers the basic structures of literature.Structuralism gives tremendous in sight into the basisand process of understanding .

SymbolismSymbolism is a conscious and deliberate technique

of the use of sybols. The symbolists rebelled againstrealism and naturalism. They believed that the innerreality could only be suggested. They avoid scrupu-lously political, sociological and ethical themes. Yeats,Eliot were deeply influenced by symbolists.

Bloomsbury groupThe Bloomsbury group is the name given to cer-

tain English writers, artists and intellectuals who fre-quently held informal artistic and philosophical dis-cussions in Bloomsbury in London. E.M.Foster, Virgin-ia Woolf, Clive Bell, J.M.Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Lyt-ten Stratchey etc were its members. They were a groupof people who valued honesty of thought and feelings,art, literature and mutual friendship.

The 'Pink' PoetsThe W.H.Auden group of writers, with a marxian

view, leftist sympathies, with a definite spirit of socialcommitment are known as 'Pink' poets - they areW.H.Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day Leuis andLouis Mac Neice. They are a socially committed groupof poets of the 1930's.

The 'Movement Poets'The new poetry was known as the 'Movement',

Post war British poetry - New Lines is an anthology ofMovement poetry. This poetry shared the anti-experi-mental ideals of the new fiction of the period. PhilipLarkin upheld the movement ideals at their best. DavidDare is another contributer to 'New Lines', he is an intel-lectual with cosmopolitan literary allegiances. The tech-nical conservatism and deliberately, restricted themesof the movement barely lasted beyond the late fifties.

©

r Structuralism- Is to examine a work to

discover how meaning isshaped or how meaning ismade possible and therebydiscovers the basic structuresof literature.

r Symbolism- Conscious and deliberate use

of symbols in work of artr The Bloomsbury members are

- E.M. Forster, Virgina WoolfBetrand Russell, LyttonStratchey etc.

r The poets with a Marxian view are called ––––poets

- Pinkr The pink poets are

- W.H.Auden, Stephen Spender,Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice.

r Comic writing with tragic elements is called- Black Comedy

r Who described Auden as 'Poet's poet'- John, C. Blair

ModernismThe term 'Modernism' is used to identify new and

distinctive features in the subjects, forms concepts andstyles of literature and the other arts in the early de-cades of the 20th century, especially after the first worldwar. The prominent intellectual precursors of modern-ism are the great thinkers who questioned time honouredtraditional modes of social organisation religion, moral-ity etc like Nietzche, Marx, Freud and James G. Frazer.

Black comedyA kind of comic writing existing in a startling or

uneasy combination with tragic elements, usually termed'black comedy is seen in post war British drama. Joecriton's 'Loot' is a tasteless but high ingenious comedyarising out of the end less delays in disposing of acorpse. Tom stoppard's Rosen crantz and Gildensternare Dead', Jumpers are popular plays of this type.

Post war women novelistsA number of women novelists appeared in the fif-

ties and sixties who were interesting precisely becausethey wrote with direct knowledge about kinds of fe-male experience, sexual or gynaecological that had neverbeen treated before with such direct explicitness. EdnaO' Brien's 'August is a wicked month', Doris Lessing's'Martha Quest' and Margaret Drabble is another Sharp-ly intelligent novelist who has dealt with questions ofpregnancy and motherhood from a feminine standpoint,especially from a highly educated modern woman.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)Owen is chiefly known as a

pacifist poet. His poetry express-es a typical soldier's indignation,private fear and agony in a bat-tlefield. The 'Trench Poets' triedto deflate the glory of war andalso to rouse our pity for the in-nocent victims in the unknownwar fronts. Owen who was killedin action, always pleaded for thecessation of all war by emphasis-ing the pity of it.

r ––– is Hopkins first poem in sprung rhythm.- The Wreck of the Deutschland

r Eric Arthur Blair is the original name of- George Orwell

r The most popular work of Orwell is- The Animal Farm

r 'Animal Farm' is famous as- Political work

r The chief force opposing the protagonist is called- Antagonist

r The person the story is about is called- Protagonist

r The English Critic who first praised themetaphysical poets for their 'unified sensibility' is

- T.S. Eliotr Post colonial criticism emerged as a distinct

category only in the- 1990's

r The feminist literary criticism of today is the directproduct of the 'women's movement of the

- 1960's

Wilfred Owen

r ––– is the term for Mother fixation in psychology- Oedipus Complex.

r ––– is the name given to the movement whichdominated the arts and culture of the first half ofthe 20th century.

- Modernismr Post structuralism derives ultimately from

- Philosophyr ––– was the first critic to develop a reader - centred

' approach to literature, since his consideration ofdrama tried to describe how it affected theaudience.

- Aristotle

Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by agovernment and often expected to compose poems forstate occasions and other government events. The plu-ral form is poets laureate.

The term has in England for centuries been thetitle of the official poet of the monarch, appointed forlife since the time of Charles II. Poets laureate are ap-pointed by many countries, some U.S. states and theUN. In Britain there is also a Children’s Laureate.

The laurel, in ancient Greece, was sacred to Apol-lo, and as such was used to form a crown or wreath ofhonour for poets and heroes; and this usage has beenwidespread. The word laureate or laureated thus camein English to signify eminent, or associated with glory.Laureate letters were once the despatches announc-ing a victory. The term laureate became associated withdegrees awarded by European universities. The namebaccalaureate for the university degree of bachelorinvolves this idea.

A royal degree in rhetoric, poet laureate was award-ed at European universities in the middle ages. The termmight also refer to the holder of such a degree, whichrecognised skill in areas of rhetoric, grammar and lan-guage. This might be the academic equivalent of a mod-ern day doctorate of poetry. According to Gibbon, Pe-trarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-74) of Rome, perhapsbest known for his sonnets to the fair-haired, blue-eyedLaura, took the title poet laureate in 1341.

Medieval English kings included versifiers andminstrels in their retinues, and lent their patronage to

poets such as Chaucer and Spenser. Academic institu-tions honoured some such men with the poet laureatedegree.

HistoryFrom the more general use of the term “poet laure-

ate” arose its restriction in England an official office ofPoet Laureate, the poet attached to the royal house-hold. James I essentially created the position as it isknown today for Ben Jonson in 1617, although Jon-son’s appointment does not seem to have been formal-ly made. The office was really a development of thepractice of earlier times, when minstrels and versifiersformed part of the King’s retinue. Richard Coeur de Lionhad a versificator Regis (King’s Poet), Gulielmus Pere-grinus, and Henry III had a versificator, Master Henry.In the 15th century, John Kay, also a “versifier”, de-scribed himself as Edward IV’s “humble poet laureate.”The crown had shown its patronage in various ways;Chaucer had been given a pension and a perquisite ofwine by Edward III, and Spenser a pension by QueenElizabeth I.

No single authentic definitive record exists of theoffice of Poet Laureate of England. According to Whar-ton, Henry I paid 10 shillings a year to a VersificatorRegis. Geoffrey Chaucer 1340-1400 was called Poet Lau-reate, being granted in 1389 an annual allowance of wine.W. Hamilton classes Chaucer, Gower, Kay, Andrew Ber-nard, Skelton, Robert Whittington, Richard Edwards,Spenser and Samuel Daniel, as “volunteer Laureates”.

John Skelton studied at Oxford University in theearly 1480s, and was advanced to the degree of “poetlaureate” in 1488. The title of laureate was also con-ferred on him by the University of Louvain in 1492, andby Cambridge University in 1492-3. He soon becamefamous for rhetoric, satire and translations. In 1488 Skel-ton joined the court of Henry VII, tutored Henry VIIIand was the official royal poet for most of the next 40years. He was held in high esteem: “But I pray maysterJohn Skelton, late created poete laureate in the unyver-site of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this saydbooke” — Caxton in the preface to The Boke of Eney-dos compyled by Vargyle 1490.

The title of poet laureate was first conferred byletters patent on John Dryden in 1670, two years after

Davenant’s death. The post then became a regular in-stitution; Dryden’s successor Shadwell originated an-nual birthday and New Year odes. The poet laureatebecame traditionally responsible to write and presentofficial poetry to commemorate occasions both personal,such as the monarch’s birthday and royal births andmarriages, and public, such as coronations and militaryvictories. His activity in this respect has varied, ac-cording to circumstances, and the custom ceased to beobligatory after Pye’s death. The office fell into somecontempt before Southey, but took on a new lustre fromhis personal distinction and that of Wordsworth andTennyson. Wordsworth stipulated, before accepting thehonour, that no formal effusions from him should beconsidered a necessity; but Tennyson was generallyhappy in his numerous poems of this class.

On Tennyson’s death there was a considerablefeeling that no possible successor was acceptable, Wil-liam Morris and Swinburne being hardly suitable ascourt poets. Eventually, however, the undesirability ofbreaking with tradition for temporary reasons, and thussevering the one official link between literature and thestate, prevailed over the protests against allowing any-one of inferior genius to follow Tennyson. It may benoted that abolition had been similarly advocated whenWarton and Wordsworth died. Edward Gibbon had con-demned the position’s artificial approach to poetry:

From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too oftenbeen false and venal: but I much doubt whether anyage or court can produce a similar establishment of astipendiary poet, who in every reign, and at all events,is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praise andverse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I be-lieve, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak themore freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridicu-lous custom is while the prince is a man of virtue andthe poet a man of genius. — Gibbon: The Decline andFall of the Roman Empire: Chapter LXX (footnote)

The salary has varied, but traditionally includessome alcohol. Ben Jonson first received a pension of100 marks, and later an annual “terse of Canary wine”.Dryden had a pension of £300 and a butt of Canarywine. Pye received £27 instead of the wine. Tennysondrew £72 a year from the Lord Chamberlain’s depart-ment, and £27 from the Lord Steward’s “in lieu of thebutt of sack”.

List of Poets Laureate of EnglandMediæval• Gulielmus Peregrinus employed by Richard Coeur

de Lion• Master Henry was Versificator Regis, or King’s

Poet employed by Henry III (according to ThomasWarton)

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1340- 1400)• John Kay in the reign of Edward IV, (1461-1483)Tudor• Bernard Andre of Toulouse (1450-1522), author of

Vita regis Henrici Septimi called himself PoetLaureate under Henry VII

• John Skelton was the Poet Laureate under HenryVIII

• Edmund Spenser died in 1599Stuart

After Spenser’s death, the office was awarded ona more regular basis. Once chosen, poets laureatewould serve for life. They received an annualpension, and were expected to write poetry forformal occasions.

• 1599 - Samuel Daniel• 1619 − Ben Jonson• 1637 Sir William Davenant (a godson of William

Shakespeare)Appointed by letters patent• 1670- John Dryden• 1689 −Thomas Shadwell• 1692-Nahum Tate• 1715-Nicholas Rowe• 1718 Reverend Laurence Eusden• 1730- Colley Cibber• 1757- William Whitehead, on the refusal of

Thomas Gray• 1785 Reverend Thomas Warton, on the refusal of

William Mason• 1790 - Henry James Pye• 1813 − Robert Southey, on the refusal of Sir Walter

Scott• 1843 − William Wordsworth• 1850 − Alfred, Lord Tennyson

• 1896 − Alfred Austin, on the refusal of WilliamMorris

• 1913 − Robert Bridges

• 1930 − John Masefield

• 1967 − Cecil Day-Lewis

• 1972 - Sir John Betjeman

• 1984 − Ted Hughes, (widower of Sylvia Plath), onthe refusal of Philip Larkin

• 1999 − Andrew Motion

Scotland and WalesThe Scots Makar is the unpaid equivalent of a

poet laureate to represent and promote poetry in Scot-land. On 16 February 2004, Professor Edwin Morganwas named to the post.

Wales has had a long tradition of poets and bardsunder royal patronage, with extant writing from mediævalroyal poets and earlier; but her first national poet ofrecent times is Gwyneth Lewis, inaugurated at the HayLiterature Festival of April 2005. The Arts Council ofWales gave a £5,000 lottery grant for the role.

Poets Laureate in other countriesOther countries have implemented similar official

positions to that of the British Poet Laureate.

In the 13th century, Albertino Mussato, a proto-humanist, was crowned poet laureata in Padova, thanksto his tragedy ‘Ecerinis’.

In 1341, Petrarch was made poet laureate in Rome.The United States Library of Congress has since 1937appointed an official Consultant in Poetry to the Li-brary of Congress. An act of Congress changed thename of the position in 1985 to Poet Laureate Consult-ant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. The currentU.S. Poet Laureate is Donald Hall.

Other countries (such as South Africa) and organ-isations (such as the United Nations) have been keento follow this lead. Australia, however retains a dis-dainful attitude.

Canada has a Parliamentary Poet Laureate, who isappointed as an officer of the Library of Parliament. Can-didates must be able to write in either English or French,must have a substantial publication history (includingpoetry) displaying literary excellence and must have writ-ten work reflecting Canada, among other criteria.

Many U.S. states also have official Poets Laure-ate. The fashion has also spread to some cities. Mostholders of the title reach eminence by public competi-tion; some have also inspired controversy by what theydo in office and, as in the case of Amiri Baraka, havesometimes been removed.

Kannadasan was the poet laureate of Tamil Naduat the time of his death.

William Auld is sometimes considered the poetlaureate of Esperantujo.