Critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination

        Critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination

         P-105 Assignment

Name-Kishan Jadav

 Paper105A: History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900

Topic :- critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination

Roll no-11

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi 

Department of English,

                Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination

Introduction:-

               Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] was a great poet, but he is also a great critic. He is one of the greatest of poet-critics that England has ever produced. S.T. Coleridge has been considered the leading literary critic of the Romantic Age. He is the first critic whose critical aspects are based on philosophy. His important critical observations are found in his works like 'Biographia Literaria', 'Lectures on Shakespeare', 'The Talle Talk',..etc. He was the first critic who resolved the age old problem of form and content of poetry. He was a genius and when he inspired, and when the mood was upon him, he could create works of the highest order, but he was incapable of sustained and persistent labour.

His Definition on poetry:

                  Poetry, according to Coleridge, is the product of imagination working on the objects of life and nature. It is an activity of imagination, idealizing the real and realising the ideal. As colours are to the art of painting, words are to the art of writing poetry.        

        Theory of Imagination :-

              His greatest and most original contribution to literary criticism is his theory of imagination. Addison and examined the nature and function of imagination, had Wordsworth, too, had developed his own theory on the subject. But all previous discussions of Imagination look superficial and childish when compared with Coleridge's treatment of the subject. He is the first critic to differentiate between Imagination and Fancy, the first literary critic to distinguish between primary and secondary Imagination. Through his theory of imagination he revolutionized the concept of artistic imitation. Poetic imitation is neither a servile copy of nature, nor is it the creation of something entirely new and different from Nature. Poetry is not imitation, but creation, but it is creation based on the sensations and impressions received from the external world. Such impressions are shaped, ordered, modified, and opposites are reconciled and harmonized, by the imagination of the poet, and in this way poetic creation takes place.  Stray’s remarks on literature and literary theory are scattered all over his prose works as, The Friend, Table Talks, Letters, Aids to Reflections, Confessions of an Inquiring spirit, Animal Poteau and Sibylline Leaves. Coleridge  has dealt with the problem of imagination and fancy seriously because he was highly  under the spell of Wordsworthian poetry. He says :

“ Milton had highly imaginative,  Cowley  a very fanciful mind.”

According to Coleridge imagination is a more creative mental power than fancy. He categorises imagination into two;  Primary imagination and Secondary imagination.

 (I)  Primary imagination:

            Primary imagination is the power of receiving impressions from the external world through the senses. It is the power of perceiving  the object of sense both in their parts and is a whole. It is universal possessed by all. It enable the mind to from a clear a picture of the object perceived by the sense. It is an act of Mind when the mind is confused with irregular method, and the primary imagination in enable the mind to perceive unity of system.What Coleridge designates as the primary imagination is roughly equivalent to what Kant views as the reproductive imagination: it operates in our normal perception, combining the various data received through the senses into a unifying image, which can then be conceptualized by the understanding. In this role, imagination is an intermediary faculty, uniting the data of the senses with the concepts of the understanding. Even in this primary role, however, imagination as formulated by Coleridge evokes a wider, cosmic context: the very act of perception “repeats” on a finite level the divine act of creation. In other words, human perception actively recreates or copies elements in the world of nature, reproducing these into images that can be processed further by the understanding. The imagination in this primary capacity helps us to form an intelligible perspective of the world; this understanding, however, is fragmentary: we do indeed perceive God’s creation but in a piecemeal, cumulative fashion. Moreover, there is no originality in the primary imagination: like Kant’s reproductive imagination, it is bound by what we actually experience through the senses as well as the laws for associating these data.

(I) Secondary Imagination:

              Secondary imagination may be possessed by others. It is the peculiar and distinctive  Faculty of the artist that makes the artistic creation possible.  The secondary imagination is a more active and conscious in its working. It works upon what is perceived by the primary imagination.  The raw-material of the secondary imagination is the sensation and the impression supplied by primary imagination.It is the secondary imagination which is poetic: like Kant’s productive or spontaneous imagination, this is creative and forms new syntheses, new and more complex unities out of the raw furnishings of sense-data. As Coleridge indicates in the passage above, it breaks down the customary order and pattern in which our senses present the world to us, recreating these into new combinations that follow its own rules, rather than the usual laws of association. Coleridge also stresses in this passage the voluntary and controlled nature of the secondary or poetic imagination; whereas the primary imagination operates in an involuntary manner in all people, the secondary imagination belongs to the poet and is put into action by the “conscious will.” Nonetheless, this poetic imagination is still dependent for its raw material on the primary imagination: Coleridge is careful to state that the two types of imagination differ not in kind but only in degree. The secondary imagination must exert its creative powers on the very perceptions supplied by the primary imagination; it cannot operate     independently of them. Another way of putting this might be to say that even the creative poetic imagination is ultimately rooted in our actual perceptions of the world: it cannot simply create from nothing, or from the insubstantiality of its own dreams. For, ultimately, the secondary imagination is perceiving the world at a higher level of truth, one that sees beneath the surface appearances of things into their deeper reality, their deeper connections, and their significance within a more comprehensive scheme that relates objects and events in their human, finite significance to their symbolic place in the divine, infinite order of things.

             By an effort of the will and intellect, the secondary imagination selects and orders the raw material and then into object of beauty. That is called Essemplastic  imagination which means a  shaping and modifying power. It is an active agent which dissolves, diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate.As for as the creation of poetry is concerned the function of secondary imagination is very important because it is the power that harmonious and reconciles opposites.  Coleridge calls it magical synthetic  power.The essential difference between the primary and secondary imagination is that the first is the universal faculty found in all human beings and it is a conscious act of a mind while the second is completely depend on the human will. Intellects etc. it is conscious use of primary  imagination. Thus, it is a creative faculty and that help the poet to create an excellent piece of art. It is a shaping  spirit unifying and creative faculty,  the beautiful and beautiful making power.

Fancy:

                   Coleridge regards fancy to be the inferior to imagination. It is according to him a creative power. It only combines different things into different shapes, not like imagination to fuse them into one. According to him, it is the process of “bringing together images dissimilar in the main, by source”. It has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. Fancy, in Coleridge’s eyes was employed for tasks that were “passive” and “mechanical”.Fancy puts dissimilar  things together but does not link them. Fancy deal with the concept of association and  imagination with assimilation.  The difference between fancy and imagination is that one is the combinatory while the other is a unifying power.    That is like the difference between delirium and mania. Fancy is related with talent in imagination with genius. The another difference between them is like mixture and compound.

The distinction between Fancy and the Imagination:

            The distinction made by Coleridge between Fancy and the Imagination rested on the fact that fancy was concerned with the mechanical operations of the mind while imagination on the other hand is described the mysterious power. “The Primary Imagination” was for Coleridge, the “necessary imagination” as it makes images and impressions of what it receives through the senses. It represents man’s ability to learn from nature. The over arching property of the primary imagination was that it was common to all people. Whereas “The Secondary imagination” on the other hand, represents a superior faculty which could only be associated with artistic genius. A key and defining attribute of the secondary imagination was a free and deliberate will.

Conclusion:

             Thus imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by fusing and unifying the different impressions it receives from the external world. Whereas Fancy is a kind of memory; it randomly brings together images, and even when brought together, they continue to retain their separate individual properties.Coleridge’s view of imagination may be somewhat indebted to Kant, to Schelling, who identified three levels of imagination (perceptual, philosophical, and artistic).

Citation:

Albert, Edward. “A History of English Literature.” 2000, Oxford University Press, London, p.664.

Brett, R. L. "Coleridge’s Distinction between Fancy and Imagination." Fancy & Imagination, 2017, pp. 31-53.

Coleridge, Samuel T, James Engel, and Walter J. Bate. Biographia Literaria. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.

Long, William J. English Literature. Delhi: AITBS PUBLISHERS,INDIA, 2019.

Words -1570

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The themes of the novel Jude the Obscure

 Write  on the themes of the novel Jude the Obscure

         P-104: Assignment

Name-Kishan Jadav

 Paper 104:Literature of the Victorians   

Topic :- Write on  the themes of the novel Jude the Obscure

Roll no-11

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,
                Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Write  on the themes of the novel Jude the Obscure

Introduction:

                     Fate plays a dominant role in Thomas Hardy’s world. However much you may try to get on, fate can come like a brutal monster and crush you mercilessly just when everything seems to be going well. In his last novel, Jude the Obscure, Hardy passed the blame to society; your society can cripple you as well as your destiny. Jude the Obscure is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. It is Hardy's last completed novel. Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion, morality and marriage.So we will discuss some of its themes like Education, Marriage, Religion, Fact, Women in Society and Social criticism.

1. Education:-

                Hardy especially in this novel emphasizes education.  Because education is at the center of this novel. The theme of education plays a major role in Hardy’s last novel Jude the Obscure. Right from the start, the protagonist Jude is shown to be aspiring for higher education in universities, despite being the apprentice of a stone mason. The novel courses, among many other issues, his pursuit of this dream, finally showing his failure to achieve it. But the fault is shown not to lie within him, but the society, in the very institution of education, which, rather than helping out people like Jude, rejects them, regardless of their troubles to get so far. Colleges and Universities are shown to pay more attention to the class of the student, rather than his merit. Its not too hard to envision the role education plays in this novel, when one discovers that one of its major settings is a city renowned for its famous university- Christminister. Hardy highlights many kinds of education in Jude the Obscure. Most obviously, we have Jude's desire to get a university degree and become an academic. However, Hardy also emphasizes the importance of experiential education, because Jude is inexperienced with women and with social situations more generally, he is especially susceptible to Arabella's seduction. In the novel, the level of traditional education one reaches is closely tied to the class system, and if someone from Jude's class wants to learn, they must teach themselves. 

2. Marriage :-

           Thomas Hardy portrays marriage differently in this novel.  In this novel Thomas Hardy has shown that it is not necessary for a man or a woman to get married in order to have a relationship with each other.  Hardy gives a different concept of marriage in this novel that it may not be possible for a man or a woman to get married once and live a happy life.  The phenomenon of a happy marriage is not seen.  The marriage system is seen as a part of our society.  However marriage is considered to be a cultural tradition performed to live a happy married life.  But in Hardy's novel, marriage is portrayed differently. The novel’s plot is designed to wring all the possible tragedy out of an unhappy marriage, as Jude is first guilted into marrying Arabella by her feigned pregnancy, and Sue marries Phillotson mostly to make Jude jealous. Both protagonists immediately regret their decisions, and realize how a single impulsive decision can affect their entire lives. When they meet each other and fall in love, Sue and Jude’s pure connection is constantly obstructed by their earlier marriages, and Hardy even presents the tragedy of Little Father Time’s murder-suicide as a natural result of broken marriages and unhappy relationships.In the narrator’s asides Hardy also criticizes marriage, describing it as a binding contract that most young lovers are incapable of understanding. He doesn’t believe that the institution is inherently evil, but that it isn’t right for every situation and personality – “sensitive” souls like Jude and Sue should be able to live as husband and wife without a binding legal contract. Though he argues for this flexibility and seems to propose the couple’s unmarried relationship as an ideal solution, Hardy then punishes his protagonists in his plot, ultimately driving Sue back to Phillotson and Jude back to Arabella.

3. Religion:-

              In this novel, Hardy talks about religion and says that events in religion affect our lives to some extent.  Religion and man can never be different.  Everyone follows their own religion and believes in religion.  So even in this novel the characters are connected with religion and there are many incidents related to religion which we will discuss here. Along with marriage and society, Hardy spends much of Jude the Obscure critiquing religion and the institution of Christianity. He often portrays Christianity as life-denying and belonging to “the letter” that “killeth” (from the novel’s epigraph). In contrast, Sue is introduced as a kind of pre-Christian entity, an ethereal, pagan spirit, and she first appears buying figures of the ancient Greek gods Venus and Apollo. Jude, meanwhile, hopes to join the clergy as part of his intellectual pursuits. At a model of Jerusalem, Sue wonders why Jerusalem should be honored above Athens or Rome, but Jude is mesmerized by this city which is so important to Christianity. As with most of his arguments, Hardy also undercuts himself and favors a nuanced approach to an issue. Even as he seems to reject Christianity, he also portrays almost all the main characters as Christ-figures at several points, even describing them with Biblical language. The “pagan joy” of Sue and Jude’s unmarried, unreligious love is not actually that joyful either, and Hardy thoroughly punishes them with his plot, ultimately driving Sue to submit to a harsh, legalistic version of Christianity. By associating Sue’s turn to religion with Jude’s turn to alcohol (both used as relief from the tragedy of their children’s death), Hardy again adds more nuance – Christianity may be the “right” way for his country and time, but it can still be used for less-than-pure purposes. As “Nature’s law” fails Sue and Jude, so “Heaven’s law” also fails them, and the “letter” of the law of Christianity can seem less moral than human nature. Hardy gives many examples of this, including Sue’s return to Phillotson, which is a kind of adultery even though they are legally and religiously married. As usual, Hardy ends without any clear answer. He seems to reject a Christianity that is overly concerned with laws and traditions, but he doesn’t portray paganism or atheism as a particularly fulfilling alternative either.

4. Fact:-

              Hardy also portrays fate in this novel.  An event happens in the life of each character which is to some extent subject to fate.  We will discuss the other characters and what kind of events correspond to fate.Destiny also works in all marriages in this novel. Destiny is also blamed on the death of Little Father.whether that fate is interpreted as a supernatural punishment for rebelling against religion or a fate determined by a society structured to thwart independent, sensitive souls like Jude and Sue. The novel’s overarching story of fate is that Jude and Sue’s family is “cursed” in marriage – both Jude’s parents and Sue’s parents were divorced, and they have an ancestor who was hanged for stealing his child’s body from his estranged wife. This curse comes to affect the protagonists’ actions, as they avoid marrying each other and possibly doubling the curse. Fate looms over the characters in other situations as well, like when Jude tries so hard to get into a college but is always fated to fail because of his poverty and class. Over the course of the book Jude, Sue, and their children are slowly crushed by their bad luck and an unfriendly society. They become depressed, and start to believe that it is better never to be born than to live in such a cruel world. The climax of the novel, Little Father Time’s murder-suicide, is portrayed as an inevitable result of the situation in which he was raised: a product of divorce, depression, and bad luck. As with the marriage question, Hardy gives no easy answer regarding fate.

5. Women in Society :-

                  This novel by Thomas Hardy shows the place of female character in society.  Because there are a lot of characters in this novel who are behaving as they wish, which means that women seem to have complete freedom.  Whether she chooses her husband as she pleases or walks as she pleases is said to be very attractive to women in this novel.  This novel is a wonderful one regarding the place of women in society.  So here is a little discussion on how women lived in the society in this novel. Sue Bridehead is a surprisingly modern and complex heroine for her time, and through her character Hardy brings up many gender-related issues. Sue is unique in Victorian society in that she lives with men without marrying (or even sleeping with) them, as with her undergraduate student friend. Sue is highly intelligent and very well-read, and she rejects the traditional Christianity of her society. She also works alongside both Phillotson and Jude, first marrying Phillotson partly to further her own teaching position (instead of acting as the traditional housewife).Despite her intelligence and independence, Sue fails at her endeavors throughout the book, and through her sufferings Hardy critiques the society that punishes his heroine. Sue, like other women, is expected to be the “property” of the man she marries, so Sue is bound to Phillotson for life even after their separation. Sue is never allowed to advance in her work (despite her intelligence) because of her marital status. As an unmarried, disgraced woman she has no power in society. While Hardy was ahead of his time in creating such a strong female character, he still clings to many gender stereotypes about women: Sue is emotionally fragile and often hysterical, changing her mind at the slightest whim and breaking down in the face of tragedy. As an opposite to Sue, Arabella is greedy, sensual, and vain – the stereotype of everything Victorian society found bad and sinful in women. Though Arabella is usually the antagonist, she is also the character who ends up the most fortunate in the plot, showing just how unprepared society was for a character like Sue.

6. Social Criticism:-

               Hardy is a critical writer.  He has written many works on society.  He has also done social criticism in this novel.  In Victorian times he has criticized society at the time.  So we will discuss what kind of social criticism he did.Most of this critique is aimed at the institution of marriage, but Hardy also targets education, class divides, and hypocrisy. The early part of the novel involves Jude’s quest to be accepted into a college at Christminster, a university town based on Oxford. Jude works for years teaching himself classical languages, but he is never accepted simply because of his social class and poverty. In Jude’s unjustified failures Hardy demonstrates the unfairness and classism of the educational system. Relating to the marriage theme, Hardy also emphasizes the oppressiveness of Victorian society in dealing with any unorthodox domestic situation. Jude and Sue cannot find a room or a steady job as long as their marital status is anything but traditional, and Phillotson loses his teaching jobs because he allowed Sue to leave him. Hardy was far ahead of his time in many of his views – implying that universities should accept members of the working class, couples could live together without being married, and even that the father of a woman’s child should be the woman’s business alone – but Hardy’s society was not ready for such criticism. The backlash against Jude the Obscure was so harsh that Hardy gave up writing altogether.

Conclusion :

          So you see a lot of themes in Hardy's novel.  Hardy is a Victorian novelist.  He has written many works.  In all of that, "Jude The Obscure" was his last work.  Which became very popular and was also in discussion at the time.  He has tried to show some of the things that are left in the society, especially the education in the society and the marriage life in the society.  He has covered a lot of themes as well.  So Thomas Hardy was a good novelist as can be seen from his novel.

Citation:

Cosby, Matt. "Jude the Obscure Themes." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 24 Jul 2014. Web. 14 Feb 2021.

Course Hero. "Jude the Obscure Study Guide." Course Hero. 20 July 2017. Web. 14 Feb. 2021. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Jude-the-Obscure/>.

Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. Osgood, Mcilvaine & Co., 1895.

Words-2000

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             Critical note on John Keats concept of beauty and truth.

  P-103 Assignment

Name-Kishan Jadav

 Paper 103: Literature of the Romantics

Topic :- Write a critical note on John Keats concept of beauty and truth.

Roll no-11

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,
                Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Critical note on John Keats  concept of beauty and truth.

Introduction:-

                   Keats is of the view that everything which touches the senses is beautiful. Besides the poet of nature, John Keats is also called poet of beauty and sensousness. Art, birds’ songs, forests, clouds, skies, seasons, in fact every element either natural or unnatural, is beautiful in his eyes. He finds it even in truth, song of nightingale and also in Grecian urn.Beauty was his pole star, beauty in nature, in woman and in art. For him, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’. Keats always admired Spenser and Boccaccio and his imagination was always influenced after reading both the poets’ poetry. Keats poetry showed the romance of three worlds: the antique; the medieval and the modern where his poetry had rich and pictorial expressions.

                    The Romantic element in Keats appears less in his choice of subjects than in his manner of treating them. ‘Hyperion’, ‘Endymion’, ‘Lamia’ are old classical in story but at the same time they have romantic element too. On the other hand, ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’, ‘Isabelle’, ‘La Belle Dams Sans Merci’ are drawn from the Middle of ages in which romance breathes more freely.Keats had no interest in men. In the passion and struggle of ordinary human life he discussed his feelings for poetry. To him poetry was the world of the imagination only, realm of enchantment where only those might dwell who saw visions and dreamed dreams- a land of voluptuous languor, where magic filled the air and life passed like a dream, measured only by the exquisiteness of its sensations and the intensity of its delights.

                   When we think of Keats, ‘Beauty’ comes to our mind. Keats and Beauty have become almost synonymous. We cannot think of Keats without thinking of Beauty. Beauty is an abstraction, it does not give out its meaning easily. For Keats, it is not so. He sees Beauty everywhere. Keats made Beauty his object of wonder and admiration and he became the greatest poet of Beauty. All the Romantic poets had a passion for one thing or the other. Wordsworth was the worshipper of Nature and Coleridge was a poet of the supernatural. Shelley stood for ideals and Byron loved liberty. With Keats the passion for Beauty was the greatest, rather the only consideration. In the letters of Keats, we frequently read about his own ideas about Beauty.  Keats’ principle was “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty”. He was passionate about beautiful things in an intellectual manner not in a sentimental way. Keats had intense romantic fervor. His Romanticism had an outlook different from that of his colleagues Byron looked around and criticized; Shelly looked forward and aspired; and Keats looked backward into the romantic past and sighed.

                 He hated didacticism in poetry. For the poetry itself was beauty so he wrote, “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.”  ’The lines of his poem ‘Endymion’ have become a maxim:

            “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

            Its loveliness increases; it will never

            Pass into nothingness”

               He even disapproved Shelley for subordinating the true end of poetry to the object of social reform. He dedicated his brief life to the expression of beauty as For Keats the world of beauty was an escape from the dreary and painful life or experience. He escaped from the political and social problems of the world into the realm of imagination. Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, he remained untouched by revolutionary theories for the regression of mankind. His later poems such as “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Hyperion” show an increasing interest in human problems and humanity and if he had lived he would have established a closer contact with reality. Keats is the poet of sensations. His intellectual work includes working on notions, images and qualities. His balance between perfect classicism and romantic intensity is remarkable,  The favorite themes in Keats’s Romanticism are set in the ‘Odes’ in short and elaborate forms, constructed with harmonious skill, sculptural grace of Greek attitudes, the nostalgia of the charming myths of Hellas, the changing seasons and the joys of the earth English Romanticism attains in Keats the final stage of its progress, and this pessimism is deeper and more significant. It has not its secret source of any Tragic Mystery and it is thus much more inevitable. It springs from the satiety of a soul which yet has made no demands upon the more common joys of life; it is made up of the unconquerable feeling of the fragility of beautiful forms, as of the vanity of the effort through which desire seeks to transcend itself .

Different types of Beauty :-

1] BEAUTY IN THE ALL THINGS: Keats acts of conceiving or an idea of beauty and his behave towards beauty underwent a change with the passage of time. Though at all conditions of his considerable for beauty he feels it absolutely necessary to stay as devote and lover of beauty.

2] SENSUOUS AND PHYSICAL BEAUTY: Keats’ consideration of pleasing appearance was clearly (that can be) seen. He was interested in the pleasing appearance of woman and the pleasing appearance of nature. in “Endymion” he presented his joy in the beauty of nature in its varied aspects and come out with the assertion.

3] NATURAL BEAUTY: Keats love for nature is equally well represented in these odes. Keats loved nature in all its objective and beautiful aspects and this love for nature is expressed in the “Ode to Nightingale” as well as the “Ode to Autumn”. The “Ode to Autumn” is a glorification of the beauty of nature, and in the “Ode to Nightingale” we can enjoy the beauty of the flowers and translucent light of the moon making its way through the leaves.

4] TRUTH AND BEAUTY: The greatest gift of his intelligence and his chief contribution to the world is his philosophy of beauty and truth, beauty in female form and nature. Keats advanced to a philosophic concept of beauty. He soon comes out of the kingdom of flora and old fan of sleep and poetry and by the time.

5] HUMANITARIAN CONCEPT: Keats believed that poetry should be written not for any propaganda a moral teaching. There should not be any palpable design is the writing of poetry. He became less aesthetic and more humanitarian and now his whole endeavors were to pass physical appreciation of beauty for deeper and humanitarian understanding of the principle of beauty.

6] BEAUTY, TRUTH AND POWER: “There is something of the inner most soul of beauty in nearly every thing he wrote and perhaps, that is what strike me most, the more one grows to appreciate the finer spirit of poetry at its true worth.” this is the second law of Keats. The first is the truth and beauties are one. “Where there is the highest beauty there is the necessity of greatest power

          Keats when he died, gave promise of becoming the greatest poet of his generation, and one who better than any other, would have united the free inspiration of Romanticism with the formal principle of the schools of the past .

He derived aesthetic delight through his senses. He looked at autumn and says that even autumn has beauty and charm:

            “Where are the song of Spring? Ay, where are they?

            Think not of them, thou hast thy music too”

                      Keats was not only the last but also the most perfect of the Romantics while Scott was merely telling stories, and Wordsworth reforming poetry or upholding the moral law, and Shelley advocating the impossible reforms and Byron voicing his own egoism and the political measure. Worshipping beauty like a devotee, perfectly content to write what was in his own heart or to reflect some splendour of the natural world as he saw or dreamed it to be, he had the noble idea that poetry exists for its own sake and suffers loss by being devoted to philosophy or politics. Disinterested love of beauty is one of the qualities that made Keats great and that distinguished him from his great contemporaries. He grasped the essential oneness of beauty and truth. His creed did not mean beauty of form alone. His ideal was the Greek ideal of beauty inward and outward, the perfect soul of verse and the perfect form. Precisely because he held this ideal, he was free from the wish to preach. Keats’ early sonnets are largely concerned with poets, pictures, sculptures or the rural solitude in which a poet might nurse his fancy. His great odes have for their subjects a storied Grecian Urn; a nightingale; and the season of autumn, to which he turns from the songs of spring. The appreciation of Beauty in Keats is through mind or spirit. The approach becomes intellectual as he endorsees in ‘Ode on Grecian Urn’:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty -that is all

         Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

                  

               Art has captured Beauty of life and made it a truth for all the ages to be “a friend to man.” It is not the logical reaching after facts that helps in understanding the truth of things. Keats wrote, ‘What the imagination seizes as beauty must be true’ and it is his powerful assertion. His logic is simple: what is beautiful is truthful. What is ugly cannot be truthful. Find truth through beauty and beauty through truth. Beauty is no more a sensuous, physical or sentimental affair. Keats does not think nature as noble as other phases of development but on the other hand he does not challenge nature’s importance. That is why nature imagery is an important element in many of his poetry.

Conclusion :-

                   A true poet, in the words of Keats, enjoys light and shade foul and fair with the same delight. Thus, his concept of beauty encompasses Joy and Sorrow and Melancholy and Happiness which cannot be separated. Imagination reveals a new aspect of beauty, which is ‘sweeter’ than beauty which is perceptible to the senses. The senses perceive only the external aspect of beauty, but imagination apprehends its essence.The odes of Keats are adoration of beauty and is them Keats love for beautiful things of nature and human life art and literature is very well represented, Keats remained great adorer and worshiper of beauty .He took pride in being a votary of beauty. “If I should die”, he wrote, “I have left no immortal work behind me, nothing to make any friends proud of my memory, but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had time, I would have  made myself remembered.

Citation :

Ahmed, Anwaar et al. "John Keats As A Poet Of Beauty | John Keats' Hellenism". Askliterature.Com, 2021, http://www.askliterature.com/poetry/john-keats/john-keats-as-poet-of-beauty-keats-hellenism/.

Albert, Edward. “A History of English Literature.” 2000, Oxford University Press, London, p.664.

Dr. Sen. S. “John Keats: Selected Poems.” 2009. Unique Publishers. New Delhi Goodman, Wr. “History Of English Literature.” Vol. 2. 2007. Doaba House. New Delhi “John, Keats, Romanticism.” n.d. Scribd. Web. “Keats 2, Lamia.” Power Point Slide, 53.

Words :-1800

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Pamela's character of Richard Novel

Pamela's character of Richardson  Novel

  P-102 Assignment

Name-Kishan Jadav

 Paper 102:Literature of the Neo-classical Period   

Topic :- Pamela's character of Richardson Novel

Roll no-11

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,

                Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Pamela's character of Richardson Novel

Introduction :-

                  "Pamela" is a novel.  In which Richards depicts the characters named Pamela.  Which depicts the female character of the character he saw.  How a woman who lives in the midst of her own society saves her work and religion.  Here is a brief introduction to what we see in this novel. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel first published in 1740 by English writer Samuel Richardson. Considered one of the first true English novels, it serves as Richardson's version of conduct literature about marriage. Pamela tells the story of a fifteen-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of his mother. Pamela strives to reconcile her strong religious training with her desire for the approval of her employer in a series of letters and, later in the novel, journal entries all addressed to her impoverished parents. After various unsuccessful attempts at seduction, a series of sexual assaults, and an extended period of kidnapping, the rakish Mr. B eventually reforms and makes Pamela a sincere proposal of marriage. In the novel's second part Pamela marries Mr. B and tries to acclimatize to her new position in upper-class society. The full title, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. A best-seller of its time, Pamela was widely read but was also criticized for its perceived licentiousness and disregard for class barriers. The action of the novel is told through letters and journal entries from Pamela to her parents.

              Pamela, who is aged 15 when her story begins, has been employed by a middle-aged lady as a maidservant and companion. The novel begins with the lady’s death. Pamela’s real sorrow mingles realistically with her anxieties about getting another job. The lady’s adult son Mr B assures this daughter of a poor family that she need not worry, but eventually she finds cause for concern in his attentions. Pamela Andrews must free herself and find another situation.Pamela has a lot of different capabilities.  We find within this novel that Pamela as a woman, Pamela as a father's daughter, Pamela as a maid, Pamela as a husband's wife, and Pamela as a women.

1] Pamela as Servant:-

   “O Sir! my Soul is of equal Importance with the Soul of a Princess; though my Quality is inferior to that of the meanest Slave.”

               -Pamela, 158

                 From the above quotation we know that Pamela may have been working as an ideal maid. So let's get some information about her.  Pamela works as a maid at Lady B's house.  Who is only a 15 year old girl but due to home conditions she does the work of this maid.  She does her work diligently and with dedication and faith.  However the author describes the fact that she did not have any kind of discrimination such as hatred or stealing.  After Lady B.'s death, her son, Mr. B., manages the house.  Then she worries what will happen to my job now?  Do I have to go back to my home again in the same poor situation?  Can't I help my parents now?  Will this new owner keep me as a maid now?  How many such questions were popping up in her mind.  The answers were very hard to come by.  Because she was more worried about her poverty she wanted to help her parents so many such questions were simmering in her mind like clouds at once.  She was also telling her friend another maid what will happen to us now?  Will this new owner keep us?  So the answer to all her questions is coming in this one sentence of Mr. B.  He told all the servants to continue working the way they were working there.  No one will be fired.  Pamela is very happy to hear this.  She works as a maid inside the house but now the concern was that the absence of a man could raise a big question mark over a woman's character.  And what happens in this novel is that Mr. B is attracted to his maid Pamela and tries to make her his own.  But Pamela wants to keep herself holy.  So even though her owner says no, she maintains her virtue despite being a slave.  It's a big deal to refuse your boss even though Pamela is a maid.  Because if he refuses, he is likely to lose his job.  Pamela is also willing to put up her own job to preserve her sanctity.  Of course, these qualities with the fact that she's a tender fifteen years old when the book opens, hardly old enough to have her driver's license. Plus, she's a woman and a servant, which in the hierarchy of the eighteenth century meant that she had about as much power as a toddler has today—and maybe even less.

       You can see some of the naiveté that comes with those qualities in her early dismissal of her parents' concerns about staying with Mr. B: "I Must needs say, that your letter has fill'd me with much Trouble. For it has made my Heart, which was overflowing with Gratitude for my young Master's Goodness, suspicious and fearful; and yet, I hope I never shall find him to act unworthy of his Character; for what could he get by ruining such a poor young Creature as me?" (6.1).  

        So Pamela as a maid proves to be fearless and virtuous.  Who is always loyal to his master but cannot bear if his master has a bad eye towards him.  And she informs her parents about all this through letters.

2] Pamela as Daughter :-

“Indeed I am Pamela, her own self!”

                          -Pamela, 56

            This is the first line of what Pamela says about herself at the beginning of the novel.  She wrote letters to her parents every day telling them that this had happened to me.  She always wrote to her parents about every incident.  However this one mark was good in her as a daughter.  Because telling parents everything about themselves is a big deal for a daughter.  Her parents had to send her to work outside because she was living in poverty.  Therefore, since the parents are also worried about their daughter, the daughter understands herself and writes down everything that happened to her parents in a letter and tells her parents everything.  This indicates how loyal a daughter is to her parents.  In the same letter he tells his parents without any hesitation about the good and bad things that happen to Pamela.  However, this may seem like a common thing.  But a daughter is not able to tell her father everything.  He also tells about the bad things that happened to her through these letters.  He proves that he maintains his holiness and respect even though he is poor.  Her father also tells her to maintain chastity.  Which is a big deal for a daughter and a father.  It is a new thing for her father that a fifteen year old daughter has to work as a maid in someone else's house.  Which is said to be the biggest concern.  But Pamela provides the role of an ideal daughter in this novel that tells every happening event to her father.  He also informs his father by letter of the matter when Mr. B rapes him.  So from this we can say that Pamela as a daughter proves to be an ideal and cultured daughter in this novel.  In which saves the father and his virtue as a daughter

3] Pamela as wife:-

“[L]et us talk of nothing henceforth but Equality.”

                          -Pamela, 350

           Pamela was a poor girl.  So she is known as a low level girl.  But her marriage takes place with Mr. B.  Who is a rich man.  And the caste is also an upper class man.  So when he marries Pamela, Pamela tells him that we are no longer inferior or inferior.  Mr. B persuades Pamela many times to marry him.  Pamela was his maid.  The first time they chose him they didn’t just have to marry him.  He just wanted Pamela to settle down.  But hearing Pamela's words, they are ready to marry him.  When Pamela realizes that Mr. B is not married, he already has a daughter.  Even though Pamela knows all this, she accepts that if I am married to her now, then she is my husband.  He also accepts his daughter.  So Pamela proves to be a virtuous woman.  Because he forgot all the incidents that happened to Pamela and now he is married.  So she wants to start her own marriage, believing that she is her husband.  Pamela maintained her chastity until Pamela was married to Mr. B.  So it can be said that Pamela is a heroic woman.

4]  Pamela as women:-

“All the Good I can do, is but a poor third-hand Good; for my dearest Master himself is but the Second-hand. GOD, the All-gracious, the All-good, the All-bountiful, the All-mighty, the All-merciful GOD, is the First: To HIM, therefore, be all the Glory!”

                                                     -Pamela, 497

                   This passage, one of her final reflections in the novel, is Pamela’s effort to inoculate herself against the possibility of vanity and pride in her new position. Pamela is portrayed as a female character in this novel.  Because a woman can be a mother, a daughter, a wife.  And the biggest thing for any woman is her self-esteem.  If a woman cannot have a relationship with another against her will.  Because he has more respect for his parents.  Which we see through the character of Pamela in this novel.  Even though she is a 15 year old girl, she preserves her reputation and virtue.  She is a good maid, a good daughter and a good wife.  Fills all roles as a woman.  The dignity of women in society is an important issue.  Because at that time women were considered inferior.  But Pamela's character is pure and sattvic, she comes before us as a holy woman, as an ideal wife.

Conclusion :-

                We see Pamela as a woman in many different ways in this novel.  In which a woman as a woman,  as a daughter,  as a wife and as a maid. Nothing can save Pamela, not even unconsciousness – nothing except Mr B’s inner unwillingness to commit the rape. He always hoped that Pamela would somehow fall in with his scenarios. When she absolutely refuses, he finds that committing an assault, an injury to one he loves, is not what he truly wills. After this turning point the couple must learn to talk to each other without pretences. There can be no real love without free choice. Pamela makes her most important choice – trusting Mr B – without consulting her parents.Moving through sexual harassment and assault to love and marriage, the presentation of Pamela and Mr B’s relationship has always troubled Richardson’s readers – as the author intended. 

Citation:

Castle, Terry. "An analysis of Pamela -or virtue rewarded by Samuel Richardson." The Insistence of the Letter: Fiction and Experience in the Novels of Samuel Richardson, 1980, Accessed 14 Feb. 2021.

Keymer, Tom, and Peter Sabor. Research paper on Analysis of Pamela Character. London: Routledge, 2001. Accessed 14 Jan.-Feb. 2021.

Richardson, Samuel. Pamela; or, Virtue rewarded [by S. Richardson]. 1811.

Sabor, Peter. "JOSEPH ANDREWS AND PAMELA." Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, 2008, pp. 169-181.

Words -1860

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Women's situation represented of Aphra Behan's "The Rove"

        P-101 Assignment

Name-Kishan Jadav

Paper- History of the English Literature

Topic :- women situation represented of Aphra Behan's "The Rove"   

Roll no-11

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,

                Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

 Topic :- women's  situation represented of Aphra Behan's "The Rover"   

Introduction:-

           Aphra Behn was the first woman to start writing something in literature.  She was a woman so it can be said that she has a very special attitude towards woman.  He was well aware of the plight of women in his time and he has tried to portray the situation in his work.  Aphra Behn's "The Rover" is very famous.  This is how all the events happen by hiding one's identity within one play.  In which the Carnival Festival has been used as a single symbol.  In this festival, everyone wears a mask on their face and enjoys dancing and partying.  So that one person cannot be identified with another.  Aphra Behn was working as a spy for king  but as he did not get proper support he started his own writing work.  And he wrote the first work The Rover. The King liked this work very much. So he performed it on stage many times.  One of the reasons behind the dislike may also be that women have been portrayed as inferior within this work.  Because of the patriarchal society at that time, the status of women was considered low.  Which is also seen in today's times.  The women were ruled by men.  The women could not go against men, women were not given freedom.

 Women's  situation :-

               There are so many female characters in this play Hellena, Valeria,  Florida, Angelic, Lucetta,  Bianca.Shown in an article in which the critic says that.Critics have often remarked that in Aphra Behn's The Rover, ladies act like whores and whores like ladies. '  At this level, the play presents a dramatic world dominated by the two principal patriarchal definitions of women, but in which the boundary separating one category from the other has become blurred.  In the case of both Florinda, the play's quintessential "maid of quality," and the prostitute Angellica Bianca, the role reversals arise out of contrasting bids to move from subjection into subjectivity.  It is Florinda's rebellion against the commodification of forced marriage that destabilizes her position within patriarchy, while Angellica Bianca's self-construction as Petrarchan mistress charts the attempt of a woman excluded from the marital marketplace to turn her beauty into an alternative form of power.So the women of that time had different characteristics which can be seen as follows

 1.Women's  Freedom 

              The big question is whether women were given freedom in both our times.  In response to which we can say in the context of this play that women were not given freedom at that time.  Because even then there was a patriarchal society.  Which we see as its character.  Helena wants to be a nun herself but her father and her brother don't let her be a nun.  She wants to marry Don Antonio.  When Helena doesn't want to get married.  Perhaps this is the only thing that shows us that women are not free.  She cannot make her own decisions.  He has to take care of his family.  However this is one way that women are now convinced and ready to make their own decisions from their own ideas.  It seems that she sees herself as a different woman.  Who can now make their own decisions.  This suggests that in a patriarchal society women are always working under men.  But now he wants his own freedom which is somewhat portrayed in this play.  The other thing to note here is Angelica.  Which makes all its own decisions.  Even if his work is bad.  She does not like to work under any man and does not want others to rule over her. It seems that woman will be somewhat independent.  But falling in love with Willmore himself, he also loses his freedom.  And follow him to inhabit it.  The women themselves were free to choose their favorite character but their families were depriving them of this freedom which we see from the character of Helena and Florida.  The other characters Angelica and Lucetta made their own decisions and enjoyed their own freedom, but they also relied on men.  So at that time women were not given complete freedom.  Which is still a big question today?

2.Women's  Beauty 

             The play depicts Florida as a beautiful woman inside.  She is a much more beautiful character than all the women.  Beauty is the symbol of that which attracts everyone's attention.  There are many concepts of definitions of beauty that individuals are always attracted to what is beautiful then there is a source of nature or something beautiful within people.  So within the play, Florida has a role as a woman of beauty.  Many characters are attracted to her because of her beauty.  She loves Belvil.  And to settle it she faces a lot of situations within this play.  On the other hand, many men attack her because she is beautiful.  She faces a lot of difficulties to avoid it all.  There are many attempts to rape her but she tries to escape.  Perhaps the author is showing that it is not a crime to be beautiful but with beauty you have to protect yourself.  If you are beautiful, you are more likely to have such incidents.  Which we can see even today.  So Aphra Behn in this play shows how big a risk women are in terms of their beauty.

3.Women's  Position 

            Aphara Behn shows in this play what the place of women was at that time.  The play has many female characters including Helena, Florida, Valeria, Lucetta, Angelica.  The position of all these women is portrayed in a somewhat different way.  Hellena, Florinda and Valeria are portrayed as ideal women.  Who are high class women and have a wealth of understanding in terms of beauty and money.  They are able to live a good life.  He gets this honor to some extent in the society.  Even though he does not have freedom, he has a name in the society.  Angelica, on the other hand, portrays Lucetta as a bad female character in society.  Who pursues prostitution at his own discretion and will.  So her place in society as a bad woman is not considered worthy of respect.  He does this business for his own sustenance.  And it is not bad for him to do this work even though he is not given a high place in the society he is considered as a low kind of people.  These types of women are very common in the society.  Who are doing this business out of their own compulsion.  For their own sustenance, to run their own house, when they have been ostracized from society, when they have been kicked out by their own family. Such women are engaged in prostitution.  He wants to love another even though no one accepts him.  Which also appears in this play.

4.Women's  Love 

           Inside this play by Aphra Behn, many characters are seen falling in love with each other.  But the big question here is, did they really love each other?  That they are connected to each other because of some other circumstance.  So the answer we get when we read this play is that these characters are so confused with each other that the real reason comes at the end of the play.  In this play, love is seen in one character and lust is seen in the other character.  Such as the rakish Willmore uses the ambiguity between love and lust to his advantage, vowing love when he actually only feels physical lust. Angelica begins the play preferring lust to love (and profiting from the lust her beauty inspires), and suffers greatly when she finally succumbs to the second emotion. Hellena, for all her boldness, wishes for love rather than lust, and succumbs to Willmore’s advances only after she is convinced hat he loves for her, rather than simply lusting. For the more traditional Florinda, lust is dangerous, making formerly honorable men threatening and dangerous.Angelica is a prostitute woman.  But at the same time she is also a woman so she loves Willmore from the heart.  But Willmore does not acknowledge his love.  He likes the beautiful and rich Helena from him.  Because she is a woman with a high position in the society.  Helena also loves Willmore.  So in this play the love of a woman with a bad name is not considered valid in a society.  No one accepts it.  Breaking all her own rules she loved Willmore but Willmore did not appreciate her love because she was a prostitute woman.  In which Aphra Behn shows that love also needs to be a beautiful and famous woman.

Conclusion:-

          Aphra Behn was a woman.  So he could understand women’s feelings and well.  It seems from this play that the atrocities of the women of his time must have been witnessed before his eyes.  Perhaps they have expressed their own feelings in this play.  However from this play one comes tomorrow that the situation of women at that time will be very different.  Women will face many difficulties.  She has portrayed different situations of women in this play. The same situation and condition of women is seen even today.  Which was many years before today.  The play depicts the conditions of women and their problems.  In which both rich women and lower class oppressed women are clearly seen in this play.  Which Aphra Behn has tried to portray through different characters.

Words:-1600

Reference :-

Behn, Aphra.  The Rover.  Restoration Comedy.  Ed. Trevor Griffiths and Simon Trussler.  London: New Hern Books, 2005.  129–224.

“Portrayal of Restoration Women in The Rover.” Magnificata Journal of Undergraduate Nonfiction, 2014, commons.marymount.edu/magnificat/portrayal-of-restoration-women-in-the-rover.

Staves, Susan. “Behn, Women, and Society.” The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn. By Derek Hughes and Janet M. Todd. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2004. 12-28. Print.