Paper no. 7 A

Name:- Hetal Dabhi
Paper no:-7



The literary terms

Post modernism

a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
Postmodernism is a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism and that marked a departure from modernism. The term has also more generally been applied to the historical era following modernity and the tendencies of this era.
While encompassing a wide variety of approaches, postmodernism is generally defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony, or rejection toward the meta-narratives and ideologies of modernism, often calling into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality.[5] Consequently, common targets of postmodern critique include universalist notions of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress.[5] Postmodern thinkers frequently call attention to the contingent or socially-conditioned nature of knowledge claims and value systems, situating them as products of particular political, historical, or cultural discourses and hierarchies.[5] Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to self-referentiality, epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, and irreverence.
The term postmodern was first used around the 1880s. John Watkins Chapman suggested "a Postmodern style of painting" as a way to depart from French Impressionism.[25] J. M. Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert Journal (a quarterly philosophical review), used it to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion, writing: "The raison d'être of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of Modernismby being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition."

New criticism

New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated Americanliterary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom's 1941 book The New Criticism.
The work of Cambridge scholar I. A. Richards, especially his Practical Criticism and The Meaning of Meaning, which offered what was claimed to be an empirical scientific approach, were important to the development of New Critical methodology.[1] Also very influential were the critical essays of T. S. Eliot, such as "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems", in which Eliot developed his notion of the "objective correlative". Eliot's evaluative judgments, such as his condemnation of Milton and Dryden, his liking for the so-called metaphysical poets and his insistence that poetry must be impersonal, greatly influenced the formation of the New Critical canon.

Diaspora

The definition of a diaspora is the dispersion of people from their homeland or a community formed by people who have exited or been removed from their homeland. ... An example of a diaspora is a community of Jewish people settled together after they were dispersed from another land.
Diaspora means “to scatter” in Greek, but today we use the term to describe a community of people who live outside their shared country of origin or ancestry but maintain active connections with it. A diaspora includes both emigrants and their descendants.
A corporate, communal, or shared diasporic. identity is defined by the relationships between the dispersed; Distance from one's. motherland generates a sense of loss (Dutta-Bergman & Pal, 2005; Liao, 2005). The diasporic. experience tends to focus on a collective memory of a lost homeland, childhood, cultural.
The definition of a diaspora is the dispersion of people from their homeland or a community formed by people who have exited or been removed from their homeland. An example of a diaspora is the 6th century exile of Jews from outside Israel to Babylon.
Diaspora, populations, such as members of an ethnic or religious group, that originated from the same place but dispersed to different locations. The word diaspora comes from the ancient Greek dia speiro, meaning “to sow over.” The concept of diaspora has long been used to refer to the Greeks in the Hellenic world and to the Jews after the fall of Jerusalem in the early 6th century BCE. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, scholars began to use it with reference to the African diaspora, and the use of the term was extended further in the following decades.
Evolution Of The Concept Of Diaspora
The concept of diaspora did not figure prominently in the social sciences until the late 1960s; the use of the plural form of the word came later still. Notwithstanding its Greek origins, the term formerly referred primarily to the Jewish experience, particularly the expulsion of Jewish people from their homeland to Babylonia (the Babylonian Exile) as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. The term, then, carried a sense of loss, as the dispersal of the Jewish population was caused by their loss of territory. Nonetheless, since ancient times the concept has also been used in a positive though much less-influential way to refer to the Greek colonization of the Mediterranean lands from the shores of present-day Turkey and Crimea to the Strait of Gibraltar, between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.

Postcolonial criticism

Postcolonial criticism analyzes and critiques the literature, poetry, drama, and prose fiction of writers who are subjects of countries that were governed by or that were colonies of other nations, primarily England and France, and, to a lesser extent, the United States. Postcolonial criticism deals mainly with the literatures of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean by analyzing the interactions between the culture, customs, and history of indigenous peoples and of the colonial power that governs. Postcolonial criticism is part of a larger field called cultural studies, or race and ethnicity studies.
To understand the importance of postcolonial literature, a reader should understand the scope of European involvement in the lives of people around the world. Between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, European countries conquered, governed, and otherwise had interests in the majority of nations around the world. Colonialism had begun principally through mercantilism and the protection of mercantile companies, such as the British East India Company, by the British navy and the navies of other trading countries. By the mid-twentieth century, however, domination by Europe began to end, as colonized countries staged successful independence movements. By 1980, Britain had lost all but a few of its colonial holdings; Hong Kong remained British until 1997 and Australia remained British until 1999.
Postcolonial literary criticism is a recent development. Formerly known as commonwealth studies, postcolonial literary studies includes examinations of works by authors from colonized nations. After nationalism, indigenous novelists and poets finally were able to express freely their own thoughts and feelings about the effects of the long-term conquest of their peoples, their traditions, and their customs. Although some literature from the East originated in these early days of colonial rule, the great mass of postcolonial literature began as colonies gained their independence.
Edward Said
A list of the most influential postcolonial critics would have to begin with Edward W. Said (1935-2003), whose Orientalism (1978) is considered a foundational work in postcolonial studies. Said has a special place in postcolonial studies in part because of the uniqueness of his birth and education.
 He was born in Jerusalem while it was still a British protectorate, and he was educated in Egypt, England, and in the United States, where he received his doctorate from Harvard University. He taught at Columbia University for many years, won a number of honors, and was well-regarded in his profession.

Feminist criticism

Feminist literary criticism recognizes that since literature both reflects culture and shapes it, literary studies can either perpetuate the oppression of women or help to eliminate it. Thus, feminist literary critics are motivated to raise questions about literature and literary criticism that are basic to women’s struggle for autonomy: How does literature represent women and define gender relations? Why has literary criticism ignored or devalued women’s writing? How does one’s gender alter the way in which one reads literature? Is there a feminine mode of writing?
Unlike other schools of critical theory, feminist literary criticism does not trace its roots to a single author who established a unified theory. In fact, it is more appropriate to speak of feminist literary practices than of a practice. As an interdisciplinary study borrowing heavily from a broad range of disciplines, including history, sociology, psychology, and linguistics, feminist literary criticism is really a number of feminist approaches to literature, each embracing its own critical school or combination of methodologies. For example, sociohistorical feminist critics examine literature in an effort to understand its representations of women and the culture and writers that produced them, Marxist feminist critics study literature for instances of female oppression, psychoanalytic,  critics focus on the unconscious, and linguists attempt to discern if differences exist between male and female uses of language. Also contributing to the eclectic nature of feminist literary criticism are its multiple positions, including lesbian and African American feminism, and its particular developments, such as socialist feminism in Great Britain.
Despite the variety of feminist approaches to literary study, practitioners of feminist literary criticism do share common beliefs. First, feminist literary critics accept the basic tenet of feminism: that the injustice of women’s oppression must be eliminated. Second, feminist critics believe literary history is shaped by androcentric biases, and, since men and women read differently, that gender is a crucial factor in the creation and interpretation of literary texts. Third, feminist critics argue that all literary study is subjective and value-driven, even that which pretends to be most objective. Finally, feminist critics acknowledge their political agenda and through feminist readings of literature hope to redress the marginalization of women in literary history and thereby to serve the larger aim of feminism—to subvert patriarchy and to change the world.

Paper no. 6 A

Name:- Hetal Dabhi
Paper no:-6

Assignment

The Novelist of the Victorian age


Victorian novel is one of the most outstanding literary products of this age.
It has already happened and became practically the mirror of the age, reflecting many situations and the fundamental contradictions of it, and a sort of source of discussion (the social, political and economic complexity has grown).
The production of the novel was so large that defined three stages of development: Early-Victorian novel, Mid-Victorian novel and Late-Victorian novel.

Victorian novelists

The majority of authors dealt with the industrial society, so with industrial problems and labour force in a time of progress.
Social-problem novel → Gaskell
Concentrating on the social problem deriving from industrial development is Elizabeth Gaskell.
Concerned with turmoil years – Hungry Forties
The most difficult time for the lower classes was during the Hungry Forties.
Set in contemporary England (world of workers and Chartism)
One characteristic that links the Victorian novel with the Augustan one is that authors set their novel always in a contemporary situation.
“Mary Barton” 1848 – realistic portrayal of new phenomenon of industrial cities and its real people - human picture of the working class – desperation, bitterness of social conditions + bare display of HATRED of factory owners - tragic heroes  very difficult reality
Movement of workers trying to obtain some rights.
Elizabeth Gaskell inquired into the world of workers.
Gaskell is one of the authors who most realistically did that: other authors as Dickens did that more symbolically, sentimentally and less realistically, in order to attract higher classes attention: she did not modify the picture.
Dickens instead slightly modified it trying to propose similar topics in terms for larger discussion and also proposing them in a sentimental ways.
Novel of Manners → Thackeray
The Novel of Manners became a real genre.
Sentimental-Humanitarian Novel → Dickens
Even if the working class was not Dickens’ primary interest, it became later.
Psychological Novel → Bronte, Stevenson
Part of their Psychological Novel was the so-called children’s literature.
Stevenson was also very famous for his adventure novel.
Naturalitic Novel → Hardy
Hardy is an author who became the only representative of naturalism in England, in fact he’s compared with Verga.
He dealt with the peasant class, taking into consideration the woman, the weakest member, who was, in his very objective and realistic view, a beautiful young woman.  He became a scandalous author and was banned: he dealt with rape and suicide of children, proposing a very harsh reality.
He succeeded in representing a very different situation and in proposing a deeper philosophical view, influenced by great authors as Schopenhauer and Darwin, describing a universe where God has left man, who has no power, completely alone.
He introduced the concept of fate, the so-called insensible chance.
Nonsensical Novel → Carrol (fantasy/ psychology)
Detective Story → Conan Doyle
Another product of the age was the Detective Story, born in the reality of London with its very crime high rate: Doyle tried to reflect this reality.
He invented in fact Sherlock Holmes.
He focused on a very different world.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Marred only by the fact that Charlotte clearly liked Mr Rochester too much; but we can forgive her that. Often given to schoolchildren to read, but you have to be a grown-up to really get it. Has to be one of the most perfectly structured novels of all time.
2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A story of the traumas of sex and class. My favourite moment is the one where Magwitch makes his stumbling way up the shadowy staircase towards an unnerved but unsuspecting Pip: the halting but inexorable rise of the repressed 'from the darkness beneath'.
3. Vanity Fair by WM Thackeray
Deserves its spot in the top 10 if only for the wonderful Becky Sharp.
4. New Grub Street by George Gissing
A devastating study of the late-Victorian literary industry, New Grub Street still has an unnervingly modern ring. It's also a kind of anti-romance: Gissing was uncompromising in his analysis of gender relations and his exposé of the withering impact of economics upon love.
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Commonly thought of as 'romantic', but try rereading it without being astonished by the comfortableness with which Brontë's characters subject one another to extremes of physical and psychological violence.
6. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The most resonant of Dickens's novels, with an elusive moral centre and a gallery of grotesques - Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker; Mr Venus, articulator of human bones; the demented stalker Bradley Headstone; the loathsome Lammles - which, even by Dickensian standards, are really very grotesque indeed.
7. Dracula by Bram Stoker
An exercise in masculine anxiety and nationalist paranoia, Stoker's novel is filled with scenes that are staggeringly lurid and perverse. The one in Highgate cemetery, where Arthur and Van Helsing drive a stake through the writhing body of the vampirised Lucy Westenra, is my favourite.
8. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A heady late-Victorian tale of double-living, in which Dorian's fatal, corruptive influence over women and men alike is left suggestively indistinct.

9. Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Another, more definitive, novel of shameful double-living. Even more so than Dorian Gray's, Mr Hyde's sordid and perhaps deviant excesses are rendered more suggestive through being left undescribed.
10. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The most popular novel of the 19th century, and still one of the best plots in English literature. Notable for its marvellous villains and, like all Collins's work, for its complex, spirited and believable female characters.
NOVELS

Austen, Jane
— Mansfield Park
— Emma
— Persuasion
Brontë, Charlotte
— Jane Eyre
— Villette
Brontë, Emily
— Wuthering Heights
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward
— Paul Clifford
Collins, Wilkie
— The Moonstone
Dickens, Charles
— The Pickwick Papers
— Oliver Twist
— David Copperfield
— Bleak House
— Little Dorrit
Disraeli, Benjamin
— Sybil, or the Two Nations
Eliot, George
— Scenes from Clerical Life
— Adam Bede
— Middlemarch
— Daniel Deronda
Gaskell, Elizabeth
— Mary Barton
Gissing, George
— New Grub Street
Hardy, Thomas
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles
— Jude the Obscure
Martineau, Harriet
— Deerbrook
Meredith, George
— The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
Oliphant, Margaret v
— Miss Marjoribanks
Stevenson, Robert Louis
— The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Stoker, Bram
— Dracula
Thackeray, William Makepeace
— Vanity Fair
Trollope, Anthony
— Barchester Towers
— Dr Thorne
— The Way We Live Now
— Autobiobgraphy
Trollope, Fanny
— The Widow Barnaby
Wilde, Oscar
— The Picture of Dorian Gray
— The Importance of Being Earnest

Paper. no. 5 Keats Poetry

Name:-Hetal Dabhi
Sem:-2
Paper no:-5


Assignment

Keats Poetry

This list is intended to collate the poems which reflect Keats’ extraordinary genius and ability to handle a range of themes and form, rather than simply his most famous. Since we have chosen to focus on his shorter poems here, an honourable mention must go to four of his longer narrative poems: “Isabella,” “The Eve of St Agnes,” and “Lamia.”Many more great poems haven’t made it, but here is our choice of the 10 greatest poems by John Keats.

10. “Fancy” (1818)
Inspired by the garden at Wentworth Place, this poem makes the list because it affords us a window into Keats’ creative process. It’s no secret that his imagination manages to elevate the everyday and produce what can be described as escapist poetry. The richness of the language showcases the classic Romanticism found in much of Keats’ work, with the imagery touching on hedonism, as well as his preoccupation with nature and the seasons (which is explored further in poems such as “To Autumn”).
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind’s cage-door,
She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter’s night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw’d,
Fancy, high-commission’d:—send her!
She has vassals to attend her…
(Above is an excerpt. Read the rest of the poem here)
9. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819)
One of several great odes Keats wrote in 1819, this is one of Keats’ most philosophical poems. It discusses the link between art and humanity (as shown by the creation of the urn), and how essential true beauty is to man. Unlike the more despondent “Ode On Melancholy” or “Ode To A Nightingale”, this poem leaves us with a small thrill of optimism: the figures on the urn are in a constant state of pleasure, ‘For ever piping songs for ever new’, never to be ravished by time. The Romantic concept is about as Keatsian as it gets, so here are the poem’s first two stanzas.
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? what maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” (1819)
It will perhaps be bemoaned that one of Keats’ most famous poems merits such a modest place on the list (though with so many to choose from such decisions will never be easy); after all, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is an iconic poetic figure, plucked from Arthurian legend and immortalised in Keats’ sparse, melodic verse. The desolate setting and bleak rhyme scheme convey the poem’s creative merit, but the power balance between man and woman is also a central theme, especially when compared with other works like “Lamia” and “The Eve Of St Agnes”. Here are the first few verses of the narrative poem.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
Written in 1819, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ was the third of the five ‘great odes’ of 1819, which are generally believed to have been written in the following order – Psyche, Nightingale, Grecian Urn, Melancholy, and Autumn. Of the five, Grecian Urn and Melancholy are merely dated ‘1819’. Critics have used vague references in Keats’s letters as well as thematic progression to assign order. (‘Ode on Indolence’, though written in March 1819, perhaps before Grecian Urn, is not considered one of the ‘great odes’.)
This ode contains the most discussed two lines in all of Keats’s poetry – ‘”Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ The exact meaning of those lines is disputed by everyone; no less a critic than TS Eliot considered them a blight upon an otherwise beautiful poem. Scholars have been unable to agree to whom the last thirteen lines of the poem are addressed. Arguments can be made for any of the four most obvious possibilities, -poet to reader, urn to reader, poet to urn, poet to figures on the urn. The issue is further confused by the change in quotation marks between the original manuscript copy of the ode and the 1820 published edition. (This issue is further discussed at the bottom of this page.)
There are two versions of this very famous ballad. The first version is from the original manuscript and the second version is its first published form. The first is generally considered the best; it was altered upon publication. We do not know who did the alteration.
The original version is found in a letter to Keats’s brother, George, and dated Weds 21 April 1819. Keats typically wrote a running commentary to George and his wife Georgiana in America, then loosely grouped the pages together as one long letter. The letter which contains La Belle spans almost three months, from 14 February to 3 May 1819. It also contains other famous poems, including ‘Why did I laugh tonight?’ which ends, prophetically enough, ‘Verse, fame and Beauty are intense indeed / But Death intenser – Death is Life’s high mead.’ Also included are ‘To Sleep’ and ‘On Fame.’ The letter ends with the beautiful Ode to Psyche, of which Keats wrote: ‘The following Poem – the last I have written is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains – I have for the most part dash’d of[f] my lines in a hurry – ‘
La Belle Dame Sans Merci (The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy/Pity) was dashed off, then, and largely dismissed by Keats himself. It was first published in the Indicator on 10 May 1820 and has since become one of his most celebrated poems.

Paper. No 8 A

Hetal Dabhi
Sem-2
Paper no. -8(Cultural studies )

Five types of cultural studies

What is cultural studies?

Cultural studies is a field of theoretically, politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that concentrates upon the political dynamics of contemporary culture, its historical foundations, defining traits, conflicts, and contingencies. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices relate to wider systems of powerassociated with or operating through social phenomena, such as ideology, class structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and generation. Cultural studies views cultures not as fixed, bounded, stable, and discrete entities, but rather as constantly interacting and changing sets of practices and processes.[1] The field of cultural studies encompasses a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. Although distinct from the discipline of cultural anthropology and the interdisciplinary field of ethnic studies, cultural studies draws upon and has contributed to each of these fields.[2]

Cultural studies was initially developed by British academics in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and has been subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as antidisciplinary. A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives.[3] As a result, Cultural Studies as a field of research is not concerned with the linguistically uncategorized experiences of individuals, or, in a more radical approach, holds that individual experiences do not exist, being always the result of a particular social-political context.

Five types of cultural studies

1) British culture Materialism
2) New Historicism
3) American Multiculturalism
4) Postmodernism and popular culture
5) Postcolonial studies
1.British culture Materialism

Cultural materialism emerged as a theoretical movement in the early 1980s along with new historicism, an American approach to early modern literature, with which it shares much common ground. The term was coined by Williams, who used it to describe a theoretical blending of leftist culturalism and Marxistanalysis. Cultural materialists deal with specific historical documents and attempt to analyze and recreate the zeitgeist of a particular moment in history.
Williams viewed culture as a "productive process", part of the means of production, and cultural materialism often identifies what he called "residual", "emergent" and "oppositional" cultural elements. Following in the tradition of Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci and others, cultural materialists extend the class-based analysis of traditional Marxism (Neo-Marxism) by means of an additional focus on the marginalized.
Cultural materialists analyze the processes by which hegemonic forces in society appropriate canonical and historically important texts, such as Shakespeare and Austen, and utilize them in an attempt to validate or inscribe certain values on the cultural imaginary. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, authors of Political Shakespeare, have had considerable influence in the development of this movement and their book is considered to be a seminal text. They have identified four defining characteristics of cultural materialism as a theoretical device:
6) Historical context
7) Close textual analysis
8) Political commitment
9) Theoretical method
Cultural materialists seek to draw attention to the processes being employed by contemporary power structures, such as the church, the state or the academy, to disseminate ideology. To do this they explore a text’s historical context and its political implications, and then through close textual analysis note the dominant hegemonic position. They identify possibilities for the rejection and/or subversion of that position. British critic Graham Holderness defines cultural materialism as a "politicized form of historiography".
Through its insistence on the importance of an engagement with issues of gender, sexuality, race and class, cultural materialism has had a significant impact on the field of literary studies, especially in Britain. Cultural materialists have found the area of Renaissance studies particularly receptive to this type of analysis. Traditional humanistreadings often eschewed consideration of the oppressed and marginalized in textual readings, whereas cultural materialists routinely consider such groups in their engagement with literary texts, thus opening new avenues of approach to issues of representation in the field of literary criticism.


2.New Historicism


New Historicism is a form of literary theorywhose goal is to understand intellectual history through literature, and literature through its cultural context, which follows the 1950s field of history of ideas and refers to itself as a form of "Cultural Poetics". It was first developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic and University of California, Berkeley English professor Stephen Greenblatt and gained widespread influence in the 1990s.[1] The term New Historicism was coined by Greenblatt when he "collected a bunch of essays and then, out of a kind of desperation to get the introduction done, I wrote that the essays represented something I called a 'new historicism'".

In its historicism and in its political interpretations, New Historicism is indebted to Marxism. But whereas Marxism (at least in its more orthodox forms) tends to see literature as part of a 'superstructure' in which the economic 'base' (i.e. material relations of production) manifests itself, New Historicist thinkers tend to take a more nuanced view of power, seeing it not exclusively as class-related but extending throughout society.[citation needed] This view derives primarily from Michel Foucault.
In its tendency to see society as consisting of texts relating to other texts, with no 'fixed' literary value above and beyond the way specific cultures read them in specific situations, New Historicism is a form of postmodernism applied to interpretive history.
New Historicism shares many of the same theories as with what is often called cultural materialism, but cultural materialist critics are even more likely to put emphasis on the present implications of their study and to position themselves in disagreement to current power structures, working to give power to traditionally disadvantaged groups. Cultural critics also downplay the distinction between "high" and "low" culture and often focus predominantly on the productions of "popular culture" (Newton 1988). [7] New Historicists analyze text with an eye to history. With this in mind, New Historicism is not "new". Many of the critiques that existed between the 1920s and the 1950s also focused on literature's historical content. These critics based their assumptions of literature on the connection between texts and their historical contexts (Murfin & Supriya 1998).
New Historicism also has something in common with the historical criticism of Hippolyte Taine, who argued that a literary work is less the product of its author's imaginations than the social circumstances of its creation, the three main aspects of which Taine called race, milieu, and moment. It is also a response to an earlier historicism, practiced by early 20th century critics such as John Livingston Lowes, which sought to de-mythologize the creative process by reexamining the lives and times of canonicalwriters. But New Historicism differs from both of these trends in its emphasis on ideology: the political disposition, unknown to the author that governs their work.

3.American Multiculturalism


Which brings us to the current political version of American multiculturalism. It is a term that gathered force in the aftermath of the 1960s when cultural narcissism and identity politics became fused into the multicultural movement.

African -American writers

Tony Morrison
About her

Morrison grew up in the American Midwest in a family that possessed an intense love of and appreciation for black culture. Storytelling, songs, and folktales were a deeply formative part of her childhood. She attended Howard University (B.A., 1953) and Cornell University (M.A., 1955). After teaching at Texas Southern University for two years, she taught at Howard from 1957 to 1964. In 1965 Morrison became a fiction editor at Random House, where she worked for a number of years. In 1984 she began teaching writing at the State University of New York at Albany, which she left in 1989 to join the faculty of Princeton University; she retired in 2006.

Morrison’s first book, The Bluest Eye (1970), is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent black girl who is obsessed by white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes. In 1973 a second novel, Sula, was published; it examines (among other issues) the dynamics of friendship and the expectations for conformity within the community. Song of Solomon. (1977) is told by a male narrator in search of his identity; its publication brought Morrison to national attention. Tar Baby (1981), set on a Caribbean island, explores conflicts of race, class, and sex.

The critically acclaimed Beloved(1987), which won a Pulitzer Prizefor fiction, is based on the true story of a runaway slave who, at the point of recapture, kills her infant daughter in order to spare her a life of slavery. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 1998 and starred Oprah Winfrey. In addition, Morrison wrote the libretto for Margaret Garner (2005), an opera about the same story that inspired Beloved.

Zora Neale Hurston

Although Hurston claimed to be born in 1901 in Eatonville, Florida, she was, in fact, 10 years older and had moved with her family to Eatonville only as a small child. There, in the first incorporated all-black town in the country, she attended school until age 13. After the death of her mother (1904), Hurston’s home life became increasingly difficult, and at 16 she joined a traveling theatrical company, ending up in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She attended Howard University from 1921 to 1924 and in 1925 won a scholarship to Barnard College, where she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. She graduated from Barnard in 1928 and for two years pursued graduate studies in anthropology at Columbia University. She also conducted field studies in folkloreamong African Americans in the South. Her trips were funded by folklorist Charlotte Mason, who was a patron to both Hurston and Langston Hughes. For a short time Hurston was an amanuensis to novelist Fannie Hurst.
In 1930 Hurston collaborated with Hughes on a play (never finished) titled Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts(published posthumously 1991). In 1934 she published her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, which was well received by critics for its portrayal of African American life uncluttered by stock figures or sentimentality. Mules and Men, a study of folkways among the African American population of Florida, followed in 1935. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), a novel, Tell My Horse (1938), a blend of travel writing and anthropology based on her investigations of voodoo in Haiti, and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), a novel, firmly established her as a major author.

Postmodernism and popular culture

POSTMODERNISM AND POPULAR
CULTURE
Cultural studies started life as a radical political project, establishing the
cultural centrality of everyday life and of popular culture. In a postmodern
world where old certainties are undermined and identities fragmented, the
way forward for those working with popular culture has become less clear.
In contrast to more pessimistic readings of the possibilities of
postmodernity, Postmodernism and Popular Culture engages with
postmodernity as a space for social change and political transformation.
Ranging widely over cultural theory and popular culture, Angela
McRobbie engages with everyday life as an eclectic and invigorating
interplay of different cultures and identities. She discusses new ways of
thinking developed with the advent of postmodernism, from the ‘New
Times’ debate to political strategies after the disintegration of western
Marxism. She assesses the contribution of key figures in cultural and
postimperial theory—Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin and Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak—and surveys the invigorating landscape of today’s
youth and popular culture, from second-hand fashion to the rave scene,
and from moral panics to teenage magazines.
McRobbie argues throughout for a commitment to cultural studies as an
‘undisciplined’ discipline, reforming and reinventing itself as circumstances
demand; for the importance of ethnographic and empirical work; and for
the need for feminists to continually ask questions about the meaning of
feminist theory in a postmodern society.
Angela McRobbie is Principal Lecturer in Sociology at Thames Valley
University, London. She has written extensively on popular culture, gender
and youth culture, and is also a regular contributor to newspapers and
magazines. Her current research is on the fashion industry.


Postcolonial studies


‘Not quite a dictionary but an invaluable reference tool nonetheless, its iden-
tification of key terms remains as useful as its definitions of those terms.’
Professor Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois
This best-selling key guide, now in its second edition, provides an
essential key to understanding the issues which characterize post-
colonialism, explaining what it is, where it is encountered and why it
is crucial in forging new cultural identities. As a subject, post-colonial
studies stands at the intersection of debates about race, colonialism,
gender, politics and language. Key topics covered include:
• borderlands
• transnational literatures
• neo-imperialism
• neo-liberalism
• ecofeminism.
Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts is fully updated and cross-
referenced throughout. With additional further reading this book has
everything necessary for students and anyone keen to learn more
about this fascinating subject.
Bill Ashcroft teaches at the University of Hong Kong and the
University of NSW, Gareth Griffiths at the University of Western
Australia and Helen Tiffin at Queen’s University, Canada. They are
the editors of The Post-Colonial Studies Reader and the authors of
The Empire Writes Back, both published by Routledge.

Paper no.6(The Victorian Literature)

Presentation%20rrrr[1] from Hetaldabhi2

Paper no.5(The Romantic Literature)

Presentation%20(1)[1] from Hetaldabhi2

Paper no.8(Cultural Studies)

Presentation (7)paper 8[1] from Hetaldabhi2

paper-7(Criticism)

Presentation (6)hhhh from Hetaldabhi2

Middlemarch

Midlemarch with feminist perspective ,

About writer

The novel Middlemarch is written by George Eliot. The actual name of George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans. She is well-known for her realism and serious discussion. She is most philosophical in all Victorian novelist. Oscar wild remarked in 1897 that " we found philosophy in fiction in her novel."

In the hand of George Eliot novel was not only vehicle for Entertainment but rather means of human predicament. This thing we can see in her book Middlemarch. The full title of the novel Middlemarch is Middlemarch; A study of provincial life. 

Middlemarch is name of town and that is why we found so many characters in the novel and every character has there own story though they connect with the story of Novel.

The main female character whose story we found are Dorothea Brooke and Rosamond. First we see Dorothea Brooke is an intelligent and independent young woman, who differs from the conventional woman of the Victorian Age.

She marries with artificial unintelligent old man Edward Casaubon. We found Dorothea's marriage with casaubon as mismatch. Casaubon " a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father " ( 837) so this became an unconsummated union. She realize this very late after her marriage but as our so cold tradition she remain faithful to her husband but we also see her nature of rebel to society when she married to will Ladislaw. We can say that because she goes against the weal of her husband that if she marry to will she wont get property.

Dorothea's choice of marrying will acts as a defiance to Middlemarch. She her self remarked in novel after marrying will

" I don't mind about poverty. I hate my wealth we could live quite well on my fortune - it is too much seven hundred - a year- and I will learn what everything costs."

We found that she never marry for the same of money but first for the being part of intellectual society and second for the sake of love. Her second marriage is debatable because of whatever written will of Casaubon. But we found that she is more intelligent then the woman we found in Victorian society.

The second most important woman character of the novel is Rosamond Vincy. She come from a familiar with the comfortable lifestyle of middle class society. She marry with Teritus Lydgate, the new doctor of town. She marry with him in her fancy full thought that because he is doctor he will provide her upper calls things and will satisfy her material need. But when her fancy come to end she became unhappy.

But one thing Need to remark here is that she also reaming faithful to hurt husband though he is not able to satisfy her. She sacrifice her need because she is married.

Here we found short Romantic courtship lead to trouble, because both parties entertain unrealistic ideas of each other . They married without getting to know one another . Marriage based on compatibility work better. Moreover marriage in which woman have greater also work better, such as the marriage between Fred and mary. She tell him she will not Marry if he becomes a clergyman.

Two major life choices govern the narrative of Middlemarch. One is marriage and the other vocation.

We found both the woman remaining Faith full to her husband though they are not happy. Because of our society's mindset. Which don't allow woman to come out of this regid Traduction. On the other part Casaubon never trust her wife and thi may become the reason why Dorothea think of second marriage.

Cultural Interactions

Cultural Interaction

Rotary club of Bhavnagar

     I attended class of cultural interaction with Rotary club of Bhavnagar. Cultural interaction was with the Argentinian teacher of language and literature, Mariana Dominguez.  The students got khow a lot about Spanish language, literature as well as Spanish culture at large. Argentina was colony and therefore there was a discussion on the change in culture before and after colonization. At time when Spanish songs, particularly rap songs, are going worldwide popularity. Miss Mariana informed the students about how it affects the language in use. According to her the current trend in Spanish myths and classics.

Derrida and Deconstruction

Blog on'Derrida and Deconstruction ' task given by Sir

About him

Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy. 

The term Deconstruction is very hard to define. As Derrida himself denies to define this term by saying that all other terms we use in philosophy or literary criticism even deconstruction can not be once and finally define. Deconstruction is not destructive activity, but it is an inquiry into the foundation of everything. Deconstruction is not totally negative term. By it does not mean to destructive activity or breaking down anything. He says that “Deconstruction is not destructive activity but an inquiry into the foundations, causes of intellectual system. The concept of Decentering the Centre becomes important. Derrida trying to prove that one word lead us to another word rather than towards the meaning of word. It never allows to come at the centre of meaning. We just assume that we understand the thing but in actual it never happens, it is always postponed. Derrida also discussed about binary opposition.It differentiate the meaning of one from the other in terms of one lacking something.

As we know that Beti bachao, Beti padhao is a campaign of the Government of India. The main aims of it to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls. This formula is said to save the girls.And basically it is about to give equality to girl child. But nowadays when rapping cases on girls are happening, then what we mean by Beti bachao?  As Derrida mentioned that one should read any event or text with another perspective. That's why from this slogan, the another perspective can be deconstructed that, save the girl from the rapist. The main aim by beti padhavo is to educate girls and spread awareness among the girls about education. And equally it promotes women's empowerment in order to improve the women status in country. But when the rape cases are happening, then what we mean by beti padhao?  It can be deconstructed that, as girls should be trained in education, same way they should be trained in the defense and equally make them able for their own defense. 

Structuralism and literary criticism

Blog on 'Structuralism and literary criticism ' task given by Sir

About him

Gérard Genette was a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of bricolage.

Structuralism

Structuralism is the offshoot of certain developments in linguistics and anthropology. Saussure's mode of the synchronic study of language was an attempt to formulate the grammar of a language from a study of language was an attempt to formulate the grammar of a language from a study of parole. Using the Saussurian linguistic model, Claude Levi Strauss examined the  customs and conventions of some cultures with a view of arriving at the grammar of those cultures.

The best work in structuralist poetics has been done in the field of narrative. A literary critic applying a structuralist literary theory might say that authors of West side story did not write really anything new because their work has the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Gerard Genette is a French literary theorist associated in particular with the Structuralist's movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Levi Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of bricolage. Here, I apply his five concept which he used in Narrative Discourse: An essay in method:

1) Order

2) Frequency

3) Duration

4) Voice

5) Mood

1) Order

Story arrangements like simple a murder occurs event -1 then the circumstances of the murder are revealed to a detective event -2 and finally the murder is caught event -3. Generally Savdhan India Tv serial following these type of Chronological.

2) Frequency

The separation between an event and its narration allows several possibilities. 

An event can be occured once and be narrated once.

An event can be ocuured once and be narrated many times. For example: serial Tarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chasmah. In this serial the event was happened once but narrated many times.

3) Duration

There are the two main elements of duration.

First is ten years passed but a short narrative time it mean they narrated in few seconds. For examplel; 

Tv serial 'Sath Nibhana Sathiya' and 'Bedai". In these serials narrated many times left few years.

5) Mood 

Genette said narrative mood is dependent on the distance and perspective of the narrator, and like music, narrative mood has predominant patterns. It is related to voice.

The Archetype of literature by Northrop Frye

The Archetype of literature by Northrop Frye blog task given by Sir

About him

Herman Northrop Frye CC FRSC was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry, which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. 

1.What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do?

In literary criticism the term archetype denotes recurrent designs,pattern of action,character-type,themes and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature,as well as in myths,dreams and even social rituals. The archetypal critic tries to find this pattern,symbols and myths in present literary work.

2.What is Frye trying prove by giving an analogy of ' Physics to Nature' and 'Criticism to Literature'?

Northrop Frye has given a very unique idea of Archetypal Criticism by comparing the human emotions or human characteristics with the cycle of seasons.

Spring

The Spring season represents the Comedy. As the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of hero,revival and resurrection. Spring also symbolizes the defeat of winter and darkness.

Summer

The season of summer indicates the Romance because summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal calendar, and the romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph,usually marriage.

 Autumn

The Autumn season signify the genre of Tragedy. As the Autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar. That's why the Autumn is parallels to the genre of tragedy, because the genre of tragedy is known for the fall or demise of the protagonist.

 Winter

 The season of winter denotes the satire genre because of its darkness. It is a disillusioned   and mocking form of the three other genres.It is noted for its darkness,dissolution,the return  of chaos and the defeat of heroic figure.

3.Share your views of Criticism as an organised body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy.

Literature is the central division of the Humanities, flanked on one side by history and on the other side by philosophy.Here we can say that history and philosophy are twin pillars of literature.History represents the what was happen in past. Basically history is about past events and actions. While Philosophy is about morality and ethics of life.literature . Frye has used the word centrifugal which means to go away from literature and find background to understand literature.So for the batter understanding of the literature reader have to refer framework of history and philosophy for the understanding of ethics.

4.Briefly explain inductive method with illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene.

Inductive method is journey which leads from specific to general.As we read some specific literary work and comes to a general conclusion,in this way we extend from specific outcome to general outcome.The best example of this method is grave digging scene from Hamlet, it is a specific scene and from that scene we come to some general conclusion. In that scene there were two grave diggers and they seemed in  quite in harmony with their work.They were talking with one another and singing a song during the time of grave digging.They were also mocking on dead Ophelia and commented that whether she allowed to buried or not. Here we can see that they have no grief for deadly one.It was their work and that's why they were habituated with it. It became their general work so they have  no emotion for dead one.

5.Briefly explain deductive method with reference to an analogy to Music, Painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method.

Deductive method is a journey from general to specific.Music and rhythm both are the form of art. Music is a form of art which moves in time and painting is a form of art which moves in space.Music is rhythm and painting is pattern. In a music we can understand the rhythm of it while in painting we can understand the pattern of it.Rhythm is a narrative form,while pattern is simultaneous mental grasp of verbal structure and it has meaning and significance.It provides a mental visual. By listening some of the music we can't get everything, but  by looking at painting we can get idea of it's pattern.      

I. A. Richard's figurative language

Blog task on Figurative language give by Sir.

I. A. Richard
Ivor Armstrong Richards, known as I. A. Richards, was an English educator, literary critic, and rhetorician whose work contributed to the foundations of the New Criticism, a formalist movement in literary criticism. 

four kinds of meaning

1. Sense is what is said, or the 'items' referred to by a writer.
2. Feeling refers to emotions, emotional attitudes, will, desire, pleasure, displeasure and the rest. When we say something we have a feeling about it, "an attitude towards it, some special direction, bias or accentuation of interest towards it, some personal flavour or coloring of feelings, these nuances of interest.
3.  Tone is the writer’s attitude to his readers or audience. The use of language is determined by the writer’s ‘recognition’ of his relation to his readers.
4. Intention is the writer’s aim, which may be conscious or unconscious. It refers to the effect that he tries to produce. This purpose modifies the expression. It controls the emphasis, shapes the arrangement, or draws attention to something of importance.
5.     His practical approach gave new path to literary criticism.

His practical approach gave new path to literary criticism. In his methodology, a lot of importance is given to the words. He believed that poet writes to communicate and language is the means of that communication. Language is made of words and words carry four kinds of meaning: Sense, Feelings, Tone and Intention.

    According to I.A.Richards language can be used in two ways, scientific use of language and the emotive one. Language of poetry is purely emotive, in its original primitive state. This language affects feelings. Hence we must avoid intuitive and over literal reading of poems. Words in poetry have an emotive value, and the figurative language used by poets conveys those emotions effectively andforcefully.

T. S Eliot's Tradition and individual talent

'Tradition and individual talent '

Blog task given by Sir 

T. S Eliot 

         Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM, "one of the twentieth century's major poets" was also an essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic.

1.How would you like to explain Eliot's concept of Tradition? Do you agree with it?

                             

 Yes, I agree with Eliot's concept of tradition.Eliot takes the tradition in a positive way as well as in a larger sense. He also points out that following the tradition is not only slavish imitation. The countries and nations try to preserve their tradition as heritage which is essential part of their culture and also handed down from generation to generation. Here one should not merely imitate the tradition but one has to add something new or creative in it and must write with the history in his bones.Tradition is not inherited but it must be acquired with great labor. So we can say that he put emphasizes on mingling the past and present with historical sense.

2.

1. What do you understand by Historical Sense? (Use these quotes to explain your understanding)
• "The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence"
• This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. 

   Which means that It involves perception of the presence of the past not only its pastness. It is not only to know about historical fact but mainly its about that in which way people were living in the past and how that past is presented in the contemporary time. Further he says that...

This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. 

Which means that with the help of historical sense a writer can create the work which has timeless and temporal both toghther.

4. Explain: "Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum".

Here in this quotation Eliot talks about the greatness of Shakespeare. This was a kind of satirical quote. Shakespeare was not highly educated man than even he had a great historical sense. While on the other hand there are many people who even after a much reading not able to create anything.He gained much knowledge only by reading Plutarch's life.He was a great creative writer who very well.Here Shakespeare became an exceptional. 

5.Explain: "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry"

Here in this quote T.S.Eliot talks about the honest criticism. For the fair judgement critic's main concern should be the work of art not an artist. If the main concern of the critic is related with an artist than he/she can not able to judge the work fairly. At the same time critic have to remain free from all the preconceived ideas of an artist.

6. How would you like to explain Eliot's theory of depersonalization? You can explain with the help of chemical reaction in presence of catalyst agent, Platinum.

Eliot explains the theory of depersonalization with the help of science which makes it quite interesting as well as easy to understand. He describes the process of making sulfuric acid. The Sulfuric acid is made from sulfur dioxide and water,but entire process can't take place in the absence of Platinum. In this process Platinum is essential element. In the same way the man who suffers and the man who creates both should different. Poet's emotion is necessary to create poetry but it should not reflect in the work.

7.Explain: " Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

This quote also explains the idea of depersonalization. Whenever poet creates work of an art at that time he should remain detach or aloof from his emotions and feelings.Eliot further says that poetry is not for showing poet's own feelings or emotions but it is about escape from that emotion and personality. 

8.Write two points on which one can write critique on 'T.S. Eliot as a critic'.

   As per my understanding one can write critique on following two points...

   1. Theory of depersonalization

   2.Eliot's concept of tradition