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 

'The Study of Poetry 'by Matthew Arnold

Thinking Activity of 'The Study of Poetry 'by Matthew Arnold
Blog task given by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir

The one idea of Matthew Arnold which I find interesting and relevant in our time.

        Mathew Arnold in his definition of poetry said that, Poetry is a criticism of life.It also seems very relevant in present time also. It must concern itself with life and its problems. Whatever poet or writer write that is not only considered as a  creative work but it is also a criticism of surrounding nature and life. 

One idea of Matthew Arnold which I find out of date and irrelevant in our time. 

           The Idea I found out-of-date is about the Touchstone method. According to this idea we found  comparison between two poem or some line of poem with other poem or lines of other lines. This idea I found irrelevant and out-of-date because firstly it is not appropriate to compare two work with each other. Because time when work was written is different or even social and political background of time is different. Person's emotions who wrote this poem is different then each other.

Richard Steel as the founder of Sentimental Comedy

Name:- Hetal Dabh
Roll no:-11
Cass :- Sem -1
Paper no:- 2
Year:-2018-19

Richard Steel as the founder of sentimental Coedy



Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered mainly for co-founding the magazine The Spectator. ... Scholars argue whether a more important writer of the genre was Colley Cibber, an actor-manager, writer, and poet laureate who wrote the first sentimental comedy, Love's Last Shift, in order to give himself a role.

The best known work of this genre is Sir Richard Steele's The Conscious Lovers (1722), in which the penniless heroine Indiana faces various tests until the discovery that she is an heiress leads to the necessary happy ending. Steele wished his plays to bring the audience, "a pleasure too exquisite for laughter." Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered mainly for co-founding the magazine The Spectator. While he wrote a few notable sentimental comedies, he was criticized for being a hypocrite as he wrote moral plays, booklets, and articles but enjoyed drinking, occasional dueling, and debauchery around town.
Sentimental comedies
  Love's Last Shift by Colley Cibber
  The Constant Couple by George Farquhar
  The Lying Lover by Richard Steele
  The Tender Husband by Richard Steele
  The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele
  The Foundling by Edward Moore

  The School for Lovers by William Whitehead

The Conscious Lovers
The Conscious Lovers is a sentimental comedy written in five acts by the Irish author Richard Steele. The Conscious Lovers appeared on stage on 7 November 1722, at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and was an immediate success, with an initial run of eighteen consecutive nights.
Men
Sir John Bevil
Mr. Sealand
Bevil Junior, in love with Indiana but betrothed to Lucinda
Myrtle, in love with Lucinda
Cimberton, a coxcomb
Humphrey, an old servant to Sir John
Tom, servant to Bevil Junior
Daniel, a country boy, servant to Indiana
Women
Mrs. Sealand, second wife to Sealand
Isabella, sister to Sealand
Indiana, Sealand's daughter by his first wife
Lucinda, Sealand's daughter by his second wife
Phillis, maid to Lucinda
Young Bevil, a gentleman of some fortune, is engaged to marry the daughter of Mr. Sealand. Although he is not in love with the woman, he agrees to marry her at his father’s request. On the day of the marriage, however, there is some doubt that the marriage will take place, for the bride’s father discovers that Bevil is paying the bills of a young woman he brought back from France. Fearing that the young woman, called Indiana, is Bevil’s mistress, Mr.
Sealand does not want his daughter to marry a man who keeps another woman.
The father does not know that Bevil sent a letter to Lucinda Sealand that gives her his permission to break off the marriage at that late date. Bevil did so because he knows that Lucinda is really in love with his friend, Mr. Myrtle, and because he himself wants to marry Indiana. After the letter is sent, Sir John’s valet tells young Bevil that the marriage will probably be broken by Mr. Sealand. Bevil then confides in the servant that Indiana is the daughter of the British merchant named Danvers, who disappeared in the Indies soon after the ship in which Indiana, her mother, and her aunt were traveling to join him was captured by French privateers.
Sentimental comedy in brief………

Sentimental comedy is an 18th century dramatic genre which resulted as a reaction to the immoral tone of English Restoration Plays. Sentimental comedies stressed the philosophical conception of humans as good at heart but got misled or astray by bad examples.these plays produce tears rather than laughter  i.e it evoke emotions or feelings that is why  The argument behind such effects was ‘by appealing to the noble sentiments of fellow we can reform him and can bring him back on the path of virtue’.
‘Guilt is punished ,virtue is rewarded’.The law of poetic justice  was used as an important technique. We  can say that it is a passionate expression of faith in the deep innate  goodness of man.The plays had  mostly middle.
Sentimental comedy had its roots in early 18th century tragedy , which had a vein of morality as that of sentimental comedy but had loftier characters and subject matter than sentimental comedy.  Though sentimental comedy  was a reaction against immoral tone of restoration plays but critics were very angry with such puppet type dramatic genre in which protagonist was made to act as the author thinks he should act. The comedy is full of arbitrary goodness ,exaggerated wickedness,forced conversions and untimely preachings. It was blamed that in the hands of sentimentalists  ‘comedy’ had lost its realistic characters. Sir Richard Steele’s The conscious Lovers     is  regarded as best known sentimental comedy. It deals with life of  its penniless heroine Indiana.

The characters in sentimental comedy are either strictly good or bad. Heroes have no faults or bad habits, villains are thoroughly evil or morally degraded. The authors' purpose was to show the audience the innate goodness of people and that through morality people who have been led astray can find the path of righteousness.
The plot usually centered on the domestic trials of middle-class couples and included romantic love scenes. Their private woes are exhibited with much emotional stress intended to arouse the spectator’s pity and suspense in advance of the approaching happy ending. Lovers are often shown separated from each other by socioeconomic factors at the beginning, but brought together in the end by a discovery about the identity of the lower class lover. Plots also contained an element of mystery to be solved. Verse was not used in order to create a closer illusion of reality. It was thought that rhyme would obscure the true meaning of the words and make the truth disappear.
The playwrights of this genre aimed to bring the audience to tears, not laughter, as the name sentimental comedy might suggest. They believed that noisy laughter inhibited the silent sympathy and thought of the audience. Playwrights strove to touch the feelings of the spectators so that they could learn from the play and relate the events they witnessed on stage to their own lives, causing them to live more virtuously.
Other sentimental comedies work by Colley Cibber
Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696.
The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender role backlash of sentimental comedy. It is often described as "opportunistic" (Hume), containing as it does something for everybody: daring Restoration comedy sex scenes, sentimental reconciliations, and broad farce.
Love's Last Shift is the story of a last "shift" or trick that a virtuous wife, Amanda, is driven to, in order to reform and retain her out-of-control rakish husband Loveless. Loveless has been away for ten years, dividing his time between the brothel and the bottle, and no longer recognizes his wife when he returns to London. Acting the part of a high-class prostitute, Amanda invites Loveless into her luxurious house and treats him to the night of his dreams, confessing her true identity in the morning. Loveless is so impressed by her faithfulness that he immediately becomes a reformed character. A minor part which was a great success with the première audience is the fop Sir Novelty Fashion, written by Cibber for himself to play. Sir Novelty flirts with all the women, but is more interested in his own exquisite appearance and witticisms, and, writes Cibber modestly in his autobiography 45 years later, "was thought a good portrait of the foppery then in fashion".
The play was a great box office hit at the première run but has not stood the test of time. Theatre historians today remember it, if at all, because of John Vanbrugh's sequel The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger, still a stage favourite, where the husband returns to polygamy.

Spenser's major works

Name:- Hetal Dabhi
Paper no:-1

Assignment
                       Spenser’s Major Work

About Spenser:- Life    ----( Of Spenser’s early life and parentage we know little, except that he was born in East Smithfield , near the Tower of London and was poor . His education began at the Merchant Tailor’s ‘School of London’ and was continued in Cambridge , Where as a poor sizar and fag for wealthy students he earned a scant living, here in the glorious world that only a poor scholar knows how to create for himself he read the classics, made acquaintance with the great Italian poets, and wrote numberless little poems of his own. Though Chaucer was his beloved master, his ambition was not to rival the  -Canterbury Tales- , but rather to express the dream of English chivalry , much as Aristotle had done for Italy in ‘ Orlando Furioso’  After leaving Cambridge (1576) Spenser went to the north of England , on some unknown work or quest . Here his chief occupation was to fail in love and to record his melancholy over the lost Rosalind in the ‘ Shepherd’s Calendar ‘ upon his friend Harvey’s advice he came to London , bringing his poems; and here he met Leicester , then at the height of royal favor and the latter took him to live at Leicester house. Here he finished the ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ and here he met Sidney and all the queen’s favourites. The court was full of intrigues , lying and flattery , and Spenser’s opinion of his own uncomfortable position is best expressed in a few lines from “Mother Hubbard’s Tale”
“ Full Little knowest thou, that has not tried,
What hell it is , in suing long to bide :
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent ;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch , to want, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.”
In 1580, through Leicester’s influence, Spenser, who was utterly weary of his dependent position, was made secretary to Lord Grey, the queen’s deputy in Ireland, and the third period of his life began. He accompanied his chief through one campaign of savage brutality in putting down an irish rebellion, and bee confiscated from Earl Desmond, one of the irish leaders . His life here, where according to the terms of his grant he must reside as an English settler, he must reside as an English settler, he regarded as lonely exile.
*Spenser’s Works-*
‘The Faery Queen’ is the great work upon which the poet’s fame chiefly rests. The original plan of the poem included twenty-four books, each of which was to recount the adventure and triumph of a knight who represent sented a moral virtue. Spenser’s purpose , as indicated in a letter to Raleigh which introduces the poem, is as follows:
To pourtaict in Arthure , before he was king , the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private Morall Vertues, as Aristotle hath devised; which is the purpose of these first twelve books: which W. J.Long finde to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encouraged to frame the other part of polloticke vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king.
Each of the

Virtues appears as a knight, fighting his opposing Vice and the poem tells the story of the opposing vise ,and the poem tells the story of the conflicts. It is therefore purely allegorical, not only in its personified virtues but also in its representation of life as a sruggle between good and evil. In its srong moral elements the poem differs radically from ‘Oelando Furioso’ upon which it was modelled. Spenser completed only six books. Celebrating Holiness , temperance, Chasticy , Friendship , Justice and Courtesy. We have also a fragment of the seventh, treating of constancy ; but the rest of this book was not written ,or else was list in the fire at kilolman . The first three books are by far the best ; and judging by the way the interest lags and the allegory geows incomprehensible , it is perhaps as well for Spenser’s reputation that the other eighteenth books remaind a dream.
Argument of The Faery Queen.-->
From the introductory latter we learn that the hero visits the queen’s court in fairy land , while she is holding a twelve days festival . one each day some distred person appears unexpectedly tells a woful story of dragons, of enchantresses, or of distressed beuty or virtue, and ask for a champion to rights the wrong and to let the oppressed go free. Sometimes a knight volunteers or begs for the dangerous mission; again the duty is assigned by the queen; and the journeys and adventures these knights are the objects of reprasentive Holiness and the lady una, representivereligioun. Srugl between virtue and faithone of the virtue and faith on the one hand , and sin and heresy on the other. The second books tells the story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance ; the third of Bristomartis , representing Chastity; the fourth , fifth, and sixth, of Cambel and Triamond (Friensheep) Artegall  and sir Calidore. Spencer’s plan was a very elastic one and he filled up the measure of his narrative with everything that caught his fancy- historical events and personages under allegorical masks , beautiful ladies , chivalrous knights, giants , monsters , dragons, sirens enchanters, and adventures enough to stock a liberty of fiction . If you read Homer or Virgil, you know his subject in the first srong line; Homer or Virgil , you know his subject in the first srong line; if you read caedmo’s parapharase or Milton’s epic, the introduction gives you the theme; but Spensor’s great poem with the exception of a single line in the prologue, “ Fierce warres and fathfull loves shall moralize my song –gives hardliy a hint of what is commimg.
As to the meaning of the allegorical figures , one is generally in doubt . In the first three books the shadowy Faery Queen sometimes represents the glory of God and sometimes Elizabeth. The Redcross Knight is Sidney , the model Englishmen . Arthur , who always appears to rescue the oppressed, is Leicester , which is another outrageous flattery. Una is sometimes religion and sometimes the protestant Church; while Duessa represents Mary Queen of Scots ,or general Catholicism . In the last three books Elizabeth appears again as Mercilla; Henry-4 of France as Bourbon ; the war in the Netherland as s story of Lady Belge; Raleigh as Timias ; the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland as Blandamour and pridell; and so on through the wide range of Northumberland and westoreland so on through the wide range of contemporary characters and events , till the allegory becomes as difficult to follow as the second part of Gothe’s Faust.
Poetical Form..=( For the Faery Queen Spenser invented a new verse form, which has been called since his day ; the Spenserian stanza. Because of its rare beauty it has been much used by nearly all our poets in their best work . The new stanza was an improved from of Aristo’s ottava rima and bears a close resemblance to one of Chaucer’s stanza “ is an most musical verse form “Monk’s Tale .” Spenser’s stanza is an nine lines , eight , are of five feet each and the last of six feet, riming ababbcbc. A few selections from the first book , which is best worth reading , are reproduce here to show the style  and melody of the verse.
Next to his masterpiece the Shephered Calender (1579) is the best known for Spenser’s poems trough the first work ,it is below many others in melody. In consist pasroral poemd below many years . The  themes are generally rular life.