John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is a celebrated epic in English Literature. He transforms the Biblical account about the Fall of Man from Paradise into rich, illustrious and timeless poetry. Paradise Lost: Book I [Invocation: Milton asks the muse to sing about man’s first disobedience, the Forbidden Fruit, his exile from paradise, his eventual redemption through […]
The Setting: Greenaway and the Tri-part Stage Peter Greenaway takes his camera through an adjacent tri-stage setup, the cold foggy outside, the warm vibrant kitchen and the richly decked up banquet hall. While the first one displays cruelty, abuse and bestiality shamelessly (fittingly complemented with a pack of hungry hounds and stench of rotten meat), […]
Sonnet: Its Origin and Development in England Sonnet (originating from the Italian “sonnetto”) refers to a short poem of fourteen lines with a special technical pattern. It originated in Italy in the master hands of Dante and Petrarch, although the latter’s influence was more potent on the subsequent sonneteers of different regions, including England. The […]
Nationalism: Contexts and Conditions Nationalism, as a politico-literary term, is etymologically connected to the word “nation”, which the Oxford Literary Dictionary defines as a homogenous space, culture, or religion. However, in Nirad C. Chaudhuri, such a definition appears to be expanded, modified, and transformed into something entirely different. Nationalism, for him, becomes not a constraint […]
Kubla Khan: A Poem About Choices Kubla Khan by S.T.Coleridge is a poem that has been interpreted in a thousand different ways. Critics have analysed every word and every line only to make the readers more confused about the real message of the poem. Yes, there is a simple straightforward message right on our faces […]
To Dionese… The Earth rouses herself from her winter gloom. The sun rays shine with rising vigour on the fast melting snow. Trees begin to sprout new shoots. Bees and butterflies hover over blooming rainbows. Animals shake off their drowsy hibernation to welcome the renewal of spring. The whole of Nature participates in a conspiracy […]
Shakespeare’s Sonnet: Introduction Sonnets are invariably personal. Intense subjectivity is found to form a key character in sonnet writing. Regarding the personal character of Shakespeare’s sonnets, there is, no doubt, a host of controversies, yet their subjective notes are neither ignorable nor disputable. In some of them, Shakespeare’s personal moods and feelings are remarkably intense […]
Miranda: Epitome of Purity The character of Miranda is indeed one of the most wonderful creations of Shakespeare. She is a pure child of Nature like Wordsworth’s Lucy, “created of every creature’s best.” She is the only woman character in the play. Her name is the equivalent of ‘the wonderful one’ or ‘the one who […]
Jimmy Valentine: Drama Adaptation A Dramatic Rendering of the Short Story by O.Henry Dramatis Personae: Jimmy Valentine Alias Ralph D. Spencer , a notorious burglar Annabel Adams : Jimmy’s fiancé Mr Adams : Annabel’s father Annabel’s sister May: Annabel’s niece, aged nine Agatha: Annabel’s niece, aged five Ben Price, the detective Mike Dolan: Jimmy’s friend […]
Recovering Memory: In search of an Indian Feminine poetics with reference to the 21st century poetry The comparative study of women’s poetry reveals many patterns of similarity in thought, themes, metaphors, and diction. It also reveals profound contradictions between the image of the poet as the “transcendent speaker of a unified culture” (Kaplan 70) and […]
William Shakespeare’s plays show remarkable portrayal of character when it comes to his women. It is often believed that his delineation of women characters surpass his portrayal of male characters. In both comedies and tragedies, Shakespeare’s women leave their mark through their action and speeches. Here are 5 of the most memorable speeches by Shakespeare’s […]
Why did Shakespeare call his play “The Tempest”? Is it just a casual reference to the storm raised in the beginning, or does it hint at far deeper connotations? Is the title Justified? Let’s find out. What’s in a Name! Shakespeare himself has said, “A rose may smell as sweet as by any other name.” […]
An article addressing the question ” Is Lady Macbeth the Fourth Witch in Macbeth?”, pointing out how the question is wrong on multiple levels. Are there any witches in Macbeth? The first thing one must remember is that Shakespeare never uses the word “witch” in Macbeth. They are referred to as “weird sisters”. The sisters […]
As You Like It: Summary The noble Duke of France was banished by his brother Frederick. The good Duke spent his exile in the Forest of Arden in the company of loyal followers, deriving pleasure even from adversity. His daughter Rosalind was kept back at court to act as Frederick’s daughter Celia’s companion. Rosalind and […]
The Comedy of Errors: Synopsis The states of Syracuse and Ephesus were enemies. The law in Ephesus put to death any merchant of Syracuse found in Ephesus unless he paid a thousand marks as ransom for his life. Aegeon, a merchant from Syracuse was found in Ephesus and taken to the Duke for punishment. At […]
Implied Author: Wayne C Booth’s Unique Idea Wayne C Booth’s “The Rhetoric of Fiction” made a lasting impression on New Criticism’s efforts to make literary interpretation more “scientific” in its handling of the data one discovers in texts. Among the book’s important contributions was a distinction that Booth had made between narratives which come to […]
Meaning of Narrative Voice Voice, in context of narrative, may be defined as the phantom projection of a variable identity that articulates the speaker’s projection of ‘self’. Narrative being a rhetoric of representation. Capable of semiotic articulation, voice can be seen from various perspectives. In narratology, the basic question concerning voice is “who speaks”. It […]
Those Yellow Pages! Remember the term papers and answers you scribbled in your college years? Some of them were real good weren’t they? But they have all been trashed away to some forgotten cupboard under the sink, getting yellower, gathering dust. Trust me, they could be so valuable to young students who do not have […]
Narayan’s Humour: An Integral Part of Narrative in The Guide R.K.Narayan’s conception of humour consists of close and realistic observation of life, precise juxtaposition of incongruities, deflation of illusions and, above all, sympathy rather than harsh satire. All these qualities are present in rich abundance in The Guide. “Humour writers”, says Narayan, ideally draw their […]
In your project work of dramatizing a story you are expected to recreate a short story as a stage play. In order to do this you must first understand the basic difference between a story and a play. A story is narrative in nature, it tells something, while drama is a medium that shows. Therefore, […]
Scientists claim that there is no life on the moon. However, Senior Inspector Matadin (the M.D of the Department) says that the scientists lie; there is human habitation on the moon just like here. Science has always been checkmated by Inspector Matadin. Despite the repeated claims of the fingerprint experts that the fingerprints of the […]
Nissim Ezekiel’s “Enterprise” is a powerful, multifaceted metaphor for a journey, an expedition, or a significant human enterprise, which a man dreams of, plans and concretizes but which ultimately ends in disillusionment. The poem becomes a testament of utopian ideas versus mundane matters of life woven into an apt metaphor of pilgrimage. From another perspective, […]
Authors down the ages have continuously negotiated with the urge to express their concerns with what they find disturbing a certain balance in self or society. For Orwell, this expression is seen in his writings that have stood the test of time. In his essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, written in the form of memoir, he […]
The short story is a highly complex form of literary art , presenting a single segment of life with its brevity and concentration. In his attempt to communicate an essential aesthetic vision, James Joyce creates a special style of short story that became almost like an objective correlative of the reality experienced by him. In […]
The odes written by John Keats, on the level of superficial reading, may be seen as brilliant rendering of a scene, a season or a mood; the final perfection of English landscape poetry. His urge to establish such a balance is carried out through the trilogy of odes namely “Ode to Nightingale”, “Ode on a […]
Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Fly” has a unique identity that characterizes the vagueness, the intensity as well as the desire for stability and the lack of it, which is an integral part of the modern world. Time- identified as the worst enemy of man as early as the “carpe-diem” theorists of the renaissance, achieves […]
Egdon Heath, sunk in history, representing both Man and the stage on which human drama has been performed from time immemorial, sets the tone for the sombre story of trapped human passions in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native. The dark violence of Eustacia Vye, the idealistic intelligence of Clym, the will and affection […]
In his attempt to communicate his essential divine vision, William Blake created a poetic world where images are realized in their individual contexts and the contexts are realized in the unique Imagination of the poet. Blake’s philosophy asserts, more than anything else, the contrariety of systems with regard to human soul and other objects of […]
One of the primary questions that perplexes the readers of Milton’s Paradise Lost concerns the poet’s delineation of Satan, the chief of the Fallen angels. Throughout the first two or three books of Paradise Lost, it appears as if Satan is the hero of the poem. This is partly because the focus of the poem […]
The Rape of the Lock, a mock heroic epic by Alexander Pope, is both a careful exploration of the contemporary social follies and a representation of the inner fabrics of the feminine mind. However, it would be wrong to say that Pope was entirely engrossed in the question of his heroine’s divine beauty. He rather […]
A lonely man on the highway broad hitchhiking horse drawn carts, and the toll man stretches out His fingers sharp as darts. “I am just a hitchhiker” “But on my road you ride” “I have no purse”, said hitchhiker “I would kill you if you lied”. The driver of the carriage old came out then […]
Reflections on watching Von Trier’s Dogville The Setting Neo-realism. Had it been shot in real (as humans perceive it) sets, it would have been particularized, localized. The director certainly wants his set, his Dogville to be deprived of any particularity or peculiarity that could make the viewer feel safe in the distancing. The bareness, […]
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) Sir Philip Sidney, as a poet, is found opposed to all poetic conventions and affectations even when he adheres to the primary forms and generic qualities of contemporary English poetry. However, his sonnets are free from the artificiality of conventional poetic works and are distinctly sincere. As seen in his sonnet […]
The poetry of Robert Browning exemplifies a dominant and perhaps the most original tendency of the Victorian times: the craving for analysis and moral criticism. It is a deep rooted intellectual curiosity which merges into a systematic quest of truth. Browning’s principal object was to illuminate various realms of human experience; to attain this, he converged […]
“Kubla Khan”, Coleridge’s record of an opium dream, interrupted by a visitor from Porlock, has been taken to be a beautiful but chaotic fragment where images float about confusedly. However, “Kubla Khan”, with its pleasure dome, its sacred river, its panting fountain, its caves of ice and its portrayal of the frenzied poet presents a […]
The railway tracks streching out towards that alluring sunset, beyond which lie The codes of thunder.
Red roses, red baloons, tiny little red hearts, His red voice cascading through the headset, red dreams, red Valentine Swoooosh red blood splattered, She didn’t hear the rush of the black dark engine whistling through the black dark tracks…
It is not unusual that people fight against the whole world, fearing defeat and freaking out every time they see their worst fears in front of their eyes. But it gets all the more uncanny when the fight is against one’s own self, against a shadow that grows larger with the setting sun, overpowering one […]
Where does love reside? ‘Shi Gun’ is a journey through time to timelessness, streching the limits of transformations, testing the bounds of bonding.Kim Ki Duk spans his narrative through an unusual love story where faces become masks and relationships signify a continuous act of deferance.It is not just a story where a paranoid woman decides […]
A movie about the limits of endurance and the limits of passion. Never thought i could ignore the presence of Hugh Grant in a movie starring Hugh Grant!Bitter Moon is an epic revelation of limits and what happens when one overreaches in relationship. A tale of a man , crippled by circumstances and his negotiation […]
“The Equalizer”More of a transporter kind of a movie but with just awesome background music. Credibility? Who the hell needs that anyways when you are up for a one man army sort of movie!The making is smart, camera very crisp, casting good enough and a decent though narrow plot.Good watch for a winter evening with […]
Not entirely sure of how I felt about this one. It is often difficult to act as an indifferent viewer, especially when one has a nine year old daughter, and a past full of reminiscence to burden the heart.making-wise, this is a faithful chunk of manhattan, or downtown America, or let’s say the world that […]
Director: Adam Elliot. What is the colour of loneliness? Muddy white i guess. And the smell of love? Old books and licorece of course.“Mary and Max” is a visual, emotional and spiritual treat that makes us revisit every disturbing question that had bugged us all our lives.Who is lonely?Aren’t we all?When every human on earth […]
Director: Steven KnightCast: Tom Hardy. A chunk of two hours, real time; a quasi-epistolary narrative; a brave innovation in storytelling: and we have what Steven Knight presents through the powerful acting of Tom Hardy.The film makes an invasive exploration of a man, who stands (rather drives) on a precarious cliff, on a crossword demanding the […]
Director: Philip KaufmanWriters: Milan Kundera (novel), Jean-Claude Carrière (screenplay)Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin How does one look at “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”? Is it about how human beings negotiate with choices in the midst of a totalitarian regime that increasingly ceases to grant any choices anymore? Or is it about how happiness […]
Peter Greenaway takes his camera through an adjacent tri-stage setup, the cold foggy outside, the warm vibrant kitchen and the richly decked up banquet hall. While the first one displays cruelty, abuse and bestiality shamelessly (fittingly complemented with a pack of hungry hounds and stench of rotten meat), the third is a site of worse […]
Yes i am a demonAnd i fly on broomsticksWhen night closes inMy index finger pricks.Disown me if you mustDisown my shadowed soulThe umbilical cord will stillBe coiled within my hole…
The sun refuses to riseObscured by sultry rainMy blood runs darkened purpleThrough thyroxin deprived vein.A silent scream escapesThrough a half dead ventricleMy hands grope feverishly atA pack of popsicle.If only it was not tied downBy iron chains of rhymeI could sleep off this terrible dayWith hemlock soaked in lime…
Deep within the dungeon cageO wait some more my silent sageRest within your cthonic denInsane desires hold, restrain.A fire-bird seeks her funeral flamesNo more to burn, but rise again…
As the evening melts downTo a glistening darknessAs the lone boat floatsOn the distant wavesI melt down to oblivionAnd sadness fills with ecstacy
The Return(2003) Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev Writers: Vladimir Moiseenko, Aleksandr Novototskiy-Vlasov (as Aleksandr Novototskiy) Cast: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko Sometimes absence is as palpably felt as presence, if not more. In “The Return”, the two young boys struggle through more than a decade of a fatherless childhood only to find out eventually that what they feel in […]
A guilty hope, a lousy despair.What could have been a whale being caught in a muddy trailI bear the harpoon, I bear the wreathWaiting for the fatal strike,splattering blood,gathering spoils of priceless meat.Only it had been all alonga puffer poisoned,pretending woe.It hardly had been worth at allTo kill the wiggly finny foe…
Spent an euphoric afternoon watching “The Idiots”. It is not just a film but an unbelievable dismantling of every accepted notion of screen performance. Von Trier consistently presents the idea of an outsider assimilating within the folds of a close knit structure, defying the codes of perspective by liquidating the very concept of a reference […]
The goldfish swimsin a glassy casefrom prying eyesshe hides her face.her golden finshe died to showher blushing wishthe angels know.in a flash of lightsaw the goldfish shy,her fin displayedon a thunderous sky…
The wise men desert the promised land,Monsoon glooms and deferred showers,blackened diamond sparkles sharp,Debts pull down the Hellenic towers.A ship sunk low in Orient seasA leadened stack withdrawn from sightI wait with fretful bated breathAmidst bear baiting and bull fight.The sun towards the evening sinkspromising us a better dawnThe tides rise slow from lowest lowthe […]
Happy tearslusty dewdropsa distant conch shellmatched with too near moansa goddess adoredanother restoredand amid all the fanfarethe clock strikes nine…
I am not a Trojan horse,neither are you the Hellenic pride.trust me.keep faith.or just wait for the night time plight.it is you who turn meinto what you most fearor most adore…
A knot in the gutTangled thread looseningserpent broodingin summer hibernation.The solstice, the solstice!and four hundred updates later,the crouching dragons are slayed.it is not a cycleif the butterfly can’t becomea caterpillar.a toad breeds venomand yet the bard finds the stonethat adorns the crown.what shall we findbeyond the wait…a venomous spoilor a twinkling star!
The temple bells have long been gonethe fiery pyre turned to dustthe fools that have been doped with powerbrandished by the threaded bust.what world was lost then? none I see.we still keep birth above the deedkarmanye vadhika rasteyhow have we failed you love, indeed…
Amidst midnight blues,Borrowed puffs of breath, unceremonious wrinkled sheetAnd curled up kittens,memoried metaphorscold soup and hot sandwichesprinted exiled smilesand unprinted snapsi see life as candy uncrushedand wrapped up boxes…
Strangers in love Under spells of blue Distanced from earth Devoid of clue. Hasty twilight Awaiting moon-rise Silenced gunshots A star flickers, dies. Not a moment can pass That comforts the heart A coiled serpent weeps And a frightened doe starts.
A locked door,Bolted safe from inside,away from prying eyes.Hands reaching out to each other.flesh meeting flesh,blood racing on flushed skin,muffled voices,whispered love notes,bated breathsweaty drops of contentment.A loud bang,not just a knock,startled bodies,hasty hands groping in the darkto resume pointless masquerades.Does it matter if one of them was himDoes it matter if both of them […]
Sometimes the nights get too darkUnlit clouds glide through new mooned skyDespaired lonely heart weeps bloodDrops of salt choke the numb goodbye.Hold on then to the trembling strings of faithA sun will rise, this darkest night will die…
Mists morphing into imagesOf seamless illusionsNight morphing into morning’sAssisted breathingMetaphors morphing into silenceIn refusing to tolerateEvery bit of consciousness left untreated.
My shadow lurks behind meOn a crooked plain I tread Nailed prophet oozes bloodAccursed wounds refuse to heal My heart morphed into plastic toyIncessantly beats the shit out ofEvery vessel that leads to its chamber.
Morbid memory,Obscenely ordinary.Neurotic Nostalgia.Agitated aggression.Mindless mundaneness.I am the ruthless executionerEvery time you bleed purple.
Someday we will goUnder the greenwood treeDistanced from the earthDistanced from the skyHow much fare?Ahhh why should we care!Minutes turn into hours.Outside my window night stretches.Nestled inside your embrace,After a gloomy tungsten dusk,My heart restarts and beatsIntensely reddened withecstasy and love…
তুই বলেছিলি বলে জলছবি এঁকেছি।ইছামতী থেকে গঙ্গার দূরত্বটুকু এক লাফে পার হতে পেরেছি,অনায়াস দ্রুততায়।আর তোর অভ্যস্ত আঙুলের ওঠানামায়অহল্যার মৃত্যু-ঘুম ভাঙ্গা চোখকাজল নেই বলে সঙ্কোচে জড়সড়,ঠিক তখন পার হয়ে এসেছিএক যুগের যবনিকাপাত রাত্রি।অনেক পার হওয়া সময়আর দূরত্বআজ লাল সুতোয় গিঁট বাঁধা থাক।তুই ছিঁড়ে দিস কোন এক শীতঘুম কাটা ভোরেঝলমলে ধারাল নক্ষত্রের আঘাতে।
Life often makes us feel limited in our understanding of Good and Evil, Sin and Grace, and so does Von Trier. Watching “breaking the Waves” has that rippling effect on the mind where every hard bound idea of morality and ethics dismantles. The goodness of Bess becomes a screaming onslaught against the codes of artificial […]
Snowcapped hills & deep low chantsspinning bell of fortune tollsthe darkest crevice of earth explodesthrough the crater, fire rolls. A scary madman paints his facewith frenzied violence digs his clawsplattered blood stains wildest maska cursed soul, a passion raw. a thousand births a thousand deathsa thousand petty masqueradesa hasty slaughter, packaged neata thousand inmates’ dance […]
A dead-end blown off gunpowder delights, A busy streetcar dimmed highway lights. a memory sordid a shot down with lime a springtime recluse a summery lifetime..
You,Will be a lonely soulWalking the highway of life. I ,Can only offer a willow shade. Not the thick dark branches of amazon, Not the cool breeze of desert oasisJust a willow… To weep underneath…
For O. Henry, the short story was not just a literary act of communicating his artistic imagination, but also a vehicle to explore the extreme possibilities of such an endeavor. His stories are characterized by extreme unpredictability, transforming the genre into an active, pulsating living presence. “The Cactus” is no exception. The readers are , […]
The “sonnet” is traced back to Francis Petrarch, whose sonnets (14th C Italian) were popular throughout western Europe. Early sonnets were less strict about form, and a sonnet could be slightly longer or shorter than the traditional 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter. Because Petrarch’s sonnet sequence (over three hundred poems!) traced the course of […]
The primary essence of Charles Dickens’s art lies in his ability to transform the mundane visible reality to an altered quasi- symbolic environment, where the characters get elevated to a sphere of symbolic existence. Fundamentally dealing with the destructive forces of industrial revolution and the deliberate distortion of Utilitarianism to confine human Imagination, his novel […]
John Milton, in his attempt to create an epic presentation of practically the whole act of creation and transgression of Man, amalgamates Christian faith with tremendous aesthetic competency. Following the elementary classical conventions, he does frame his work within an apparent structural boundary, but eventually surpasses it by his imaginative faculty. In the Invocation itself, […]
Twelfth Night, the last day of Christmas feasting, the last night of holiday, is the day before normal life resumes. It is the time to put on masks and disrupt the normal order of life. Carnival, according to the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin, “celebrated temporary liberation from prevailing truth and from established order; it marked […]