English Literature

QUESTION: What do you mean by Trochee or The Trochaic Metre? ANSWER: The Trochaic Metre is a foot of verse. It consists of two syllables. The first syllable is stressed and the following is unstressed. This pattern is called Trochaic. Like the iambic metre its line may be of various lengths. Example: [1] Sing a / song of / six pence                      A pocket full of rye                      Four and twenty black birds,                      Baked in a pie.

QUESTION: What do you mean by Iambic Metre?  ANSWER: The Iambic metre is a foot of verse. It consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. This pattern is called iambic. The number of iambic feet in an iambic line may vary from two to seven. Example: [1] The griz/zly Bear/ is huge/ and wild;                        He has devoured the infant child.                        The infant child is not aware                        It has been eaten by the bear. [ A. E. Housman; Infant                                     Innocence] ...

QUESTION: What do you mean by Blank Verse?  ANSWER:  Blank Verse is prosody. This term is limited to unrhymed iambic pentameter. This meter has been used in Shakespeare's plays, in Melton's Paradise Lost, and in all the best dramatic poetry. Example: [1] Come you spirits                        That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here                        And fill me from the crown to the toe top full                        Of direst cruelty [Macbeth: Shakespeare]                  [2] Why do I yield to that suggestion     ...

QUESTION: What is Heroic Couplet?   ANSWER : Heroic couplet is prosody. Here the lines rhyme together in pairs, and each line consists of five iambic feet. It was a favoured form of the 18th century. For example: [1] One science only will one genius feet;       So vast is art, so narrow human wit. [2] Not only bound to peculiar arts,      But oft in those confined to single parts.   [Pope: An Essay On criticism]   [3] All human things are subject to decay,        And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey   [Dryden: Shadwell]

QUESTION: What is Irony? ANSWER: Irony is a device by which a writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one. There are many techniques for achieving irony. Example: [1] When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept                         Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;                         Yet Brutus says he was ambition,                         And Brutus is an honourable man.                         [Shakespeare: Julius Caesar]                  [2] Hamlet: So long? ….. O heavens! die two            ...

QUESTION: What is Paradox?  ANSWER:  A paradox is a statement, though it appears self contradictory, contains the basis of truth that reconciles the seeming opposites. Examples:   [1] Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,                           And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.                          [Pope: An Essay On Criticism]                     [2] One short sleep, we wake eternally                            And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.                           [John Donne]   ...

QUESTION:  What is Oxymoron? ANSWER:  Oxymoron is a figure of speech consisting generally of two apparently contradictory terms that express a startling paradox. Example: [1] Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!                         O' anything of nothing first create                          O' heavy lightness! Serious vanity.                         [Shakespeare: Romeo And Juliet]                  [2] She loathed the bright dishonour of his love. [Blake]

QUESTION: What do you mean by Metonymy? ANSWER:   Metonymy is derived from a Greek word. Its meaning is 'a change of name'. In this figure of speech the name of some object or idea is substituted for another to which it has some relation. For example:     [1] He succeeded to the crown - The monarchy.                             [2] From the cradle to the grave - From childhood to death.                             [3] I never read Homer - The works of Homer.

QUESTION: What is Alliteration? ANSWER: Alliteration is one of the important figures of speech. It is the close repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words. For example:      [1] To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,                                   In a pestilential prison, with a life long lock.                                                   [W.S.Gilbert: The Mikado]                             [2] Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long         ...

QUESTION:What do you mean by  Pathetic Fallacy? ANSWER:  Pathetic Fallacy is a term originated by Ruskin in 1865. It is attribution of human characteristics to inanimate objects. Such an attribution falls short of a full personification. For example:     [1] the cruel, crawling foam.                             [2] Mute nature mourns her worshipper.                             [3] Angry cloud and cruel wind.

QUESTION: What is Personification? ANSWER: The Personification is a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstracts ideas are endowed with human qualities or action. For example:    [1] He is the favoured child of fortune.                            [2] Let not Ambition mock their useful toil                                 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure. [Gray: Elegy]

QUESTION: What do you mean by  Antithesis? ANSWER: Antithesis is the setting of one thing against another. In this rhetorical figure, contrast of ideas are sharply and vividly expressed within a balanced grammatical structure. For example: [1] Give me liberty, or give me death. [2] He can bribe, but he can't seduce; he can buy, but he can't gain;  He can lie, but he can't deceive. [3] A friend exaggerates a man's virtue, an enemy his crimes. [4] A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. [5] Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella. [Pope: An Essay On Criticism]

QUESTION:What is Metaphor? ANSWER:  Metaphor is a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or by the substitute of one for the other. Example: [1] Our eldest son is the star of our family.                  [2] He is the vulture of the province.

QUESTION: What is Simile ? ANSWER: Simile is an expressed comparison between two unlike objects. For this purpose' like' or 'as' are used usually. Example: [1] O, my luve is like a red, red rose                        That's newly sprung in June. [Burns]                  [2] Errors like straws, upon the surface flow;                        He that would search for pearls must dive below. [Dryden]                  [3] True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,                      ...

QUESTION: What is Free Verse? ANSWER:  Free Verse is unrhymed verse with a traditional metrical form. It was employed by French poets to free themselves from the metrical regularity of the alexandrine. Seeking greater liberty in verse structure, English poets also used it. Example: [1] A child said what is the grass? Fetching it                        To me with full hands,                        How could I answer the child? I do not know                        What it is any more than he. [Whitman: Leaves of Grass]

QUESTION: What is Elegy? ANSWER: Elegy is an important form of poetry. It is a dignified poem mourning the death of an individual or of all men. Here the poet laments the death and loss of his near and dear. Examples: [1] Milton's Lycidas.                  [2] Gray's Elegy.                  [3] Shelley's Adonais.                  [4] Tennyson's In Memoriam.                  [5] Arnold's Thyrsis.                 [6] Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain.

Q: What is an Ode? ANS: Ode: Ode is an important form of poetry. It is a short poem written in a rapid and irregular meter, fit to be sung or recited. Such poems are of much higher order than ballads and may be either descriptive or narrative. For example:   [1] Dryden's Ode On Alexander's Feast.                           [2] Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.                           [3] Collins's Ode On Evening.                          [4] Keats's Ode To Nightingale.                        ...

Question: What is Lyric? Answer:   Lyric is an important form of poetry. It is a short poem which is fit to be sung or recited. The term lyric denotes a poem of limited length expressing the thoughts and feelings of single speaker. Example: [1] Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper                  [2] Rossetti's The Song                  [3] Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn

Question: What is Sonnet? Answer:  Sonnet is a very important verse form. It contains fourteen lines and each line consists of five iambic feet. The first eight lines are called octave and the last six sestette. Sonnet is of various types as- Miltonic Sonnet, Petrarchan Sonnet, Shakespearean Sonnet and Spenserian Sonnet. Example: [1] Shakespeare's Love God.                 [2] Milton's On His Blindness.                 [3] Donne's Death, Be Not Proud.

Globalization has had a huge impact on thinking across the humanities, redefining the understanding of fields such as communication, culture, politics, and literature. The impact of globalization on culture and literature is quite significant.  The discipline of literary studies is undergoing dramatic transformation. The term ‘Globalization’ is tentatively defined as the interconnectedness. Modern technologies such as satellite communications and World Wide Web have made drastic changes in dissemination of various forms of literature and quite relevantly information explosion has played a central role in distribution of social and cultural packages all around the globe.   People can even read novels, poetry, short stories, songs, and plays online now. A person in India can read Dostoevsky or Chekhov in his own language and vice-versa - a Russian student can look up Indian authors on the internet. With globalization, it is nearly impossible to stop the spread ...

Feminism has played a significant role in the contemporary literary criticism. It strongly advocates in favour of women. It deals with their problem of existence. It emphasizes on the equality of sexes and revolts against the discrimination against them. In the 1960s and 1970s feminism was primarily Western but since 1980s we find a large number of non-western writers getting seriously engaged in feminist debates. This has become an incessant support for the improvement and empowerment of women. The feminists criticize a second and other place of women in society. They believe that the patriarchal system of society has been the root cause of women’s suffering. As a polemical movement its primary concern in literary criticism was to explore and combat the stereotype representation of women in literature. This marks an significant connection between literary criticism and feminism as a social movement. Feminist movement creates self awareness in women. This self awareness helps to improv...

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow, born in Richmond, Virginia, on 22 nd April 1873, published her first novel, The Descendant, in 1897, when she was 24 years old. With this novel Glasgow began a literary career encompassing 19 novels, a collection of poems, one of stories, and a book of literary criticism. A popular writer, Glasgow was on the best seller lists five times. In 1942 she received the Pulitzer Prize for her last published novel, In This Our Life. She established herself as one of the America’s most talented and influential writers. On the day after Glasgow died an editorial tribute in the Richmond Times Dispatch opened by stating, “The greatest woman Virginia has produced is dead.” Ellen Glasgow produced ten major novels of enduring literary merit- The Voice of the People (1900), The Deliverance (1904), Virginia (1913), Life and Gabriella (1916), Barren Ground (1925), The Romantic Comedians (1926), They Stooped to Folly (1929), The Sheltered Life (1932) , The Vein of Iron (193...

Bundela Kings were generous patrons of literature. This is why the royal palaces harboured several noted poets. In the medieval ages, Orchha, a Bundela kingdom in the central part of northern India, emerged as a center of vernacular poetry in Brajbhasha. It enjoyed a rich tradition in the fields of literature and poetry. In the court of Vir Singh Dev, King of Orchha, there were many great literary persons. Among them the most famous was Keshavdas. Who does not know him? Keshavdas, the court poet of Raja Vir Singh Dev of Orchha, was born in Orchha in a Sanadhya Brahmin family. His father Kashinath and the elder brother Balabhadra Mishra were both Sanskrit scholars. Initially he was in the court of Indrajit Singh, the brother of the Bundela ruler Ram Singh. When Vir Singh Dev Bundela came to power, Keshavdas joined his court. His most famous disciple, Rai Parveen, was equally well known for her ravishing looks as well as her lyrical voice. Her enchanting beauty and her sharp repartees d...

The post - independence Indian English fiction has seen quite a large crop of new and interesting writers. Their works are firmly based on social realism. Writers like Bhavani Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar and Khushwant Singh appeared on the scene in the fifties of the last century. Quite a number of women novelists also emerged. Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai are notable among them. This development has continued ever since and one can discover many new voices. The most striking among them is Kiran Desai, the third recipient of Man Booker Prize after Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy.  Kiran is a true achiever in the real sense of the term. Born in India in 1971, she shifted her base to England at the age of 14 before moving to the USA. She was educated in India, England and the US. Her mother, Anita Desai is a noted writer. Therefore, to enter the field of writing was very easy for her. Her first novel appeared as Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard ...

For many decades English has been taught in our schools and colleges. It occupies the position of a second language in the school curriculum and for higher education. Now English language teaching has gained the status of a new discipline. Teaching English to the Indian students is the biggest challenge. This is so because of the large population of the country, bleak economic conditions, the cultural and social diversities and insufficient men and material. One of the main reasons for the poor standard of English is the lack of a clear-cut policy. There have been frequent changes in the policy of the government towards the teaching and learning of English. The educationists and politicians differ on the role and status of English in India.  The majority of our students struggle a lot to acquire the language. Most of the Indian students are exposed to their mother tongues. They do not get adequate opportunities either to listen to or speak in English. They listen to English only in...

Last decade of the twentieth century marked the beginning of two eras in India-Computer Era and Mobile Era. Both computer and mobile have become part and parcel of our life. Like all other electronic equipments, Mobile was invented to make our life simpler. But what really happening is it is making life more complicated.  The most important effect of mobile in today’s world is attack on our privacy. For the first time in the history of civilization, humans have lost their privacy. It has started to become a fun for people to capture other person’s private videos and upload them on internet. But, those who take that pictures and videos, they should remember one thing that he same can happen even to their mothers, sisters, wives or daughters.  Let me add one more side effect of mobile. We can see people going to temples, churches and mosques for praying. Everyone wants some peace of mind. But even inside the holy place, a few won’t switch off phone. Even in prayers, half of thei...

The holy books of the Hindus explain that all the inhabitants of the earth emerged from the primordial sea. It means the earliest life forms appeared in water and the same is the source of all life. The entire universe is largely composed of water and that’s why it can’t exist without it. Leonardo da Vinci is of the view that ‘Water is the driving force in nature.’ According to Thoreau ‘Life in us is like the water in a river.’  Water has always fascinated humankind. As a result, it plays a very prominent and recurrent role in literature. It gives constant fuel to the fires of imagination. According to Githa Hariharan, ‘Water, the fountainhead of civilization as of life, flows through human expression through the ages.’ Given the importance of water to life, it is not surprising that as a potent symbol it flows through literature.  Water is often used to symbolize various things in literature. The use of it as a symbol clearly has no set rules. Authors use it in different ways...