English Literature

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...