English Literature

Kavi Kulguru Kalidasa is the greatest playwright and poet of Ancient India. He is the archetype for Sanskrit literary world. His Abhigyan Shakuntalam, a play, is appreciated in the entire world. This play is a play about a beautiful damsel named Shakuntala. She is at the centre of the play. The entire play revolves round this character. Shakuntala is a unique creation of Kalidasa. She is the daughter of sage Vishwamitra and Menaka. She lives in the hermitage of the sage Kanva. Kalidasa presents her as an embodiment of innate chastity, beauty, grace, Indian womanhood, patience and sacrifice. She is simple and innocent. She is an ideal woman like Sita and Savitri. In this play Shakuntala is so beautiful that Dushyanta at first sight is attracted to her. He hides himself behind trees to enjoy the sweetness of her voice. He is so impressed by her beauty that he exclaimes: ‘A flower no one has smelled, a bud no fingers have plucked, an uncut jewel, honey untested, unbroken fruits of ...

Abhigyan shakuntalam is one of the best plays in the entire world. It is a well-known Sanskrit Play by Kavi Kalidasa. Here Kalidasa has dramatised the story of Shakuntala told in the epic Mahabharata. It is considered the best play by Kalidasa. His works include Ritusamharam, Meghdootam, Kumarsambhavam, Malvikagnimitram, Vikramorvashiam and Abhigyan Shakuntalam. It is the last play by Kalidasa. It is divided into seven acts. The title means recognition of Shakuntala. This fantastic play is a beautiful tale of love and romance. Shakuntala was the daughter of Rishi Vishwamitra and Menaka. After her birth she is left alone in the dense forest. The birds protect and take care of the new born baby. By chance sage Kanva gets her and names her Shakuntala. Shakuntala grows up. She is as beautiful as nature. One day, King Dushyant arrives in the forest on hunt. To seek the blessings of Sage Kanva, he stops at his cottage. There he finds Shakuntala. He is mesmerized by her beauty. But h...

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live, remembered not to be, Die single and thine image dies with thee.

Kalidasa is a Classical Sanskrit author of the 5th century CE. He is considered the greatest playwright and poet of Ancient India. He is the archetype for Sanskrit literary world. He is acknowledged as the Kavi Kulguru in Indian Literature. Little is known about Kalidasa as a person. The meaning of his name is the devotee of Kali, the goddess. Kalidasa is known as one of the nine gems at the court of the fabulous and legendary king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. His plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas . His notable works are Abhijnanashakuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala), Kumarasambhava (Birth of the War God), Malavikagnimitra  (Malavika and Agnimitra), Meghaduta (Cloud Messenger), Raghuvamsha (Dynasty of Raghu), Ritusamhara (The Garland of the Seasons) and Vikramorvashi (Urvashi Won by Valour). Abhijnanashakuntala is a beautiful play in seven acts by Kalidasa. Here the story of Shakuntala of the Mahabharata ...

All Kings, and all their favourites, All glory of honours, beauties, wits, The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year now than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day. Two graves must hide thine and my corse; If one might, death were no divorce. Alas, as well as other Princes, we (Who Prince enough in one another be) Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears, Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears; But souls where nothing dwells but love (All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove This, or a love increasèd there above, When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove. And then we shall be throughly blessed; But...

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held: Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,' Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

John Dryden is the spokesman of the Restoration Age. His writings include plays, satires and critical essays. He is so dominant that his writing period is known as the Age of Dryden in the history of English literature. John Dryden was born on the 9th of August, 1631 at Aldwinkle, Northampton shire, England. His father Erasmus Dryden was a Rector. Mary Pickering was his mother. He died on May 12th of 1700 in London. Dryden is best known as a satirist. This dominant literary figure was appointed as England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He got popularity for his Absalom and Achitophel (1681) Mac Flecknoe (1682) and The Medal (1682). It is he who established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry. He also introduced the alexandrine and triplet. Dryden’s literary career can be divided into three parts – 1660 to 1680, 1681 to1687 and 1688 to 1700. During the first period (1660 – 1680) he published non-dramatic poetry like Annus Mirabilies in 1667 and plays ...

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love. Alas, alas, who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Litigious men, which quarrels move, Though she and I do love. Call us what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, ...

  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be. But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that, so much of earth and water wrought, I must attend time's leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I, Say, where his centric happiness doth lie; I have lov'd, and got, and told, But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, I should not find that hidden mystery. Oh, 'tis imposture all! And as no chemic yet th'elixir got, But glorifies his pregnant pot If by the way to him befall Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, So, lovers dream a rich and long delight, But get a winter-seeming summer's night. Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day, Shall we for this vain bubble's shadow pay? Ends love in this, that my man Can be as happy'as I can, if he can Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play? That loving wretch that swears 'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds, Which he in her angelic finds, Would swear as justly that he hears, In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres. Hope ...

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead; And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, As interest of the dead, which now appear But things removed that hidden in thee lie! Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give, That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I loved, I view in thee, And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.

  As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no sh...

  From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding: Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts--from far where I abide-- Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

Where, like a pillow on a bed A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest The violet's reclining head, Sat we two, one another's best. Our hands were firmly cemented With a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string; So to'intergraft our hands, as yet Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation. As 'twixt two equal armies fate Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me. And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lay; All day, the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day. If any, so by love refin'd That he soul's language understood, And by good love were grown all mind, Within convenient distance stood, He (though he knew not which soul spake, ...

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit: Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, But that I hope some good conceit of thine In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it: Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, Points on me graciously with fair aspect, And puts apparel on my tottered loving, To show me worthy of thy sweet respect: Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee; Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled, Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, And perspective that is best painter's art. For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictured lies, Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart. So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might. O! let my looks be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love, and look for recompense, More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O! learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Coleridge is one of the major poets of the Romantic Movement. He is considered the founder of the Romantic Movement in England. He is best known for his The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , Christabel , Kubla Khan and Biographia Literaria . The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the most famous poems in the English language. It was first published in 1798. Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem about a man on a voyage by ship. This poem shows that this man killed an innocent albatross on the way. It was a heinous crime and disregard for a creature of nature. This single crime changes the course of his life and death. He has to face a terrible inner struggle. He spends the rest of his life trying to atone for his sin. Sin and repentance are the central themes of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner . 'One should respect God and all of his creations.’ Through this beautiful poem, this significant moral message has been conveyed. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Anci...