Literature of puritan age

John Milton 

                                 

John Milton

     

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual who served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. English poet, pamphleteer, and historian considered the most significant English author after William Shakespeare. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Written in blank verse, Paradise Lost is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature. 

Milton is best known for Paradise Lost, widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in English. Together with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, it confirms Milton’s reputation as one of the greatest English poets. In his prose works, Milton advocated the abolition of the Church of England and the execution of Charles I. From the beginning of the English Civil Wars in 1642 to long after the restoration of Charles II as king in 1660, he espoused in all his works a political philosophy that opposed tyranny and state-sanctioned religion. His influence extended not only through the civil wars and interregnum but also to the American and French revolutions. In his works on theology, he valued liberty of conscience, the paramount importance of Scripture as a guide in matters of faith, and religious toleration toward dissidents. As a civil servant, Milton became the voice of the English Commonwealth after 1649 through his handling of its international correspondence and his defence of the government against polemical attacks from abroad. 

 

• Life:  

  

   The phases of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart Britain. Milton studied, travelled, wrote poetry mostly for private circulation, and launched a career as a pamphleteer and publicist under the increasingly personal rule of Charles I and its breakdown into constitutional confusion and war. The shift in accepted attitudes in government placed him in public office under the Commonwealth of England, from being thought dangerously radical and heretical, and he even acted as an official spokesman in certain of his publications. The Restoration of 1660 deprived Milton, now completely blind, of his public platform, but this period saw him complete most of his major works of poetry. 

              

 

   John Milton was born in Bread Street, London, on 9 December 1608, the son of composer John Milton and his wife Sarah Jeffrey. Milton's father's prosperity provided his eldest son with a private tutor, Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian with an M.A. from the University of St. Andrews. Research suggests that Young's influence served as the poet's introduction to religious radicalism. After Young's tutorship, Milton attended St Paul's School in London. There he began the study of Latin and Greek, and the classical languages left an imprint on both his poetry and prose in English (he also wrote in Latin and Italian). Milton's first datable compositions are two psalms done at age 15 at Long Bennington.

In 1625, Milton began attending Christ's College, Cambridge. He graduated with a B.A. in 1629, ranking fourth of 24 honours graduates that year in the University of Cambridge. Preparing to become an Anglican priest, Milton stayed on and obtained his Master of Arts degree on 3 July 1632. At Cambridge, Milton was on good terms with Edward King, for whom he later wrote "Lycidas". He also befriended Anglo-American dissident and theologian Roger Williams. Milton tutored Williams in Hebrew in exchange for lessons in Dutch. While at Cambridge, he wrote a number of his well-known shorter English poems, among them "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity", his "Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare" (his first poem to appear in print), L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso. 

• Study, poetry, and travel:  

      It appears in all his writings that he had the usual concomitant of great abilities, lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others; for scarcely any man ever wrote so much and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of a name as a security against the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion.

                                          – Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets 

     

  Milton is considered to be among the most learned of all English poets. In addition to his years of private study, Milton had command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian from his school and undergraduate days; he also added Old English to his linguistic repertoire in the 1650s while researching his History of Britain, and probably acquired proficiency in Dutch soon after. In May 1638, Milton embarked upon a tour of France and Italy that lasted until July or August 1639. His travels supplemented his study with new and direct experience of artistic and religious traditions, especially Roman Catholicism. He met famous theorists and intellectuals of the time and was able to display his poetic skills. For specific details of what happened within Milton's "grand tour", there appears to be just one primary source: Milton's own Defensio Secunda. There are other records, including some letters and some references in his other prose tracts, but the bulk of the information about the tour comes from a work that, according to Barbara Lewalski, "was not intended as autobiography but as rhetoric, designed to emphasise his sterling reputation with the learned of Europe." Originally, Milton wanted to leave Naples in order to travel to Sicily and then on to Greece, but he returned to England during the summer of 1639 because of what he claimed in Defensio Secunda were "sad tidings of civil war in England." From Switzerland, Milton travelled to Paris and then to Calais before finally arriving back in England in either July or August 1639.  

• Early translations and poems of John Milton:

By the time he returned to England in 1639, Milton had manifested remarkable talent as a linguist and translator and extraordinary versatility as a poet. While at St. Paul’s, as a 15-year-old student, Milton had translated Psalm 114 from the original Hebrew, a text that recounts the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. This translation into English was a poetic paraphrase in heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter), and later he translated and paraphrased the same psalm into Greek. Beginning such work early in his boyhood, he continued it into adulthood, especially from 1648 to 1653, a period when he was also composing pamphlets against the Church of England and the monarchy. Also in his early youth Milton composed letters in Latin verse. These letters, which range over many topics, are called elegies because they employ elegiac metre—a verse form, Classical in origin, that consists of couplets, the first line dactylic hexameter, the second dactylic pentameter. 

 In 1628 Milton composed an occasional poem, “On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough,” which mourns the loss of his niece Anne, the daughter of his older sister. Milton tenderly commemorates the child, who was two years old. The poem’s conceits, Classical allusions, and theological overtones emphasize that the child entered the supernal realm because the human condition, having been enlightened by her brief presence, was ill-suited to bear her any longer.

In this early period, Milton’s principal poems included “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” “On Shakespeare,” and the so-called companion poems “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” Milton’s sixth elegy (“Elegia Sexta”), a verse letter in Latin sent to Diodati in December 1629, provides valuable insight into his conception of “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.” Informing Diodati of his literary activity, Milton recounts that he is: 

'singing the heaven-descended King, the bringer of peace, and the blessed times promised in the sacred books—the infant cries of our God and his stabling under a mean roof who, with his Father, governs the realms above.' 

• Works on history and theology: 

Three extraordinary prose works highlight the depth of Milton’s erudition and the scope of his interests. History of Britain (1670) was long in the making, for it reflects extensive reading that he began as a very young man. Presumably, because he initially contemplated an epic centring upon British history and the heroic involvement of the legendary King Arthur, Milton researched early accounts of Britain, ranging across records from the Anglo-Saxon era through works by the Venerable Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth and into 16th- and 17th-century accounts by Raphael Holinshed and William Camden, along with many others. All the while, Milton critically evaluated his sources for their veracity. Because his own research and writing were interrupted by his service in Cromwell’s government, History of Britain remained incomplete even at publication, for the account ends with the Norman Conquest.  

De Doctrina Christiana (“On Christian Doctrine”) was probably composed between 1655 and 1660, though Milton never completed it. The unfinished manuscript was discovered in the Public Record Office in London in 1823, translated from Latin into English by Charles Sumner and published in 1825 as A Treatise on Christian Doctrine. Though Milton did not agree with all elements of their theology, like them he tended to subordinate the Son to the Father and to oppose the trinitarian orthodoxy of Roman Catholicism. 

• The work of John Milton: 

 

• Paradise Lost (1667)  
• Paradise Regained (1671) 
• L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso 
• Lycidas (1638) 
• Comus (1637) 
• Samson Agonistes (1671) 
• On Shakespeare (1632) 

• Paradise Lost: 

Paradise Lost

  

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos…

Probably the greatest epic poem in the English language, Paradise Lost (1667) was not Milton’s first attempt at an epic: as a teenager, Milton began writing an epic poem in Latin about the Gunpowder Plot; but in quantum, November remained unfinished. Instead, his defining work would be this 12-book poem in blank verse about the Fall of Man, taking in Satan’s fall from Heaven, his founding of Pandemonium (the capital of Hell), and his subsequent temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Paradise Lost—first published in 10 books in 1667 and then in 12 books in 1674, at a length of almost 11,000 lines—Milton observed but adapted a number of the Classical epic conventions that distinguish works such as Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid.

Paradise Lost also directly invokes Classical epics by beginning its action in media res. Book 1 recounts the aftermath of the war in heaven, which is described only later, in Book 6. At the outset of the epic, the consequences of the loss of the war include the expulsion of the fallen angels from heaven and their descent into hell, a place of infernal torment. With the punishment of the fallen angels having been described early in the epic, Milton in later books recounts how and why their disobedience occurred. Disobedience and its consequences, therefore, come to the fore in Raphael’s instruction of Adam and Eve, who (especially in Books 6 and 8) are admonished to remain obedient. By examining the sinfulness of Satan in thought and in deed, Milton positions this part of his narrative close to the temptation of Eve. This arrangement enables Milton to highlight how and why Satan, who inhabits a serpent to seduce Eve in Book 9, induces in her the inordinate pride that brought about his own downfall. Satan arouses in Eve a comparable state of mind, which is enacted in her partaking of the forbidden fruit, an act of disobedience. Throughout Paradise, Lost Milton uses a grand style aptly suited to the elevated subject matter and tone. In a prefatory note, Milton describes the poem’s metre as “English heroic verse without rhyme,” which approximates “that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin.” Rejecting rhyme as “the jingling sound of like endings,” Milton prefers a measure that is not end-stopped, so that he may employ enjambment (run-on lines) with “the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another.” The grand style that he adopts consists of unrhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse) and features sonorous rhythms pulsating through and beyond one verse into the next. By composing his biblical epic in this measure, he invites comparison with works by Classical forebears. Without using punctuation at the end of many verses, Milton also creates voluble units of rhythm and sense that go well beyond the limitations he perceived in rhymed verse.

Throughout Paradise, Lost Milton uses a grand style aptly suited to the elevated subject matter and tone. In a prefatory note, Milton describes the poem’s metre as “English heroic verse without rhyme,” which approximates “that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin.” Rejecting rhyme as “the jingling sound of like endings,” Milton prefers a measure that is not end-stopped, so that he may employ enjambment (run-on lines) with “the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another.” The grand style that he adopts consists of unrhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse) and features sonorous rhythms pulsating through and beyond one verse into the next. Without using punctuation at the end of many verses, Milton also creates voluble units of rhythm and sense that go well beyond the limitations he perceived in rhymed verse. 

Paradise Lost is ultimately not only about the downfall of Adam and Eve but also about the clash between Satan and the Son. Many readers have admired Satan’s splendid recklessness, if not heroism, in confronting the Godhead. Satan’s defiance, anger, willfulness, and resourcefulness define a character who strives never to yield. In many ways, Satan is heroic when compared to such Classical prototypes as Achilles, Odysseus, and But Milton composed a biblical epic in order to debunk Classical heroism and to extol Christian heroism, exemplified by the Son. Notwithstanding his victory in the battle against the fallen angels, the Son is more heroic because he is willing to undergo voluntary humiliation, a sign of his consummate love for humankind. He foreknows that he will become incarnate in order to suffer death, a selfless act whereby humankind will be redeemed. By such an act, moreover, the Son fulfils what Milton calls the “great argument” of his poem: to “justify the ways of God to man,” as Milton writes in Book 1. Despite Satan’s success against Adam and Eve, the hope of regeneration after sinfulness is provided by Son’s self-sacrifice. Such hope and opportunity enable humankind to cooperate with the Godhead so as to defeat Satan, avoid damnation, overcome death, and ascend heavenward. Satan’s wiles, therefore, are thwarted by members of regenerate humankind who choose to participate in the redemptive act that the Son has undertaken on their behalf.

• Paradise Regained: 

                        

Paradise Regained

  

Paradise Regained hearkens back to the Book of Job, whose principal character is tempted by Satan to forgo his faith in God and to cease exercising patience and fortitude in the midst of ongoing and ever-increasing adversity. By adapting the trials of Job and the role of Satan as tempter and by integrating them with the accounts of Matthew and Luke of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, Milton dramatizes how Jesus embodies Christian heroism. Less sensational than that of Classical protagonists and not requiring military action for its manifestation, Christian heroism is a continuous reaffirmation of faith in God and is manifested in renewed prayer for patience and fortitude to endure and surmount adversities. By resisting temptations that pander to one’s impulses toward ease, pleasure, worldliness, and power, a Christian hero maintains a heavenly orientation that informs his actions. Satan as the tempter in Paradise Regained fails in his unceasing endeavours to subvert Jesus by various means in the wilderness. As powerful as the temptations may be, the sophistry that accompanies them is even more insidious.

In effect, Paradise Regained unfolds as a series of debates—an ongoing dialectic—in which Jesus analyzes and refutes Satan’s arguments. With clarity and cogency, Jesus rebuts any and all arguments by using the recta ratio, always informed by faith in God, his father. Strikingly evident also is Jesus’ determination, an overwhelming sense of resolve to endure any and all trials visited upon him. Though Paradise Regained lacks the vast scope of Paradise Lost, it fulfils its purpose admirably by pursuing the idea of Christian heroism as a state of mind. More so than Paradise Lost, it dramatizes the inner workings of the mind of Jesus, his perception, and the interplay of faith and reason in his debates with Satan. When Jesus finally dismisses the tempter at the end of the work, the reader recognizes that the encounters in Paradise Regained reflect a high degree of psychological verisimilitude. 

• Milton’s later years and death:

After the Restoration and despite jeopardy to himself, Milton continued to advocate freedom of worship and republicanism for England while he supervised the publication of his major poems and other works. For a time soon after the succession of Charles II, Milton was under arrest and menaced by possible execution for involvement in the regicide and in Cromwell’s government. Although the circumstances of clemency toward Milton are not fully known, it is likely that certain figures influential with the regime of Charles II—such as Christopher Milton, Andrew Marvell, and William Davenant—interceded on his behalf. The exact date and location of Milton’s death remain unknown; he likely died in London on November 8, 1674, from complications of gout. He was buried inside St. Giles Cripplegate Church in London.

• John Milton’s Style: 

Since Milton was famous for his unique style of blank verse and sonnets, he won the praise of the romantic poets for his skills. However, they did not accept his religious views. William Wordsworth opens his popular sonnet with “Milton! thou shouldn't be living at this hour.” John Keats was also a great admirer of Miltonic verse and advocated that “Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful or rather artist’s humour”. Keats also felt that his epic poem “Hyperion” was filled with several Miltonic inversions. During that time, poetic blank verse was thought to be a unique form of poetry rather than in drama verse.

In addition to the induction of stylish innovation of Milton, he also influenced later poets. Specifically, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot of the Victorian Age were greatly inspired by his poetry. Similarly, Milton was a great influence to Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot – two of the most famous 20th-century critics. Milton gave paramount importance to liberty of conscience and the Scriptures for guidance in faith-related matters. 

Milton continued his advocacy for republicanism and freedom of worship for England despite being in trouble himself after the Restoration. He himself supervised the publication of his major works and poems. Also, Milton was arrested for involvement in possible regicide while he was in Cromwell’s government.

Words count:- 3216

questions and answers novel Frankenstein

                  Hello everyone: This blog is our assignment task and in this blog, I am answering some questions from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein.   

                               

  

      Q- 1, why was victor not able to accept his dream experiment and its results? 

           Ans.    Victor was not able to accept his dream experiment because Immediately after bringing the Monster to life, Frankenstein feels overwhelmed by the Monster’s ugliness, so he attempts to find relief by going to sleep in the next room, where he sleeps is plagued by nightmares. When he awakes to find the Monster standing over him, smiling, Frankenstein rushes from the room, terrified, ashamed, and regretful for creating the Monster. Frankenstein reflects, “Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space now became a hell to me, and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!” and he has created the monster Frankenstein become even more alienated from the people around him because he can't tell anyone about his creation. So, victor was not able to accept his dream experiment. 

Q - 2, what made the creature a monster? 

               Ans.        The monster is Victor Frankenstein’s creation, assembled from old body parts and strange chemicals, animated by a mysterious spark. He enters life eight feet tall and enormously strong but with the mind of a newborn. Abandoned by his creator and confused, he tries to integrate himself into society, only to be shunned universally. Looking in the mirror, he realizes his physical grotesqueness, an aspect of his persona that blinds society to his initially gentle, kind nature. The monster was equal to all human beings but yet he was not accepted by society only because of his look. And this, again and again, rejection also by his own creator frustrated the creature and the fire of revenge glowed inside him. Seeking revenge on his creator, he kills Victor’s younger brother. After Victor destroys his work on the female monster meant to ease the monster’s solitude, the monster murders Victor’s best friend and then his new wife.

While Victor feels unmitigated hatred for his creation, the monster shows that he is not a purely evil being. The monster’s eloquent narration of events (as provided by Victor) reveals his remarkable sensitivity and benevolence. He assists a group of poor peasants and saves a girl from drowning, but because of his outward appearance, he is rewarded only with beatings and disgust. Torn between vengefulness and compassion, the monster ends up lonely and tormented by remorse. When victor does not accept the creature, he was also rejected by society and every moment perhaps the creature felt again and again and again that is why his father does not accept him. And that's why he was rejected from society. However, society rejects him to see his look or he has also stolen some food on the street. This action of people towards the creature and hit him he prepared his mind to against that world. And this behaviour perhaps made him a monster.  

Q - 3, .why society has rejected victor's idea of experiment and then the result of his experiment?

                   Ans: society had rejected victor's idea of experiment because it is breaking the canon of society. What victor was doing that is not acceptable by society and the law of nature, it was a time when electricity was newly invented. So people believed that they can do anything with electricity. Even they can create creature like monsters by combining different body parts and making them alive. But what victor created was terrible. He created a deformed and ugly monster. Which is quite unacceptable to society. 

Q - 4, can appearance overpower reality? 

           Ans:  No, appearance can not overpower reality. Because victor was looking well Educated, then even what he did was terrible. Whereas Monster, even though he had an ugly and deformed look, is innocent like a child. He was created by a monster what he asked while the narrative is amazing one should monster part of the story to get a deeper view of this. 

Q- 5, Villain in Frankenstein. 

       Ans: perspectivism plays a vital role in deciding who is a true villain in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. 

                              Anyone who reads a novel on surface-level May says that Monster is a real villain. Because it is the monster who ruins the life of victor. Monster murders all the near and close around victor, so he is a villain.  

                            But the beauty of literature is that even the monster's speech/ narrative is quite marvellous in the novel. When the narrative shifts to a monster at that time we realise that he is truly a pure soul. Victor is his father. He just demanded someone to live with and there is nothing wrong with so and then Monster is beaten by society, left alone by victor and whatnot. He pusses through an end number of miseries. 

                       At this time we have to think that who is the true villain? It is victor whom we should blame. Because after all, he is responsible for everything.

                     

Lockdown poem by Simon Armitage

This blog is written as a part of a thinking activity given by Dr Dilip Barad. This blog is about the poem lockdown written by Simon Armitage in which I am going to analyse the poem as suggested by sir.  

•   The pandemic has inspired people to pause and reflect : 

            Much is being written about this virus that “binds us, but holds us apart”. People have taken to verse to express their new realities and the internet abounds with poetry — on this new lifestyle that has taught us not to take anything for granted, this new quietude we are very unused to.

covid19 poetry is trending on social media. Instagram has poets’ communities from around the world versifying by the minute about the challenges the virus has thrown up — isolation, quarantine, sickness and loneliness. Many, however, also look at it as an opportunity to slow down and savour life, one day at a time. 

                                                                                                                    

                          Simon Armitage  

  English poet, playwright, novelist and DJ, Armitage has been Poet Laureate since May 2019. His strong concern with social issues has led him to create poetry such as Out of the Blue, focused on the tragic 9/11 attacks, and Lockdown, centred on the pandemic caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. 

After teaching as Professor of Poetry at the Universities of Sheffield (2011 – 2015) and Oxford (2015-2019), he is currently teaching at the University of Leeds and in 2019 he was appointed Poet Laureate, i.e. the official poet of Britain, expected to write poems celebrating official occasions, national events etc. As such he has written Conquistadores, to commemorate the 1969 moon landing, Finishing it, a 51-word poem engraved on a pill, written to aid cancer research, All Right as part of the suicide prevention campaign for Mental Health Awareness Week and many more, including the very recent and painfully topical Lockdown. He believes that poetry is “by definition consoling” because “it often asks us just to focus and think and be contemplative”. Thus he felt it his duty to say something about the here and now, addressing directly the coronavirus and the lockdown slowly implemented across the whole world.   

" Lockdown " first published in The Guardian on 21 March 2020, is a response to the coronavirus pandemic and reference the Derbyshire " plague village "of Eyam, which self - isolated in 1665 to limit the spread of the Great Plague of London, and the Sanskrit poem " Meghaduta " by Kalidasa, in which a cloud carries a message from an exile to his distant wife. 

 

• Lockdown by Simon Armitage :

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream

of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth

by the tailor’s hearth

in ye olde Eyam.

Then couldn’t un-see

the Boundary Stone,

that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,  

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine

purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry story

of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,  

star-crossed lovers on either side

of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river

till she came no longer.  

Confined at home in West Yorkshire, Armitage said that “as the lockdown became more apparent and it felt like the restrictions were closing in, the plague in Eyam became more and more resonant”. Thus the poem opens with a “waking dream” set in the Derbyshire village of Eyam, known as the «plague village» in the 17th century when a bale of cloth from London brought infected fleas there. The villagers selflessly quarantined themselves to limit the spread of the plague and among the measures they adopted was “the Boundary Stone,” a rock which acted as a marker between Eyam, widely infected, and nearby Stoney Middleton which had not been hit. The stone had “six dark holes” drilled into its surface “brimming with vinegar wine purging the plagued coins” offered by the villagers in exchange for food and medical supplies brought to them by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. The themes of separation and distance emerge through “the sorry story” of “two star-crossed lovers on either side of the quarantine line” who met secretly at a distance “till she came no longer” having fallen foul of the disease…  

                      

                                          But slept again,

   and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word

to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map

of camel trails and cattle tracks,  

streams like necklaces,

fan-tailed peacocks painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads

of meadows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,

waterfalls, creeks,

the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes

and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

the air

hypnotically see-through, rare, 

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow

but necessarily so.

 The dream shifts from England to India when Armitage references Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa’s work, Meghadūta, in which an exile uses a passing cloud to send a message of comfort to his wife. The cloud is persuaded to take the message because of the amazing landscapes and scenery it will soar over: “fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants, embroidered bedspreads of meadows and hedges, bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks, waterfalls, creeks… "

                                                    

      A hopeful, romantic gesture, that of the cloud which makes the “meeting” between the exile and his wife possible, albeit only virtual, and opens the way to an optimistic ending for us, living the pandemic today: the journey we have unwillingly undertaken is certainly a “ponderous one at times, long and slow but necessarily so”. We need to accept and endure while we wait for the time in which it will be possible to meet again and exchange a real, physical embrace at long last. 

Poetry is “by definition consoling” because “it often asks us just to focus and think and be contemplative”, said Armitage.

“Poetry is often about detail, even to the point where there’s just something sacramental in the ordinary descriptions of everyday life,” he said. “It’s unlikely that there’s going to be a book of poems that are consolation against catastrophe, but just in poetry’s nature, in the way it asks us to be considerate of language, it also asks us to be considerate of each other and the world. In the relationship with thoughtful language, something more thoughtful occurs.”

The two “vision[s] in a dream”, instead, recall S. T. Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, not only in that both poems focus on fragments of something which is not yet complete or completed, dreamlike and hallucinatory in its tone, but also in the underlying message about human fragility and limits. Coleridge’s poem can be read as an extended metaphor about the power of creativity which is limited, fragile, and quickly lost while Armitage’s poem can be seen as an invitation to recognize man’s structural limits and frailties, today as in the past, here as elsewhere. We may act as if we are in control on the surface but we need to come to terms with our innate weaknesses.

A message of patience, as opposed to the frantic rhythm of life we are often used to, is what Armitage believes can be learned with regard to dealing with the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. “We need to take things slowly, be patient, respect and trust the Earth: only this way our society may emerge from the pandemic slightly slower, and a lot wiser, at the other end.” If what counts now is to trudge on and never give up, despite everything, once all this is passed it will be vital not to lose our memory of what we experienced, or, worse still, file it away and go back to where we were. If we want to make sense of this pandemic, this is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it, from shaping all our thinking around the economy to slowing down and reconnecting with our fellowmen.

 ( Word count: 1300 )

Movie review : victor Frankenstein 1994

Victor Frankenstein: movie review 

This is a part of my classroom activity of Victor Frankenstein: movie screening.

  

•    Directed by - Kenneth  Branagh 
• Screenplay by -  Steph Lady,  Frank Darabont 
• Based on - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 
• Produced by - Francis Ford Coppola,  James v. Hart, John Veitch 
• Starring - Robert De Niro 
•               - Kenneth Branagh 
•               Tom Hulce 
•            Helena Bonham Carter 
• Cinematography - Roger Pratt 
• Music by - Patrik Doyle 
• Release date - November 3, 1994 ( London Film Festival ) 

Frankenstein movie is directed by Kenneth Branagh. The movie got released in 1994. The movie is based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Frankenstein" is an underrated version of the classic story. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the dramatic story was not well accepted by professional critics and by many viewers.

In 1794, in the Arctic Sea, Captain Robert Walton (Aidan Quinn) is a man obsessed to reach the North Pole, pushing his crew to exhaustion. When his ship hits an iceberg, she is stranded in the ice. Out of the blue, Captain Walton and his men overhear a dreadful cry and they see a stranger coming to the ship. He introduces himself as Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) and he tells to the captain the story of his life since he was a little boy in Geneva. 

Victor is a brilliant student and in love with his stepsister Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), an orphan that was raised by his father Baron Frankenstein (Ian Holm). In 1793, Victor moves to Ingolstadt to join the university and he promises to get married to Elizabeth. In school, Victor befriends Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce) that becomes his best friend. Victor gets close to Professor Waldman (John Cleese) and decides to create life to cheat death, but Waldman advises him that he should not try this experiment since the result would be an abomination. When Waldman dies, Victor steals his notes and tries to create life. He succeeds and gives life to a strong Creature (Robert De Niro), composed of parts of deceased persons. However, he realizes that his experiment is a mistake and he abandons The Creature expecting that it could die alone. however The Creature survives and learns how to read and write, but he is a monster rejected by society and by his own creator. The Creature decides to revenge on Victor killing everyone that he loves. 

                  

Victor, who believes the creature to be dead from the cholera epidemic, returns to Geneva to marry Elizabeth. He finds his younger brother William has been murdered Justine, a servant of the Frankenstein household, is inadvertently framed for the crime by the creature and hanged by a lynch mob before her trial. 

The creature abducts Victor and demands that he make a companion for him, promising to leave his creator in peace in return. Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists that he use Justine's body to make the companion, Victor breaks his promise and the creature exacts his revenge, strangling Victor's father and tearing out Elizabeth's heart. Victor and the creature fight for Elizabeth's affections, but Elizabeth, horrified by what she has become, commits suicide by setting herself on fire. Both Victor and the creature escape as the mansion burns down. 

The story returns to the Arctic. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months to kill him. Soon after relating his story, Victor dies from pneumonia. Walton discovers the creature weeping over Victor's body, confessing that for all of his hatred, he still considers Victor to be his "father." The crew prepares a funeral pyre, but the ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship cracks. Walton invites the creature to stay with the ship, but the creature insists on remaining with the pyre. He takes the torch and burns himself alive with Victor's body. Walton, having seen the consequences of Victor's obsession, orders the ship to return home. 

The monster has always been the true subject of the Frankenstein story, and Kenneth Branagh's new retelling understands that. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" has all of the usual props of the Frankenstein films, brought to a fever pitch: The dark and stormy nights, the lightning bolts, the charnel houses of spare body parts, the laboratory where Victor Frankenstein stirs his steaming cauldron of life. But the centre of the film, quieter and more thoughtful, contains the real story.

And he is thoughtful: "Yes, I speak, and read, and think, and know the ways of man," he says, with an echo of Caliban. And he asks, "What of my soul? Do I have one? What if these people of which I am composed?" The whole issue of the Branagh film is concentrated here: Has Frankenstein created a monster or a man? De Niro brings real pathos to the role, and there is agony when he asks the scientist, "Did you ever consider the consequences of your actions?" And his loneliness is palpable: "For the sympathy of one living being I would make peace with all." But the film surrounding these scenes is less satisfactory. The movie is bracketed with an unnecessary prologue and epilogue, taken from the original novel, during which an Arctic expedition encounters FrankensteinThe Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered. and his monster wandering far from home on the frozen wastes.

   Thank you

Khodidas Parmar art Gallery

  29 September 2021 

  Sunday reading task: Visit to an Art Gallery: Ajanta Exhibition

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 Art gallery: Ajanta Exhibition 

         

  The art gallery is magnificent and has moreover a full time dedication to real art. I love that gallery so much as it always welcomes new art. That gallery is really big and has more attention from the people who are looking for some cool art. The KHODIDAS Parmar was also a great painter and have more over collection located there. I personally love that art. The atmosphere is so positive and the people who came there were also knowledgeable people of that particular art form.

• Khodidas Parmar    

Born: July 31,1930
Died: March 2004.

                 Khodidas Parmar was born on July 31, 1930, and was the only son of a poor Karadia Rajput family. He was named after the goddess Khodiyar as the family thought of him being a gift from the goddess after many daughters.  

             Though hailing from a poor family, his parents were determined for him to get a good education. He did his M.A. with Gujarati and Sanskrit, learnt painting even as he studied and went on to become a guide to students doing doctoral research on folk literature for their Ph. D. He was trained in art by Guru Somalal Shah from 1948 – 1951 whom he met at the Alfred High school.

              A recipient of several awards, he has participated in several group shows and his works are a part of several permanent collections like the Museum of Modern Art and National Art Gallery, New Delhi. Parmar passed away in March 2004 in Bhavnagar.

 

Ajanta caves:-  

The Buddhist Caves in Ajanta are approximately 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments dating from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state in India. The caves include paintings and rock-cut sculptures described as among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly expressive paintings that present emotions through gesture, pose and form.

              

                The caves were built in two phases, the first starting around the 2nd century BCE and the second occurring from 400 to 650 CE, according to older accounts, or in a brief period of 460–480 CE according to later scholarship. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Ajanta Caves

                         The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries and worship-halls of different Buddhist traditions carved into a 75-metre (246 ft) wall of rock. The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha, pictorial tales from Aryasura's Jatakamala, and rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities. While vivid colours and mural wall-painting were abundant in Indian history as evidenced by historical records, Caves 16, 17, 1 and 2 of Ajanta form the largest corpus of surviving ancient Indian wall-painting. 

             "The second phase of paintings started around 5th–6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". According to Spink, the construction activity at the incomplete Ajanta Caves was abandoned by wealthy patrons in about 480 CE, a few years after the death of  Harishena. The Ajanta caves are mentioned in the 17th-century text Ain-i-Akbari by Abu al-Fazl, as twenty-four rock-cut temples each with remarkable idols. 

• Paintings:- 

                   

Life circles of Lord Buddha

 The paintings in the Ajanta caves have previous births of the Buddha. These fables embed ancient morals and cultural lores that are also found in the fable ses and legends of Hindu and Jain texts. The Jataka tales are exemplified through the life example and sacrifices that the Buddha made in hundreds of his past incarnations, where he is depicted as having been reborn as an animal or human. The Ajanta frescos are classical paintings and the work of confident artists, without cliches, rich and full. They are luxurious, sensuous and celebrate physical beauty, aspects that early Western observers felt were shockingly out of place in these caves presumed to be meant for religious worship and ascetic monastic life. 

 

•   Tathagata:

The image of Tathagata

   Tathāgata is a Pali word; Gautama Buddha uses it when referring to himself or other Buddhas in the Pāli Canon. The term is often thought to mean either "one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata), "one who has thus come" (tathā-āgata), or sometimes "one who has thus not gone" (tathā-Agata). This is interpreted as signifying that the Tathāgata is beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena. There are, however, other interpretations and the precise original meaning of the word is not certain. 

The Buddha is quoted on numerous occasions in the Pali Canon as referring to himself as the Tathāgata instead of using the pronouns me, I or myself. This may be meant to emphasize by implication that the teaching is uttered by one who has transcended the human condition, one beyond the otherwise endless cycle of rebirth and death, i.e. beyond dukkha. 

Just as tathata designates true reality in general, so the word which developed into "Tathagata  " designated the true self, the true reality within man. 

• The image on later painting other arts:- 

Impact on later painting and other arts Edit

The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka. Some influences from Ajanta have also been suggested in the Kizil Caves of the Tarim Basin, in particular in early caves such as the Peacock Cave.

The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists with examples from ancient India to follow. Nandalal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore and Syed Thajudeen also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.

Anna Pavlova's ballet Ajanta's Frescoes was inspired by her visit to Ajanta, choreographed by Ivan Clustine, with music by Nikolai Tcherepnin (one report says Mikhail Fokine in 1923). and premiered at Covent Garden in 1923.

Jewish American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote about the caves in "Ajanta," the opening poem of her third collection Beast in View (1944). Rukeyser was inspired in part by writings on the caves by artist Mukul Dey in 1925 and art historian Stella Kramrisch in 1937.

•  Other painting of the art Gallery:- 

This is a small piece of information about the Ajanta caves and the Khodidas Parmar art gallery and his paintings. And the best experience of the art Exhibition.

 (1066: words )