Summary of literary texts and key concepts of literature

"Still I Rise" is an empowering poem about the struggle to overcome prejudice and injustice. It is one of Maya Angelou's most popular poems. When read by victims of wrongdoing, the poem becomes a kind of anthem, a beacon of hope for the oppressed and downtrodden.It is a reminder of the abuse of power by those who sit in government, the judiciary, the military, and the police force. For members of the public, it sends out the clear, repeated message of hope. No matter the circumstances, there must always be hope to cling to. Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shou...

The eponymous protagonist of Christopher Marlowe’s remarkable tragedy, Doctor Faustus is a tragic hero of contradictory characteristics, like grandiloquence, vaulting ambition, and unusual, even deliberate myopic vision and a propensity to squander powers achieved at the expense of bartering his soul to the devil. When the character is first introduced in the play, he is aspiring to be a musician. The introduction of the Chorus is imbued with the premonition of the ominous future of Doctor Faustus, but when Faustus cogitates on the wondrous deeds, he is about to accomplish with his magnificent powers, it appears glorious .He reflects on the prospect of acquiring wealth from all over the world, and envisages reconstructing the boundaries of the European countries, and availing access to the vast knowledge existing in the world about the entire universe. Faustus may be a presumptuous and megalomaniac, but his ambitions are very impressive and the reader is compelled to sympathize with hi...

Dopdi Mejhen is the female protagonist of Mahasweta Devi’s Bengali short story, Draupadi, which was translated in English by Gayatri Chakravorty. The name Dopdi (actually pronounced Draupadi) is given intentionally, by the author as an allusion to the mythological female character Draupadi, the wife of the Pandava brothers in the epic, Mahabharata. The story also alludes to the heinous act of the disrobing of Draupadi, a shameful incident that occurred in front of wise men and valiant warriors.Dopdi is a santhal widow of 27 years.Her husband, Dulna Majhi was shot dead by the soldiers.She is the resident of Cherakhan, Bankrahjarh. Dopdi is a tribal woman who belongs to the group of rebels whom the government attempts to subjugate by apprehending, torturing, encounter killing, and rape by the soldiers. She is one of the most wanted rebels, according to the soldiers. A handsome reward of hundred rupees will be awarded to whoever provides any information or assistance in the arrest of Dopd...

Hemingway’s hero possesses some characteristics which define the character of the hero in most of Hemingway’s literary work. Most essential characteristics of such a hero are courage, confidence, resilience, fearlessness and introspection. His heroes are exceptional, maybe young or old and each of them is introduced differently along with their heroic qualities. Unlike conventional heroes, Hemingway’s hero remains resilient and graceful in misfortune and adversity. Hemingway’s code hero is the epitome of stoicism. A unique example of such a hero is Santiago, from The Old Man and the Sea. The word code implies a code of conduct. These codes include ideals like honour, courage, resilience in a violent, chaotic, topsy turvy world of the hero. The hero acts with honour and grace grasping only his will power and finally emerges as a winner. He proves his worth by defeating destiny sometimes by challenging or accepting it. His predicament can be best described with the phrase ‘grace under ...

  Translation Project:  The mythological character of Draupadi is reinvented to produce a counter-narrative by deploying the female body and sexuality as the locus of resistance. While translating this piece written by Mahasweta Devi, Gayatri Spivak Chakraborty may have been influenced by her own subaltern discourse in her groundbreaking essay, Can a Subaltern Speak?  In her essay, Spivak substantiates her answer to the question using Marxist theory and Derrida’s deconstructionist methods. Spivak’s essay challenges the notion of colonial subject and exemplifies the boundaries of the capability of Western discourse, in order to interrelate with incongruent cultures. Spivak justifies the fact that this project is destined to fail, not because the subaltern cannot speak words or produce sentences. The subaltern cannot speak because her speech lacks authority, and it is not heard or accepted politically and socially. In the translator’s forewords, she declares, that it appe...

Introduction: The issue of identity in the postcolonial context is a problematic concept which has been further complicated by continuous inclusion of ideas like hybrid nation, constitution of countries with various cultural diversities, migration, transculturation, and other ramifications of the postcolonial phenomenon..The question of identity in the postcolonial world emerged obviously due to the sense of urgency felt on the part of the postcolonial writers to construct their own identity and share experiences from their perspective. Often times their identity appears to be instrumental in accentuating their discourse. In Mamang Dai’s creative writings, the politics of identity has been manifested in myriads of ways. Post colonialism: The term postcolonial refers to the era when colonies of European countries were emancipated from the long colonial rule. Bill Ashcroft and et al in The Empire Writes Back, defines, ‘ more than three quarter of the people living in the world today ha...

The Development of English Drama during the Romantic Age (1800-1850) The Romantic era was not fertile for the production of stage drama. Why? That is a matter of conjecture .Some critics believe that drama was neglected during this period due to the dearth of ideas among the contemporary dramatists. A new genre of Drama evolved mainly from the trend of romantic poetry which was popularly known as the Closet Drama .A Closet Drama is written in a dramatic form, with dialogue indicating stage direction and settings. The author writes it with the intention that people should read it rather than seeing the performance. Lord Byron’s Manfred (1817), Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820) are some honourable mentions in this context. It will be surprising to know that Shelley, Byron and Keats also wrote for stage but were later discouraged by the lukewarm response of the audience. Among all the works done during the age, perhaps Shelley’s The Cenci is the best produced work. Apart from Closet...

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in Europe by the end of the 18th century. Romantic literature was characterized by features like, shift in sensibility and feeling, love for nature, primitive and uncivilized way of life, more like vast, untamed, disorderly manifestations of nature, affinity towards expressing intense subjective feelings and the emerging concepts of the Sublime and the Noble Savage. Romanticism exhibits interest in the exotic, distant land. It has a nostalgia for the idealized past, commitment to political and social freedom and yearning to return to nature, use intuition and imagination to express intensely personal feelings. During the Romantic period, the concept of the Sublime was used to connote a surpassing excellence. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) contributed to thinking on the subject of the Sublime. The distinction between the beautiful ...

Romanticism exhibits interest in the exotic, distant land. It has a nostalgia for the idealized past, commitment to political and social freedom and yearning to return to nature, use intuition and imagination to express intensely personal feelings. During the Romantic period, the concept of Sublime was used to connote a surpassing excellence. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) contributed to thinking on the subject of Sublime. The distinction between the beautiful and the sublime is ,as Burke puts it, The former is associated with brightness, smoothness and smallness, the later with the infinite, solitude, emptiness, darkness and terror. The sublime is associated with powerful emotions, along with spiritual and religious awe, with vastness and immensity, with the natural order of its grander manifestations. Whatever Burke said about terror and the inspiration of terror had a considerable influence on the Gothic n...

  ECONOMIC PROJECT AT THE HEART OF IMPERIALISM:  Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness presents a picturesque narration of the prevalent colonial practices. Although Conrad never explicitly criticizes the system, or the imperialistic system in the manner which was necessary, but simultaneously the poignant depiction of the disastrous experiences of the natives of Congo, as a result of colonial invasion in the novella.   Co nrad told his publisher in 1899, that the idea of the novella was the ‘criminality of insufficiency and pure selfishness when tackling the ‘civilizing work of Africa’ and the ‘subject of our time distinctly’ though ‘not topically treated.’ Beatrice Webb noted in her diary, about the novella, on 25 th June 1897, ‘Imperialism is in the air!-all classes drunk with sightseeing and hysterical loyalty, and it was this atmosphere which bent Conrad’s art in the direction of colonialism in Africa and which somewhat later provoked him to attack the ‘idiotic ‘ ...

  Flash fiction is a new genre of literature, which can be defined as an extremely short story. It is also known as, microfiction, postcard fiction, napkin fiction, microstories, nano tales, sudden fiction. Though this genre is relatively new in literature, it has its origin in fables, parables, Zen stories which were in vogue from the 7 th to 13 th century. Brevity is the most required characteristic of this genre. Though there is no standard word limit for Flash fiction, generally, it is supposed to range from six words to 1000 words. The soul of Flash fiction is the twisted ending that comes as a surprise to the reader and urges him to interpret the true meaning concealed within the text. The given Flash fiction is a classic example of this genre. Franz Kafka’s Give it up qualifies as flash fiction for its brevity which is one of the important features of this genre. It is indeed a condensed short story. The brilliant use of language is also commendable. The scene of the lon...

  The classic crime fiction's golden era concentrated on the detailed process of untangling the knots of mystery or the act of ratiocination but lacked the art of detailed character delineation. Most of the characters were either stereotypes or caricatures. For instance, the detached and taciturn detective, the parade of suspects, the servants, who are never involved in the crime, or never turn out to be the convict, female characters in a conventionalized role were the characters, the readers were familiar to particularly in the case of the detective novel of that era. According to E.M Forster, characters in a novel are of two types, flat character, and round character. A flat character is a character, which tends to remain in the reader’s mind and leaves a lasting impression. Such characters, also defined as a humorous characters in the seventeenth century, basically stereotype or sometimes caricatures, who are constructed as mere functionaries and not characterized at all, as Fo...

  Dharma and Moksha is an essay written by J.A.B Van Buitenen which was published in a journal named, Philosophy East and West, Vol-7, in April-June issue, 1957. (pp33-40)   The essay is an elaborate discussion on the question, ‘what is the distinction between dharma values and moksha values.’ To find the answer to the question, Van Buitenen extensively discusses the historical background in which these two terms dharma and moksha originated. In his first argument, he mentions the concept of after-life and spirituality, ideas which are probably in every religion and culture, associated with the concept of heaven and hell. Other concepts of Brahma and samsara are particularly exclusive to Hinduism and Buddhism. In the ancient Indian religious texts, it is also mentioned that the soul passes its journey from one life to another on the basis of the acts performed in previous lives. He explains the idea of ‘moksha’ in his second argument, where he explains that moksha is basica...

Tracing the Roots of the Detective Fiction: The first instance of the prototype of a detective appeared most probably in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, where the most important classical detective is Oedipus, the protagonist, whose dual roles as an investigator and subsequently as revealed criminal, exemplify the obliterating boundary between morality and immorality, order and anarchy, with which the subsequent detective fiction managed to capture the reader’s interest. Definitely, Oedipus is the precursor to the modern detective as the way he directs the meticulous investigation to unravel the identity of the perpetrator. Similar conjectures can be made about the character of Daniel in the story of Susanna in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, and mythical larcenist Cacus who features in the work of several writers, including Virgil. Another work of a similar trajectory is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It follows a similar mystery-driven narrative of modern detective fiction. Hamlet initiates...

  According to Brooks, Wordsworth’s sonnet, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, is one of the most successful poems of the poet. The true potential of the poem lies in the paradoxical situation designed by the poet, where the mechanical London is not only considered a marvel of man’s creation but also assimilated as an aspect of nature. The spectacle of mechanical urban life elicits the expression of ‘awed surprise’ from the poet. The beauty of the rising sun, the river, the smokeless air, and other objects of nature have been enhanced by the presence of artificial towers, domes, theatres, and temples. It is also interesting to note that the poet has imparted the organic life of nature to the mechanical and inanimate objects of the city when he writes-‘Dear God! The very houses seem asleep.’ Wordsworth had mastered the art of creating a paradoxical situation in his poems, as he himself mentioned in the second edition of his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, that the purpose of a poet i...

    Cleanth Brooks   (October 16, 1906 - May 10, 1994) was an influential American literary critic, professor, editor of the Southern Review, (in collaboration with Robert Penn Warren). He was one of the skilled and exemplary practitioners of the New Criticism. He is best known for his contributions to  New Criticism  during the 1920s and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. His most characteristic book of close readings is, definitely, The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry  (1947).  Modern Poetry and the Tradition  (1939), is another outstanding work that proclaims the centrality of ambiguity and paradox as a way of understanding poetry. His critical works helped to formulate formalist criticism, emphasizing “the interior life of a poem” and propounded the idea of close reading.   ‘The Language of Paradox’, is the first chapter of Cleanth Brooks’  Well-wro...

  The poem, Small Towns and the River by Mamang Dai expresses the poet’s notion about the uncomplicated life   in the “Small Towns” of Arunachal Pradesh. The phrase “The River” refers to the river that flows through Pasighat, the hometown of the poet. The poet starts the poem in a pensive mood asserting the fact that the river always reminds her of death. Her hometown resides amid the serenity of nature surrounded by huge trees. The climate of the place remains almost the same during summer and winter. The dust hovers in the air and the wind resonates through the valley of the mountain. When someone died the other day, the community endured the pain and mourned the loss of a dear one in ‘dreadful silence.’ Life and death form the cycle of human life and death is inevitable. Only the rituals and customs of a community are permanent, like offering a wreath of tuberoses to honour the deceased.  The poet imagines that the river has a soul. In summer, it cuts through the d...

  About the poet: Mamang Dai(1957-present) is a poet and novelist writing in English from Arunachal Pradesh, India. She belongs to the Adi tribe, of Arunachal Pradesh. Her literary works include romantic poems and short stories along with provincial myths and folktales. She was  honoured with Padma Shri, in 2011.The prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award was conferred on her for her novel, The Black Hill, in 2017.Dai was corresponding with the  Hindustan Times ,  Telegraph  and  The Sentinel  newspapers and later became the President, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working journalists. She is also actively engaged with World Wide Fund for nature in the Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspots programme. Bipin Patsani once commented on her graceful, lyrical style of writing in River Poems, that dai writes with ‘rare passion and flow, fresh and full of the essence of tribal myths, mountains and an intense emotional involvement with her land.’ Y.D. Thongchi, the pr...

  Humanism is, specifically, an European phenomenon, that includes worldly and secular philosophy. It is anthropocentric. It aims to ennoble and dignify man. It was the product of European Renaissance. The term ‘Renaissance ‘was coined by French historian, Jules Michelet in his Historie de France , published in 1855.It has been defined as the birth of the new world of culture, literature, art and science out of the dilapidated remains of   the dark medieval ages. In the 16 th century, the term humanism was coined to signify studia humanitatis. The humanists were concerned with moral, educational and political themes. They were influenced by classical ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero. Later in the 19 th century the term was applied to denote the view of general nature, general values, and educational ideas to which the Renaissance Humanists espoused to.(M.H.Abrams) . The humanists were scholars of literae humaniores, precisely, the Greek literature, and they were Latin poets...

  In his Poetics, Aristotle defined tragic hero as a person, who is an ‘intermediate kind of personage, a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however,   is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but some error of judgement’( Bywater’s translation). Oedipus enjoys great reputation and a prosperous life. But his life takes a drastic turn from happiness to misery.Oedipus suffers primarily, due to an error of judgement resulted from ignorance or moral shortcoming. In his Poetics, Aristotle asserts that the tragic hero ought to be a person whose misfortune is brought upon him, not by any vice or depravity, but by some error. Oedipus impulsively kills his father and inadvertently ends up marrying his mother.