Summary of literary texts and key concepts of literature

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 ‘ Boer war.’ We

  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 lonely

  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 basically '

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