Section A: Perspectives
Answer any SIX of the following in about 150 words: (6x5=30)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6
7.
8.
9.
Section B – Perspectives
Answer any THREE of the following in about 250-300 words: (3x10=30)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
2.
3.
4. Comprehension Passage
Friday, March 20, 2009
II Sem General English End SEM Question paper Pattern
World Literature End-Sem Examination - Question Paper Pattern and Guidelines for Answers
Question Paper pattern
Instructions
i) Answer any 5 of the following in 400-500 words. choosing one compulsorily from each section (A,B, C, D). The 5th essay may be from any section.
ii)Your answers must have a thesis statement that aptly reflects your argument.
Section A: Poetry
Section B: Novel
Section C: Essays
Section D: Drama
----
I have spoken to the question bank in-charge and evaluators concerned and following is the guideline for answering.
1. Before you start answering, please jot down your thoughts in points format in the beginning of the answer. And then develop the answers.
2. Answer the question asked. Look closely if the question is asking you to defend the statement made, to discuss, elucidate, or trace the history. Accordingly develop your answers.
3. Every answer must have a thesis statement which should reflect your central argument.
If there any clarifications you wish to seek, please feel free to key them in the comment section below.
Instructions
i) Answer any 5 of the following in 400-500 words. choosing one compulsorily from each section (A,B, C, D). The 5th essay may be from any section.
ii)Your answers must have a thesis statement that aptly reflects your argument.
Section A: Poetry
Section B: Novel
Section C: Essays
Section D: Drama
----
I have spoken to the question bank in-charge and evaluators concerned and following is the guideline for answering.
1. Before you start answering, please jot down your thoughts in points format in the beginning of the answer. And then develop the answers.
2. Answer the question asked. Look closely if the question is asking you to defend the statement made, to discuss, elucidate, or trace the history. Accordingly develop your answers.
3. Every answer must have a thesis statement which should reflect your central argument.
If there any clarifications you wish to seek, please feel free to key them in the comment section below.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Works of Cha. Fra. - A Study
Following is the link to the report of the UGC Minor Research Project I had done on a Konkani playwright and poet Cha. Fra. (Charles Francis D'Costa) between 2005 and 2008 -Works of Cha. Fra.: A Study. The study happens to the first formal research in Konkani literature in Kannada Script. I also used the research outcome to write my MPhil thesis entitled Konkani Christian Psyche in the Plays of Cha. Fra.: A Semiotic Study.
Pinto, Anil. Works of Cha. Fra.:A Study. Research Report. University Grants Commission. New Delhi. 2008.
Works of Cha. Fra.: A Study by Anil Joseph Pinto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at anilpinto.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://anilpinto.blogspot.com/search?q=works+of+cha.+fra..
Pinto, Anil. Works of Cha. Fra.:A Study. Research Report. University Grants Commission. New Delhi. 2008.
Works of Cha. Fra.: A Study by Anil Joseph Pinto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at anilpinto.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://anilpinto.blogspot.com/search?q=works+of+cha.+fra..
Monday, March 16, 2009
The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad: Admissions 2009
The Courses on Offer for the Academic year 2009-2010
-Five-year Integrated M.A. in English, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Mass Communication and Journalism. (Eligibility: Intermediate/10+2.Those who wish to apply for foreign language programmes need not possess any knowledge of the language concerned.)
- Two-year M.A. Programmes in English, Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish and Japanese.
- B. Ed in English
- Post Graduate Diploma in the Teaching of English (PGDTE)
- Post Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of English (PGCTE)
- Post Graduate Diploma in the Teaching of Arabic (PGDTA)
- MPhil and PhD in Linguistics & Phonetics, English Language Education, English
Literature, Cultural Studies, Comparative Philosophy and Aesthetics, Comparative Literature, Translation studies, Media and Communications, Mass Communication and Journalism, Film Studies and Visual Communications, Hindi Literature, French, Arabic, German, Russian.
Accommodation:
Selected candidates will be provided accommodation and mess facility with a nominal room rent and mess fee.
NB: Students of the B.Ed programme may not be provided accommodation, but can avail
themselves of the mess facility in the hostels.
Reservations
Scheduled Castes 15%
Scheduled Tribes 7.5%
OBC - As per Government of India/UGC rules applicable to Central Universities
Physically/Visually challenged candidates - 3%
Kashmiri migrants 1%
Wards of Defense Personnel - 1%
Fee Concessions
a) No tuition fee shall be charged from SC/ST students. In addition, they can also expect free accommodation and a stipend up to Rs. 1000/- per month towards other expenses.
b) Differently-abled (physically challenged) students will be exempted from payment of all fees.
c) All needy students (economically backward), if they apply and make a case for assistance, will be given adequate stipends for meeting a major portion of the expenses on board and lodging.
Scholarships/Fellowships
a) All MPhil and PhD students will be getting a fellowship of Rs. 3000/- and Rs. 5000/- respectively per month, if they are not recipients of other scholarships. (This fellowship is likely to be enhanced in the current academic year).
b) MPhil and PhD students belonging to SC and ST categories are eligible to apply for the UGC sponsored Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship. The selected candidates will get a sum of Rs.12,000/- per month in addition to Rs. 3600/- towards House Rent Allowance (HRA), every month.
Admission to all courses will be based on entrance tests held across the country. Interested candidates can send a mail to eflutalentsearch@gmail.com or a self-addressed envelope (5x11size) with a postage stamp of Rs. 10/ pasted on it to Dr. A. Hariprasad, Chief Coordinator, EFL-U Talent Search 2009, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad - 500605. The candidates will be intimated on further details regarding admissions. Kindly mention on top of the envelope or in the mail, the course you wish to apply for, and the category (SC, ST, OBC, etc.) in case you are
entitled to avail yourself of any reservation. The last date for receiving requests will be April 20, 2009.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Arms and the Man chat class
It was decided to have Arms of the Man discussion on yahoochat at 4 pm today (Sunday). However, some felt that I should have it tomorrow at 4. What do you feel. I am keen on having it today, instead of tomorrow. But if majority of you feels that it should be tomorrow, that should be fine. Please indicate your preferences in the comments section below by 12 noon today. Will clarify by 12.30 pm. My yahoo id is : ajpinto42@yahoo.co.in.
since, many were absent yesterday, can you inform all your classmates, either through sms or emial?
Since there are only three responses, I will have the chat session at 4 today (sunday)
since, many were absent yesterday, can you inform all your classmates, either through sms or emial?
Since there are only three responses, I will have the chat session at 4 today (sunday)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Lacan and 'A Doll's House'
Notes by Kanasu, III yr FEP
The Four Kinds of Discourses of Lacan.
The Four Kinds of Discourses of Lacan.
- Discourse of the Master
- Discourse of the University
- Discourse of the Analyst
- Discourse of the Hysteric
Each of these discourses is characterized by an equation. The numerator on the left hand side of the equation holds the most dominant position, and it constantly endeavors to achieve the will of the numerator on the right hand side of the subject.
Each of these discourses is characterized by an equation. The numerator on the left hand side of the equation holds the most dominant position, and it constantly endeavors to achieve the will of the numerator on the right hand side of the subject.
The S2 stands for opposite of the conscious subject (the other of the conscious subject) and is always trying to usurp the position of S1.
$ stands for the unconscious subject.
a stands for the object that wants or needs to be possessed. It is the object of desire. It is something that can never be fathomed but will always be longed for.
1. Discourse of the Master
In the master’s discourse, the conscious subject is the master, and what he says becomes the dominant discourse. The unconscious subject is pushed down, and the master’s discourse is constantly absorbed by S2. Here, the master’s discourse is accepted without question.
Here, you accept the other as it is. The concept becomes more important than the unconscious subject. The unconscious subject is pushed to the last position. No suppressed feelings or ideologies are encouraged in this discourse. It is least important. There is a constant endeavor to understand the concept, ‘a’ in this discourse. Moreover, the knowledge becomes more important than the person seeking the knowledge itself.
3. Discourse of the Analyst
In the discourse of the analyst, the unconscious is not confronted face to face. However, the unconscious is not suppressed but asked to open up to the analyst. The conscious subject S1 is pushed to the last position. Here, there is no ideology that is being mapped onto the unconscious. It is only an attempt to discover the unconscious.
4. Discourse of the Hysteric
Here, the unconscious subject comes to the dominant position. The dominant position becomes important and almost becomes the conscious subject. The structures of S1 and
S2 are not recognized. The unconscious does not recognize the structure of S1 or S2 which are both part of patriarchy (in the case of Doll’s House). It is least bothered about the other.
Is Doll’s House then, a woman’s play?
Reference:
Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Is there a Woman's Play. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 07 Mar 2009.
Towards a New Poetics of Practice: Rethinking Feminist Response to the Mangalore Pub Attack
Towards a New Poetics of Practice: Rethinking Feminist Response to the Mangalore Pub Attack - A Discussion with Lata Mani
Venue: Alternative Law Forum, No. 122/4 Infantry Road, Bangalore- 560001
Date: Friday the 13th (yes I know :), March 2009
Time : 6 PM
Lata Maini's note: "In this brief note I raise questions that are posed by the nature and form of feminist response to the attack on women in the Amnesia pub in Mangalore and to the spirited defence of Valentine’s Day that followed Sri Ram Sene’s vigilantism. The creative momentum generated by these events suggest that we may be in a moment in which new activist formations can be forged in response to Right Wing lawlessness. However, the exclusive recourse to a liberal discourse of rights and the refusal to engage questions of culture and ethics have restricted the scope of our interventions and left urgent sociocultural and economic tensions unaddressed. If we are to “seize the time” we would need to engage these difficult questions and be willing to set aside various sacred and secular cows in the process."
Since the intent is to initiate dialogue, Lata Mani will speak for 15 minutes. Du Saraswathy will respond and the floor will then be opened for discussion.
Venue: Alternative Law Forum, No. 122/4 Infantry Road, Bangalore- 560001
Date: Friday the 13th (yes I know :), March 2009
Time : 6 PM
Lata Maini's note: "In this brief note I raise questions that are posed by the nature and form of feminist response to the attack on women in the Amnesia pub in Mangalore and to the spirited defence of Valentine’s Day that followed Sri Ram Sene’s vigilantism. The creative momentum generated by these events suggest that we may be in a moment in which new activist formations can be forged in response to Right Wing lawlessness. However, the exclusive recourse to a liberal discourse of rights and the refusal to engage questions of culture and ethics have restricted the scope of our interventions and left urgent sociocultural and economic tensions unaddressed. If we are to “seize the time” we would need to engage these difficult questions and be willing to set aside various sacred and secular cows in the process."
Since the intent is to initiate dialogue, Lata Mani will speak for 15 minutes. Du Saraswathy will respond and the floor will then be opened for discussion.
Class 1 on Lacan and A Doll's House
Notes for the class on using Lacan to destabilize the existing idea of Doll’s House as a Feminist Play
- Lacan and Iregary are the two people we are going to touch upon in this respect.
- Background of Lacan: He was kicked out of the psychoanalytic association and he was thrown out of the hospitals he was teaching in because he took client’s time only for 3 min or 2 min instead of the allotted one hour.
- He started lecturing everyday. He had students of the likes of Foucault and Derrida.
- In India, we have only retained Freud and we have never looked at Lacan seriously. Freud came before colonialism.
- Lacan introduced three concepts
- Real
- Imaginary
- Symbolic
- For Lacan, language belonged to the symbolic as against the real out there.
- He said that there was always a tension between the symbolic and the unconscious.
- Notion of the subject is one who suffers, and one who always has to deal with suffering as opposed to the individual, who is more marked by his actions. Individual tends to believe that he functions from a space outside society, and that he can establish or bring about change. This idea emerges post Protestantism and Industrialisation.
- All spaces mark you as something or someone. You are the person, therefore, who is suffering that construct that the space puts upon you.
- You are produced constantly and this gives you coherence.
- The symbol of the tension between the symbolic and the unconscious creates a tension; a tension that challenges the “I think, therefore I am”. There is a gap between the symbolic which is the “I think” and the “I am” which is the unconscious. Therefore, you are not formed before you think.
- All representations do not represent reality but only in a specific urban tradition.
- Slumdog uses the realist tradition to represent the real. It is mot the real.
Iregary: Symbolic is male. All that we produce is the male symbolic. Necessary other to the male and hence outside the male symbolic is the female symbolic. Therefore, the only sex that is there is male. The female is only outside the male self.
Now, then, is Doll’s House then a feminist play in that it seeks to address or speak about the female symbolic? Or does it still speak of the male symbolic itself?
Independence-she walks out- male symbolic
Economic freedom- male symbolic
Where is the female symbolic then?
It is only mimicking the male to draw attention to the male itself in order to destabilize the male symbolic.
[Education and media are the two main ideological apparatus that of the state that perpetuates the male symbolic]
By mimicking, then, they just point to the gap between the male symbolic and the unconscious and are not really creating a female’s play.
Reference:
Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Is there a Woman's Play. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 06 Mar 2009.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Fourth Summer School on Philosophy for the Social Sciences and Humanities
Centre for Philosophy
National Institute of Advanced Studies
Fourth Summer School on Philosophy for the Social Sciences and Humanities
(Sponsored by ICSSR Western Regional Centre, Mumbai)
National Institute of Advanced Studies
Fourth Summer School on Philosophy for the Social Sciences and Humanities
(Sponsored by ICSSR Western Regional Centre, Mumbai)
A three-week summer school for MA, MPhil and PhD students from all over the country will be held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.
Dates: Monday, June 8, 2009 – Friday, June 26, 2009
Who Can Apply
MA, MPhil and early PhD students working in the broad areas of social sciences and humanities (including philosophy).
How to Apply
Send a CV (with marks, email, phone and contact address details) along with an essay/working paper that you have written. The last date for receiving the complete application is March 15, 2009.
Accommodation and Travel
Selected students will be reimbursed for their outstation travel by non–AC, sleeper class train or bus fare (to and fro) and will also be provided accommodation free of cost at NIAS during the course period.
Contact: Send your application as an email attachment to Centre for Philosophy, NIAS, email: cfpnias@gmail.com or mail a hard copy to the address below.
Centre For Philosophy
National Institute of Advanced Studies
Indian Institute of Science Campus
Bangalore - 560012
Telephone: +91-80-22185000
(For more information, see http://www.nias.res.in/researchgroups-cfp-programmes.php)
I FEP SUMMER INTERNSHIP – APRIL, MAY 2009 Guidelines
Guidelines for the group assigned to me (08D4401 – 4418):
- Prepare a proposal in about 100 words and email it to me. The proposal should include name and address of the newspaper where you would be doing your internship, a brief write up on that newspaper, reasons for your choice of that particular newspaper, your plans during the internship and your opinion on how the internship will help you develop as an effective media person. The proposal should reach me on or before 15 March 2009.
- You are to collect a diary from Mr Kennedy by showing the receipt for Rs 30 paid at the admission office. Make entries into the diary on day-to-day basis. Your diary entries should include the assignments you were given, details of how you went about doing the assignments, new things you learnt about the field, about yourself and your abilities that day. After a few days, the diary entries will look similar, clichéd and monotonous. It is up to you to find newness and creativity in your internship everyday.
- During your internship in the newspapers, try to get as many by-lines as possible. They will carry a lot of weight on your CV later. However, you will soon realise that it is not easy to get them. Most of the time the news briefs or news stories that you write will be published under the title ‘From our staff correspondent’ or ‘_____ News Network.’ Do not lose heart.
- Try to build as many contacts as possible both within the organisation and with people you meet in the field. You will realise the value of it during the internship and later as you try to climb the professional and social ladder.
- Try and do challenging news stories or features. See if you can come up with your own topics for features or news stories. Remember journalism is literature in a hurry and has a very short life span. Therefore, timeliness of an article or news is the most crucial value that will prove your talent and ability. Your genius is not what will make you valuable but your consistency.
- Compile the copies of your published works regularly, be they briefs, news stories or features in a file. You will have to submit them along with your on-the-job reports when the college reopens.
- If you want some guidance, want to share your success or failure feel free to email me anytime
All the best
Sunday, March 08, 2009
MA in English with Communication Studies
Christ University offers MA in English with Communication Studies in four semesters. The programme is first of its kind in India in that it broadens the English studies programme to include the newer fields that have emerged within the English studies domain in the last few years. It is also the first Maters programme in English to introduce compusory internship.
Facilities: The programme gives access to a very good library which is updated almost every week. There is also access to online journal databases such as JSTOR, EBSCOR, ICFAI Journals. The campus is fully wi-fi enabled.
The University has an MOU with CSCS (Centre for the Study of Cutlure and Society, Bangalore) . CSCS offers regular certificate programmes in Cultural Studies, Media, and Gender Studies.
Following are
Semester I
British Literature: Genres & Ideas
Reading Twentieth Century European Art, Culture & Society
Literary Criticism
American Literary Thoughts & Ideas
Professional Communication
Semester II
Gender Studies
Contemporary Theory
Linguistics
English Language Teaching
Mass Communication
Internship (Educational institution, Research centre, Media House)
Semester III
Indian Literatures In Translation
World Literatures
Research & Writing Heuristics
Postcolonial Studies
Theatre Studies
Semester IV
Dissertation
Contemporary Indian Novel (In English)
Cultural Studies
Film Studies
Popular Culture
Translation Studies (Elective)
Script writing for Radio, Television & Film (Elective)
The Department also offers MPhil and PhD programme.
For further details you mail email to admission@christuniversity.in or post your questions in the comments section below.
Facilities: The programme gives access to a very good library which is updated almost every week. There is also access to online journal databases such as JSTOR, EBSCOR, ICFAI Journals. The campus is fully wi-fi enabled.
The University has an MOU with CSCS (Centre for the Study of Cutlure and Society, Bangalore) . CSCS offers regular certificate programmes in Cultural Studies, Media, and Gender Studies.
Following are
Semester I
British Literature: Genres & Ideas
Reading Twentieth Century European Art, Culture & Society
Literary Criticism
American Literary Thoughts & Ideas
Professional Communication
Semester II
Gender Studies
Contemporary Theory
Linguistics
English Language Teaching
Mass Communication
Internship (Educational institution, Research centre, Media House)
Semester III
Indian Literatures In Translation
World Literatures
Research & Writing Heuristics
Postcolonial Studies
Theatre Studies
Semester IV
Dissertation
Contemporary Indian Novel (In English)
Cultural Studies
Film Studies
Popular Culture
Translation Studies (Elective)
Script writing for Radio, Television & Film (Elective)
The Department also offers MPhil and PhD programme.
For further details you mail email to admission@christuniversity.in or post your questions in the comments section below.
Rethinking English Studies.
When one of my colleagues asked me to give a list of possible courses that could go into the proposed BA English Studies (honours) programme at our University, following the list that I emailed to her. I am posting it here so that those who are looking for rethinking their English Studies curriculum can benefit from it.
1. Gender and English studies
2. Gender and Culture
3. English language and linguistics (Strongly recommend it.) - A common course in most Continental and Asian university honours curriculum.
4. Latin American Literature
5. South Asian literature (very potential. The field is already emerging with conferences being organized and books being published. Strongly recommend.
6. African literature.
7. South Indian literature/Dravidian literature (We will be the first to offer this paper? Wanna make history?. I am all for it. Strongly recommended.)
8. Reading, Reading Practices and Critical Theory.
9. Children's literature. (not so popular in India as yet, but a rage on either sides of the Atlantic.)
10. Literature and other disciplines (philosophy, theology, history, sociology, anthropology, music, paining, journalism- to look at their engagement with literature both in disciplinary theory and practice)
11. Popular literature
12. Colonial literature in India (literature produced in India during the colonial periods by the orientalists, Colonizers, nationalists and others - as this laid the foundation for literary production in India as also set numerous problematic discourses rolling. An area that has remained only as domain of history and culture studies research. Needs to be brought to the academia.
13. Convert American literature to North American literature more as a postcolonial/postglobalisation strategy.
14. Please avoid Canadian and Australian. I seriously do not see any merit compared to the papers we already have and those that I have suggested. They largely managed to push themselves though funding - a political agenda. And we failed to so seriously look at African literature or Latin American literature as an area to be engaged with - they were cash starved and going there was below dignity and there were no 'good' scholarships.
15. Folk Studies
16. World literatures in translations
17. Canonical Classics in Translation
18. Queer literature
Let not our fears and our inability to give up uncontested traditions stop us.
1. Gender and English studies
2. Gender and Culture
3. English language and linguistics (Strongly recommend it.) - A common course in most Continental and Asian university honours curriculum.
4. Latin American Literature
5. South Asian literature (very potential. The field is already emerging with conferences being organized and books being published. Strongly recommend.
6. African literature.
7. South Indian literature/Dravidian literature (We will be the first to offer this paper? Wanna make history?. I am all for it. Strongly recommended.)
8. Reading, Reading Practices and Critical Theory.
9. Children's literature. (not so popular in India as yet, but a rage on either sides of the Atlantic.)
10. Literature and other disciplines (philosophy, theology, history, sociology, anthropology, music, paining, journalism- to look at their engagement with literature both in disciplinary theory and practice)
11. Popular literature
12. Colonial literature in India (literature produced in India during the colonial periods by the orientalists, Colonizers, nationalists and others - as this laid the foundation for literary production in India as also set numerous problematic discourses rolling. An area that has remained only as domain of history and culture studies research. Needs to be brought to the academia.
13. Convert American literature to North American literature more as a postcolonial/postglobalisation strategy.
14. Please avoid Canadian and Australian. I seriously do not see any merit compared to the papers we already have and those that I have suggested. They largely managed to push themselves though funding - a political agenda. And we failed to so seriously look at African literature or Latin American literature as an area to be engaged with - they were cash starved and going there was below dignity and there were no 'good' scholarships.
15. Folk Studies
16. World literatures in translations
17. Canonical Classics in Translation
18. Queer literature
Let not our fears and our inability to give up uncontested traditions stop us.
CALL FOR DOCTORAL GRANT PROPOSALS 2009
DEADLINE 1 MAY 2009
TIRF (The International Research Foundation for English Language Education) welcomes Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) proposals for 2009. The deadline for submitting a proposal is 1 May 2009. For successful DDG proposals, USD 5,000 is the maximum award. Full information about the requirements can be found at www.tirfonline.org
The DDG funding is intended to support worthy applicants who have advanced to candidacy in their doctoral programs (i.e, have completed their required coursework) and whose dissertation research will address topics which TIRF has prioritized.
This year Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) proposals will be considered on any of the following research priorities topics: (1) the age issue, (2) the proficiency of English language teachers, (3) technology in language learning and teaching, (4) effective grammar instruction, (5) bilingualism and plurilingualism in business and industry, and (6) language assessment.
(We regret that we cannot fund research on other topics at this time.) For full details on what these topics encompass and for information about submitting applications, please visit TIRF's website: www.tirfonline.org
TIRF (The International Research Foundation for English Language Education) welcomes Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) proposals for 2009. The deadline for submitting a proposal is 1 May 2009. For successful DDG proposals, USD 5,000 is the maximum award. Full information about the requirements can be found at www.tirfonline.org
The DDG funding is intended to support worthy applicants who have advanced to candidacy in their doctoral programs (i.e, have completed their required coursework) and whose dissertation research will address topics which TIRF has prioritized.
This year Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) proposals will be considered on any of the following research priorities topics: (1) the age issue, (2) the proficiency of English language teachers, (3) technology in language learning and teaching, (4) effective grammar instruction, (5) bilingualism and plurilingualism in business and industry, and (6) language assessment.
(We regret that we cannot fund research on other topics at this time.) For full details on what these topics encompass and for information about submitting applications, please visit TIRF's website: www.tirfonline.org
Monday, March 02, 2009
Welcome Upendra to this blogspace
Dear Readers and Visitors of this Blog,
Upendra Chidilla from Forum on Contemporary Theory, Vadodhara, Gujarat, has joined this blog as a contributor. While I extend him a warm welcome to this space and wish him good luck, I request you to repsond to his posts, as posts in blog sustain only with feedbacks.
Upendra is pursuing his PhD in Philosophy. His posts will largely relate to philosophy.
With Upendra's entry this blog makes a major shift in its long list of experiments. I am curious to know how it will unfold and lead to further experiments.
Anil
Upendra Chidilla from Forum on Contemporary Theory, Vadodhara, Gujarat, has joined this blog as a contributor. While I extend him a warm welcome to this space and wish him good luck, I request you to repsond to his posts, as posts in blog sustain only with feedbacks.
Upendra is pursuing his PhD in Philosophy. His posts will largely relate to philosophy.
With Upendra's entry this blog makes a major shift in its long list of experiments. I am curious to know how it will unfold and lead to further experiments.
Anil
Extracts from 'The Art of T.S. Eliot'
These are a few extracts from “The Art of T.S. Eliot” by Helen Gardner. This might be of use for students who want to know more about the poet and understand the poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and his other works better. This is not from examination point of view but it might be very helpful for that too. Although the book has not been issued from the library since 1997, it is a very interesting book for all those who love literature and its criticism. It is available in the U.G. library of Christ University, Bangalore.
THE ART OF T.S. ELIOT
"Our age with its undigested technical vocabulary, its misuse of metaphor, and its servitude to cliché, cannot be regarded as propitious for a poet. It is a part of Mr Eliot’s greatness as a poet that he has accepted for poetic transformation the idiom of his own day. He has done so deliberately, for he said:
I believe that any language, so long as it remains the same language, imposes its laws and restrictions and permits its own a licence, dictates its own speech rhythms and sound patterns. And a language is always changing; its developments in the vocabulary, in syntax, pronunciation and intonation-even, in the long run, its deterioration- must be accepted by the poet and made the best of. He is turn has the privilege of contributing to the development and maintaining the quality, the capacity of the language to express a wide range, and subtle gradation, of feeling and emotion; his task is both to respond to change and make it conscious, and to battle against degradation below the standards which he has learnt from the past (The Music of Poetry 1942).
Mr. Eliot was from the first a poet with a remarkable range of diction, and with a natural gift for the vividly memorable phrase. He was always consciously aware of the varied resources of English poetic diction and delighted to place an exotic word exactly, or to give us the sudden shock which the unexpected introduction of a commonplace word or phrase can provide. The development in his mature poetry is a development in naturalness: a more ‘easy commerce of old and new’; a mastery of transitions on the large and the small scale, so that change and variety now ‘give delight and hurt not’; and a capacity to employ without embarrassment the obviously poetic word and image. In his earlier poetry he showed a certain distaste for words with poetic associations, which suggested a limitation in his temperament and a certain lack of confidence in his art. Avoidance of the obvious is not the mark of the highest originality of the genuinely bold artist. The change in Mr. Eliot’s poetic style which begins with The Hollow Men in 1925 is accompanied by a change in his metric. The change is the metre is possibly the fundamental change, for it is the new metre that has made possible his new freedom with the language of poetry.
The characteristic metre of Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) is as irregularly rhyming verse paragraphs in duple rising rhythm, with more or less variation in the length of the lines. Rhyme is used as a rhetorical ornament, not as part of a regular pattern; it is decorative and makes for emphasis, but it is not structural. There is, beside the variety in the number of stresses in the line, considerable variety in the amount of co-incidence between speech stress and metrical stresses; but all this we are accustomed to in verse from the seventeenth century onwards."
-From chapter 1-Auditory Imagination.
"Mr. Eliot is, in his own words, ‘occupied with frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meaning still exist’. Mr. Eliot has not at the back of his mind an idea or an argument which could have been expressed quite simply, and which he is purposely disguising. His poems do not begin from an intellectual position, or a truth. They begin with a place, a point in time, and the meaning or the truth is discovered in the process of writing and in the process of reading. Each poem gathers up into itself all that has been said before, and communication becomes easier as the whole poem proceeds.
Part of the difficulty of Mr. Eliot’s early works arose from what he has described himself as ‘an intense and narrow taste determined by personal needs’. this early taste let him to later Elizabethan dramatists for a style of great rhetorical force, and to the French symbolists for a manner that allowed him to express an intensely individual view of life with the minimum of direct statement. The personal need was in his temperament-ironic, diffident, at war with his surroundings; sceptical, preferring understatement, hints and suggestions; fastidious, reserved, acutely sensitive to beauty and ugliness, but even more to misery and happiness. This temperament made the symbolists congenial, for their method of finding an ‘objective correlative’ for emotional states gave him an opportunity to write with a clarity, precision and expressiveness which satisfied his poetic taste, while it allowed him to escape from the lyric poet’s necessity of speaking either for himself or for all men. J. Alfred Prufrock’s love song is neither personal, nor general, though in it the poet expresses a personal vision, and defines what is perhaps a general predicament. The originality, however, lies in the blend of this oblique manner with a highly passionate and dramatic style, which constantly escapes from the region of wit, irony and sensibility into a dramatic intensity if feeling. This tension between treatment and style, which gives the early poetry much of its disturbing power and beauty, was one of the things which made it difficult for the ordinary reader to see what the poet was ‘getting at’. The difficulty, however, lay not only in an unfamiliar manner and an unlimited linguistic daring. A more serious difficulty was the poet’s assumption that his readers could supply from their own experience, and particularly from their reading, what he chose to leave unsaid, or only hint at."
-From chapter 3-Poetic Communication
"In the early poems, as throughout Mr. Eliot’s poetry, images of taste and smell are remarkably frequent. Taste and smell are the most immediate of our senses, and the least translatable into intellectual terms by the conscious mind. They are also the most at the mercy of the external world, for we can avert our eyes, stop our ears and refrain from touching more easily than we can escape a smell which is haunting and pervasive. Such images are natural to a poet whose subject is something ‘beneath both beauty and ugliness’
The question that Mr. Prufrock dare not ask is only superficially the kind of question which one ‘pops’. there is another question all the time which every other question depends on:
Let us go then, you and I, When…………………………talking of Michelangelo.
Why not? One must talk of something and Michelangelo is a cultural topic. The absurdity of discussing his art, in high pitched feminine voices, drifting though a drawing room, adds merely extra irony to the underlying sense of the lines: the escape into nany kind of triviality, implied by the phrase: ‘Let us go make our visit’.
In Mr. Eliot there is a kind of prim pedantry, the pedantry of the New England lecture-room, suggesting not the bar, but the cultured voice and the card-index of the professor. Both works juxtapose boldly a modern world described with the most complete realism, and a world of romance, epic and high tragedy."
-From chapter 4-The Dry Season
"Although all Mr. Eliot’s poetry is the expression of a certain kind of apprehension, the change in his rhythms and style, which has been discussed, and the and the change in his imagery, is the result of a profound change within this apprehension. In the earlier poetry the apprehension is a kind of glass through which he views the world; it is a dark glass through which life is seen with a strange clarity, but drained of colour and variety."
-From chapter 5- The Time of Tension
REFERENCE
Gardner, Helen. The Art of T.S. Eliot. Cresset Press, 1949.
THE ART OF T.S. ELIOT
"Our age with its undigested technical vocabulary, its misuse of metaphor, and its servitude to cliché, cannot be regarded as propitious for a poet. It is a part of Mr Eliot’s greatness as a poet that he has accepted for poetic transformation the idiom of his own day. He has done so deliberately, for he said:
I believe that any language, so long as it remains the same language, imposes its laws and restrictions and permits its own a licence, dictates its own speech rhythms and sound patterns. And a language is always changing; its developments in the vocabulary, in syntax, pronunciation and intonation-even, in the long run, its deterioration- must be accepted by the poet and made the best of. He is turn has the privilege of contributing to the development and maintaining the quality, the capacity of the language to express a wide range, and subtle gradation, of feeling and emotion; his task is both to respond to change and make it conscious, and to battle against degradation below the standards which he has learnt from the past (The Music of Poetry 1942).
Mr. Eliot was from the first a poet with a remarkable range of diction, and with a natural gift for the vividly memorable phrase. He was always consciously aware of the varied resources of English poetic diction and delighted to place an exotic word exactly, or to give us the sudden shock which the unexpected introduction of a commonplace word or phrase can provide. The development in his mature poetry is a development in naturalness: a more ‘easy commerce of old and new’; a mastery of transitions on the large and the small scale, so that change and variety now ‘give delight and hurt not’; and a capacity to employ without embarrassment the obviously poetic word and image. In his earlier poetry he showed a certain distaste for words with poetic associations, which suggested a limitation in his temperament and a certain lack of confidence in his art. Avoidance of the obvious is not the mark of the highest originality of the genuinely bold artist. The change in Mr. Eliot’s poetic style which begins with The Hollow Men in 1925 is accompanied by a change in his metric. The change is the metre is possibly the fundamental change, for it is the new metre that has made possible his new freedom with the language of poetry.
The characteristic metre of Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) is as irregularly rhyming verse paragraphs in duple rising rhythm, with more or less variation in the length of the lines. Rhyme is used as a rhetorical ornament, not as part of a regular pattern; it is decorative and makes for emphasis, but it is not structural. There is, beside the variety in the number of stresses in the line, considerable variety in the amount of co-incidence between speech stress and metrical stresses; but all this we are accustomed to in verse from the seventeenth century onwards."
-From chapter 1-Auditory Imagination.
"Mr. Eliot is, in his own words, ‘occupied with frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meaning still exist’. Mr. Eliot has not at the back of his mind an idea or an argument which could have been expressed quite simply, and which he is purposely disguising. His poems do not begin from an intellectual position, or a truth. They begin with a place, a point in time, and the meaning or the truth is discovered in the process of writing and in the process of reading. Each poem gathers up into itself all that has been said before, and communication becomes easier as the whole poem proceeds.
Part of the difficulty of Mr. Eliot’s early works arose from what he has described himself as ‘an intense and narrow taste determined by personal needs’. this early taste let him to later Elizabethan dramatists for a style of great rhetorical force, and to the French symbolists for a manner that allowed him to express an intensely individual view of life with the minimum of direct statement. The personal need was in his temperament-ironic, diffident, at war with his surroundings; sceptical, preferring understatement, hints and suggestions; fastidious, reserved, acutely sensitive to beauty and ugliness, but even more to misery and happiness. This temperament made the symbolists congenial, for their method of finding an ‘objective correlative’ for emotional states gave him an opportunity to write with a clarity, precision and expressiveness which satisfied his poetic taste, while it allowed him to escape from the lyric poet’s necessity of speaking either for himself or for all men. J. Alfred Prufrock’s love song is neither personal, nor general, though in it the poet expresses a personal vision, and defines what is perhaps a general predicament. The originality, however, lies in the blend of this oblique manner with a highly passionate and dramatic style, which constantly escapes from the region of wit, irony and sensibility into a dramatic intensity if feeling. This tension between treatment and style, which gives the early poetry much of its disturbing power and beauty, was one of the things which made it difficult for the ordinary reader to see what the poet was ‘getting at’. The difficulty, however, lay not only in an unfamiliar manner and an unlimited linguistic daring. A more serious difficulty was the poet’s assumption that his readers could supply from their own experience, and particularly from their reading, what he chose to leave unsaid, or only hint at."
-From chapter 3-Poetic Communication
"In the early poems, as throughout Mr. Eliot’s poetry, images of taste and smell are remarkably frequent. Taste and smell are the most immediate of our senses, and the least translatable into intellectual terms by the conscious mind. They are also the most at the mercy of the external world, for we can avert our eyes, stop our ears and refrain from touching more easily than we can escape a smell which is haunting and pervasive. Such images are natural to a poet whose subject is something ‘beneath both beauty and ugliness’
The question that Mr. Prufrock dare not ask is only superficially the kind of question which one ‘pops’. there is another question all the time which every other question depends on:
Let us go then, you and I, When…………………………talking of Michelangelo.
Why not? One must talk of something and Michelangelo is a cultural topic. The absurdity of discussing his art, in high pitched feminine voices, drifting though a drawing room, adds merely extra irony to the underlying sense of the lines: the escape into nany kind of triviality, implied by the phrase: ‘Let us go make our visit’.
In Mr. Eliot there is a kind of prim pedantry, the pedantry of the New England lecture-room, suggesting not the bar, but the cultured voice and the card-index of the professor. Both works juxtapose boldly a modern world described with the most complete realism, and a world of romance, epic and high tragedy."
-From chapter 4-The Dry Season
"Although all Mr. Eliot’s poetry is the expression of a certain kind of apprehension, the change in his rhythms and style, which has been discussed, and the and the change in his imagery, is the result of a profound change within this apprehension. In the earlier poetry the apprehension is a kind of glass through which he views the world; it is a dark glass through which life is seen with a strange clarity, but drained of colour and variety."
-From chapter 5- The Time of Tension
REFERENCE
Gardner, Helen. The Art of T.S. Eliot. Cresset Press, 1949.
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