“Of Death

Sir Francis Bacon has written “Of Death” in order to end the fear of death from human minds. He suggests that a person should either nip the fear of death in the bud or at least overpower it. Sir Francis Bacon has written “Of Death” in order to end the fear of death from human minds. He suggests that a person should either nip the fear of death in the bud or at least overpower it. Sir Francis Bacon fully explains the fear of death and elucidates its different perspectives. He also speaks against false preaching of Monks and religious scholars. In his views, they have exaggerated death, due to which it has become dreadful. The essay has many ideas; he supports every idea through an example. He also mentions proverbs of old philosophers, through which he strengthens his stance. Style of the poet is simple and lucid yet his arguments are solid. At the end of the essay, readers feel that the author has convinced them. Ultimately, readers thank Sir Francis Bacon because fear of death, at least for the time being, diminishes from the minds of the readers.

Watch Video based on this article
Why Do People Fear from Death?
It is true that people afraid of death just like children afraid of the darkness. Why do they fear? Bacon answers it. Children listen stories of ghosts; elders tell them that ghosts appear at night; therefore, they feel afraid of darkness. Similarly, agonies of death are told to human beings due to which they fear from it. When a person thinks about death, he imagines it from one of the two perspectives: religious and natural. If he is thinking that death is a procedure to travel from one world to the other and he would be punished because of his sins, then he is thinking from a religious perspective. Conversely, a person may think from a natural perspective; he may think that death is certain; it is the law of nature. However, Bacon thinks that in case of natural death, fear is an act of cowardliness.

Bacon then criticizes religious beliefs. He believes that scholars have mixed religion with superstition. There are some books, in which it is mentioned that death is painful suffering. He then quotes an example of squeezing a finger; “a man should think with himself what the pain is if he has but his finger’s end pressed or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when whole body is corrupted and dissolved”. In Sir Francis Bacon ’s eyes, death has been exaggerated due to which people are afraid of death. Death Vs. Its Concept:

Death Vs Its Concept in the Eyes of Sir Francis Bacon:
What is more horrifying? Death or its concept? The author refers to Roman Philosopher Seneca, who said that it is not the death but its concept, which is fearful. When people put their feet in shoes of the person, who is near to death, they become frightened; his groans, his face and his convulsions increase the fear of people. Moreover, the dead body of near and dear one also enhances the fear of people. Death itself is not as dreadful as circumstances and funeral ceremonies are. Thus, it is not death but its concept, which is horrible. Furthermore, Sir Francis Bacon believes that anyone can overpower the fear of death. However, he should have the wish to do so. If he has, he can control his fear. Even the feeblest desire of a person subdues the fear of death.

Who are the Fearless People?
Sir Francis Bacon has prepared a list of people, who do not afraid of death. Even they deliberately pursue death. Here is the list of those people.

A person who wants revenge has no fear of death. Even if he knows that his enemy would kill him. What he wants is just revenge.
Passionate lover; he can die for his beloved.
A man of honor; he can die to protect his honor.
Downtrodden man (a sufferer); he would prefer death to sufferings.
Bacon has also quoted an incident of Roman Emperor Otho, who committed suicide. His followers also killed themselves because they were his true supporters. Afterwards, the author again refers Seneca, who says that a person may commit suicide if he is fed up from life. Similarly, due to boredom and feelings of monotony, a person may kill himself.

Some Brave Men from the History:
Sir Francis Bacon then mentions those people who do not afraid of death, even when it approaches them. Here is the list of those people who remained calmed at the time of death.

Augustus Caesar, Roman Emperor; he was so calm that he gave a compliment to his wife.
Tiberius, Roman Emperor; died during maintaining up appearances. His death was fearless.
Vespasian, Roman Emperor; he said, he was going to be a god and died.
Galba, Roman Emperor; he was killed. He died gladly for the welfare of his people.
Septimius Severus, Roman Emperor was curious to die after realizing that death is approaching him.
Numerous similar examples are there in the world when people died gladly.

Should we afraid of death: Suggestions of Sir Francis Bacon:
Sir Francis Bacon supports the opinion of Juvenal, a Roman writer, who has said that we should not afraid of death. It is natural; it is certain. When a person came into the world, he bore pain; the same pain which the elders go through at the time of death. Bacon does not support the concept of preparing for death. In Athens, Stoics used to prepare for death. Bacon is of the view that it just increases the fear. A person, who remains busy in his works and suddenly dies, suffers less pain as compared to a person, who prepares for it. A person should concentrate on doing good deeds; if he does so, he would suffer less pain at the time of death.

The last example, which Bacon quotes, is of Simeon. He wished to see Christ and when he achieved his goal of seeing Christ, he happily died. Thus, everyone has goals in this world. If a person achieves them, he can gladly die.

Remarks of Sir Francis Bacon on Benefits of Death:
The first benefit of death, which Sir Francis Bacon, mentions is that people glorify good deeds of the dead. This custom is very common in every society. When a person dies, people appreciate him. However, in his life, fewer people talk about his good deeds. The second reason, which Bacon has mentioned is sarcastic. He says that when a person dies, his enemies do not feel jealous for him.

Conclusion of “Of Death” by Sir Francis Bacon:
Moto of the essay is very much clear. Sir Francis Bacon encourages his readers to accept death as a law of nature. Instead of being cowards and running away from death, people should become brave and feel its beauty. The author has a good knowledge of Roman history and Greeks philosophy. He makes references from ancient Roman history. He has also read philosophy of ancient Romans; therefore, he supports his depositions through examples and solid references. Latin phrases have also been illustrated in this essay. In short, the essay is highly optimistic, as death has been presented as a natural thing.

Colonialism in Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe

Colonialism in Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe

Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness is considered to be a great work of art not only because it painfully portrays how brutally and unjustly the natives are treated in the African wilderness, but also because its treatment of colonialism is considered a cornerstone in the history of western fiction.

Colonialism refers to the enterprise by which a nation extends its authority over other territories; it is characterized by an unequal relationship between the colonists and the natives of a country. Colonists usually think that they are doing the country good by bringing civilization and enlightenment; however the result is atrocity and death. This is clearly portrayed in Heart of Darkness. One of the characters who exercises colonialism is Kurtz whose main purpose is extracting ivory from the land in whatever way he can. He is treated as a supernatural authority by the Africans who always seem to obey and listen to him carefully. Marlow indicates the Africans' obedience to Kurtz when he tells us, "He was not afraid of the natives; they would not stir till Mr. Kurtz gave the word. His ascendancy was extraordinary. The camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came every day to see him. They would crawl." (p. 131) Kurtz believes that everything in the wilderness belongs to him, as Marlow hears him say, "My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my…" (p. 116) Moreover, he thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he's doing; on the contrary, Kurtz believes that he's doing the right thing. His civilization mission and his philosophy regarding the natives are expressed in his report of which Marlow tells: "But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings--we approach them with the might as of a deity,' and so on, and so on. By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' etc., etc." (p. 118) Although Marlow is not a native, he finds himself obliged to be treated like one. In other words, he finds himself reacting in the very same way as the natives themselves to Kurtz's authority. "I did not betray Mr. Kurtz - it was ordered I should never betray him - it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice." (p. 141) It is interesting that Marlow refers to Kurtz as 'the nightmare'; it seems as if he is hypnotized by him and has no choice but to do as he is told. Moreover, the phrase, 'it was ordered' adds to the ambiguity of what Marlow is trying to say. He could have said, 'I was ordered' but he does not.

It is worth mentioning here that Heart of Darkness is a novel that is partially biographical. Conrad was obliged to seek employment with a Belgian company in Africa due to difficult labor conditions in 1889. Although he stayed for a short while in Africa, it was an experience that shattered his health and changed his world-view, while the moral degradation he witnessed in the Congo's economic exploitation disgusted him. A decade after this, he wrote Heart of Darkness, which is about his experience in Africa. What is really ironic is that in the book Joseph Conrad in Context, it is mentioned more than once that Conrad never got over his experience in Africa, as if other people in his place would not feel the same thing! So basically, Marlow seems to echo Conrad's own opinions in his novel.

Colonists are driven to exploit ivory at an insatiable rate without even bothering to think about the devastating effects on the natives. This is very clearly shown in the following quote: Marlow refers to the ivory merchants as a "devoted band" calling themselves "the Eldorado Exploring Expedition." He says "they were sworn to secrecy." They spoke the language of "sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe." (p. 87) In brief, what these colonizers were doing was purposeless, which in turn means that the consequences which were brought about as a result of their actions were also useless.

Furthermore, the colonists had a quasi divine authority to do as they pleased in the colonies; this is portrayed by the conversation between the uncle and the nephew, which was overheard by Marlow, "'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not? Anything--anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate--you outlast them all.'" (p. 91) Here, they are talking about hanging Kurtz's assistant and probably Kurtz himself, so that they can get Kurtz's possessions, including his ivory.

Colonialism is also explored in other parts of the novella, where the reader can see just how mercilessly and brutally the natives are treated by the colonizers. When Marlow is on a steamer with a Swedish captain, he describes how the natives, whom he sees on his way to the station, are being exploited and treated as mere beasts. All the natives are represented as being naked and horribly thin; they are never referred to as humans. They are forced to work under hard conditions, are given no clothes, and are left to starve: "A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare." (p. 63) When Marlow finally arrives at the station, he sees yet another traumatizing scene,

"A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking… but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off." (p. 64)

When reading this passage, one cannot help but wonder, how could these poor natives possibly be criminals? They do every single thing they are told to do, without the least bit of complaining and yet, they are called criminals. The words 'tails,' 'collar,' 'breasts panted,' and 'dilated nostrils' immediately bring to the mind the image of dogs. And of course, we should not forget the colonizer, who is right behind them with a rifle, making sure that these men walk 'in a file,' 'without glancing' at Marlow, and only 'staring stonily uphill.' So not only are they compared to animals, but they are also expected to work like machines!

This is the main reason why Achebe does not accept Heart of Darkness, it is because he does not like the way African people are portrayed in it. Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian poet and novelist, was attracted to Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a child. However, in the 1970s, he changed his mind about it and until today, he continues to dismiss the novel. In his essay on Conrad's novel, Achebe attempts to explain why. He says that what Conrad is terribly worried about is the idea of kinship between him and the blacks, which is why he dehumanizes them. Contrasting with this is Edward Said's opinion that Conrad is exaggerating the imperialistic and the dehumanizing discrepancies so that we, as readers, are outraged at its injustice and therefore work out "solutions" for ourselves. In other words, Heart of Darkness is, according to Said, a self-referential novel. But still, Achebe has a strong point in saying that Conrad has dehumanized the Africans because Conrad seems to be obsessed with the words 'black' and 'darkness' since he associates them with the Africans and uses these words numerous times throughout his novel.

Convincingly Achebe believes that the most revealing passages in the novel are about people. He says that the following quote contains the meaning of Heart of Darkness, "… but what thrilled you was just the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough …" If only the thought was thrilling, then what would knowing do to us?! It is this 'remote kinship' that seems to terrorize Conrad and is implied throughout the novel several times.

However, his passages about the natives or savages, as Conrad refers to them, seem a mere description of what they are and what they are going to do. His personal sentiments are never revealed. But the vocabulary he chooses and the way he describes the Africans force the reader to sympathize with them. However, there are parts in the novel where we can infer that Conrad, although not showing sympathy towards the savages, cannot bear looking at them. For example, when he sees the six men tied to each other with chains around their necks, he says, "My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill." And in another incident, he says, "The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere nearby, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there." Clearly, he was not strong enough to neither hear nor see these savages being treated mercilessly.

When Marlow arrives at the Central Station, he witnesses more of these atrocities towards the 'niggers.' The manager of the station is apparently an uncivilized person who is there only because he hasn't been ill, as Marlow tells us, "He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had served three terms of three years out there…He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his 'boy'--an overfed young negro from the coast--to treat the white men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence." (p. 74)

One of Conrad's greatest fears that is implied in the novel is the possibility of the whites having 'distant kinship' with the blacks, and this is mentioned by Achebe. This explains why Marlow wasn't able to forget his African helmsman's look on his face just before he died, "And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory - like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment." Conrad's careful word choice of 'distant kinship' rather than 'brother,' for example, is cautiously observed by Achebe. He understands that Conrad is trying, as much as possible, to create layers between himself and the natives. Also, the words 'remains to this day in my memory,' are understood by Achebe as a negative connotation, as if this 'memory' continues to torture him to this very day. Achebe concludes from this that Conrad is a racist.

Moreover, Achebe states that Conrad has dehumanized Africans. But I do not agree with him on this point. My evidence to this can be seen in this quote, when Marlow who can be considered Conrad's mouthpiece at this instance says, "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." We can infer from this quote that Conrad was actually against the idea of Africans being treated the way they were. Also, according to Edward Said, Conrad, being a creature of his time, 'could not grant the natives their freedom, despite his severe critique of the imperialism that enslaved them.' In other words, Conrad was against this imperialism and he criticized it as well, but the era that he lived in made it impossible for him to do anything about it. In my opinion, it might be that Conrad never meant to dehumanize the Africans; it might be that the experience he was going through during his stay in Africa was so overwhelming to him that he could not or was not able to reveal his sympathy. Maybe he did not want to reveal anything at all in order to emphasize it being a part of its "darkness." After all, it is Conrad himself who chose to write his novel in an ambiguous and subtle way which leaves the reader with puzzled thoughts about what exactly Conrad is trying to say. Almost everything in Heart of Darkness seems; everything is not is.

In conclusion, as we can see, examples of colonial acts are displayed throughout Heart of Darkness. Colonists take over the wilderness and practice exploitation only to acquire ivory. But at the same, the colonists' actions are purposeless, such as when they order the natives to aimlessly blast the railway when there is actually nothing to blast. This brings about the failure of their exploitation and civilizing mission.

Aristotle's Consideration of Tragedy as Superior to an Epic

Aristotle's Consideration of Tragedy as Superior to an Epic
To Aristotle, an Epic is a narrative poem written in heroic hexa-metre. It has four constituent parts namely plot , character, thought, & diction. Aristotle defines every point in much detail & finally, having compared between tragedy & epic, comes to the conclusion that a tragedy is superior to an epic.
According to Aristotle, the plots of epics should be dramatically constructed like those of tragedies. They should centre upon a single action whole & complete & having a beginning, middle & an end. Nor should epics be constructed like the common run of histories. The aim of history is to focus on a single period, while the task of an epic is to focus on a single action that is required. In this respect, Aristotle appreciates the greatness of Homer beyond all other poets. Though the Trojan War had a beginning & a war, Homer didn't attempt to put the whole of it to 'The Iliad'. As whole would have been too vast a theme to be easily embraced by a single view. Homer has selected one part of the story & has introduced mant incidents from other parts as episodes in order to give the poem a touch of variety. Other epic like the authors of 'Cypria' & 'The Little Iliad' have used many separate incident in their works.
Thus, while only one tragedy could be made out of the 'Iliad' & the ‘Odyssey’. Several might be made out of the 'Cypria' & more than eight out of the 'Little Iliad’. Again epic poetry must divide into the same type as tragedy; it must me simple or complex or ethical or pathetic, & its thoughts & diction should be as artistic as they are in tragedy. The best models,again,supplied by Homer. His 'Iliad' is at once simple & pathetic & ‘Odyssey’, complex & ethical. Moreover,in diction & thought, they surpass all other poems. The epic, like tragedy, requires reversals of the situation, recognition & scenes of suffering.
Epic can be greater in length than tragedy. Unlike tragedy, an epic action should have no limit in time. It is the special advantage of epic that it may be of considerable length. In tragedy, it isn't possible to represent several parts of the story as taking palce simultaneously. Epic poetry, on the contrary, is able to represent several incidents that are taking place simultaneously. And if these incidents are relevant, they increase the gravity of the poems & also relieve the poems of monotony & dullness.
Epic represents the life of an entire period & relates an action concerning the fortunes or destiny of a nation.
The marvellous has a function in epic . The irrational on which the wonderful depends for its chief effects,has a wider scope in epic poetry because there the persons' acting ain't visible. The pursuit of Hector by Achilles in Homer's 'The Ilaid' before the Greeks, standing still & watching the scene with passive interest, would be simply laughable on the stage, whereas in the epic the absurdity passes unnoticed.
In the final chapter of poetics Aristotle raises the question whether the epic or the tragic drama is the higher form of imitation. According to him , the better form of art is less vulgar & the less vulgar is always that which is designed to appeal to the better type of audience . Now it's obvious that the form that appeals everyone is extremely vulgar. Thus epic is said to appeal to cultivated readers who don't need the help of visible forms, while tragedy appeals to meaner minds. If ,then, it is a vulgar art, it is obviously inferior to epic.
But this accusation can be defended by saying that the tragic drama can achieve its end without the help of action. Like epics, the quality of a tragic drama can be staged, while tragic drama can be staged as well as recited. Moreover, the disadvantage that tragic drama appeals to meaner minds can be compensated by the other respects in which tragedy is definitely superior.
The second accusation inherent to tragedy is that when the performers act on the stage ,they sometimes do a great deal of unnecessary movements. The performers can't act the parts of respectable women.
The flute players can't do their job properly. And the older actors always criticize the younger.But this kind of arguing is a criticism of acting, not of poetry , for it is also possible for a bard to exaggerate his gestures while reciting, & for a singer too.
The tragic drama is also superior because it has all the epic elements, while epic doesn't have all the elements of tragedy. Tragic drama may even employ the epic metre ,& it has the additional attraction of music & spectacular effects which are the sources of distinct feeling of pleasure. Then the effect is as vivid when a play is need as when it is acted.
Aristotle is a teleologian, the upholder of the theory that everything has a purpose to fulfill. The purpose of a poetic imitation is to give pleasure. In this respect, tragic drama achieves its ends in shorter compass, and what is more compact gives more pleasure than what is extended over a long period . For example, if the play 'Oedipus Rex' by Sophocles was cast in a form as long as the epic ''The Iliad' , the effect of the play would greatly be diminished. An epic has less unity than a tragedy. An epic can furnish subject for several tragedies & this shows that , then, is less unity in an epic poem.

Concluding his discussion Aristotle says that if tragedy is superior to epic in all these respects , it fulfills its artistic function in achieving its end better than epic. It must be the better form of art & also fulfilling its artistic function then, obviously, in achieving its ends better than epic; it must be the better form.

Sense of Disillusionment of Life in Thomas Hardy's 'The Return of the Native

Sense of Disillusionment of Life in Thomas Hardy's 'The Return of the Native'
☘️🌿🍁🍁🍁👇💐
Thomas Hardy has a very pessimistic philosophy of life and his characters also suffer from the disillusionment of their lives. He shows man lives in an indifferent world. The Return of the Native is based on the assumption that man is destined by God to suffer the overwhelming pain and suffering which exits in the world.

All the main characters of The Return of the Native namely- Clym, Eustacis, Wildeve, and Mrs Yeoright have their own aim ambition. But all their plans turn into vain. All of their lives are full of aim. But they are trapped in a series of bitterly ironic events. They are faced with an incomprehensible universe.

The protagonist of the novel, Clym at an early age have been sent to Budmouth and from where he had gone to Paris. In Paris he had placed in trade and he had rise to the position of a manager of a diamond-merchant’s establishment. He is a boy of whom something is always expected. He feels that he has to use his services for the people in Egdon Heath. In order to be of some service to the people, he wants to start a school. His misfortune, semi blindness disables him from executing the educational project.

In his love affair also he was not successful. Clym is very much attracted by the charm and beauty of Eustacia. Ignoring his mother’s strong opposition he takes a cottage at Alderworth, several miles away from Blooms-End. But the utter incompatibility of temperaments had foredoomed their marriage.

The heroine of the novel, Eustacia was fully aware of the beauty, which nature has bestowed upon her. She didn’t care about what people may tell about her. She can’t bear the loneliness that heath has. She says, “Tis my cross, my shame and will be my death”. Eustacia dreamed of a life in Paris. She hopes that if she marries, Clym he may take her to Paris. She has fascination for the pompous city life. But Clym on the other hand wants to settle in Edgon. So she had to stay in Heath. In the later part of the novel she tries to escape from the Edgon Heath with the help of Wildeve. Coincidentally Clym writes Eustacia a letter begging her to return to him - but he sends the letter too late. Eustacia does not see the letter before she leaves to flee with Wildeve. If she had, she might have no die like this.

Mrs Yeobright, the mother of Clym, is a woman of middle age with well-formed feature. She vehemently opposes the plans of Clym to start a school. She wants Clym to go back in Paris because there he has a respectable job. She had brought up her with great care and devotion. She also strongly opposes not to marry Eustacia. She says, “Is it best for you to injure your prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that?” But nothing could restrict her son from staying in the Heath or marrying Eustacia.

She was shocked, for example, by the sight off her son dressed as a furze cutter. She could not believe her eyes. She had thought it was only a diversion or hobby for him.

Again she resolves to reconcile with her son. But she never gets the chance to reconcile with her son and she dies.

Wildeve

Though Wildeve is depicted as a demon here but still he is also the portrayal of disillusionment. In the beginning of the novel, Wildeve responses quickly to Eustacia’s signal fire. It is true that he wishes to marry her. But he could not. And in the later part of the novel he unhesitatingly leaps into the stream with all his clothes on to try to rescue Eustacia. But in this time also he fails and dies.

Analyzing all the above discussed characters we can say that man is thus posited to be the source of the cosmic but the cosmic is considered to be too complex for human understanding.

Canto

Canto.

The canto (Italian pronunciation: [ˈkanto]) is a principal form of division in medieval and modern long poetry. The word canto is derived from the Italian word for "song" or "singing", which comes from the Latin cantus, "song", from the infinitive verb canere, "to sing".

🌿👉🏼What is a Canto in poetry?
Definition of Canto. Canto is a subdivision or part in a narrative or epic poem, consisting of five or more lines such, as a stanza, which could also be a canto. ... The Italian poets Dante, Matteo Boiardo, and Ludovico used cantos to divide their poems into shorter sections for thematic understanding.

👉🏼Canto is used as an introduction to a poem, as well as serves as a unitary prologue to an entire epic. It also enables the reader to understand different turning points in the poem. The use of canto divides episodes in a poem to make it easier for the reader to understand.

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF SONNET 18 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF SONNET 18 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
🦋👇🌞💐🌹☔☔🌿🌿
Shall I compare thee .......... gives life to thee.

1. Introduction
(i) Title: Sonnet XVIII
(ii) Poet: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
(iii) Date of Composition: 1609
(iv) Collection: Untitled; a group of 154 sonnets
(v) Poetic Genre: Shakespearean Sonnet
(vi) The Speaker: A lover and poet
(vii) Addressee: A handsome young man (the Earl of Southampton)
(viii) Content: The beauty of the young man who will be remembered forever because of this poem.
2. Lines 1-2
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
     The first line competitive with "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is in the long list of Shakespeare's quotable quotations. The speaker asks whether he ought to compare whomever he is speaking to with a summer's day. The important issue this line brings up is the question of "thee" because the gender of the addressee is not explicit. Then he says that his addressee is more "lovely" and more "temperate" than a summer's day. "Lovely" is easy enough but "temperate" carries dual meaning, referring to both temperament and temperature.
3. Lines 3-4
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
     In these lines the speaker says that the transition from Spring to Summer is violent and quick. The phrase "darling buds of May" refers to the opening buds that point towards the warm summer season ahead. It probably refers not to the month of May directly, but to the May tree, the Common Hawthorn, that flowers in England at that time of year. The strong winds of summer threaten the buds of this tree. Moreover, Summer has the "lease" on the weather, just as our family might have a lease on its car, like a person, summer enter into, and must abide by agreements.
4. Lines 5-6
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
     These lines describe that the beauty of the sun is unsteady. Sometimes the sun is too hot, and other times, we can't even see it at all. "The eye of heaven" is a kenning; a compressed metaphor to describe the beautiful sun. However, when the sun sets or goes behind the clouds, its beauty is hidden. The word "complexion" refers to the human face and so makes it human-like. Thus "his gold complexion" proves that the addressee of the poem is in fact a male. In short, nature's beauty and man's beauty both are transient and inconsistent.
5. Lines 7-8
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
     These lines declare that everything beautiful must eventually fade away and lose its charm, either by chance or by the natural flow of time. The word "untrimm'd" can be taken two ways. First, in the sense of loss of decoration, and second, in the sense of untrimmed sails of a ship. In the first interpretation, things that are beautiful naturally lose their fanciness over time. In the second, it means that nature is a ship with sails not adjusted to wind changes in order to correct course. This, in combination with the words "nature's changing course", creates an oxymoron; the unchanging change of nature.
6. Lines 9-10
But thy eternal summer shall not fate
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
     These lines change the tone and direction of the poem dramatically. Moving on from bashing summer and limitations inherent in nature, the speaker pronounces that his addressee is not subject to all these rules he has laid out. The speaker argues that, unlike the real summer, his beloved's summer (beautiful, happy years) will never go away, nor will the beloved lose his beauty. It's worth picking on the word "ow'st". The apostrophe might be contracting "ownest" or "owest" and both work nicely. Either the beloved won't lose the beauty he owes, or won't have to return the beauty he borrowed from nature.
7. Lines 11-12
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
     Death, the speaker claims, won't get a chance to claim the beloved in the valley of the shadow of Death. It is because his beloved is very beautiful and the beauty of huge magnitude cannot be destroyed by death. As a metaphor, lines to time" refers to a poem. Here the speaker is making two claims: first, that his poem is "eternal", and second, that it nourishes "thee", as it is where he is able to "grow". This willingness to write a poem within the poem itself is pretty cool stuff. One fancy way of describing this kind of artistic tactic is called "breaking the fourth wall". .
8. Lines 13-14
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
     In this couplet the speaker predicts that this poem will continue to be read, and his beloved will continue to be analyzed and re-analyzed for all time. In other words, as long as men live and can read, this poem will continue to live, and so keep "thee" alive. Thus the beloved's "eternal summer" will not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet. Moreover, the speaker has broken through the fourth wall, and revealed himself as not just a lover, but also a writer of poetry. In short, this couplet hammers home that the speaker is more interested in himself and his abilities as a poet than the qualities of his addressee.
9. Literary Devices
(i) Rhyme Scheme: ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG
(ii) Meter Check: Iambic pentameter
(iii) Alliteration: "Shall and summer", "do and darling", "hot and heaven", "fair from fair", "chance, changing and course", "long, lives and life".
(iv) Symbols: Summer (youth), beauty (passage to time), Sun (cycle of life)
(v) Metaphor: Summer (the beloved's life), the eye of heaven (the Sun), lines to time (poetry)
(vi) Personification: Summer, the Sun, Death
(vii) Tone: Self-assured because the speaker has no doubts
(viii) Themes: Beauty, love, poetry
10. Conclusion
     In short, this sonnet should not be regarded as an ultimate English love poem due to the fact that Shakespeare has clearly aimed to draw a lot of attention to himself as the poet and that his description of his beloved's beauty does not include much detail. In fact, the sonnet provides insight into Shakespeare as an artist, and the poem derives its artistic unity from its exploration of the universal human themes of time, death, change, love, lust, and beauty. Thus the sonnet can be read as the great lyric and dramatic poem.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.

The Merchant of Venice is a 16th century play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice must default on a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender.

Summary:

Antonio, a Venetian merchant, complains to his friends of a melancholy that he cannot explain. His friend Bassanio is desperately in need of money to court Portia, a wealthy heiress who lives in the city of Belmont. Bassanio asks Antonio for a loan in order to travel in style to Portia’s estate. Antonio agrees, but is unable to make the loan himself because his own money is all invested in a number of trade ships that are still at sea. Antonio suggests that Bassanio secure the loan from one of the city’s moneylenders and name Antonio as the loan’s guarantor. In Belmont, Portia expresses sadness over the terms of her father’s will, which stipulates that she must marry the man who correctly chooses one of three caskets. None of Portia’s current suitors are to her liking, and she and her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, fondly remember a visit paid some time before by Bassanio.

In Venice, Antonio and Bassanio approach Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, for a loan. Shylock nurses a long-standing grudge against Antonio, who has made a habit of berating Shylock and other Jews for their usury, the practice of loaning money at exorbitant rates of interest, and who undermines their business by offering interest-free loans. Although Antonio refuses to apologize for his behavior, Shylock acts agreeably and offers to lend Bassanio three thousand ducats with no interest. Shylock adds, however, that should the loan go unpaid, Shylock will be entitled to a pound of Antonio’s own flesh. Despite Bassanio’s warnings, Antonio agrees. In Shylock’s own household, his servant Launcelot decides to leave Shylock’s service to work for Bassanio, and Shylock’s daughter Jessica schemes to elope with Antonio’s friend Lorenzo. That night, the streets of Venice fill up with revelers, and Jessica escapes with Lorenzo by dressing as his page. After a night of celebration, Bassanio and his friend Gratiano leave for Belmont, where Bassanio intends to win Portia’s hand.

In Belmont, Portia welcomes the prince of Morocco, who has come in an attempt to choose the right casket to marry her. The prince studies the inscriptions on the three caskets and chooses the gold one, which proves to be an incorrect choice. In Venice, Shylock is furious to find that his daughter has run away, but rejoices in the fact that Antonio’s ships are rumored to have been wrecked and that he will soon be able to claim his debt. In Belmont, the prince of Arragon also visits Portia. He, too, studies the caskets carefully, but he picks the silver one, which is also incorrect. Bassanio arrives at Portia’s estate, and they declare their love for one another. Despite Portia’s request that he wait before choosing, Bassanio immediately picks the correct casket, which is made of lead. He and Portia rejoice, and Gratiano confesses that he has fallen in love with Nerissa. The couples decide on a double wedding. Portia gives Bassanio a ring as a token of love, and makes him swear that under no circumstances will he part with it. They are joined, unexpectedly, by Lorenzo and Jessica. The celebration, however, is cut short by the news that Antonio has indeed lost his ships, and that he has forfeited his bond to Shylock. Bassanio and Gratiano immediately travel to Venice to try and save Antonio’s life. After they leave, Portia tells Nerissa that they will go to Venice disguised as men.

Shylock ignores the many pleas to spare Antonio’s life, and a trial is called to decide the matter. The duke of Venice, who presides over the trial, announces that he has sent for a legal expert, who turns out to be Portia disguised as a young man of law. Portia asks Shylock to show mercy, but he remains inflexible and insists the pound of flesh is rightfully his. Bassanio offers Shylock twice the money due him, but Shylock insists on collecting the bond as it is written. Portia examines the contract and, finding it legally binding, declares that Shylock is entitled to the merchant’s flesh. Shylock ecstatically praises her wisdom, but as he is on the verge of collecting his due, Portia reminds him that he must do so without causing Antonio to bleed, as the contract does not entitle him to any blood. Trapped by this logic, Shylock hastily agrees to take Bassanio’s money instead, but Portia insists that Shylock take his bond as written, or nothing at all. Portia informs Shylock that he is guilty of conspiring against the life of a Venetian citizen, which means he must turn over half of his property to the state and the other half to Antonio. The duke spares Shylock’s life and takes a fine instead of Shylock’s property. Antonio also forgoes his half of Shylock’s wealth on two conditions: first, Shylock must convert to Christianity, and second, he must will the entirety of his estate to Lorenzo and Jessica upon his death. Shylock agrees and takes his leave.

Bassanio, who does not see through Portia’s disguise, showers the young law clerk with thanks, and is eventually pressured into giving Portia the ring with which he promised never to part. Gratiano gives Nerissa, who is disguised as Portia’s clerk, his ring. The two women return to Belmont, where they find Lorenzo and Jessica declaring their love to each other under the moonlight. When Bassanio and Gratiano arrive the next day, their wives accuse them of faithlessly giving their rings to other women. Before the deception goes too far, however, Portia reveals that she was, in fact, the law clerk, and both she and Nerissa reconcile with their husbands. Lorenzo and Jessica are pleased to learn of their inheritance from Shylock, and the joyful news arrives that Antonio’s ships have in fact made it back safely. The group celebrates its good fortune.

Life of Galileo” As an Epic Drama.

“Life of Galileo” As an Epic Drama.

The literary term ‘Epic Theatre’ is customarily applied to a form of opus in which the author recounts a story, using as many episodes and characters as a comprehensive account of his subject cries out for. “Life of Galileo” by Berchet is a play pregnant with all the stipulations of an epic drama. The play is a beauteous addition in the world of Epic Theatre with narrative idiosyncrasies, storyline ins and outs, high-principled theme and panoramic characters.
The term “Epic Theatre” which was first manipulated in Germany in the 1920’s and has become implicitly associated with the name of Brechet. From the beginning of his career, Brechet had to be skirmish in the face of battle against the prevalent theatre of his day which he dismissed as ‘culinary’ since like connoisseur, it delighted the sense of taste without encroaching on the mind.
For Brechet, the traditional or dramatic theatre was a place where the audience were absorbed into a comforting fallacy which played on their emotions and left them haggard, but with a sense of satisfaction which biased them to accept the world as they found if what he himself was looking for, was a theatre that would help to metamorphose the world.
So, life of Galileo is an interpretation of Brechet’s Thespian thought. Narration has been given before starting any scene that is a major characteristic of an epic drama. In this play, the author relates an account in a way that invites the on lookers to consider the events involved and then to make their own evaluation of them.
The epic drama has been fabricated as a montage of independent incidents, which shows a process taking place. It moves from scene to scene by curves and jumps which keeps the audience on the ball to the way in which things are happening. So that, they may, at length, be capable to judge whether that is in right way. For an instance, in the first scene, Galileo succinctly hints at telescope but in fourth and fifth scene, it is described point by point. Moreover, role of monks proceed scene to scene. Change for the amelioration lies at the centre of Brechet’s thinking. It shows his ripened sagacity. This propounds that the hero of the play should not be a fixed character. Galileo in the play has been presented as a round character. He, in the first version of the play, appears to be an ardent satirist and a supercilious scientist who is fully assertive of his new theories that will change the entire world, but in due course, he himself declares his scientific verdicts to be null and void under the menace of torture.
Another characteristic of “Life of Galileo” as an epic drama is that man’s thinking is inured by his social situation and will change if that changes. When Sagredo puts Galileo on the alert that his discovery is theological dynamite, Galileo insists jubilantly, “Humanity will accept rational proof.” But in the end of the play, the state of affairs and situations changes his outlook. It makes us feel that hero is forced to be decisive.
As an epic play, “Life of Galileo” is ample with arguments. Galileo as well as men of the cloth make arguments on their behalf to substantiate their ideas right. Galileo gives arguments to a mathematician, “Gentleman to believe in the authority of Aristotle is one thing, tangible facts are another. You are saying that according to Aristotle, there are crystal spheres up there, so certain motion just cannot take place because the stars would penetrate them. But suppose, these motions could be established? Might not that suggest to you that those crystal spheres do not exist? Gentleman, in all humility, I ask you to go by the evidence of your eyes.”
Unlike traditional drama, in his play, arguments have been given with ratiocination in lieu of experiences and feelings. In this play, Brechet portrays a world that is tangible, limitless and in the strength of reality that is adaptable and able to alter. It turns the spectator into an observer and instigates him for actions.
At the end of the play, the discrepancy between the scientific and other developments of Galileo’s time and the straight local social structures that prevented them from being taken for a ride, for the general benefit would have left the audience with unequivocal questions about the nature of society.
Like a master-piece epic drama language in “Life of Galileo” varies with character. Galileo strikes a scientific ad logical tone. He uses aphoristic and figurative language; it is intentionally made striking to lend force to his damnation. By contrast, the procurator’s language is occasionally flairy while that of the Florentine Mathematician and philosopher is in fun chichi and double-edged. Galileo’s change with Andrea and Mrs. Sarti are direct and laconic as well as taciturn. Vanni introduces the vocabulary of manufacturing industry into the play. The Life of Galileo is replete with a number of literary, Biblical allusions and quotations from Dante, V Roe and Einstein. This stylistic choosing of the references also lend colours to its recognition as an epic drama.
In epic theatre the stage setting of the play was always a general, traditional and historical. Props (including doors) and furniture were to be purely realistic and above all of social and historical interest, costumes were to be individualised and to look threadbare. The props and pieces of scenery for “Life of Galileo” were portable and easy to assemble and remove. The bareness of the stage brings the action to light in a cool, unatmospheric space which was intended to counter-balance the relative lack of Epic form in the writing.
Lastly, “Life of Galileo” is an above board effort of Brechet in writing an Epic in which he goes through with flying colours. Epic theatre cuts across the traditional divisions completely and brings the people to the point of recognition.

Famous_quotations_about_poetry

#Famous_quotations_about_poetry:

'Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.'  

William Wordsworth

'A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightening five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.'
Randall Jarrell

'Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.'
T.S.Eliot

'Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.'

(To Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written Paradise Lost should write such poor sonnets.)
Samuel Johnson

'Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.'
Philip Larkin

'Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.'
Percy Bysshe Shelley

'Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.'
Robert Frost

'...nine-tenths of what passes as English poetry is the product of either careerism, or keeping one's hand in: a choice between vulgarity and banality.'
Robert Graves

'Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.'
T.S.Eliot

'Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.'
Adrian Mitchell

'No man can read Hardy's poems collected but that his own life, and forgotten moments of it, will come back to him, in a flash here and an hour there. Have you a better test of true poetry?'
Ezra Pound

'I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is prose; words in their best order; - poetry; the best words in the best order.'
S.T.Coleridge

'Well, write poetry, for God's sake, it's the only thing that matters.'
e. e. cummings

'In my view a good poem is one in which the form of the verse and the joining of its parts seems light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed.'
Basho

(Translated by Lucien Stryk)

'Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something. Don't use such an expression as 'dim land of peace.' It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realising that the natural object is always the adequate symbol. Go in fear of abstractions.'
Ezra Pound

'Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.'
Carl Sandburg

'Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.'
Matthew Arnold

'I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.'
Bob Dylan

'Poetry fettered fetters the human race.'
William Blake

'Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing
Did certain persons die before they sing.'
S.T.Coleridge

'The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given , the emotion is immediately evoked.'
T.S.Eliot

'To break the pentameter, that was the first heave.'
Ezra Pound

'Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.'
Dylan Thomas

'I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.'
Robert Frost

'The poet is the priest of the invisible.'
Wallace Stevens

'Poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life.'
Matthew Arnold

'The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.'
T.S.Eliot

'As a guiding principle I believe that every poem must be its own sole freshly-created universe, and therefore have no belief in 'tradition' or a common myth-kitty or casual allusions in poems to other poems or poets, which last I find unpleasantly like the talk of literary understrappers letting you see they know the right people.'
Philip Larkin

'I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.'
Bob Dylan

'You I am sure will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity and be more of an artist, and 'load every rift' of your subject with ore.'
John Keats (in a letter to Shelley 1820)

'Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.'
Robert Frost

'I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.'
A. E. Housman

'If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.'
Emily Dickinson

'There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.'
Robert Frost

'Modesty is a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.'
Miguel de Cervantes

'Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.'
Don Marquis

'Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.'
Percy Bysshe Shelley (A Defence of Poetry)

'I've had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.'
Kenneth Rexroth

'Poets aren't very useful. / Because they aren't consumeful or very produceful.'
Ogden Nash

'I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman.'
Robert Graves

'Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.'
Stephen Spender

'It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.'
Randall Jarrell

All The World’s A Stage By William Shakespeare

All The World’s A Stage By William Shakespeare

Every individual, who is a fan of Literature, knows about William Shakespeare. There is absolutely no one in the field of Art, who doesn’t know about him. William Shakespeare was a very popular English poet, actor as well as a playwright. He is the one, who has brought us fine scripts like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. His poem, All The World’s A Stage, gained immense popularity, right when it was written and introduced to the readers of his time.

Historical Perspective

All The World’s A Stage is a poem written by William Shakespeare. In fact, it was not a poem earlier, but a monologue from the maestro’s As You Like It. This monologue is said by Melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. As the speech begins, seven different stages of a man’s life are all that can come into your mind. Each and every word is so beautifully written that you can actually imagine everything that is written, just like a movie running in front of your eyes.

The seven stages of a man’s life also refer to The Seven Ages Of Man. These ages are: infant, school going boy, lover/husband, soldier/fighter, justice/ability to understand the right and wrong, Pantalone (greediness and high in status) and old-age.

In this poem, Shakespeare has compared life with a stage. He has used different words to beautify the poem in a wonderful way. He has taken this concept from medieval philosophy, which showed glimpses of several different groups as the seven deadly sins for theological reasons. Theology is the study of God’s nature as well as religious belief.

All The World’s A Stage Structure

There are two major poetic devices used in this poem – simile and metaphor.

Simile examples in the poem: ‘creeping like a snail’; ‘soldier… bearded like the pard’; etc.

Metaphor examples in the poem: The entire poem itself is more like symbolism; men and women are portrayed as players whereas life is portrayed as the stage.

Repetition is another figure of speech used in this poem; words like sans, age, etc. are repeated.

The poet has used a narrative form to express his innermost emotions about how he thinks that the world is a stage and all the people living in it are mere players or characters. These characters go through seven different phases in their lives.

All The World’s A Stage Poetic Form
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

As the poem begins, you are dragged to a stage. It is like you are the audience, and you are watching a drama on the stage, right in front of your eyes.

All The World’s A Stage tells you that all the men and women are mere characters in the drama, which is played on the stage (in the world). ‘They have their exits and their entrances’; this means that all the people take birth and then die after a certain period of time.

When the man enters into the world, he has seven different ages or phases to go through. When he goes through these ages, he has to play different roles. These roles depict a man as a son, his responsibilities as a brother, father, husband, fighter for the nation, etc.

The man begins his act on the stage as an infant; he pukes in the arms of his nurse and cries to be in the comfort of his mother.
The second act starts right when he turns into a school going boy, who is unwilling to go to school and unwilling to take the responsibility of being a student.

The third act , then comes when he turns into a lover; his lover is the only person he sees dancing in front of his eyes. For him, there is absolutely no other place that can comfort him, than the eyebrow of his lover.

The fourth act portrays the man as a soldier or a fight for the nation. His beard depicts all those strange oaths that he takes to protect his country and all the men and women living in it. No doubt he quarrels, but he also maintains his dignity to create and develop his reputation in front of others around him. This is perhaps the toughest stage in his life.

Then comes the fifth act, where he turns into justice, the one who knows what is good and what is right. At this stage, he is perhaps the best person to approach to find out who is correct and who is wrong.

The fifth stage comes into his life as he enters the stage of Pantalone, where he has a high status in society, yet he is greedy for more. This stage does not remain for long in his life.

Alas! The last stage comes for him to go through oblivion. No matter how hard he tries to remember things, he is just not able to. When he enters old-age, he turns into a child again. Slowly, he begins losing his teeth, his vision, the taste in his mouth and the love or greed for everything that he once wanted in his life.

Commentary

All The World’s A Stage takes you to two stages – melancholy and epiphany. When you read about the second last and last stages of the man’s life, you realize that life is nothing, but mere play. All you need to do is take birth and leave, after performing all your duties. Why do you need all the fame, name and money? Why do you want to have everything in life, when you would have absolutely nothing at all by the end of your ‘play?’

#The Philosophy of Thomas Hardy

#The Philosophy of Thomas Hardy
☆Hardy: An Artist and Not a Philosopher
Hardy was an artist and not a philosopher. He repeatedly affirmed that the ‘Views’ expressed in his novels were not his convictions or beliefs; they were simply “impressions” of the moment. His writings were all, ‘mood dictated’, merely, ‘explorations of reality’, and so it would be wrong to expect any systematised philosophy of life. But when certain impressions persist and are constantly repeated in the creative works, diaries and letters, of a writer, the readers may be pardoned, if they take them to be his convictions. Moreover, Hardy is so often passing from particular facts to life in general that we may safely take some of his views to be his philosophy of life.

☆Suffering: A Universal
In Hardy’s considered view, all life is suffering. Man suffers from the moment of his birth upto his death. Happiness is only occasional, it is never the general rule. As he says in “Vie Mayor of Casterbridge’, “Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain”. There is none who gets more than he deserves but there are many who get much less than what they deserve. Not only man suffers, but all nature suffers. Suffering is writ large on the face of nature. A ruthless, brutal struggle for existence is waged everywhere in nature. All nature is red in tooth and claw and life lives upon life. Thus all life, including human life, is subject to this law of suffering and none can escape the operation of this law.
Imperfections of the First Cause: Human Suffering
But what is the cause of this universal suffering of man and nature alike. In Hardy’s view the real cause is the, “imperfection of the laws that may be in force on high.” Thus human suffering is the result of the imperfections of the First Cause, the power that caused or created this sorry scheme of things. He rejects the orthodox Christian belief that this power is benevolent, all merciful, omnipotent and omniscient. He cannot reconcile the fact of universal, undeserved suffering with the omnipotence and benevolence of God or the First Cause. He indignantly asks, “What makes suffering and evil, necessary to its omnipotence ?” He regards this power as blind, indifferent, if not actually hostile, and unconscious and immoral. He uses ‘it’ and not ‘He’ for this power. This power has no sense of right or wrong, love or hate. In this blind, unconscious, impersonal working, it does not, and cannot, take into account human wishes and aspirations. Hence its working often causes men .much pain and suffering.
Nature as Instrument of the First Cause
This power manifests itself in a number of ways. Sometimes, it expresses itself through some force of Nature. Usually Nature in Hardy remains indifferent to, and unconscious of, the suffering of Hardy’s character. For example, Tess’ suffering goes unheeded in Nature. She is violated in the lap of Nature, but all Nature remains unconcerned and indifferent. But sometimes, Nature seems to work against the characters of Hardy, or we, in our sympathy for them, feel nature to be hostile. The Return of the Native is a tragedy of character and environment; Egdon Heath plays a prominent part in the novel and is largely responsible for the tragedy. In the Mayor of Casterbridge, the very stars seem to be hostile to Henchard. The fair organised by him, with such generosity and care, is ruined by untimely unexpected rain. The vagaries of weather ruin him financially and make him a bankrupt. Bad weather had been foretold and on that basis he made reckless purchases. But the weather cleared and he had to sell at far lower prices. Then quite unaccountably the weather changed again. There was rain and hail and Henchard was a financial wreck. Nature, thus, seems to be the instrument of some hostile power working against Henchard. It is in this sense that Nature is fate in Hardy’s novels.
The Irony of Circumstance or Life
Sometimes, the ruling power on high expresses itself through the irony of circumstance. By irony of circumstance, Hardy simply means that in this ill-conceived scheme of things the contrary always happens. We except one thing and get its exact opposite. This results in much undeserved suffering. Right things never happen at the right time : they happen either not at all, or too late, when their happening brings nothing but misery and suffering in their train. The heroines of Hardy, like Tess and Eustacia, as well as his male characters, like Clym, Henchard, Angel, Alec are all the victims of the irony of circumstance. The wrong man comes first, and when the right man comes it is too late. Thus Tess remained a vague, fleeting impression to Angel Clare, till she had been violated by Alec, and it was too late for them to live happily together.
Elizabeth-Jane consents to take up Henchard’s name, and then he suddenly discovers that she was not his daughter : “77ie mockery (irony) was, that he should have no sooner taught a girl to claim the shelter of his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship with him. This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from a fellow-creature. Like Prester John’s his table had been spread, and infernal harpies had snatched up the food.”
He had planned and schemed for months to have Jane as his daughter and now the fruition of the whole scheme was such, “dust and ashes” in his mouth.
Elizabeth-Jane, too, is the victim of this very irony of fate, for, “Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired.”
In fact, Hardy’s characters in general, and not in one or two novels alone, are the victims of this irony. Their intentions and aspirations are constantly frustrated, as if some hostile power were working against them.
The Role of Chance and Fate
There is a great difference between chance and irony of circumstance. Chance is entirely unexpected or accidental and has no relation either to character or to the course of action, while the essence of irony of fate or circumstance is its opposition to the whishes or merits of a particular character. Chance may sometimes work in favour of a particular character, but in Hardy’s works it always operates against them, for it is caused by the same indifferent, even hostile, First Cause. Thus Chance is another agent chosen by the Supreme to express itself. Chance or accident plays an important part in life and so in the novels of Hardy. The unexpected and the undesired always happens. Thus Tess suffers because the letter she had written to Angel on the eve of their marriage never reaches him. By chance it slips beneath the carpet and is not found. Many such accidents or chance events also happen in 77ie Mayor of Casterbridge. The coming of Farfrae in Casterbridge just at the time when Henchard was being taken to task for the sale of bad wheat, the sudden arrival of Newson in Casterbridge for the second time, the entirely unexpected appearance of the old furmity-seller in Casterbridge to drive the last nail in Henchard’s coffin, etc., are a few of the chance events that create the impression that Hardy believed in the operation of fatal forces hovering all around us and driving us to our doom. Chance or accident is thus an essential element in Hardy’s philosophy of life.
Love: A Potent Cause of Suffering
Love is another force which causes suffering in the world of Thomas Hardy. The women-folk, specially, are its chosen victims. As we are told in Tess, the cruel cause of things has hardened them with the powerful sex-instinct which they have never desired nor welcomed, and as a result of which they have to writh feverishly and pass sleepless nights. Love causes untold suffering to Elizabeth-Jane, to Tess, to Eustacia, to Bathsheba and to all other female characters of Hardy.
Human Freedom of Action: Its Limitations
Character may be destiny in Shakespeare, but it is certainly not so in Hardy’s world-view. In Hardy’s philosophy, character is responsible for suffering only to a limited extent. Inherited traits and inborn instincts determine the actions of a person to a very great extent. Even if he wishes, he cannot act against them. Moreover, Hardy agrees with Schopenheur in believing that, “a person can do what lie wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” Thus man is not a free agent and is not responsible for his actions to any great extent. He has only a very limited freedom of action.
Ways for the Amelioration of Human Lot
(1) Tact: But within these limits he can do much. If he is rash, hot-headed and obstinate, like Henchard, or Eustacia, he can bring about his own downfall. On the contrary, if he is wise and tactful, like Elizabeth Jane, or Thomasin, he can make much of his limited opportunities. Anyhow, it is his duty to adjust himself to his environment. He must not exult when fortune smiles upon him for at best it is only a short interlude, and may be followed by sudden and devastating misfortunes. And at such times, he must remember, like Elizabeth-Jane, that there are many others who have not got what they deserved or desired.
(2) The Rustic Philosophy of Resignation: Man must be resigned to his lot. It is useless to complain, for no complains can reform this ill-conceived scheme of things. It is equally futile to pit overselves against the inexorable, pitiless laws that govern our destiny, for if we do so we are sure to be pounded to atoms. We must learn the lesson of resignation, and we can do so only from primitive communities living in the lap of nature. The Wessex rustics when confronted with overwhelming misfortunes are never frustrated. They merely exclaim, ‘it was to be’, and go about the daily business of their life with renewed courage. Hardy is all admiration for such heroic souls, and prefers a simple life in their midst to an artificial life in a big city.
(3) Social Reform and Loving-Kindness: But this does not mean that in Hardy’s view man should make no attempts to ameliorate his lot. Hardy distinguishes between the natural and the social environment. While man can do nothing to change the natural environment, and must submit passively to it, he can do much to change his social environment through wise social reforms. Marriage laws, for example, should be liberalised in favour of the weaker sex. Unfortunate women, like Tess, who are more sinned against than sinning, should be accepted by society. No stigma should attach to them, for they are essentially pure. A spirit of “loving-kindness” should pervade all human relations and then all would be well. Life is suffering, but man should not increase its misery by this cruelty to his fellow-men, to women, and to the lower creatures.
☆Conclusion : Hardy’s Humanism
Such is Hardy’s philosophy of life. It is certainly a gloomy one, for he regards life as suffering and man as a puppet in the hands of Destiny. But it cannot be called pessimistic, for pessimism implies negation of life, a wish not to have been born at all. It is only in his last novel, Jude the Obscure, that some cynism enters and Hardy becomes pessimistic. Otherwise, Hardy is a humanist, a poet who wants man to turn from nature to his own kind, for,
“There at least discourse trills around,
There at least smiles abound,
There sametime are found,
Life-Loyalties.”

The Pessimism of Thomas Hardy

The Pessimism of Thomas Hardy
☘️🌿🌷🍁🌸💐💐💐👇

Is Hardy a Pessimist?
Much ink has been spilt in proving, and disproving too, that Hardy is a pessimist through and through. But Hardy himself repeatedly denied this charge in his prefaces, letters and diaries. He called himself an “evolutionary meliorist” and a realist. Let us here examine the arguments, both for and against, and then from our own conclusions.

Arguments of Hardy’s Critics
Those who charge Hardy with being a pessimist do so on account of his ‘twilight’ or gloomy view of life. They point out that in Hardy’s considered view all life is suffering. Suffering is the universal law and happiness is but an occasional episode. In one of his poems, “Tire Poet’s Epitaph”, he calls life a “senseless school” and in another one that “Life offers only to deny.” In hide the Obscure a child, called Father Time, murders his step brothers and sisters and then hangs himself. He does so because he feels that life is not worth living, and it is better not to have been born at all. Hardy himself adds the comment that Father Time symbolises the coming universal wish not to live.
Hardy Pessimistic about the First Cause
Moreover, Hardy’s critics point out, he is pessimistic about the governance of the world. He rejected early in life the Christian belief in a benevolent and omnipotent anthropomorhic God or First Cause. He rather conceives of Him as malevolent, as one who take delight in the suffering of us mortals. In Tess we are told, “Justice was done, and the President of the immortals had ended this sport with Tess.”
In one of his poems he speaks of the Creator as, “Godhead dying downwards, with eyes and head all gone” and elsewhere refers to it as some “vast imbecility”. Thus in his view ‘the supreme power is blind, imbecile and malevolent and it takes joy in killing and torturing his innocent creation. In this ill-conceived scheme of things, with an hostile imbecility as the supreme governing force, there can be nothing but, “strange orchestra of victim shriek and pain.” If this is not pessimism, ask the critics of Hardy, then what is?
Hardy’s Own Point of View
But Hardy vehemently denied this charge, times out of number. He pointed out that he was an artist and not a philosopher. It would be wrong to read any considered belief or theory of life in his mood-dictated writings. Expressions, like the one in Tess, regarding the President of the immortals, were simply poetic fancies, merely poetic devices like the use of ghosts, witches, fairies, etc., commonly used in all imaginative literature. Poems like “The Poet’s Epitaph” were merely impressions of the moment and did not represent his considered view. He should not be judged by them. In his letters, diaries and prefaces he frequently explained his own point of view and called himself an, “evolutionary meliorist”, or an “explorer of reality.”
Hardy a Realist and Not Pessimist
The fact is that Hardy was a thorough realist. Born and bred in a scientific age, he could not shut his eyes to the fact of suffering. Therefore, the cheap, blind optimism of poets, like Browning, who sang,
“God is in His heaven
All is right with the world.”
failed to satisfy him. Rather, the brutal and ruthless struggle for existence which he saw being waged in Nature everywhere, the starvation, hunger, sickness and disease which stalks the earth, made him feel that God was not in heaven and all was wrong with the world. He claimed, and rightly, that his position was nearer the truth. Nor could he agree with the Romantic poets, like Wordsworth, who said that Nature had a “Holy plan” and that there was joy everywhere in Nature. How could it be so, when number of children were born to shiftless parents, like the Durbeyfields, to bring misery to themselves and to others. The world was already over crowded, there were already too many hungry mouth to be fed. Acutely conscious of this fact of universal suffering, he felt with his own Jude that mutual butchery was the law of nature. This is not pessimism, but realism. This state of affairs can be mended not by turning our backs to it, but by facing it squarely. He therefore taught :
“If a way to the better there be
It implies a good look at the worst.”
This is a perfectly sane and healthy view of life and no rightminded person can object to it.
Hardy’s View of the First Cause: Scientific
As regards the creation and the Creator, Hardy was much influenced by the scientific theories of his age. He agreed with evolutionary scientists, like Darwin, that the universe could not have been created out of nothing by a single act of creation. It was in a constant process of evolution. With all modern thinkers, he lost faith in the benevolent, anthropomorphic God of Christian orthodoxy and conceived of the First Cause as an inhering force or energy, working constantly from within. Thus Hardy’s universe is in a constant state of evolution. He conceives of this energy as indifferent and unconscious, without any hostility or any sense of pleasure in causing pain. This is his considered view. But when carried away by his indignation, he shakes his fist at the cause of things and personifies it as a conscious and hostile Creator. For example, with indignation burning in his heart at the unmerited suffering of Tess, he calls the First Cause as the President of the Immortals who kill us for their sport. He may be excused for inch poetic’fancies, for they have been made use of by all poets and writers of fiction. They do not reflect in any way this logical position.
Ultimate Enlightenment of the First Cause
Moreover, he believes that this energy or power would gradually evolve consciousness and then human lot would undergo amelioration. Towards the end of his epic-drama, The Dynasts, his most philosophical work, he holds out a hope of the gradual emergence of a better order of things. In this drama, he calls the First Cause, Immanent Will, and says that already,
“….. a sound of joyance thrills the air,
Consciousness the will informing
Till it fashion all things fair,
And the rages of the ages shall be mended.”
This is certainly not pessimism. It may be what Hardy called, “evolutionary meliorism.”
Philosophy of Resignation, Not of Nihilism
Besides this, Hardy is not a Nihilist. Except in his last novel Jude the Obscure, he never advocates a rejection of life. Suffering, no doubt, is the universal law but human lot can be ameliorated a great deal through tact and wisdom and through wise social reform. It is a philosophy of resignation which he teaches. The Wessex rustics are resigned to their lot and suffer patiently. Joan Durbeyfield’s suffering is not so intense, because when faced with misfortune she again and again mutters, “It was to be”, and then goes about her way as usual. Elizabeth-Jane and Thomasin tactfully adjust themselves to their circumstances and so escape much misery.
Emphasis on Wise Social Reform
Social reforms can go a long way towards ameliorating human lot. Marriage laws, specially, should be liberalised in favour of the fair sex. ‘Pure’ women, like Tess, who are more sinned against than sinning, should not be looked down upon and treated as outcasts. Our double standards of morality must go. A marriage should be dissolved as soon as it becomes a cruelty to either of the two contracting parties, for it is then no marriage at all.
Hardy’s View of Man
Moreover, Hardy does not take a degarded view of mankind. Odious villains, detestable and condemnable rascals, are few in the Wessex Novels and none of them is an unredeemed villain. Thomas Hardy cannot draw completely odious people. David Cecil writes in this connection, “Odiousness implies meanness; and mean people neither feel deeply nor are aware of any issues larger than those involved in the gratification of their selfish desires.” If Hardy tries to draw such a mean person, he is a dreadful failure. It does not mean that all his successful creations are virtuous. Henchard and Eustacia commit sins, but they do so in a grand manner. There is no calculated selfishness in them. Moreover, they know they are wrong : they are torn with conscience. They are simply carried away by an over-mastering passion. Therefore, we do not dislike them. Mankind for Hardy always assumes heroic proportions. The Wessex Novels are the, “apotheosis of the human spirit”, and not expositions of its meanness.
Hardy a Humanist, and Not a Pessimist
The spirit of, “Loving-kindness”, Hardy advocates, should he the basis of all human relations. Much of human misery results from the imperfections of the First Cause, but much more suffering can be avoided if we are kind and sympathetic to each other. Instead of seeking refuge in nature and turning our back on life, we should rather turn to our own kind, for,
“There at least discourse trills around,
There at least smiles abound,
There sometimes are found,
Life-Loyalties.”
A poet who could write like this cannot be called a pessimist. Thomas Hardy is a ‘humanist” or what he called himself an, “Evolutionary meliorist.”
To Sum Up
1.      There has been hot controversy as to whether Hardy    is a pessimist or not.
2.      Those who consider him a pessimist point out :
(a)    In his view all life is suffering and happiness is only an occasional interlude.
(b)    The ruling power is blind, unconscious of human suffering and lacking in moral sense. Its activity is purposeless.
3.      Hardy considered himself a realist and an evolutionary meliorist. He believed that,
(a)    If a way to the better there is, it requires a good look at the worst.
(b)    The rulling power would be gradually enlightened with the passing of time.
(c)    Human lot can be improved by tactful and adjustment to one’s. circumstance, by wise social reform and “loving-kindness.”

Ghost in Hamlet

Ghost in Hamlet

The ghost in hamlet plays a very important and significant role. In most of Shakespeare's plays we have supernatural machinery like ghosts whiches etc. For example we have ghost in hamlet, Julius Caesar, and witches in Macbeth ... In Elizabethtan world the appearance of supernatural creatures was a common belief, as according to Moulton, " supernatural agency has a place in the world of Shakespeare ".
The appearance of ghost in the play leads the play to its climax, that's the point where the audience suspense and tension start to rise and this is one of the techniques writer use to stir the reader's interest. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, but If there was no ghost there would be no such play as hamlet. Most part of the first act of the play is about the appearance of the ghost. The appearance of the ghost also adds to hamlet's tension as he is not sure whether the ghost is real or a devil in disguise because at that time it was a belief as well that there are two types of ghost, the real and the false ghost. so it makes hamlet confused, but there is no doubt that the fire of revenge in hamlet's heart is lit by the ghost as hamlet says after he meets the ghost, " my father spirit in arm! All is not well,
I doubt some foul play"
The action of the play starts from the moment when the ghost tells hamlet about the murderer of his father.
There is a controversy among critics about the appearance of the ghost, as some say that it is a subjective phenomena,  a hallucination springing from imagination whereas, there are others who call it objective as in the first scene, when the ghost appears, not only hamlet but Mercellus, Bernardo and horatio see the ghost, so we can say that it's physical not imaginary.  But later on, somewhere in the play we have again the appearance of the ghost, where hamlet hear it but the queen doesn't,  so in that case we can say that its imaginary.
So in short, the ghost in hamlet play the most significant role and its the appearance of the ghost which pave the way for the revenge to be followed.

Ode to Melancholy 'Line by Line

Ode to Melancholy 'Line by Line'🍁🌹🙋‍♂️☘️🌿👇

Ode to Melancholy

Stanza I
The first stanza tells what not to do: The sufferer should not “go to Lethe,” or forget their sadness (Lethe is the river of forgetfulness in Greek mythology); should not commit suicide (nightshade, “the ruby grape of Prosperpine,” is a poison; Prosperpine is the mythological queen of the underworld); and should not become obsessed with objects of death and misery (the beetle, the death-moth, and the owl). For, the speaker says, that will make the anguish of the soul drowsy, and the sufferer should do everything he can to remain aware of and alert to the depths of his suffering.
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
·          Lethe: river in the underworld Hades in which souls about to be reborn bathed to forget the past; hence, river of forgetfulness.
·         wolf's-bane: poison. This name is the direct translation from the Greek for this plant. Also by choosing to use this name for the plant instead of one of its other names Keats sends the message that the plant is poisonous without requiring the reader to research the properties of the plant.
·         Lethe = River of Forgetfulness (Greek mythology)
Wolf's bane = a poisonous plant (Aconitum lycoctonum)
Nightshade = another poisonous plant (Belladonna atropina)
Proserpine = Queen of the Underworld
Yew berries = another poison.

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

·          nightshade: poison.
·         Proserpine: the queen of the underworld. Prosperpine was kidnapped by Pluto and taken to Hades, his kingdom. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of fertility and grain, grieved for her loss and the earth became sterile. Proserpine was returned to her mother for six months each year when Demester's joy is reflected in fertility and crops. Proserpine's story, with its connection to the change of the seasons, is appropriate for this poem.

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
The moth and the butterfly are images of Psyche, the soul. The use of “death-moth” ties into “mournful Psyche.” It also represents life and death since the living moth becomes identified as death. The owl is also a symbol “of darkness and death” (Cooper 124). However, as a bird it represents the soul (Cooper 20). “Shade” is also a soul image and a death image; the word often refers to specters, souls that wander due to unfinished business. Keats pairs these images of soul and death, but he says not to allow them to represent the soul, “For shade to shade will come too drowsily” (l. 10). There is no need to hurry death because of depression. Death will come in its own time.

·          yew-berries: symbol of mourning. The yew is traditionally associated with mourning.
·          rosary: prayer beads.
·          Line 6, beetle: The Egyptians regarded the beetle as sacred; as a symbol of resurrection, a jewel-beetle or scarab was placed in tombs.
·          death-moth: the death's head moth, so called because its markings resemble a human skull.
·         Line 7, Psyche: in Greek, the soul or mind as well as butterfly (used as its emblem).
·         Line 8, mysteries: secret rites.
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
·          Just like death and the seasons “the melancholy fit shall fall” (l. 11) and is part of a natural cycle (Baker). The fit builds up, unnoticed then comes “Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,” (l. 12). This is another image full of contradictions.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
·          Just like death and the seasons “the melancholy fit shall fall” (l. 11) and is part of a natural cycle (Baker). The fit builds up, unnoticed then comes “Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,” (l. 12). This is another image full of contradictions.
·          The possible intensity, unpredictability, and inescapableness of melancholy is suggested by "fit." Think of your associations with this word.

That fosters (develops)  the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
·          The rain cloud “fosters” these flowers by helping them grow. However, while it is raining the flowers hang their heads down as if depressed or mourning. Even though the cloud may hide the growth, this melancholy that causes people to be “droop-headed” is actually helping them grow. These lines also bring the idea of vision into the poem. The cloud obscures vision. One literally cannot see the green hill through the cloud. However, this shows how when the cloud of melancholy hits one, they will be unable to see the beauty behind the cloud. Instead they see the “April shroud.” This phrase draws the reader back to the first stanza with its image of life and death. April is the beginning of spring. It is a month of regeneration and fertility celebrations. Keats identifies it with a shroud. Keats then says, when one can only see the “April shroud” they should
“glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
·          Lines 1-4 describe the physical circumstances literally and the emotional circumstances figuratively. The clouds are "weeping," an appropriate action for melancholy. But is it surprising, even startling perhaps, to find that these weeping clouds (a negative image) "foster" (or nurture) the flower? Doesn't the reference to flowers call up positive images? However, the flowers are"droop-headed," a phrase having a double application. (1) On a literal level, the rain has caused them to droop. (2) On a figurative level, "droop-headed" connotes sadness, grief. The flowers are more specifically described in lines 5 and 7. The rain temporarily hides the view or hill (remember all these nature images are descriptions of melancholy); however the hill is green, connoting fertility, lushness, beauty, aliveness, and it retains these qualities whether we can see them at a particular moment or not. The rain which cuts visibility is called a "shroud," an obvious death reference, but the month is April, a time when nature renews itself, comes alive after winter's barrenness and harshness. Is there a suggestion that melancholy is or may be fruitful?

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
·          When one can only see their melancholy then they should surfeit on it to get to the beauty beyond. They should give into the depression until they get sick of it. This will enable them to grow past it and to see the fertile “green hill.” However, if Melancholy becomes angry that one is no longer solely occupied by her, then take her in and let her loose within. Keats is saying once again to feed on melancholy. He is suggesting a cyclical pattern of melancholy and joy. He is also suggesting a sort of beauty within Melancholy. The “green hill” is behind the shroud; this signifies that once past the melancholy fit it is beautiful. The “peerless eyes” may also refer to the beauty of melancholy that Keats seems to be getting at. It could also refer back to the idea of vision and the idea that one cannot peer through melancholy.

Each image Keats chooses to go with “glut they sorrow” contains both symbols of life and death. A rose is a beautiful and complex image. According to Cooper it can symbolize both life and death; “As the flower of the feminine deities it is love, life, creation, fertility, beauty and also virginity. The evanescence of the rose represents death, mortality and sorrow; its thorns signify pain” (Cooper 141). To further this idea he pairs the rose with the word morning, which has a double meaning due to the similarity to mourning. Morning is associated with dawn and rebirth, but the sound similarity to mourning associates it with death. The rainbow is a symbol of “Transfiguration; […] the bridge or boundary between this world and Paradise” (Cooper 136). The rainbow is a bridge between life and death. According to Hermione de Almeida, the “globed peonies” are another poisonous plant. But the peony is a healing symbol (Cooper 128).

With this idea of finding life and death within the same image Keats turns to the idea of finding Melancholy with Beauty, Joy, and Pleasure.
·          The rest of the stanza advises what to do in these circumstances: enjoy as fully as possible the beauties of this world and thereby welcome melancholy. To "glut" sorrow is to gorge or to experience to the fullest. The rose is beautiful, but as a "morning" rose it lasts a short time, i.e., the experience is transitory. Similarly the rainbow produced by the wave is beautiful and shortlived (think about how long a wave lasts) Is it relevant that waves keep coming? The beauty of the peonies ("globed" describes their round shape) is "wealth"; is "wealth" a positive or a negative value here?
·           The last four lines turn from nature to people. The imagery of wealth (her anger is "rich") and eating intently ("feed deep") tie the natural and the human worlds and the two divisions of the stanza together. The words "glut," "feed deep," and "Emprison" imply passionate involvement in experience; also the eating imagery suggests that melancholy is incorporated into, becomes part of and nourishes the individual. The food imagery is continued in stanza III. The lover, while the object of her angry raving, also enjoys her beauty ("peerless eyes").
·          In the second stanza, the speaker tells the sufferer what to do in place of the things he forbade in the first stanza. When afflicted with “the melancholy fit,” the sufferer should instead overwhelm his sorrow with natural beauty, glutting it on the morning rose, “on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,” or in the eyes of his beloved.

She dwells with Beauty -- Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
·           It is important to recognize that "She" refers both to the beloved of stanza II and to melancholy. Lines 1-3 explain the basis for the advice of stanza II; beauty dies, joy is brief (while we are experiencing joy, it is saying goodbye to us), and pleasure is painful ("aching pleasure" is a characteristic Keatsian oxymoron). Line 4 offers a specific example of the abstractions of lines 1-3; as the bee sips nectar (a pleasurable activity), the nectar turns to poison. Having shown the inextricably mixed nature of life, Keats moves on to talk about melancholy explicitly.
·          Where can melancholy be found? As has been implied, it is found in pleasure, in delight. Melancholy is "Veil'd" because it is hidden from us during pleasure, which is generally what we are aware of and are absorbed in. However there are those who see melancholy-in-delight. They live intensely, vigorously; the language reflects their exuberance and power, "strenuous" and "burst." Their sensitivity to life is of the highest quality, "palate fine."
·          In the end of this poem, we see the reward of the "wakeful anguish of the soul" of stanza I. The possessor of the wakeful soul shall taste melancholy's sadness (note the synaesthesia of tasting a feeling). The change of tense, from present pleasure to future melancholy, expresses their relationship--one is part of and inevitably follows the other. Keats concludes that the wakeful soul will be the "trophy" or prize gained or won from melancholy. Trophy is described as "cloudy," which has negative overtones. Does this negative touch suggest any ambivalence on the poet's part? or is it the an absolute statement of the inextricably mixed nature of pleasure and melancholy?
·          Another way of asking this question: is Keats's affirming, without any qualifications, doubt, or hesitation, the inseparable nature of opposites in life?
·          In the third stanza, the speaker explains these injunctions, saying that pleasure and pain are inextricably linked: Beauty must die, joy is fleeting, and the flower of pleasure is forever “turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips.” The speaker says that the shrine of melancholy is inside the “temple of Delight,” but that it is only visible if one can overwhelm oneself with joy until it reveals its center of sadness, by “burst[ing] Joy’s grape against his palate fine.” The man who can do this shall “taste the sadness” of melancholy’s might and “be among her cloudy trophies hung.”
Form
“Ode on Melancholy,” the shortest of Keats’s odes, is written in a very regular form that matches its logical, argumentative thematic structure. Each stanza is ten lines long and metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter. The first two stanzas, offering advice to the sufferer, follow the same rhyme scheme, ABABCDECDE; the third, which explains the advice, varies the ending slightly, following a scheme of ABABCDEDCE, so that the rhymes of the eighth and ninth lines are reversed in order from the previous two stanzas. As in some other odes (especially “Autumn” and “Grecian Urn”), the two-part rhyme scheme of each stanza (one group of AB rhymes, one of CDE rhymes) creates the sense of a two-part thematic structure as well, in which the first four lines of each stanza define the stanza’s subject, and the latter six develop it. (This is true especially of the second two stanzas.)
Themes
If the “Ode to Psyche” is different from the other odes primarily because of its form, the “Ode on Melancholy” is different primarily because of its style. The only ode not to be written in the first person, “Melancholy” finds the speaker admonishing or advising sufferers of melancholy in the imperative mode; presumably his advice is the result of his own hard-won experience. In many ways, “Melancholy” seeks to synthesize the language of all the previous odes—the Greek mythology of “Indolence” and “Urn,” the beautiful descriptions of nature in “Psyche” and “Nightingale,” the passion of “Nightingale,” and the philosophy of “Urn,” all find expression in its three stanzas—but “Melancholy” is more than simply an amalgam of the previous poems. In it, the speaker at last explores the nature of transience and the connection of pleasure and pain in a way that lets him move beyond the insufficient aesthetic understanding of “Urn” and achieve the deeper understanding of “To Autumn.”
For the first time in the odes, the speaker in “Melancholy” urges action rather than passive contemplation. Rejecting both the eagerly embraced drowsiness of “Indolence” and the rapturous “drowsy numbness” of “Nightingale,” the speaker declares that he must remain alert and open to “wakeful anguish,” and rather than flee from sadness, he will instead glut it on the pleasures of beauty. Instead of numbing himself to the knowledge that his mistress will grow old and die (that “Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,” as he said in “Nightingale”), he uses that knowledge to feel her beauty even more acutely. Because she dwells with “beauty that must die,” he will “feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.”
In the third stanza, the speaker offers his most convincing synthesis of melancholy and joy, in a way that takes in the tragic mortality of life but lets him remain connected to his own experience. It is precisely the fact that joy will come to an end that makes the experience of joy such a ravishing one; the fact that beauty dies makes the experience of beauty sharper and more thrilling. The key, he writes, is to see the kernel of sadness that lies at the heart of all pleasure—to “burst joy’s grape” and gain admission to the inner temple of melancholy. Though the “Ode on Melancholy” is not explicitly about art, it is clear that this synthetic understanding of joy and suffering is what has been missing from the speaker’s earlier attempts to experience art.
“Ode on Melancholy” originally began with a stanza Keats later crossed out, which described a questing hero in a grotesque mythological ship sailing into the underworld in search of the goddess Melancholy. Though Keats removed this stanza from his poem (the resulting work is subtler and less overwrought), the story’s questing hero still provides perhaps the best framework in which to read this poem. The speaker has fully rejected his earlier indolence and set out to engage actively with the ideas and themes that preoccupy him, but his action in this poem is still fantastical, imaginative, and strenuous. He can only find what he seeks in mythical regions and imaginary temples in the sky; he has not yet learned how to find it in his own immediate surroundings. That understanding and the final presentation of the odes’ deepest themes will occur in “To Autumn.”