Seamus heaney as a non political poet

SEAMUS HEANEY AS NON-POLITICAL POET.
It is easy to get the impression that Heaney is a political and provincial poet, concerned only with the happenings of his island and his memory. Some critics have placed Heaney in a no-win situation; he is condemned either for confronting too strongly the situation in his homeland, or taken to task for remaining aloof from it. As one can connote his awareness and caring attitude from ‘the boot of the law’, ‘the heavy ledger’, ‘the polished holster’, and ‘imagining the black hole in the barracks from “A Constable Calls” and ‘armoured cars’, ‘warbling along on powerful wheels’, ‘my roads’; and ‘I had the right of way’ from “The Toome Road”.
That finale, however, would be misleading. He is not merely a one-note minstrel; his birthplace does not completely occupy his mind. “Casting and Gathering “demonstrates his exploration of the poetic process. Like "Digging" and “Personal Helicon”. This short lyric attends to his own imagination. His descriptive powers are akin to Wordsworth's, and his attention to the world around him and detail of the poems make it a small success.
Heaney imbues with Joseph Brodsky that the only thing poetry and politics have in common “are the letters P and O”. He is of the view that poet should be well aware of his surroundings, especially when there is bloodshed, and that he must perform his role as much as he can. But he does not want to be identified with hacklers. In his essay “There dress of Poetry”, he is at crusade against hacklers who have made poetry a source of propaganda.
"There is no getting around that there is a political component to the decision-making," said Jonathan Galassi, editor in chief at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Heaney's New York publisher. "But this has been a long time coming, and it couldn't go to a more popular, beloved person."
The poem in this archive, “Personal Helicon” introduces an abiding interest, a concern for that which lies deep within the earth. It is dedicated to Michael Longley, another member of Hobsbaum's group. Mount Helicon is a mountain in Greece, that was, in classical mythology, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. From it flowed two fountains of poetic inspiration. Heaney is here presenting his own source of inspiration, the "dark drop" into personal and cultural memory, made present by the depths of the wells of his childhood. Now, as a man, he is too mature to scramble about on hands and knees, looking into the deep places of the earth, but he has his poetry. This serves as his glimpse into places where "there is no reflection," but only the sound of a rhyme, like a bucket, setting "the darkness echoing." This is the final poem in his first volume, and, together with his first poem in that volume, "Digging," acts as a bookend to the collection, utilizing this successful metaphor.
Robert Lowell has deemed Heaney "the most important Irish poet since Yeats. “Critics have been largely positive about his verse, and he is undoubtedly the most popular poet writing in English today. His books sell by the tens of thousands, and hundreds of "Heaney boppers" attend his readings. His earliest influences, Robert Frost and Ted Hughes, can be seen throughout his work, but most especially in his “A Constable calls”, and “The Toome Road”, where he recollects images of his childhood at Mossbawn. Other poets, especially Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, and even Dante have played important in this context.

How do you write in reference to context?

How do you write in reference to context?

Often, a reference to context involves an explanation of a quote. Examples of providing context include discussing what leads to the quote, what the quote itself means, what it reveals about the story, and what it could mean for the rest of the story, as well.

1 Writing Reference to the Context

Step-I
Begin by mentioning the name of the poem and the poet of that particular poem.

For example:
These lines have been taken from the poem ___ written by _____.
or
This is an extract from the poem ______ written by ______.
or
These lines occur in the poem ____written by ___.

Step-II
* Briefly describe the context/situation in which the chosen lines occur.
* Identify the order/place in the poem i.e., whether the lines under reference happen to be the opening or concluding lines, whether it is the first stanza or the last stanza or it occurs in the middle of the poem.
* Identify the form of the poem whether it is a sonnet, lyric, dramatic monologue, ode or ballad etc. You may incorporate this information while referring to the context of the given passage e.g.; This is the first/second etc. stanza of the sonnet/lyric etc.

Important points to remember
* You should be able to identify the poem, name the poet and locate the passage in the poem.

2 Writing Explanation

Step-I
* Give a simple and brief meaning of the passage.
* Look for the hidden meaning conveyed through poetic devices. Make a mention of similes symbols, metaphor, personification, imagery etc. if any used by the poet in the given lines.

Step-II
* Bring out the meaning of these poetic devices.

Step-III
* Relate the underlying relevance and beauty of these poetic features by way of commenting on their effect in the poem.

There is a difference between writing with reference to "text" and writing with "reference to context."

Writing with reference to text means you will provide evidence, in the form of quotations from the text being discussed, that supports your analysis, arguments and assertions. Writing with reference to text is proving that your statements are logically founded in the text as written, proving that you are not misinterpreting or misunderstanding the text you've read and analyzed.

Contrastingly, writing with reference to context means to locate a quotation in relation to a given work ( recognize the work a given quotation is extracted from, and can you say what kind of work it is, who wrote it and where the quotation is found).

Writing with reference to context requires that you briefly relate the meaning of the work as a whole and then relate the meaning of the quotation, and it requires that your comment on meaning be built upon the figurative devices that underlie the deep meaning of the quotation. It is clear, then, that referencing text and referencing context are not the same technique, nor do they fulfill the same functions.

Atta Ur Rahman Jadoon

pride and prejudice in urdu/hindi

The theme of To The Lighthouse is concerned with subject and object and Nature of reality. Discuss.

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Introductory: Interpretations Differ
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To The Lighthouse is, without any shade of doubt, a very complex novel and hence there are different interpretations from different critics. Norman Friedman’s comments on this point is worth noting: “To The Lighthouse is a very complex novel, and different critics have read different meanings into it.
While there is a general agreement that To The Lighthouse centres on questions of general order and chaos, male and female, permanence and change and intellection and intuition, the critics are far from unanimous in the actual tracing out of these themes. Thus, for example, it is clear that the simultaneous completion of Lily Briscoe’s painting and arrival of Mr. Ramsay, James and Cam at the Lighthouse are somehow functioning together to complete the book, but no two critics have agreed as to what the function means as an ending of what has gone before. One claims that Mr. Ramsay is undergoing a transition from his former intellectual personality to a newly discovered intuitive view, while another critic says that Lily is moving from a concern with form, that is art, to a concern with content, that is life. Another critic sees in the ending a shift from time to the timeless, while a fourth one sees here a shift from egotism to selflessness, and a fifth critic thinks of this simultaneous convergence as a clumsy device which solves no problem.”
We can multiply such examples, but it is evident that the dominant tendency is to interpret the thematic conflict—whatever it may be—as an antithesis to two mutually exclusive terms, one of which must be rejected in favour of the other. In fact, the full significance of the trip to the Lighthouse is not grasped. It is, more or less, seen as a one way affair. But a closer study of the novel will reveal that this either-or strategy is hardly adequate for dealing with the multiplicity of points of view through which each character is seen in the first section, the descending and the ascending movement of the second section and the shifting simultaneity of events which shape the third.
Relation of Self to Others
It is mainly the first part of the novel that deals with the relation of self to others. Very soon it becomes clear that not one single trait or characteristic of a person can be seized upon and cherished in order to know him or her. Mrs. Ramsay for instance, is really a warm and beautiful woman, yet annoyingly concerned with ordering the lives of others. And this is quite clear from the resentment which many of her circle express against her mania for marriage. She is, no doubt, maternal.
Mr. Ramsay
Next, let us take the example of Mr. Ramsay. Often he shows himself as a self-dramatising domestic tyrant, but still he is to be admired as a lone watcher at the dark frontiers of human ignorance. He is, no doubt, a detached and a lonely philosopher, yet he cannot but crave the contact of his wife and children. He is grim, yet optimistic, austere, yet fearful for his reputation; petty and selfish, and yet capable of losing himself completely in a novel of Scott; alert, yet he thrives on the simple company and the humble fare of fishermen.
Lily and Others
In the same way Lily Briscoe is also a complex figure. She is a spinster disinterested in ordinary sexual attachment; she is nevertheless capable of a fierce outburst of love. She is, no doubt, an artist perpetually terrified by a blank canvas, but still she is able to find a solution to the complex problem of art-life relationship. In the same way Mr. Bankes, Mr. Tansley, all are double beings or complex figures of the novel. And we find that the climax of the first section occurs at the dinner, a brilliantly dramatic communion meal where each ordinary ego, with its petty aggression and resentment, is gradually blended with the others into a pattern of completion and harmony. Thus it is clear that double vision or multiple perspective is very much necessary to know and understand human personality. And in this section we are able to have just such a perspective, as each character is presented from at least two points of view.
Man to Nature
We have seen how in the first section the relation of self to others has been dealt with. And Part II of the novel deals with the relation of man to nature. It does not portray merely the ravages of time and tide affecting the Ramsay family and their summer house. In addition the almost complete destruction of the house, we have also a chance to see its equally dramatic renewal. And then it is seen that its focus is on the comic-epic figure of Mrs. McNab, who lurches through the house wiping and dusting, breaking into a long dirge of sorrow and trouble, yet who feels, ‘looking sideways in the glass, as if after all, she had some consolation, as if indeed there were twined about her dirge some incorrigible hope’. Thus, it is she and her two helpers, Mrs. Bast and her son, who fetch up from oblivion all the Waverly novels, and who rescue the house from impending doom and destruction.
Further, we find in this very section that the fortunes of the Ramsay family suffer so many setbacks. Mrs. Ramsay dies unexpectedly, Andrew is killed in the battlefield in France, and Prue dies of childbirth. Even then we are made to understand that Mr. Ramsay’s work will endure, for the fate of his books was somehow tied up with the Waverly novels. Also, as the next section proceeds to demonstrate the family continues to develop. Thus it is clearly evident that section two or the central section of this great novel, therefore, demonstrates not the victory of natural chaos over human order, but rather the reverse. Man’s power and will to live ultimately prevail over death and destruction.
Relation of Art to life
Now, in the third section of the To The Lighthouse, the third level of the theme, the relation of art to life is treated. We find that the structure of this section is based upon the shuttling back and forth between Lily on the island and those in the boat watching the island, who in turn get further away. This is accompanied by the corresponding movement of those in the boat getting closer to the Lighthouse and Lily gelling closer to the solution of her aesthetic problem. And it must be noted that the determining factor in each case is love (the art of life), which might perhaps be defined as order or the achievement of form in human relations through the surrender of personality. Hence we find Lily brushing her painting as she feels the upsurge of that sympathy for Mr. Ramsay, which she had previously been stubbornly unable to give. James and Cam give up their longstanding antagonism towards their father. Mr. Ramsay, himself, at the same time, attains a resolution of his own tensions and worries. The point is not that they have made a one dimensional transition from this to that attitude, but that, since each is aware simultaneously both of what is receding and what is approaching, each has received in his way a sense of double vision.
Double Vision through Imagery
A closer look at the imagery of the book, its figure of speech, its scene and plot may further demonstrate the presence of this double vision. To begin with, the Lighthouse itself as the most conspicuous image functions in two ways as something to be reached, and as source of flashing light. This means has a symbolic role to play. As a source of light, it appears in two connections, first, as it impinges upon the consciousness of Mrs. Ramsay in the first section after she had finished reading to James, and second, as it flashes upon the empty house in section two.
Thus we find that Mrs. Ramsay, the busy mother of eight children often feels the need ‘to be silent, to be alone. Often she muses upon the alternating flashes of light in a mood of detachment, peace and rest. And this musing gives her a sense of victory over life, and she identifies herself with the third stroke—the long steady stroke—which becomes for her an image of purity and truth, of strength and courage, searching and beautiful. Her self, having shed its attachments, was free for the strongest adventures. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless ... Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir, and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this serenity, and pausing there she looked out to meet the stroke, of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three which was—her stroke.’
Now this can be taken as the thesis of her emotional cycle, the antithesis is evoked as her mood soon changes into one of the grim recognition of inevitable facts of ‘suffering, death, the poor’, and she gradually descends from her state on triumphant freedom from the fact, the hurry and the stir by seizing upon the light from a different perspective, ‘for when one woke, all one’s relation changed’. Looking now at the light, it is the remorseless, the pitiless.
Reconciliation of Opposites
Then it is found that only when these two moods become reconciled, will the cycle be complete. The second view seems ‘so much here, yet so little hers’, and then her meditations are crowned in their third phase by ‘exquisite happiness, intense happiness’, and she cries out, ‘It is enough. It is enough’. It seems to be apparent that by seeing the long steady flash of light in two different aspects—as an image of expansion and release and, then, as an image of contraction and confinement, she has received the final intuition of the truth about the nature of reality. And this intuition is that one must be both subjectively involved, and objectively detached from life, and that true happiness rests neither in the one sphere nor in the other exclusively, but in achieving a harmonious balance, however fragile, between the two. Now she can rest contented, if only for a moment.
The second part or the middle section of the novel portrays the death and rebirth of the decaying and deserted house. Here the light makes its second appearance by gliding over the rooms gently as if it laid its cares arid lingered stealthily and looked and came lovingly again. It is clear from the sentence which follows immediately that this is one side of doubleness. ‘But in the very lull of the loving caress as the long stroke leant upon the bed, the rock was rent asunder; another fold of the shawl loosened; there it hung, and swayed’. And a few pages on, just before the arrival of the forces of renewal in the house, in ‘that moment, that hesitation when dawn trembles and night pauses’, the Lighthouse beam as an image of expansion and release (life-love-hope) and contraction and confinement (death-destruction-terror) held in relation, entered the room for a moment, ‘sent its sudden stare over bed and wall in the darkness of winter looked with equanimity at the thistle and the swallow, the rat and the straw.’ So we find that the three moods—loving care, tearing apart and equanimity are well represented by the light, It may now be asserted that only by going through the opposing experience or multiple perspective one can get a comprehensive view of life.
Lily’s Experience: Doubleness of Reality
In the third section of the novel, Lily’s brush descends in stroke after stroke when she begins her painting for a second time. ‘And so pausing and so flickering she attained a dancing rhythmical movement, as if the pauses were one part of the rhythm and the stroke another, and all were related. ‘Thus, in each of the lighthouse beam itself, her vision begins to emerge in stroke and pause in alternation, and ‘the truth, the reality which suddenly laid hands upon her emerged stark at the back of appearance and commanded her attention’. In other words, as the light flickers, as it goes and comes back, Lily begins to see the course that her painting was to take. This flicker, which to an ordinary observer is an endless dull repetition, holds Lily’s mind and enables her to discover the truth and reality that the appearance signifies to her. The stroke and pause of the Lighthouse beam symbolise the problem of subject and object and the perception of nature of reality. Hence it may be concluded that reality has always a doubleness; and this can be understood only through a double vision.
Subject, Object and Native of Reality
We find this phrase—subject and object and the nature of reality—in the first part of To The Lighthouse. Andrew Ramsay has used this phrase in answer to a question from Lily Briscoe about the content of his father’s books. And the words are significant and have underlying meaning also. In fact it is exactly this problem which works its way through the novel on three perceptible levels—human relations, metaphysics and aesthetics. The novel can be seen to have been built around the problem of how the knower looks at the known, how one person looks at another, how man looks at nature and how the artist looks at life. These points have been discussed in detail in the foregoing paragraphs. We have shown how the main characters of To The Lighthouse look at the world in various ways. In fact three specific ways of seeing the object can be examined in To The Lighthouse through the eye of the artist (Lily Briscoe) through the eye of a child (James Nancy and Cam), and through the feminine creative eye of Mrs. Ramsay, whose vision might be solid to be that of a poet. Hence the characters see themselves and the world differently and very often bring the objective world into subjective consciousness.
Conclusion
To understand life and the nature of reality the need of double vision is essential. We may now conclude with the very apt comments of Norman Friedman on this point: “A right understanding is achieved by those who try to understand the nature of reality simultaneously from two different stand points—subjective and objective—through which one must pass in making the transition from one perspective to the other. From whatever view point we regard life, whether it be that of a detached philosopher ironically contemplating from a height’ or that of the busy mother and the house wife frantically involved in the fever and fret of daily routine, one must give it up in favour of the other, becoming immersed in the waters of transition and emerging with a double perspective (synthesis). In other words, both an involvement in life and a certain detachment from it, are necessary to understand it fully. Doing only one of the two would naturally give a partial view of a life, which can be quite misleading. Hence the need for a double vision. One has to strike a balance, to lose which is to give way to the chaos, of a black and lovely darkness on the one side, and to the disorder of a terrifying and senseless force on the other.”

Igbo culture and society in "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

Igbo culture and society in
"Things Fall Apart"
by Chinua Achebe

Every culture is a culmination of both the positive and negative elements in a particular society. How does Achebe present these contrary aspects of the Igbo culture in his novel “Things Fall Apart”?

Every culture or society is the sum total of its individuals. The society is the reflection of the perspectives, faith and beliefs of an individual. Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” is a remarkable example of the portrayal of the positive and negative elements in a society, and also of how a clash between them can lead to the disintegration of a culture. Achebe has presented the Igbo society in a very realistic manner. Although the country is unnamed, we know that the setting of the story takes place in Nigeria, where the native people are still continuing with practices which in the eyes of the whites are nothing but primeval and savage. Achebe weaves conflicts in his novel between man v/s man, and man v/s. society. The conflicts are manifested in Okonkwo’s inability to reconcile with the Change. Achebe gives a message through his novel that a man must change with time, and if that man does not act wisely and instead acts like a die-hard man like Okonkwo, he is hoisting with his own petard.

Achebe develops the theme of “traditional verses change through a powerful presentation of the beauty, strength, and validity of traditional life and values and the disruptiveness of change1.” The change in this novel comes with the advent of the missionaries, and this interference in the primal society of Umuofia leads to the collision between the good and the evil, the black and the white. But what in truth is really responsible for the fall of such a strong society is the Igbo? This essay explores whether it was the light brought by the Missionaries or the darkness embodied by the Igbo ethnic people themselves!

Most of the flaws in the Igbo culture are exposed with the advent of the Missionaries in Nigeria. “The white men send in missionaries to instill a religion that encourages peace as the beginning stages of colonization. If they can change the fundamental beliefs of the tribe, then they can control the natives more easily.2” Missionaries claim to have come here with a noble purpose; they want the savages to give up their culture where superstition and oracles are the order of the day. They preach to the natives, the concepts of Christianity, and also how they can become civilized people by embracing this religion. The “whites” condemn brutal practices such as the slaying of twins, exploitation of women, polygamy, oracles, superstitious beliefs, and indiscriminately waging war upon other villages. According to the “whites” the Igbo culture is an embodiment of animism and the fetish of the pagan, without any code of conduct or ethics.

But like every coin, there is another facet to this culture. The Igbo culture too has its beauty and its pride; the people believe in the poetry of life and are inclined to lead a simple life, far away from the maddening crowd. Their behavior highlights the most fundamental human character: sharing in the happiness and the sorrow of others. Okonkwo is shown as a cruel man in his treatment of his wives when “he is so carried away in his anger at his youngest wife that he forgets the ritual of the Week of Peace and breaks the rules of kindness and gentleness3” but he is an ideal man who adheres to the custom of his village where people believe “No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children he was not really a man.4” The other side of his nature is exposed when as per the Igbo culture he has to kill Ikemefuna. He is so upset that he doesn’t eat for the next three days. Not able to overcome his sentiments, he curses himself, “‘When did you become a shivering old woman? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.5”

The people belonging to the clan of Okonkwo are not governed by selfish motives. They are very happy to lend a helping hand to others while at work. They have art and music that is truly their own, and have their own rituals, ceremonies and festivities. One of the greatest examples of their customs and traditions is the feast of the New Yam. It is through this festivity that the Igbo people thank the earth goddess and the source of all fertility, Am. Igbo culture is unique culture in itself, and just like any other culture it has its merits and demerits.

The Missionaries guide the “black people” about morality and education, and ask them to change with the changing times. It is not surprising that the missionaries create a mental and social turmoil in the Igbo society. Their arrival has resulted in a cultural clash. They are able to set even the fathers and sons at loggerheads, in the name of religion and morality. And when under the influence of the invaders a brother starts killing his brother, the culture is bound to disintegrate. “While deploring the imperialists’ brutality and condescension, Achebe seems to suggest that change is inevitable and wise men reconcile themselves to accommodating change. It is the diehards who resist and are destroyed in the process.6” It can be said that the people of the Igbo society end themselves up in a conflagration, which had been ignited by the missionaries.

Okonkwo, the tragic hero of this story is a man who represents his culture, and is never ready to renounce it even at the cost of his life. He is out of his wits when he finds his son Nwoye, besides others, embracing Christianity. He curses the white man, “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs bad.7” Things start to fall apart as there is chaos and disorder in the Igbo society. And by the time the truth dawns on the Igbo people, it is too late. They realize at length that “the white man came quietly and peaceably with the religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart8.” Okonkwo’s tragedy is the greatest example of the disaster that takes place with the merger of the east and the west. “He can’t take living under the rule of foreign men who don’t speak his language or know his customs. So, rather than bear the yoke of colonization, he hangs himself9”. It is the irony of his fate when he is not even given a proper burial since committing suicide is considered a sin in the Igbo culture.

Achebe portrays his Igbo society as a society that flourished on the pillars of art, music, poetry, democracy and its sound system of justice. It is a society that just needed how to change with the changing times. In my opinion it was not the Missionaries but the inner conflict in the Igbo culture that dug its grave. When the roots of a culture that is its people are fragile, nothing can prevent its fall. Doomed are the people who deliberately make themselves vulnerable and gullible to any foreign invasion, be it physical, mental or spiritual!