Hard times

Charles Dickens :- (1812 – 70)

 He was born in Portsmouth in 1812.  When he was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt, so he was sent to work in a factory, an experience which influenced his works.  Later, he began his career first as a parliamentary reporter and then as a journalist. In 1836 he adopted the pen name “Boz” and he published Sketches by Boz, a collection of articles describing London’s people and scenes. Soon after he published The Pickwick papers, which revealed his humoristic and satirical qualities.  He then started his career as a novelist. The protagonists of his autobiographical novels Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Little Dorrit became symbols of an exploited childhood. Other novels, such as Bleak House, Hard Times, Great Expectations deal with social issues and the consitions of the working classes. He died in London in 1870 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. most of his novels are set in London. He knew well the social scene of London, and was critical against the impact of industrialism to society.

He described the urban slums using Gothic colours, and emphasized their cruelty. With his novels Dickens made the wealthier classes aware of the condition of the working classes. children were very often the moral teachers of the adults, and conveyed the moral message of the novel. Children of working class families were usually sent to work and exploited by adults. Others became criminals. Dickens was obsessed with children and he presents them as either innocent or corrupted by adults.

Hard time :-

A social protest novel of the nineteenth century, “Hard Times” portrays the tough times that the Hand class and other classes of the British society had to face.Dickens divide the book into three parts of which the two parts “Sowing” and “Reaping” represent the most significant reality of life that we reap what we sow in life. The third book “Garnering” is paraphrased from the book of Ruth in which Ruth garnered grain in the field of Boaz.The Nineteenth Century was the age of transformation when the medieval society was into the modern society. The 19th Century was the age when science progressed the most, it was an era of modernization, industrialization, change in government and literature and most importantly, 19th Century was the time when classes such as the hand class struggled to obtain its desired status in the society.
It was for the first time in history that the suppressed men raised their voices against the government thus rising into power and prosperity. The literature of the period is romantic but what is remarkable about the period and what is beautifully portrayed by the novel by Dickens is the struggle of the oppressed classes of the society and also the ruthlessness of the oppressors. The oppressors sacrificed their spiritualistitc and materialistic values in oppressing the weak sections of the society. The struggle of the downtrodden is the theme of the novel and dickens has beautifully portrayed the theme. The readers are mesmerized by the writing and can really feel the pain of these oppressed classes when they read about their conditions. There was a time when false religious dogmas prevailed in the society and thus class distinction was considered to be obvious.

What was made clear in this age of transformation was the fact that it is the birth right of every human being to enjoy an equal status in the society and he or she is equal in the eyes of law. People overthrew the capitalist system and equality was now established. The poor people are forced to work for low wages because they have no other means of livelihood. The novel “Hard Times” has a deep hidden meaning. Each and every human being has to face struggle at one point of his or her life. If that individual decides to give up a miserable life awaits and if that individual decides to fight the adverse circumstances, victory is sure to happen. Dickens in a way motivates the readers not to give up at any point of time to succeed in life.

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•  Education :-

The contemporary education trend does not revolves around classroom and homework. It focuses more on academic boosting of social and moral experiences. As the academic assessment of every child is requisite part of evaluation. It helps the educational professional to learn and understand the needs of every child.
Neither the education about the sciences we study today in a great detail is imparted in the traditional education system. Traditional education system basically included the knowledge about customs, traditions, and religions. That is why it is called traditional education. Modern Education is very different from the traditional education. Traditional education system basically included the knowledge about customs, traditions, and religions. That is why it is called traditional education. Modern Education is very different from the traditional education. The education which is taught in the schools today is the modern education. If we expect the modern education system to change the world, we have to stop seeing the curriculum alone as the core differentiator. As soon as they graduate, the students will be judged by how well they can turn what they have learned into useful practice. That’s where we should focus our attention.

The story is set in the fictitious town of Coketown. Coketown is used to represent a typical industrial town in the Northern area of England; many agree Coketown has certain similarities to Preston and Manchester but as Dickens had never been there he did not wish to offend them in the novel. Although the industrial revolution did many things to boost the economy of Britain, Dickens reveals the darker side the industrial revolution that consisted of slums, poverty and a monotonous and lifeless existence for many people. Mr Gradgrind's model school in Hard Times is not a real school. Dickens's generalized all the things, he thought were wrong with the education system into this school to show is contempt for the education system.

Marriage :-

        Anyone who’s been married for more than a few months can tell you it’s tough. And it seems to have gotten tougher, considering how divorce rates have climbed over the last few decades. In our book, Making Marriage Work, we reviewed the findings of hundreds of research studies to try to understand whether and in what ways marriage has changed.The evidence suggests that marriage has indeed gotten harder, and we posit that there are a number of reasons why. One has to do with the adoption of no-fault laws in the late 1960s, which, in a nutshell, established that breaking up a marriage is acceptable and the reasons for doing so are nobody’s business. In effect, these laws gave individuals greater freedom to choose our own paths; they also helped to remove divorce’s negative stigma, allowing couples to retain their good standing in the community. Then there’s the movement toward gender equality. With more and better employment opportunities, women have more control over their lives and no longer need a husband for financial security. They can wait longer to get married and don’t have to stay married if they’re not satisfied. Some people may not work as hard to fix a marriage because they're better equipped to make it on their own. Gender equality has also affected the balance of power. Prior to the 1960s, men held all the power in almost every marriage, but that’s not the case today. In some marriages, there can actually be an on-going power struggle, as one party tries to stay in control and the other fights for equality. Additionally, because both partners have an equal say in decisions, there may be more occasions to argue. In heterosexual marriages, the roles held by men and women are no longer as clearly delineated. In the past, husbands and wives held specific roles. One was the breadwinner and the other was responsible for maintaining the home, raising children, and fulfilling other social and family duties. Because each partner filled a functionally different role, couples may have felt they had very useful reasons for staying together. Today there’s a lot of overlap as to who brings home the bacon and who manages the household. The blurring of roles means there’s less inter-dependency and that can weaken the need to stay together. We can add to the mix more liberal attitudes toward sex and a rise in secularism. As marriage is no longer a prerequisite for sex for many people, marriage has lost one of its more popular and exclusive benefits. Religious beliefs and doctrines made divorce untenable in the past. Even today, couples who are more connected to their religion are less prone to get divorced. But many more couples today are less likely to stay together simply because their church tells them they have to. Couples from earlier generations may have also thought differently about marriage. Many regarded the institution as sacred and their marriage as permanent, and they stayed married regardless of how each partner felt about the other. Their happiness and personal needs were sublimated to the needs of the marriage. Couples struggled with many of the same problems but they did so in silence because it was more important to keep the family intact. In contrast, many argue that people today spend more time thinking about themselves and their personal needs. While paying attention to our psychological needs is a good thing, it can work against marriage. We might put our personal interests ahead of those of our relationship. If we then feel our interests are threatened or unsatisfied, we may be more inclined to think the relationship isn’t working rather than make adjustments in our thinking so that it works better. When things don’t go as we want or expect, we’re more prone to throw in the towel.

Marriage and Divorce in Dickens’ Hard Times: A Statement on the Religious Morals of 19th Century British Society The Victorian era in England gave birth to the first real industrial society the world had ever seen. With the rise of industry came large cities, an expanded working class population and the rapid rise of imperialism. Although England was progressing towards a more powerful place in the world, its citizens seemed to be drifting in the opposite direction. Oppressive laws and working conditions set clear boundaries between classes in England. The most oppressive social and state laws were those regarding to marriages and divorces. Just as the people of England felt trapped in the unequal social structure of England, the same is true for those trapped in unwanted marita From the beginning of the novel, Mr. Gradgrind is described as, “A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over” l relations. Marriages were regulated by society and the government, therefore, making them more of a materialistic union than a holy or spiritual one. The marriages in Hard Times represent “industrial society” in England during the Victorian era and portray a separation of society from religion.

 

Industrialism :-

During the information age, the phenomenon is that the digital industry creates a knowledge-based society surrounded by a high-tech global economy that spans over its influence on how the manufacturing throughput and the service sector operate in an efficient and convenient way. In a commercialized society, the information industry is able to allow individuals to explore their personalized needs, therefore simplifying the procedure of making decisions for transactions and significantly lowering costs for both the producers and buyers. This is accepted overwhelmingly by participants throughout the entire economic activities for efficacy purposes, and new economic incentives would then be indigenously encouraged, such as the knowledge economy.
The impact of digital age on the social life of the society today is connected with one’s position in the society, his social class and also his social background, nowadays, there are so many changes in the social aspect of our lives.

A very good example of this is festival, changes in tradition and also in the mood of dressing, all this became possible because of the impact of digital age we have today. If we look around us today, it’s hard to find a person that has not added anything new to his traditional attires , what I mean here is, for instance, for the Hausa’s and also the Fulani’s, there were not know for wearing jeans and tops, but now it has become a common thing based on socialization. Before, many do not believe in going to school especially the Fulani’s, they only believe in rearing cattle’s while the women among them are to stay at home, but now, everyone wants to be in school, illiteracy is darkness, people don’t believe in staying at home doing nothing anymore, for at least even when they lack the opportunity or don’t have the means of going school or seeking for job opportunity, they will prepare engaging themselves in a small business just for them to earn something for a living. There are so many changes due to the impact digital age on the social life of our societies today.

Thank you

Dilip Barad sir

words :- 2218

Jude the Obscure as Hardy’s indictment on Christianity’

 Thomas Hardy :-

Thomas Hardy was raised in a small, rural village in Dorset. His father was a stonemason and his mother educated Hardy until age eight. His family was too poor to pay for university, so Hardy became an architect’s apprentice until he decided to focus on writing. His stories are generally set in the Dorset area, which he translated into the fictional county of Wessex. In 1874 he married Emma Gifford. The two were then estranged, but her death in 1912 had a profound effect on Hardy. In 1914 he married his secretary, Florence Dugdale. Hardy’s first novels were unsuccessful, and even his later works were controversial and censored. Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure drew such an outcry for their sexual frankness and social criticism that Hardy stopped writing fiction, focusing instead on his poetry. Hardy died at the age of eighty-seven.

1840 Born at Higher Bockhampton near Dorchester; His father ran a masonry business and he also played the music for a local church. His mother a cook and servantmaid.1848 Hardy attends village school at Bockhampton. His mother encourages him to read his first books and he visits London for the first time. Thomas was a sensitive and intelligent child; he progressed diligently through his studies.1849-56 His mother was determined he should be well-educated and sent him to school at Dorchester to learn Latin. Begins learning French and German. 1856-61 Apprenticed to one of his father´s employers. Started writing verse. His first poem Domicilium. He reads Darwin´s Origin of Species (1859). His morbid curiosity led him to witness several hangings, a common sight in Dorchester. The most memorable to Hardy was that of Martha Brown, who killed her husband in a crime of passion. This memory inspired Tess. 1862-7 Moves to London where he worked for an ecclesiastical architect. Attends operas and theatre, explores London, visits National Gallery almost daily. Read extensively: Spencer, Huxley, J.S. Mills, Shelley, Browninf, Scott and Swinburne. In 1865 publishes his first article, How I Built Myself a House at the Chambers´Journal. Begins sending poems to periodicals but they are rejected. Became agnostic. 1867-70 Returns to Dorchester. Begins his first novel  The Poor Man and the Lady. 

Jude the Obscure:-

Jude the Obscure takes place in England during the Victorian era, a period that lasted from 1837-1901. English society during this time was marked by sexual repression and a conservative worldview that emphasized the institution of marriage and the family unit, which Hardy criticized. Murders like those of Jack the Ripper in 1888 began desensitizing the public to violence, leading to scenes like Little Father Time’s murder-suicide. The town of Christminster is based on the university town of Oxford, whose colleges were only beginning to accept working-class students during Hardy’s time  Hardy himself was unable to afford a university education.

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Jude the Obscure as Hardy’s indictment on Christianity’ :-

Christminster is a fictional university town based on Oxford, England. Jude first learns of it when he is eleven years old and his teacher, Mr. Phillotson, leaves Marygreen to go there. Christminster then becomes the young Jude’s goal in life, and he idealizes the place as “The New Jerusalem” and a “city of light,” watching its faint, distant glow from the roof of the Brown House. When Jude finally makes it to Christminster, he imagines the shades of dead philosophers speaking to him in the streets. In the first part of the novel Christminster symbolizes Jude’s hope and idealism, and his desire to make a better life for himself despite his low social class.

The reality of Christminster soon strikes Jude (and the reader), however, as he learns that despite his hard work and natural intelligence, the colleges are only open to the upper classes. Phillotson, his predecessor, has also failed and settled back into his earlier role as a schoolmaster, and Jude likewise remains a stonemason. In this way Christminster comes to symbolize Jude’s failed hopes and dreams, and Hardy’s pessimistic worldview. After years of moving about nomadically, Jude returns to Christminster for one last attempt to achieve his goals. It takes him a long time to realize it, but he finally gives up Christminster as a hopeless dream. He recognizes that it would take “two or three generations” to do what he tried to do in one generation – raise his social class through his own hard work and intelligence. Because of the tragedy of Jude’s situation, Christminster ultimately becomes one of Hardy’s greatest critiques of the unfairness inherent in his society.

Jude the Obscure takes place in Wessex, England in the Victorian era. Jude Fawley is a poor orphan raised by his great-aunt, but he dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, a nearby town. He is inspired in this dream by his old teacher, Richard Phillotson, who left with similar ambitions when Jude was a child. Jude starts teaching himself classical languages and learning stonemasonry work, but he is distracted from his studies by Arabella Donn, a vain, sensual young woman. Arabella pretends she is pregnant and tricks the honorable Jude into marrying her, but the marriage soon falls apart. Arabella moves to Australia and Jude finally makes his way to Christminster. At first he is enthralled by the place but he soon finds he cannot enter the university without wealth and social stature.
While in Christminster Jude meets his intelligent, religiously agnostic cousin Sue Bridehead. He immediately falls in love with her, though he tries to resist his feelings. He gets Sue a job with Phillotson, who has also failed to be accepted at a university and is a schoolteacher again. Sue soon gets engaged to Phillotson, but her relationship with Jude also grows stronger and the two cousins become very close. Jude loves Sue passionately but Sue’s own feelings are less clear. Sue is stung to learn about Jude’s previous marriage, however, so she goes through with her marriage to Phillotson.

Jude gets depressed and turns to alcohol, and he is reunited with Arabella for one night. Jude and Sue keep meeting and Sue reveals that she is unhappy in her marriage, as she is repulsed by Phillotson’s physical presence. Soon afterward Sue admits her feelings for Jude to Phillotson, and asks him if they can live apart. Phillotson agrees to let Sue leave him for Jude, but he suffers for this decision, which seems morally right to him, by losing his job and his social respectability.

Jude and Sue are united, but they live platonically for a while and they agree not to get married. Arabella reveals to Jude that she had a son by him while in Australia. Jude and Sue agree to take the unwanted boy in, and he arrives soon after. He has no name but is called “Little Father Time,” and is a gloomy, world-weary child. Jude and Sue begin to lose work and respect because of their unmarried status, but they find they can’t go through with the wedding ceremony. They become lovers and begin to lead a nomadic life, having two children of their own and caring for Little Father Time.
Jude falls ill for a while, and when he recovers he decides he wants to move back to Christminster and pursue his old dream. The family has trouble finding a room because they are unmarried and have children, and Jude has to stay separately from Sue and the children. That night Sue and Little Father Time both grow depressed, and the boy decides that he and the other children are the cause of the family’s troubles. The next morning Jude and Sue find that Little Father Time has hanged himself and the other two children.

Sue breaks down at this tragedy and grows obsessively religious, believing that she is being punished for her disbelief and sexual liberties. She leaves Jude and returns to Phillotson, despite having no change in her feelings for either. Jude is soon tricked into marrying Arabella again, and both marriages are unhappy. Jude gets sick and visits Sue one last time in the rain. They kiss but then Sue sends Jude away for the last time. As “penance” for this kiss Sue begins a sexual relationship with Phillotson. Jude dies soon after, and Arabella immediately starts looking for a new husband.

Conclusion

jude the Obscure, like the characters within its pages, was ahead of its time. Its sympathetic portrayal of Jude, a young working-class man struggling against entrenched attitudes; of Arabella, attempting to secure a stable future for herself via a cynical approach to marriage; and of Sue Bridehead whose free-spirited independence is ultimately broken by the unyielding nature of conventional opinion; all of these look ahead to the work of D H Lawrence, particularly Sons and Lovers (1913) and Women in Love (1920). The clash between spirit and flesh, together with society’s attitudes towards class, had been common themes in Hardy’s work before but in Jude the Obscure they find their most impassioned analysis. As Jude comments at the end of the novel regarding his unmarried relationship with Sue, which only brought condemnation: ‘As for Sue and me when we were at our best, long ago  when our minds were clear, and our love of truth fearless  the time was not ripe for us! Our ideas were fifty years too soon to be any good to us. And so the resistance they met with brought reaction in her, and recklessness and ruin in me!’. Jude and Sue fail in their ambitions and their pursuit of happiness not through their own lack of desire and ambition, but through the unyielding attitudes of the time.

Thank you

Dilip Barad

Words :-1611

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

Alfred Lord Tennyson:-

Alfred Tennyson was born August 6th, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire, fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth  Tennyson. The poet's grandfather had violated tradition by making his younger son, Charles, his heir, and arranging for the poet's father to enter the ministry.  The contrast of his own family's relatively straitened circumstances to the great wealth of his aunt Elizabeth Russell and uncle Charles Tennyson made Tennyson feel particularly impoverished and led him to worry about money all his life.

He also had a lifelong fear of mental illness, for several men in his family had a mild form of epilepsy, which was then thought a shameful disease. His father and brother Arthur made their cases worse by excessive drinking. His brother Edward had to be confined in a mental institution after 1833, and he himself spent a few weeks under doctors' care in 1843. In the late twenties his father's ,physical, and mental condition worsened, and he   became paranoid, abusive, and violent.

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• Early Life And Work :-

Tennyson was the fourth of 12 children, born into an old Lincolnshire family, his father a rector. Alfred, with two of his brothers, Frederick and Charles, was sent in 1815 to Louth grammar school where he was unhappy. He left in 1820, but, though home conditions were difficult, his father managed to give him a wide literary education. Alfred was precocious, and before his teens he had composed in the styles of Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, and John Milton. To his youth also belongs The Devil and the Lady , which shows an astonishing understanding of Elizabethan dramatic verse. Lord Byron was a dominant influence on the young Tennyson.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, detail of an oil painting by Samuel Laurence, c. 1840; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
At the lonely rectory in Somersby the children were thrown upon their own resources. All writers on Tennyson emphasize the influence of the Lincolnshire countryside on his poetry: the plain, the sea about his home, “the sand-built ridge of heaped hills that mound the sea,” and “the waste enormous marsh.”
In 1824 the health of Tennyson’s father began to break down, and he took refuge in drink. Alfred, though depressed by unhappiness at home, continued to write, collaborating with Frederick and Charles in Poems by Two Brothers . His contributions are mostly in fashionable styles of the day.
In 1831 Tennyson’s father died. Alfred’s misery was increased by his grandfather’s discovery of his father’s debts. He left Cambridge without taking a degree, and his grandfather made financial arrangements for the family. In the same year, Hallam published a eulogistic article on Poems, Chiefly Lyrical in The Englishman’s Magazine. He went to Somersby in 1832 as the accepted suitor of Emily.
In 1832 Tennyson published another volume of his poems , including “The Lotos-Eaters,” “The Palace of Art,” and “The Lady of Shalott.” Among them was a satirical epigram on the critic Christopher North , who had attacked Poems, Chiefly Lyrical in Blackwood’s Magazine. Tennyson’s sally prompted a scathing attack on his new volume in the Quarterly Review. The attacks distressed Tennyson, but he continued to revise his old poems and compose new ones.
In 1833 Hallam’s engagement was recognized by his family, but while on a visit to Vienna in September he died suddenly. The shock to Tennyson was severe. It came at a depressing time; three of his brothers, Edward, Charles, and Septimus, were suffering from mental illness, and the bad reception of his own work added to the gloom. Yet it was in this period that he wrote some of his most characteristic work: “The Two Voices” , “Ulysses,” “St. Simeon Stylites,” and, probably, the first draft of “Morte d’Arthur.” To this period also belong some of the poems that became constituent parts of In Memoriam, celebrating Hallam’s death, and lyrics later worked into Maud.
In May 1836 his brother Charles married Louisa Sellwood of Horncastle, and at the wedding Alfred fell in love with her sister Emily. For some years the lovers corresponded, but Emily’s father disapproved of Tennyson because of his bohemianism, addiction to port and tobacco, and liberal religious views; and in 1840 he forbade the correspondence. Meanwhile the Tennysons had left Somersby and were living a rather wandering life nearer London. It was in this period that Tennyson made friends with many famous men, including the politician William Ewart Gladstone, the historian Thomas Carlyle, and the poet Walter Savage Landor.
NOTABLE WORKS :-

• “The Princess”

• “Ulysses”

• “Mariana”

• “In Memoriam”

• “Idylls of the King”

• “Maud”

• “Locksley Hall”

• “The Lotos-Eaters”

• “Enoch Arden”

• “The Lady of Shalott”

Major Literary Work:-

In 1842 Tennyson published Poems, in two volumes, one containing a revised selection from the volumes of 1830 and 1832, the other, new poems. The new poems included “Morte d’Arthur,” “The Two Voices,” “Locksley Hall,” and “The Vision of Sin” and other poems that reveal a strange naïveté, such as “The May Queen,” “Lady Clara Vere de Vere,” and “The Lord of Burleigh.” The new volume was not on the whole well received. But the grant to him at this time, by the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, of a pension of 200 helped to alleviate his financial worries. In 1847 he published his first long poem, The Princess, a singular anti-feminist fantasia.
the year 1850 marked a turning point. tennyson resumed his correspondence with emily sellwood, and their engagement was renewed and followed by marriage. meanwhile, edward moxon offered to publish the elegies on hallam that tennyson had been composing over the years. they appeared, at first anonymously, as in memoriam , which had a great success with both reviewers and the public, won him the friendship of queen victoria, and helped bring about, in the same year, his appointment as poet laureate.
in memoriam is a vast poem of 131 sections of varying length, with a prologue and epilogue. inspired by the grief tennyson felt at the untimely death of his friend hallam, the poem touches on many intellectual issues of the victorian age as the author searches for the meaning of life and death and tries to come to terms with his sense of loss. most notably, in memoriam reflects the struggle to reconcile traditional religious faith and belief in immortality with the emerging theories of evolution and modern geology. the verses show the development over three years of the poet’s acceptance and understanding of his friend’s death and conclude with an epilogue, a happy marriage song on the occasion of the wedding of tennyson’s sister cecilia.
after his marriage, which was happy, tennyson’s life became more secure and outwardly uneventful. there were two sons: hallam and lionel. the times of wandering and unsettlement ended in 1853, when the tennysons took a house, farringford, in the isle of wight. tennyson was to spend most of the rest of his life there and at aldworth.
tennyson’s position as the national poet was confirmed by his ode on the death of the duke of wellington though some critics at first thought it disappointing and the famous poem on the charge of the light brigade at balaklava, published in 1855 in maud and other poems. maud itself, a strange and turbulent “monodrama,” provoked a storm of protest; many of the poet’s admirers were shocked by the morbidity, hysteria, and bellicosity of the hero. yet maud was tennyson’s favourite among his poems.
a project that tennyson had long considered at last issued in idylls of the king , a series of 12 connected poems broadly surveying the legend of king arthur from his falling in love with guinevere to the ultimate ruin of his kingdom. the poems concentrate on the introduction of evil to camelot because of the adulterous love of lancelot and queen guinevere, and on the consequent fading of the hope that had at first infused the round table fellowship. idylls of the king had an immediate success, and tennyson, who loathed publicity, had now acquired a sometimes embarrassing public fame. the enoch arden volume of 1864 perhaps represents the peak of his popularity. new arthurian idylls were published in the holy grail, and other poems in 1869 . these were again well received, though some readers were beginning to show discomfort at the “victorian” moral atmosphere that tennyson had introduced into his source material from sir thomas malory.
in 1874 tennyson decided to try his hand at poetic drama. queen mary appeared in 1875, and an abridged version was produced at the lyceum in 1876 with only moderate success. it was followed by harold , becket , and the “village tragedy” the promise of may, which proved a failure at the globe in november 1882. this play his only prose work shows tennyson’s growing despondency and resentment at the religious, moral, and political tendencies of the age. he had already caused some sensation by publishing a poem called “despair” in the nineteenth century . a more positive indication of tennyson’s later beliefs appears in “the ancient sage,” published in tiresias and other poems (1885). here the poet records his intimations of a life before and beyond this life.
tennyson accepted a peerage in 1884. in 1886 he published a new volume containing “locksley hall sixty years after,” consisting mainly of imprecations against modern decadence and liberalism and a retraction of the earlier poem’s belief in inevitable human progress.
in 1889 tennyson wrote the famous short poem “crossing the bar,” during the crossing to the isle of wight. in the same year he published demeter and other poems, which contains the charming retrospective “to mary boyle,” “the progress of spring,” a fine lyric written much earlier and rediscovered, and “merlin and the gleam,” an allegorical summing-up of his poetic career. in 1892 his play the foresters was successfully produced in new york city. despite ill health, he was able to correct the proofs of his last volume, the death of oenone, akbar’s dream, and other poems.
alfred, lord tennyson, was the leading poet of the victorian age in england and by the mid-19th century had come to occupy a position similar to that of alexander pope in the 18th. tennyson was a consummate poetic artist, consolidating and refining the traditions bequeathed to him by his predecessors in the romantic movement especially wordsworth, byron, and keats. his poetry is remarkable for its metrical variety, rich descriptive imagery, and exquisite verbal melodies. but tennyson was also regarded as the preeminent spokesman for the educated middle-class englishman, in moral and religious outlook and in political and social consciousness no less than in matters of taste and sentiment. his poetry dealt often with the doubts and difficulties of an age in which established christian faith and traditional assumptions about man’s nature and destiny were increasingly called into question by science and modern progress. his poetry dealt with these misgivings, moreover, as the intimate personal problems of a sensitive and troubled individual inclined to melancholy. yet through his poetic mastery the spaciousness and nobility of his best verse, its classical aptness of phrase, its distinctive harmony he conveyed to sympathetic readers a feeling of implicit reassurance, even serenity. tennyson may be seen as the first great english poet to be fully aware of the new picture of man’s place in the universe revealed by modern science. while the contemplation of this unprecedented human situation sometimes evoked his fears and forebodings, it also gave him a larger imaginative range than most of the poets of his time and added a greater depth and resonance to his art.
tennyson’s ascendancy among victorian poets began to be questioned even during his lifetime, however, when robert browning and algernon charles swinburne were serious rivals. and 20th-century criticism, influenced by the rise of a new school of poetry headed by t.s. eliot , proposed some drastic devaluations of his work. undoubtedly, much in tennyson that appealed to his contemporaries has ceased to appeal to many readers today. he can be mawkish and banal, pompous and orotund, offering little more than the mellifluous versifying of shallow or confused thoughts. the rediscovery of such earlier poets as john donne or gerard manley hopkins  together with the widespread acceptance of eliot and w.b. yeats as the leading modern poets, opened the ears of readers to a very different, and perhaps more varied, poetic music. a more balanced estimate of tennyson has begun to prevail, however, with the recognition of the enduring greatness of “ulysses,” the unique poignancy of tennyson’s best lyric poems, and, above all, the stature of in memoriam as the great representative poem of the victorian age. it is now also recognized that the realistic and comic aspects of tennyson’s work are more important than they were thought to be during the period of the reaction against him. finally, the perception of the poet’s awed sense of the mystery of life, which lies at the heart of his greatness, as in “crossing the bar” or “flower in the crannied wall,” unites his admirers in this century with those in the last. though less of tennyson’s work may survive than appeared likely during his victorian heyday, what does remain and it is by no means small in quantity seems likely to be imperishable.
 

Thank you

Dilip Barad sir

words :- 2224

 

Paper -5 assignment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject: History of English Literature

• Topic:- why is this period of Romanticism called the Age of revolution ?Give some reasons for the influence of the French revolution on English literature , and illustrate ?

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English

[1.] Why is this period of Romanticism (1789-1837) called the Age of Revolution? Give some reasons for the influence of the French Revolution on English literature, and illustrate ?

Ans :-

Introduction :-

During the second half of the 18th century economic and social changes took place in England. The country went through the so-called Industrial Revolution when new industries sprang up and new processes were applied to the manufacture of traditional products. During the reign of King George III (1760-1820) the face of England changed. The factories were built, the industrial development was marked by an increase in the export of finished cloth rather than of raw material, coal and iron industries developed. Internal communications were largely funded.
The population increased from 7 million to 14 million people. Much money was invested in road- and canal-building. The first railway line which was launched in 1830 from Liverpool to Manchester allowed many people inspired by poets of Romanticism to discover the beauty of their own country. Just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of Puritanism in the matter of English liberty by remembering that the common people had begun to read, and that their book was the bible, so we may understand this age of popular government by remembering that the chief subject of romantic literature was the essential nobleness of common men and the value of the individual.

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Romanticism :-

Throughout history certain philosophies or ideas have helped to shape the themes of literature, art, religion, and politics. The concept of Romanticism was preceded by the philosophy of Neoclassicism. In the writings before this period humans were viewed as being limited and imperfect. A sense of reverence for order, reason, and rules were focused upon. There was distrust for innovation and invention. Society was encouraged to view itself as a group with generic characteristics. The idea of individualism was looked upon with disfavor. People were encouraged through literature, art, religion, and politics to follow the traditional rules of the church and government. However, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a great reaction against this philosophy was noted. It was labeled as Romanticism. The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850.However, even within its own period of existence, few Romantics would have agreed on a general meaning. Perhaps this tells us something. To speak of a Romantic era is to identify a period in which certain ideas and attitudes arose, gained currency and in most areas of intellectual endeavor, became dominant. That is, they became the dominant mode of expression. Which tells us something else about the Romantics: expression was perhaps everything to them expression in art, music, poetry, drama, literature and philosophy. Just the same, older ideas did not simply wither away. Romantic ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. For the most part, these ideas were generated by a sense of inadequacy with the dominant ideals of the Enlightenment and of the society that produced them. Thus, Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak
Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant. Reaction Against Enlightenment:-
Romanticism appeared in conflict with the Enlightenment. You could go as far as to say that Romanticism reflected a crisis in Enlightenment thought itself, a crisis which shook the comfortable 18th century philosophe out of his intellectual single-mindedness. The Romantics were conscious of their unique destiny. In fact, it was self-consciousness which appears as one of the keys elements of Romanticism itself.
 

Romanticism was the new thought, the critical idea and the creative effort necessary to cope with the old ways of confronting experience. The Romantic era can be considered as indicative of an age of crisis. Even before 1789, it was believed that the ancient regime seemed ready to collapse. Once the French Revolution entered its radical phase in August 1792, the fear of political disaster also spread. King killing, Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, and the Napoleonic armies all signaled chaos -a chaos which would dominate European political and cultural life for the next quarter of a century.

At the same time, intellectuals criticized the tasteless and unreceptive philistine bourgeoisie. Ironically, they were criticizing the same class and the same mentality from which
they themselves had emerged and which had supported them. In this respect, the Romantic age was similar to the age of Enlightenment. A free press and careers open to talent provided
possibilities of competitive innovation. This led to new efforts to literally train audiences to be receptive to the productions of artists and intellectuals. Meanwhile, literary hacks and Grub Street writers produced popular pot boilers for the masses. All these characteristics placed limits upon the activities of the Romantics. These limits could not be ignored. In fact, these limits often exerted pressures that can be identified as causes of the Romantic movement itself. Truth and beauty were human attributes. A truth and beauty which emanated from the poet’s soul and the artist’s heart. If the poets are, as Shelley wrote in 1821, the "unacknowledged legislator’s of the world," it was world of fantasy, intuition, instinct and emotion. It was a human
world.

Industrial Revolution :-

The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION can be said to have made the European working class. It made the European middle-class as well. In the wake of the Revolution, new social relationships appeared. As Ben Franklin once said, "time is money." Man no longer treated men as men, but as a commodity which could be bought and sold on the open market. This "commodification" of man is what bothered Karl Marx his solution was to transcend the profit motive by social revolution.

There is no denying the fact that the Industrial Revolution began in England sometime after the middle of the 18th century. England was the "First Industrial Nation." As one economic historian commented in the 1960s, it was England which first executed "the takeoff into selfsustained growth." And by 1850, England had become an economic titan. Its goal was to supply two-thirds of the globe with cotton spun, dyed, and woven in the industrial centers of northern England. England proudly proclaimed itself to be the "Workshop of the World," a position that country held until the end of the 19th century when Germany, Japan and United States overtook it. The vision was all-important. It was optimistic and progressive. Man was going somewhere, his life has direction. This vision is part of the general attitude known as the idea of progress, that is, that the history of human society is a history of progress, forever forward, forever upward. This attitude is implicit throughout the Enlightenment and was made reality during the French and Industrial Revolutions. With relatively few exceptions, the philosophes of the 18th century embraced this idea of man's progress with an intensity I think unmatched in our own century. Human happiness, improved morality, an increase in knowledge were now within man's reach. This was indeed the message, the vision, of Adam Smith, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin.

Aided by revolutions in agriculture, transportation, communications and technology, England was able to become the "first industrial nation." This is a fact that historians have long recognized. However, there were a few other less-tangible reasons which we must consider. These are perhaps cultural reasons. Although the industrial revolution was clearly an unplanned and spontaneous event, it never would have been "made" had there not been men who wanted such a thing to occur. There must have been men who saw opportunities not only for advances in technology, but also the profits those advances might create. Which brings us to one very crucial cultural attribute  the English, like the Dutch of the same period, were a very commercial people. They saw little problem with making money, nor with taking their surplus and reinvesting it. Whether this attribute has something to do with their "Protestant work ethic," as Max Weber put it, or with a specifically English trait is debatable, but the fact remains that English entrepreneurs had a much wider scope of activities than did their Continental counterparts at the same time.

• French Revolution and English Literature  :-

The French Revolution is widely recognized as one of the most influential events of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe, with far reaching consequences in political, cultural, social, and literary arenas. Although scholars such as Jeremy Popkin point to more concrete political issues as grounds for the upheaval, supporters of the Revolution rallied around more abstract concepts of freedom and equality, such as resistance to the King’s totalitarian authority as well as the economic and legal privileges given to the nobility and clergy. It is in this resistance to monarchy, religion, and social difference that Enlightenment ideals of equality, citizenship, and human rights were manifested. These beliefs had profound influence on the Romantic poets.
The French Revolution, along with the Industrial Revolution, has probably done more than any other revolution to shape the modern world. Not only did it transform Europe politically, but also, thanks to Europe's industries and overseas empires, the French Revolution's ideas of liberalism and nationalism have permeated nearly every revolution across the globe since 1945. In addition to the intense human suffering as described above, its origins have deep historic and geographic roots, providing the need, means, and justification for building the absolute monarchy of the Bourbon Dynasty which eventually helped trigger the revolution.

Poetry and Politics:-

The conditions prevailing in England at that time made her particularly receptive to the new ideas generated by the Revolution. In literature the French Revolution was instrumental in the creation of a new interest in nature and the elemental simplicities of life. It accelerated the approach of the romantic era and the close of the Augustan school of poetry which was already moribund in the age of Wordsworth.
The Three Phases of the French Revolution :-
It is wrong to think of the French Revolution as a sudden coup unrelated to what had gone before it. In fact, the seeds of the Revolution had been sown long before they sprouted in1789. We can distinguish three clear phases of the French Revolution, which according to Compton-Rickett, are as follows:
1. The Doctrinaire phase-the age of Rousseau;
2. The Political phase-the age of Robespierre and Danton;
3. The Military phase-the age of Napoleon.”
All these three phases considerably influenced the Romantic Movement in England.

Conclusion:-

During the twentieth century, especially after World War I, Western drama became more internationally unified and less the product of separate national literary traditions. Throughout the century realism, naturalism, and symbolism  continued to inform important plays. Among the many twentieth century playwrights who have written what can be broadly termed naturalist dramas are Gerhart Hauptmann , John Galsworthy, John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey , and Eugene O'Neill, Clifford Odets, and Lillian Hellman.

References:-

1. Albert,Edward. (1979). History of English Literature. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2. Hudson, William Henry. (2015). an outline of English Literature. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India
3. Long, William.J.(2014). English Literature. Noida: Maple Pres Ltd
4. Nayar, Pramod K. (2015). A Short History of English Literature. New Delhi: Cambridge    University Press India Pvt.Ltd

Thank you 

Dilip Barad

Words :-2031

Paper -4 Assigment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of the Victorians

• Topic:-Discuss the theme of "Jude the Obscure"?

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :-asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English

 [1.]Discuss the theme of "Jude the Obscure"?

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy  (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was a n English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Jude the Obscure:-

Thomas Hardy published his fourteenth novel, Jude the Obscure, as a magazine serial in 1895. It was released in book form in November of that year. Hardy's previous novels and short stories had been extremely popular, with the exception of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which caused some mild controversy due to its relatively explicit sexual content. Similarly, Jude the Obscure scandalized critics and readers with its sexual content and scathing critiques of Christianity and marriage. The Bishop of Wakefield publicly burned copies of the book, and several circulating libraries pulled the novel from their shelves - a move that severely limited the book's readership, since many at this time procured their reading material from libraries. Hardy received hate mail from all over the world, and was so devastated by the novel's reception that he gave up prose fiction entirely, writing only poetry and drama for the rest of his life.

In the years following the book's 1895 release, it became very difficult to obtain uncensored copies of the novel, especially outside of Great Britain. When Jude was published in America in Harper's Magazine, most of the controversial elements were removed, and through the 1920s, copies of the unbowdlerized text were extremely hard to find in the United States; furthermore, complete texts were expensive. In 1912, Macmillan published the definitive Wessex editions of Hardy's novels, and this edition of Jude the Obscure is the one that is usually read today. 

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Jude the Obscure Themes :-

[1.] Marriage :-

It could be argued that the rejection of marriage is the central didactic point of this novel. Hardy repeatedly emphasizes that marriage involves making a commitment that many people are emotionally unequipped to fulfill - this sentiment comes from the narrator, but it is also expressed by Sue, Jude, Phillotson, and Widow Edlin at various points in the novel. Whether the institution of marriage can be saved is open to interpretation. Jude and Sue are clearly a good match for each other, so Jude wants to get married. Sue, however, feels that marriage will poison the relationship. The narrator does not seem to favor either side; it is left up to readers to decide how the problems with marriage might be solved.

[2.]Education:-Hardy highlights many kinds of education in Jude the Obscure. Most obviously, we have Jude's desire to get a university degree and become an academic. However, Hardy also emphasizes the importance of experiential education. Because Jude is inexperienced with women and with social situations more generally, he is especially susceptible to Arabella's seduction. In the novel, the level of traditional education one reaches is closely tied to the class system, and if someone from Jude's class wants to learn, they must teach themselves. Although the narrator seems to admire Jude's willingness to teach himself, he also points out the limits of autodidacticism, noting that despite Jude's near-constant studies, he cannot hope to compete on the university entrance exam against richer men who have hired tutors.

[3.]Social class:-In addition to his points about education, Hardy also criticizes the rigidity of social class more generally. Jude is limited in his career options because as a working-class man, he cannot hope to be promoted beyond a certain level, even in fields like the clergy that are supposed to be open to all. However, Jude and Sue also benefit from their low social class in that their respective divorces are processed quickly and without inquiry and they can get away with living together unmarried for quite some time. Even this is a mixed blessing - they are caught eventually, and the reason they weren't caught sooner is that they are unimportant to the people around them.

[4.]Religion :-As Jude the Obscure can be interpreted as critical of the institution of marriage, Hardy is equally as possessed with the church. Throughout their relationship, Jude and Sue have many conversations concerning religion, the former being initially more devout than his intellectually curious cousin. At a diorama depicting Jerusalem, the major characters' feelings on religion crystalize. Sue wonders why Jerusalem rather than Rome or Athens is deemed important, Phillotson counters that the city is important to the English as a Christian people, and Jude is utterly absorbed by the work - though he also strains to agree with Sue. Later, Sue mentions a friend who was the most irreligious but also the most moral. Hardy points out that these concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Jude's faith is tested by Sue. He realizes his sexual attraction to her makes him a hypocrite. Rather than suppress his natural physical desire, he burns his books, marking his break with Christianity. This makes Sue's reversal later in the novel all the more shocking. Jude likens her conversion in the wake of her children's death to his partaking in alcohol during difficult times. Here Hardy calls into question the motivations behind faith. Through Sue's self-punishing adherence to her Christian duties despite her true nature, Hardy suggests those motivations are not always pure.

[5.]Women's rights :-Sue Bridehead is a strikingly modern heroine in many ways - she lives with men without marrying them; she has a rich intellectual life; she works alongside Jude. Hardy criticizes the social conventions that prevent her from fulfilling her potential as an intellectual and as a worker. However, he also reinforces some of those social conventions unintentionally; by portraying Sue as anxious and hysterical, Hardy perpetuates a common Victorian stereotype about women being especially emotional. Also, we are expected to accept Sue having lived with the Christminster undergraduate because they were not having sex; despite his professed liberalism, Hardy upholds traditional values by offering this piece of information and (apparently) expecting it to color our judgment of the character.

[6.]Old versus new :-The narrator of Jude the Obscure often laments the ways that old things are replaced by the new, especially when it comes to urban architecture. Likewise, the Widow Edlin suggests that older, more laid-back attitudes toward marriage are better than prudish Victorian norms. Nineteenth-century British society was, in many ways, more conservative than the historical periods that preceded it, so Hardy's admiration for the older aspects of English culture ties in to his social liberalism and his reverence for intellectual inquiry.

[7.]Disappointment:-

Disappointment crops up over and over again in this novel: Jude is disappointed by his career; he is disappointed in his marriage to Arabella and then his cohabitation with Sue; he is disappointed by Mr. Phillotson, who never achieved his dream of getting a university degree. Even Time's assertions that he never asked to be born suggest a certain disappointment with life. Since most of the novel's tragedies come as lost opportunities, the ways that the characters deal with disappointment contribute to their characterization. For example, Phillotson takes a relatively mature perspective when he is disappointed in his marriage to Sue, and allows her to be with Jude. Arabella, in contrast, deals with her disappointment in Cartlett by spying on Jude and scheming to get back together with him.

[7.]Itinerancy:-

Jude the Obscure features many kinds of nomads. Some of these are minor characters, like the traveling laborers in Shaston. However, Jude himself is a kind of nomad, and the novel's structure reflects this. It is not divided into arbitrary chapters or thematic groupings, but rather is divided into sections based on the characters' location. This geographical mobility speaks to the new freedom - but also rootlessness - that came with the advent of rail travel, which revolutionized the lives of working people like Jude, who could now travel long distances affordably.

Reference :-

1. Hardy, Thomas. (1994). The collected novels of Thomas Hardy, volume II. The Modern Library.

2. Lind, Abigail. McKeever, Christine ed. "Jude the obscure Themes". Gradesaver,30 November 2012 web.15 February 2021.
3. Millgate, Michael. "Thomas Hardy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Feb. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hardy. Accessed 15 February 2021.

Thank you

Dilip Barad sir

Words :-1603