Studies in English Language and Literature

Examine Keats’ treatment of brightness and fulfilment in To Autumn . Ans. To Autumn  records the poet’s meditations on maturity. It encapsulates his efforts to achieve it issuing into a disciplined poetic art. The complete maturity exemplifies Keatsian virtues of sensuousness and pictorial beauty, felicity of diction, perfectness of form and splendid vividness of imagery. This impersonal  ode celebrated the season of autumn as a time of natural fulfilment and as a part of the living process of nature. The season of ripeness and abundance is a reminder of the mortality of things, a herald to the approaching desolation of winter.  In Stanza I, we come to know autumn as a ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. The sun matures the earth, ripening the grapes, the apples, the gourds and the hazelnuts etc.  Stanza II describes the imagery of arrested motion. It echoes the upcoming winter. The reaper is the messenger of death so, ‘the last drop oozing’, ‘flowing o

       Discuss sensuousness and pictorial qualities in Keats’ poetry with reference to Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn . A thorough study of Keats’ poems like Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn   justifies how Keats lived for ‘a life of sensations’. Opening up with a keen sensation of agony,   Ode to a Nightingale soon gives place to ‘a drowsy numbness. Keats’ poetry excels in vividly sensuous images in the lines full of sensuousness and the visual picture of a drinking vessel. In the closing stanza of   Ode to Autumn , a fantastic reconstruction of the dying autumnal twilight suggests the magnificent perfection of Keats’ poetic sensibility. Ode to a Nightingale   seems to be suffused with pictures, mostly visual, but occasionally manifested with the aural, the tactile and the olfactory portraits. To Autumn   is also full of sensuous pictures. Stanza I depicts the fruits of autumn. Stanza II of the ode again delineates autumn as the harvester in t

Question: Examine Shelley’s imagery in relation to his theme in Ode to the West Wind . The term ‘imagery’ refers to a collection of images to signify the objects and qualities of sense perception, whether by literal description, by allusion or in the analogies used in its similes and metaphors.  Perhaps the most beautifully imaginative of the English Romantic poets was Shelley. He was particularly excellent in his ability to convey sensations in terms of imagery, predominantly visual. he was a poet of profound idealism and prophetic passion. Shelley invariably aspired to the infinite and the eternal. The method in many of Shelley’s poetry was to find in natural objects symbols for his emotional and imaginative patterns. In Ode to the West Wind , Shelley found, in the central and pervading image of the all-powerful West Wind, a dualistic role of destruction and preservation. At the very outset of  the poem, the West Wind is presented as an enormously powerful agency.  The second s

Some explanations from Eliot’s The Waste Land with reference to context   I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? Answer : This excerpt has been taken from the last section of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land . The excerpt reminds is of the speaker persona’s fishing experience in a nasty canal in lines 189 – 192 of the same poem. We are reminded of the Fisher King in the Grail Legends and the Arthurian Romances. The speaker is surrounded by an ‘arid plain’ or a ‘waste land’ where there is no symptom of rebirth and regeneration. The European civilisation, in the wake of World War I, became as ‘arid’ and shattered as a wasteland where there is no question of life and hope. Everything is shallow and numb. The utmost crisis led to nothingness, disillusionment etc. the speaker wonders and questions himself whether he will ever be able to “set” his “lands in order”. Here the poet has used

Question: Comment on the symbolism of the skylark in Shelley’s ode "To A Skylark". One of the legacies of the Romantic period is the heightened concern in literature. It is full of the types of psychological experiences outside the usual limit of consciousness. What seems to take place is a sudden jump or transference of consciousness to another realm, or alternatively, an invasion from the transcendent into human life, and his poetry attempts to describe such an experience. So does Shelly speak of in To a Skylark . As the poem begins, the poet addresses the song-bird. The skylark seems to be no bird at all, but rather a disembodied Spirit of joy. The skylark is an emblem of the celestial permanence to which men aspire, and are invariably associated with images of light, fire, stars, the sun and the moon in keeping with the Platonic implications. The ode is a striking example of what was common poetic procedure with Shelley and Keats. Thus, the skylark symbolises a cele

A brief note on Negative Capability propounded by John Keats Answer : Negative capability is a paradoxical term. It was propounded by John Keats. Poetic capability is achieved through a process of negation. One morning, John Keats noticed many sparrows chirping, and abruptly, he felt himself identical to that species of sparrows. Poetic self is the negation of one’s personal self. Keats used this phrase ‘negative capability’ in one of his letters to his friend, Reynold. Poetical process is a process of negation. According to the Modernists, a poet should ne gate his personal self in order to join another self. The Romantics may be called to have formed a bridge between the post-Romantics and the Modernists. According to Keats, sensuousness is an instrument that will help him attain ‘negative capability’. The keywords to the writing " A brief note on Negative Capability propounded by John Keats" Negative capability, paradoxical term, poetic ca

Question: Symbols in Blake’s poem The Tyger . Answer: William Blake, the precursor of Romanticism as well as a mystic, was the son of an engraver.  The Lamb  is the theme poem of his Songs of Experience while  The Tyger  is the theme poem of his Songs of Innocence . ‘Innocence’ and ‘Experience’ represent ‘the two contrary states of human soul’ altogether.  The tiger in Blake’s poem is a ferocious beast and an apocalyptic animal. It is made of fire. It symbolises Experience. It is rather opposed to the meek and mild lamb symbolising Innocence.  The tiger ‘burning bright’ is not evil. However, it fosters the force to conquer evil. He is rather symbolic of Christ as He fought against evil to achieve the higher state of Innocence. In utmost amazement and awe, the speaker utters, "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright/ In the forests of the night/In what immortal hand or eye/ Was framed thy fearful symmetry?"  The Tyger is constructed in the form of a series of questions rather than