Studies in English Language and Literature

Western Marxism: A Brief Note The term ‘Western Marxism’ covers the works of the German, the French, the British and the Italian leftist intellectuals belonging to the twentieth century. Gramsci is one of the major figures or practitioners of this idea. One of the most enduring concerns of these theorists is the reason why the intellectual revolution foretold by Marx did not happen in western Europe. The conventional reading of Marx was disseminated and obligatory by the Russian Bolsheviks. Again, such reading claimed political activities as well as rational beliefs amassing from commercial interests. As capitalism never does care for the financial interests of the workers, as the employees form a considerable section of the population and their number are a few, a grassroots-level revolution is to be introduced, be it sooner or be it later. Yes, the workers are subjugated and live in hopeless destitution. Still, the Marxists of the West take in for questioning that most of the workf...

Stanza 1 Just as an enormous python meandering itself round its victim and kills it, a creeper twists round the rough trunk of the casuarina tree up to the treetop. There are deep scars on the rugged trunk of the tree left by the creeper. Anyway, the creeper cannot kill the casuarina tree. Making a fun of the creeper, the vast tree wears it like a scarf, as if it is its embellishment. The scarlet flowers bloom among the long branches of the tree hanging in clusters. The birds and bees gather there when it is daytime, and at night, now and then, the garden, where the casuarina tree stands straight, is flooded with a unique melodious song of the bird, when people sleep in their houses.   Stanza 2 At daybreak, the poet-cum-speaker opens her window open. She becomes engrossed with the loveliness and magnificence of the tree. It is mostly in winter when a baboon sits still like a statue on the tree. It stays busy staring sullenly at the sunrise. The young baboons jump and play b...

  There are a preface and an epilogue of the main story of Santiago’s memorable fishing. As the novel opens, we get acquainted with an aged man named Santiago who has failed to catch, for about 84 days, a fish of noteworthiness. Manolin’s parents ordered him to work with a lucky fisherman. Nevertheless, Manolin, the boy, unhappy with his new master, returns to Santiago and offers to give his company to Santiago for the next day’s fishing. The old man somehow dissuades telling him to work with Martin, who was the owner of the terrace. Anyway, both Santiago and Manolin, in spite of the difference of their age, are fond of baseball games. Both support the Americans in this regard. Their hero is DiMaggio. Thereafter, we see that the boy brings some food and two beers to the old man’s poor hovel. Apart from that, he thinks how to obtain clothes, blanket, soap and towel for his dear master. While taking food, they talk of baseball, of the players and managers. They gossip that the manage...

  An Acre of Grass by W. B. Yeats: Thorough Analysis Stanzawise (line by line)/line by line explanation of "An Acre of Grass" by Yeats William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 and he breathed his last in 1939. After his superannuation from all kinds of public activities in 1932, the poet determined to permanently settle in Riversdale. The poem An Acre of Grass , published in Yeats’ Last Poems , was composed in about 1936 to 1937. So, as we see, the poem was composed in the last phase of his life. The poem is structurally composed of four six-line stanzas. That is to say, it is written in four stanzas of six lines each. Let us now analyse the poem thoroughly below: Stanza 1 When an old man is at the last phase of his life, when he is at life’s end, when he is at the brink of death, he has to chiefly depend upon the descriptions in “Picture and book” for “An acre of green grass” to have fresh “air and exercise”. Note the poet’s expression in the very opening line of the poem: ...

Verse Libre or Free Verse We come across the idea of free verse in French. In France, it is called vers libre . This kind of verse is also called polyrhymic verse. However, such kind of verse has its lines composed without a regular metre and usually without rhyme. The great father or the great pioneer of the form was Walt Whitman. The modern poet's  Leaves of Grass (1855) constituted a manifesto of free verse. The epigraph from Leaves of Grass is an excellent example of free verse: "Come, said my soul, Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,) That should I after return, Or, long, long hence, in other spheres, There to some group of mates the chants resuming, (Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,) Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on, Ever and ever yet the verses owning—as, first, I here and now Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name" It is actually a term that describes many forms of irregular, syllabic or unrhymed verse...

The word 'lyric' has its origin to an ancient string instrument known as lyre. People used to play on lyres and sing. Now let us discuss what lyric poetry is. Suffused with personal emotions and feelings, it is a formal kind of poetry. Usually spoken from the vantage point of the first person, that is, “I”, this poem is stuffed with musical musings. That is to say, after going through a lyric poem, we can feel its beats and musicality with ease. Now let us have a general overview of one of the chief practitioners of this genre. William Wordsworth, one of the chief exponents of lyric poetry, put his lyrical skills so dexterously. His The Lyrical Ballads is one of the finest examples. Now you may ask what a ballad is. A ballad is a poem that tells a story usually in the form of quatrains.  So long we have discussed about lyrical poetry and its general overview. Now we will discuss about Wordsworth as a lyrical poet in a nutshell. For example, in I wandered Lonely as a Cloud...

John Donne's The Good-Morrow : Critical appreciation OR Substance OR Metaphysical love poem John Donne's The Good-Morrow  is a Metaphysical love poem. The term 'meta' means 'beyond' and 'physical' means 'bodily'. That is to say, 'metaphysical' means 'beyond physical'. However, Dr. Samuel Johnson named this school of poets to be metaphysical because of their use of conceits that are seeming strange to the conventional world. That is to say, according to Dr. Johnson, these poets belonged out of the physical or the real world. Anyway, he termed them derogatorily. Let us now have a cursory glance at the poem The Good-Morrow . The speaker persona in the poem, at the outset, expresses utmost astonishment thinking that their previous 'pleasures' were no love at all. They were actually immature in the game of love. That is why the speaker utters the word 'wean'd'. 'Weaning' refers to the act of making a child h...