©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 MEG - 01, BRITISH POETRY ASSIGNMENT 2021 - 2022 {Based on Blocks (1-10) MEG 01/TMA 01/ 2021-22 Max. Marks: 100 Answer all questions. 1. Explain with critical comments any two of the following passages with reference to, their contexts: 10+10 (2) Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A.sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! (b) We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last emfiBers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky, A moon, worf as ifit Had been a shell ‘Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell, About the stars and broke in days and years. {c) Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, FOrLycidas your sorrow is not déad, ‘Sunk though he be beneath the watery fldor. Sdlsinks the day-star in the oceah bed) And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams and with new ‘Spangled ore, Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mouinted high, ‘Through the dear might offhim that Walk'd the waves. (d)_ When the starsithrew/down their spears, ‘And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smilelhis worktosee Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 2. Write a critical note on Chancer's art of portraiture in The General Prologue. 20 3.9 Consider Herbert as a religious poet. 20 4. Comment on the opposition of art afid life and youth and old age in ‘Sailing to Byzantium’. 20 5. Comment on the themes of death and suicide in the poetry of Sylvia Plath. 20 1 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only, Not for resale. 9350849407 ASSIGNMENT REFERENCE MATERIAL (2021-22) MEG-01 BRITISH POETRY Answer all questions. Q1. Explain with critical comments any two of the following passages with reference to their contexts: (a) Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! Ans:- Coleridge wrote variety of the foremost Itiminous poems within English , but ‘Kubla Khan’ is distinguished not just by its verse: it’s surrounded by its own mythology, raising far- reaching questions not only about the way poétty, is conceived and written, but also the way it's read and understood. Composed sometime between(Octoberil797 and will 1799 — when Coleridge wasn his mid- twenties — the poem wasn’t published until 25 May 1816, whengit appeared alongside “Christabel’ and ‘The Pains of, Sleep’.When he published the poemiColeridge wrote an accompanying Preface, during Which he somewhat modestly presented thé poem “rather as a psychological curiosity, than.on rock bottom of any supposed:poetic merits”. He went on t0)supply One of the foremost famous accoulfif@jof poetic creation ever to appear: withdrawing to “a lonely! farm-house between Porlock,and Linton” in 1797, he took an “anodyne” —.opiuni,—.for a “slight indisposition”, and fell asleep while reading Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage of 1614, over the passagewhere Purchas describes the great palace of “Cublai Can”. Coleridge “continued for about three hours”, he writes, “in a profound sleep, a fhinimum of of the extemal senses”, duringwhich a poem between two and 300 lines were composed, “if that indeed are often called composition during which all the photographs rose up before him es things, with a parallel produetion of correspondent expressions, with none Sensation or consciousness of effort”. ‘Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and therefore the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 2 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 Now we rise up and zoom out, looking across the “dome of pleasure” and thus the shadow it’s casting on the ocean. Coleridge is starting to celebrate here, taking all the weather he has introduced so far and scrambling them together, Jn just four lines we get the waves, the caves, the fountain, the dome. Everything is involved , including the varied sounds of the river, which make a “mingled measure.” All this mingling shows up within the thyme and thus the meter of the poem too. ‘These lines make an honest example, Now, they're doing have an honest rhyme schéfve, Just inspect the last words in each line: pleasure, waves, measure, caves - ABAB. But this is often often different from most of the rest of the poem, which Uses all kihds of other shyme schemes. Plus these four lines have a varying number of syllables. There really could also be a quite music during this poem, but it’s sttange and irregular, basically, a “mingled measure.” We'll be the first to admit that Coleridge scems to be taking himself pretty seriously here, but if you go searching the edges , he’s joking slightly bit too. The thythmic force of the verse carries its images into the nervous system of those wh@iread or hear it: its chant itself could also be a kind of enchantment. With its energies flowing through you, your conscious mind starts to undertake and alvakcen ‘o what's happening. this is,often often ‘white the pleasures of interpfétation begin. As Hughes said of ‘Kubla Khan” andithus the*Rime of the normal Mariner?»""Poems Of this sort can obviously never be explained, they're total symbols of psychic life. Bub they're going to be interpreted — an entire symibol is especially a vessel for interpretations: the reader fills it and drinks”. The speaker describes the “stately pleasure-dome” inbuilt:Xanadu according to the decree of Kublai Khan ywithin the, place where Alph, the sacred, river, ran “through caverns measureless to miahy/ right right down to a sunless séa.” Walls and towers were raised around “twice five miles Of fertile ground,” full of beautfullidens and forests. A “deep romantic chasm” slanted|dowyn a green hill, occasionally spewing forth a violent and powerful burst of jvater, So Breat that it flung boulders up with it “like rebounding hail.” The river ran five miles through the woods, finally sinking “in tumdlfto a dull occan.” Amid that tumult, within the place “as holy and enchanted / As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted / By woman Wailing to her demon-lover,” Kubla heard “ancestral voices” bringing prophesies of war, The ‘pleasure-dome’s shadow floated on the Waves, where the mingled sounds of the fountain and thus the caves could be heard. “It was a miracle of rare device,” the speaker says, “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!” (b) We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last embers of daylight die;-And in the trembling blue-green of the sky, A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell, About the stars and broke in days and years. 3 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam‘©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 Ans These Lines has been taken from Wittiam Butter Yeats's poem Adam's Cruse. Wilt/am Butler Yeats was an Irish artist with a genuine instance of shock. He consumed quite a bit of his time on earth attempting to court one lady, Maud, who didn't restore his affections. Tuth be told, around the same time ‘Adam's Curse’ was distributed, she dismissed his proposition and wedded another man large number of his lyrics base on affection and its failure. “Adam's Curse," one of his previous sonnets, goes with the same pattern. Be that as it may, it Isn't only an adoration ballad.” Adam's Curse” lauds the measure of work, that antiquated love requires, which he says Is Uke the diligent work that writers must doiso as to create thelr lines, The sonnets that outcome from this kind of work aren't as“helpfll'as, state, ahhouse made by manufacturers, so Yeats imagines that artists are neglected bythe vast majority of the world. As an artist, that thoroughly bums Yeats out. Evidently not the majority of our gratefulness for verse Is dead, however, in light of the fact that Yeats proceeded to turn out to be pretty dam popular for his composition. He's Viewed as cone of the most significant writers of the twentieth century and was grarited thejNobet Prize in 1923.Also, "Adam's Curse" is one of his best works. Distributed in 1903 intils\gathering In The ‘Seven Woods, the sonnet has proceeded to be broadly adulatedi@ind anthologized In this way, there's some uplifting news for you, Mr. Yeats. Inigpite ofwhat the speaker of the ballad accepts, a few people do in any case care about verse, The notice of “affection” appears to have quistedh them down, We wonder why. Maybe every one of them has their own grlef to consider. As they sit and think, the sun at long last goes down, Yeats utilizes a likeness here to contfasijthe dusk with the "last coalsjgofa flame wearing out. Notice the adjustment in tone ow? Yealuses words like “last"“incredible"Wivert the lyric from its milder, serene tone.to one that cets somewhat more genuine, sOmewhat heavier, The speaker portrays the sky @s/tremBling blue-green. It soundspretty, yet By what method can a sky tremble?, Maybe.a.tollch of exernplification {s to be faultedas the speaker enables 2a shading mix td feel anxious, Keep in mind how the notice lfiadoration made every one of the three offiaxcharactrs in the Sonnet go quiet? Theyiappear toifeel somewhat insecure as they consider thelcondition of their affection lives, Eyér Se&hoW, when you are miserable and arief strickerifeven jnipitial things tike the moon appéafito be dismal, as well? That is what's atifiding away here, The speaker’ troublei¢entinues into the manner in which he SEs the Rion, Here's another likeness: the)moon Is contrasted with a shell, wom by the TushéS of the ocean. That would make it decent and smooth, Isn't that so? ‘The speaker proceeds with this moon symbolism in these next Lines, Rather than the ocean ‘washing over the shells to make them smooth, however, its time that has washed delighted to smooth it out. The notice of affection caused our speaker to think about time, and how It passes. The moon symbolism is an approach to cause us to think about the physical signs of time, Notice the sound play (washed” and *waters') going on here? Look at the "Sound Check" for additional on Yeats’ sonic stunts, 4 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 (©) Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams and with new spangled ore, Flames in the forchead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves, Anst- Here Milton suggests that although King has perished, he has not perished for eternity and those in mourning should now rejoice that he is in heaven. Though professing not t understand why this tragedy has occurred, Milton proclaims the good news of God aad His sovereignty amidst the tragedies of evil. The odd switch from first-person narrativelto third. Person narration at line 186 extraordinarily effects the hearers of this pastoral clegy, further cementing that God has given each person a purpose to which they must strive (Evans 503). Even when evil is incomprehensible, we must carry on to “fresh woods, and pastures anew” (Lycidas, 194), remaining faithful and committed to the divine plan of God (d) When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see Did he who made the Lamb make thee? ‘Ans. These lines have been taken from Willis Blake's poem “The Tyger” The first two lines of the fifth stanza, is aidirect reference to Miltos!s Paradise Lost, describing the scene where the defending angels, after the battle had:been Won in heaven, threw down their spears and wept for iheir angel brethren who had been cast out. Thig reference to a scene from Milton's Paradise Lost, while still an interesting addition to the Poem, serves its greater purpose as setting the scene for Blake to Feveal his overall theme of siihe Tyger”, and ssentially Wis the direction of the moméntuin that he has been building up to this point, The lines, “Did he)smile his work to see?/Did hefiwholmade the Lamb make thee?” are, Perhaps, the\Most important lines of Blake's “The Tyger”. Blake here completely redirecte the focus,of the poem. The creator of the Tyfer untilthis point was considered the Devi, hereas the creator in fac, is God. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, God laughs at the fallen angele and mocks their distoyalty against their omnipotent patriarch; laughing at creatures that he himself had created and now punishing them after they exercised the free will he had given them. God exiles them to the prison, Hell, where he would also send more of his creations, ‘mortal man, after they too sin against him. This dichotomy of God's love and punishment, duality between the images of a loving futher figure and malicious patriarchic tyrant is the theme of the above stanza, Different questions leap from the page as the preceding lines of “The Tyger” now reveal themselves as not artistic insinuations to the Devil, but theological accusations against the divine motivations of the very Judeo-Christian God who was responsible for Creation itself 5 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 Much like how the Lamb, in Blake’s “The Lamb” (Songs of Innocence), was created by God, so too was the Tyger and Blake poetically confronts this theological issue. William Blake is essentially stating in “The Tyger”, as a form of social protest that Protestant Christians should be critical of a faith that has, at its centre, a God that chooses to punish so readily the creatures he brings into existence. God created the Lamb, but he also created and is directly responsible for the miscry of that same lamb, the Tyger that would prey upon it. God created Satan, and in doing so also readily damned him to Hell for acts that, in his ‘omnipotence, God was very much in control of and could have prevented. William Blake's “The Tyger” is such an enthralling theological critique, because it has, forging in the depths of hell a monster to be unleashed upon humankind, not the Devil, but the Protestatit God, himself, the creator of the Tyger as well as the Lamb. Q2. Write a critical note on Chancer's art of portraiture in The General Prologue, ‘Ans:- On the aisle of English poetry, Chaucer flourishes the fantasticy¢6lours Of his words and paints different characters of his age with minute observation; Indeed,,he is a great painter who paints not with colours but with words. Undoubtedly, he has: ‘The Seeing Eye, the retentive memory, the judgment to select-and)the ability to expound. His keen analysis of the minutest detail of his characters, their dresses, looks and manners enable him to present his characters lifelike and not miere bloodless abstractions. His poetical piece, The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is a real picture gallery ‘in which thirty portraits are hanging on the wall withall of their details and peculiarities Ratlier itis a ‘grand procession with all the life and movement, the colour and sound. Indeed His characters represent Englishsdélety, inorally and socially, in theyreal aiid retognizable types. ‘And still more representative of humanity in general. So, the chatactets in Chaucer’ Prologue” are for allhages andifor all lands. ‘The Chaucer is ‘théfirst.gfeat,painter) of character in (English literature. In fact, next to ‘Shakespeare he isthe greatest in this field. In The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales the thirty portraits traged)by Chaucer give us an excellent idea of the society at that time. Except for royalty and aristooracy, on one hand and the robbers or‘out casts on the other, he has painted in brief practically the whole English nations The’ thirty pilgrims, including the host, belong to the most varied professions. The Knight and the Squire presents the warlike element of the society. The leamed and liberal vocations are sighified by the Man of Law, the Doctor, the Oxford Clerk and the Poet himself. The ‘Merchant and the Shipman stand for the higher commercial community while the Wife of Bath, an expert Cloth maker represents the traders and manufacturers. Agriculture is represented by the Ploughman, the Miller and the Franklin. The upper servants like Manciple and the Reeve and thie” lower servant like" Yeoman“ and -the: Cook-represent-the town-and Country between them. The Monk from his monastery, the Prioress from her convent, her attendant priests, the village Parson, the roaming Friar, the Pardoner and the Summoner sufficiently cover the casual categories of the religious order in those days. 6 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 To preserve the distinctions among these typical characters, Chaucer has indicated the citferences in their clothes, manner of speech, habits and tendencies representing. the common traits and the average characteristics of each profession. These personages, therefore, are not mere phantasms of the brain but real human begins, These characters represent various types of contemporary society. They are no longer mere dummies or types but owing to their various peculiarities, their arguments and agreement and their likes and dislikes we recognize them as real living beings, true to the mould in which all human nature is cast. His world is almost freak-free and his characters are perfectly lifelike. Some of them/Af so, modem that they seem to be living today. The old Knight is an example of the chivalrous character which is found in every generation. The Squire is just the typical man of any day, ‘He was as fresshe as is the monthe of May ‘The Merchant has all the vanity which comes from the growing of wéllth, while the Man of Law like lawyers of all times, is pilling up fees and buying land. We recognize in him the typical lawyer of our own day: Nowhere so bisy a man as he ther was And yet he seemed bisier than he was. ‘here are characters like the Prioress, the Monk the Fiaiklin the Reeve, the Sumriioner) the Pardoner, and the Wife of Bath whom we do mot identify at first. But none of thems really extinct. They have changed their name and profession but their chief part is.atelentent of humanity. That is why when we accompany the Pilgrims on their way we feel quite at home and have no feeling of being among aliens) Chaucer's art of characterition is Superb. He looks at his chéracters objectively and delineates each of the men and Women sharply and caressingly, Hisimptession of casualness, cconomy, signifiGince and variety, of every detail are exammples,of that supreme art which conceals art, In fact, there is a @ifferent method of almost every®ilgrim, He varies his presentation from the full lengibpportrait to the thumb-nail sketch, but éven in the brief sketches, Chaucer conveys.a strong Sense of individuality and depth of portraiture. Chaucer's method of portraying characte i) Sientific manner by differentiating them by means oftheir obvious distinctions. It was for the first time in European literature that » writer proved himself clearly conscious of the relation between individuals and ideas, Moféover, Chaucer's characters are consistent and instead of being static, they grow and develop in the course of the tale, like living human beings. They give their opinions on the stories that have been told and these comments reveal their dominant thoughts, their feelings and the objects of their interests, ‘Thus Chaucer is the master in the art of characterization, Q3. Consider Herbert as a religious poet. 7 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 ‘Ansi- George Herbert is considered as a religious poet because of the subject matter of his poetry which is fully devotional and religious in nature. By his poetry, he completely surrenders himself to God and his master, Jesus. Although he was associated with the metaphysical group, he was exceptional for his treatment towards religion in his poetry. For his devotion to God, he is known as the saint of the metaphysical group. And his religious thought afterward influenced other metaphysical pocts. However, his devotion to God reflects in his poems, and we find a great touch of religion in almost all of his poems. He was a Churchman of the Anglican Church. And his religious faith had grown and) developed in this Church. He was influenced by it right from his childhood under the benign guidance of his pious mother and seasoned family chaplains. And long after the compligation, of his University graduation, he was ordained and placed over the little church of Betharton Herbert's mind was moulded by religion and by the Anglican Church. As he was brobght up in religious atmosphere and his religious faith is shaped by his pious mother, we see that his poems are the representations of his sacred mind and thought. His poems"are nothing but the true expression of love towards God and Jesus. As Rose Macaulay says, "Herbert is, in a seense, the first of the Anglican poets; the first Anglican poet, that is, whose whole expression and art was coloured by and confined within the walls of his Church.” Herbert finds and gets satisfaction writing religious poems! Even the\two sonnets that he sent to his mother when he was only seventeen year’s old are the symbol of what kind of poet he wanted to be. In his after years, he writes divite poerfis ait sees beauty only in God. He is all for God, his king, whose praise he will sing in a plain, homely language. Even just before his death he gave a manuscript to one of his friends,and the message that he gave is worthy. He "Deliver this little book to my dear brothe®Ferrar, and tell him he shall fifi in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my master, in whose service I havethow found perfect freedom." However, Herbert is called theldevotiOnal or the religious poet because he deals with such subjects. The theme of most of his poems is religion. He deals with thé)soul, God, life after death, the relation’ between liliman)spirits and senses and soon. He talks of man’s relation to God, of body,to the Soul, of the life here and to the life hereafter. In this relation, he often shows rebellion) reconeiliation and the final submission, Moreover, hig)poetryii8)a sequence of religious poeitis) His motive is always to make the divine seem original, the secular imitation. He'sees the:things of daily life in direct relation to aysupernatiiral order. Heavenly truths are indeed what he looks for in all his poems. There are manyspoems in which Herbert devoutly offers his homage to God or Christ, and make surrenderiof himself to the Almighty. These are poems of untroubled faith in which the tone is throughly one of affirmation. "Easter-Wings" is one of such poems. The theme of his poems is that Paradise was lost through Adam's sin but was regained by Christ's sacrifice. The underlining idea is that the fall of man is the essential basis of his rise, or in other words if there is no fall, there can be no flight. Here he says, “Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, 8 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU ExamNo.1 and in ( » Self-help books in the world Get More Marks in Less Time in Exams and Assignments Only IGNOU Help Book Publisher in the World to participate in World Book Fair for More Than a Decade. [Thank You For Doing Buisness With us |]©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore." His another poem "The Altar”, shows his devotion to God and urges to take his broken heart into his own for his own satisfaction. He shows his devotion saying, “A HEART alone Is such a stone, As nothing but Thy pow'r doth cut. Wherefore each part Of my hard heart Meets in this frame, To praise thy name.” There are some other poems like DISCIPLINE) AFFLICTION, PRAYER ¢fe. i, which Herbert shows his extraordinary love towards God. He praises God in many stylesjin many of his poems. As for example "The Temple" is alGollection of 169 religious péems out of which 140 have been composed in diffrent pattéms of stanza, and out of which,116 pattems have been used for only single time. It appears that Herbert wanted to employ his skill in God's praise in as much different forms as possible. Other poets: Herbert, Jolin Donne and Vaughan are contemporary poet), Although they are associated with the metaphysical group, they have some similarities and dissimilarities among them. However, a éomparative discussion with George Herbert and other poets is given below: Donne and\Herbert ? Joh Donine ( 1572-1631 ) established what has become known as the Metaphysical style of poetry which was taken up by later poets like Herbert and Vaughan. Donne developed his {echinique writing love poetry, and later adapted it to the writing of religious poetry. George Herbert's poetry shows that to a large extent he followed the lead offered by Donne, but he also made contributions which were quite distinct. But they have some similarities between them. Donne's Holy Sonnet ‘Batter my Heait’ and Herbert's 'The Collar’ are both poems about the struggle to maintain faith in God. In the ‘opening line of 'Batter my Heart’ Donne writes, 9 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9360849407 “Batter my heart, three person'd God;” Herbert, showing the influence of Donne, writes in his opening line of "The Collar’: “Lstruck the board, and cry'd, No more.” Both openings are abrupt and dramatic, evoking violent action, and both are delivered in a personal and colloquial manner. Herbert and Vaughan : Henry Vaughan shares Herbert's preoccupation with the relationship between huméfity and God. Both see mankind as restless and constantly seeking a sense of harmony and fulfillment through contact with God. In "The Pulley’ Herbert writes, “Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessnesse: Similarly, in 'Man' Vaughan writes, “Man hath stil either toyes or Care, He hath no root, nor to one place is ty'd, But ever restless and Inregular,”* Both poets are conscious of the sinfulness of mankind, but in other espetts their attitudes towards mankind seem to differ. From the above discussions, ifjean be said that George Herbert devoted his poetic genius for the praise of;God'and, the theme of most of his poemspis teligion that leads us towards spiritual and’ moral Ydeass»And his poems find expressions only in God's praise. So undoubtedly we ean consider George Herbert is a deVotional or religious poct. Q4. Comment on, the opposition of art anid Byzantium’, and youth and old age in ‘Sailing to Ans. This ode deals with the theme of art, life and death. Yeats here expresses his preference for the world of art over life. Yeats was attracted to Byzantium because it was mathematically Convenient to him. This is because the high point of Byzantium art came almost dead centre in the 2000 years cycle which defined the beginning and end of modem times, Another reason was that the brilliant integrated art of Byzantium had great appeal for him because in carly Byzantium religious, aesthetic and practical life were one. The artist was almost impersonal, almost without the consciousness. of individual-design.—The-subject- matter — represented the vision of a whole people. Yeats in this poem wishes to sail to such a world 10 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam,‘©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 In this poem there are two major divisions which divide the poem precisely in half. The first two stanzas present art as inanimate and the second two as animate. Accordingly in the first half of the poem the images are stated as passive objects. They are twice called monuments. They are merely objects of contemplation. They may be neglected or studied, visited or not visited. On the other hand, in the second two stanzas, they are treated as gods. One can pray to these gods, for life or death. They are capable of motion from sphere to sphere as instructors of the soul. They are like sages possessed of wisdom. In the two major divisions, there are further divisions. The first stanza presents a rejection of passion. The second stanza is an acceptance of intellection. Third stanza presents a rejection of the coruptible. embodiment as art has a soul. The fourth stanza is an acceptance of the incorruptible. Negative and affirmative thus alternate. Passion gives place to intellection and corruption to. permanence. ‘The first line of stanza presents immediately, in its most simple statement, the¢ondition from which the whole structure of the poem originates: “That is no country for old men.” Next five lines of the stanza indicate what it is from which they are excluded, Ife old tien can no longer participate in the sensual delights of the young. But the last two lines of the stanza tell that the young are deprived of intellection just as the old are deprived of sensual delights. The use of the word “that” shows that the separation of the old from the country of the young is already complete. At first sight, the human lovers “in one another's aris} have, like the birds at their song, apparently a romantic and sentimental character. But the use of the phrase “those dying generations” for birds indicates their transience) The phrases “the salmon-falls, ‘the mackerel-crowded seas” imply that all-the,humtanllovers, the birds, the fish do not copulate and spawn and this is the whole signifieatice of their existence. The country of the young is thus entirely given over to sensuality. They*are immersed in things mortal and animal. They commend “whatever is begotten, born and dies”. Their commesidation, like their joy, lasts but a summer, a mating season. Thellast two lines of the stanza prechide all possibility of a return to such a.country. The young are “caught in that sensual music." They “neglect monuments of unagéing\infellect™» They are passive and incapable ofifraud action. The second stanza shows that(Gld agelis no solution. To be old is tOjbe in 9 state of misery- "An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.” The old age alone is worse than youth. But of the old ag@lis aecompanied by development of the soul, then every step in the decay of the body)*every tatter in its mortal dress” - is,a cause for further increase of joy. This is possiblejonly if the soul can rejoice in “monuments of its own significance”. The old must seck Byzantium by breaking utterly with the Country of the young. Passion must be rejected for freedom of the soul. The sensual musio(6f the first stanza must music. This soul's music is to be studied inthe singing-school of men’s greatest creative achievements in religion and thought and especially art. The third) stanza shows that there are old men in Byzantium too. They are the sages standing in “God's holy fire” to whom the speaker appeals. But they have been purged of even the last remants of their sensuality. The speaker begs them to purge him too of sensuality. These sages wrapped in holy flames can, like immortal phoenixes, rise from their holy fire, ‘per in ‘a gyre’ and become the singing masters of the old man’s soul. These singing masters will ‘consume my heart away’. The old man is ‘stick with desire and fastened to a dying animal’. He appeals to these sages to gather him ‘into the artifices of eternity.” The final stanza tells that at last ‘out of nature’, the old man can renounce all physical incarnation. He can become the imperishable thing itself, the golden bird, a beautiful work of 1" Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 art. He will be thus beyond decay and so unlike the dying generations of real birds of the first stanza. On his golden bough he will become himself one of those monuments he had so admired. His song, when he becomes a golden bird, will be that of spiritual ecstasy - ‘the soul clapping its hands and singing.’ He will be surrounded not by the young lovers and other animal creatures of the sexual cycle but by an audience that is elegant, abstract and like the beings of the sensual life in the way that a work of art is like life. There he will have no Tage. Past, present and future are all one there. However, Winters condemns Yeats for the view of the function of the poet given in the last stanza. The poet having achieved immortality will sing to keep drowsy emperor awake. He will sing to lords and ladies who are probably. equally drowsy, . In A Vision, Yeats tells us that in early Byzantium may be never before or since infeorded history, religious, aesthetic and practical life were one. Architecture and artificers thoughinot ethaps poets-spoke to the multitude and the few alike. The painter, the mosdie worker, the worker in gold and silver, the illuminator of sacred books, were almost impersonal, almost without the consciousness of individual design, absorbed in their subjectmatter which represented the vision of whole people. twas such a world that Yeats wanted to sail in this poem, a world in whieh the artist, almost impersonal, manages to reflect the vision of a whole peoplé, This warld had a culture so integrated as to produce an art which could have the impaét of a single image. The world he leaves, transfixed by the sensual music of its singing bitdsysis represented by dei tmultitudinous bodies-fish, flesh, fowl. Those! ying’ geheration” of the world’s birds sing songs to the body, songs which abstract all people from the contemplation of “monumiéits of uunageing intellect which alone can justify amyold mati’s existence and which cannot be produced in modern chaotic times.” Critics have discussed in detail the possibleiliferary sources of this poem, Haréld Bloom believes that the vision of this pooin as Well as its repudiation of nature,is thore’Shelleyan than Blakean. John Unterecker remarks; “Sailing to Byzantium prepares the Way for's whole group of comments on the(Bassionaig ld man as symbol for the tyrdanYof time.” B, Rajan remarks that “the poem itself, embodies Blake’s proposition .that etemity is in love with the productions of time.” Struge Moré has tetitked that the poem is unjustifiédlin asserting that he would be “out of nature”, The golden bird of Byzantium seems to have been derived from Gibbon or Hans Anderson. Commenting upon this poem, BoRajan says : “In four taut stanzas of Ottava Rima the great contfaries of youth and age, life and\death, change and the changeless and nature and aft disclose themselves in a creative independence where each demands the other for its completion.” Q5. Comment on the themes of death and suicide in the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Ans. The poetry of the ‘fifties in England came as a reaction to the dictates of Pound and Eliot and the “excesses” of Dylan Thomas. This reaction against the established, intellectual, academic poetry took another form in the U.S.A. and from there travelled to England with Sylvia Plath. The poets involved in this reactionary movement came to be called the Confessional Poets. Heading the group were Robert Lowell and Theodore Roethke, Younger 2 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9360849407 poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, who studied with Lowell, leamed to write in the same anti-intellectual, subjective style, So did John Berryman. Together, these poets initiated a new trend in poetry, glorifying the personal and the private, expressing their innermost secrets aloud for all to hear, When Syivia Plath married the English poet Ted Hughes and chose to make her home in the United Kingdom, the Confessional movement no longer remained confined to the American boundaries. Around mid-century in the U.S.A., a lot of changes were imperceptibly taking place. There was no single, sudden, radical change; the changes that were gradually working their wayy into the very vitals of literature were slow but steady. The beginnings of the change may'be discerned in the works of poets like Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke, Eliot’s theory of impersonality no longer seemed to be the divine word poets were required to follow. It fell into its proper place and came to be regarded as just a theory and.no more. From the impersonal mode there came a shift towards the personal mode;,from the outer waste land to The Waste Land’ within; from global themes relating to Jerusalem, Athens, ‘Vienna, London, to themes related to the heart and soul of the poet. The year 1959 may be regarded as a watershed in the history of literature:for it was in this year that two important events took place which shaped the nature of poetry to be written subsequently, The first of these events was the publication of Life Studies by Robert Lowell which heralded a new kind of poetry, marking a signifigant departure from the complex symbolism and the formal language and style of T.S. Eliot. Focusing attention on his own self, Lowell chose to look inward rather than @utward.[Consequently, his work moved away from the classical stance, becoming more personal, more private. Lowell became an important influence on the poets of the ‘sixtiespbringing!about an “intense breakthrough into very serious, very personal, emotional experience” which had until then been paftly/taboo.)as Sylvia Plath saw it. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton came under his direct influence when they attended Lowell’s poetry classes in Boston. They looked upon Lowell asa mentor. The second important event that took place in 1959 relates to Allen Ginsberg, a poet very different from Lowell, who algojunderinined the established poetic norms of the time, but in his own manner. A poetry reading by him, Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky at Columbia University becanté)a contfoVersial public affair, “emblematic|of a whole era,” as Morris Dickstein put.it. Withhis reading of Howl, Ginsberg changéd thé very concept of poetry. Hitherto, if poetry was treated as a literary construct, with Ginsberg, it came to be regarded as a performance, Ay ritualistic gesture accompaniéd by-.music and dance. Discarding conventional/ forms aid)themes Ginsberg imparted t9"poetry a new sense of freedom and spiritual intensity taking it out of stufly classtooms on to the open stage. The work of Eliot and, Pound, required a vast body of.critical annotations and interpretations to be ‘comprehended fully. Besides, it had emefged as av answer to the needs of a particular hour in history: the second decade of the twentieth century when, as a result of global wars, civilisations seemed to be breaking apart. By the late ‘fifties the situation had changed.” It was Robert Lowell who first saw the horror, the boredom and the glory of Eliot's waste land paralleled within the mind. Life Studies connects the meaninglessness and hollowness of the outer world to the existing despair within, Unable to find order and security in the post- war world; Lowell-looks-for stability and-reassurance in his-family;-his background-and-the New England tradition represented -by his ancestors. His poetry, thus is a regressive ‘movement, away from the broad canvas of the world to a narrower, familiar canvas. But at all 3 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale, 9350849407 times Lowell retains his commonsense attitude and keeps his feet firmly rooted in the reality of everyday life. With Theodore Roethke there is more of an escapist movement, The Lost Son and Other Poems was published in 1948 but its full impact was felt only after the publication of Lowell’s Life Studies. The difference between Lowell and Roethke lies in that whereas Lowell regresses into history - family history and also autobiography - Roethke’s escape is into the world of nature. It may be said that Roethke’s is a return to Wordsworthian ideals, But so, in a different way, is Lowell's, If The Prelude is Wordsworth’s. spiritual autobiography, Life Studies is a record of Lowell’s emotional history. As in Wordsworth, in Lowell’s work, too, one may easily detect the presence of an “egotistical sublime.” Butifot so, in the case of Rocthke where the poet’s personality, more Keatsean, remain$ in the background while the plants, roots and creatures of the greenhouse speak on his behalf. ‘The personal voice, unlike that of Lowell, speaks occasionally but without assertiag itself.in t00 obtrusive a manner, ‘The work of Lowell and Roethke and other poets like Sylvia Plath, John Bercyman and Anne Sexton, has come to be called “Confessional Poetry,” a nomenclature that.is more a label of convenience for critics. M.L. Rosenthal defined this form of poetry as that in which “the private life of the poet, especially under stress of psychological crigis, becomes a major theme”, The word “confession” has a host of connotatioas of which two may be cited for their relevance to the present context: the act of “confessing” and the intimacy of experience. “Confessional” is related to confessions madefinjehurGh itiorder to obtain absolution. Thus, it is a private utterance, an admission of lapses, wrong-doings and feelings one would, not normally express in public. But, at the samestime, ityremains an utterance made before an audience, in this case the father confessor Confessional poetry should thusyhé¥e, all the ingredients of confession: it would pertain to privatelerrors and omissions, fears and phobias Above all, it must have its roots firmly in the poet’s biography. It deals with personal themes, The poet's self is the pivot around which his world revolves. Iteis, ani/expression of Personality, believing the poet’s individuality to be the first reality that must be reckoned with. Only after one has come termsjvith one’s true self can one'tim to look at the outside world. So the first task of the eonfessional poets is to look at the turbulence within the self analyse the chaotiéimass of thoughts and feclings and come t6 tetms with them, The themes, this, are iiivariably Telated to the poet's frowth alld childhood. A comparison may be drawn with the autobiographical mode of Wordsworth. In The Prelude, Wordsworth presents a lofig, chrondlogical account of his evoluti6il from an ordinary boy to a sensitive Poet. He, takes tip, selected “spots of time,”skey\ moments that stand out in his memory, analyses their importance and contribution,towards the making of the poet he grew up to be. ‘The work of the confessional poets is sintilar in the sense that they, too, look back at the past, picking Out significant moments in their experience. But, unlike Wordsworth, their main concern is not with the road taken to fame and glory. Rather, itis the paths taken to neuroses andyémotional breakdowns that fascinate them. They all seem to look back totally mesmerised, examining every hurdle encountered, every landmark on the way. There is total self-absorption, not just a commemoration of the flattering moments of personal history but also the ignoble, humiliating and demeaning experiences, ‘The Confessional Poets speak of personal failures: failure, for instance, in establishing meaningful relationships with others. Robert ‘Lowell, in “Man and Wife” speaks of the failure of marriage. The fault lies somewhere in the inability to communicate with his wife. Another 4 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 poem in Life Studies is significantly entitled “To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage” where the husband drops his home disputes, and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, free-lancing along the razor's edge. Lowell locates the causes of the breakdown of communication within the psyche: itis a certain inadequacy in an individual that prevents him from reaching out to othefS and, establishing a meaningful relationship with the world outside. Lowell is concerned with pinpointing the exact nature of such an inadequacy. Lowell speaks of failure not only in marriage and sexual relationships but also in filial duties. In “Home After Three Months Away” he mentions his daughter. Againgthere is/@ failure in ‘communication; Lowell is aware that he has failed somewhere as a father. And once again, the reasons lie within: the mental collapse that he suffered is the invisible/divider, keeping him away from the child. There is desire, there is love, butsthere is at the same time a crippling force that nullifies all positive efforts towards establishifig a réipport with others. Failed filial relationships in confessional poetry take on anothenform, this time the poet in the role not of parent but offspring: the child mourning" for @ilost father. The theme is not new. Eliot often makes a reference to Ferdinand of The Tempest, weeping over the supposed demise of his father and Ariel’s consoling dirge.is repeatedly invoked: “Full fathorn five thy father lies...” Robert Lowell speaks of a stfainedyrelationship with his father/and)so does ‘Theodore Roethke. Sylvia Plath, John Bartyman and)Anne Sexton, all seemsjto suffet from a father complex. Their attitude yacillates, between adoration and abhorrencedt i; no'doubt, a part of the natural process that the, a8 members of the younger generation should outlive their parents. But their response 10 their bereavement is unnaturally intense. There is an inability to accept the loss of the father, a failure to cope with.a World removed from his benign influence. In fact, so deep is the sense of loss that the poet is Jeft.at a breaking point, teetering between Sanity and/aitotal. loss of emotional balance, When these CoifessionalPoets speak of their breakdowns anid personal failures, they seem to bbe drawn more andimore deep into sorrow and despair. Not surprisingly, their thoughts often tum to self-destruction, Self-annihilation or suicide forms a major theme in their poems. In their personal lives, too, most of them remained suicidal, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and John Barrymian ied selinflicted deaths. In the works of the other confessional poets, too, suicide and death are always around the corner. It is not simply death that their poetry speaks of. It also deals with physical sickness, discase and decay. Consequently, a lot of unromantic element creeps into poetry. As Robert Phillips puts it, there is no longer any “poetic” or “unpoetic” material, nothing is taboo in confessional poetry. Lowell speaks of myopia, Roethke of hydrotherapy, Sexton of the personal, private experiences of being a woman, of topics as controversial as masturbation or menstruation, The ugly and the grotesque inspire poetry in the same manner as the beautiful and the good. 15 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 The desire behind such poetry is the urge to shock. This desire to shock is manifested in the use of unconventional themes, outspoken language and expressions of uncontained fury. All this requires courage and itis courage that the confessional poets lay claim to: the courage to come face to face with reality, no matter what the consequences, no matter how painful the experience. In this connection a reference may be made to Sexton’s epigraph to To Bedlam and Part Way Back which is a quotation from a letter to Goethe from Schopenhauer: It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes a Philosopher. He must be like Sophocles’ Oedipus who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry, even when he divines that appalling hortor awaits him in the answer, But most of us carry in our hearts the Jocasta who begs Oedipts for God's sake not to inquire further. ‘The poct is forever seeking answers to questions that plague him on matters péHaibitig 0 his identity and situation in a larger scheme of things. However, after reading the work of Lowell or Sexton or the other Confessional poets, the question that arises is: how much of their work is related to authentic experience? How much of itis fiction? “Confession,” after all, is assumed to be true. But not so in the case of these poets. It is not always first-hand experience that the poets yafite of “Tiere is a good deal of thinking with fact,” as Robert Lowell explained in an interdiew. Such a statement, combining fact with fiction, answers many other doubts that may arise regarding the nature of confessional poetry. It should simply sound{ as, ifsiflWere true, says Lowell. Sexton, for instance, brings in a lot of fictitious events and experiences into her work and yet he work reads like an authentic account. {f confessional poetry were simply “confessions” the admission of privatelguilt, sbitow and loss, it would have a very limited appeal, For one wearies of hearing theprivate Whining and ‘moaning of individuals dissatisfied with their lot. But, the work of the poets of the ‘sixties has 8 wide appeal for several reasofis, Bevalise of the “I”, the first-person singular orientation, the Poetry conveys a sense of immediacy and urgency, Confessional poetty’has a lot in common With the dramati¢monologtie) exploring as it does the labfrinths of the mind, diving into ‘motives and intentions, In the Use of the first person singular there is another advantage: it is like one personltalking to,another, a sharing of confideaces, ain “I engaged in a conversation with “you.” It algo)encourages the imaginative identification of the reader with the writer, so that it is easiéhto undefstand and respond to the suffétifigs of the poet/narrator. At the same time, despite the personal themes, there are céftain, devices by which an attempt is made to impart Some kind of universality to the poeity “Gries of the heart,” as Sylvia Plath calls them,gwould have a limited audience{ So, th€¥poet sometimes uses a persona that is tuniversally recognised and accepted. In Sylvia Plath’s case, for example, the poet often evokes the figure of Electra, borrowed from Greek mythology. The poem “Daddy,” she says, 48 spoken by “a girl with an Electra complex.” Other confessional poets adopt different devices. John Barryman creates a private persona for the same effect and makes use of the third person singular. His Dream Songs are the rambling thoughts of a certain Henry who is a device that provides an aesthetic distance between the poet and the experience he writes of. In the guise of Henry, Barryman feels free to speak of experiences that would otherwise be hard te Fecount in-the first person. Lowell tries to ensure a wider appeal for his poetry by cstablishing a link between private experience and public. Events from history and politics are brought into the poems and related to individual experience. This linking of the personal 16 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam©Copyright with gullybaba.com only. Not for resale. 9350849407 with the public helps to situate the experience in a particular locale and time. The poet is thus seen not as an independent entity detached from the rest of the world, but, paradoxically, as a private individual in a public milieu. So Confessional poetry is not simply confession; it seeks to establish connections between the outer and the inner world of man. 7 Read GPH Help Book for IGNOU Exam