When Jane Eyre was first published in 1847, it was an immediate popular and critical success. George Lewes, a famous Victorian literary critic declared it "the best novel of the season." It also, however, met with criticism. In a famous attack in the Quarterly Review of December 1848, Elizabeth Rigby called Jane a "personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined spirit" and the novel as a whole, "anti-Christian." Rigby's critique perhaps accounts for some of the novel's continuing popularity: the rebelliousness of its tone. Jane Eyre calls into question most of society's major institutions, including education, family, social class, and Christianity. The novel asks the reader to consider a variety of contemporary social and political issues: What is women's position in society, what is the relation between Britain and its colonies, how important is artistic endeavor in human life, what is the relationship of dreams and fantasy to reality, and what is the basis of an effective marriage? Although the novel poses all of these questions, it doesn't didactically offer a single answer to any of them. Readers can construct their own answers, based on their unique and personal analyses of the book. This multidimensionality makes Jane Eyre a novel that rewards multiple readings.
While the novel's longevity resides partially in its social message, posing questions still relevant to twenty-first century readers, its combination of literary genre keeps the story entertaining and enjoyable. Not just the story of the romance between Rochester and Jane, the novel also employs the conventions of the bildungsroman (a novel that shows the psychological or moral development of its main character), the gothic and the spiritual quest. As bildungsroman, the first-person narration plots Jane's growth from an isolated and unloved orphan into a happily married, independent woman. Jane's appeals to the reader directly involve us in this journey of self-knowledge; the reader becomes her accomplice, learning and changing along with the heroine. The novel's gothic element emphasizes the supernatural, the visionary, and the horrific. Mr. Reed's ghostly presence in the red-room, Bertha's strange laughter at Thornfield, and Rochester's dark and brooding persona are all examples of gothic conventions, which add to the novel's suspense, entangling the reader in Jane's attempt to solve the mystery at Thornfield. Finally, the novel could also be read as a spiritual quest, as Jane tries to position herself in relationship to religion at each stop on her journey. Although she paints a negative picture of the established religious community through her characterizations of Mr. Brocklehurst, St. JohnRivers, and Eliza Reed, Jane finds an effective, personal perspective on religion following her night on the moors. For her, when one is closest to nature, one is also closest to God: "We read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence." God and nature are both sources of bounty, compassion and forgiveness.
In reading this novel, consider keeping a reading journal, writing down quotes that spark your interest. When you've finished the book, return to these notes and group your quotes under specific categories. For example, you may list all quotes related to governesses. Based on these quotes, what seems to be the novel's overall message about governesses? Do different characters have conflicting perceptions of governesses? Which character's ideas does the novel seem to sympathize with and why? Do you agree with the novel's message? By looking at the novel closely and reading it with a critical focus, you will enrich your own reading experience, joining the readers over the last century who've been excited by plain Jane's journey of self-discovery.
A redeemed sinner was worth as much to a Wesleyian as a righteous zealot. Rochester loved and needed Jane. St. John Rivers did not love Jane, and only needed her as a secretary. Jane was rewarded for her absolute faith in God's work. Was not St. Paul the man who brought the story of Jesus to the Gentiles? Had not Wesley openly acknowledged his debt to a feminine thinker Antionette Bouigignon, who had written "the love of God, outside of which there is no virtue". Brontë wrote with a sense of mission. Indeed, Brontë's first biographer, Mrs Gaskell, recalled being told by her that she always wrote "with a sense of mission". In Jane Eyre, this sense burns through almost every page. The novel Jane Eyre, regardless of personal predilection, is one that should at least be considered amongst religious works. Whatever the literary value by which it is judged, it is certainly not as spiteful triumphalist a book as that which describes the progress of a man called Pilgrim.
Jane Eyre ends with a spiritual revelation. The change in Rochester echoes the change in Tennyson. "You think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog" he confesses to Jane, "but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now" (p. 393). God appears at last to Rochester in the form of the fire — an instrument of "divine justice" — which destroys Thornfield (p. 393). Rochester's newly found faith and his ensuing change of character make possible his marriage with Jane. The discovery of God, then, ties together all the loose ends of the novel, fulfills true love, and closes the book with an overall affirming message that two impassioned souls can unite in marriage after all, if the Lord wills it. A couple of contrasts with Tennyson, though, seem obvious. For one, Charlotte Brontë reveals God to her readers through symbolism, whereas Tennyson finally uncovers a divine plan in the various meanings of the word "type." Secondly, Brontë has God play an interactive role in the external, material reality, whereas Tennyson must search internally for God's revelation. For him, God exists as a "far-off divine event." If Tennyson had lived in the world of Jane Eyre, he probably would have not spent so long struggling with Hallam's death.
Typology, however, is not altogether absent from Brontë's novel. This "elaborate system of foreshadowing (or anticipations) of Christ" plays a crucial role in Tennyson, as we have seen. But it also plays a part in Jane Eyre. Helen Burns acts as a typological figure just as Hallam does. Like Hallam, this precocious girl who espouses Christian doctrine and seems closer to God than any of her evangelical teachers trods the earth "ere her time was right." She is too good for the world. We can view her death as a sacrifice because it teaches Jane a powerful lesson in faith. Her tombstone reads, "Resurgam," or "I shall rise again," confirming her status as a Christ figure, as well as foreshadowing Christ's second coming (p. 72). That two works as different as In Memoriam and Jane Eyre contain the elements of typology should not surprise the reader. Typology, after all, had an "enormous influence on medieval Europe, seventeenth-century England, and Victorian Britain" ("An Introduction to In Memoriam" ). At the time of Tennyson and Brontë, it proved a fundamental principle for the Evangelical Protestants, a minority party of the Church of England but a dominant force in English life between 1789 to 1850. The Evangelicals used this system to relate Old Testament figures and events to the New Testament. Eventually typology crossed into the art and literature of the era as well, providing these forms with an "imaginatively rich iconography and particular conceptions of reality and time".
Introspection, half-belief in the supernatural, conflicting emotions, gushing description appear throughout Jane Eyre. Rochester's mention of prescience — both foreshadowing and premonition — come up again and again throughout the work. "I knew. . . you would do me good in some way . . . I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you," Rochester tells Jane. Both he and she believe implicitly the things they read in eyes, in nature, in dreams. Jane has dreams which she considers unlucky, and sure enough, ill fortune befalls her or her kin. When she is in a garden which seems "Eden-like" and laden with "honey-dew", the love of her life proposes to her. However, that very night the old horse-chestnut tree at the bottom of the garden is struck by lightning and split in half, hinting at the difficulties that lie in store for the couple.
The turbulent exploration of Jane's emotions so characteristic of the text reveals some of Brontë's most prevalent ideas — that judgment must always "warn passion," and that the sweet "hills of Beulah" are found within oneself.
As Jane grows throughout the book, one of the most important things she learns is to rule her heart with her mind. When a child at Gateshead she becomes entirely swept up in an emotional tantrum, which proves to be the most painful memory of her childhood. At the pivotal point in the plot when Jane decides to leave Rochester, she puts her love for him second to the knowledge that she cannot ethically remain with him - the "counteracting breeze" once again preventing her from reaching paradise. Only when Rochester has become worthy of her, and judgment and passion move toward the same end, can she marry him and achieve complete happiness./
Charlotte Brontë, like her heroine, traveled to wondrous lands within the confines of her own head. While Jane, engrossed in Bewick's History of British Birds, was mentally traversing "solitary rocks and promontories", her creator might have been calling to mind memories of her own sojourns in imagined lands. By the time she was a teacher at the Roe Head school, Charlotte and her brother Branwell had been writing stories and poems about an African kingdom called Angria for many years. While she was away at the school, the fate of the inhabitants of the country lay in Branwell's hands, which made her very nervous, as he was given to intrigue and violence. She was unhappy with her situation, loathing the available company and describing herself as "chained to this chair prisoned within these four bare walls," and so her happiest hours were spent in the wild landscapes of her mind. "What I imagined grew morbidly vivid," she says, and indeed her visions of Angria are almost more real to her than what is actually happening around her. "All this day I have been in a dream, half miserable and half ecstatic: miserable because I could not follow it out uninterruptedly; ecstatic because it shewed almost in the vivid light of reality the ongoings of the infernal world. (She sometimes referred to Angria as"infernal" or below.") When pupils or fellow teachers interrupt her reveries she is furious, saying once, "But just then a dolt came up with a lesson. I thought I should have vomited."
About 1839 Brontë finally left Angria, saying 'still, I long to quit for a while that burning clime where we have sojourned too long . . . The mind would cease from excitement and turn now to a cooler region, where the dawn breaks grey and sober and the coming day, for a time at least, is subdued in clouds " (all materials from the Norton critical edition of Jane Eyre). Though she did at last consent to leave her imaginary world behind, it played such a large part in her child and early adulthood that there is no doubt her recollection of time spent there affected Jane's experience.
Having a Cleopatra-like variety, Belinda is the one who is all pervasive and central character in Alexander Pope's mock heroic, "The Rape of the Lock". Pope's attitude to Belinda is very mixed and complicated: mocking and yet tender, admiring and yet critical. The paradoxical nature of Pope's attitude is intimately related to the paradox of Belinda's situation. She is as a bundle of contradictions as is the society she represents. She is a complex character and is more than a mere type. It is impossible to find a parallel of Belinda in any poem of the 18th century.
Belinda is introduced as a paragon of female charm whose name is Latin for “Lovely to behold “. Pope seems to be enamoured with his own creation. He describes her in superlatives - the brightest fair, the fairest of mortals. She is the center of attention during her pleasure ride over river Thames; her lively looks, her sprightly mind, her flashing eyes charm one and all:
“Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay."
Pope compares Belinda to the sun and suggests that it recognizes in Belinda a rival , and fears her :
“Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray ,
And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day."
Belinda is like the sun, not only because of her bright eyes and not only because she dominates her special world ( ' But every eye was fix'd on her alone ') . She is like the sun in another regard
“Bright as the sun , her eyes the gazers strike ,
And, like the sun , she shines on all alike. "
Belinda's exquisite beauty is enhanced by two curling side-locks of hair that charmingly set off her ivory white neck and which she has kept ' to the destruction of mankind:"
"Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains."
Belinda's charms can work miracles and can make even non-believers kiss the cross. She is an embodiment of grace and sweetness which cover up her flirtation and faults:
“If to her share some female errors fall
Look on her face, and you 'll forget 'em all ."
According to Alice Miller, a person who is great, who is admired everywhere, and needs this admiration to survive, has one of the extreme forms of Narcissism, which is grandiosity. Belinda is the goddess, but she puts on her divinity at her dressing table; and, such is the paradox of beauty-worship, she can be both the divinity and the sincere devotee. Thus Belinda, in worshipping at the shrine of beauty, quite naturally worships herself.
"A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears."
Countless treasures of the world have been laid open at the altar of Belinda sent as “offerings “by her adorers. These cosmetics and ornaments, along with the aid of Betty and the Sylphs, add to her charms:
"Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms. "
Here, Belinda is not only a priestess of “the sacred rites of pride " , she is also compared to a warrior arming for the fray. Later in the poem she is the warrior once more at the card-table in her conquest of the two ' adventurous knights ' , she emerges as a heroic conqueror in the epic encounter of the beaux and belles .
Belinda cares a fig for religion. To place the Bible with her loads of beauty accessories and love letters on the same dressing table indicates the confusion of values. She has transformed all spiritual exercises and emblems into a coquette's self- display and self- adoration.
At the Hampton Court, the young lovers are prepared to lose and surrender to this fair maid. This increases her self-importance and stirs up her vanity:
"Favours to none, to all she smiles extends
Oft she rejects, but never once offends, "
Belinda is what she is not. She deceives others as she deceives herself. Her pretentions and her real intentions are at logger-heads. She loves Baron at heart. But she rebukes and abuses him. This is what Ariel feels;
"Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking at her heart.”
Belinda undoubtedly possesses a superb skill in playing the game of ombre , but the manner in which she gloats over her victory shows not only her vanity and superficiality but also a childish temperament , she becomes too quickly joyous and too quickly depressed . Her tantrums, when a lock of her hair has been clipped by Baron, also show her as a spoiled child. We now see Belinda as a true Fury. She is weighed down by worry and anxiety. Then she begins to burn with an inhuman wrath, a more than mortal indignation:
"Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven are cast,
When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last. "
But the very lament is hypocritical or superficial. She is anxious about her ' reputation ' alone, and would not care if she lost her ' honour ' or virginity in some secret love-affair:
“Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these! "
However Belinda’s fury is quite natural. Quoting Miller, grandiosity can be seen when a person admires himself, his qualities, such as beauty, cleverness, and talents and his success and achievements greatly. If one of these happens to fail, then the catastrophe of a severe depression is near (Miller 34). In Belinda’s case, it is a breach of hero-worship and rules of chivalry and courtship.
Belinda does undergo a "fall” from the narcissistic self-love and arid virginity. It is merely a fall into a more natural human condition and best regarded, perhaps, as a kind of fortunate fall.
Basically, Belinda is a model and more specifically represents the fashionable, aristocratic ladies of Pope’s age . Such social butterflies in eighteenth century were regarded as “petty triflers”, having no serious concern with life, and '' engrossed in dance and gaiety ''. Belinda’s fall indicates the decadence of her class. Through her, Pope describes the flippancy and depravity of the English society of his day.
Traditionally, Belinda is based upon on the historical Arabella Fermor , the lady in Pope's social circle who was offended by Lord Petre . John Denis says that Belinda '' is a chimera, and not a character ‘‘. Viewing the poem as a political satire, Belinda represents GREAT BRITIAN or (which is the same thing) her LATE MAJESTY. This is plainly see in Pope's description of her,
‘On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore '.
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Ambivalence of Mastery
Crusoe’s success in mastering his situation, overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment shows the condition of mastery in a positive light, at least at the beginning of the novel. Crusoe lands in an inhospitable environment and makes it his home. His taming and domestication of wild goats and parrots with Crusoe as their master illustrates his newfound control. Moreover, Crusoe’s mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself. Early in the novel, he frequently blames himself for disobeying his father’s advice or blames the destiny that drove him to sea. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe stops viewing himself as a passive victim and strikes a new note of self-determination. In building a home for himself on the island, he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and still finds prosperity.
But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “[m]aster” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be [Crusoe’s] name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him. We further question Crusoe’s right to be called “[m]aster” when he later refers to himself as “king” over the natives and Europeans, who are his “subjects.” In short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow humans is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind.
The Necessity of Repentance
Crusoe’s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one’s life. This moral and religious dimension of the tale is indicated in the Preface, which states that Crusoe’s story is being published to instruct others in God’s wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one’s sins. While it is important to be grateful for God’s miracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe does several times with few results. Crusoe needs repentance most, as he learns from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him during a feverish hallucination and says, “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.” Crusoe believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and Eve’s first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also suggests that Crusoe’s exile from civilization represents Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden.
For Crusoe, repentance consists of acknowledging his wretchedness and his absolute dependence on the Lord. This admission marks a turning point in Crusoe’s spiritual consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued and his fortune restored, he compares himself to Job, who also regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place. Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in the novel, it is nevertheless complex and ambiguous.
The Importance of Self-Awareness
Crusoe’s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense Crusoe’s impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe. . . . Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature itself to voice his own self-awareness.
Crusoe (the family name transcribed from the German name "Kreutznaer" or "Kreutznär") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in September 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to stay home and assume a career in law. After a tumultuous journey that sees his ship wrecked by a vicious storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Salépirates, and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor. After two years of slavery, he manages to escape with a boat and a boy named Xury; later, Crusoe is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship off the western coast of Africa. The ship is en route to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation.
Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. His companions all die. Having overcome his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation near a cave which he excavates himself. He keeps a calendar by making marks in a wooden cross built by himself, hunts, grows corn and rice, dries grapes to make raisins for the winter months, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood which he harvests on the island, and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.
Years later, he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes that he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; and indeed, when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
After another party of natives arrives to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal, in which he helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, whereupon they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island, and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686, and arrives back in England June 11, 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead and there was nothing in his father's will for him. Crusoe then departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him a large amount of wealth. In conclusion, he takes his wealth over land to England to avoid traveling at sea. Friday comes with him and along the way they endure one last adventure together as they fight off hundreds of famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
Because of you my world is now whole, Because of you love lives in my soul. Because of you I have laughter in my eyes, Because of you I am no longer afraid of good-byes. You are my pillar my stone of strength, With me through all seasons and great times of length. My love for you is pure boundless through space and time, it grows stronger everyday with the knowledge that you'll always be mine. At the altar I will joyously say 'I do', for I have it all now and it's all because of you.
Love me in the Springtime, when all is green and new, Love me in the Summer, when the sky is oh so blue, Love me in the Autumn, when the leaves are turning brown, Love me in the Winter, when the snow is falling down.
Love me when I'm happy, and even when I'm sad, Love me when I'm good, or when I'm oh so bad, Love me when I'm pretty, or if my face is plain, Love me when I'm feeling good, or when I'm feeling pain.
Love me always darling, in the rain or shining sun, Love me always darling, after all is said and done, Love me always darling, until all our life is through, Love me always darling, for I'll be loving you!
I love you so deeply, I love you so much, I love the sound of your voice And the way that we touch. I love your warm smile And your kind, thoughtful way, The joy that you bring To my life every day. I love you today As I have from the start, And I'll love you forever With all of my heart.
John Donne and Andrew Marvell were both great metaphysical poets. Their contribution to love poetry in English literature is outstanding.
"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell is often linked with John Donne’s "The Flea": they are both witty poems of seduction which display their authors’ passion and erudition in equal measure. But they are also very different works, and employ distinct rhetorical and poetic techniques.
Whereas "The Flea" depends upon the central “conceit” of the insect, which is then applied to the situation, Marvell’s poem employs an urbane and direct appeal, beginning “Had we but world enough, and time/ This coyness, lady, were no crime.” He is drawing on the classic topos known as carpe diem, or “seize the day”, closely to related to the memento mori, the reminder that we shall all die (“But at my back, I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”) Though the memento mori is often employed in a serious context in order to provoke grave thoughts, such as the anamorphic picture of a skull which cuts across Holbein’s famous portrait known as “The Ambassadors”, Marvell uses it here to encourage his mistress to enjoy his love whilst they are still both young and alive.
There are obvious differences in the poem’s techniques as well: whilst "The Flea" employs an irregular, ingenious rhyme scheme, "To His Coy Mistress" uses elegant couplets, emphasizing Marvell’s poise and balance over the jagged enthusiasm of Donne’s lines. There are touches of self-mocking humour as well, linking his mistress with the exotic Ganges River in India, whilst he consigns himself to “complain” “by the tide of Humber”, a more prosaic river in the North of England. Likewise he describes his “vegetable love” which, if they had all eternity would “grow/ Vaster than empires and more slow.” There is a definite touch of self-deprecation in this image of the poet’s all-consuming passion spreading over like a prize marrow.
In making his conclusion, Marvell doesn’t depend on the same kind of logical “trap” which snaps shut at the end of the "The Flea". Rather than deploying a cunning twist of logic, Marvell depends on his heightened and poetic language, sweeping the listener along with references to the couple’s chances “Now...while thy willing soul transpires/ At every pore with instant fires” to “Tear our pleasures with rough strife/ Through the iron gates of life.” "The Flea" might amuse or impress its listener with ingenuity and wit, but "To His Coy Mistress" depends on its ability to inspire and stir with such heightened language.
The nation on Wednesday celebrated Pahela Baishakh, the opening day of the Bangla year 1417, in the midst of tight security with traditional songs, music, fanfares and colorful processions.
Thousands of people from all walks of the society dressed in traditional costumes thronged the streets, parks and open spaces across the capital.
Tight security measures were taken in and around the traditional venue of the carnival, RamnaPark in the capital, to avert any untoward incident.
The day was a public holiday.
Mughal Emperor Akbar introduced the tradition of celebrating the Bangla New Year in relation to closing of the annual tax collection. Traditionally, traders and shopkeepers open halkhata (fresh accounts) on this day and serve sweetmeats to clients.
Accordingly, Fatehullah Shirazi, a renowned scholar and astronomer, formulated the Bengali year on the basis of the lunar Hijri and Bengali solar calendars. The new 'Fasli San' (agricultural year) was introduced on March 10, 1584, but was dated from Akbar's ascension to the throne in 1556. The New Year subsequently became known as 'Bangabda' or Bengali year.
The historical importance of Pahela Baishakh in the Bangladesh context may be dated from the observance of the day by Chhayanaut, a cultural troupe, in 1965. In an attempt to suppress Bengali culture, the Pakistan Government had banned Tagore songs. Protesting against this move, Chhayanaut opened their Pahela Baishakh celebrations at RamnaPark with Tagore's song welcoming the month.
The day continued to be celebrated in East Pakistan as a symbol of Bengali culture. After 1972 it became a national festival, a symbol of the Bangladesh nationalist movement and an integral part of the people's cultural heritage.
To enable the people to celebrate the occasion without any detriment by evil forces, the government raised security bulwark in the capital with 12,500 police and RAB to ensure safety of the revellers.
Some 6,500 police and RAB had performed their best at RamnaPark and DhanmondiLake where the celebrations has organized. Other venues were covered by 3,500 police and RAB personnel.
In the course of time, it evolved into a day of celebration and an integral part of the Bangalee culture and tradition and has been considered as the spirit of a non-communal festival as people irrespective of religion, sect and creed celebrate the day.
President Zillur Rahman, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia in separate messages greeted the nation on the occasion.
The festivity in the city began after sunrise with the gathering of thousands of people under the banyan tree at Ramna Udyan where artistes of cultural organisation Chhayanaut sang the traditional Pahela Baishakh song of Rabindranath Tagore--"Esho hey Baishakh"--to welcome the day.
The students of the Institute of Fine Arts, DhakaUniversity brought out the decorated procession called Mongol Shovajatra in the morning to welcome the Bangla New Year.
Tens of thousands of people joined the Shovajatra dancing along the beats of traditional musical instruments.
The state-owned BTV, Bangladesh Betar, and all private TV channels broadcasted special programmes and the newspapers brought out special supplements marking the day.
Summary:In his poem "The Definition of Love," Andrew Marvell writes about unrequited passions, insisting that Fate itself acts against true love. Instead of Fate matching people up, Marvell believes that fate only tears people apart.
Andrew Marvell's The Definition of Love is the epitome of irony. Marvell takes the feelings often associated with love and drowns them in a cool, lucid, dispassionate tone that borders on self-mocking. Marvell writes about unrequited passions, insisting thatFate itself acts against true love. Mentioned first in the third stanza, Marvell introduces the idea of Fate as the reason for his rough history with love:
"And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt" (lines 9-12)
Taking this into consideration it is not surprising why the hatred that Marvell has for Fate flows into the next two stanzas. In the third stanza, Marvell explains how Fate becomes jealous when she sees two lovers engulfed in one another, and dissolves their relationship in a "tyrannic power depose" (line 16). He goes on to explain the idealistic nature of love:
"As lines (so loves) oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, cannot meet" (lines 25-28)
Marvell believes love is something that people think they can possess but it's really an unattainable goal. Instead of Fate matching people up, Marvell believes that fate only tears people apart.
Marvell ends the poem with a small shred of hope:
"Therefore the love which us doth bind.
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars" (lines 29 - 32)
Though this sounds as if it would be in a typical love poem, the reader must look closely at the final two lines. The word conjunction means to coming together in the same sign of the zodiac, however, stars are diametrically opposed to one another. This last line, though it sounds as if Marvell sees a chance for lovers to remain together, it's clear that he believes Love is a completely unnatural idea.
The basic theme of the poem is announced from the beginning, that time lays waste to youth and life passes quickly, so people should enjoy youth now and “seize the day.” In the first section of the poem (to line 20), the speaker uses subjunctive mood verbs such as “would” and “were” that give a delicacy and tentativeness to his style. The speaker presents his “argument” to a listener, a young woman who holds back from reciprocating with her expression of love. The speaker says that coyness would be acceptable if time were in endless supply and if the world was big enough to accommodate all of his admiration for her.
Lines 3-4
Assuming time continues forever, the poem describes the leisurely pace of life spent in courtship and praise of the beloved, silent mistress.
Lines 5-7
Beginning with line 7 and continuing to line 20, the speaker embarks on some remarkable hyperbole to describe the praise he wants to bestow upon his mistress. He selects two rivers, India’s Ganges, which is sacred to the Hindu religion and thought of as the earthly embodiment of a goddess, and England’s Humber, which flows past Marvell’s hometown of Hull. The wide distance of two hemispheres separating the rivers compares with the time needed to spend adequately in courtship. That the mistress would find rubies in the Ganges underlines the exotic nature of a river in India. The Humber river in England, by comparison, is a slowmoving, dirty estuary where one is more likely to find old shoes than precious stones. The distance between the speaker (by the Humber river) and the mistress (by the Ganges river) is a metaphor for the luxurious, leisurely consumption of time spent in praise.
Lines 8-10
In these lines, the speaker describes the amount of time it would take to love his mistress and how much time she would be allowed to turn his love aside. The poem invokes eschatological or “end of the world” events to compare the allotted time — the great Flood by which God cleanses the earth in the Bible or the conversion of the Jews popularly thought to happen immediately prior to the Last Judgment. These excessive comparisons stress the unimaginably large amount of time it would take to adequately define the speaker’s love for his mistress.
Lines 11-12
The speaker creates the metaphor of “vegetable love” that grows very slowly but amasses enough bulk to be larger than a great dynasty or colonial empire. Because of the depth of his love, the speaker’s “vegetable love” covers much of the earth’s surface, as did the British empire during its peak in the nineteenth century.
Lines 13-18
The speaker fills out the hyperbole begun in line 7. This catalogue of the amount of years devoted to worship of each of his mistress’s physical attributes is outrageous; we find staggering overstatement in the 100 years for her face, 200 years for each breast, and 30,000 years devoted to the rest of her body — an exponential increase! The speaker devotes at least one generation to praise of each part of his mistress, especially to praise of her pure heart, which is saved for last because of its special place as the seat of amorous passion. This catalogue resembles and perhaps parodies the style of Petrarchan sonnet writers, who used standard metaphors to describe their mistresses. However, Marvell’s comparisons are notable for their excessiveness and originality.
Lines 19-20
In this close of section I, the speaker introduces a monetary metaphor: loving at a certain “rate,” like an interest rate charged by a bank for lending money. The speaker implies that the mistress deserves this “state” of lavish praise because of her beauty.
Lines 21-22
This is the logical turn of the poem, shifting from wild exaggeration to somber images of the grave. The subject of death intrudes into this love poem, turning the mood away from the subjunctive to focus on the limitation of time. Time is personified as a driver in a chariot. In popular culture, Time is usually pictured as a robed old man holding a scythe — a sinister figure inspiring fear. The verb choice of “hurrying” introduces anxiety and darkness into a formerly light and extravagant, lyric poem.
Lines 23-24
The image of vast deserts begins a macabre list of comparisons having to do with sterility. Deserts are hot and barren, a denial of the life-giving processes of love and sexual activity. No wet, living “vegetable love” can be found in Marvell’s desert.
Lines 25-27
These lines emphasize the loss of beauty that happens to all people over time, especially pertaining to the mistress. The “marble vault” is the resting place for the deceased mistress’s corpse. The speaker’s song of praise will go unheard and unsung when death levels them both; thus the implication is that death is a final stopping place beyond which no magnificent love can escape.
Lines 28-30
The speaker’s grotesque image of the worm penetrating the virgin corpse as it consumes the rotting flesh shocks many readers. The point is that such preserved virtues mean nothing when stretched over the expanse of time. Thus, the speaker offers another persuasive reason for the mistress to give in. “Quaint honor” reflects that fact that virginity will seem a quaint but useless treasure at the end of life. The speaker alludes to the Biblical phrase of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” (commonly used at funerals) to emphasize his thriving, passionate lust being reduced to oblivion, just like the mistress’s virginity.
Lines 31-32
With the close of section II, the poem uses understatement and irony, praising the grave as a “fine” and “private” place. This is a perfect transition to the carpe diem theme of section III. The speaker uses a grammatical pause to interrupt line 32, making him seem humble and modest. The speaker’s charm and tactfulness are implied by the restraint he uses to punctuate line 32. (In poetry, taking a pause in the middle of a line is a called a caesura.)
Lines 33-34
Section III returns to the theme of youthful lust. The speaker uses imperative mood verbs that give commands, exhortation, and urgent directions to his mistress. While youth is present, the mistress’s skin glows in vitality like the morning dew. This simile as originally published used the word “glew” instead of “dew.” Some scholars suggested that “glew” was a dialectal form of “glow,” as in “the skin’s healthy glow.” The alternative possibility that “glew” means “glue” is not attractive to the tone of the lover’s argument. Probably the best choice in modernizing a seventeenth-century poem would be to substitute “dew” as in the present text.
Lines 35-37
The speaker says that the young soul of his mistress breathes out through her beautiful skin in “instant fires” of enthusiasm and passion for love. The speaker wants his mistress to yield to his lust now while she can still respond before time takes its toll.
Lines 38-40
The speaker makes use of a set of harsh images that lend intensity and force to his expression. The simile of “birds of prey” is an unexpected choice for a love poem; some might consider it bizarre for the poem to compare a lover and his mistress to birds of prey who want to eat, not be eaten by Time. The comparison says that the speaker wants to devour Time like a hawk devours a rabbit caught in the fields — rapidly, in the heat of the moment, unthinkingly and instinctively. Time with his “slow-chapt power” is imagined as slowly chewing up the world and its people; thus the speaker implies he and his mistress are in a desperate fight against Time.
Lines 41-44
In these lines, the poem uses the metaphor of a cannonball of “strength” and “sweetness” rolled into a concentrated package of energy that “tears” through the barriers of restraint. The juxtaposition of “strife” with “pleasures” indicates the ferocious breakthrough of the speaker’s argument winning over his mistress.
Lines 45-46
In the concluding couplet, the speaker and his mistress triumphantly turn back the destructive forces of Time, avidly eating Time instead of being eaten by it. The speaker and his mistress force the sun to race them instead of passively begging the sun to stand still like Joshua did in the Bible, when he pleaded with God to make the sun stand still so the Israelites might defeat the Amorites in broad daylight.
Andrew Marvell’s speaker in “To His Coy Mistress” summons Petrarchan convention, a poetic approach originating in the fourteenth century in which a male lover uses exaggerated metaphors to appeal to his female beloved. Yet Marvell alludes to such excessive—and disempowering—pining only to challenge this tradition of unrequited love. Instead of respectful adulation, he offers lustful invitation; rather than anticipating refusal, he assumes sexual dominion over the eponymous “mistress.” The poem is as much a celebration of his rhetorical mastery as it is of his physical conquest. Through his verbal artistry, the speaker—perhaps a figure of the poet Marvell himself—manipulates his female subject, rendering her both as his idealized beloved and, eventually, as his vision of impending death. In the course of his invitation, he portrays her as alternately desirous and repulsive, but ultimately he identifies the female body itself as a loathsome symbol of human decay.
"To His Coy Mistress," acclaimed long after Marvell's death a masterly work, is a lyrical poem that scholars also classify as a metaphysical poem. Metaphysical poetry, pioneered by John Donne, tends to focus on the following:
* Startling comparisons or contrasts of a metaphysical (spiritual, transcendent, abstract) quality to a concrete (physical, tangible, sensible) object. In "To His Coy Mistress," for example, Marvell compares love to a vegetable (Line 11) in a waggish metaphor. * Mockery of idealized romantic poetry through crude or shocking imagery, as in Lines 27 and 28 ("then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity'). * Gross exaggeration (hyperbole), as in Line 15 ("two hundred [years] to adore each breast]. * Expression of personal, private feelings, such as those the young man expresses in "To His Coy Mistress." * Presentation of a logical argument, or syllogism. In "To His Coy Mistress," this argument may be outlined as follows: (1) We could spend decades or even centuries in courtship if time stood still and we remained young. (2) But time passes swiftly and relentlessly. (3) Therefore, we must enjoy the pleasure of each other now, without further ado.The conclusion of the argument begins at Line 33 with "Now therefore."
Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, Lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
The Duchess of Malfi is a deadly, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster. The Duchess was Giovanna d'Aragona, whose father, Arrigo d'Aragona, Marquis of Gerace, was an illegitimate son of Ferdinand I of Naples. Her husbands were Alfonso Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi, and (as in the play) Antonio Bologna.
The play begins as a love story, with a Duchess who marries beneath her class, and ends as a dreadful tragedy as her two brothers harsh their revenge, destroying themselves in the course of action.
The play is sometimes scorned by modern critics for the excessive violence and horror in its later scenes. Nevertheless, the complexity of some of its characters, particularly Bosola and the Duchess, and Webster's poetic language, give it a continuing interest, and it is still performed in the 21st century. The Duchess of Malfi can not be reduced to a dramatic subgenre, but its kinship to revenge tragedies written during the same politically turbulent years of the early seventeenth century is immediately striking.
Revenge tragedy:
According to, The book of literary terms (Lewis Turco: 103), revenge tragedy is an Elizabethan tragedy that contained elements similar to those of the chronicle play and usually concerned itself with the protagonist’s pursuit of vengeance for the loss of loved one.
Revenge tragedy, a kind of tragedy popular in England from the 1590s to the 1630s, following the success of Thomas Kyd’s sensational plays The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1589). Its action is typically centered upon a leading character's attempt to avenge the murder of a loved one, sometimes at the prompting of the victim's ghost; it involves complex intrigues and disguises, and usually some exploration of the morality of revenge. Drawing partly on precedents in Senecan tragedy, the English revenge tragedy is far more bloodthirsty in its explicit presentation of premeditated violence, and so the more gruesome examples such as Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus are sometimes called ‘tragedies of blood’. Notable examples of plays that are fully or partly within the revenge tradition are Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. A more famous play drawing on the revenge conventions is Shakespeare's Hamlet. For a fuller account, consult John Kerrigan, Revenge Tragedy (1996).
Characteristics of revenge tragedy:
* A secret murder, usually of a benign ruler by a bad person
* A ghostly visitation of the murder victim to a younger kinsman, generally a son
* A period of disguise, intrigue, or plotting, in which the murderer and the avenger scheme against each other, with a slowly rising body count
* A descent into either real or feigned madness by the avenger or one of the auxiliary characters
* An eruption of general violence at the end, which (in the Renaissance) is often accomplished by means of a feigned masque or festivity
* A catastrophe that utterly decimates the dramatis personae, including the avenger.
Clearly, many of these elements are present in The Duchess of Malfi, but it varies from the conventions in important ways. The revenge tragedy has a hero whose honor has been wronged (often it is a son avenging his father); in this play, the brothers seek revenge on the Duchess, who has done them no harm. The Duchess is surely the hero of the play named for her, and yet she does not seek or win vengeance for the harm done to her. The fact that she is killed in act 4 (and does not die in the act of winning revenge) deflects attention away from her as the center of the action and moves the play out of the category of revenge tragedy. The motive for the actions of the two brothers is unclear, but revenge — whatever they may think themselves — is not at the heart of it.
The Duchess of Malfi as revenge tragedy:
The Duchess of Malfi is obviously amusing. Deceptions can be found interspersed throughout the whole play and if scrutiny is conducted thoroughly, one will be able to spot various multitudinous facetious comments made by different characters such as Bosola, Cardinal and Ferdinand. This brings out the theme of appearance and reality, which makes the play laughable, yet morbid at the same time. This can be illustrated at how Ferdinand tries to lure Antonio to return to his castle by offering him forgiveness through the letter sent by Bosola to the Duchess and Antonio.
John Webster’s The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi was first staged around 1613-14. Nowadays usually identified as “a revenge tragedy”, its plot, set in Italy, centers on the transgress action of the widowed Duchess in secretly taking a second husband, her steward Antonio. Enraged by her marriage, her two powerful brothers, one a Duke, the other a Cardinal, conspire to have her strangled. The brothers hire a mercenary malcontent named Bosola to do their dirty work. Bosola eventually turns against them and the play ends on a stage littered with their three corpses.
The play has two distinctive features compared with other tragedies of its era. Firstly, the tragic protagonist is a woman. Secondly, the tragic protagonist dies in the fourth act.
Any examination of the critical history of the play quickly establishes that the play is one which has traditionally aroused a great deal of anxiety and hostility among scholars and cultural commentators. The Duchess of Malfi was evidently popular in Jacobean England but has subsequently become grudgingly acknowledged as a classic with many troubling features.
George Saintsbury was typical of generations of critics in objecting to Webster’s characterisation, remarking (in 1887) “we cannot sympathise with the duchess, despite her misfortunes…She is neither quite a virtuous woman (for in that case she would not have resorted to so much concealment) nor a frank professor of ‘All for Love.’ ” He added, “By common consent, even of the greatest admirers of the play, the fifth act is a kind of gratuitous appendix of horrors stuck on without art or reason.”
What this basically amounts to is a whine that Webster failed adequately to represent bourgeois notions of correct behaviour and that his stage practise did not match bookish, scholarly preconceptions of good theatre and good taste. The critic’s narrow subjective assessment of the play is buttressed by the citation of hegemonic values: “we” all agree on how a woman must behave in order to elicit our sympathy, and what “art” and “reason” amount to is agreed “by common consent”.
The reality is that Webster was an accomplished professional who enjoyed a successful career as a dramatist. Records exist of his collaborative work with other dramatists - Munday, Drayton, Middleton, Dekker, Heywood, Chettle - and in 1604 he supplied additional material for John Marston’s The Malcontent. The Tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi was performed by the King’s Servants, who were one of the leading theatrical troupes of the period, and, of course, the one that Shakespeare was involved with. The part of the evil, deranged Duke was played by Richard Burbage, who is often described as the leading actor of the age. The wicked, hypocritical Cardinal was played by Henry Condell, who later co-authored the dedication and address to the reader in the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare’s collected plays. (The actor who first played the Duchess, incidentally, was my distinguished ancestor, Richard Sharp.)
“Webster was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin”, wrote T.S. Eliot in ‘Whispers of Immortality’. No, he wasn’t. Webster was producing a commercial product in a competitive market, and grisly representations of killing and corpses proved profitable. Rather than consult Freud to understand what Webster was up to, it makes more sense to look at the history of contemporary theatre. One of the most popular of all plays staged in London (towards the end of the 1580s) was Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. It was a rip-roaring success with London audiences. Kyd’s innovation was to put conflict, violence and corpses on to the stage, rather than have actors come onstage and make long speeches about fights and deaths which had happened out of view of the audience. He set his play in Spain, which as every red-blooded Englishman knew was a hot place full of filthy, depraved, passionate, treacherous, violent foreigners. He also threw in a ghost and a bloodcurdling figure named “Revenge”.
