One of the most solidly competent of the professional Victorian novelists who aimed to entertain by constructing stories grounded in the kind of life recognizable by his readers was Anthony Trollope. His most popular are the Barsetshire series-Barchester Towers. Doctor Thorne. The other novels are Phineas Finn, The Prime Minister, The Claverings, and The Orley Farm. These novels dealing with life and love in a small cathedral city provided the readers a world to retire to.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Sybil
Sybil is political novel in which the flamboyancy of a grandiose political imagination, high idealism and exhibitionist dandyism are oddly combined. The novel reflects Tory romanticism. Benjamin Disraeli wrote this novel to tackle the 'condition of England question'. The novel embodies his vision of a Young England restored to an organic national wholeness and freed from the disintegrating effects of Whig economic individualism and lack of tradition.
Achievement of Alfred, the great as a king
King Alfred of Wessex wasnknown in political history for his achievement in stemming the Danish conquest of England. He was one of the best military readers of tge Western world in the Anglo-Saxon age. He organized a strong and unified defense against the Danish marauders who were threatening the complete overthrow of Anglo-Christian civilization. The Danes were forced to sign the Treaty of Wedmore in 878 and leave Wessex to live peacefully in Danelaw. Alfred established Wessex as a new centre of English culture by encouraging literary production ane himself playing active role as a writer and translator in the development of English language and literature. He patronized the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Friday, 13 May 2016
HAROLD PINTER
Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in the London borough of Hackney, son of a Jewish dressmaker. Growing up, Pinter was met with the expressions of anti-Semitism, and has indicated its importance for his becoming a dramatist. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated from London at the age of nine, returning when twelve. He has said that the experience of wartime bombing has never lost its hold on him. Back in London, he attended Hackney Grammar School where he played Macbeth and Romeo among other characters in productions directed by Joseph Brearley. This prompted him to choose a career in acting. In 1948 he was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1950, he published his first poems. In 1951 he was accepted at the Central School of Speech and Drama. That same year, he won a place in Anew McMaster’s famous Irish repertory company, renowned for its performances of Shakespeare. Pinter toured again between 1954 and 1957, using the stage name of David Baron. Between 1956 and 1980 he was married to actor Vivien Merchant. In 1980 he married the author and historian Lady Antonia Fraser. Pinter made his playwriting debut in 1957 with The Room, presented in Bristol. Other early plays were The Birthday Party (1957), at first a fiasco of legendary dimensions but later one of his most performed plays, and The Dumb Waiter (1957). His conclusive breakthrough came with The Caretaker (1959), followed by The Homecoming (1964) and other plays.
Harold Pinter is generally seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century. That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: “Pinteresque”. Pinter restored theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretence crumbles. With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution. Pinter’s drama was first perceived as a variation of absurd theatre, but has later more aptly been characterised as “comedy of menace”, a genre where the writer allows us to eavesdrop on the play of domination and submission hidden in the most mundane of conversations. In a typical Pinter play, we meet people defending themselves against intrusion or their own impulses by entrenching themselves in a reduced and controlled existence. Another principal theme is the volatility and elusiveness of the past. It is said of Harold Pinter that following an initial period of psychological realism he proceeded to a second, more lyrical phase with plays such as Landscape (1967) and Silence (1968) and finally to a third, political phase with One for the Road (1984), Mountain Language (1988), The New World Order (1991) and other plays. But this division into periods seems oversimplified and ignores some of his strongest writing, such as No Man’s Land (1974) and Ashes to Ashes (1996). In fact, the continuity in his work is remarkable, and his political themes can be seen as a development of the early Pinter’s analysing of threat and injustice. Since 1973, Pinter has won recognition as a fighter for human rights, alongside his writing. He has often taken stands seen as controversial. Pinter has also written radio plays and screenplays
for film and television. Among his best-known screenplays are those for The Servant (1963), The Accident (1967), The Go- Between (1971) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981, based on the John Fowles novel). Pinter has also made a pioneering contribution as a director.
Harold Pinter is generally seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century. That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: “Pinteresque”. Pinter restored theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretence crumbles. With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution. Pinter’s drama was first perceived as a variation of absurd theatre, but has later more aptly been characterised as “comedy of menace”, a genre where the writer allows us to eavesdrop on the play of domination and submission hidden in the most mundane of conversations. In a typical Pinter play, we meet people defending themselves against intrusion or their own impulses by entrenching themselves in a reduced and controlled existence. Another principal theme is the volatility and elusiveness of the past. It is said of Harold Pinter that following an initial period of psychological realism he proceeded to a second, more lyrical phase with plays such as Landscape (1967) and Silence (1968) and finally to a third, political phase with One for the Road (1984), Mountain Language (1988), The New World Order (1991) and other plays. But this division into periods seems oversimplified and ignores some of his strongest writing, such as No Man’s Land (1974) and Ashes to Ashes (1996). In fact, the continuity in his work is remarkable, and his political themes can be seen as a development of the early Pinter’s analysing of threat and injustice. Since 1973, Pinter has won recognition as a fighter for human rights, alongside his writing. He has often taken stands seen as controversial. Pinter has also written radio plays and screenplays
for film and television. Among his best-known screenplays are those for The Servant (1963), The Accident (1967), The Go- Between (1971) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981, based on the John Fowles novel). Pinter has also made a pioneering contribution as a director.
Physiologus
Physiologus is an example of allegorical use of natural history to illuminate Christian teaching. The Old English poem Bestiary bears some relationship with Continental Physiologus. It consists of three brief sketches of Panther, the Whale and the Partridge- the last poem surviving in a form too fragmentary for profitable interpretations. The Panther is full of kindness and is symbolical of Christ. The Whale is full of deceit recalling to our mind the deceitful character of Satan whom Milton compares to Leviathan. The practice of this kind of allegorizing animals lasted well into the Renaissance.
Thursday, 12 May 2016
Effect of English Conquest on Britons.
Many of Britons were killed in the fighting. Many of them took refuge in the West in Cornwall, Wales and Cumberland. Some went over the sea to the north west of France and settled in the land called Brittany. To the English Britons were known as Welsh. Cornishmen were West Welsh, the people of Wales were North Welsh and those of Cumberland were Cumbrian Welsh. Until the West Saxons won the Battle of Deorham in 577, the West Welsh were not cut off from the North Welsh. Similarly, North Welsh was cut off from the Cumbrian Welsh when the Angels won the Battle of Chester in 613 and reached the Irish Sea.
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
POETIC DRAMA
Side by side with the realistic plays of Shaw, Galsworthy and Grandville Barker, there arouse the type of drama that is called poetic drama by 1920. Tennyson and Browning attempted poetic drama but they were more poetic than dramatic. So, truely speaking was no tradition poetic drama before the beginning of 20th century and poetic drama may be regarded as a new literary creation. Verse was a natural medium of poetic drama but many dramatist wrote poetic drama in prose. J.M. Synge's Riders to the Sea is a good example of poetic drama which is rich in imaginative qualities and metaphysical conception of life. W.B. Yeats, the ever lyric poet wrote poetic drama and mention may be made of The Shadowy Waters, Deride and The Golden Helmet. John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln is a good example of poetic drama. Masefield used prose with a poets vision in the Tragedy of Nan and The Tragedy of Pompey the Great. Stephen Phillips wrote a number of blank verse notably Nero and Ulysses. But these dramas had little dramatic quality.
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