Lectures day two at Chisti College Faisalabad
Lecture No.1
MODERN DRAMA
This is the material for students for second lecture in Chisti College Faisalabd.The materail has been taken randomly from internet.I am not the writer of that material.I thank all who wrote this material and am thankful to all websites owners who published it.
Hedda Gabler
Characters in Hedda Gabler
Jörgen Tesman, the holder of a University Fellowship in cultural history
Mrs. Hedda Tesman, his wife
Miss Juliane Tesman, his aunt
Mrs. Elvsted
Mr. Brack, a judge
Ejlert Lövborg
Berte, the Tesmans' maid
Source: The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VII, Oxford University Press 1966
Summary of the play:
Hedda Tesman is the daughter of the late General Gabler, who died without leaving her anything, She is approaching thirty, and after some years of an active social life she has married Jørgen Tesman, who has a fellowship in the history of art. He has been brought up by his two aunts, Julle and Rina, and is now hoping for a chair at the University. At the opening of the play Hedda and Jørgen have just returned from a six-month-long honeymoon. Jørgen has spent his time studying and working on records, while Hedda, as she confides to their friend Judge Brack, has been bored on her honeymoon. Although clearly feeling distaste towards her husband, she has become pregnant, a fact she has so far concealed from her surroundings. Jørgen is met on arrival by the bad news that he is going to have to compete for the chair with one of Hedda's former admirers, Eilert Løvborg. The latter is known to be a bohemian, gifted but prone to drinking too much. In recent years, however, he has lived quietly and soberly, and written two theses inspired by and in collaboration with Thea Elvsted. At the beginning of the play he has arrived in the city, bringing one of the manuscripts with him. Thea, who is deeply in love with him, has left her husband and followed him. In the course of barely two days Hedda stages a number of happenings with dramatic consequences. She gets Løvborg to go to a "stag party" at Judge Brack's and get drunk. During the festivities he loses the manuscript of his new book. Jørgen Tesman finds it and gives to Hedda to look after, but Hedda does not tell Løvborg this. Instead, she burns the manuscript and gives him one of her father's pistols, telling him to shoot himself "beautifully". Far from this, Løvborg is accidentally shot at a brothel, and Brack, who knows where the pistol came from, uses this knowledge to try to blackmail Hedda into becoming his mistress. Thea and Tesman find close companionship in the work of reconstructing Løvborg's manuscript on the basis of notes Thea has kept. When Hedda realizes that she is in Brack's power and has nothing more to live for, she shoots herself with the second of the General's pistols.
Source: Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995
Hedda Tesman
Character Analysis
Hedda Gabler is not a nice person. She taunts a recovering alcoholic about his masculinity and goads him into drinking again. She takes advantage of her husband’s dying aunt to steal an irreplaceable document. She tries to trick a man into committing suicide and takes pleasure in the romance of his death. And she totally channels Glenn Close à la Fatal Attraction in that crazy scene by the stove. (Glenn boils a rabbit, Hedda burns a manuscript – same thing.) If that doesn’t entice you to join us on this tour of Hedda’s character, we don’t know what will.
Why is Hedda So Mean and Manipulative?
Before we write Hedda off as totally evil, let’s think about WHY she is the way that she is. The short answer is: because she’s female and it’s 1890 (or maybe 1860 – see "Setting" for a full discussion). The point is, it’s the Victorian era. And for those of you who weren’t around to experience it personally, you should know that it was not a fun time to be a woman. Just look at your text for examples: Hedda isn’t allowed to hang out with a man unless a chaperone is present. She isn’t allowed to go to the Judge’s party. She has to be careful not to use the word "night" when referring to the time she spends with her husband, because that might imply sex. It’s clear that, in this world, women aren’t supposed to do or say much of anything. It’s basically their job to sit around all day looking pretty and complimenting their husbands.
This is, as you might expect, incredibly boring. Or, in Hedda’s own words: "How mortally bored I’ve been," "How horribly I shall bore myself here," and even more explicitly, "I am bored, I tell you!" Right. So Hedda faces a problem that, as you’ll see in the rest of our Character Analyses, all three women in the play deal with in their own separate way: what the hell is she supposed to do with herself? Hedda actually asks this question, explicitly and more than once. (The men, of course, don’t have to worry about this issue – they are in fact defined by their professions. Brack is a judge. Tesman is a soon-to-be professor. Eilert is a scholar and author.)There are any number of ways to think about Hedda’s solution to this female problem. We’ll talk about three of them.
Hedda Gets Her Kicks… By Screwing With Other People
Hedda’s boredom is a likely culprit for her ever-worsening machinations throughout the course of the play. Little girls play with dolls; Hedda plays with people. Why? Because it’s entertaining. And man oh man is Hedda good at what she does. She can fake friendship (check out her Act I conversation with Mrs. Elvsted), fabricate motives (with regards to burning the manuscript), and conceal emotions (the suppressed rage in Act I). But her greatest asset is definitely her ability to extract the information she needs from others. Hedda’s like a walking confessional – others tell her all their secrets. She’s very skilled at asking questions without ever answering any herself. Eilert says it best: "I used to make [confessions] – telling you things about myself that no one else knew." When he asks her what "power" in her made him do so, she replies: "You think it was some kind of power in me?" Notice how she counters his question with another? The girl knows what she’s doing. In fact, the only character who seems to get any truth out of her whatsoever is Brack, which we talk all about in his Character Analysis.
What appeals to Hedda here is the idea of power. When Mrs. Elvsted wants to know why she’s manipulating Eilert like this, her answer is: "For once in my life, I want to have power over a human being." She considers Thea "rich" for her influence and herself "poor" for the lack of it. If Hedda, being a woman, can’t have power that’s political, monetary, academic, authoritative, or professional, then she’ll take the only option left to her.
The Vicarious Solution
Hedda doesn’t like her life – so she tries to live through other people instead. Now, by "other people" we of course mean "men," because there’s no point in living through an equally stifled female. Where in the world did we get this crazy notion? From….this little line right here: "Do you find it so very surprising that a young girl [would] like some glimpse of a world that […] she’s forbidden to know anything about?" This is Hedda’s explanation for her friendship with Eilert in the past. She couldn’t go out in the world, become an alcoholic, and sever ties with her aristocratic family. But that’s what Eilert was doing. Hedda got as close to the renegade lifestyle as she could by listening to him talk about it. When she devises the perfect suicide for Eilert, she’s continuing in this vein – orchestrating the life that she can’t experience herself.
The "Fine! I’m Just Going to Live in My Own Little Ideal World!" Attempt
Or, as scholars would say, Hedda is less concerned with the practicalities of the real world and more concerned with maintaining an aesthetic standard. What does this mean? She pays attention to how things look. She wants the world to be attractive, romantic, even poetic. She retreats into this aesthetic world to avoid dealing with the harsh realities of her crappy life. She even tells George: "I don’t want to look on sickness and death. I want to be free of everything ugly."
Hedda places Eilert in the center of this world as her imaginary romantic hero. She imagines him with vine leaves in his hair, reading his book aloud, throwing restraint and order to the wind. It’s like something out of a novel – and she designs his death to be just as romanticized. Shooting yourself through the temple, in Hedda’s eyes, is the noble way to go. That’s why she declares over and over that "there is beauty" in his death, that it is "liberating" for her to witness an act like this one. When we look at her actions and her words, we realize that Hedda values aesthetics over human life. That’s a pretty scary thought.
So Why Didn’t Any of These Work?
But for all her solutions – retreating to an ideal fantasy, living through others, manipulating those around her – Hedda is still just a woman trapped in 1890 Norway. She may seem like a rebel, or at least eons ahead of her time, but she’s actually very much restricted by the social standards she despises. We see this best through Hedda’s "deathly" fear of "scandal." The threat of scandal is the reason she broke things off with Eilert in the first place. She married George because, according to society, she had to marry someone. She doesn’t love her husband, but she "doesn’t expect to be unfaithful, either" because she can’t run the risk of a scandal. Most importantly, Hedda has to keep up appearances. She might be seething with rage inside, but she has to keep her cool on the outside. We know this is taking a toll on her, because we see that inner rage bubble up every now and then. When she’s finally left alone in Act I, Hedda "moves about the room, raising her arms and clenching her fists as if in a frenzy." In Act IV she again "clench[es] her fists in despair" and declares that she’ll "die" from all these "absurdities." Still, Hedda manages to restrain herself after every outburst – she remains a prisoner to Victorian values.
What’s more distressing is that Hedda recognizes her situation, and even hates herself for her conformist actions. Just look at all those times Hedda calls herself a "coward" – this is exactly what she’s talking about. She’s a coward because she isn’t willing to break the rules. She’s a coward because, at the end of the day, she’s still trapped inside that parlor room. Doesn’t it seem fitting that she dies in the inner room, behind a closed curtain? That leads nicely into our Big Question: Why does Hedda commit suicide?
Why Does Hedda Commit Suicide?
Argh. We were hoping you weren’t going to ask us that. Hedda kills herself for any number of reasons. As we all know, she’s been unhappy for quite some time now. We know she’s bored, trapped in a loveless marriage, completely stifled, living below her standards, married to a buffoon, and about to have a baby she in no way wants. But while she’s not exactly tripping the light fantastic to begin with, Hedda’s been getting by. So which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Here are a few possibilities.
1) She can’t stand the thought of the judge having power over her. Or, in Hedda’s own words, "No—I can’t bear the thought of it! Never!" If she’s been getting her kicks thus far by having power and manipulating others…she just lost her hobby.
2) She has nothing to live for. Remember what we were saying about women in this play needing a purpose in their lives? Well, check out the exchange between Hedda and George right before her suicide. She asks if there’s anything he needs her for, and he replies, "No, nothing in the world." A few lines later, Hedda asks, "What will I do evenings?" Like Mrs. Elvsted, she’s facing the bleak prospect of nothingness that is par for the Victorian course.
3) She finally faces her pregnancy. Yes, Hedda has been pregnant for all of the play, but she’s been in denial for the first three acts. Did you notice that one of Hedda’s big outbursts comes when she finally reveals to George (and admits to herself) that she’s going to have a baby? Or her words to Judge Brack: "I have no talent for such things! I won’t have responsibilities!" The fact that she takes the gun from the writing table BEFORE she comes under the Judge’s thumb and BEFORE she declares there’s nothing left to live for is a great piece of evidence for this theory.
4) She’s lost her aesthetic ideal. Hedda declares that she "doesn’t believe in vine leaves anymore" and is disgusted to hear the truth about Eilert’s death. "Does everything I touch turn ridiculous and vile?" she asks. And the events around her answer "yes." So much for being "free of everything ugly."
5) Hedda is afraid of breaking the rules. Because she’s being blackmailed, Hedda has to decide whether to face the public scandal of an investigation regarding the pistol, or the private shame of an affair with Judge Brack. She’s horrified of scandal, so she kills herself to escape it. If this one is true, it means that Hedda is still a coward when she dies.
6) She’s proving her own courage, maintaining her aesthetic ideal, freeing herself from Victorian values, and sticking it to the Judge and her husband. This is certainly the most optimistic interpretation. In this theory, Hedda’s suicide is victorious. She proves that a noble death (i.e., a gunshot to the temple) is possible, and she finally faces her fear of scandal (what’s more of a scandal than spontaneous suicide?). She stops living vicariously and takes strong action herself. George loses the one thing he prizes most – his trophy wife – and Brack never gets to have sex with the woman he’s been lusting after. Hedda wins.
So that’s that. But before we send you on your way, check out these two interesting critical theories.
The "Insane" Theory
Okay, here’s the question: if Hedda were on trial for her series of cruel machinations, could she plead mental incapacity? Answer: maybe. Depends on which critic you talk to. She might be insane; she might be bipolar; she might just be neurotic. But let’s look at the text. The much-discussed fist-clenching, silent-raging of Act I doesn’t exactly seem like the actions of a sane woman, right? Neither does the fact that she SHOOTS AT THE JUDGE for her own amusement and asks jokingly if she's hit him. After two people have died and her friends and family are grieving, she retreats to the inner room to play a "wild dance melody" on her piano. She seems to be incapable of love (and calls the word itself "syrupy"). Hedda even admits to Brack that she has no control over her own actions: "Well, it’s—these things come over me, just like that, suddenly," she says. "And I can’t hold back." She even says that "thoughts" are "not […] easy to control." Of course, the biggest moment of madness comes at the climax of the play – when she maniacally mutters the same words over and over while burning Eilert’s irreplaceable manuscript. As long as you’re going down this path, you might as well tally up a reason #7 for Hedda’s suicide: she’s insane.
The Penis Envy Theory
We’re not kidding. Freudians have a field day with Hedda Gabler. The basic argument is that Hedda wants to be a man and resents her sex. That’s why she tries to live vicariously through men in particular. That’s why she plays with pistols, a clearly masculine prop in her day and, oh, right, a phallic symbol. She has no maternal instinct whatsoever. But at the same time, Hedda is ashamed of her own failings as a woman. That’s why she hates Thea so much – because Thea is the epitome of femininity (see her Character Analysis for more, especially the bit about the hair).
And Just For Fun, Watch Us Argue That Hedda is a Sympathetic, Victimized Character
Before we get too caught up in hating this woman, let’s consider the one moment when we see a very human side of Hedda – her explanation of why she married George. Check it out:
HEDDA
Well, we happened to pass here one evening; Tesman, poor fellow, was writhing in the agony of having to find conversation; so I took pity on the learned man—
BRACK
[Smiles doubtfully.] You took pity? H'm—
HEDDA
Yes, I really did. And so—to help him out of his torment—I happened to say, in pure thoughtlessness, that I should like to live in this villa.
[…]
HEDDA
So you see it was this enthusiasm for Secretary Falk's villa that first constituted a bond of sympathy between George Tesman and me. From that came our engagement and our marriage, and our wedding journey, and all the rest of it.
"Bond of sympathy?" "Feeling sorry?" This doesn’t sound at all like the Hedda we know and hate. Once we get into the sympathetic mood, we can really start to feel for poor Mrs. Tesman. Put yourself in her shoes for a second. You’re Hedda Gabler. You’re hot stuff. In fact, you’re the best catch around town. You come from a powerful, wealthy, aristocratic family. EVERYONE wants you. You’re going to marry someone equally powerful, wealthy, and aristocratic, and live a life of privilege and wealth. Then, the next thing you know, you’re married to an academic bore, living in what to you feels like poverty, and oh, right, you’ve been knocked up by this husband of yours and a smarmy Judge has just tried blackmailing you into sleeping with him…repeatedly.
See? We can’t just write Hedda off as evil. It’s complications like these that warrant this character’s label: "the female Hamlet."
Lecture 2:
Classic Poetry
Prologue to Canterbury Tales.
General Prologue
"When April comes with his sweet, fragrant showers, which pierce the dry ground of March, and bathe every root of every plant in sweet liquid, then people desire to go on pilgrimages." Thus begins the famous opening to The Canterbury Tales. The narrator (a constructed version of Chaucer himself) is first discovered staying at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (in London), when a company of twenty-nine people descend on the inn, preparing to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. After talking to them, he agrees to join them on their pilgrimage.
Yet before the narrator goes any further in the tale, he describes the circumstances and the social rank of each pilgrim. He describes each one in turn, starting with the highest status individuals.
The Knight is described first, as befits a 'worthy man' of high status. The Knight has fought in the Crusades in numerous countries, and always been honored for his worthiness and courtesy. Everywhere he went, the narrator tells us, he had a 'sovereyn prys' (which could mean either an 'outstanding reputation', or a price on his head for the fighting he has done). The Knight is dressed in a 'fustian' tunic, made of coarse cloth, which is stained by the rust from his coat of chainmail.
The Knight brings with him his son, The Squire, a lover and a lusty bachelor, only twenty years old. The Squire cuts a rather effeminate figure, his clothes embroidered with red and white flowers, and he is constantly singing or playing the flute. He is the only pilgrim (other than, of course, Chaucer himself) who explicitly has literary ambitions: he 'koude songes make and wel endite' (line 95).
The Yeoman (a freeborn servant) also travels along with the Knight's entourage, and is clad in coat and hood of green. The Yeoman is excellent at caring for arrows, and travels armed with a huge amount of weaponry: arrows, a bracer (arm guard), a sword, a buckler, and a dagger as sharp as a spear. He wears an image of St. Christopher on his breast.
Having now introduced the Knight (the highest ranking pilgrim socially), the narrator now moves on to the clergy, beginning with The Prioress, called 'Madame Eglantine' (or, in modern parlance, Mrs. Sweetbriar). She could sweetly sing religious services, speaks fluent French and has excellent table manners. She is so charitable and piteous, that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap, and she has two small dogs with her. She wears a brooch with the inscription 'Amor vincit omnia' ('Love conquers all'). The Prioress brings with her her 'chapeleyne' (secretary), the Second Nun.
The Monk is next, an extremely fine and handsome man who loves to hunt, and who follows modern customs rather than old traditions. This is no bookish monk, studying in a cloister, but a man who keeps greyhounds to hunt the hare. The Monk is well-fed, fat, and his eyes are bright, gleaming like a furnace in his head.
The Friar who follows him is also wanton and merry, and he is a 'lymytour' by trade (a friar licensed to beg in certain districts). He is extremely well beloved of franklins (landowners) and worthy woman all over the town. He hears confession and gives absolution, and is an excellent beggar, able to earn himself a farthing wherever he went. His name is Huberd.
The Merchant wears a forked beard, motley clothes and sat high upon his horse. He gives his opinion very solemnly, and does excellent business as a merchant, never being in any debt. But, the narrator ominously remarks, 'I noot how men hym calle' (I don't know how men call him, or think of him).
The Clerk follows the Merchant. A student of Oxford university, he would rather have twenty books by Aristotle than rich clothes or musical instruments, and thus is dressed in a threadbare short coat. He only has a little gold, which he tends to spend on books and learning, and takes huge care and attention of his studies. He never speaks a word more than is needed, and that is short, quick and full of sentence (the Middle-English word for 'meaningfulness' is a close relation of 'sententiousness').
The Man of Law (referred to here as 'A Sergeant of the Lawe') is a judicious and dignified man, or, at least, he seems so because of his wise words. He is a judge in the court of assizes, by letter of appointment from the king, and because of his high standing receives many grants. He can draw up a legal document, the narrator tells us, and no-one can find a flaw in his legal writings. Yet, despite all this money and social worth, the Man of Law rides only in a homely, multi-coloured coat.
A Franklin travels with the Man of Law. He has a beard as white as a daisy, and of the sanguine humour (dominated by his blood). The Franklin is a big eater, loving a piece of bread dipped in wine, and is described (though not literally!) as Epicurus' son: the Franklin lives for culinary delight. His house is always full of meat pie, fish and meat, so much so that it 'snewed in his hous of mete and drynke'. He changes his meats and drinks according to what foods are in season.
A Haberdasher and a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer and a Tapycer (weaver of tapestries) are next described, all of them clothed in the same distinctive guildsman's dress. Note that none of these pilgrims, in the end, actually tell a tale.
A Cook had been brought along to boil the chicken up with marrow bones and spices, but this particular Cook knows a draught of ale very well indeed, according to the narrator. The Cook could roast and simmer and boil and fry, make stews and hashes and bake a pie well, but it was a great pity that, on his shin, he has an ulcer.
A Shipman from Dartmouth is next - tanned brown from the hot summer sun, riding upon a carthorse, and wearing a gown of coarse woolen cloth which reaches to his knees. The Shipman had, many times, drawn a secret draught of wine on board ship, while the merchant was asleep. The Shipman has weathered many storms, and knows his trade: he knows the locations of all the harbors from Gotland to Cape Finistere. His shape is called 'the Maudelayne'.
A Doctor of Medicine is the next pilgrim described, clad in red and blue, and no-one in the world can match him in speaking about medicine and surgery. He knows the cause of every illness, what humor engenders them, and how to cure them. He is a perfect practitioner of medicine, and he has apothecaries ready to send him drugs and mixtures. He is well-read in the standard medical authorities, from the Greeks right through to Chaucer's contemporary Gilbertus Anglicus. The Doctor, however, has not studied the Bible.
The Wife of Bath was 'somdel deef' (a little deaf, as her tale will later expand upon) and that was a shame. The Wife of Bath is so adept at making cloth that she surpasses even the cloth-making capitals of Chaucer's world, Ypres and Ghent, and she wears coverchiefs (linen coverings for the head) which must (the narrator assumes) have 'weyeden ten pound'. She had had five husbands through the church door, and had been at Jerusalem, Rome and Boulogne on pilgrimage. She is also described as 'Gat-tothed' (traditionally denoting lasciviousness), and as keeping good company, she knows all the answers about love: 'for she koude of that art the olde daunce' (she knew the whole dance as far as love is concerned!).
A good religious man, A Parson of a Town, is next described, who, although poor in goods, is rich in holy thought and work. He's a learned man, who truly preaches Christ's gospel, and devoutly teaches his parishioners. He travels across his big parish to visit all of his parishioners, on his feet, carrying a staff in his hand. He is a noble example to his parishioners ('his sheep', as they are described) because he acts first, and preaches second (or, in Chaucer's phrase, 'first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte'). The narrator believes that there is no better priest to be found anywhere.
With the Parson travels a Plowman (who does not tell a tale), who has hauled many cartloads of dung in his time. He is a good, hard-working man, who lives in peace and charity, and treats his neighbor as he would be treated. He rides on a mare, and wears a tabard (a workman's loose garment).
A Miller comes next, in this final group of pilgrims (now at the bottom of the class scale!). He is big-boned and has big muscles, and always wins the prize in wrestling matches. There's not a door that he couldn't lift off its hinges, or break it by running at it head-first. He has black, wide nostrils, carries a sword and a buckler (shield) by his side, and has a mouth like a great furnace. He's good at stealing corn and taking payment for it three times. But then, Chaucer implies, there are no honest millers.
A noble Manciple (a business agent, purchaser of religious provisions) is the next pilgrim to be described, and a savvy financial operator. Though a common man, the Manciple can run rings round even a 'heep of lerned men'. The Manciple, his description ominously ends, 'sette hir aller cappe': deceived them all.
The Reeve, a slender, choleric man, long-legged and lean ("ylyk a staf"). He knows exactly how much grain he has, and is excellent at keeping his granary and his grain bin. There is no bailiff, herdsman or servant about whom the Reeve does not know something secret or treacherous; as a result, they are afraid of him 'as of the deeth'.
The Summoner is next, his face fire-red and pimpled, with narrow eyes. He has a skin disease across his black brows, and his beard (which has hair falling out of it) and he is extremely lecherous. There is, the narrator tells us, no ointment or cure, or help him to remove his pimples. He loves drinking wine which is as 'reed as blood', and eating leeks, onions and garlic. He knows how to trick someone.
Travelling with the Summoner is a noble Pardoner, his friend and his companion (in what sense Chaucer intends the word 'compeer', meaning companion, nobody knows) and the last pilgrim-teller to be described. He sings loudly 'Come hither, love to me', and has hair as yellow as wax, which hangs like flaxen from his head. He carries a wallet full of pardons in his lap, brimful of pardons come from Rome. The Pardoner is sexually ambiguous - he has a thin, boyish voice, and the narrator wonders whether he is a 'geldyng or a mare' (a eunuch or a homosexual).
The narrator writes that he has told us now of the estate (the class), the array (the clothing), and the number of pilgrims assembled in this company. He then makes an important statement of intent for what is to come: he who repeats a tale told by another man, the narrator says, must repeat it as closely as he possibly can to the original teller - and thus, if the tellers use obscene language, it is not our narrator's fault.
The Host is the last member of the company described, a large man with bright, large eyes - and an extremely fair man. The Host welcomes everyone to the inn, and announces the pilgrimage to Canterbury, and decides that, on the way there, the company shall 'talen and pleye' (to tell stories and amuse themselves). Everyone consents to the Host's plan for the game, and he then goes on to set it out.
What the Host describes is a tale-telling game, in which each pilgrim shall tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two more on the way home; whoever tells the tale 'of best sentence and moost solas' shall have supper at the cost of all of the other pilgrims, back at the Inn, once the pilgrimage returns from Canterbury. The pilgrims agree to the Host's suggestion, and agree to accord to the Host's judgment as master of the tale-telling game. Everyone then goes to bed.
The next morning, the Host awakes, raises everyone up, and 'in a flok' the pilgrimage rides towards 'the Wateryng of Seint Thomas', a brook about two miles from London. The Host asks the pilgrims to draw lots to see who shall tell the first tale, the Knight being asked to 'draw cut' first and, whether by 'aventure, or sort, or cas', the Knight draws the straw to tell the first tale. The pilgrims ride forward, and the Knight begins to tell his tale.
Analysis
The General Prologue was probably written early in the composition of the Canterbury Tales, and offers an interesting comparison point to many of the individual tales itself. Of course, it does not match up to the tales as we have them in a number of ways: the Nun's Priest and the Second Nun are not described, and, most significantly, the work as we have it does not reflect the Host's plan. For starters, the pilgrimage only seems to go as far as Canterbury (for the Parson's Tale) and only the narrator tells two tales on the way there, with all the other pilgrims telling only a single tale (and some who are described in the General Prologue not telling a tale at all).
We must, therefore, view the General Prologue with some hesitation as a comparison point to the tales themselves: it offers useful or enlightening suggestions, but they are no means a complete, reliable guide to the tales and what they mean. What the General Prologue offers is a brief, often very visual description of each pilgrim, focusing on details of their background, as well as key details of their clothing, their food likes and dislikes, and their physical features. These descriptions fall within a common medieval tradition of portraits in words (which can be considered under the technical termekphrasis), Chaucer's influence in this case most likely coming from The Romaunt de la Rose.
Immediately, our narrator insists that his pilgrims are to be described by 'degree'. By the fact that the Knight, the highest-ranking of the pilgrims, is selected as the first teller, we see the obvious social considerations of the tale. Still, all human life is here: characters of both sexes, and from walks of life from lordly knight, or godly parson down to oft-divorced wife or grimy cook.
Each pilgrim portrait within the prologue might be considered as an archetypal description. Many of the 'types' of characters featured would have been familiar stock characters to a medieval audience: the hypocritical friar, the rotund, food-loving monk, the rapacious miller are all familiar types from medieval estates satire (see Jill Mann's excellent book for more information). Larry D. Benson has pointed out the way in which the characters are paragons of their respective crafts or types - noting the number of times the words 'wel koude' and 'verray parfit' occur in describing characters.
Yet what is key about the information provided in the General Prologue about these characters, many of whom do appear to be archetypes, is that it is among the few pieces of objective information - that is, information spoken by our narrator that we are given throughout the Tales. The tales themselves (except for large passages of the prologues and epilogues) are largely told in the words of the tellers: as our narrator himself insists in the passage. The words stand for themselves: and we interpret them as if they come from the pilgrims' mouths. What this does - and this is a key thought for interpreting the tales as a whole - is to apparently strip them of writerly license, blurring the line between Chaucer and his characters.
Thus all of the information might be seen to operate on various levels. When, for example, we find out that the Prioress has excellent table manners, never allowing a morsel to fall on her breast, how are we to read it? Is this Geoffrey Chaucer 'the author of The Canterbury Tales' making a conscious literary comparison to The Romaunt de la Rose, which features a similar character description (as it happens, of a courtesan)? Is this 'Chaucer' our narrator, a character within the Tales providing observation entirely without subtext or writerly intention? Or are these observations - supposedly innocent within the Prologue - to be noted down so as to be compared later to the Prioress' Tale?
Chaucer's voice, in re-telling the tales as accurately as he can, entirely disappears into that of his characters, and thus the Tales operates almost like a drama. Where do Chaucer's writerly and narratorial voices end, and his characters' voices begin? This self-vanishing quality is key to the Tales, and perhaps explains why there is one pilgrim who is not described at all so far, but who is certainly on the pilgrimage - and he is the most fascinating, and the most important by far: a poet and statesman by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer.
About The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is at once one of the most famous and most frustrating works of literature ever written. Since its composition in late 1300s, critics have continued to mine new riches from its complex ground, and started new arguments about the text and its interpretation. Chaucer’s richly detailed text, so Dryden said, was “God’s plenty”, and the rich variety of the Tales is partly perhaps the reason for its success. It is both one long narrative (of the pilgrims and their pilgrimage) and an encyclopedia of shorter narratives; it is both one large drama, and a compilation of most literary forms known to medieval literature: romance, fabliau, Breton lay, moral fable, verse romance, beast fable, prayer to the Virgin… and so the list goes on. No single literary genre dominates the Tales. The tales include romantic adventures, fabliaux, saint's biographies, animal fables, religious allegories and even a sermon, and range in tone from pious, moralistic tales to lewd and vulgar sexual farces. More often than not, moreover, the specific tone of the tale is extremely difficult to firmly pin down.
This, indeed, is down to one of the key problems of interpreting the Tales themselves - voice: how do we ever know who is speaking? Because Chaucer, early in the Tales, promises to repeat the exact words and style of each speaker as best he can remember it, there is always a tension between Chaucer and the pilgrim's voice he ventriloquises as he re-tells his tale: even the "Chaucer" who is a character on the pilgrim has a distinct and deliberately unChaucerian voice. Is it the Merchant’s voice – and the Merchant’s opinion – or Chaucer’s? Is it Chaucer the character or Chaucer the writer? If it is Chaucer’s, are we supposed to take it at face value, or view it ironically? It is for this reason that, throughout this ClassicNote, a conscious effort has been made to refer to the speaker of each tale (the Merchant, in the Merchant’s Tale, for example) as the “narrator”, a catch-all term which represents both of, or either one of, Chaucer and the speaker in question.
No-one knows for certain when Chaucer began to write the Tales – the pilgrimage is usually dated 1387, but that date is subject to much scholarly argument – but it is certain that Chaucer wrote some parts of the Tales at different times, and went back and added Tales to the melting pot. The Knight’s Tale, for example, was almost certainly written earlier than the Canterbury project as a separate work, and then adapted into the voice of the Knight; and the Second Nun’s Tale, as well as probably the Monk’s, probably have a similar compositional history.
Chaucer drew from a rich variety of literary sources to create the Tales, though his principal debt is likely to Boccaccio’s Decameron, in which ten nobles from Florence, to escape the plague, stay in a country villa and amuse each other by each telling tales. Boccaccio likely had a significant influence on Chaucer. The Knight's Tale was an English version of a tale by Boccaccio, while six of Chaucer's tales have possible sources in the Decameron: the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's, the Clerk's, the Merchant's, the Franklin's, and the Shipman's. However, Chaucer's pilgrims to Canterbury form a wider range of society compared to Boccaccio's elite storytellers, allowing for greater differences in tone and substance.
The text of the Tales itself does not survive complete, but in ten fragments (see ‘The texts of the Tales’ for further information and specific orders). Due to the fact that there are no links made between these ten fragments in most cases, it is extremely difficult to ascertain precisely in which order Chaucer wanted the tales to be read. This ClassicNote corresponds to the order followed in Larry D. Benson’s “Riverside Chaucer”, which is undoubtedly the best edition of Chaucer currently available.
Lecture No.3
Modern Poetry(Romantic)
Auguries of Innocence
Summary
The poet proffers the argument that the natural world can be regenerated in time and that nature itself can be an augury to the lost vision of innocence. The phrasing of the title is the strongest example of this theme, for here, the word “innocence” signifies man in the unfallen state.
The first quatrain is where this theme of seeing the world through different means is set forth. The infinite (“Heaven”) can be seen through something that is not human, but still life (“through a Wildflower”). This “wildflower” is a symbol for free love. Heaven is seen though love, the world is seen through the intellect, and the imagination is that which bridges the two. In the same sense, that which is not life nor human, the dehumanized world, is capable of revealing “infinity.” It may be worth noting the famous Blake line from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
The remainder of the poem is basic imagery, each animal representing a different part of the humanized world. Below is a list of a few of the key associations:
Dog – the beggar
Horse – the slave
Cock – the soldier
Singing – an inward, spiritual possession
Lamb’s submission – Jesus’ sacrifice for mankind
Bat – human spectre
Owl – humankind lost in the darkness, fearing an unknown God
Caterpillar – humankind emerging from nature’s womb, the exit from Eden
Pass the polar bar – enter a new world
Waves – the sea of time and space
Emmet and Eagle – perception from close and afar; physical and imaginative perception
Analysis
“The Auguries of Innocence” is a series of couplets that most Blake scholars and biographers agree were written in no particular order, but just gathered as such for printing in about 1803, a decade after “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” The interconnecting theme between the collection of couplets is universal interdependence, the principle idea that there exist a correspondence between equivalent entities that lie on completely different planes. Scandinavian mystic and poet Swedenborg was the major influence to this philosophical belief. In other words, there is a wisdom, or vision (“augury”) in seeing the world through two eyes instead of with one eye.
Major Themes
Opposition
In the “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” Blake wrote: “Opposition is true friendship.” Even the title of that poem points to his theory of a “marriage” between opposites. So much of Blake’s work revolves around the theme that opposition represents balance in this world, and a focus on one side over its counter leads to oppression and ignorance. Many people who study Blake argue that he is an extreme radical who was out to abolish any form of order that existed during his lifetime. A close reading of his work dealing with this theme will prove this is not the case. William Blake was intelligent enough, and courageous enough, to recognize the Age of Reason’s over-governing intentions and set out to challenge the notion that sensibility and order are exclusive partners. But Blake did not seek complete anarchy in the world contrary to a lot of interpretation of his work. What the poet did was illustrate that governing does not have to equal a loss of liberty, and he did so by presenting the opposition to the demanding institutions—church, state, law, monarchy—of his time. By examining ideas and objects in terms of opposites and allowing access to both sides of the scale, man will reach a true state of enlightenment rather than a repressed state where few benefit and most are held in bondage.
The cycle
Cycle is very similar to the theme of opposition. Where Blake argues each object or abstract idea has an equal and valid opposite form, he also contends that nature of these objects and abstractions pass back and forth through one another. Most obvious in “The Season” poems studied here, but also in many other works of Blake, the reader learns of his static belief that nature operates in cyclical terms. William Blake would use this theory as evidential support for the changes of his time, especially the Revolutions that were happening in America and France. Frustrated with a long period of repression in Europe, Blake felt it was time for the people to rise and fight back, and that a political and philosophical cleansing was not only a positive part to the progression of mankind and evolution of societies, but that it was as natural as the rotation of the earth, the changing of the seasons, and the maturity of humans.
Oppression / Repression
Blake lived in a period of aggressive British colonialism, slavery, social casting, Revolutionary change in America and Europe, as well as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Being a member of the lower class, an uneducated artist (in the formal sense of the term, although Blake was clearly quite intelligent), and considered by many to be an inferior poet bordering madness, Blake experienced firsthand the struggles of oppression. Using words and illustrations, Blake fought back against his countrymen, political leaders, and religious principals(ples). The theme of the repressed is the easiest to identify and extract from Blake’s poetry. Most all of his work will feature a wearisome protagonist who is attempting to revolt against some greater being, whether it be politically, religious, or even the shackles of love and marriage. Many times, this theme is represented in the form of mythology, literary allusion, and the personification of natural objects.
Sexuality
There has been a lot written on the hidden sexual references that are laden in Blake’s poetry. While some of the examples put forward by Blake scholars who seek sexual innuendo in all of Blake’s writings is debatable, there are some instances where sexual reference is prevalent without doubt. There has been some work on homosexuality and homoeroticism appearing in the poems as well, and this is a harder case to prove. Regardless of the directed gender of the metaphor, sexuality does play an important role in Blake’s canon. Due to Blake’s feeling that the human imagination and desire is oppressed in all forms, it makes complete sense that he would also draw upon the supposed dishonor and immoral act of copulation as just one more facet of persecution against nature’s intent. The most repeated reference made to this is the literary allusion repeatedly made to Milton and the fall of man from the Garden of Eden as a result of his sin for love.
Innocence and Experience
Similar to Blake’s focus on man’s fall from grace, Blake was constantly exploring the moment of lost innocence. This repeated theme in Blake’s poetry is almost like a paragon for a combination of all the other themes so far discussed. The theme of the separation, transition, and difference between innocence and experience is highlights the theory of opposition, cycling, repression, and sexuality. Songs of Innocence and Experience aside (which can be found in a separate Grade Saver Note), Blake continues to explore and personify this transient moment and investigate its consequences. Recognizing that in a world of “reason” or “sensibility” we risk forgetting all of our primitive desires and suppressing all of our natural intuitions. Blake attempt to invoke recognition for the imaginative spirit that lies in all of us, but since our moment of experience, has been subjugated to the areas of our mind we are called upon to ignore.
Religion
It is unclear exactly where Blake stood in terms of his beliefs in God. Some contend that through his works it is clear he was an atheist; others argue he was more agnostic. While it is impossible to say for sure, it is not the opinion of this author that Blake had no belief in a super-being, God-like, creator. Blake makes many references to God and a supernatural, omniscient, and omnipresent being. That being said, it is very valid to assume Blake had a distinct disdain for religion as an institution. The theme of religion appears in a lot of Blake’s work, and in his “opposition is friendship” manner, he usually counterbalances this theme with references to nature, showing his belief in a natural superpower rather than mythological creator. Blake views religion as one of the paragons of tyranny. Inventing a mythology full of angels, demons, and Gods that mirror a lot of Milton’s writings, it becomes obvious that William Blake was fascinated with religion as literary allusion and infuriated with it as a means to suppress man’s natural desires.
Poetry/Imagination
By the time William Blake began writing poetry at the very young age of twelve, he was already frustrated with the stale situation English poetry was in at that time. Blake felt poets needed to seek new ways to express their words and ideas and sought to step away from the Classic traditions of English poetry that had not really changed since Spenser (so Blake thought anyhow). As readers, we witness Blake play around with no forms and seek new methods to get across his message. In some of the poems, literary reference becomes the theme itself (“Memory, hither come” and “To the Muses” for example). William Blake was continuously finding new ways to express his philosophical beliefs and articulate his extraordinary imagination.
About The Poems of William Blake
William Blake was a poet who was not very well recognized during his lifetime. It was not until his sixties when his work began to receive credit as leading a new literary movement in England at the time that was really triggered by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge who were both much younger than Blake and of a superior social class. In his younger years, William Blake's poetry was written off as lunacy by most of his contemporaries, and although he is recognized now as the 'grandfather' or the Romantic period, he was in fact much older and far removed from that time.
That being said, the reason Blake is associated with Romanticism is because of his ardent support of the French Revolution and all forms of anti-establishment radicalism. Blake was an untiring rebel who verbally and poetically fought hard against all constrictions of his time--religious, social, sexual, and literary. His poems transmute clearly all the burring issues and events of his day and touch on issues such as the American War for Independence, the French Revolution, Colonialism and the expansion of Empire, Slavery, and finally the Industrial Revolution. Through Blake's work, the reader can deduce his passion and vision that social rebellion against these injustices would serve as an apocalyptic turning point in the history of humankind, destroying the old, decaying order of oppression and presaging the redemption of humanity.
The poems of William Blake reinterpret the spiritual history of the human race from the fall from Eden to the beginning of the French Revolution. Blake believed in the correspondence between the physical world and the spiritual world and used poetic metaphor to express these beliefs. In his poetry, we hear a man who look's for mankind to salvage his redemption from oppression through resurgence of imaginative life. The power of repression is a constant theme in Blake's poems and he articulates his belief in the titanic forces of revolt and the struggle for freedom against the guardians of tradition.
What is important to keep in mind when discussing or reading Blake's poetry is that a lot of his poems were accompanied with some sort of illustration, painting, or in the case of the prophecies and songs, copper plates. It is difficult to fully grasp the poet’s intentions without having access to the artwork married to the poem.
Additionally, his earliest work, "Poetical Sketches," which is a collection that a lot of the poems discussed here are taken from, shows dissatisfaction with the reigning poetic tradition and his restless quest for new literary forms and techniques. Eventually, Blake's genius would blossom and his thinking began to be articulated in giant forms, leading to the creation of complete mythology and extremely symbolic epics.
The sick rose by williams blaken 1789, the eccentric poet-printer William Blake published a small book of poems called Songs of Innocence. The poems are exactly that: short lyrics about children (innocence) that resemble songs and nursery rhymes. But Blake was no ordinary poet; he was also a painter, printer, and engraver, and each of the poems in theSongs of Innocence was accompanied by an illustration that framed the poem. Head over to "Best of the Web" to see what these poems looked like.
If Blake wasn't content with just writing poems with no illustrations, he also wasn't content with simply writing about innocence; something was missing. In 1794 he published a companion to the Songs of Innocence called the Songs of Experience, which contains "The Sick Rose." The Songs of Experience were never published without their counterpart, and the entire volume was called the Songs of Innocence and Experience: Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. The title couldn't be more descriptive. In general, the Songs of Innocence tend to be, well, more innocent, benign, and childish, whereas the Songs of Experience explore darker, more sinister themes associated with the Industrial Revolution, religion, and education. "The Sick Rose," for example, isn't just about a rose that's losing its color. It's about a worm (sometimes read as a symbol of the devil) that (essentially) rapes the rose and destroys it with its "dark secret love."
Although Blake thought of innocence and experience as contraries, any attempts to classify innocence as good and experience as bad inevitably fail; sometimes theSongs of Innocence appear innocent and then end up being darker and more complicated upon closer examination. In fact, Blake sometimes moved poems back and forth between the two volumes, a fact which suggests that his vision was much more complicated than the simple word "contraries" implies. "The Sick Rose"
Summary
Critic Harold Bloom refers to this short poem as "one of Blake's gnomic triumphs." The speaker addresses a rose, which he claims is sick because an “invisible worm” has “found out thy bed/Of crimson joy.” The rose symbolizes earthly, as opposed to spiritual, love, which becomes ill when infected with the materialism of the world. The rose’s bed of “crimson joy” may also be a sexual image, with the admittedly phallic worm representing either lust or jealousy. The worm has a “dark secret love” that destroys the rose’s life, suggesting something sinful or unmentionable.
Analysis
Nature brings this sickness to the worm with “the howling storm.” Although the speaker decries the rose's sickness in the first line, the rest of the poem subtly suggests that the rose is not innocent of her own destruction. The worm has incidentally "found out" the rose's bed, which is "crimson joy" even prior to the worm's arrival. The red of passion and of the vaginal "crimson bed" image counterpart to the worm's phallic one suggests that the rose has already been experiencing some kind of lustful passion.
In keeping with much of the Songs of Experience, this poem is brief, with two stanzas, and deviates from the Innocence rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD. Here the rhyme scheme, ABCB DEFE, introduces a note of discord in keeping with the ill effects of the "secret love" which the rose hides, much to its detriment. "Worm" and "storm" are rhymed, connecting the agent of destruction with a force of nature. In the second stanza, "joy" and "destroy" are connected, linking what should be a positive experience to the decaying disease that the rose has contracted.
The Sick Rose
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
POETWilliam Blake 1757–1827
POET’S REGIONEngland
SCHOOL / PERIODRomantic
SUBJECTSDeath, Trees & Flowers, Relationships, Nature, Love, Living, Classic Love, Desire, Break-ups & Vexed Love, Heartache & Loss
POETIC TERMSRhymed Stanza
Auguries of Innocence
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole Nation sell & buy
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out
To be in a Passion you Good may Do
But no Good if a Passion is in you
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
POET
William Blake 1757–1827
POET’S REGIONEngland
SCHOOL / PERIODRomantic
SUBJECTSReligion, Pets, Living, Cities & Urban Life, Social Commentaries, Faith & Doubt,Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Class, Philosophy, Christianity, God & the Divine
POETIC TERMSRhymed Stanza, Aphorism