What should an ideal Scholar be like, according to Emerson? or Examine critically the various ideas expressed by Emerson.

    “The American Scholar” is one of the famous essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The lecture mainly contains Emerson’s view of the American Scholar, that means what an ideal American Scholar should be like.

     Emerson divides of man into men and told about the distribution of function of these men. He derived the idea of the division of man from an ancient fable. According to this philosophy, the gods in ancient time divide ‘Man’ into ‘Men’ so that he might be more helpful to himself, just as the hand was divided into fingers to make a more effective organ. One Man is all Men a farmer, a professor, an engineer, a soldier. In a society, each man performs his particular work. The ancient fable also says that the individual must sometime return to the labour of all other individuals. He must act as the whole man. But the original unit, the one Man has been so minutely sub-divided that it is “Spilled into drops and cannot be gathered to form the whole.”

    In this division of function, the Scholar is the delegated intellect. In the degenerate state of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or imitate the other men’s thinking.

     Then Emerson tells about the various sources of education open to the American Scholar. The influence of Nature is the foremost. A scholar will open out his soul to nature and then the influence of nature will flow into him and would mould his soul.

     The scholar should study books, but books are not used by him as things to follow blindly. Then Emerson emphasizes action. A scholar must be a man of action. “A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to strong to think.”

The Waste land -T.S. Eliot What is Eliot’s vision of the world as expressed in “The Waste Land”. Or Write a note on the Eliot Zone of consciousness.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, a great critic of modern life, Eliot takes up the predicament of modern man, the futility and misery of modern existence. As Eliot is considered the representative poet of the age, a study of the socio-political, intellectual and economic cross-currents of the age is necessary to understand his vision of the world.

The poem, “the Waste Land” was written in 1922 when the world, at least Europe, was laid waste by the devastating first world war. The shadow of the coming second world war was hanging upon the brow of man. In the wake of war, the established Victorian society based on material prosperity, social security and strict moral and religious values gradually broke down. A sense of despair and pessimism possessed the people of all ranks as the outcome of the decay of the established social order. Poverty spread all over the country and people became the victims of the wide-spread immoral practices. In actual sense, Europe became a waste land with no hope of regeneration. Eliot drew the picture of such a society in his poem.

Eliot expresses the chaos and disillusionment of modern life by his peculiar technique and the images of the metro-Politian life. He presents a certain paltriness in contemporary man. No one can more readily call up the dreary association of fifth and fog common to all. He brought into poetry something which in this generation now needed. He has done more than any other living English poet to make this age conscious of itself.

Emily Dickinson Q: Discuss the theme of mysticism as reflected in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Or, How far is Emily Dickinson a mystic poet?

There is much criticism about the nature of Emily Dickinson’s concept of mysticism. In the strictest sense of the term Emily Dickinson can not be called as a mystic poet as there is no or little direct and clear presentation of mystic theme in her poetry that we find in Blake’s poetry. She has not shown her distinctive attitude to the quest of union with the Divine. But in the liberal sense of the term, she is reflected to God, soul, death, immortality etc. Her mystic view is reflected in her apprehensions of the divine presence in nature, eternity of life, immortality of soul and in her belief in the link between soul and God.

                 There are some poems in which we can get the testimony of her mystic attitude. In “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed”, we find a gradual development of attitude towards the divinity. She uses the symbols of wine that has never been brewed in order to achieve the stature of an immensely big celestial being to whom even the sun is a lamp-post. Her mystic mood is vividly revealed in the following lines:

              “I shall but drink the more!

               Till Seraphs swing their snowy hats,

               And saints to windows run,

               To see the little tippler

               Leaning against the sun!”

In the treatment of Nature, Emily Dickinson’s attitude is mystic to some extent. In her poem “My Cocoon tightens, colors tease”, we find a clue of her mystic mind. Here we can see a beautiful poetic treatment of a chrysalis just before bursting open its cocoon and taking the shape of a butterfly. Several critics take its subject to be immortality where the chrysalis is the symbol of soul which struggles to come out from the cocoon of death to the open meadows and the sky of immortality. But the most accepted interpretation, the poem symbolizes the struggle for the gradual spiritual growth to be mingled with the universe or the Divine.

JOHN DONNE Q: Discuss the fine blending of passion and thought, emotion and intellect, feeling and ratiocination that you find in Donne’s poetry.

John Donne gave up the trend of unbridled emotion and passion of the Elizabethan poets; put aside the over-romanticized ideas and their sugar-coated language. Rather Donne and his followers made a fine blending passion and thought, emotion and intellect, imagination and reality, feeling and ratiocination.

“The Canonization” is one of the most famous poems of Donne in which we can trace the blending of emotion and reason. He uses some images and conceits to express the supreme feeling of satisfaction in love in a concrete manner in the following lines:

                 “Call us what you will, we are made such by love,

                  Call her one, me another fly,

                  We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,

                  …………………………………………………

                 We can die by it, if not live by love.”

This emotion of love is harmonized with the use of complex wit and conceit, reason and argument.

                          Another important poem where Donne is uncommon in fusing intellect and passion is “The Sun Rising”. The lover is undoubtedly highly passionate in his expression of love but it is always tempered with experience and reason that we can observe in the following lines:

             “To warm the world, that’s done in warming us

               Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere,

               This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.”  

Here the passion of love is conveyed in images which are erudite, logical and of an intellectual nature. In this poem we also find Donne’s ratiocinative style, reasoning step by step towards his conclusion.

                          The peculiar mingling of feeling and thought finds its better outlet in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”. Here the speaker’s beloved is highly emotional who doesn’t allow him to leave her even for a temporary period. But the lover is trying his best to pacify her emotion with some logical points and argument.

Donne, as a great scholar, always showed his experience and learning using argument in his various poems. So critics sometimes made criticism of his poetry considering it lifeless and emotionless. They charged his poetry with mere expression of intellectuality and pedantic thought.

Walt Whitman Q: Do you think that when Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloomed is an elegy? Substantiate your answer. Q: Discuss Walt Whitman’s use of symbols and imagery with special reference to “When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom’d”.

In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

“When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is a beautiful elegy written on the death of Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th president of America. It is rich in private symbols. Lilac, a beautiful sweet-scented flower of Persian origin, stands for the poet’s love for his great leader Abraham Lincoln. Lilacs also symbolize the recurrence of the memory of Lincoln. The heart shaped green leaves of the lilacs stand for the lush, unadulterated evergreen feelings that come out from the heart of man. Thus the poet depicts the imagery with symbolic meaning:

                   “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d

                    And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

                   I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”    

Whitman portrays the image of the heavenly body thus:

                  “As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,

                   As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side,”

Thus the star also symbolizes recurrence, eternity and immortality of Lincoln who would remain forever as the lofty and bright star to guide mankind in the time darkness.

Bird-symbol is also available in Whitman’s realm of poetry where the hawk the mocking-bird and the hermit-thrush etc. are gathered. In “When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom’d” the hermit-thrush has been used as a significant symbol. It is naturally very shy, withdrawn and isolated. It stands for the poet’s inner thought about Lincoln, his great loving leader. The bird sings on behalf of the poet. Thus the bird is identified with the poet himself sharing the same feelings and emotions of grief at the death of Lincoln.

THE FAERIE QUEENE Q: Write a critical note on The Red Cross Knight’s encounter with Monster Error and its significance as reflected in Canto-I, Book-I of The Faerie Queene.

The Read Cross Knight, the dauntless and adventurous hero of Book-I, has not given any particular name. He is known by his designation which is The Red Knight. He is called so because he wears on his armour the sign of the red-coloured cross, and because the same sign is also inscribed on his shield. The Cross is the symbol of the sacrifice and martyrdom of Lord Jesus Christ. The Red Cross Knight bearing this holy Cross symbolizes an ardent lover, follower and disciple of Jesus Christ. From the point of moral allegory he stands for Holiness, while, from the religious point of view he symbolizes Christianity. He undertook a dangerous enterprise accompanied by Una, the symbol of Truth, to free Una’s parents as well as the suffering people from the bondage of a Dragon, the symbol of Devil or Satan. From this great mission he was assigned by Gloriana, the Faerie Queen, symbolizing Queen Elizabeth.

                           On the other hand, we find the Monster Error whom The Red Cross Knight met in the fearful and wandering wood, the abode of Error. The monster is a dirty, filthy, loathsome and hateful ugly creature. The upper half of the Monster’s body had the shape of women and the lower half of the body was that of a serpent with long tail. Spenser thus depicts the Monster Error:

                    “Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,

                      But th’ other halfe did womens shape retaine,

                      Most lothsome, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.”   

She stands for all kinds of errors-moral, social, political, religious and so on that we often commit in life.

Character List of Iliad by Homer

Achilles: The central character of the Iliad and the greatest warrior in the Achaian army.

Agamemnon: The well-meaning but irresolute king of Mycenae; commander-in-chief of the expedition against Troy.

Diomedes: He ranks among the finest and bravest of the Achaian warriors.

Odysseus: The shrewdest and most subtle of all the Achaians and a brave warrior besides, as he demonstrates on many occasions.

Nestor: The oldest of the Achaian warriors at Troy.

Helen: Originally married to Menelaos, she ran away to Troy with Paris and became his wife. Supposedly, she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

Menelaos: King of Sparta and brother of Agamemnon, He was the husband of Helen.

Hektor (Hector): Prince of Troy and son of Priam and Hekuba. Hektor is commander of all the Trojan and allied forces. He is the greatest of the Trojan warriors.

Andromache: The wife of Hektor.

Paris (Alexandros): A prince of Troy; son of Priam and Hekuba; also husband of Helen.

Priam: King of Troy.

Zeus: The supreme god and king of Olympos.

Aphrodite: Daughter of Zeus; goddess of love and sexual desire.