Essay: Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of The Rights of Woman"
A Vindication of the Rights of Womanby Sarah Kearney
During the early years of the French Revolution, England became a place of new beginnings, where the idea of the individual emerged, the world of literature was reborn and authority was thoroughly questioned and often uprooted. Great poets and philosophers were awakened, and the 'war of pamphlets' began, proclaiming revolutionary theories, arguing social and political change, and urging self-examination. Mary Wollstonecraft, "pioneer of feminist thought" (Jane Moore, 1999) in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was the first to bring the subordinate attitude that society had towards women into the open, arguing that women were men's intellectual equals and therefore affirming a woman's right to a full education.
"A profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore." (Page166) Continuing on from this radical observation, Wollstonecraft states, that through the education of women, relationships between husbands and wives will be better and the children, future of society will receive a better education. By including the children into these benefits, Wollstonecraft appeals to the men, who at that time considered "females rather as women than human creature; have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers." Wollstonecraft continues to say that women are elevated, acknowledging the "homage" that men pay to women, yet this "homage" is purely directed towards purile qualities rather than noble.
She argues that this elevation does nothing but weaken the women. Wollstonecraft's preferable woman figure is a rational and useful citizen.
It is not only the attitude of men towards women that Wollstonecraft directed her arguments against. Much of her criticism was aimed at the women's perception of themselves and their own abilities. Wollstonecraft claims in chapter two, page 170, that the only education women receive is that which is taught by their mothers, "softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a purile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man..." Who, "...try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood." (Page 170-171) Wollstonecraft continues throughout her book to refer to the "wife" as being an "overgrown child." In connecting the way women are treated to how children are treated, emphasis is placed on the fact that as children are dependant on adults, (men), for intellectual guidance, so to do women rely on men, rather than becoming responsible for their own intellectual growth.
Keeping these views of women in mind, Wollstonecraft's ideas were revolutionary. They were the beginnings of emancipation for women.
Wollstonecraft argues that men may well be more virtuous in their bodies, yet when it comes to the virtue of one's nature, she defies any idea of virtue being different for men or women; "in fact how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard?" (Page 176) This is one of her main objectives that woman's physical inferiority has led to false assumptions about her intellectual ability. By including God in the argument, Wollstonecraft dares to confront the church, a leader power of the time, and its opinion that it is only men who have certain Godly qualities.
She alludes once again to the Christian teachings, yet this time backing up her point by using the Old Testament. In this case she is against Dr Gregory in his "Legacy to his daughters," that girls should "give lie to her feelings, and not dance with her spirit..."continuing to advise the restraint of speech lest it make her seem immodest. Wollstonecraft fights back by quoting "the wiser Solomon" saying that the heart should be pure, abundant and natural, out of this state the mouth would speak true knowledge. Thus the heart is more important than trivial ceremonies placed on women and children, because even people with vice in their heart can perform such actions. This is a very confrontational approach, as both men and women partook of church ceremonies for no other reason than to heighten people's opinion of themselves.
Throughout the Vindication, Wollstonecraft makes clear her position that to be a good mother and responsible citizen the woman must be equal with her husband, "and not the humble dependant" (page 178) the only way to achieve this is through friendship, and a natural understanding that both are "creatures of reason." Wollstonecraft does not however deny the passion that is felt in a marriage, she says that when this passion should subside, there should be a friendship in which to educate children and form strong morals on which society can move forward. To have a strong friendship with one's wife would be an absurd idea to many men at that time, but because of the revolutionary awakening occurring, Wollstonecraft was able to try and change this constraining idea which men had.
Rousseau is another poet that she fights against to prove her point. While he is concerned about power plays and feeling lacking in some way, Wollstonecraft states "I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves." (Chap 4, page 187) This is her main point, equality, and understanding of ones self. She is encouraging women to educate themselves, push past the false limitations which society has placed on women and begin to cultivate rationality, understanding and peace of mind. (Page 181) None of her arguments seek to make women higher than men, they are rather encouraging woman to embrace this time of new beginnings.
Bibliography
Moore, J Mary Wollstonecraft UK (1999)
Wollstonecraft, M A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, (1792) in Norton Anthology of English LiteratureNew York (2000)
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Essay: Book I "Paradise Lost" by John Milton
Summary and Analysis of John Milton's "Paradise Lost Book I" By:
Purwarno HadinataSummaryBook I of Paradise Lost begins with Milton describing what he intends to undertake with his epic: the story of Man's first disobedience and the "loss of Eden," subjects which have been "unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." His main objective, however, is to "justify the ways of God to men."
The poem then shifts to focus on the character of Satan who has just fallen from heaven. The scene opens in a fiery, yet dark, lake of hell. Satan, dazed, seems to be coming to consciousness after his fall and finds himself chained to the lake.
He lifts his head to see his second in command, Beelzebub,
the Lord of the Flies, who has been transformed from a beautiful archangel into a horrid fallen angel. Satan gets his bearings and, in a speech to Beelzebub, realizes what has just happened: Satan, presuming that he was equal to God, had declared war on the creator. Many angels had joined Satan, and the cosmic battle had shaken God's throne.
Satan and his cohorts had lost and been cast "nine times the space that measures day and night" to hell. Still, Satan tells Beelzebub that all is not lost. He will never bow down to God and now, knowing more of the extent of God's might, the rebel angels might better know how to continue to fight him in an eternal war.
Beelzebub questions why they themselves still exist. What plan did God have for them since he did not kill them completely, but left them their souls and spirits intact to feel pain in hell?
Satan replies that God indeed wanted to punish them by forcing them to languish in hell for eternity. But, he says, that means that they don't ever have to obey God again. In fact, Satan says, they must work to instill evil in all good things so as to always anger God.
Satan and Beelzebub gather their strength and fly off the fiery lake to firmer, though still fiery, ground. They look around at the dark wasteland that is hell, but Satan remains proud. "Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven."
They see their army lying confused and vanquished in the fiery lake. Satan calls to them and they respond immediately. Satan gathers his closest twelve around him .
Music plays and banners fly as the army of rebel angels comes to attention, tormented and defeated but faithful to their general
They could not have known the extent of God's might, Satan tells them, but now they do know and can now examine how best to beat him. Satan has heard of a new kind of creation that God intends on making, called man. They will continue the war against heaven, but the battlefield will be within the world of mankind.
The army bangs their shields with their swords in loud agreement. The rebel angels then construct a Temple, a throne room, for their general and for their government, greater in grandeur than the pyramids or the Tower of Babylon.
All the millions of rebel angels then gather in the Temple for a great council, shrinking themselves and become dwarves in order to fit.
Analysis
Milton tells us that he is tackling the story told in Genesis of the Fall of Adam and the loss of the Garden of Eden. With it, Milton will also be exploring a cosmic battle in heaven between good and evil. Supernatural creatures, including Satan and the Judeo Christian God himself, will be mixing with humans and acting and reacting with humanlike feelings and emotions. As in other poetic epics such as Homer's Iliad and Ulysses, the Popul Vuh, and Gilgamesh, Milton is actually attempting to describe the nature of man by reflecting on who his gods are and what his origins are. By demonstrating the nature of the beings who created mankind, Milton is presenting his, or his culture's , views on what good and evil mean, what mankind's relationship is with the Absolute, what man's destiny is as an individual and as a species. The story, therefore, can be read as a simple narrative, with characters interacting with each other along a plot and various subplots. It can also, however, be extrapolated out to hold theological and religious messages, as well as political and social themes.
Milton introduces Book I with a simple summary of what his epic poem is about: the Fall of Adam and the loss of the Garden of Eden. He tells us that his heavenly muse is the same as that of Moses, that is, the spirit that combines the absolute with the literary. The voice is of a self-conscious narrator explaining his position. There is some background in the past tense, then suddenly the reader finds himself in the present tense on a fiery lake in hell. The quiet introduction, the backing into the story, then the verb change and plunge into the middle of the action, in medias res, creates a cinematic and exciting beginning.
On this lake we meet Satan, general and king of the fallen rebel angels.
Milton's portrait of Satan has fascinated critics since Paradise Lost's publication, leading some in the Romantic period to claim that Satan is, in fact, the heroic protagonist of the whole work. Certainly Milton's depiction of Satan has greatly influenced the devil's image in Western art and literature since the book's publication.
The reader first meets a stunned Satan chained down to a fiery lake of hell, surrounded by his coconspirators. In this first chapter, the reason for his downfall is that he thought himself equal to God. Hell, however, has not taught him humility, and, in fact, strengthens his revolve to never bow to the Almighty (Interestingly, the word "God" is not used in the chapters dealing with Hell and Satan).
Satan is often called a sympathetic character in Paradise Lost, despite being the source of all evil, and in the first chapter the reader is presented with some of Satan's frustration. Satan tells his army that they were tricked, that it wasn't until they were at battle that God showed the true extent of his almightiness. If they had been shown this force previously, not only would the rebel angels not have declared war on heaven, but Satan, also, would never have presumed that he himself was better than God. Now they have been irreversibly punished for all eternity, but, rather than feel sorry for themselves or repent, Satan pushes his army to be strong, to make "a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Hell reflecting heaven and, later, earth reflecting both, will be a common theme throughout the work. Satan chooses twelve close friends: all of them drawn from pagan mythology or from foreign kings in the Hebrew Bible: to echo and mimic Christ's twelve apostles. Satan's angels build a large a glorious temple and call a council, both of which will be echoed in heaven. In fact, Satan uses the same architect as heaven, now called Mammon in hell.
Many of the structures and symbols are similar. In heaven and hell there is a king and a military hierarchy of angels. In most cases, however, they the reverse of each other. In Book I, we are shown that the most prominent thing about hell is its darkness, whereas heaven is full of luminous light. As well, the fallen angels, previously glorious and beautiful, are now ugly and disfigured.
These mirror, and therefore reverse, images of heaven and hell also work on a theological level. The darkness of hell symbolizes the distance Satan and his army are from the luminous light and grace of God. Simultaneously, the rebel angels pulled away from God by their actions and are forced away by God himself, outside of all the blessings and glory that come with God's light and into the pain and suffering that comes with distance away from him. The physical corruption and disfigurement that occurs to all the fallen angels is symbolic of the corruption which has occurred in their souls.
Hell itself is described as a belching unhealthy body, whose "womb" will be torn open to expose the "ribs" of metal ore that are necessary to build Satan's temple. Natural occurrences in hell, such as the metaphor of the eclipsed sun, are symbols of natural, and therefore spiritual, decay.
Psychological motivations also work in reverse in hell. Hell is punishment for turning away from the Good, but instead of learning his lesson, Satan becomes more stubborn and more proud. While heaven is a place where all are turned toward the good and toward pleasing and obeying God, Satan makes hell a place turned away from God and turned deliberately toward displeasing him. Whereas before falling from heaven, Satan was only guilty of presuming to be greater than God (pride), now Satan has, in fact, become a creator himself. He has created evil: the direction away from God.
Other critics have examined the political implications of Milton's hell. Like Dante's hell, the characters and institutions in Milton's hell are often subtle references to political issues in Milton's day. The Temple of Satan, for example, has been thought to symbolize St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, the "capitol" of Roman Catholicism and home of the Pope. The comparison of the glory of hell to the light of an eclipsed sun was thought to be a veiled critique of the Sun King, King Charles, who reigned during Milton's time.
A full understanding of the metaphors and images that Milton uses, however, would take more than a knowledge of his contemporary history or religious background. Describing Satan's kingdom, Milton takes from a myriad of sources, including Greek mythology and epic poetry, Egyptian and Canaanite religious traditions, the Hebrew Bible and Mishnaic texts, the New Testament and apocryphal texts, the Church Fathers, popular legends, and other theological texts.
It should be noted that, in the epic tradition, Milton is using poetry to tell his story, following most prominently the style of Homer. The work, therefore, can also be examined through the lens of poetry with an eye toward rhythm and sound. In the first sentence, Milton uses an alliteration to conduct what is referred to as a double discourse: "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree..." Not only does the repeated "f" sound add to the aesthetic of the sentence, it connects the "f" words to present a different idea than the sentence itself is presenting. In this case, "first... fruits" are "forbidden." This double discourse, literally two sentences spoken at the same time, is repeated throughout Milton.
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The Role of Plot in a Tragedy
Plot in a TragedyAristotle says: “We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy, is plot.” E. M. Forster in his Aspects of Novel says that a plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died, and the queen died of grief’ is a plot.
A plot is a sequence of evens in a narrative. It is divided into three parts, those are:
1. epitasis or rising action: in which the incidents described tend to reach a definite conclusion.
This part is divided into exposition and complication. The Dramatist seeks to explain the necessary events that occurred before the beginning of the dramatic action to the audience. That purpose is served by the exposition.
2. peripety or climax or the turning-point of the incidents which follows the rising action.
Peripety or climax deals with the fortune of the hero, which is, in fact, the turning point of his life and career. In this section, we have the Aristotelian anagnorisis. In Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, for example, Oedipus comes to realise that he has killed his father and married his mother. It is extremely revealing. The hero has the anagnorisis or recognition of the grim truth, and that is the turning-point of his life.
3. the denouement or falling action, in which the incidents are brought to a conclusion.
It deals with that part of a drama, when the hero is faced with an inescapable situation, and is left with no alternatives.
Aristotle thinks the plot to be the soul of Tragedy. But since the Renaissance, ‘character’ has been of supreme importance. When we read a play called Hamlet, we feel that Hamlet’s character is what matters most. When Aristotle speaks of ‘plot’, he uses the word in a very comprehensive sense.
In Greek, there’re three words which is very famous: ethos which is translated ‘character’, muthos ‘plot’, and praxeos ‘action’. The meaning of the Greek ethos is far narrower; it excludes behaviour and is limited to a certain moral bent in a person’s make-up, which may, or may not, express itself in action. Praxeos, the latter word thus including not only what we call action but the greater part of what we mean by character. The word muthos, translated ‘plot’, includes not only, as the English word suggests, the external happenings, the bare bones of the story with ‘character’ left out, but every activity, mental, emotional, even verbal, by which ethos becomes praxeos; in other words, what we call character is as much a part of muthos as is plot in our sense of the word. All that muthos excludes is moral tendencies - qualities - which have not expressed themselves in action. It is in this sense that Aristotle is using the words when he says that ‘Tragedy is not an imitation of persons’ - that is to say of what people have it in them to be before their ethos becomes praxeos - ‘but of action’, ‘the end for which we live is a certain kind of activity and not a quality,’ and, “the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak of tragedy, is plot.”
Aristotle makes three rather brief remarks on the plot:
1. The plot must have a certain length
2. It must have a certain structure
3. It must be the soul of the drama.
The length of the plot must not be enormous. It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The plot must not be “like a creature a thousand miles long.” The beginning, middle, and end must be integrated. The middle is atonce the cause and sequence of the beginning, while the end is the consequence of the middle. In a drama, the causal connection and inevitability are essential to mark it not only artistic, but logically convincing. For example, Oedipus Rex. The play begins with the plague in Thebes, which can be removed only when the guilty man is punished. The middle relates to the discovery that Oedipus himself is the guilty man; and the end in his punishment.
Some critics have complaint that the ‘exposition’ of the plot in ancient Greece did not rouse sufficient interest, for the audience knew all about the plot even before going to the theatre. Aristotle, however, does not always suggest that only the well-known traditional stories and legends are what dramatist should exclusively draw upon. Even if the stories are known to the audience, there is no harm. It is the artistic handling of the plot that matters. The question of exposition gives rise to another problem - how much should the dramatist expose? If there is no dramatic suspense, if the last page of a detective fiction or a thriller is well in advance, the known audience will feel bored. Lope de Vega says: “keep your secret to the end. The audience will turn their faces to the door and their backs to the stage when there is no more to learn. For Example, while Hamlet is taking to his mother, the arras suddenly moves. Hamlet does not know who is behind it. He assumes that it must be the king. Later the person proves to be Polonius. Shakespeare has thus kept it guarded secret from the audience.
Aristotle says that a work of a art must be complete and have “all the organic unity of a living creature.” Tragedy must be “complete in itself,” and must be “a whole”, and “complete in itself.” The same idea is repeated as “one action, a complete whole.” An epic, like a tragedy, “is based on a single action, one that is a complete whole in itself.” The comparison of a plot and a living creature is very apt. He compares work of art with a living being. A work of art is complex thing., which, as Humphry House points out, “involves the interaction of parts in effective movement.”
When Aristotle speaks about the magnitude or ‘right size’ of a plot, he means that it should have proportion. As regards the proper size of a tragedy, Humphry House says that it governed by two criteria:
1. The function of tragedy itself; it must be of such a size that it can adequately display the hero passing by a series of probable or necessary stages from misfortune to happiness, or vice versa.
2. The capacity of the spectator or reader; the play must not exceed the length that compressed by the human memory: otherwise the essential unity of impression will be lost. But, so far as it consistent with its comprehensible as a whole, the longer the better.
Peripeteia and Anagnorisis
Aristotle speaks of two types of plot - simple and complex. A simple plot is one without peripeteia and anagnorisis; while a complex plot has peripeteia or anagnorisis or both.
Peripeteia has been translated as ‘reversal of fortune’. A peripeteia occurs when a person sought to aim at a particular result, but the reverse of the result was produced. It brings about the irony. In Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Barabas was boiling oil in a cauldron to destroy his enemy, but he himself dropped in it and died. While in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth heard the equivalent prophecy of the witches and sought to kill Banquo and all his enemies. But in reality, he got no peace and security, but only the damnation of his soul.
Anagnorisis may be translated as ‘recognition’ or ‘discovery’. Anagnorisis is a sudden realisation of a grim truth. Aristotle has spoken of six types of anagnorisis. The first type relates to the discovery by signs. The second type is the discovery, rather arbitrarily suggested by the dramatist. The third type of discovery is based upon memory. The fourth type of it is made through reasoning. The fifth type is based on false reasoning. And the last type is made by natural means.
A simple plot has no tragic irony. A complex plot is more artistic, and it is based on errors and irony. The hero of tragedy is suffering from hamartia, i.e. tragic error. Hamartia is only a false step - a leap in the dark, which brings about the downfall of the hero. For example, Desdemona dropped her handkerchief, and that was a fatal mistake. Othello made a serious mistake when he gave credence to Iago’s report. For all practical purposes Iago’s villainy did not bring about the tragedy. As Meredith rightly points out:
In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be, Passions spin the plot:
We are betrayed by what is false within.
No extraneous force brings our disaster. Our enemy is always lurking within ourselves. And that enemy is hamartia. In an ideal tragic plot, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and hamartia are all inextricably interwined and deeper the tragic irony.
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Definition of Tragedy
A Definition of TragedyThe term ‘Tragedy’ is used in a common parlance, and yet it cannot be reduced to a formula, for it has so many shades that it actually defies a logical analysis. An American critic has admirable summed up Tragedy in a few words: “Courage and inevitable defeat.” Now-a-days we can never think of a Tragedy without an unhappy ending. But the Greeks did. Philoctetes by Sophocles, for example, has no unhappy ending. There is a similarity between the ancient Greek Tragedy and a modern Tragedy. The hero and certain other characters are caught in a difficult situation.
The character and plot in most of Tragedies are linked up. In Greek Tragedies fate played a very important part, but after the Renaissance character became more and more prominent. In some of Shakespearian Tragedies, despite the importance of character, the motivation of action comes from the supernatural forces or even external circumstances. In modern Tragedies, the hero is often the victim of social forces.
Aristotle defined Tragedy as “a representation of an action, which is serious; complete in itself, and of a certain length; it is expressed in speech made beautiful in different ways in different parts of the play; it is acted, not narrated; and by exciting pity and fear it gives a healthy relief to such emotions.”
Tragedy must be spoudaious i.e. noble, serious, and elevated. The Greek root for Tragedy is tragoidia, which means something serious, but not necessarily a drama with an unhappy ending. Plato has called Homer’s Odyssey a Tragedy, though it is not drama. Seriousness of subject is what really matters.
Tragedy, F. L. Lucas maintains, had three different meanings in the three periods of literary history. In ancient times, a Tragedy meant a serious drama; in medieval times, a Tragedy meant a story with an unhappy ending; and a modern Tragedy is a drama with an unhappy ending.
“Tragedy is an imitation of an action.” And ‘action’ again gives rise to a lot of troubles. A novel or an Epic is narrated, while a drama, be it a Tragedy or a Comedy, is acted. Can there be action without narration? The answer is obvious. The Greek Dramaturgy did not allowed any act of violence on the stage. Even a romantic playwright like Shakespeare had some of the murders reported by messengers. Lucas rightly points out, “Not everything permits itself to be acted. ‘Let not Medea slay her sons before the audience’: things like that, at least, on the Greek stage were relegated to a Messenger’s speech.”
With regard to “an action which is complete in itself,” the controversy has been raging for a long time. What is actually meant by completeness? An action having a beginning, a middle, and an end is said to be complete. T. R. Henn defines ‘completeness’ as totality which Matthew Arnold later called ‘architectonice’. Aristotle himself, in different chapter of the Poetics, has saught to define ‘completeness’. If the play begins abruptly, the reader or the audience may not understand what it is about. Let not the reader ask “What happens then?” The work of art should be rounded off. The Greek art, whether plastic or non-plastic, always insisted on symmetry. Along with symmetry there is frugality. The details are not extraneous. On the contrary, it is an organic unity. If there are details, they are not ornamental, but functional, Aristotle means by ‘completeness’ the organic unity.
The organic unity is linked up with the size of the work of art. If the art has no appropriate limit or size, it loses its symmetry. “Whatever is beautiful, whether it be a living creature or an object made up of various parts, must necessarily not only have its parts properly ordered, but also be of an appropriate size for beauty is banned up with size and order.” If a thing is a thousand miles long, that will also not be beautiful, for the whole thing cannot be taken in all at once, and the unity of the art will be lost sight of Aristotle while speaking of the Plot, again emphasis that the plot of a play, being but representation of an action, must present it as an organic whole. Aristotle says that the Tragedies “should center upon a single action, whole and complete, and having a beginning, a middle and an end, so that like a single complete organism the poem may produce a special kind of pleasure.”
Aristotle emphasizes that the Tragedy should be “expressed in speech made beautiful.” But in the modern age, Tragedies have become realistic, and therefore, the language has become drab and colourless. Another part of Aristotle’s definition of Tragedy is that it should be “acted, not narrated.” This also is a bone of contention.
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Essay: Aristotle's Views on Imitation
Aristotle’s Views on ImitationAristotle had refuted Plato’s conception of imitation. Plato thought imitation to be a deviation from truth. Aristotle thought imitation to be the re-creation of something better than reality. Aristotle in Poetic says:
“Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing are all, viewed as a whole, modes of imitation.”
Aristotle does not bring all the types of art. He speaks only of Epic poetry, Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry and Music. Aristotle has equated poetry with music, while Plato has equated poetry with painting. Aristotle in his opinion said that Poetry and Music have a deeper significance than painting, which is concerned with what has actually happened and with what may happen; not as in Painting which cannot go deep into reality, it is always on the surface. That’s why Aristotle clinches the issue: “From what we have said it will be seen that the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing which might happen, i.e. what is possible as being probable or necessary.”
Poetry, therefore, is the better form of art. It deals with eternal varieties, and not mere facts. It deals with the permanent human thoughts, feelings and action – the eternal passion, the eternal pain. The poet should imitate men who are better than they are in actual life. A poet is not an imitator. He is a maker. The term ‘imitation’ is to be taken in the sense of creation making. It should be remember that the poet, who is maker, does not make anything in material terms. It has no substantial existence. Yet something has been made. Such a making is not perceptible; and it can only be realised.
“Hence Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statement are of the nature of universal, whereas those of history are singulars. By a universal statement I mean one as to what such and such a kind of man will probably or necessarily say or do – which is the aim of poetry.....by a singular statement one as to what, say, Alcibiades did or had done to him.”
The passage above tells us that a poet deals with human thought and passions as they always are. The poet has, no doubt, observed human beings very closely. The poet is not concerned with the passions and action of a particular man. ‘Imitation’, therefore, has a deeper significance for Aristotle.
Aristotle says that a poet deals with the essence. He is not concerned with man’s passing moods of feeling or the transient emotions. Human life is the original of all art, and poetry is no exception. Human life – its mental processes, its spiritual movement, its outward acts issuing from deeper sources; in a word, all that constitutes the inward and essential activity of the soul is what a poet is concerned with.
Poetry becomes the idealised representation of life. It is interesting to note that Hegel, centuries later, said that art is the sensuous representation of the ideal. Imaginative sensibility and idealisation are the constituents of imitation. It may sound paradoxical, that a poet has to be subjective. Aristotle, the father of classical criticism, the doughty champion of objectivity, unconsciously perhaps justified subjectivity. The empirical world – the world of experience, is thus transmuted into an ideal world. Aristotle has nowhere used the term ‘Imagination’.
God has created man and natural phenomena. The poet has re-created them. The poet re-creates the universal element in human life. Art deals with the permanent and essential elements of the original. It may be noted that the real and the ideal are not opposed to each other. The poet with his creative vision can reproduce or re-create an ideal world. ‘Imitation’ is not a copy of the original. It is a creative act, and nature is an artist. She has many contradictions in her creation. She creates beauty as well as ugliness. The poet is nature’s rival, and he outshines her, he creates things not as they are, but as they ought to be. The conclusion is irresistible that a poet does not beguile us with the deceptive shows and illusions of life. He is a creator – a greater creator than nature herself.
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Summary: Aristotle "Poetics"
A Brief Summary of Aristotle’s “Poetics”Aristotle opens the Poetics by defining poetry as Mimesis or imitation. Imitation is the common principle of all arts. Some arts imitate by means of colour and shape; while some imitate by means of voice.
Aristotle never gives an explicit analysis of the term ‘imitation.’ He has taken the term from Plato, who believes that art is the copy of the copy, twice removed from truth. Aristotle’s conception of imitation is a corrective to Plato. Art imitates the world of man’s mind. Art is not mere imitation. It is a re-creation. “Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statement are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
Poetry, according to Aristotle, is imitation of men in action. They may be even as they are. In Tragedy, men are better than they are, while in Comedy men are worse than they are. In Tragedy, the characters are good, but if they are almost deified they cannot rouse our sympathy. Similarly in Comedy, the men are worse than they are. They are worse than common men not as regards any and every sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the ridiculous which is a species of the ugly.
Aristotle divides the poetry into the narrative and dramatic. The narrative poetry is known as the Epic, while dramatic poetry is Tragedy or Comedy. He believes that poetry owes its origin to the primitive instincts to imitate. Whenever there was the imitation of the good and noble, there was the birth of Tragedy and Epic; when the poets imitated the ignoble and the mean, they produced Comedy and Satire.
Epic poetry and Tragedy have been contrasted by Aristotle. They have three similarities; 1) they are metrical, 2) they are imitations of serious subjects in a grand style, and 3) the poets try to idealize the characters. Meanwhile, the differences between them are; 1) the Epic is in narrative form, written in one single kind of verse or metre, while Tragedy is written in a number of metres. 2) an Epic does not observe the unity of time, it may cover many days, while Tragedy observes the unity of time and endeavours to keep within a single circuit of the sun, i.e. one day.
Tragedy is an imitation of an action; the language will have pleasant accessories, which means language, rhythm and tune. The action of the Tragedy should be complete. It must have a beginning, middle and end. If there is an abrupt beginning, it will not be intelligible to the readers or the audience. The length of the play must also be appropriate, neither too short nor too long. If it is too short or too long, the unity and wholeness of it will be lost sight of. The end must also be emotionally and intellectually satisfying. He said that the end of Tragedy is Catharsis or Purgation or emotional relief. The direct object of Tragedy is to arouse pity and fear – the pity of the audience is for the hero, while the fear is for themselves.
A Tragedy, according to Aristotle, has six parts of elements; Plot, Character, Thought, Diction or Language, Melody or Music, and Spectacle. Plot is the soul of Tragedy. It must be a complete whole and should have logical coherence. The plot of Tragedy should deal with ideal or universal truth. Plot are generally divided into two types – simple and complex. A simple plot is a plot without peripeteia and anagnorisis, while a complex is one having peripeteia or anagnorisis both. Peripeteia means the change of fortune; and anagnorisis means discovery, recognition or revelation. The third element in plot, beside peripeteia and anagnorisis, is tragic suffering, i.e. murder or persecution displayed on stage.
Aristotle is in favour of avoiding three types of plot. A good man must not be seen passing from happiness to misery, or a bad man from misery to happiness. If it happens, it may be morally satisfying, but nevertheless it will not move us to pity or fear.
As regards the characters in a Tragedy, Aristotle likes the playwright to aim at four things. First, the character should be good. Secondly, the portrayal should be appropriate. Thirdly, the characters should be life-like, i.e. true to type and equally true to human nature. Last, the characters should have consistency.
In general, the ideal tragic hero should be neither too good nor too bad. He should be the intermediate kind of personage, one not pre-eminently virtuous and just whose misfortune is brought about by hamartia, i.e. an error of judgment.
In Tragedy, according to Aristotle, has six types of discovery. First, the discovery by means of signs or tokens. These signs may be congenital, or they may be acquired, for example, in Ulysses, the nurse could identify Ulysses through his scar. Second, the self revelation of a person. For example, in Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes reveals himself to his sister. Third, the discovery through the effect of associations. For example, in the Tale of Alcinous, Ulysses weeps when the minstrel’s harp reawakens the past for him. Fourth, The discovery as the result of reasoning. For example, in the Chouphori, there is a statement “Someone who is like me has come; no one is like me except Orestes; therefore it is Orestes who has come.” Fifth, It arises from the fallacious reasoning. For example, In Odysseus the False Messenger, the speaker said that he would know the bow, which he had not seen. It is obviously absurd that a person should recognize a thing hither to unknown. Sixth, the discovery which is brought about by the incidents themselves.
Every Tragedy must have its complication and its denouement. Complication means that part of the story from the beginning to the stage immediately before the significant change to good or bad fortune. And by denouement is meant the part from this change to the end of the Tragedy. The deepening of the plot is ‘complication’, and the unravelling of complication is ‘denouement’. A master artist should know them well. There are four types of Tragedy – Complex Tragedy which depends exclusively on peripeteia and anagnorisis, Tragedy of Character which emphasizes the moral character of the hero, Tragedy of Suffering which deals with the suffering of the hero as in the play of Ajax, and Spectacular Tragedy which offers excellent spectacles as in Peleus.
Aristotle also defines a letter, a vowel, a semi-vowel, a syllable, a connecting-word, an article, a noun, a verb, case, inflexion, and a phrase. He also dwells at length on metaphors. The language abounding in an unfamiliar usages has some dignity, for it is lofty. There are two main extremes – meanness and extravagance, which are to be avoided. The best language must be that lying in the middle of them.
Aristotle’s discussion of Epic poetry is rather fragmentary. This is partly because much of what he has written on Tragedy applies to Epic also. Like a Tragedy, an Epic should also deal with single event. The action should be single, whole and complete, having a beginning, middle and end. As Tragedy, it also can be divided into two groups – simple and complex. The simple Epic turns on the moral character of the hero while the complex Epic turns on suffering and passion. Heroic hexameter is the right metre for an Epic. An Epic poet should speak as little as possible in his own person. In an Epic, the element of the marvellous should be introduced. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
About Criticism, he says that the poet should aim at the representation of life: and there are ways of representation – either as they are, or as they are said to be or seem to be, or as they ought to be. In poetry, improbabilities may be justified as long as the art attains its true end. It also may be justified on the ground that they idealize the reality. They may also be poetically true, though not actually true.
In the last section of the Poetics, Aristotle discusses the relative merits of Epic and Tragedy. In Epic, it free from the vulgarity of acting; while in Tragedy, the vulgarity is the fault of the actors. Aristotle insists that Tragedy is the better form of art as it has all element of Epic, besides, it also has music and spectacle to which Epic can lay on claims. Its effect is more compact and concentrated, and also more unity than Epic. That’s why he said that Tragedy is the better form of art.
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Essay: Thomas More's Utopia
The First Book of UtopiaThe first book of Utopia was written second, on More’s return to England from his embassy. The object of Book I is to point the contrast between a rationally ordered state, such as the far-off island commonwealth of the Utopians described in the second book, and the Europe of More’s day, where all, from Kings downward, are bent on self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Kings manipulate alliances, war with each other for territory, exhorts money from their subjects. Their subjects, in turn, oppress others of their subjects.
It is important to realize that in this account of the evils of his day as well as in the description of utopia itself, More is no radical reforms, looking to see a system swept away and a bright new one put in its place. His view of society is of an ordered hierarchy and just keeping of degree, from the divinely invested, God fearing King downward. It was to the keeping of that social order in its best and fairest form that More devoted himself both in theory and in practice and it is to full participation in that form that he invites the scholar and philosophers in the first book of his Utopia.
The author is introduced, by the town clerk of Antwerp, to one of the 24 men left behind in South America by Vespune. The man is Raphael Hythlodaeus, whose name is derived from Greek, like most of the names in the Utopia and means ‘babbler’, who has returned after making voyages of his own and seeing strange places. Hythlodaeus talks of his adventure and travels, tells of a society where all are ordered according to the dictates of reason and of nature, where people do not say one thing and to another. (He describes America as a breeding ground for thieves). The matter of the first book is a criticism of the condition of England, and cloth are the rule among the privileged (included among these are the clergy) and where there is a ceaseless quest for wealth.
More’s serious with never obscures the implied comparison between the virtuous pagans of utopia with the professed Christians of Europe, who fall so short of standards of reasonable conduct, either pagan or Christian Utopia demand that all its citizen participate for a set time in the agriculture which supplies the necessities of an unpretentious life from the labour of a six-hour day. Its social organisation is patriarchal, in family units, with slaves for menial duties. All property is held in common and the Utopians are indifferent to money, gold, silver, and previous stones. All the activities of the citizens are carefully supervised, included travel, marriage, the care of the sick, the elimination of the old and infirm. The Utopians hate war, but if they cannot avoid it, they try to minimize its harm to the state by shortening it by every means available, including treachery, and by hiring mercenaries to fight it for them. They are not afraid to do what is morally reprehensible in order to secure a greater good. In peace, they keep faith, both public and private, and therefore have no need of buns and lawyers. They tone knowledge and wisdom, they pursue happiness. In “good and decent pleasure, they worship a single God, and they believe in the immortality of the soul and the happiness of the life after death. They observe the greatest solemnity in the practice of their religion and are convinced of its truth, but they would abandon it for one that could be proved better.
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Essay: Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Ubervilles"
Narrative Technique in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.By: George Fleischer "All works of fiction tell a story but what sets them apart is the particular way in which the story is told". Discuss the narrative technique of Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what this method enables hardy to achieve. The narrative technique of an author in any novel is crucial to the readers understanding of the narrative. The way in which a novel is written influences the way in which the reader interprets the events which occur throughout the novel and allows the author to convey the feeling of time, place, and people in the society in which the author is attempting to impart to his or her readers.
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, author Thomas Hardy uses a variety of narrative techniques in order to convey his own impressions of the society in which both he and his character Tess lived. Hardy's use of a third person omniscient narrator who is all knowing adds to the vulnerability of Tess by the reader's knowledge of what other characters say and do, whilst simultaneously detaching himself from the tragedy of Tess. The use of extensive description of setting by Hardy allows the reader to interpret the action, reactions, and moods of the characters in relation to the specific atmosphere in which they exist at the time and the influence which such a setting has on the character's feelings and emotions. Hardy's use of religious and mythological allusions and metaphysical symbols allow the reader to reflect on the religious and sociocultural environments in which the narrative is set so as to allow the reader to better understand and interpret the actions and emotions of the characters due to the reader's knowledge of their environmental influences. An effective narrative technique used by Hardy is the provision of a more direct means of communication between his characters and the reader. This is achieved through the use of dialogue, letter writing, and songs and poetry. Dialogue between characters allows Hardy to present his characters to his readers in a more direct way. It permits Hardy to allow his readers to interpret the characters in a way which is less influenced by his own narration and by which the readers are able to judge for themselves the characters by how they speak and communicate with others as well as the content of their converse. Letter writing and songs and poetry allow the reader to be directly informed of the actions and their rationale as well as the feelings of a specific character by which the reader is able to interpret these being influenced by the specific character rather than Hardy himself, and also allows the reader an insight into the social and cultural backgrounds of the society as reasoning for the characters behaviour and emotions. The way we read, interpret, and reflect on a novel is greatly influenced by the author and his or her use of narrative techniques in order to appropriately convey the characters and their society. An omniscient narrator is one who knows all and sees all. It allows the reader and indirect insight into the actions and emotions of specific characters. The omniscience of the narrator allows the reader to not be influenced by the character in the interpretations of the character's behaviour and feelings and also encourages the reader to sympathise with Tess in her tragic and unfortunate predicament. Using such a narrative technique, Hardy allows himself to be somewhat detached from his characters, often appearing as though he himself does not sympathise with the tragedy that is Tess. The effect of the novel not being narrated by Tess is that we as the reader are given a perception of the lives of other characters which Tess herself is unaware of. It allows us to interpret for ourselves the predicament which characters other than Tess are placed in through our own eyes with the influence of Hardy and not through Tess. However, this style of narration prevents the reader from having a direct line into the thoughts and feelings of Tess and other characters, and does not allow for the character to directly communicate with their readers in a way which would inform the readers of the workings of the character's mind, what they do, and why they do it. However Hardy manages to overcome this difficulty through the use of other narrative techniques such as dialogue and letter writing. Setting in this case refers to the specific surrounding environment and it's atmosphere in which a character exists at a specific point in time. The particular setting in which a character exists reflects the character's moods, actions, reactions, and their rationale for these, whilst the setting also influences how a character behaves. Hardy's comprehensive description of these settings also conveys to the reader the insignificance of individual characters in relation to the social atmosphere in which they live as a whole. Upon the commencement of chapter two, Hardy describes the county of Marlott and the surrounding Vale of Blackmoor in terms of its rural beauty and cultural atmosphere whereby a May Day dance is being held. This description of setting reflects the peaceful atmosphere of the county at that time, much like that of Tess and her family, creating suspense for the events to come. Prior to Alec's violation of Tess, Hardy describes the setting of Chaseborough as "a decayed market town" (Chapter 10) where Alec, Tess, and their companions have chosen to spend their evening drinking. An atmosphere of chaos and disorder has thus been set with Tess's intoxicated and unruly companions turning into "satyrs clasping nymphs" (Chapter 10). This creation of a embroiled and uncomfortable environment for Tess alerts the reader to advancing events. Hardy makes note of the fog in the woods which is regarded as a metaphorical representation of entrapment. It is during this tumult that Alec takes advantage of the sleeping Tess.
In the second phase of the novel, Tess is seen making her way back to Marlott at which point she is overtaken by Alec. Tess refuses converse with him and leaves him to go down the "crooked lane" (chapter 12). It is here where we realise that Hardy's created topography of Wessex represents the moral condition of the characters. Two distinct setting placed in stark contrast to each other are Tess's journey to The Slopes where Alec lives and Tess's journey to Talbothay's dairy. Upon departing for The Slopes, Tess is reluctant and indisposed to her impending situation. She does not enjoy the journey in the least, feeling that her excursion will result in unwanted consequences. However travelling to Talbothays Tess's ride is swift and pleasant. Tess feels a sense of purpose in beginning a fresh new chapter of her life, and considers the journey more of a "pilgrimage" (chapter 16). Upon arriving at the dairy, Tess observes that this a place of good spirits where "she appeared to feel that she really had laid a new foundation for her future" (chapter 16). Hardy juxtaposes the residences of both Alec and Angel, contrasting Alec's estate on The Slopes and Angel's elevated dwelling. This contrast in setting reflects Tess's respective relationships between herself and both Alec and Angel. In the midst of the blossoming relationship between Tess and Angel at the dairy, Hardy describes the setting as "oozing fatness and warm ferments... the hiss of fertilisation... The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by their surroundings". (chapter 23). This description of setting reflects the relationship between Tess and Angel and the atmosphere in which their relationship matures. However this was not to last. Following the demise of Tess and Angel's marriage, Tess arrives at Flincomb Ash. Such a name conveys the impression of a stark and desolate setting which reflects Tess's on misery and suffering. The land in harsh and barren, possibly representing the love of lack thereof between Tess and Angel. The work is onerous and toilsome, contrasting considerably with Tess's joyful labour at Talbothay's. Tess's depression reaches it's climax here in the barren wasteland and "the joyless monotony of things" (chapter 46). it is amidst this desolate and destitute environment where Alec surfaces again to declare his love for Tess. Tess refuses his pleas, still hoping for the return of her beloved Angel. When Angel finally does return, it is amidst the luxurious seaside resort at Sandbourne whereby Tess is described as being expensively dressed and living in affluence. This setting conveys the impression of both an inappropriate environment for Tess, representing her union with Alec, but also a prosperous environment representing her reunion with Angel.
Hardy's effective use of dynamic setting is used in order to allow Hardy to convey the moods and feelings of his characters which are reflected by the setting in which the specific characters exist at that time. Hardy's characters are greatly influenced by the religious and social environments in which they live. Religious and mythological allusions enable Hardy to convey these aspects of his society to his readers. In the opening of the novel, the first character the readers are introduced to is Parson Tringham. No physical description is given and his dialogue is limited, creating an alluding and mysterious figure. The parson represents the religiosity of Hardy's society and communicates to the readers that this is a religious society, whilst also setting the scene for Tess's introduction to the readers and for the events to come. At the commencement of the second phase of the novel "maiden no more", Tess is seen burdened with a heavy basket and a large bundle. This can be regarded as the metaphysical symbol of oppression and hardship. Some time later as Tess and Angel depart from the dairy after their wedding ceremony, a cock is heard crowing. Such is an omen of bad luck, and according to biblical references, the cock crowing three times as it had done intensifies the omen even more. This religious allusion represents the religious implications and consequences for Tess's decision not to inform Angel of her past, whilst also creating suspense for the reader as to the events to come.
An effective narrative technique used by Hardy is dialogue between characters. How a character speaks and what they say allow a greater insight into the nature of their individuality. It permits the reader to judge the characters on the basis of their own communication with other characters rather than on Hardy's own interpretation of their converse. Dialogue also informs the reader of a specific character's thoughts and feelings as well as their intentions and rationale for previous actions. Upon the commencement of the novel, the reader is introduced to John Durbeyfield. His dialogue with the unknown parson indicates to the reader that this is an uneducated man who is a member of the lower classes. His dialect may give an indication of his county of origin but also conveys to the readers that he is possibly intoxicated, which we later find out he is, and also slightly pompous without reason. Thus Hardy's use of dialogue here sets the scene for Tess's introduction to the reader. Also used by Hardy in order to create a more intimate relationship between the characters and his readers is the use of letter writing and songs. Having set their wedding date for New Years Eve, Tess and Angel relish their time together, however upon trying on her wedding dress, Tess cannot help but remember one of her mother's songs: "That would never become a wife That had once done amiss" (chapter 32) This song allows Tess to return to her childhood in her adulthood, and also allows her to convey a typical value of the society in which she lived, a women who had committed an indiscretion in her early years shall never be married. This song also imparts to the reader Tess's fears and doubts, and the extent to which her guilty conscience is imploring her to inform Angel of her past. During the climax of Tess's depression whereby she is in a state of "utter stagnation" (chapter 41), Tess receives a letter from her former dairymaid friend Marian, asking Tess to join her at Flincomb Ash. Once having arrived at Flincomb Ash, and Tess having subjected Alec to an "insulting slap" (chapter 48), Tess resolves to write to Angel, imploring him to "save me from what threatens me!" (chapter 48). Having returned home to her ill mother, only to be informed of her father's death, Tess now resolves to write to Angel yet again, this time in a bitter letter abusing Angel for his mistreatment of her. Having received no reply from Angel, Marian and Izz write to Angel beseeching him to return to Tess. The use of letter writing enables Hardy to create a more intimate relationship between his characters and the readers, allowing the readers to understand the character's behaviour and their rationale. Hardy's use of an omniscient narrator, descriptive setting, allusion and metaphysical symbols, and letter writing and songs in Tess of the D'Urbervilles enables Hardy to influence the way his readers understand an interpret the events of the novel. These narrative techniques are highly effective in establishing a relationship between the characters and the reader and also in conveying to the readers the various aspects of Hardy's society. An understanding of these religious, social, and cultural aspects allows the reader to rationalise the actions and emotions of the characters in relation to the society in which these character's live. It is crucial for the readers to comprehend the background and aspects of Hardy's society in order that they be able to realistically explicate the plot of the novel in relation to the environment in which the characters exist.
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Hamlet: The Grave Digger Scene
The Light from the Grave“He sobb’d and he sighted, and a gurgle he gave
Then he plunged himself into the billowy wave
And an echo from the suicide grave
Oh! Willow, tit willow, tit willow.”
I talk to thee mortals, who doth not know what death is... when I commeth... I encompass the novels of the poor and the palaces of the Kings. I spare no mortal! –high or low, rich or poor.
Death is tragic, painful, somber, grotesque. But who ever knew that death could even be laughed at. In William Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet; grave diggers scene is one place where seriousness, intermingles with the comic element...and the end product? One of the greatest works of literature is born.
The occasional admission of comic ingredient in a tragedy to make it light, humorous is one of the most interesting forms of tragedy. This intrusion of the comic into the tragic mode is called comic relief. Though Aristotle in his Poetics does not make allowance for the dilution series action, English drama fortunately is replete with instances to show how comedy and tragedy occurred frequently in mystery, miracle and morality plays. In early Elizabethan tragedy, the same tradition was continued making Sir Philip Sidney define his confusion in his Apology for Poetry. Pre-Shakespearian dramatist like Marlowe, in his DR. Faustus and The Jew of Malta alternates the tragic with the comic.
The incongnous mixture, in the Jew of Malta, becomes so insistent as to take away the tragic impact of the play together – it becomes, in the words of Elliot, “A monstrous force, rather than either a comedy or a tragedy.”
But the apotheosis of this tendency of using the comic in tragedy and its final canonization become popular in Shakespeare. The comic relief is a regular feature in Shakespeare.
The part played by fool in Kinglear, porter in Macbeth is the same as the apart played by the grave diggers in Hamlet. The amalgamates of comic sequences introduces low tragedy into a high tragic situation. In there cases, the function of the comic scene is not only to provide relief and lesson the tragic-illusion, but also to intensify the tragic. Just like chicken soup intensifies your appetite before taking in chicken Biryani.
The grave digger scene is divided into two parts; in the first part, Hamlet contemplates the morality of man as he watches the human skull being tossed from their sleepy graves by the grave diggers. The grave digger are med to foreshadow that more deaths will occurs in his tragic play, and the audience is made to wonder for whom the next grave will be readied.
The entry of Hamlet, marks the second part of the scene. He comes out of his pretended madness when he faces the reality of the death of Ophelia. It is heart rendering for all of us to observe Ophelia’ burial and realize that Hamlet has lost her forever. Pre-occupied with his vengeance he knows that he has allowed her to slip from his grasp into the river. This is the river of death, dear readers from where one can only sink deeper and deeper and never come out. Hamlet feels alone, having lost his father, mother and true love. When Hamlet cannot take the pain any longer, he jumps into her grave, grave beside Leartes. This totally human response for Hamlet demonstrates that no amount of philosophizing can reduce his heart ache and that no amount of rengience can fill the void left by the death of a loved one.
The grave diggers was a place between the rapidly rising actions of the last few tragic scenes and the suploning final tragedy. It also allows the audience to see Hamlet again in his normal disposition. Possessing a fine slues of humor, he is capable of appreciating the wit of the grave diggers even in the midst of perils and pitfalls, even in the midst of his loneliness, his troubles. Possessing a depth of sentiments and emotions. Hamlet frees himself from the pretense and openly expresses his grief by entering Ophelia’s grave – he does not realize that he will soon be entering his own grave.
In Kinglear, the fool serves precisely the purpose of providing relief with words of ironic significance, constantly reminding tears of his own foolishness. The fool actually exists on the margins of tragedy and comedy. He even helps fear to plunge into the tragedy of madness. In Macbeth, the function of the porter scene is equally ambiguous. The porters, drunken messiment relieves the horror of Duncais murder and at the same time confines Macbeth castle to hell. Like the porter and the fool, the grave diggers introduce symbolic dimension in the play, making in realize the philosophers of death.
The grave diggers are thus, professed clowns of the play and they provide a unique kind of humor in the play. The humor provided by the grave diggers serve to lighten the tragic stress of Ophelia’s death but their humor is not out of peace. In keeping with the sombre spirit of the play, the jest about graves and corpses, bones, and skulls. As they discourse on death. They comment on growing in the most light hearted manner.
“Here us the water-good here stands the man good
If the man go to this water and drown himself
It is, will he will he, he goes, mark you that. But
If the water come to him, he drowns not himself.”
Then the first grave digger says there is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grade markers, because they hold up Adams when Hamlet and Horatio arsine the witty talks are intensified with more humors. Hamlet tells him “Thou liest in it”, the grave digger replies “One that was a woman, sir, but nest horsoul, she is dead.”
The comic relief for Shakespeare is in tune with the tragic temper. A Jacobean audience would promptly appreciate the serious intension of this black comedy. The grave diggers of Shakespeare in way represent the grave that Hamlet life has become. He connects it to the dwellers of Danesque inferno.
The grave digger scene is technically very important for a perfect climax. It gives the King and Leartes tune and scope to change their costume from Act IV Sc VII, critics feel that the stage talking in Act V Sc II, needed certain changes as well, as a result the grave diggers scene becomes highly imperative at this point of time.
The grave diggers scene is one of the most popular events in English literature. A young man in black examining a skull at arms length – gives us the image of Hamlet. Hamlet and Yorick become the single most powerful icon of the actor and his property in all of English Drama rather Western Drama. Shakespeare props in Drama are highly functional as well as symbolic. They maybe perfectly neutral objects but greatly embroiled in action. Like handkerchief embroidered with strawberries. The dagger in Macbeth, blood spreads across the stage in the wasting scene, and like flag which stands for revolutions.
The entering of Hamlet and Horatio responds to grave diggers’ song, as they generally perceive his activity. The grave diggers verses were first pointed in Tottles miscellany.
In Act V Scene I, however have only discussed about dust, but the scene can be understand as pushing the macabone meditation (a single figure of death in tates dialogue with various stations and estates) even further. Hamlet is caught here in an universe of hopelessness. Hamlet thus burst out into a rhyme, perhaps even into song. Hamlet is here perhaps anticipating his own death. Hamlet has not only totally absorbed the point of view of the grave diggers, but his real and physical energies as well.
“Here comes the King” at line 210 moves us abruptly into next unit of action, the grave diggers fade as the stage fills with actors. The open trap with perhaps displayed skulls remain a focus of attentions. However we clearly observe, Yorick’s bones broken apart and spread to make a last resting place for Ophelia. The fool and Death, The fool as Death, Death and Maiden, a fresh corpse and withened old bones. We are now moreover, within a Shakespearian archetypal construct that is not peculiar to Hamlet, the association of fool and Maiden – Viole, Feste, Rosalina Touchstone, leans fool and Cordillia. The symbolism has little to do with traditional folksy a submitting woman wiles of fleeting earthly beauty. It has everything to do with the experience of innocence, vulnerability and fragile joy. Hamlet under moments over Yorick’s skull are physically and imaginatically linked to all that he has lost in Ophelia. His earlier “mad” perusal of Ophelia’s face “as a would draw it” (2.1) might have already indicated the artist experiencing the skull beneath the skin. Yorick, he opened grave indeed becomes, the curiously imploded stage for Hamlet’s supreme act of folly in the antic disposition, his struggle with Leartes for Ophelia’s love. And thus we can see the humble prop, emerges out of a tradition, become in Act V of Hamlet of the great whell of folly, love, and Death upon which so much of Shakespeare turns.
The grave covers every defect extinguishes every resentment from its peaceful bosom springs none but fond regrets and tender recollection who can look down upon the grave of an enemy and not feel a compunctions throb that he should have warsed with the poor handful of dust that lies moldering before him.
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Shakespeare: Hamlet "to be, or not to be."
Shakespeare's Hamlet: "To be, or not to be, that is the question:" By: Purwarno HadinataTo be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The sling and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
(III, I, 56 – 60)
The above lines are part of a famous soliloquy by Hamlet in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The revelation made by the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father had come as a shock to Hamlet who had therefore formed a resolve to avenge the murder of his father by his uncle Claudius. However, he has so far not able to take any steps in the direction of the revenge which he has been contemplating. He has merely been brooding over the problem with which he is faced, but he has not yet been able to come to any definite decision. In the soliloquy from which these lines have been taken, Hamlet discusses with himself the pros and cons of suicide. Hamlet asks himself whether he should kill himself of he should continue to live and endure the sorrows of life. The question before him is whether it would be nobler for him to undergo the mental torture caused by the blows and buffeting administered to him by an arbitrary fate, or it would be nobler to fight against the overwhelming force of life’s misfortunes and thus try to put an end to those misfortunes.
Source: Purwarno Hadinata
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Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
Shakespeare's "Hamlet": "To die--to sleep,"By: Purwarno Hadinata To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep:
To sleep, perchance to dream—
(III, I, 60 – 65)
The above lines are part of the most famous soliloquy by Hamlet in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The above lines talk about Hamlet’s view towards death. According to Hamlet Death means a kind of sleep. Indeed, to die is no more than to sleep. Suppose that by falling into the slumber of death we can put an end to our mental suffering and to the numerous blows which descend upon every human being in this world. If, with our death, all our misfortunes really come to an end, it would mean that we have achieved a result which is sincerely and seriously to be desired. To die means to fall asleep; and to fall asleep may mean perhaps seeing dreams.
Source: Purwarno Hadinata
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Summary: HAMLET
Short Summary of HamletHamlet starts with soldiers changing the guard outside of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. The new guards have brought along a scholar named Horatio because they claim to have seen a ghost. Horatio is skeptical of their story until the ghost actually appears. He then tries to speak to it, but the ghost remains silent until it stalks away.
Horatio tells the guards that the ghost was dressed the same way Old Hamlet (the former King of Denmark and Hamlet's father) was dressed when he defeated King Fortinbras of Norway. He further tells them that young Fortinbras, the son, has gathered together an army to attack Denmark. At this point the ghost reappears and Horatio again begs it to speak to him. The ghost seems about to say something but at that moment a cock crows and the ghost vanishes. The guards and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet what they have seen.
King Claudius, who is Hamlet's uncle and who assumed the throne after Hamlet's father died, is in the castle. He has recently married Queen Gertrude, who is Hamlet's mother and the widow to Old Hamlet. Claudius is worried about the fact that young Fortinbras has raised an army against Denmark, and so he sends out messengers to the uncle of young Fortinbras asking him to stop his nephew. Claudius then turns to Laertes, the son of Polonius, and asks him why he requested an audience. Laertes asks the king for permission to return to France, which he is granted.
Claudius finally turns his attention to Hamlet, who is standing in black robes of mourning for his father. He tells Hamlet that it is unnatural for a man to mourn for such a long period of time. Queen Gertrude agrees, and asks Hamlet to wear normal clothes again. Both the king and queen then beg Hamlet to stay with them at the castle rather than return to his studies in Wittenberg. Hamlet agrees to stay, and both his mother and uncle rush out of the palace to celebrate their new wedding.
Horatio arrives with the guards and tells Hamlet that they have seen his father's ghost. Hamlet is extremely interested in this, and informs them that he will join them for the watch that night.
Laertes is finishing his packing and is also giving his sister Ophelia some brotherly advice before he leaves. He warns her to watch out for Hamlet whom he has seen wooing her. Laertes tells Ophelia to ignore Hamlet's overtures towards her until he is made king, at which point if he still wants to marry her then she should consent. Polonius arrives and orders his son to hurry up and get to the ship. Polonius then gives Laertes some fatherly advice, telling him to behave himself in France. Laertes departs, leaving Ophelia with Polonius. Polonius then turns to her and asks what has been going on between her and Hamlet. She tells him that Hamlet has professed his love to her, but Polonius only laughs and calls her ignorant. He then orders her to avoid Hamlet and to not believe his protestations of love. Ophelia promises to obey her father.
Hamlet, Horatio and a guard meet outside to see whether the ghost will appear. It soon arrives and silently beckons Hamlet to follow it. Hamlet pushes away Horatio, who is trying to hold him back, and runs after the ghost. The guard tells Horatio that they had better follow Hamlet and make sure he is alright.
The ghost finally stops and turns to Hamlet. He tells Hamlet that he is the ghost of Old Hamlet, who has come to tell his son the truth about how he died. He tells Hamlet that he was sitting in the garden one day, asleep in his chair, when Claudius came up to him and poured poison into his ear. He was killed immediately, and because he was not allowed to confess his sins, he is now suffering in Purgatory. The ghost of Old Hamlet then orders his son to seek revenge for this foul crime before departing.
Hamlet is confused about whether to believe the ghost or not, but he makes Horatio and the guard swear to never reveal what they have seen. He decides that he will pretend to be mad in order to fool Claudius and Gertrude until he is able to know whether Claudius really killed his father or not.
Polonius sends his servant Reynaldo to France in order to spy on Laertes. He order Reynaldo to ask the other Danes what sort of reputation Laertes has in order to make sure his son is behaving. Reynaldo promises to do this and leaves for France. Ophelia enters looking extremely frightened and informs her father that Hamlet has gone mad. She tells him that Hamlet entered the room where she was sewing and took her wrist. After staring into her eyes for a long while he walked out of the room without ever taking his eyes off of her. Polonius concludes that Hamlet must have gone mad because he ordered Ophelia to reject Hamlet's affections.
Claudius and Gertrude have invited two friends of Hamlet to come and spy on Hamlet. They are aware that Hamlet is acting strangely and want the friends to figure out what the problem is. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eager to please King Claudius, agree to try and find out what is wrong with Hamlet. They leave, and Polonius enters with news that the messengers are back from Norway. Claudius tells him to bring the messengers in.
The messengers inform Claudius that after they arrived, the uncle of Fortinbras sent his nephew a summons. Young Fortinbras obeyed, and the uncle chastised him for attempting to attack Denmark. Fortinbras apologized for his behavior and received an annual allowance from his uncle as a token of goodwill. Further, the uncle gave Fortinbras permission to attack Poland. Since Fortinbras would have to march through Denmark in order to reach Poland, the uncle sent Claudius a letter asking for safe passage. Claudius, overjoyed by this news, assents to give permission.
Polonius then tells him that he knows the reason for Hamlet's madness. He reads Claudius and Gertrude one of the letters Hamlet sent to Ophelia in which Hamlet professes his love for her. Claudius is not entirely convinced, and so he and Polonius agree to set up a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia that they will be able to spy on.
Hamlet enters the room and cuts their plotting short. Polonius asks the king and queen to leave him alone with their son, to which they assent. Polonius then tries to talk to Hamlet, who, feigning madness, calls him a fishmonger and asks him if he has a daughter. Hamlet continues to insult Polonius until Polonius finally gives up in frustration.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive and Hamlet recognizes them. He greets them warmly and asks what brings them to Denmark. They only give an ambiguous answer, from which Hamlet infers that Claudius asked them to come. Hamlet then reveals to them that he has been very melancholic lately, and gives that as the reason he has been acting mad. They try to cheer him up by telling him some actors arrived with them on their ship. Hamlet is overjoyed to hear this news, and he immediately goes to find the actors.
He succeeds in finding the players and asks them to perform a speech from Dido and Aeneas for him. One of them agrees and performs the part where Priam, the father of Aeneas, is killed. He then continues with the part where Hecuba, Priam's wife, sees her husband being murdered and lets out a cry that rouses even the gods. Hamlet tells him it is enough when Polonius begs the actor to stop. He then asks the actors if they can perform the murder of Gonzago as well some extra lines that he will write for them. They agree and leave to rehearse their parts. Hamlet meanwhile has compared the murder of Priam to his own father's murder and has become outraged with Claudius, whom he hopes to reveal as the murderer through the play that he asked the actors to perform that night.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Claudius and Gertrude that they really do not know what the matter with Hamlet is. They can only say that he seems distracted, but that the arrival of the actors made him happier. Polonius then tells Claudius that Hamlet is putting on a play that night and requested that they attend. Claudius agrees to go.
Polonius hears Hamlet coming and he and Claudius quickly made Ophelia stand in clear view while they hide themselves. Hamlet enters and gives his "To be or not to be; that is the question" (3.1.58) speech. He stops when he sees Ophelia and goes over to speak with her. Hamlet rudely tells her that he never loved her and orders her to go to a nunnery. After he leaves, Claudius tells Polonius that Hamlet does not seem to be mad because of Ophelia, but Polonius still believes that she is the real reason for his melancholic madness.
Hamlet puts on a play called The Mousetrap for Claudius and Gertrude, as well as other attendants in the castle. The play involves a king who is murdered by his nephew while sleeping in the garden. As the nephew pours poison into the king's ears, King Claudius becomes so outraged that he stands up, thereby forcing the play to end. He orders light to be shone on him and stalks angrily out of the room.
Hamlet is delighted by this and is convinced that the ghost was telling the truth. Horatio agrees with him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then arrive and tell Hamlet that his mother wants to see him in her private chambers immediately. Polonius soon arrives with the same news. Hamlet sends them all away and plans to reveal what he knows to his mother in order to see if she was part of the plot to kill his father.
Claudius, overcome with emotion, prays to heaven to forgive him his sin. He admits to committing the murder of his brother. Hamlet enters silently with his sword and is about to kill Claudius when he realizes that Claudius is praying. Since that would mean that Claudius would be absolved of his sins if he died right then, Hamlet stops and decides to wait until he can kill Claudius when his "soul may be as damned and black as hell" (3.3.94-95).
Hamlet then goes to see his mother. He immediately insults her for having married Claudius so soon after his father's death. She gets scared and calls for help, causing Polonius (who is hidden behind a curtain spying on them) to make a sound. Hamlet pulls out his dagger and kills Polonius through the curtain, but he is disappointed when her realizes it is not the king. Hamlet then shows his mother two pictures of both Claudius and Old Hamlet, comparing them for her. She is almost at the point where she believes him when the ghost appears and Hamlet starts to speak to it. Gertrude, unable to see the ghost, concludes that Hamlet must be truly mad and starts to agree with everything he says in order to get him out of her room.
Claudius, once Gertrude tells him what has happened, orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to prepare to take Hamlet with them to England. He then orders the body of Polonius to be found since Hamlet has hidden it. Hamlet eventually reveals the location of the body and then leaves the castle that night.
While traveling away from Elsinore, Hamlet encounters Fortinbras' army. Fortinbras has just send Claudius a message telling him that the Norwegian army is there and requesting safe passage. Hamlet asks one of the captains what part of Poland they are attacking. The captain refuses to reveal the exact location, and there remains the possibility that Denmark is the true target, although this is not revealed in the play.
Ophelia has meanwhile gone mad at the death of her father. Horatio tries to take care of her, but finally asks Gertrude to help him. Claudius and Gertrude order Horatio to keep an eye on her. Soon thereafter Laertes arrives with a mob. He has returned from France once he learned of Polonius' death and is intent on killing the murderer of his father. Claudius calms him down and tells him that Hamlet is the murderer, and since Hamlet has been sent to England there is no one there to kill. Laertes then sees Ophelia, who fails to recognize him and instead gives him a flower.
Hamlet sends letters back to Denmark. He tells Horatio that the ship was attacked by pirates and that he managed to escape in the process by joining the pirates for a short while as their prisoner. He also tells Horatio that he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on to England, but that he will be returning shortly. Claudius also receives a letter from Hamlet informing him that Hamlet will soon return home. Claudius immediately plots a way to kill Hamlet by having Laertes fight him in a fencing match. Laertes decides to put poison on the tip of his rapier so that any small scratch will kill Hamlet, and Claudius tells him he will also poison a cup of wine and give it to Hamlet as a backup measure. At that moment Gertrude enters and tells the men that Ophelia has drowned herself in a brook. She and Claudius follow Laertes, who is once more grief-stricken.
Hamlet and Horatio come across two gravediggers who are digging a fresh grave. They are engaged in wordplay until one of the men sends the other away to fetch him some liquor. Hamlet watches as the remaining man tosses up skulls and sings while he works. He finally approaches the man and asks who the one skull belonged to. The gravedigger tells him it was Yorick's, a court fool whom Hamlet knew from his youth. Hamlet is shaken by the skull and ponders the fact that all of them return to the earth. He and Horatio are forced to run and hide when Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude arrive with the coffin.
They place the coffin into the ground, but the priest refuses to say any prayers for the dead because Ophelia committed suicide rather then die a natural death. Laertes argues with him, but finally gives up and jumps into the grave in grief. Hamlet, when he realizes who is dead, comes out of hiding and also jumps into the grave. Laertes grabs him by the throat and Claudius is forced to order the other men to intervene and separate them.
Back in the castle Hamlet tells Horatio that before he got off the ship he stole the letters Claudius had given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The letters asked the English king to kill Hamlet. Hamlet, furious at this betrayal, wrote new letters in which he asked the king to kill the messengers, namely Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
A lord named Osric enters the room and informs Hamlet that Laertes has challenged him to a fencing match. Claudius has bet Laertes that he cannot defeat Hamlet by more than three hits during twelve engagements. Hamlet agrees to the dual even though Horatio tells him he cannot win. They enter the match room, and Claudius announces that if Hamlet scores a hit during the first, second, or third bout, then he will drop a valuable pearl into a cup of wine and give it to Hamlet.
Laertes and Hamlet choose their foils and proceed to fight. Hamlet scores a hit which Osric upholds, and Claudius drops his pearl into some wine which he offers to Hamlet. Hamlet, excited by the match, refuses to drink it and asks for the next round. They fight again, and Hamlet wins the next hit as well. Gertrude, thrilled at how well her son is fighting, takes the cup of wine from Claudius and drinks it to celebrate Hamlet's hit. Claudius turns pale when he realizes that she has drunk the poisoned wine, but he says nothing.
They fight again, and Laertes slashes Hamlet out of turn with his poisoned foil, causing Hamlet to bleed. Hamlet is infuriated and attacks him viciously, causing him to drop the foil. Hamlet gets both rapiers and accidentally tosses his rapier over to Laertes. He then slashes Laertes with the poisoned foil, drawing blood as well. They stop fighting when they realize that Queen Gertrude is lying on the ground.
Gertrude realizes that she has been poisoned and tells Hamlet that it was the drink. She dies, and Laertes tells Hamlet that he too is going to die from the poisoned tip. Hamlet, even more furious than before, slashes Claudius with the poisoned tip. He then takes the wine chalice and forces the poison into Claudius' mouth until Claudius falls dead onto the ground. Laertes is also on the ground at this point and he forgives Hamlet for killing Polonius before he too dies.
Hamlet sees Horatio about to drink the remaining poisoned wine and orders him to stop. He tells Horatio that only he can tell the people what really happened and thus reveal the truth. Osric comes in at that moment and informs them that Fortinbras and some ambassadors from England have arrived. Hamlet's final words are to give Fortinbras his vote to become the next King of Denmark.
Fortinbras arrives and looks over the scene of dead bodies. The ambassadors also enter the room and inform Horatio that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been put to death. Horatio asks Fortinbras to order the bodies placed in the public view so that he can tell the people what happened. Fortinbras' final act is to order his soldiers to give Hamlet a military salute by firing their guns.
Source: Grade Saver
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Essay: S. T. Coleridge as a Supernatural Poet
Coleridge as the Poet of the Supernatural Depicted in "The Ancient Mariner"By: Purwarno Hadinata The Ancient Mariner is a tale of a curse which the narrator, the Mariner himself, brings upon himself and his companions by killing an Albatross without reason. Coleridge’s power of handling the supernatural is like the pure music of his verse. The moral of the poem is one of all-embracing love. This poem is full of moral teachings for human beings. Humphry House expresses his agreement with three great critics, Dr. Tillyard, Dr. Bowra, and Robert Penn Warren, that the poem has a very serious moral and spiritual on human life. The moral of the ancient Mariner’s story is that one should love all God’s creatures.
Coleridge is regarded as the greatest poet of the supernatural in English literature and The Ancient Mariner is regarded as a masterpiece of supernatural poetry. His supernatural is controlled by thought and study. Cazamian says, ”The very center of Coleridge art lies in his faculty of evoking the mystery of things, and making it actual, widespread, and obsessing. Even better than Wordsworth, he knows how to handle that species of the supernatural whose essence (spirit) is entirely psychological…. The supernatural element in The Ancient Mariner is a hallucination, the outcome of remorse; by the most sober of method.” His skill in dealing with the supernatural in this poem is two-fold: first, he has fully achieved his aim of making the supernatural appear to be natural; and, second, he has employed suggestive, psychological, and refined (sophisticated) methods of producing the feelings of mystery and horror in the poem, not crude and sensational like that of the writers before him, i.e. Horace, Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Monk Lewis. The greatness of The Ancient Mariner lies chiefly in the technique by which the supernatural has been made believable and convincing. There are, no doubt, a number of impossible, incredible, and fantastic situation in the poem, such as: the mesmeric (magnetic) power in the mariner’s gaze, the sudden appearance of the mysterious skeleton ship, the spectre woman and her mate, the coming back to life of the dead crew, the seraph-band making signals to the land, the sudden sinking of the ship, and the polar spirit commenting on or influencing the course of events. But this supernatural phenomena are so skillfully blended with the perfectly believable and natural phenomena that the whole looks real. The sun shinning brightly at the outset, the mist and snow, the freezing cold of the polar regions, the floating ice bergs floating in the water, the torrid (very hot) fierceness of stagnant water, the slimy things crawling on the sea, the moon going up the sky, the roaring wind, the rainfall—such are the natural phenomena in the poem. The realistic effect is enhanced by a description of the state of mind of the ancient mariner; that is how he tried to pray but he could not, how lonely he felt on a wide, wide sea, how he wanted to die but in vain (useless), how he suffered mental and spiritual anguish (torture). This psychological study of the mariner adds to the realistic effect because we are made to feel that any man would suffer in the same way under similar circumstances.. Again, the details of the ship’s voyage have such a diary-like air that we accept them as a faithful recording of facts. There is, too, the logic of cause and effect in the poem. The punishment and torture have a convincing cause behind them. The realistic effect achieved by Coleridge in The Ancient Mariner is one his great achievements which makes the poem not only convincing and exciting but also in some sense a criticism of life. There are a large number of situations and episodes in The Ancient Mariner, which fill us either with a sense of mystery of a feeling of horror of with both. The first situation that strikes terror in the heart of the Mariner (and also the reader) is the appearance of the skeleton-ship. When this skeleton-ship is sighted in the distance, the sailors feel happy to think that they will now get water to quench their burning thirst. But in a few moment they discover the reality of this ship. The description of the ship with its “ribs” and its “gossamere-like sails” fill us with terror. It is a strange mystery that this ship should sail on the sea without wind and without a tide, while the Mariner’s ship stands still “like a painted shop upon a painted ocean”. Obviously it is a supernatural force, which drives the ship, and the crew also consists of supernatural characters. The feeling of terror is heightened when a reference is made to the crew of this ship. The crew consists of Death and Life-in-Death. But Coleridge creates the sense of horror in this poem not by describing a direct and crude description but by employing suggestive and psychological methods. For instance, he does not describe the physical features of the spectre woman and her death mate or other external phenomena at length, but he simply portrays the effect of those external things on the mariner’s mind. The appearance of Life-in-Death is described in the following three lines: Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy. (Lines 190-92) These three lines are followed by these two: The night-mare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man’s blood with cold. (lines 193-94) Coleridge, after giving us only three lines of description, conveys the horror by saying that the sight of her would have the effect of freezing a man’s blood. In other words, he leaves it to us to imagine for ourselves the horrible appearance of Life-in-Death that personifies the unspeakable torture of a man who cannot die. Coleridge merely offers a few suggestions to be developed by the reader himself. The effect of the skeleton-ship with Death and Life-in-Death on board again conveyed to as by the following two lines: Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! (lines 204-5). That is, instead of giving us a detailed description of the whole horrible sight, Coleridge refers to the effect of that horrible sight upon the mind of the Mariner and says that fear sipped his life-blood. Another situation that produces horror in the poem is the death of the two hundred sailors who dropped down one by one, and each of them looked at the ancient Mariner with a curse in his eyes: One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye. (lines 212-15) The ancient Mariner heard a whiz-like sound every time a soul left its body: The souls did from their bodies fly,— They fled to bliss or woe! And every soul, it passed me by, Like the whizz of my cross-bow! (lines 220-23) What a horrible experience it must have been for the ancient Mariner and how horrible for the reader too. The agony and spiritual torture of the lonely ancient Mariner on a wide wide sea when he could not pray or die are, perhaps, the most terrifying and horrifying elements in the poem. The following stanzas convey some of the horror of the Mariner’s state: I looked upon the rotting sea, And drew my eyes away; I looked upon the rooting deck, And there the dead men lay. I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust. I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet. (Lines 240-52) What makes the situation still more horrifying is that the curse in dead men’s eyes had never passed away: The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away. (Lines 255-56) Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. (Lines 261-62) Here, again, no ugly details are provided. We are to imagine the horror of the situation ourselves. We shudder (tremble) with fear to think of the Mariner who is left alone after seeing “four times fifty living men” dropping down one by one, “with heavy thump, a lifeless lump.” It is at this stage that the Weeding-Guest begins to experience a sensation of fear because he thinks that the Marines himself must also have dropped down dead and that it is the Mariner’s ghost who is now speaking to him and so he says: ‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! .................................. I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand, so brown.’— (lines 224-29) Next, the groaning, stirring, and coming back to life of the dead crew must have been a terrifying experience for the ancient Mariner till he discovered that the bodies were inspired not by their original souls but by a troop of angelic spirit. We are certainly terrified when we read: The dead men gave groan, They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; (lines 330-33) They raised their limbs like lifeless tools We were a ghastly crew. (lines 339-40) In real life, if a dead man happens to open his eyes (because he has not really died), all the mourners get terribly frightened and run away helter-skelter. In this case two hundred dead men got up on their feet and started working at the oars. The horror of the situation can well be imagined. Again, towards the close of the poem, the poet wishes to tell us how horrifying the Mariner’s face appeared after he had undergone his strange adventures. The poet does not describe the features the face; he simply describes the effect of the face upon the Pilot’s mind: I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit; (lines 560-61) In other words, the Mariner’s face was ghastly like the face of a dead man, and it struck so much terror in the Pilot’s heart that the Pilot fainted. The Pilot must have thought that the Mariner was not a human being but some horrible spectre. The effect on the Pilot’s boy was that he went crazy with fear: I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, Who now doth crazy go, Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro. (lines 564-67) As for the Hermit, he too was terrified but, being a holy man, he sought courage from God: The holy Hermit raised his eyes, And prayed where he did sit. (lines 562-563) The Hermit is, indeed, badly shaken and, on stepping forth from the boat, could scarcely stand because of fear: The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, And scarcely he could stand. (lines 572-73) In a nervous state of mind, the Hermit asks the Mariner to tell him immediately what manner of man he is. In short, the horror of the Mariner’s face is conveyed to us through the reactions of the Pilot, the Pilot’s boy, and the Hermit. Coleridge’s treatment of the supernatural is quite different from that of such writers as Horace, Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Monk Lewis. The difference between Coleridge and the others is the difference between the maker of horror and the maker of horrors. Coleridge creates the atmosphere of mystery and fear by indefiniteness and by subtle suggestion, while the others employ crude description and they pile horrors in order to send a cold shiver down the reader’s spine and to curdle the reader’s blood. The theme of this poem is crime, punishment and reconciliation. In this poem the Mariner did not act but was only acted upon and he was the recipient rather than the doer. He is the recipient of the odd and of the fate. There is a tragic flaw for the Mariner as the killing of the bird starts his suffering. The suffering endured by the Mariner is due to killing the bird that represents imagination, and by killing the bird the Mariner kills the imagination and the loss of the imagination is a kind of death. The Mariner suffers mentally and spiritually, and he is isolated. Then in his suffering, he sees water snakes and blesses them, which eventually releases his suffering.
Source: Purwarno Hadinata
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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
