THE PUPIL OF LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION RTE.ie  is an Irish brand and broadcaster. Called Radio Television Ireland, its headquarter is in Dublin. It started its radio service on 1 Jan 1926 and television broadcast on 31 December 1961.  WHY IN THE NEWS? RTE has released dramatized content of Ulysses and other audios related to Joyce and his works.  Ulysses remains Joyce's one of most important works. It is considered a path-breaking work in Modernist Literature.   Originally broadcast in 1982 to celebrate James Joyce's 100th birthday. The RTE adaptation is considered widely for its 29 hrs and 45 minutes duration.  Click here  for a full view.  A peek at  RTE.ie audio dramatization

  In the dead of the night, She stood in front of the mirror. In the company of her incompetence   Struggling to drape a saree. Rustling noises Cacophony of expectations  Jingle of the jhumka Burning kohl Ruddy    lips Flushed cheeks Coloured manicured nails  A bindi placed in the middle  To hold together. Her ragged nerves Met face to face   A woman  Staring long and deep  At lifeless cast aside skin. In her artwork  Carrying a draped complex fabric  The colours and hues The fragrance She set to walk in an arid landscape. Her feet bled  To water the listless  Her brow sweat  To provide refuge  Her eyes burnt brighter Than the scowling sun Her saree  Turned into a bed of lush greenery  As she lay to rest. 

KING LEAR: AN ADVANCED STUDY The article intends to bring together a representative selection of the most useful criticism available upon Shakespeare's King Lear. Coleridge called King Lear ' the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare the poet' The tragedy, derived from the legend of Leir of Britain(a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king), tells the tale of a king who decides to hand down his land and power to his three daughters. The third daughter failing to flatter the King gets nothing while the other two are showered with her half for fawning.  Now, the two daughters upon having wealth and power make the furious old man stripped of titles wake up to the painful realisation of false love and respect. This makes Lear reconcile with his third daughter before she tragically passes away.  A.D Nuttall observes that Shakespearean representation allows us to see aspects of reality we would not otherwise recognise. Harold Bloom goes beyond Nuttall to suggest that Shakespeare mo

THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN INTRODUCTION In the backdrop of Philippine- American War( 1899-1902), Rudyard Kipling justifies imperialism, eurocentric racism and the noble enterprise of civilization through industrialization in his poem " The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands" (1899). Interchanged with poem "Recessional" for the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria's reign ( 1837-1901), Kipling rewrote the poem to exhort Americans to colonize the Philippine Islands conquered from Imperial Spain.  Echoing the related American Philosophy Manifest Destiny , the poem was first published in The New York Sun on 10 Feb 1899. Later, Kipling included the poem in his 1903 collection The Five Nations. The belief of the Western World that colonization is the way to civilise the Third World made Senator Tillman argue against the Treaty of Paris ratifying the claim of US over the Philippine Island.  THE IMPERIALIST INTERPRETATION AND

INTRODUCTION Marriage aided by matchmaking is the most basic traditional institution of human life around the world. In the olden days, marriage was based on the strategic alliance of the Kings. The Anglo-Saxon society or the Indian janapadas extending their belts to become mahajanapadas saw ties to establish peaceful relations by acquiring a territory.  Marriage, especially in Hindu custom is a      ' sanskara ' or purificatory ceremony obligatory for every Hindu. It is a sacred institution in India marking a turning point in an individual's life as he enters the second important phase or ashram of his life- the 'Grahasthyaashram'. ALLIANCE TO MUTUAL CONSENT However, in 1140 the Benedictine monk Gratian brought the concept of consent. From here on, there was more to marriage and matchmaking than just land or property. For instance, the marriage of Dushyanta and Shakuntala is an example of swayamvara.  We have instances of a matrilocal marriage in the Indus Valley C

THE BIAS  What do you do to be taken seriously? How do you tackle conscious bias or even more difficult- the subconscious bias? Today, when the virtual world is enmeshed with the real-the social media platforms decide, largely, your presence or relevance with likes, comments, retweets, views, upvotes and what not! To be heard in microcosm is as vital as to be heard in the macrocosm. The freedom of speech and expression is dear to us and so is healthy validation.  Before settling with the dictum of ' not very likeable', one looks for ways to get past rejections. Not more than 200 years ago and very present even today(Catherine Nicols' essay for Jezebel in 2015), to get published and be on the sacred reading list, a few women authors deviated from the conventional wisdom of- patience, faith, playing by the rules or standing one's own ground.  George Lewes, the partner of Mary Anne Evans, who went by George Eliot ( the Victorian novelist who immortalised her place in the l

Rolling down the window, I see a graveyard of broken dreams. The flaming bookshelf, Combats manifold ice-cold desires.  The tempestuous mind  Murmurs the mutilated spectre, “Rise! Rise! Rise!” The love-sick heart mourns, Congealed in senseless cold. I quiver, Burning in boiling sweat. Do I dare? Not yet dissolved in aflamed desire.  Five summers have passed  In joyless dimmed lonely rooms.  The winds yet again lift the drowsy spirits  Once tameless and swift!  Ashes fly from an unextinguished hearth The light mocks the dark, To survive the joy unravished.  Wake up to the world’s delight Why shrink, my heart?  Why despair over the departed? Nothing walks with aimless feet.  Let not pining visions dim Rekindle forbidden hopes  Complete the dance The floor is waiting to be swept. 

P aula Richman, William H Danforth professor of South Asian Religions at Oberlin, Ohio, specialises in the study of Ramayana and Tamil. In her lecture ' Crossing Boundaries- Narratives and Persons Who Travel' at Delhi-based South Asian University, she spoke on stories travelling across borders over the centuries.    Speaking of the journey of a story or text across borders, she cited how Ramayana has taken "different forms, where stories are not only translated but retold, with each poet retelling it in a local context." She said various cultures have emphasised different "morals" from it.  Richman's 1991 book, ' Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia ', had to face criticism from Hindu activists for including inappropriate interpretations of the holy text. An essay by historian AK Ramanujan titled, ' Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and three thoughts on translations ', which detailed several interpret

THE LITERARY CANON: AN OVERVIEW Defining canon? The word  canon comes from the Greek word Kanon, meaning a measuring rod or standard. Now, the literary works that have achieved the status of classics, i.e of lasting quality and timeless worth are clubbed under the literary canon.  Oh! What's classics?  Classics are an outstanding example of timeless worth and lasting quality. It was first used by the 2nd-century Roman writer Aulus Gellius. It is said that Aulus in the miscellany Noctes Atticae place writers as classics scriptor , non preletarius ( " A distinguished, not a commonplace writer"). Now, this kind of classification began with the Greeks! The ranking of their cultural works appeared with the word canon. A canon could be a body of work representing high culture: be it literature, music or philosophy. Now, in literature, if you ask, we have influential works from every continent. Continent, you say! Well, some classics precede the coinage of the word 'con

1. Published in March 1722, Daniel Defoe wrote The Journal of the Plague Year . It chronicles an individual's account of the 1665 bubonic plague later called the Great Plague of London.  2. The Journal of the Plague year was published under the initials H.F. It is speculated that the account is based on the journal of Defoe's uncle Henry Foe. 3. Octasyllable is a line with 8 syllables. Its first appearance can be traced to the 10th-century French legend of an old saint titled Vie de Saint Leger .  4. Octasyllabic couplet consists of two lines of the same rhyme and meter. It may be iambic or trochaic teterameter lines. ( PAPER 2, Q7,2004 ) 5. Il Penseroso or The Serious Man was first seen in the quarto of verses published in the 1645-46 called  The Poems of Mr. John Milton , both in English and Latin.  6. Il Penseroso was written in couplets of  iambic tetrameter like L' Allegro , its companion piece. The poem invokes the goddess Melancholy . 7. On His Blindness also