Analysis of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett: Alok Mishra, Editor-in-Chief at Ashvamegh Journal

The theatres of the twentieth century witnessed a great number of peculiar experiments. It was, needless to reiterate, an age of avant-garde. Out of many, however, the one that still shakes and thrills me is "Waiting For Godot". A masterpiece from Beckett, it revolutionized the literary world with a number of unusual(s) that it carried with the 'mute' dialogues. I would like to recall the aspects about the play that might interest and benefit the readers.

The Pun - Do you remember the words of Voltaire? He said, "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer." Rendering the words into The English language will elicit, "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Beckett played all the four aces from his allotted share. He named his play - Waiting For God(ot). God is everywhere! Talking about God, be it in any sense, has always attracted the readership of the masses. However, Beckett leaves the delicate hopes of his audience by giving no glimpse of God throughout the play. He tries, nevertheless, to display a society where there is no faith, a society without God.

The Philosophy - Do you think the play carries out any philosophy? At least for Beckett, the answer is no! At one place, Beckett admitted that this play is for sheer pleasure. However, to the scholars, this play appears as an instance full of the examples of rootlessness, existential philosophy and dilemma of humanity. What ends do you want to extract from the play?

The Message - The message of the play is ambiguous. There may be a thousand interpretations or even more than that! More interesting is the fact that there is no happiness to take out from the play. You can compel your mind to move in any direction, you will see hopelessness, sadness, confusion and all other negative aspects of the humanity. The play moves... but what it displays is unmoving! You must remember:

"And they do not move."

The Godot - What does keep the audience and readers curious? It is the identity of Godot. Once you go through the play, as a reader or as someone watching the play in action, you are throughout curious to uncover the truth of Godot. Who is Godot? What is Godot? People keep their minds engaged. In other words, Beckett becomes successful in instigating the connection of audience and the play. However, this connection is juxtaposed with the lost connection of the play's development!

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Re-Defining Literature and trying to establish what is Literature

Re-Defining Literature

Literature, in a weird sense, can be said to be a genuinely rendered sum total of someone’s sociological, psychological, philosophical, anthropological, historical, theosophical, ontological, scientific, and political sense. Now, that I say it, I have already asked for an apology that I might sound complicated. However, if one sits to frame literature within a certain framework, either he will run away pinching his hairs or he will not be able to digest something said by a Victorian figure after reading something by Terry Eagleton. That is why Literature needs a definition that can suit everyone's perception.

The definition that I have put forth is not a rash verdict. Moreover, nor is it a display of the little knowledge I have earned. The line that I speak of Literature has come to my mind after examining various works of Literature itself. Yet, I confirm that I find this definition lacking a lot! Let us assume a novelist writing a novel. Undoubtedly, he/she will take the inspiration from history; put a layer of the psychological, philosophical and sociological sense; give the resultant a certain political turn and if necessary, there is going to be a sort of theosophical polish! Nevertheless, it is never essential that we find all these in a literary piece. I remember a novel, Animal Farm. It does not give you anything else except the sarcastic political commentary and yes, the fun! The things that it lacks are theosophical sense and ontological sense, at the least. However, it is a piece of literature because it has a good number of elements as per the theory propagated above. Having said that, the conclusion that we arrive at is - we cannot give a 'proper' definition of Literature. Nevertheless, I think that I have tried something in this field...

Alok Mishra

Editor-in-Chief

Ashvamegh

Defining Literature: (What is Literature); Definition of Literature: English Literature

Defining Literature

Looking for the definition of literature is the same Herculean task that every student of literary curious person has to take up; however, the result is the same – either a philosophized hallucination or nothing! To define literature in the most appropriate terms is very difficult and rather impossible (this is what I think to be true; and most others too). In the academic days, a teacher may come in the class with his spectacles on the forehead and might tell you that ‘literature is the mirror of society’. It is, however, the most suiting of the available definitions. Literature is, indeed, the mirror of society. Nevertheless, will you take the risk to ask him that which ‘image’? A real image; a forged image; a virtual image; or some other image! The question them moves to a new level of the argument. What type of mirror is literature is? A plain mirror that reflects simply what it observes; a convex mirror that forges the image otherwise; or a concave mirror that starts predicting rather than reflecting…

Therefore, friends, defining literature persists to be a pain in neck for the students, teachers, and scholars. We offer you to construct a definition of your own for best results!

Words Come Out: Poem by Alok Mishra

Words Come Out

It melts; it freezes;

Swings with blows and sympathy,

Swells with love and affection.

Wind pats the soul;

Melting emotion

Within reservoir of heart

Comes and embrace Eternal Ocean

Where no voice is dead!

Monday, 20 October 2014

Alok Mishra

Wordsworth and Nature... Debate. Issue. Poetry of Wordsworth and Nature. Poet Wordsworth and Nature Poetry

CONCLUSION

It is well-known in the world of poetry readers and literary persons that nature and Wordsworth more or less work like synonymous to each other. Without nature, the poetry of Wordsworth is nothing; since the beginning of his poetic career to the end of his poetry, one can easily find the impression that nature marked upon him and his poetry. Nature is the inevitable force when we talk about the poetry of Wordsworth; it works like the central object around which the cobweb of Wordsworth’s poetry is weaved. Nature to Wordsworth means everything in his last stage… however, it was not a sudden ‘flash’, rather it was a gradual process that integrated nature to the poetry and even the life of Wordsworth. Nature in the beginning was only of a ‘secondary pursuit’ to the poet and eventually it became the ‘mistress’ and later ‘mother’ and sustainer of the poet. All the story, Wordsworth records in his celebrated autobiography – The Prelude.

To Wordsworth, nature does not only mean the object to see and be pleased with; he perceives nature as offering security and protection to the world, to humankind, and acting like an authority to manage the movements of the environment. Writes an author about this unique trait of Wordsworth:

“In Wordsworth’s The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets (1820), the speaker is again drawn to the thought that nature actively protects – as the stream descends from bare upland, ‘to form a shade / For Thee, green alders have together wound / Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around; / And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade’. In the sequence, individual sonnets present different parts of the landscape, often raising the possibility of an allegorical meaning for them, sometimes making it unmistakable. In this case, the trees are like parents watching over and nurturing the young stream; the course of a life, charted by the stream, has reached childhood and nature’s nursing of the human soul is visible in the trees’ protective efforts and again, a moment later, in the cottage nearby where a ‘mother’s eyes / Carelessly watched’ her children at play (Sonnet 5). This movement of thought is typical of the sonnets and, as here, the fancifulness of Wordsworth’s language draws attention to the mind creating the allegorical sense at the same time as it claims that that sense is genuinely present.” ¹

Indeed, to Wordsworth, ‘human soul is visible in the trees.’ Wordsworth is a unique poet with such blessed eyes that can actually see nature and human so commingling that one without the other cannot exist! When the sister of the poet calls him to stay with her, he composes a poem and writes the first line:

“On Nature’s invitation do I come,” ²

For Wordsworth, it was not merely the call of his sister, rather it was the call of Nature unto him… it was in the habit of Wordsworth, in his poetry and his sensibility to relate everything to Nature. A serious poetry reader can find certainly the quality in the poetry of Wordsworth that mingles human emotions and sufferings with nature – nature that endures all; nature that returns only good; and nature that acts like the guardian to humankind! It is the company of nature that lets Wordsworth listen –

“The still, sad music of humanity,”

And for the asylum, for the peace Wordsworth releases himself in the arms of nature and so he advises to everyone else. Wordsworth is the genuine flag-holder of the romantic revival’s call that advocates ‘return to the nature’.

Wordsworth wished always the development of humankind and the mutual harmony between man and man, and man and nature, ‘By Nature’s kind and ever-present aid’.

At last, to conclude this dissertation, there is no better way than quoting his lines that muse the Nature:

“The spot was made by Nature for herself;

The travellers know it not, and 't will remain

Unknown to them; but it is beautiful;

And if a man should plant his cottage near,

Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees.

And blend its waters with his daily meal,

He would so love it, that in his death-hour

Its image would survive among his thoughts:” ³

REFERENCES

1.     Stephen Gill, The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth. p. 193.

2.     William Wordsworth, The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919), p. 213.

3.     Ibid. p. 310.

Further Reading

Primary Sources:

1.     Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919.

2.     Wordsworth, William. The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2006.

3.     Wordsworth, William. The Prelude. Agra: Narain, 2007.

4.     Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems. New Delhi: Vimal Prakashan, 2006.

Secondary Sources:

1.     Herford, Charles H. The Age of Wordsworth. Kolkata: Books Way, 2008.

2.     Gill, Stephen. The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth.

3.     Hopkins, Kenneth. English Poetry: A Short History. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1962.

4.     Legouis, Emily and Louis Cazamian. History of English Literature. Gurgaon: Macmillan, 2012.

5.     EVANS, Ifor. A Short History of English Literature. Noida: Penguin, 1990.

Arun Kolatkar: Poem Woman by Kolatkar: MA Syllabus: MU, PU

Woman by Kolatkar

a woman may collect cats read thrillers
her insomnia may seep through the great walls of history
a lizard may paralyze her
a sewing machine may bend her
moonlight may intercept the bangle
circling her wrist

a woman my name her cats
the circulating library
may lend her new thrillers
a spiked man may impale her
a woman may add
a new recipe to her scrapbook

judiciously distilling her whimper the city lights
may declare it null and void
in a prodigious weather
above a darkling woman
surgeons may shoot up and explode
in a weather fraught with forceps
woman may damn
man

a woman may shave her legs regularly
a woman may take up landscape painting
a woman may poison
twenty three cockroaches

This is a poem by Arun Kolatkar, often prescribed in MA Syllabus of many universities. Hope this article will help you. Soon, the analysis will be placed here. 

Sons and Lovers: Theme: Short Note: Append Yourself Note: Modern Novel: Lawrence:

“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh…”

Writes D.H. Lawrence at one place. This remark, though cryptic, yet, displays the belief of this great novelist in the earthly matters, the worldly pleasures, and the denial of spiritual causes in the life. Lawrence is a believer in the need of the blood running in human body, rather than the spirit residing in the flesh. His novels often argue of these. None of his novels deals with things different from these. ‘Sexual pleasure’ of the ‘experiences of sexual activity’ is what he goes to describe in his works. ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ is a novel that deals openly with the experiences of sex and fleshly desires.