William Wordsworth

Introduction:

      William Wordsworth is known as a nature poet. He was very famous in his time. He also became a poet laureate in his life. He wrote so many poems about nature and human life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was his friend. In their partnership both were written together. Wordsworth's sister also helped them. 

        So, let's discuss in detail about Wordsworth's life and his poems.

His early life:

        William Wordsworth was born in 1770. His long life was divided into four periods.

 1) His childhood and youth in Cumberland hills from 1770 to 1787. While Wordsworth was a famous one nature poet, this place provided him with natural elements.

  2) A period of uncertainty life of Wordsworth of Storm and stress. He got his university education in Cambridge and also he travels in Abroad. While traveling in abroad he got many revolution experience from 1787 to 1797.

  3) A short but significant period of finding himself and also starting to create his own work from 1797 to 1799.

  4) A long and last period of Wordsworth life in the Northern lake region. Where he was born and where he lived full half century so close to nature and this is the same period you will find her influence in all his poetry. Wordsworth told a life which is marked , not by events but also he got spiritual experiences. 

       Wordsworth was born in 1770 at cockermouth. This is the place where he was born. In childhood he lost his parents. Wordsworth was a person of moody and violent temper. Only because his mother despaired of him alone among her five children. She died when he was eight years old. So that he could remember his mother as:

     " The heart of all our learning and our loves "

        He was writing this sentence about his mother. After six year later the death of his mother his father died and he became an orphan was taken in charge by relatives and also who sent him to school at Hawkshead in the beautiful lake region. Here, he was attracted to nature more than the discipline of the classics and he learned more from flowers and hills and stars than from his books. You will find Wordsworth's best known record in " The prelude " . In this poem three things are impressive to the reader.

      First, Wordsworth loves to be alone.

      Second, like every other child , who spends much time alone in the woods and fields. That time he feels the presence of some living spirit.

      Third, he feels everything like his own.

      The second period of his life begins with his university course at Cambridge in 1787. In his third book of " The prelude ", he produced some literary work as a student. Here, he also tried to prove himself as an ordinary scholar and following his own genius.   

      Perhaps, the most interesting thing in his life is nature politics. That's why he produced his own view about the French revolution, a volume of history to show the hope and ambitions that stirred all Europe.

His later life:

       The period of Wordsworth's life where he was living with his sister Dorothy and with Coleridge. He had taken care of a young friend Culvert , who died and left Wordsworth to a hundred pounds and requested that he give his life to poetry. This is the unexpected gift for Wordsworth to retire from the world and follow his genius. 

      All his life he was poor and lived in an atmosphere of plain living and high thinking. The last half century of Wordsworth life in Rudalmaint. Many other poets , who tried to give sentences about Wordsworth's life. Byron and Scott also mentioned the enthusiasm of Wordsworth and were recognized by " The first living poet" . On the death of Southey he became a poet laureate and finally he died in 1850.

His poetry:

        Wordsworth's poetry always reveals simplicity. But also difficult for the readers. His poetry also reveals beauty, like "Lucy". Another poetry is "conceit" speaking the language of simple truth, free feeling of himself and portraying man and nature as they are and in this good work we are apt to miss the beauty, the passion, the intensity that hide themselves under his simplest lines. Another is "Peter Bell '' and "The Idiot Boy ''.

    

Poem of nature:

      1) Including many noble lines in 'The prelude'. He compared himself to harp. Which answers with every touch of the wind and interesting in a sound, violent to a mountain and from a bird, the thunder of the cataract. 

      2) In his poetry you will find the truthfulness of his representation of beauty that he wrote.

      3) No other poets ever found such abundance in the common world. 

      4) This is the last characteristic of his poetry. It is about the recognised but sentient, personal life and the recognition of all the world's great poetry. In his childhood Wordsworth regarded natural objects, the steam, the hills, the flowers, even the wind as his companions.

Poem of human life:

    'Intimations of Immortality'

    'The Retreat'

    'The Rainbow'

    'Tintern Abbey'

    'Ode to Duty'

    'Michael'

    'The solitary Reaper'

    'To a Highland Girl'

    'The Requse'

    'The Excursions'

    'The Prelude'  

          

In sum up:

       Thus, we can easily understand that William Wordsworth is one of the most famous poet in his time. He got many prizes and is also known as a Poet laureate. He was suffering in many struggles and pains. 

Title of the play 'Importance of being Earnest'

     Hello readers, I'm writing this blog as an assignment given by the Department of English, MKBU. Here, I'm trying to justify the title of the play 'Importance of being Earnest'

About Author - Oscar Wilde:

     Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, born on October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland and died on November 30, 1900, Paris, France. He was Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art’s sake, and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment (1895–97).

Analysis the Title 'Importance of being Earnest':

     The title 'Importance of being Earnest' depends on a pun between the adjective "earnest" meaning honest or sincere, and the name "Ernest". 

     Earnest and Ernest are pronounced in the same way and are spelled similarly, but signify two different things. 

   Earnest means serious  minded, sincere, or something that needs urgent attention. Earnest also means a token given as a guarantee of something more to come. For example, earnest money is given as a guarantee that one will honor a contract. The word earnest is derived from the Old English word eornost which means serious intent. Earnest may be used as an adjective or noun, related words are earnestness and earnestly.

     Ernest is a masculine name. The name Ernest is derived from the German names Ernst and Ernust. The name Ernest is considered old-fashioned. While Ernest was the twentieth most popular name in England in the last five hundred years, this past year the name Ernest was one of the least popular names in England. Note that Ernest is capitalised, as it is a proper noun.

     This play is about people who learn what it means to be earnest, and it is also about a young man named Ernest. Wilde originally gave the play the subtitle "A Serious Comedy for Trivial People" but changed it to "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People." He explained, "We should treat all trivial things very seriously." 

     First, the title's significance lies in the denotation of the word "earnest." Defined as a quality of being sincere, the word is an important thematic idea in the play as a whole, since several characters use secrecy and deception in order to pursue their own interests. The tangle of lies causes several conflicts among the characters, chiefly relating to their romantic pursuit of one another. The title of the play is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the lack of honesty within the characters in the text. 

     The second way the title is significant relates to the homophonic male name Ernest. Both Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff use the nickname Ernest to win the ladies in whom they are romantically interested, Gwendolen and Cecily, respectively. For both of these women, the name Ernest is what makes the man in her life especially attractive, as she insists that she is destined to marry a man bearing the moniker.  

     At the very beginning of the play, we learn that Jack has created a convenient younger brother named Ernest. We don't know why he came up with that particular name, but we’re guessing Jack had a laugh or two over it. Jack, a.k.a. Ernest, fools his lady friends, all of whom have an obsession with the name "Ernest." Both Gwendolen and Cecily are in love with that name, based on an assumption that boys named Ernest will be as honest as the name suggests.

     Ironically, there is no character initially named "Ernest," but everything depends on pretending to be Earnest. Trouble ensues when Algernon, who has his own version of Ernest (a friend named Bunbury), catches on to the scheme and shows up at Jack’s country manor impersonating Ernest, just as Jack decides to kill off his pesky younger brother.

     We now have two different girls in love with Ernest, and Earnest doesn’t exist, but is being impersonated by two different guys. At one point he’s supposed to be dead in Paris but is instead dining, alive and well, with Cecily. He’s engaged to Gwendolen, but wait; he’s engaged to Cecily, too!

     Finally, things start to unravel and the truth is revealed. We’d like to say that Jack and Algernon are finally being earnest, but they can’t really take credit for the events that occur. When Jack’s identity is revealed, he still doesn't know what his real name actually is. But then he finds out that it is Ernest. So he really has been "earnest" the entire time.

     The ending, where Jack cheekily tells Lady Bracknell, 

     "I’ve realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest" 

     is unclear. Is Jack saying that he’s learned the importance of being honest, or the importance of being named Ernest?

     It's just as important to be named Ernest in the end as it was in the beginning, since Gwendolen still insists on loving a man named Ernest. Either Jack really does learn the value of honesty at the end, or he simply clings tighter to the importance of being named Ernest.

     Thus, Jack, the hero realizes the importance of being ‘Earnest’. The title of the play which is full of pun and the hint of mock seriousness suggests that the play is a spirited and witty comedy in which the characters all speak with the verve and point of a highly polished and elegant idiom. The title also suggests the farcical nature of the plot. 

     Wilde has constructed his plot out of improbable action, add and bizarre coincidence, and incredible characters, The entice play deals with petty things such as cucumber sandwiches, muffins, and teacakes, about a couple of gentlemen and ladies who are frivolous to the very core with the gentlemen showing double identity each and with the ladies insisting on marrying only Ernests, about Jack gaining an identity and a name. It is full of trivial episodes, such as the cigarette-case episode and the handbag episode.

     Thus the play is constructal on the strength of pun and the plot towns on a misconception over the name ‘Ernest’. The theme is an attack on earnestness, that is, the Victorian priggishness, hypocrisy and false sense of class-consciousness. The title “The Importance of Being Earnest” and the subtitle “A trivial comedy for serious people” contain irony. They ridicule the conservative and puritan Victorian Society, for Wilde the epitome of exaggerated seriousness. Wilde tries to trivialize all this seriousness, and is almost making fun of it in some sentences. For him, there is no importance in this Victorian earnestness. He tries to express this in the double meaning of Earnest. On the one hand it is Ernest the name of a man and on the other hand it is earnest in the sense of “to be earnest”. Like this he expresses that he actually abhors this earnest way of living.

Word count: 1178

Assignment Writing: Paper-101 (Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods)

      This blog is Assignment writing on paper no-101( Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods) assigned by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Name: Gayatri Nimavat 

Paper: Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods

Roll no: 09

Enrollment no: 4069206420220019

Email ID: gayatrinimavat128@gmail.com

Batch: 2022-24 (MA Semester - 1)

Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English,Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Analysis of the Hamartia of Macbeth. Compare it with other tragic heroes like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Oedipus. 

Introduction:

     Hamartia is a literary device that refers to the tragic flaw of a main character in a story, which ultimately leads to the character's downfall. Errors of judgement or specific character traits like excessive pride, greed, or jealousy can be a character's fatal flaw or lead to a reverse of fortune. 

     Aristotle introduced the term casually in the Poetics in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgment”. This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello's jealousy, Hamlet's indecisiveness, Macbeth's ambition, Antony's irresponsibility, Qedipus's Unknowingly wrongdoing although most great tragedies defy such a simple interpretation. Most importantly, the hero’s suffering and its far reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw. In a sense Aristotle is trying to sit on a fence, he wants a tragic hero who is neither very bad nor very good. Hamartia comes in to provide the fence to sit on so that Aristotle can satisfy his concept of the emotional effect of a tragic plot, his moral sense, and his feeling that there must be necessity in tragic causation. 

      

Definition of Hamartia:

     It is now generally agreed that Hamartia in Aristotle's Poetic, means 'mistake of fact'. A story begins with a rich and powerful hero, neither exceptionally virtuous nor villainous, who then falls into misfortune by a mistake or error.

     Hamartia is a key aspect of the tragic hero that starts out as a positive one, which later changes and ends up being detrimental to the tragic hero, and is the root of his collapse. The tragic flaw is also known as Hamartia. In Aristotelian tragedy, the Hamartia was more obvious, such as in Oedipus the King, however in Shakespearean tragedy, the flaw is less evident and sometimes unrecognisable if not studied cautiously.

    The tragic flaw is something very bad in a tragic hero which causes a tragedy and makes the hero deserve what happens to him, even though the hero may have many desirable traits in addition to his flaw. This may be called the sin-punishment concept of the flaw. 

     The best tragedy is so composed as to arouse pity and terror. Firstly, it is clear that morally good men must not be shown passing from good fortune to bad, this does not arouse pity or fear but is repulsive. Nor must a morally vicious man be shown passing from bad fortune to good, for this does not satisfy our human feeling Nor does it arouse pity or fear. Nor again must the very crooked man be shown falling from good fortune into bad, this arrangement would satisfy human feeling, but would not arouse pity or fear. For pity is concerned with unmerited misfortune, fear with a character like ourselves. There remains the intermediate kind of character, not pre-eminent in moral excellence, nor falling into misfortune through vice and depravity, but through some Hamartia, being one of great reputation and good fortune, e.g. Oedipus, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, etc. It follows that the well constructed plot is single rather than double, the change being from good fortune to bad, not vice versa, not through viciousness but through a substantial error, the agent being either of the kind specified or better rather than worse than that. 

The senses of Hamartia can be grouped under three main headings:

1. Mistake or miscalculation

2. Error of judgment

3. Moral error which is not serious enough to be wickedness or sin

Aristotelian hamartia to an analysis of Shakespearean tragic characterization and tragic causation:

1. Sometimes the tragic protagonist is more deeply flawed than Aristotelian hamartia would permit and indeed deserves what happens to him.

 2. A character's contribution to his own tragedy may be through his total personality, his virtues as well as his flaws,

 3. The flaws in the character of a tragic hero may be so deeply integrated with his virtues that they cannot be separated from his virtues except through violent abstraction.

 4. Sometimes a virtue may be so twisted that it has the effect of a vice or defect without being inherently a vice or defect.

 5. Sometimes the emphasis is upon the imperfections of the world rather than upon the hamartia in the hero as a cause of the tragedy.

 6. Sometimes more than one Hamartia may be causal.

Hamartia of Macbeth:

“ I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other”

     'Macbeth' is the masterpiece of William Shakespeare. It is one of the greatest plays ever written. The play deserves such high praise because of its near perfect fit to the standards of Shakespearian tragedy.

     The most vital part of a Shakespearean tragedy is that the play contains a tragic hero. Previously, in Aristotelian Tragedy, the tragic hero must be a noble man of higher social standing. However in Shakespearean tragedy, there is more emphasis that the tragic hero is a man of high social standing that has an impact on society. 

     The Hamartia of Macbeth is ambition. Macbeth receives prophecies from the three witches, stating that he will become the Thane of Cawdor and then king there after. After King Duncan awards Macbeth with the title Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth’s ambition rises as he craves more, King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband the only way that prophecy can come true is if Macbeth assassinates Duncan. Macbeth’s destructive obsession with ambition is evident when he is contemplating assonating King Duncan. Macbeth’s ambition starts out as a positive trait for him because he wants to achieve great things and eventually be the King for the great Country of Scotland, however, this positive ambition converts into negative traits. He wants to become the king of Scotland by any means. He kills so many people to fulfill his dream. This dreadful ambition leads him to his tragic death. 

     Macbeth's Seizing Of Power and subsequent destruction, both his rise and his fall the result of blind ambition.  

   

Ambition in Macbeth analysis:

     It is normal to think that ambition is a positive trait and it is something that people aspire to have, but too much can cause people to not think about their actions. This is definitely the case in Shakespeare 's play Macbeth. Macbeth shows that too much ambition can be negative. In addition he becomes disloyal and shows signs of betrayal. Macbeth, perfectly honest, admits that Duncan is a great king and is good for Scotland. But due to the surplus of thoughts, ignited by the prophecies, he tampers with this idea of becoming king. These thoughts of ambition lead to the murder of Duncan, which will start his reign of terror and madness, resulting in his tragic death.

Hamartia of Oedipus:

      The Hamartia of Oedipus is an 'error' which consisted of Oedipus's ignorance of his true parentage. His hamartia, or downfall, is his unintended wrongdoings. While Oedipus displays excessive pride, hastiness, and anger, his ultimate downfall comes with a series of unfortunate misjudgments that are made as he continuously aims to do the right thing. 

     Hamartia plays a large role in 'Oedipus The King'. In the story of Oedipus, the audience is told that Oedipus has left the home of his supposed parents, Polybus and Merope. He does this because he is told by an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother. He wants to do everything he can to avoid this fate, so he leaves.

     To a Greek audience, this move would have seemed foolish. The Greeks believed that a person cannot escape their fate, so running would do Oedipus no good. 

     While fleeing, Oedipus comes upon a carriage. The men insult Oedipus, so he waits for them to pass, hides, and kills them. One of these men is King Laius. Oedipus does not know that this is the king and that he is his real, biological father. Here, Oedipus lets his rashness and anger overtake him when he feels he had been slighted and via his hubris, makes decisions about who lives and dies.

     The killing of the king ultimately brings a curse on Thebes. When Oedipus arrives in Thebes, he is able to free the townspeople from the curse of a Sphinx. The townspeople thank Oedipus for this and despite being told his fate was to marry his mother, he nevertheless takes Laius’s wife, Jocasta, as his new wife.

     This is an example of hamartia. He makes a rash decision to marry Jocasta, this is particularly rash because he had been told that he would marry his mother. Although he does not know that Jocasta is his mother, he does know that she is of an age that she could be his mother.

     When a plague hits Thebes, Oedipus seeks out the blind soothsayer, Tiresias. While Tiresias is blind physically, he does have the ability to see what will happen. He tells Oedipus that the reason for the plague is himself, he says Oedipus has killed King Laius. Others advise Oedipus to stop in his pursuit of the truth, but he refuses to give up. He believes he is doing what is best, but he is also unknowingly bringing about his own downfall. Knowing he has killed a man, humility could allow him to realize it is possible that person had been the king, but he refuses to believe it.

     He learns that his parents, Laius and Jocasta, had received the same prophecy he did, that their child would kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this fate, they bound him up and sent him away as an infant. Unbeknownst to them, he was given to Polybus and Merope to raise. 

Hamartia of Hamlet:

     Hamlet’s fatal flaw is his failure to act immediately to kill Claudius, his uncle and murderer of his father. His tragic flaw is ‘procrastination’. His continuous awareness and doubt delays him in performing the needs. Hamlet finally kills Claudius but only after realizing that he is poisoned. His procrastination, his tragic flaw, leads him to his doom along with that of the other characters he targets. But Hamlet is not responsible for the events which complicate the plot. Fate, chance and the supernatural also play a critical role in Hamlet.

Hamartia of Othello:

     Othello's hamartia, or internal tragic flaw, is his extreme jealousy. It is this jealousy that enables him to be tricked and allows him to create his own destruction. Othello was a powerful leader who deeply loved his faithful wife. He was tricked into believing his wife had cheated on him. His suspicion then overpowered him and he murdered his wife in a jealous rage, never even giving her a chance to defend herself. When he discovers he was deceived, he remains a noble character. He realized everything was his own fault and punished himself by committing suicide. 

Hamartia of King Lear:

     King Lear's Hamartia is his blinded judgement and pride. King Lear's downfall occurs when he starts going crazy because he gets kicked out of both Goneril and Regan's castle. In the play King Lear, William Shakespeare depicts the main character Cordelia as a tragic hero in this story.

     King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom giving bequests to two of his three daughters based on their flattery of him, bringing tragic consequences for all. 

Conclusion:

     After all this discussion, we can say that Hamartia is the characteristic of great tragedy. According to Aristotle, Hamartia means 'to err' or error of judgement. Macbeth's Hamartia is his dreadful ambition, Qedipus's Hamartia is unknowingly wrongdoing, Hamlet's Hamartia is indecisiveness, Othello's Hamartia is his extreme jealousy and King Lear's Hamartia is his blinded judgement and pride. 

References:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "domestic tragedy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Feb. 2016,https://www.britannica.com/art/domestic-tragedy. Accessed 6 October 2022.

Haupt, G. E. “A NOTE ON THE TRAGIC FLAW AND CAUSATION IN SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY.” Interpretations, vol. 5, no. 1, 1973, pp. 20–32. JSTOR,http://www.jstor.org/stable/23239812. Accessed 2 Oct. 2022.

Reddy, Indira, Tragic Flaw in Shakespeare's Hamlet (August 5, 2015). The IUP Journal of English Studies, Vol. IX, No. 4, December 2014, pp. 93-97, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2640004 

Stinton, T. C. W. “Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, 1975, pp. 221–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/638320Accessed2 Oct. 2022. 

Word count: 2194

Images: 10