The Dunciad Book 1 by Alexander Pope | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The first three books of The Dunciad were published in 1728, Forty-six years after the first publication of Mac Flecknoe in which John Dryden crowned Thomas Shadwell, the poetaster as the ruler of the kingdom of poetic dullness. Pope expanded the theme of Dullness to a mock epic. It is a long poem, much longer than Alexander Pope’s other masterpiece The Rape of The Lock. Furthermore, The Dunciad isn’t as closely composed as The Rape of The Lock, yet it is no less satirical. It includes the criticism of individuals and the common trends in contemporary literary circles. In the first edition, Lewis Theobald was satirized as Tibbald, the hero. However, the hero was changed to Bays in the second edition in 1943. Pope based his mock epic on Homer’s Illiad and Virgil’s Aeneid. He even included a dream of the hero going to the Underworld like that in Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. However, that appears in Book 2 of The Dunciad.

Summary and Analysis of Book 1

The first book is composed of 330 lines all written in Heroic couplets like an epic. The Dunciad was published anonymously in 1728 but Pope was already popular as the most scathing satirical poet of that period and thus, there was no doubt about the authorship. The basic purpose of The Dunciad was to criticize the Grub Street commercial writers and patrons who produced excessively for the market of ephemera and for the literature of mere entertainment.

Lewis Theobald became the center of Pope’s ire when he belittled him with his editorial on Shakespeare’s works. Thus, he became the hero of The Dunciad in 1928. Later on, Colley Cibber acquired that position, who himself was no better than Theobald, yet, was appointed poet-laureate. Despite his mediocre works, Colley Cibber attained the patronage of Queen Carolina and thus she became the inspiration for Dullness.

The poem begins with a proper invocation of muses by the narrator for their help in the success of this mock-epic narrative poem written in iambic pentameters.

“I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great!
Call'd to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate”

Thus, the muses for Pope’s work were the Dullness engulfing the intellectual culture and values of English society while he invoked Jove, the king of Roman gods adhering to the tradition of Classical epics. He further invokes Fate as a muse to suggest that the abysmal situation of the arts and literary society of Britain is unavoidable as if decided by fate. Dulness emerges to be the main character of the poem, aided by Fate, which appears to be the major theme of the poem.

Then the poet attacks the patronage system by which rich people used to support the hack-authors to create mass entertainment literature lacking any literary quality. Most of such Grub street writers used to plagiarize and lampoon the earlier great originals to make easy money and thus, the patrons used to gain profit. Pope attacks the commercialization of arts and literature by depicting Dulness as an immortal anarchic Goddess exerting control over the minds of writers, artists, and intellectuals, like the greedy patrons interfering with the minds of authors and guiding them to write cheap thrills lacking any creativity. Then the poet names a few servants of Dulness including writers, publishers, and editors and the first that is mentioned is Pope’s old friend and roommate Jonathan Swift himself.

“O Thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!”

Other writers whom Pope satirized as Dunces included Cervantes, Rabelais, Lintot, and Edmund Curll. The poet praises the goddess of Dulness who is bringing a "new Saturnian age of Lead," or a gloomy, slow, and heavy period for the intellectuals of Britain. He then lampoons Ciber while describing a mythical world of Dulness where Folly holds a throne, Poetry, and Poverty share a cave out of which dull poets flood the literary landscape with new printed works, and Dulness has a college for nurturing these poets who are “Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers.” Cibber is the favorite son of Dullness, the poet-laureate of England. Dulness sits on the throne held by Folly and she is protected by four “guardian Virtues” namely, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Poetic Justice. Folly, being a loyal assistant of Dullness supervises these ‘guardian Virtues.’ Fortitude ascertains that there is no fear of a bad reputation among the Dunces while Calm Temperance and Prudence ascertain the friendship between poverty and poetry. Poetic Justice has the most important job to perform as she weighs Truth with gold in Dullness’s lifted scale, that is, she turns lies into truth for bribes. It weighs “solid pudding against empty praise.”

The goddess of Dulness has employed Metaphors, Tragedy, Comedy, Farce, and so on to gather a chaotic and confusing force to ascertain her rule over the masses.

The goddess of Dulness always remains in a veil of fog, hidden in shrouded clouds. She is a little worried as her old servant and poet laureate Eusden is too old to continue. The irony is, Laurence Eusden became Britain's youngest Poet Laureate in 1718.

Dulness thus decides to choose a new poet laureate, the king of Dunces. There are many Dunces and poets of a high degree of Dulness in their works but the goddess of Dulness seeks the best, the dullest among them and she sets her eyes on Bayes. The word laureate comes from the ancient Greek victory symbol of the bay laurel wreath and thus, Pope chose Bayes as the hero’s name. In the first edition of The Dunciad, the hero’s name was Tibbald based on Lewis Theobald which turned into Bayes in all other editions to attack Colley Cibber, the poet laureate in 1730. Pope did lampoon Lewis Tibbald along with Cibber and John Ozelle in lines (285-286) as “’ Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Corneille// Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, and Ozlle.”

The narrator then shifts focus to Bayes who is troubled by his inner conflict. He is serving the goddess of Dulness with utmost devotion but is anxious if his efforts are enough to please her. Most of his works are incomplete and he is surrounded by “much Embryo, much Abortion lay, / Much future Ode, and abdicated Play." He is sitting in his library full of original works of the poets of the past. He thinks of Shakespeare and Molière whom he has profusely plagiarized in his works. However, he never read any other author and their works and knows nothing about them. Yet, he keeps them in his collection as decor and "serve (like other fools) to fill a room." These works are out of reach of his mental or physical reach as they are kept closed and safe on the upper shelves where he cannot reach them. Bayes is quite frustrated with his inability to complete any work that may impress Queen Dulness and thus, he takes twelve of the original works from the upper shelves and set them above his own petty works to make an altar to worship the goddess of Dulness while thinking of pursuing some other profession. He confesses how he faulted against his service to Dulness and how once a demon stole his pen and "betry'd [him] into common sense." But he asserts that apart from that single incidence, he always remained loyal and devoted to the goddess of Dulness. He wonders if he pleases the goddess Dulness or if should he take some other profession to take up in place of being one of Dulness' poets. He thinks of joining the Clergy, or taking up gambling or "gaming," or becoming a party writer. Finally, he makes up his mind and lights up the altar to send his unpublished incomplete works to the realms untouched where they won't be tarnished by the printers of London.

This extreme step awakens the goddess of Dulness who immediately takes "a sheet of Thule from her bed," and flies down to Bayes, and uses the sheet to put out the fire, rescuing the works. The sheet of Thule refers to some unfinished poem whose ink is still wet, a poem that was so cold, uninspiring, and heavy that it couldn’t be completed.

Queen Dulness takes Bayes back to the most sacred hall of her college and declares the place his new home. She anoints him with opium and puts the symbol of her sacred bird upon a crown which she places on Bayes' head. The Queen declares that Eusden is dead and now, Bayes is the King of Dunces who will now be known as Cibber. It’s no coincidence, the new name of the king poet of Dulness is directly referring to Colley Cibber, Pope’s real-world subject of criticism. As soon as the goddess of Dulness makes the announcement, every Dunce celebrated it with much noise and clamor, "the hoarse nation croak'd, 'God save King Log!'"

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

The Dunciad by Alexander Pope | Characters, Themes, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Duncias was a mock-epic poem by Alexander Pope that was first published in 1728. Originally, the poem has four books, the first three being published in 1728, and the fourth in 1743. The books are loosely connected, each taking place in a different setting, with little narrative cohesion from one to the next. The title is a pun on the classic epics including Homer’s The Illiad, and Virgil’s The Aeneid, and suggests the mock-epic style. It is a long narrative poem written in Heroic Couplets, that is, most of the lines of the poem are written in iambic pentameter with 10 syllables in each line.

Background and Context of The Dunciad:

The Dunciad follows the mock-epic element of MacFlecknoe by John Dryden in which Dryden satirized Thomas Shadwell as the heir to a kingdom of poetic dullness. Pope had already made acquaintance with Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, and Robert Harley. The group was known as the Scriblerus group and they combinedly adopted the pseudonym Marcus Scriblerus by using which, they used to publish satirical works against political ills and other issues including contemporary authors and critics of poor taste. It was a period when the printing press was making huge strides and that created a flood of amateurs authors and writers publishing their books that reduced the quality of literature. The number of people who figured they could, or should be artists, sky-rocketed. Pope was aghast at this turn of events and thus, the Scribelrus group started satirizing the newly emerging authors, poets, and publishers that had no literary quality to be recognized.

In 1925, Alexander Pope edited and published William Shakespeare’s collective works. In 1928, Lewis Theobald published Shakespeare Restored, another edited edition of Shakespeare’s work. Theobald’s edition was better than that of Pope’s in all accounts but the way he tried to belittle Pope was not in good taste. It was proven that Theobald was a better editor than Pope, but Pope was a much better poet than Theobald and he proved this by writing a satire with its main character Tibbald, the favorite son of the goddess of Dullness, based on Theobalt. Pope published The Dunciad anonymously in 1728 and it contained three books. In 1729, he republished The Dunciad Vorarorium anonymously but Tibbalt remained the main character. In 1743, Pope republished The Dunciad in Four Books and this time, he added some new characters and changed the main character from Tibbalt to Bays, the new hero which was based on Colley Ciber. The Dunciad is made of many Dunces but Tibbald remained the king. Primarily, The Dunciad is a satire on hack artists that satirized not only Lewis Theobald, but also Colley Cibber, John Dennis, the Reverend Laurence Eusden, Lord Hervey, and others. Pope tried to portray everything wrong in the literary circles and publishing market. Furthermore, The Dunciad also satirizes the imperial intervention in the literary circle. Pope based the character of the goddess of Dullness on Queen Caroline, as the fat, lazy and dull wife.

Characters of The Dunciad:

The prime character is the goddess of Dullness, the daughter of Night and Chaos who is ruling the world for eternity. Her face always remained covered by a veil of fog. Her favorite son is Tibbalt (Bayes) whom she appoints as the King of Dulness following the death of Eusden, the poet laureate. Dulness is worshipped by all but she has got her share of enemies in form of Order, Arts, and the Sciences. Pope has depicted Dulness as various reigning feminine figures like Virgin Mary at different points by using symbols and imagery such as carnations, and the sleeping Cibber held in her lap like the baby Jesus. The Ghost of Elknath Settle appears as a ghost in a dream of Tibbalt and reveals images of the future to the King of Dulness. The Educator is based on Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus who was infamous for placing too much emphasis on the subtleties of grammar rather than communicating meaningful things. Eliza, the Poetess appears in Book Two. She is the prize of a contest among dull poets. She is gorgeous like Juno, the wife of Jove, and thus, is a great inspiration for men. She reappears in Book IV as the Harlot. Curll appears in Book II as a competitor in many races for the prize of the phantom poet. He is based on Edmund Curll, a bookseller, and publisher. Jove is the most powerful of the Roman gods and goddesses. Jove is used in the invocation of Book I and also appears in Book II, where he may choose to interfere or not on behalf of the contestants. Cloacina is a minor Roman goddess of the sewer system. She is a servant of Jove and a goddess known for protecting sexual intercourse in marriage.

Summary of The Dunciad:

It is a mock epic by Alexander Pope to criticize and satirize the literary and artistic world in England of his times. Pope depicts it as a period when the world is taken over by unoriginal, insipid, and boring work meant for the masses by writers, poets, and critics. Thus, England appears like a mythical realm of despair where the goddess of Dulness rules.

Following the epic style, the narrator calls for his muses for the success of this epic. His muses are “The Mighty Mother and her son who brings/ The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings.”

The narrator then declares that the work is inspired by Dulness, Jove, and Fate and establishes a relationship between the three powers with his work. The suggestion is that the intellectual culture of England is being ruled by Dulness while Jove represents the Classical element in the poem. Fate suggests that whatever bad is happening, is the fate that cannot be changed, or challenged.

After the death of the poet-laureate, she is looking for a new successor to be her right hand, her King, to help her bring about true chaos and darkness in England. A competition is held for the title of most boring poet. Bayes (or Tibbalt), a young poet competes but he is doubtful of his caliber and thus, he assumed that he failed to impress the goddess of Dulness. He decides to burn all his writings and makes an altar of them so that he may pursue some other profession. As he is about to light the fire, the goddess of Dulness appears and stops him from doing so. She is too impressed by Bayes. She takes him to her realm of Dullness and announces him as her heir, her righthand, King Ciber. All the Dunces, the followers of Dulness thus start following King Ciber. Book 1 ends here.

To commemorate the coronation of King Ciber as her heir, Dullness declares a competition that includes the phantom poet race, a pissing contest, a tickling contest, a diving contest, and finally a challenge to see which critic might stay awake longest while being read incredibly dull work. While all Dunces are present at the ceremony, Dulness keeps his eyes on Ciber, her favorite son. During the last segment of the competition, all dunces fall asleep including King Ciber.

The goddess of Dullness then approaches him and takes him to her throne in her arms. As she sits on her throne, she takes the new King Ciber in her lap and anoints his eyes with dew, and wraps him in her veil. As he sleeps Cibber dreams that he is being transported to the Underworld. Book 2 ends here.

In his dream, King Ciber reaches Underworld where he is guided by Sibyl who takes him to Bavius, the place where souls are made dull before being sent to Earth. King Ciber is awestruck by observing the huge number of dull souls gathered at the bank of River Styx and waiting for their turn to be sent to the Earth. He is the ruler of all these souls and many more. At Bavius, he meets Eknath Settle’s departed spirit. It is the ghost of the previous Nobel laureate whose death resulted in the coronation of the new king. The ghost of Eknath Settle takes King Ciber to the Mount of Vision to understand the history of Dulness and how she became such an invincible force. As the new king, Ciber must also understand his kingdom's weaknesses. Eknath Settle informs him that the major enemies of the goddess of Dulness are Order, Arts, and Sciences. He says that in past, the goddess of Dulness lost ground only to the spread of Science and Logic. However, she is winning back the lost ground slowly, but definitively. The ghost of Eknath Settle inspires Ciber to help the goddess of Dulness in winning her lost ground back. Then the ghost offers him a vision of the future and Ciber finds himself amid some very beautiful and fantastical creatures and prophetic figures. King Ciber is told that this is the chaotic world that the goddess of Dullness aims to acquire. He is told that he must help the goddess of Dulness to usher in the chaotic world and establish herself as the ruler among Chaos and Night. King Ciber is overwhelmed by the grand planning of the goddess of Dullness and he wakes up from his dream, finding himself in the lap of the goddess. Book 3 ends here.

Book Four begins as all the prophecies and visions suggested in Book III to king Ciber have come true. The goddess of Dullness has acquired all her lost land by beating Order, Arts, and Science. She has enslaved all the supporters of Order and Reason along with the Muses, the Sciences, Religion, History, and others. The goddess of Dullness appoints her stooges to spread her effect in various parts of Britain. All the servants of Dulness, from students to teachers to tribes and so on, arrive to address her and explain how they have carried out her will. The goddess f Dullness is impressed by their work and offers a celebratory drink to them as their prize. As her servants take the drink, it makes them free and oblivious of any sense of duty and obligation to their fellow man, morals, virtues, or art. The goddess of Dullness is convinced that now she will not be opposed by anyone and will easily gain power over all. She offers Titles and Decrees to her followers and invites Chaos and Night to reign over them along with her. The Dunciad ends with this emphatic victory of Dullness over Order, Arts, and Sciences.

This is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

The Death of a Soldier by Wallace Stevens | Structure, Themes, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Death of a Soldier is a short poem by Wallace Stevens that was published in his poetry collection titled Harmonium in the year 1923. Stevens wrote the poem in 1917 after reading letters of Eugène Lemercier, a french artist, painter, and soldier, who died in 1915 at the battleground during World War 1. Euegene reported the first-hand account of the war in his letters to his mother. World War I continued for more than four years from July 1914 to November 1918. In 1917, the First World War was still going on when Wallace Stevens wrote this poem.

Structure of The Death of a Soldier:

The poem contains 12 lines composed in 4 stanzas with three lines in every stanza. All the lines are written in Free verse with no specific rhyming scheme or pattern. However, each stanza follows a definitive and impressive punctuation trail. The poet used metaphor, simile, and imagery while drawing an analogy between death and the season of autumn.

In the first stanza, the poet describes many periods with a single comma, suggesting the finality of the course. In the second stanza, the poet describes a single period while using two commas. In the third stanza, no periods are mentioned but there are two commas at the end of lines and there is no enjambment. In the last stanza, there are many commas in the middle and end of lines. There is a period at the end of the poem and it suggests that time passes slowly. The punctuation is used to signify a journey in time and remembrance.

In the first stanza, the poet uses ‘fall’ instead of ‘dies’ in the third line which is more descriptive and dramatic and signifies the soldier’s death, significance, and meaning. The poet connects the death of soldiers with Autumn and uses a metaphor for comparing soldiers falling in the battleground with dry leaves falling from the trees during Autumn. It offers normalcy to the death of soldiers as a part of nature. Poet uses imagery to mention that no matter if the dead soldier is no more in the physical sense, their significance still remains like the power of wind which exists though remains invisible. He further uses imagery and symbolizes the bravery of dead soldiers with the clouds and suggests that even though there is no memorial, their sacrifices, and bravery are revered and remembered.

Themes of The Death of a Soldier:

The poet signifies the horror and wastefulness of war which is still continuing with no hope of any ceasefire. He suggests that in a war, death is inevitable, and someone will die in the war. Thus, the poet describes the battleground not as a stage for glory but as a graveyard of fallen men.

Summary of The Death of a Soldier:

Stanza 1

Lines 1-3

Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

The poet begins with an extended metaphor where he compares the autumn season with war. The first stanza conveys the senselessness and sheer intensity of the loss of life during the First World War which was still going on when the poem was written. The poet acknowledges that the history of human society is full of blemishes of war. It appears as if war is unavoidable like a season, the season of autumn.

In autumn, flowers and green lives dry up and fall from the trees. The poet compares this natural phenomenon with the contraction of loss of life (greenery) as the living leaves fall off the tree and die. Similarly, soldiers die and fall on the battleground. Irrespective of which side a soldier represents, his probable fate, is to fall. The poet uses ‘fall’ instead of ‘dies’ in the third line which is more descriptive and dramatic and signifies the soldier’s death, significance, and meaning. The poet connects the death of soldiers with Autumn and uses a metaphor for comparing soldiers falling in the battleground with dry leaves falling from the trees during Autumn. It offers normalcy to the death of soldiers as a part of nature.

Stanza 2

Lines 4-6

He does not become a three-days’ personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

In the second stanza, the poet offers a soldier’s perspective concerning the war and while doing so, justifies his initial extended metaphor. During the autumn season, leaves fall but each individual leaf is insignificant to the whole tree as a whole just like each soldier is only a pawn to the countries at war. A soldier’s life is short, and a soldier is expected to fall on the battleground during the bad times. Just like new leaves fill the branches of trees with the arrival of spring, new soldiers are recruited for the security of the nation as the previous soldiers fall on the battleground. None of the soldiers making that ultimate sacrifice to the nation attains any significant ‘personage.’ As an individual, he doesn’t have much significance to the war and thus he doesn’t gain any rank or distinction, he is just another leaf, that fell during the autumn season.

In these three lines, the poet says that the fallen soldier was a new recruiter who hadn’t spent a lot of time with his team. He had less than three days to make his presence felt among his fellow soldiers. Thus, as he falls, nobody notices.

The poet depicts war as a very high-risk venture with very low rewards for an individual. Despite all his efforts and ultimate sacrifice of his own life for the nation, a fallen soldier often remains unrewarded. Even a soldier who survives during the war remains at risk of being deplored and called ruthless, murderer, and war-monger by the very people he is defending.

Stanza 3

Lines 7-9

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops.

The poet repeats the simile of Autumn with the war period. He explicitly relates autumn with the death of soldiers on the battleground and suggests that a soldier is forgotten when he dies. He is but a speck in history concerning all the other millions of soldiers who have died and will die in the future. He further explains the futility of life lost in the war and suggests that, unlike some artists or inventors, or politicians who have something to leave behind so that they will be remembered in history even in death, a soldier has nothing to leave behind. Just like nobody mourns for the fallen leaves as the wind stops, nobody counts the fallen bodies on the battleground after the war is over. The wind has been used as a metaphor to denote the breath of life. The poet asserts that ‘Death is absolute’ and hence negates the myth of the afterlife.

Stanza 4

Lines 10-12

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

In the last stanza (line 10), the poet clearly uses the wind as a metaphor for the breath of life of the soldier. When the wind stops, the soldier is no more, but he was always insignificant in the grand scheme of the war because even “When the wind stops” which represents the death of a soldier, “The clouds go” which represents that the war will go on and that individual soldier will be forgotten.

In another sense, the clouds can be considered as the nation to which the fallen soldier belonged. The last stanza can be interpreted as a celebration of the bravery of the soldier. Though he sacrificed his life, his wind, his breath of air, pushed the cloud, his nation towards the goal, a better future, in their direction.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

The Financial Expert by R. K. Narayan | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Financial Expert is a novel by R. K. Narayan that was published in the year 1952. It is set in the fictional town of Malgudi and tells the story of British-ruled India in the 1930s. It is a tale of ambitions, desires, greed, corruption, and karma.

Characters of The Financial Expert:

Margayya is the protagonist of the novel. He is an ordinary middle-class man struggling to make a significant life. He is the younger brother of the family and his elder brother is an established money lender with better financial status. Margayya is very keenly interested in finance and he has a niche in investment and banking. He works independently as a financial advisor helping customers with loan applications and other financial procedures; he charges a small fee for this assistance. In his town, Malgudi, he has a stand under a tree outside the main bank, Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank. Margayya is married and the father of a son named Balu who is a spoilt child. Being the only child, his parents try to fulfill all his wishes while he gets trapped in bad habits and bad company. Arul Dass is the peon of Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank. Dr. Pal is a conman who pretends to be a sociologist and psychologist. Madan Lal is a printer and publisher who came from North India and settled in Malgudi. Brinda is the daughter of a rich tea plantation owner. Margayya manages to arrange the marriage of Brinda with Balu to ensure his better future.

Summary of The Financial Expert:

The Financial Expert is divided into four chapters. The story revolves around Margayya, a young man who begins his career as a money-lender doing his business under the Banyan tree, in front of the Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank in Malgudi. He works as an unauthorized middleman between the bank and the borrowers. He helps the shareholders of the bank to borrow money at a small interest and lends it to the needy at a higher interest. In the process, he makes money for himself. Margayya is too much interested in money and interest. Money is not just coins and currency for him rather, he believes that money is the greatest wonder of creation which contains the mystery of birth and multiplication within itself.

The secretary of the bank realized that Margayya is making money out of nowhere by manipulating the rate of interest and thus, he catches Margayya with the help of Arul Dass, the peon with many blank loan application forms that he was not authorized to keep. The secretary and peon humiliate Margayya. Margayya believes that his persecution is motivated by a lack of means and lower social status, and vows to become a wealthy man; a financial equal of the bank’s secretary.

Later on, when he reaches home, his elder brother who is financially better than him also humiliates him for his corrupt practices of trying to make use of a loophole in the banking sector. This further angers Margayya. He and his brother live in the same ancestral house partitioned by a wall between the two families. Margayya lives with his wife and only son Balu on one side while his brother lives on the other side.

Being a single child, Balu is a spoilt brat who is very adamant. Because of the bank secretary’s opposition, his business gets temporarily halted for a while. He keeps a record of all the money that he has lent to various borrowers and all the entries of his transactions with his clients. One day, Balu demands some candy and when he fails to get any, he gets angry and throws the register containing all the business entries of Margayya into a gutter outside the house running with dirty water, and it disappears down the drain. This is a big loss to Margayya as without proper written records, many of his borrowers cheat him and weasel out of what they owed him. It becomes difficult for him to return to his cheap practice of dodging the loophole of the Cooperative bank.

Margayya feels that despite his hard work and acumen, he isn’t getting the rewards as if his fate is stopping him from attaining success.

He then meets an astrologer and shows his horoscope to him. The astrologer says that Margayya is going through the bad run of Saturn and suggests him a puja to Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth. The astrologer also instructs him to offer honey to the priest of a temple dedicated to Saturn (Shani), God of Justice). Margayya visits the Shani temple and offers honey to the priest of the temple. Then he dedicates himself to the worship of Goddess Lakshmi which has to be done for forty days, with ash from a red lotus and ghee made of milk from a grey cow. His wife assists him appropriately. The red lotus is a rare thing that Margayya could attain only from a pond in the other town. Margayya visits and takes a lotus from the pond every day. During his visits to the pond, he meets Dr. Pal who is working as a journalist but also claims to be a sociologist and psychologist. One day, Dr. Pal shows a manuscript of a book titled “Bed-Life; Or Science of Marital Happiness.” Dr. Pal says that the book contains the essence of his research and experience as a psychologist and he is seeking a publisher for publishing that book. Margayya takes the manuscript with a promise that he will arrange for a good publisher. After reading the book, Margayya feels that though the topic of the book is off the mark, it can be a successful book. He meets Dr. Pal and says that he is willing to buy the manuscript from Dr. Pal for Rs25 to which Dr. Pal agrees. Margayya expects to sell at least 100,000 copies year after year at 1 rupee each, thus making a profit of Rs 100, 000 minus Rs 25, the price at which he bought the manuscript.

On the fortieth day of his puja, Margayya meets a publisher Madan Lal and persuades him to publish the book. Madan Lal reads the manuscript and says that the book can be successful but publishing it may trap them in the legal issues of obscenity. Thus, he suggests that the title of the book should be changed to “Domestic Harmony.” Madan Lal says that he is willing to publish the book if Margayya agrees to a 50% share in profits to which Margayya agrees. The book is at once popular and sells like hotcakes and Margayya hits a fortune. Everything improves for Margayya and his brother also starts talking to him cordially. However, with the success on the business front, Margayya starts living a better life with all the luxuries stacked at his home for his wife and son. He takes the help of his elder brother to get Balu admitted to the best school in Malgudi. Everyone starts respecting Margayya. As Margayya’s profits from the book increase, he gets enough money saved to restart his business of money-lending. He fails to control his lust and gets involved in the dodgy schemes of finance and money lending again. While he makes good profits in the financial sector too, he starts losing at his home base. His only son gets trapped in bad habits and bad company. His teachers complain that Balu is doing very bad in his studies. Margayya decides to donate a large amount of donation to the school and becomes a member of the school board and hires the school teacher as a private tutor for Balu. Yet Balu doesn’t improve, rather he starts cheating during the exams to get better grades, and nobody opposes him as he is the son of a member of the school board.

Margayya’s only dream is to send Balu to college and then to further studies in Europe or America. While he is making good money through Dr. Pal’s book, he doesn’t wish to continue burdening himself with the ignominy of being the publisher of a pornographic book. Thus, he makes a deal with Madan Lal and sells his share in the book for a good amount of money. He then uses that money to start his own private bank.

While Margayya gets busy in his new bank, Balu flunks in his high school graduation examination conducted by the state board that Margayya couldn’t manipulate. Margayya feels frustrated and tells Balu to reappear for the exam and study hard. But Balu is no more interested in education. He forcibly enters the office of his school and tears off the School leaving certificate register and takes it away to throw it in the same gutter where he threw Margayya’s account book. Then Balu runs away from the home. Margayya tries to search for his son but fails. One day, he gets a letter from Madras, informing him about the accidental demise of Balu. His elder brother comes to him to help him in this difficult time but Margayya denies taking his help and decides to visit Madras and take the dead body of his son alone. On the train to Madras, he meets a man who happens to be a police inspector in plain clothes and shares his ordeal with him. The police inspector asks him to show the letter to him. After seeing the letter, the police inspector says that it is fake and his son must be alive. After reaching Madras, the police inspector investigates the case and finds that Balu is living with a rich but crazy man who has employed him. Margayya takes his son back to Malgudi, alive. After reaching home, he and his wife spoil Balu even more than before.

Margayya realizes that Balu has no future in education so he decides to marry him off to a beautiful girl named Brinda who is the daughter of a rich tea plantation owner. However, when Margayya takes the horoscope of Balu the astrologer whose help he took in past, to match it with Brinda, the pundit declares that their horoscope doesn’t match. Margayya gets angry over the pundit and decides to meet another astrologer. Dr. Pal takes him to another astrologer who demands a high fee of Rs 75 to do a puja that will help match the horoscopes of his son with Brinda. Margayya agrees and the astrologer manipulates the horoscope of Balu to make it appear matching with that of Brinda.

Margayya succeeds in arranging the marriage of Balu with Brinda and then he takes a huge amount of loan from his clients to buy a new house for Balu and Brinda in the Lawley Extension. While he is making good business, he observes that Balu is tilting toward Dr. Pal too much and decides to draw Dr. Pal away from his son. To do so he hires Dr. Pal to attract deposits from black marketeers who have become rich in the wartime economy, by promising high-interest rates. He starts taking loans from such people at a handsome interest and then re-lending the money to the needy at an even higher interest. However, soon he realizes that he is not getting enough borrowers ready to take loans at such a high-interest rate. Yet, he calculates that If he got Rs. 20,000 deposit each day and paid Rs. 15,000 in interest, he had still Rs. 5,000 a day left in his hands as his own. However, it is not his money that he starts spending, he is just running a Ponzi scheme and spending other people's money. Soon he buys a new car and other amenities. He remains in the good books of the police in administration by giving donations to the War Fund.

Meanwhile, Balu is doing nothing but wasting all the money he gets from Margayya and Brinda’s family on alcohol and prostitution. One day, Balu visits Margayya’s office and claims that Margayya made all his fortune from his ancestral property. Now when Balu is an adult and married, he demands his share in ancestral property. Balu gets baffled by this demand but persuades Balu to go away and promises him to think about it soon. Soon he finds out that Dr. Pal is instigating Balu and he has trapped Balu in luxurious bad habits of alcoholism and prostitutes for which Balu needs more money. He goes to Balu’s house at Lawley Extension that night and finds that Brinda and her infant child are alone. When he asks about Balu, Brinda starts crying and informs him about Balu’s daily routine at night. She says that he hardly visits home and spends nights with other women. Margayya is saddened by knowing all this. As he comes out of the house, he notices a car stopping at the gate from which Balu emerges out. Margayya observes that Dr. Pal is also sitting in the car along with two prostitutes. He gets enraged and takes Dr. Pal out of the car and starts beating him. He scolds the girls and makes them run away.

The next morning, Dr. Pal goes to the police and lodges a complaint of assault against Margayya. He also starts whispering bad words against Margayya and his Ponzi bank. This creates mistrust in Margayya’s client base and they start to demand their deposits back. The Ponzi scheme quickly collapses. Margayya has to declare bankruptcy. The house shared by him and his brother cannot be attached, but all other assets are seized, and Balu and his family are thrown out of their house, and back to the small half-house where Margayya lives. Then Margayya shows Balu all his ancestral property, the half-house where they live, and the tin box in which he kept his ink, pen, and paper to take every day to his place under the banyan tree in front of the cooperative bank. He offers Balu all his ancestral property and tells him to go to the banyan tree and start working. But Balu is afraid of doing so as he worries about what people would say about it. So Margayya decides to go back to his old work himself and restart his struggle. Narayan ends the novel after this whole circle that began from the banyan tree and ended in its shed.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady by Alexander Pope | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady is a poem by Alexander Pope in Heroic couplets that was first published in 1717. Unlike his other famous works like Rape of The Lock and Dunicad, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady is not a satire. Rather it is an emotional poem sympathetic to a diseased lady who committed suicide. Suicide was considered a heinous crime directly against the religious scriptures of both Roman Catholic and Protestant sects. When Alexander Pope wrote this elegy commemorating her ending life, he faced criticism as death by suicide was not considered something to be lauded.

In this poem, Alexander Pope describes death by choice as a brave, or noble act. He describes a young woman who took her own life because her uncle barred her liaison with the man of her choice.

The lady is not named anywhere in the poem and there is no substantial evidence that Alexander Pope wrote this poem inspired by some real incident. It could have been the case of the completely manufactured story of such a lady by Alexander Pope that he invented to support his own ideas about suicide, or in support of his ideas for the right of a woman to choose her spouse.

Aphra Behn (The Forc’d Marriage), George Farquhar (The Beau Stratagem), William Wycherly (The Country Wife), John Vanbrugh (The Provoked Wife), and William Congreve (The Way of The World) had already raised this issue by their plays.

Structure of Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady:

The other title for the same poem is “Versus to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.”

The poem is written in Heroic couplets with 82 lines composed in 7 Stanzas of varying length. The poem lacks any strict rhyming pattern but end-rhyming (shade-glade, heart-part, sky-die, aspire-desire....) keeps the poem melodious. Pope has used alliteration, allusion, allegory, anaphora, and imagery has been used.

Summary of Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady:

Stanza 1

Lines 1-10

The narrator identifies the spirit of her dead beloved as a silhouette, “a beck’ning ghost” silver-lined by moonlight. She invites the narrator to examine the wound, that killed her. The narrator observes that the ghost has a deep bleeding wound going right through her bosom to her heart. The sword that wounded her is still there and it gleams lightly as her blood shines on it.

The poet wonders why the spirit of her beloved is lurking around, he worries about her even though she is dead and asks if she has been alienated by Heaven for committing suicide: “Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well?” He enquires if the angels consider it a crime for someone who loves a person more than anything, their own life and when they fail due to the harsh and heartless society’s opposition, they act "a Lover's or a Roman's part." Christian scriptures claim suicide is a crime against God. However, the Romans didn’t consider it a crime or immoral in certain conditions. Rather the pagan considered it a brave way to ascertain one’s liberty, honor, and prestige. During medieval India when the villages and forts of native people were attacked by Muslim or Christian exploiters, the unmarried girls, wives, and daughters of fighting Hindu soldiers used to prepare themselves to commit “Jauhar” or “Sati” in case of the defeat and death of their husbands in the battleground. They did so because, for them, their honor and chastity were more important than their life. They believed that it is better to jump in the fire and end one’s life than to allow the robbers to sully their bodies and life and become their slaves. The Christians and Muslim invaders who often attacked Hindu villages and colonies with the main purpose of robbing Hindu women often found themselves fooled as they got nothing but burnt bodies of dead women whom they desired to enslave. But for Christians, suicide is a crime. Thus, the poet mentions the act of committing suicide as "a Lover's or a Roman's part." The narrator acknowledges that in the mortal world, the lady’s family and society as a whole mistreated her and considered her a sinner and didn’t even attend her funeral. So he asks if she is suffering the same alienation in her afterlife?

Stanza 2

Lines 11-22

The narrator admires the dead lady so much that he questions Christian morality and wonders If heaven does not approve of one human's loving another beyond bearing, and the death by one's own hand that might result, then why would heavenly "Pow'rs!" allow, or even cause "Her soul aspire / Above the vulgar flight of low desire?" Pope blames the Almighty for the folly of love that ends in death. He says that if it is a sin for someone to love another person so much to die for them, then why does God inspire them to love someone to such a great height? He uses biblical allegory and mentions that God made man in his own image. But then the Angels produce ‘Ambition’ for love in their heart. The narrator says that love "first sprung" as the "glorious fault of Angels and Gods." The narrator then complains about human frailty and says that most souls only "peep out once an age," the rest of the time remaining "sullen pris'ners in the body's cage." Pope uses excellent imagery to suggest a loving heart either as a prisoner or liberated by passion.

Stanza 3

Lines 23-28

In these lines, the narrator says that when the lady died, he believed that being a better soul, a better human being, she has left the heartless society of living people to join the purer souls in the sky where she will be acknowledged and respected for her good, love, and virtues. Her ambition destined her for the heavens, and her departure from this earth has deprived her family below of all “virtue (to redeem her race).”

Stanza 4

Lines 29-46

In these lines, the narrator suggests that the lady who committed suicide was an orphan being controlled by her guardian, her uncle. The narrator compounds the guardian’s failings in Christian charity toward his female ward by heaping curses for the early death of the uncle’s entire family to an overwrought, even surrealistic degree (“And frequent hearses shall beseige your gates/While the long fun’rals blacken all the way”). So many should die that neighbors behold a veritable parade of hearses, to compensate for the death of the innocent maiden who could not be buried in the hallowed ground because of her manner of death.

Stanza 5

Lines 47-68

The narrator returns to the sad situation of the lady who didn’t even get a proper, traditional funeral and last rites and maybe that is why she is suffering even in her afterlife. The narrator says that she understands her pain. “By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!” Pope used anaphora to explain the dire situation of the lady in lines 51-54. The narrator mentions that strangers buried her in an unhallowed grave, without Christian burial rights because of her suicide. But nature restored beauty and sacredness to her unmarked grave site, where angels “o’ershade/ The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.”

Stanza 6

Lines 69-74

In these lines, the narrator says that despite all the wrongs she faced, the lady must now attain the peace and comfort that she deserves. Once she had wealth, beauty, titles, and fame but now she resides under a grave without a stone. The narrator says that she is now mere dust, “as all the proud shall be.”

Stanza 7

Lines 75-82

In the last stanza, the narrator offers a lesson of mortality to himself: someday he too will die and the last thought of the lady will be torn from him as he passes away. There will be no more to mourn her and remember her. He mourns that after his death he will no longer be able to mourn his beloved: “Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er,/ The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more.”

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens | Structure, Themes, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Wallace Stevens was an American poet who took birth on October 2, 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a law scholar from New York Law School. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his poetic collection titled Collected Poems in 1955.

His first poetic collection was titled Harmonium which was published in 1923. Harmonium contains 85 poems and one of them is Anecdote of the Jar which was first published in 1919.

Wallace Stevens was known as a symbolist philosophical poet and Anecdote of the Jar is a good example of that. It is an imagist symbolic poem in which Stevens explores if human creativity can surpass nature in some way. Stevens concludes that art can be much more beautiful than nature itself in many ways but it cannot be as creative as nature.

Structure of Anecdote of the Jar :

Anecdote of the Jar is a 12 lines long short poem composed in three stanzas written in iambic tetrameter with no specific rhyming scheme. Occasional end rhyming makes the poem interesting (hill/hill, air/everywhere/bare). The poem uses Alliteration, Assonance, Caesura, Consonance, and Enjambment. Metaphor, Personification, Symbolism, and Hyperbole. It can also be termed as an allusion to John to Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn."

Summary of Anedote of the Jar:

The poem is set in Tennessee. Just like many of his other poems, Anecdote of the Jar is very easy to understand but it can be interpreted in a myriad of ways and that makes it difficult and ambiguous. The poet describes the after story of one of his acts in past.

First Stanza

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The narrator says that he placed an ordinary jar on the top of a hill in Tennessee. The jar was round and it was manageable enough that the narrator alone could lift and take it to the top of the hill and place it. It is a man-made jar, an artificial thing, a thing of art. The jar is beautiful and makes the surrounding nature appear lacking or inferior. The perfection of the jar makes the hill look more untidy in contrast to the jar. Here, the narrator himself is observing all this. The poet uses personification, metaphors, and symbolism to suggest that the jar made it necessary for the surroundings to change for to better as the hill appears surrounded by “Slovenly Wildnerness” because of the presence of the jar. The jar represents artificial beauty, industrialization, and modernity. While the hill represents natural wilderness which appears untidy, unmanaged, and dirty. A jar is not a human, it cannot bring any change or do anything, and a jar cannot persuade, and thus the poet personifies it in the third line.

Second Stanza

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

The poet uses personification of nature and suggests that nature gets influenced by the beauty of the jar and gets animated. Nature surrenders and accepts that the jar is much better and thus, strives to change and get better, like the jar. The jar appears to be a tall leader of all natural things surrounding it as it changes the wilderness of nature to a tidiness, managed landscape. And gradually, the jar got control of all the surroundings, reducing the wilderness.

Third Stanza

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

The poet then symbolizes the change brought upon by the jar in the third stanza. The jar continues to dominate the surrounding and gradually takes control of everything natural and it becomes unnatural. The wilderness gets away as the artificial beauty takes hold of it. Everything is now tidy, managed, and ordered. The jar becomes the universal leader and then the poet notices that the jar was gray and bare, it was barren. It couldn’t give birth to a bird or bush. Now when the jar has dominion over the whole surrounding, everything in Tennessee is as barren, gray, and bare, as the jar was.

Themes of Anecdote of the Jar:

The main theme of the poem is within the imagery and symbolism. Stevens offers strong images of the order of the artificial world in form of dominating jar. The hills and surroundings are the images of the subservient nature, tamed by human intellect and cleverness. The wilderness represents adaptability of the nature that tries to attain the same order and tidiness as that of the jar. These images and symbols can be interpreted in several ways from different philosophical perspectives.

The proper place for a jar could be a kitchen with other utensils. But somehow, the jar is left behind in the wilderness, alone. Nature consequently adapts to the alienated jar, not letting it alone.

The jar represents art, which is a human endeavor. The poet suggests that despite all its beauty, there is a limit to human art, innovativeness, and artificial creativity which can never match the ability of nature. Human art and imagination are beautiful but ultimately do not have the power to the creation of nature and reality represented by the wilderness. The poet is demonstrating the acceptance of the limits of imagination in reality.

Another interpretation could be the harmful effect of modernism and industrialization on the earth, atmosphere, and overall environment. The poet suggests that being artificial, aided with human cleverness, the artificial is dominant enough to subjugate nature but in the end, it leads to barrenness, synonymous with death. However, unlike the environmentalists, who often act holier than thou, the poet doesn’t engage in criticizing humankind, rather, he uses ‘I’ at the beginning and accepts the blame for the imagined barrenness.

Another interpretation could be the limits of any revolutionary idea. The United States rose as a brilliant idea of human liberty and progress that inspired the whole of the world. But gradually, the US started losing its shine while the world continued to grow and become better.

There can be politico-philosophical interpretations too. Some feminist critics suggest that the jar represents the patriarchial male ego dominating mother nature, a female environment, and that causes mayhem and destruction. The same jar can be said to represent industrial imperialism, destroying the environment and manipulating the wilderness. As one can see, such a short and succinct poem by Wallace Stevens can perfectly be interpreted in so many ways aligning with different philosophical connotations.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected to the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!