Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird by Wallace Stevens | Themes, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird is an abstract metaphysical poem by Wallace Stevens that was first published in 1917 and then added to his poetry collection Harmonium published in 1923.

Structure of Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird:

The poem is written in imitation of the haiku style. Haiku or Hokku is a Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time. The poem doesn’t offer different ideas about a similar image of a Blackbird, rather it offers different sensations for the same sight. The poem has 13 sections or cantos and while all of them appear to be imitating Haiku style, none of them is truly a haiku. The poet used simile, imagery, and metaphor to offer different sensations for the minimal sketches he draws in these thirteen cantos. The poem is modernist and follows the pattern of cubism. In Cubist literature, the subjects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of expressing objects from a single perspective, the author depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Wallace expresses the seemingly common and ordinary blackbird in a way that makes it anything but ordinary because at a given instant, perception alters—depending on the physical environment—the action of the bird and the effect on the mind of the perceiver. While reading the poem, the reader would normally stress over the phrase ‘to be’ to understand it.

Themes:

The major theme of the poem is Subjectivity versus Reality. The poet suggests that there is no single correct way of seeing the world. Instead, the poem implies that reality is subjective and can be defined by whoever's looking at it. In the first canto, the poet plays with the word ‘eye,’ depicting it as ‘I’ the pronoun depicting Individual. Through this ‘I’ people perceive things in the world, not just the blackbird, but anything in general. The true essence of the reality of the blackbird or any other thing is altered by the perception of ‘I’ from person to person and it differs in different situations too. The author suggests that truth is not one singular entity—but a whole range of possibilities, all held in a kind of irresolvable tension. It may appear like the quantum theory that suggests that unless observed things remain in a state of superimposition and take a definite shape only when they are observed. Thus, the reality is dependent on the observer and hence, it is subjective and there is no singular, true reality.

Another theme of the poem is death. The blackbird, a raven represents death, it is no ordinary bird or crow. It outlasts all other creatures., in the snow, stands in as a muse for the speaker, and appears in several different forms. The bird is made up of more than its simple physiology. It contains beauty, innuendos, and eccentricities which separate it from other creatures.

Summary of Thirteen Ways to Look at A Blackbird:

It is a circular poem that begins in a barren snow desert surrounded by over twenty mountains, then moves towards human society, and then returns to the sparse snowy terrain as if completing the circle of life. The poet depicts a blackbird or different blackbirds in all thirteen cantos, but the blackbird isn’t the subject of all these cantos.

Canto I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

The first stanza contains contrast, exaggeration, and imagery. It is a tercet of 8, 6, and 7 syllables. The poet depicts a small blackbird in a large white expanse of snowy terrain surrounded by twenty mountains. There is a Juxtaposition of Thirteen in the title and ‘Twenty’ mountains. Thirteen is a prime number indivisible by any other than one and itself while 20 is an even number clearly divisible by 2, 4, 5, or 10, along with 1 and 20 itself. There is a contrast between the blackbird and the white snow. The bird appears as a tiny black spot on a huge white background. Again the eye of the blackbird is mostly white except for the little black pupil of the blackbird’s eye. Thus, the poet imagines a picture within the picture or all white with a tiny black spot. The poet uses exaggeration to suggest that the only moving thing in the scene is the black pupil of the blackbird. The bird doesn’t move nor shake its neck but its pupil does move. Imagine a tiny black spot moving in a whole white background surrounded by blackness which is again situated in an all-white expanse. It is difficult to imagine that nothing else moves.

Canto 2

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

The poet uses first person narrative to relate with the bird and uses a simile “like a tree” which suggests the tree of life. The poet is depicting an old memory and thus uses the past tense. The poet was in three minds (rather than two minds). While the blackbird was keenly observing the snowy terrain, the poet was observing the blackbird and he could imagine the bird in three ways. The first appears ‘to be’ a tiny black spot surrounded by a huge white expanse of snow, and the second appears ‘to be’ a tiny white speck of eye surrounded by the whole black body of the blackbird. The third appears ‘to be’ a further small black spot in the larger white expanse of the eye of the blackbird.

Wallace simply played with the expression of ‘being in two minds’ and expressed that he could see three possibilities, three birds, each bird representing a different state of mind.

Canto 3

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

This is complete with no rhyming scheme but employs alliteration and assonance. The scene has been changed, everything is moving with the winds and the bird is also flying in a peculiar whirling motion. The whole appears like a Pantomime, a drama with no dialogue with expressions presented through motion. The blackbird is a part of the pantomime. The season has also been changed and it appears to be autumn, a time of high winds, blown leaves, and uncontrollable birds.

Canto 4

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

In this stanza, the poet offers a completely alienated viewpoint. He offers a viewpoint of non-dualism and suggests that there is no difference between a man and a woman, both are the same, or one, both are living, and so is the blackbird. There is no distinction other than the three, man, woman, and the bird is alive, representing one force of life. It can also be interpreted as a man and a woman copulating and while they are sharing intimacy, the blackbird observes them and sensually becomes one with them.

Canto 5

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

The poet is ‘two minds’ now. He listens to the whistling sound of the blackbird and he cannot decide whether should he appreciate the ‘inflection’ of the musical sound as the blackbird sings, or should he cherish the silence just after the whistle, offering innuendoes or instructions while the whistle still lingers in the ear of the listener.

Canto 6

Icicles filled the long window / With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird / Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood / Traced in the shadow / An indecipherable cause.

Canto 6 is a seven lines stanza with a full rhyme in lines 1, 4, and 6 (window, to and fro, and shadow) and lines 2, 7, and 3, 5 in slant rhyme (glass, cause), blackbird, mood). The blackbird began from a snowy barren land surrounded by ice-capped mountains and then it flew and is now in human society as it sits near a glass window of a house. It is cold outside while the poet sees through the glass of the window. He observes flakes of ice on the old glass window and while he is not able to see the blackbird, he sees the shadow of the bird on the glass. And then the poet explains what these varied scenes and situations are, these are his moods, his sensations that are influencing the shadow of the blackbird but the poet cannot understand that influence.

These lines can also be interpreted as the blackbird flies to and fro, casting its shadow on the glass window, the poet fails to decipher the mood of the blackbird, what is causing it to hop here and there. The poet knows that it is the shadow of the moving blackbird but some other observer may fail to interpret the moving shadow and would wonder what is causing the moving shadow.

Canto 7

O thin men of Haddam, / Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird / Walks around the feet / Of the women about you?

Canto 7 is 5 lines long in which Stevens names a place, Haddam. He expresses another viewpoint of the shadow of the blackbird on the window. Some thin men from Haddam observe the moving shadow and they imagine it to be caused by a moving golden bird which shows their richness and extravagance. They imagine of some exotic things while blackbirds are so common in the area. However, their perception is too materialistic.

Canto 8

I know noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too, / That the blackbird is involved / In what I know.

Again a five-line verse with first-person narrative and caesurae in lines 2, and 3.

The poet says that he knows a lot of beautiful and pleasurable things that are liked. He knows the accent of the high noble class and he is aware of enchanting light (lucid) rhythms. But he says that all these pleasurable things remind him of the blackbird.

Canto 9

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

The blackbird doesn’t stay for long and flies away afar, out of sight. Wallace uses Juxtaposition again. The poet says that all that he knows is based on his observation of the blackbird and when it flies away, it marks ‘the edge’ of his life. As the blackbird flies away, the expanse of his knowledge also continues to increase and marks a new boundary to it while he is at the center. There can be infinite circles with the same center, and the blackbird marks one out of them. The juxtaposition is between the edge of a circle and the edge of one’s own life. Each person or creature has his or her own horizon at a particular moment, so the horizon that the blackbird reaches is only one of many. The circles of the poet and reader may differ as they are subjective.

Canto 10

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

In these lines, the poet suggests that the blackbird can influence everybody and even a heartless much less sensitive bawd, or the madam of a brothel will feel the pain of the blackbird’s whistle and will start crying.

Also, the poet compares the natural whistle song of the blackbird with the euphony (highly pleasing sound) of artificial, professional pleasure providers and suggests that the blackbird’s whistle is much more impressive.

Canto 11

He rode over Connecticut / In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him, / In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage / For blackbirds.

In this section, the poet informs about the progress of an unknown man from his home state of Connecticut as he traveled in his ‘glass coach’ a carriage made of glass windows ridden by horses. As the man saw the shadow of his own carrier, he was frightened as he mistook the shadow for the shadow of the blackbird. Why would a man fear blackbirds? Either the poet is making fun of this man, or he is suggesting that the blackbird isn’t a mere bird, but is a symbol of a much greater force, the force of life that takes it forwards, the force of death.

Canto 12

The river is moving. / The blackbird must be flying.

In the only canto in which the poet uses the present tense. In this section the poet suggests that there must be some entanglement between the river and the blackbird, if the river is moving, the bird must also be flying. The river is the river of life that continues to flow from mountains to the sea and back again.

A moving river also suggests the melting of ice. The poem begins in cold frozen terrain and the movement began in autumn. Now as spring approaches, the ice is melting and rivers are moving. It must be the time for the blackbird to migrate and hence, the poet is sure that the blackbird is flying.

Canto 13

It was evening all afternoon. / It was snowing
And it was going to snow. / The blackbird sat / In the cedar-limbs.

The poet again brings the image of the past and describes the blackbird when he saw it during the winter. He cannot see the blackbird right now because it is springtime and the blackbird has migrated away. The poet describes the day when it was heavily snowing continuously from afternoon to evening when he saw the blackbird sitting in the cedar limb, a common place where the poet often observed the bird sitting.

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 Serpent and The Rope by Raja Rao | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hell and welcome to the Discourse. The Serpent and The Rope is a metaphysical novel written by Raja Rao that was published in 1960 and won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1964. The serpent in the title refers to illusions and desires while the rope refers to reality. The major themes of the novel are concepts of existence, reality, and fulfillment of one's desires and capabilities. The novel depicts a clash between the non-dualistic Vedantic philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya and the western dualist ideas of Cathars. Another important theme of the novel is the problems of immigrants and immigration. The novel has been written in an autobiographical style and it is a semi-autobiographical story of Raja Rao.

Characters of The Serpent and The Rope:

Rama Swami is the protagonist of the novel. Rama is a young Brahmin boy from India who lost his mother during his childhood and his father married a widow, a much younger girl whom Rama Swami calls Little Mother or Choti Maa. He is a student of philosophy who goes to France to do his research work on the subject of Albigensian heresy. His topic of research is the Jainist or Buddhist background of the Cathars. His Saroja is Rama’s half-sister. She is the daughter of Little Mother from her first marriage. Rama likes Saroja and he has more than a fraternal interest in her. Saroja too respects Rama and listens to him. Madeline is a French girl also involved in research on Catharis and Buddhism. She is very interested in Indian philosophies, especially in Buddhism. Rama and Madeline become friends and then they marry. Initially, their married life is very satisfying and blissful but gradually, they start feeling differences. Despite all the respect for Indology, Madeline doesn’t respect various Indian deities the way Rama does. Rama is more interested in the Vedantic philosophy of non-dualism while Madeline believes in the Dualism of Cathars. Gradually, these philosophical, cultural, and psychological differences become the reason for the rift between the two. Krishna is the son of Rama and Madeline who dies at an early age. Catherine is Madeline’s cousin, the daughter of Uncle Charles who married Georges, a young Russian refugee. Both Catherine and Georges like Rama and respect him as a close friend and relative. Subramanyam Sastri is a young suitor for Saroja whom Saroja doesn’t like much. Professor Venkatraman is a friend of Rama whom he visits in Benaras during his tour. Pratap Singh is a student of Professor Venkatraman who is married to Savithri. Savithri is a young girl interested in communism and since Pratap Singh belongs to a landlord family, she doesn’t like him and doesn’t consider him her husband.

Summary of The Serpent and The Rope:

The novel begins as Rama Swamy returns to India to attend the last rites of his father who recently died. His father was a great scholar and Rama himself is a philosophy researcher working in France. He lost his mother at a very early age and then his father remarried Catherine a widow who was still young. Rama calls her Little Mother. After his father’s death, he takes responsibility for the family which includes his stepmother, step-sister Saroja, and an infant step-brother. Saroja is the daughter of Little Mother from her first marriage. Rama has been infatuated with Saroja for a long but being her step-brother, he keeps his desires under control. The family travel to Benaras to perform the last rites of his father. During the journey, Rama describes how he visited France to complete his research on Cathars and Indian philosophies and how he met a beautiful young French girl Madeline there. Madeline and Rama fell in love and they married. Their marriage was very warm, full of emotions and sexual escapades but after the death of their first son Krishna during his infancy, the two started drifting away. Madeline has great respect for Indian philosophies and she tries her best to become a true Hindu wife of Rama completely devoted to her.

However, Rama feels that there is a basic philosophical difference between the two. Rama believes in Non-dualism and considers himself as Purusha, the creator, and Madeline as Prakriti, the medium. He believes that man and woman are not two different entities but they are two different phases of the same entities and for creation, Prakriti must become a subject of Purusha. Madeline on the other hand believes in the Dualism of Cathars and believes that man and woman are two different entities altogether. While Rama is inclined toward Hindu philosophies and deities, Madeline is more interested in Buddhism. Despite these subtle differences in opinion, Rama and Madeline respect each other. Yet, Rama suffers loneliness especially when he sees that Madeline often fails to pay similar respect to some of the customs that are too dear for him as a Brahmin man while for her, those are mere superstitions. During his tour to Benaras, he explores his philosophical routes. He explains his experience of Benaras as “Benares is eternal. There the dead do not die, nor do the living live. The dead comes down to play on the bank of the Ganges and the living who move about, and even offer rice - balls to the means, live in the illusion of a vast night and a bright city.”

He feels that the great Himalayas and surrounding planes explain the eternal truth of the cycle of life and death while the Ganga teaches humanity.

At Benras, Rama and his family stay at Professor Venkatraman’s house who introduces him to Pratap Singh, one of his students. Pratap Singh is the son of a Zamindar who was loyal to the British government. He recently engaged to a beautiful young woman Savithri who is still studying at the University of Cambridge. However, Savithri doesn’t want to marry him because it is against her wishes. Savithri is a staunch communist. Pratap Singh asks for Rama’s help in solving his philosophical argument with Savithri. Rama meets Savithri and during their discussion, he feels a strong attachment to her.

After performing the funeral ceremony of his father at Allahabad Rama and his family members return to their home city. Rama is feeling healthier in India while he often suffered ill health in France. He is ailing from some lung disease because his body is not adapted to the cold weather of France. Yet, he has to return to France. His mother gives him a couple of toe rings as a gift for Madeline. After returning to France, Rama, and Madeline try their best to rejuvenate their relationship. Soon Madeline becomes pregnant again. However, Rama is still not convinced about their relationship and doesn’t offer the toe rings to Madeline that he got from Little Mother. Madeline used to be a very sensitive girl but she was inspired by the spiritual nature of Indian philosophies and tried her best to become a true devoted Hindu wife of Rama. But gradually, she started feeling more interested in the renunciation of Buddhism.

Meanwhile, Savithri visits Rama’s house in France where she went for an educational trip. This further complicates Rama’s relationship with Madeline because he finds himself strongly infatuated with Savithri though he is already married. Rama decides to go to London to complete his research, but his main motive is to spend some more time with Savithri who studies at Cambridge. During his days in London, Rama receives a letter from Pratap Singh informing him that Savithri has fallen in love with a Muslim guy. Rama decides to meet Savithri. He talks with Savithri about a varied topic including language, literature, Nazism, Communism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Savithri is immensely impressed by him.

Meanwhile, Rama has to return to India to attend his step-sister’s marriage. His Little Mother has arranged the engagement of his foster sister Saroja with Subramanyam Shashtri who is a well-educated good mannered man. However, Saroja isn’t willing to marry him because she doesn’t love him. Little Mother insists Rama talk to Saroja because she is convinced that Saroja will lead a happy married life with Subramanyam Shashtri. Rama discusses the matter with Saroja and explains that every girl has to marry at the proper age and she should marry Subhramanyam happily because he is a good man, respectful and affectionate to Saroja.

Suddenly he falls further ill and starts vomiting blood. He decides to return to France for proper medical treatment but is forced to stay at the house of Captain Shyam Sunder in Bombay for one week because of his health. During his stay, he seduces Shyam Sunder’s wife Lakshmi, and makes a physical relationship with her without any feeling of guilt. He receives a message that Madeline gave birth to a stillborn child. He also receives the news that Savithri agreed to marry Pratap Singh and now she and Pratap Singh are married. He returns to France to mend his relationship with his wife Madeline but finds that she has completely adopted the life of a Buddhist monk. Madeline is still very respectful and friendly to Rama but she has completely prohibited any physical touch with him. Rama realizes that their relationship is over and decides to file for divorce and goes to London. In London, his health further deteriorates and he is admitted to the hospital. Savithri visits her at the hospital and he expresses his feelings toward her by offering her the toe rings that his mother gave him. Savithri accepts the toe-rings and both of them accept that they must part ways and that fate has led them in separate directions. They acknowledge that love is about rejoicing in one another’s happiness. He asks Savithri to promise him that she would return to India and become Pratap's good wife.

As he recovers, he returns to France for the proceedings of the divorce with Madeline. Catherine and Georges appear as witnesses for Ram for the amicable divorce of him and Mandeline at friendly terms and then Rama bid goodbye to Catherine, Georges, Uncle Charles, and Madeline and returns to India as he realizes that the completeness and comfort he has been looking in relationships with Saroja, Madeline, Savithri or Lakshmi cannot be attained through these earthly relationships as the answer to his philosophical quest lies in the journey to seek out his Guru and that all of the trials and tribulations of his life have led him to this realization.

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!

A Tale of A Tub by Jonathan Swift | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Jonathan Swift was an English writer, essayist, satirist, poet, and political pamphleteer who took birth in Dublin, Ireland in the year 1667 and died in 1745. His parents were English. They shifted to Ireland during the English Civil War. Jonathan Swift’s father died when he was still a kid and then he remained under the foster care of his uncle Gordon Swift in Ireland where he attended Kilkenny College for his graduation. In 1688, Jonathan Swift returned to London and started working for William Temple as a personal assistant. He completed his post-graduation from Hart Hall, Oxford in 1692 after which he returned to Ireland, trying to be an ordained priest of the Church of Ireland. He chose to write satires and to avoid backlashes, he often published his works under pseudonyms such as Lemuel Gulliver, Issac Bickerstaff, M. B. Dappier, and Marcus Scriblerus. Some of his works were published anonymously. His first book was The Battle of the Books which was a satire against the critics of William Temple’s Essay Upon Ancient and Modern Learning that he wrote in 1696 but was published in 1704. His other more famous satire A Tale of A Tub was also published anonymously in 1704. A Tale of A Tub was a prose parody, a religious satire, or a spoof. It is a difficult satire to understand that Jonathan Swift wrote it as a defense of the British monarch’s control over the Anglican Church which was opposed by Thoman Hobbes in Leviathan. In Leviathan, Hobbes supported the sovereignty of the Church and to dissuade the threat, Swift wrote A Tale of A Tub. However, his work was misconstrued and misunderstood as a religious satire and Queen Anne considered it a blasphemous write-up. The work was also misunderstood as a spoof against the British monarchy.

The title of the book refers to the old practice of throwing a large tub into the sea in case of a whale attack on a ship. By throwing away a tub in the waters, the seamen used to distract the attacking whale. Similarly, Swift wrote this book as a tub to distract Hobbesian supporters demanding independence of the English Church from the control of the monarch. It is a religious allegory similar to that of Plato in Book IV of Republic in which Plato describes how the ship of the state is vulnerable to the whims of dissenting crew members who, under the pretext of the captain’s weaknesses fight over the possession of the ship. Jonathan Swift presented the same argument in which he expressed the defects between the government and the Church, and also, the various defections of religion including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Puritanism.

Along with the elements of religious satire, Swift also added parodies of contemporary issues and literature as “digressions” through various prose essays in between the chapters of the main story. A digression is a section of a write-up or speech that offers a temporary shift of the main subject.

Summary of A Tale of A Tub:

A Tale of A Tub is divided into Eleven chapters. The first chapter is the Introduction which begins with a ‘Blank Space’ that the author mentions later that he has lost some pages. It is a satire in itself and suggests that Introduction or ‘Foreward’ is tomfoolery. The author discusses the ways through which writers rise above the crowd like using ladders or making a pulpit to offer a speech so that their thoughts be known to the public. However, a good writer hides his best points rather than expressing them openly in the introduction. Thus, the author says that an Introduction is actually ‘hiding’ a nut in a nutshell. He then mentions the books he has read as references for his own book but the author describes the content of those books erroneously, suggesting that either he never read those books, or he simply misunderstood them, and that is one of the main themes of the book. The author suggests that people misunderstand what they read, for a variety of reasons and with a variety of results ranging from the comic to the tragic. The author mentions that his intention is to split his book into 40 sections, or chapters.

The main story of A Tal of A Tub begins in Chapter 2. The story tells about an old man who is on the verge of death. He calls his three sons named Peter, Martin, and Jack. This story is an allegory of the Reformation of Christianity in various sects. The three brothers represent the three main branches of Christianity. Peter is based on Saint Peter representing Catholic Church, Luther is based on Martin Luther representing the Church of England, and Jack is based on John Calvin representing Calvinism, the umbrella name for Puritans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Congregationalists, and Anabaptists. The father (representing God) gifts a coat to each son and commands them never to alter that coat through a will (representing Bible). The three sons are young and committed to the will of their father but with time, they face the demands of changing fashion. After traveling for several years, the three sons meet three ladies and fall in love with them. Gradually, they start committing all kinds of sins. The ladies insist that they must alter their coats to make them look more fashionable. All three sons want to add shoulder knots to their coats but any alteration is prohibited by the will. So they read the will again to find anything similar to the shoulder knot and seek the letters in the word “shoulder-knots” in their father’s will. They find those letters in the will and interpret it as an allowance to add shoulder knots to the coats. After that, they continue to find similar excuses to alter their coats while justifying their choices through the will.

The third chapter is a ‘digression’ titled A Digression Concerning Crtitics in which Swift satirizes contemporary literary critics. He makes a distinction between the “critic” and the “true critic.” In the same chapter, Swift discusses the debate over Ancient and Modern thought processes.

The fourth chapter furthers the main story. Peter is the eldest brother and thus, he dominatingly takes all sorts of titles and honors. He starts acting like a ruler and takes on various projects including buying a continent, devising new remedies, erecting a “whispering-house,” creating an office of insurance, supporting street shows, inventing a new kind of pickle, breeding a new kind of bull and handing out pardons to criminals. His practice of power soon makes him highly rich and he falls for the delusions of self-importance. His brothers, Jack and Martin try to intervene and help their elder brother to regain sanity but fail to do so. To avoid the ire of their powerful brother, they decide to leave him. They decide to translate the will of their father into the common trending language of the time. This new translation offers them new insights into what their father actually wished for.

In the fifth Chapter, Swift brings upon a digression titled “A Digression in the Modern Kind” in which he justifies the act of digression and suggests that in some cases, diversion may prove to be more instructive than instructions themselves. In this digression, Swift continues the Ancients versus Moderns topic and criticizes Modern forms of thought.

Chapter six resumes the story of three brothers. Peter is still very rich and high-headed with the gained power. However, Jack and Luther are impoverished and weak. They live together to assist each other. While Martin keeps patience, Jack is very angry about their condition. Both of them wish to follow the true desire of their father and thus they begin to remove the alterations they had made to the coats under their brother’s influence. Martin, being patient, starts removing the adornments gradually and carefully but Jack is clumsy and he decides to remove all the add-ons in one fit of anger. As he does so, his coat is torn down. This creates a rift between the two brothers.

Chapter seventh is again a digression titled “The Digression in Praise of Digressions” in which the author suggests that certain types of arguments may appear smarter and more illuminating than other sets of similar arguments. In this digression, Swift discusses the modern interpretations of wit and discusses how to appear wittier in modern times.

Chapter eight is also a digression in which Swift talks about winds and inspiration. Chapter nine is titled “A Digression Concerning Madness,” in which the author suggests that the youngest brother Jack has turned into madness. He criticizes Puritanism and then suggests that many madmen turned out to be genius and changed the course of history. Many such eccentric men were of religious convictions and then the authors give some examples. Swift describes madness as an ‘excess of vapors’ that creates genius. The author says that Jack has turned mad and has established a new sect named Aeolistism or ‘wind worshippers.’ Jack devises a ritual for all his followers that involves filling themselves with air and then grotesquely disgorging it by belching.

In chapter ten, Swift discusses different types of readers as ‘the superficial, the ignorant, and the learned.’ he suggests how each of the three kinds may perceive his book and says that he has written this story for the learned. In Chapter Eleven, Swift discusses the kinship of a traveler and his horse and how they help and assist each other on difficult terrains especially when they encounter obstacles such as dogs. Then he continues the story of the three brothers. Jack is deeply attached to his translation of the father’s will and asserts that he is the true son of his father. He uses his father’s will as an umbrella, a nightcap, a bandage, and so forth. Jack has turned into a hypocrite who remains ready to argue and quarrel at every instance and then complains that persecuted for defending the Christian faith. The author describes how Jack starts appearing exactly like the eldest brother Peter. Thus, the only sane brother of the three is Luther. The story ends abruptly without a conclusion with a note "Desunt non nulla" which means “Some things are missing.”

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!

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Sunday Morning is a Modernist meditative poem that was first published in 1915 and then republished in Stevens's poetic collection Harmonium in 1923. The poem talks about the modernist critical approach to the Abrahamic religion (Christianity). Wallace Stevens mentioned that the poem is "simply an expression of paganism." The poem challenges the Biblical notion of the afterlife and heaven and suggests that no heaven can be more beautiful than the current life while death is the certainty of change, the mother of all possible beauty. Thus, the poem is abstract, and existentialist and can be related to The Emperor of Icecream.

Structure of Sunday Morning:

The poem is divided into eight stanzas of 15 lines each. All the lines are written in Blank verse and thus, there is no rhyming scheme, nor any end-rhyming though all lines follow iambic pentameter. Wallace Stevens used alliteration, assonance, enjambment, imagery, symbolism, and simile in the poem. Nature symbolizes both, death and paradise. The poet suggests that nature is independent and unconcerned with human affairs.

Themes of Sunday Morning:

The poem discusses the evolution of religion or belief systems. The poet raises doubts about Christianity and then compares it with Roman myths. He suggests that first, human and divinity were separated but then Christ came as a human, and thus, human God became human, the next evolutionary step would be for each human being to become divine and synchronizes with the divinity of nature.

The poem describes a discussion between a woman and the poet. The woman is perplexed about the issue of religion and wonders if there is any need for it. She is uncertain and questioning. The speaker is rather confident and reassuring and the poet encourages the woman to accept the change.

The major themes of Sunday Morning are Supernaturalism versus Realism, death, immortality, beauty, and carpe diem.

Summary of Sunday Morning:

Stanza 1 (Lines 1-15)

The poem begins as the poet describes a lazy Sunday morning of a woman. Sunday is the day of the sabbath and like a good Christian, the woman is expected to go to Church and pray. However, the woman is a bit too late and lazy. She is yet wearing a laced silky nightgown (peignoir) which suggests that she has just left the bed. She is taking her breakfast (Coffee and Oranges) while sitting on a rest chair while enjoying the sunlight. There is a green parrot (cockatoo) sitting near her legs, it is a free bird. The image suggests that the woman is enjoying the natural world. As she sees the free bird, she realizes how peaceful and content the bird is and she is mesmerized by it. She forgets the ‘ancient sacrifice’ which is an allegorical reference to the crucifixion of Christ. The poet suggests that the woman is in no mood to visit Church and pray on this Sunday. The woman is yet not fully awake and she dozes off for a moment and then she dreams. In her dream, she sees a threatening darkness (an old catastrophe) engulfing her. Old catastrophe is again a reference to the crucifixion of Christ. Her calm attitude turns a bit pensive. The woman then sees a reservoir of still water as if it is a ‘procession of the dead.” She sees the same orange and green color on the water. The woman dreams that she is passing over the water toward Palestine where Christ was crucified and where his tomb (sepulcher) is situated. The orange (oranges) and green (parrot) color in the water signifies that all beautiful and tasty things will meet death.

Stanza 2 (Lines 16-30)

While the woman is still in her dream, observing the ‘procession of dead,’ she faces a dilemma and questions herself why should she sacrifice her bounty (her life, earthly comforts, and pleasures). While on the one hand, the image of Christ is pushing her to fulfill the religious duties that she has neglected on this Sunday, she shows a little resistance as she is not completely convinced of Christianity. She is not willing to give up her pleasure of the warmth of the sun and the taste and feel of “pungent fruit and bright, green wings” and go to the Church to pray. She thinks that rather than going to Church to find divinity, she would prefer to find the divinity within herself. Her doubt in Christianity further grows as she thinks that though she sees the image of Christ in her dream, he vanishes before answering her question as soon as she opens her eyes. She can feel the divinity in herself as in her moods and passions, her desires, griefs, and elation, her sensual pleasure, and pain, all that encompasses her natural divinity, the divinity is her soul, her own psyche. The poet thus defined the soul in this stanza as the collective emotional nature of who we are as humans. The woman feels that her soul is everywhere, she could feel the rain and her moods, “falling snow.” She feels elation “when the forests bloom” and great emotions on “autumn nights.” Thus, she feels a strong connection with nature.

Stanza 3 (Lines 31-45)

In the third Stanza, the poet brings upon the discussion of paganism by mentioning the Roman god Jove to offer a comparison with Christianity. The woman thinks of Jove who, unlike Christ, is “inhuman”. Jove represents Zeus, the Roman god of Thunder and Skies. He had no mother, he didn’t take birth like humans, like Christ, nor he had a ‘sweet land’ or paradise as his home. The woman describes Jove as a giant with a mighty ‘mythy mind’, thus suggesting all the Roman and Greek myths regarding Jove. Yet, Jove moved and spent time with humans in human form. Jove remained with humans till their blood was pure virginal and when humans' blood failed, he became a star. The woman thus questions the veracity of this myth and wonders if there is any paradise other than this beautiful and colorful earth that “we shall know.” The poet then suggests that in the future, there will be a time when human beings while looking up the sky, won’t think of God or paradise, but would rather think of nature and feel a certain oneness with nature and then “this dividing and indifferent blue” sky won’t be a separation between humans and divinity.

Stanza 4 (Lines 46-60)

In these lines, the poet again describes the thoughts of the woman and says that “she says” that she is ‘content’ when she looks at beautiful birds as if heaven is here on the earth itself. But when the birds will search the ‘misty fields’ to find their paths, and fly away never to return, will it remain the same paradise then? The woman saw the stagnant still water in her dream and now wishes for the same stagnation and stillness but knows that no matter how beautiful reality and nature are, they will change as it flows and is ephemeral. She questions if there is an afterlife. Will the same comfort and peace she is feeling now while feeling the green cockatoo, will return again in the future. The poet says that there is no truth in the myths of the ‘golden underground,’ ‘visionary south’ and ‘melodious isle’ where the spirits live. While these myths may or may not be true, the reality still exists and nature is real, just like the memory of the green cockatoo the woman has. April will bring new green again.

Stanza 5 (Lines 61-75)

The poet again offers the argument of the woman. She says that though she agrees that nature is continuously changing and it will continue to bring beautiful things again and again she longs for eternal “imperishable bliss”. She says that she needs to feel truly happy and that happiness must remain forever and never change. The poet argues that beauty is impossible without end or death because death is the “mother” of everything beautiful. He says that death causes the end of things that one loves and people feel as if they have lost something as death “strews the leaves / Of sure obliteration.” But this feeling of loss tempts humans to search for new, other beautiful things and change their path. Thus, though death brings loss, it still offers new ways to beauty. The poet says that death brings change and change brings the most loved aspects of nature. He then gives an example of an old plate that was once very beautiful and valuable but now has been ‘disregarded.’ He says that boys seek beautiful maidens and to impress them and treat them, they collect “plums and pears,” on that disregarded plate and when they serve the plums and pears to the maidens, they feel extremely elated. Thus, the broken disregarded plate gains a new purpose.

Stanza 6 (Lines 76-90)

In this stanza, the poet questions the existence of Paradise and if there is no death in Paradise, which is really beautiful? The poet says that in a paradise where death does not exist, there cannot be any ripe fruit nor the flowing rivers eager to reach the ocean. He says that a paradise sans death would be still, motionless, and thus harmless. The poet asserts that change is necessary for beautiful things to occur and without death, beauty cannot exist. He says that in paradise, there won’t be any need to collect plums and pears as there will not be any ripe fruit, nor the maidens will come, nor there will be any happiness. He says we cherish so many colors in our mortal world, but in paradise, nobody would recognize any color as all will be white, colorless, and all will be good. Thus, paradise will have nothing that we humans consider beautiful. He says that humans are not able to understand how paradise would be but one thing is clear if there is no change, no death in paradise, then all the pleasure of the ‘perfect world’ will soon become boredom.

Stana 7 (Lines 91-105)

In the previous stanza, he described how the Christian paradise might be and in the seventh stanza, he offers a contrast by describing a pagan ‘orgy’. He describes how some savage-looking human beings gather in a circle as they worship Sun, praying and offering their thanks to the sun. They worship the sun not as an almighty god, but as their benefactor who offers them much-needed warmth. The poet says that in such worship, the reward is clear and it is not dependent on worship. Even if you won’t worship, the sun will ultimately offer warmth. The poet suggests the importance of human imagination. Without imagination and worship by humans, the sun would merely be a star burning in its core. He says that he would prefer such natural gods as they are more meaningful. He then brings other natural forces like the “Windy lake,” “trees like Seraphin (angels), and “echoing hills”. The poet says that as the pagans worship through their orgy, they come closer to nature itself. They realize that they have a deep connection with nature which is so strong that they feel that the dew on their feet holds their future. The poet suggests that nature holds the essence of humanity, from birth to beauty, to death.

Stanza 8 (Lines 106-120)

In this stanza, the poet returns to the woman and describes her thoughts. She again dozes off and sees the dream in which she saw the still water. The water speaks to her and says that in Palestine, there is no place where spirits live, and the tomb of Christ is just a grave where he was laid. The poet then offers his own perspective and says that in a pagan world, where humans worship the beneficial nature, the world consists of day and night and chaos. But this chaos offers them a sense of freedom as they are not bound to any one god. He describes nature as the progress of life where there are deers in the mountains while berries grow, ripen, and die in the wilderness. He says that the seed is beautiful but it dies, and when it dies, it gives birth to a sapling that turns into a tree again. He describes beautiful pigeons flying in the open sky irrespective of what human thinks and these pigeons fade away as the sky goes dark, signifying the power of death.

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!

Kanthapura by Raja Rao | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Raja Rao was an Indian English novelist who took birth in 1908 in the princely state of Mysore, Karnataka. His first novel was Kanthapura which was first published in the year 1938. It is a story based on a fictional South Indian village named Kanthapura. The novel became a huge success and established Raja Rao as one of the major Indian English writers who won the Sahitya Academy Award of 1964. He was also awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature by Oklahoma University in 1988. His other major works include The Serpect and The Rope which is a semi-autobiographical novel and was published in 1960. Raja Rao was a metaphysical writer who borrowed his writing style and structure for his stories and novels from Indian mythical stories and folk epics.

Characters of Kanthapura :

Moorthy is the protagonist of the novel. He lives in Kanthapura village and belongs to a middle-class high-caste Brahmin family and lives with his widowed mother Narasamma. He is a noble, quiet, serene, and generous person who leaves the village to attain higher education at the university of the city. At the University, he comes in touch with the nationalist fervor of Mahatma Gandhi and turns a non-violent Gandhian activist for Independence. After returning to the village, he tries to spread the message of Gandhi. Bhatta is a wealthy Brahmin of the village who doesn’t like Gandhian’s idea against untouchability and opposes Moorthy in establishing a unit of Gandhi’s Congress Party in Kanthapura. Patel Range Gowda is another powerful wealthy person in the village but he belongs to a lower caste. He is very shrewd but honest. He is often considered the leader of the village and called the ‘tiger.’ Rangamma is a 30-year-old childless widow of Kanthapura who is a bit educated and can read and write. She has read a lot about Gandhian ideas and philosophy. She openly opposes Bhatta’s caste discrimination and religious dictatorship. Everybody respects and listens to her. Bade Khan is a Muslim British officer appointed at the police station of Kanthapura. He is a brutal agent of the British government who deals with any kind of protest with extreme harshness. Kamalamma is the elder sister of Rangamma who sternly opposes Gandhian views. His 15 years old daughter Ratna is a child widow and Kamlamma’s only worry is to somehow remarry her daughter. Ratna on the other hand is inspired by Rangamma and devotes herself to the Gandhian revolution. Jayaramachar is a Brahmin priest whom Moorthy calls to the village for Hari-katha but instead of telling the villagers of Ram-Katha he. Talks about Mahatma Gandhi and his nationalist revolution. Rachanna is a coolie working in the Skeffington estate. Achakka is an old Brahmin widowed woman in the village. Seenu is her son. Achakka is the narrator of the novel she tells stories and past histories of the village. Mr. Skeffington is the founder and owner of a tea estate in the village who is very cruel to the workers. His nephew Skeffington too is very brutal and beats coolies for no cause. Vasudev is a brahmin clerk working in the Skeffington estate. He is a friend of Moorthy. Goddess Kenchamma is the village deity representing spiritual power and divinity.

Summary of Kanthapura:

The novel begins as Achakka starts telling the story of her village. She is the oldest widow in the village living with her sons. She knows everything about the history, culture, and people of the village and often tells stories of the past. Achakka tells how Goddess Kenchamma who lives on the upper Kenchamma hills appeared when a demon attacked the village during the ancient past and since then, Kenchamma became the village deity who protects the villagers. She then talks about people of various castes living in the village and informs that though some upper caste brahmins headed by Bhatta try to establish their dominance, the wealthiest and strongest person of the village is Patel Range Gowda, a low caste shudra. Everyone respects and listens to Range Gowda and caste discrimination isn’t a very serious issue in society. She then tells about Moorthy, a young Brahmin lad living with her widowed mother Narasamma. He had been a curious and different child since an early age but when he went to the city to attain higher education, he came under the influence of Gandhi. Another Gandhian of the village is Dore, however, Moorthy is loved by all. After returning from the city, enlightened by Gandhian thoughts, Moorthy starts educating people of lower castes and tries to oppose caste discrimination. Bhatta, a senior Brahmin of the village doesn’t like Moorthy for his Gandhian views as he is habitual in exploiting people of lower castes.

One day, Moorthy finds a Shivalinga on a farm while working and then he established the linga in the village temple to celebrate the occasion, he calls Jayaramachar to recite Hari-katha. Jayaramachar visits the village and after worshipping Shivalinga, he starts talking about Mahatma Gandhi and his revolutionary ideas. He exhorts the villagers to think about social issues and contribute to the independence movement. All villagers are impressed by his talks but Bhatta and a few others including Moorthy’s mother Narasamma don’t like Jayaramachar’s speech. Moorthy starts spreading Gandhi’s views in the village and he plans to turn all villagers into stanch non-violent volunteers of Gandhi. He throws out his foreign clothes and his foreign books into the fire and started wearing a Khadi. He openly started exclaiming that foreign clothes are symbols of oppression and slavery while Khadi is the symbol of national pride and self-reliance.

Bhatta decides to oppose Moorthy’s plan of establishing a unit of Congress party in the village by making his own political party of upper castes. He uses his social power to excommunicate Moorthy from the village for ridiculing and opposing age-old traditions of the village by interacting with people from different castes. Moorthy is forced to leave the house while his mother Narasamma suffers depression because of it. Moorthy starts living outside the village at the house of Rangamma, a widow who is educated and a Gandhian herself. Together they continue to spread the Gandhian way of thinking. Rangamma would gather village women and will teach them and make them learn how to spin wheels and produce Khadi clothes. His mother Narasamma is now alone in the village and she is very sad as her son has been excommunicated. She dies of a heart attack.

Meanwhile, Bade Khan, a Muslim police agent of the British government is appointed at Kanthapura. He is a notorious police officer who is infamous for his atrocious behavior against native people. When he tries to arrange accommodation in the village itself, Range Gowda refuses to let him settle there. Thus, he goes to the Skeffington estate where Mr. Skeffington offers him a hut to live alongside the coolies. A maistri has been appointed by Mr. Skeffington to lure impoverished people from all around India to work in the estate under inhuman conditions in horrible conditions at the estate. Mr. Skeffington has devised a devious plan to ensure that the coolies once join his estate, remain indentured labor for their whole life. He would give very low wages, and when in need, he will offer debts at enormously high-interest rates. He would deliberately make things of daily usage very scarce in the nearby area of the estate and then sell them at exorbitant prices to his coolies. He even appoints a few hooligans to make these coolies addicted to alcohol so that they may never succeed in collecting enough money to think about going away and making a better life. Bade Khan ensures that nobody will oppose or question M. Skeffington and his nephew. As Mr. Skeffington gets old, his nephew takes over the management of the estate. He is relatively less cruel to the coolies but he has a liking for the wives and daughters of coolies and would often grab and sexually assault them whenever he wishes. One day, when he tries to rape a young girl of a laborer working on the estate, her father opposes him in trying to save his daughter. Mr. Skeffington kills the coolie. Bade Khan ensures that he is not framed for the murder charges. Vasudev is a friend of Moorthy who works in the estate. With his help, Moorthy starts gathering coolies of the estate, teaching them how to read and write and evoking their self-pride in a Gandhian manner. Thus, he becomes trouble for Mr. Skeffington, his nephew, and Bade Khan. Meanwhile, Rachanna, a coolie dares to raise his voice against oppression and decides to leave the estate and go settle in Kanthapura. However, Bade Khan brings his police force along with the hooligans of the Skeffington estate and attacks Rachanna. All the coolie women of the estate gather in protest to protect Rachanna and during the commotion, a few women grab Bade Khan and beat him up while snatching away his beard. When Moorthy comes to know all this, he feels disheartened because the violence of any sort is against Gandhian principles. Thus, he decides to stay on fast for three days as penance. Ratna, a 15-year-old widow girl takes care of him during his fast. Her mother Kamallamma is the elder sister of Rangamma but unlike Rangamma, she hates Gandhians. Bhatta devises a plan to take the help of Kamalamma against Rangamma and other Gandhians by arranging the remarriage of Ratna but Ratna is not ready to marry. Rachanna starts living in the village and soon gathers sympathy from the villagers. Moorthy arranges a protest march against the oppression of coolies in the estate with the help of villagers. Their protest march is completely non-violent while they demonstrate and shout slogans praising Mahatma Gandhi and voicing the need for independence. They call for non-cooperation and ask people not to buy foreign goods and clothes, not to pay taxes and land revenues, and other forms of non-violent protests. The British government doesn’t take the march lightly and Bade Khan is ordered to oppress any such march. He again gathers his policemen and hooligans of Skeffington estate and attacks the protesters. This time, he is more cautious and vicious and specifically targets women. The police and Skeffington’s henchmen brutally beat women and rape them. Moorthy is arrested for disturbing the peace and order of the area.

In jail, Moorthy continues his non-violent protest and refuses to take the help of lawyers to get out. At last, he is released from jail but when he returns to Kanthapura, he sees total devastation. Farmlands have been burnt and almost all homes and huts have been demolished. He wonders what happened when Aachakka comes to him and greets him. She informs that after his arrest, the police force raised the village and brutally assaulted the men and women of the village. Many men were injured, some were killed, and many women were raped. After that, it became impossible for the women to stay in the village and thus, they decides to sell their homes and farmland to the people of Bombay city at negligible prices. Before leaving the village, they set fire to their crops and homes as they couldn’t use them. Moorthy is too sad by knowing all this. He wonders if his Gandhian belief is of any good. He remembers Kenchamma who failed to protect the village this time because while she is a fierce warrior goddess who fought and killed demons, Moorthy trusted the Nonviolence of Gandhi. Moorthy finds his belief in Gandhian ways cracking bit by bit. He is now more interested in the socialist movement demanding land redistribution and equal distribution of wealth.

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!

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot | Imitations of Horace by Alexander Pope | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. John Arbuthnot was a close friend of Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and other Augustan satirists of the Enlightenment age. Together, they made the famous Marcus Scriblerus Club and often wrote critical satires against the corruption and other ills of the court and society. In 1733, Alexander Pope began writing Imitations of Horace which was a collection of satirical poems written in the style of classical poet Horace. Rather than being a mere translation, it was a modification of Horace’s poems in which Pope used contemporary references of his time and attacked the high and mighty of the society including King George II of Great Britain and Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

Originally Horace wrote the poem to satirize the rule of king Augustus. He was criticized because he questioned the usefulness of poets. Pope criticized King George II in his imitation though there hardly was any comparison between Augustus and King George II. While Augustus was a mighty ruler with exceptional qualities of leadership, integrity, sagacity, and intelligence, George II was a feeble figure with little control over the reign. Queen Caroline actually controlled the whole Royal power. George II was born in Hanover, Germany and he hardly had any touch with British culture, nor did he show any interest in learning the traditions of Great Britain. He became close to Robert Walpole who was notoriously famous for large-scale corruption in royal dealings. Thus, these two became the major target of Pope’s satirical poems. Horace’s patron for his satires was Maecenas while Bolingbro supported and inspired Pope to write his imitation. Maecenas offered the Sabine farm to Horace where he could write without interruption while Pope’s Sabine farm became the Twickenham.

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot:

In 1734, Dr. Arbuthnot, who was the Royal physician of Queen Anne, wrote a letter to Pope in which he informed that he is suffering from a lethal illness. Arbuthnot expressed his concerns for the safety of Alexander Pope who had become quite infamous because of his continuous satirical works in which he openly named and criticized many people of power. Pope was grateful for Arbuthnot’s concerns and he was very sad about his ill health. Thus, he decided to write an Epistle as an answer to his letter. Pope was attacked and criticized by other authors in the meanest ways possible. He suffered from Pott disease, a kind of tuberculosis of the spine that rendered him with stunted growth and a severe hunchback. Those who couldn’t find a mistake in his writings, often drew caricatures of him in a bad light, attacking his physical inabilities. In the Epistle to Arbuthnot, Pope attacks the critics and writers attacking his literary works while he defends his style of satirical writing. Pope explains his character in this letter and courageously expresses that he is not afraid of his opponents though he is worried about those who pretend to be his friends.

In Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope explains his life, motives, and reasons for being a satirical poet. In a way, it is a poem concerning Pope’s self-justification and self-realization. He not only criticizes his detractors but also criticizes himself while praising Joseph Addison as a genius and good writer. He sketches himself as "an envious and malicious monster" whose "satire springs from a being devoid of all natural affections and lacking a heart." he criticizes many detractors including Sporus (John Hervey), Colley Cibber, Harley, Bavius, Bishop, Philips, and Sappho.

Initially, Pope wrote it as a simple letter but then he converted it into a dialogue between him and Arbuthnot. Epistle to Dr. Abuthnot was added as the preface or the first poem of Imitation of Horace in 1751. The poem is a long canonical poem containing 419 lines written in heroic couplets. Many of the phrases Pope invented and devised in this poem became hugely popular and noteworthy. Some of them are “damn with faint praise,” where Pope ridicules the flatterers who pretend to be his friends, and “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel,” mentioning Lord Hervey and criticizing his torturous and corrupt behavior. Lord Hervey was a political advisor of Queen Caroline and he was too harsh against Alexander Pope. He made assumptions regarding some of Pope’s allusions with no true evidence they pertained to him. Mary Wortley Montague used to be a close friend of Alexander Pope and his patron but she took offense to Pope’s The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace (ll. 83–84) and joined Lord Hervey in criticizing him. Pope mentioned her too in the Epistle by her name Montague. The poem satirizes cowardly critics, hypocritical pedants, insipid patrons of the arts, and corrupt sycophants, and it caricatures Pope’s contemporaries.

The poem can be divided into seven parts or sections.

Summary of Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot:

First Section (Lines 1-68)

“Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu’d I said, / Tye up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.”

The poem begins as Pope asks his male servant John to shut the doors. Pope doesn’t want to let the budding poets in his house and compares them with dogs and mad people who ran away from the mental institutes of Bedlam and Parnassus. These new authors and writers are the result of the new printing presses. They lack any quality and acumen of a writer yet, are attracted towards the profession because of the foolish patrons who think of making easy money. Such amateur poets continue to follow Pope everywhere he goes even in his lovely grotto.

“They pierce my Thickets, thro’ my Grot they glide.”

These writers come with their pens and papers, asking him to correct or improvise their sham writings. Some of them try to bribe and cajole Pope to correct their writing. Some others would try to coerce and threaten him or blackmail him so that he may amend their write-ups and their drama or poem may succeed and become famous. However, Pope is not afraid of anything and he denies helping them. Rather he offers them sane advice that of Horace and asks them to wait for nine years before publishing a poem. None of them agrees with him so he now wants John to shut the door.

Second Section (Lines 69-124)

After explaining his troubles of being famous, Pope explains how dangerous it can be. He says that though they pretend to be his admirers, most of them are his jealous detractors wishing to destroy him. He says that these poetasters and admirers are like Midas and are unreliable. He then criticizes such poets who used to be his admirers and then joined the gang of dunces. He ridicules Reverend Laurence Eusden, poet and clergyman, whose drunkenness while serving as poet laureate became legendary; James Moore Smythe, who adopted some of Pope’s work into poorly written drama and joined the dunces in their attacks; Edmund Curll, who published unauthorized work by others as well as notorious literature; and Bernard Lintot, a publisher of most of Pope’s early writing.

“And has not Colly still his Lord, and Whore: / His Butchers Henley, his Free-masons Moor?
Does not one Table Bavius still admit? / Still to one Bishop Philips seem a Wit?
Still Sapho—”Hold! For God-sake—you’ll offend; / No Names—be calm—learn Prudence of a Friend.” (97-102)

He then criticizes a few popular poets using their names including Colley, Henley, Bavius, Bishop Philips, and Sappho. Colley Cibber was the current poet laureate of Britain while Henley was a politician and public orator. Bavius was a poet who attacked and criticized the works of Virgil and Ovid. He criticized Alexander Pope’s works too.

Then Dr. Arbuthnot interrupts him and warns him not to use any names. He ridicules Pope and says that he too satirizes these people and though he is twice taller than Pope, he never uses any name directly. Dr. Arbuthnot advises Pope to learn prudence from him. Pope says that he would prefer to be brave and he is not afraid of taking names. Pope then further complains about the budding amateur writers who would often come to him with requests to amend their dramas and poems that have been rejected by the theatres and production companies. They will try to flatter him and say that his nose is longer than Ovid’s nose and he is better than Hercules or Alexander the Great. Pope says that he knows he is a pretty ordinary man and doesn’t fall into their trap.

Section Third (Lines 125-146)

In this section, Pope expresses how and why he became a satirical poet. He mentions that he was not good with numbers (mathematics) but when he tried, numbers (Poetic meters) naturally came to him. “I lisp’d in Numbers, for the Numbers came.” He says that poetry came naturally to him, by instinct. Nobody asked him to write poetry but he did it by himself. He writes because his friends like Swift, Granville, Congreve, John Gay, and William Walsh enjoyed reading his poetry. Dr. Arbuthnot questions him why he publishes his poetry if it is written for his close friends? Pope answers that his close friends push him to publish his work. Swift, Congreeve, and John Dryden himself convinced him to publish his poems because they liked them and wishes the general audience to cherish his work so Pope published them.

Section Fourth (Lines 147- 260)

Pope attacks critics in this section and says that during the initial days of his career, he used to write descriptive poetry with no ‘sense’ in it. His poetry was insipid and meaningless just like that of Lord Hervey. During those early days, he used to listen to the critics and was very concerned about their advice. But then he noticed that the critics, whose advice he meekly attempted to follow, had never written a word of poetry themselves. How then could they claim to evaluate John Milton and Shakespeare, much less the work of Alexander Pope and his contemporaries? He satirizes Ambrose Philips and declares him to be a plagiarist who copies works from Greek literature to earn money. He says that if Ambrose is forced to write original works only, he would fail to write any more than eight lines in a year.

Then he praises Joseph Addison and says that he learned a lot from Joseph Addison who is a genius writer and essayist. He says that Addison’s defect is that he wants to dominate the literary world. He thinks that he is the greatest of all writers. Pope calls him a coward because while he criticizes and ridicules other writers fiercely, he is afraid of being attacked by other writers himself.

“Curst be the Verse, how well soe’er it fl ow, / That tends to make one worthy Man my foe” (183– 184).

Pope then says that he is not the one who cannot praise the good work of others and he will never satirize anyone through his poetry just because they have hurt his vanity, though he has been criticized by others for hurting their false ego and vanity. Pope says that he criticizes and satirizes only those who deserve his criticism for their menial work and immoral behavior. He also satirizes foolish patrons like Lord Halifax who love being flattered. Pope says that Lord Halifax helps the poetasters who flatter him.

Section Five (Lines 261- 304)

In this section, Pope suggests that he is tired of his detractors and asks the poetasters to let him leave live in a peaceful manner. He says that there is no reason for them to be jealous of him because irrespective of the popularity of his works, he hardly made any money and he is burdened with debt. He says that he is no great person but someone very normal who prays to god every day. He says that only dunces fear him. A dunce is one “Who reads but with a Lust to mis-apply, / Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction, Lye.” However, “A Lash like mine no honest man shall dred, / But all such babbling blockheads in his stead” (303-304)

He says that only corrupt liars and fraudsters would fear his satire and works while a man with an honest heart and good intentions needs not to fear him because he will never criticize such an honest person.

Section Six (Lines 305-333)

In this section, Pope criticizes Lord Hervey by the name of Sporus. Dr. Arbuthnot interrupts him and questions if Hervey deserves any criticism as he is too foolish who drinks donkey’s milk and who is so torturous that he crushes butterflies in breaking wheels.

“. . . What? That Thing of silk, Sporus, / that mere white Curd of Ass’s milk?
Satire or Sense alas! Can Sporus feel? / Who breaks a Butterfl y upon a Wheel?” (305–309)

Pope says that such poetasters deserve his criticism because while trained eyes could see their faults, common people often mistake them to be great artists. He then caricatures Hervey as Sporus, whose “virtues” are twisted. He admires “Beauty that shocks you, Parts that none will trust, / Wit that can creep, and Pride that licks the dust” (332–33). he says that Hervey is a liar and flatterer who says anything to please the people in court and in government. He values glamour, sensual pleasure, and social climbing. Being a homosexual, Hervey is not only a man-woman but an animal demon, a shape-changer, like Satan. Hervey had attacked Pope most viciously and he even abused his family and parents.

Section Seven (Lines 334-419)

In the last section, Pope tries to convince Dr. Arbuthnot not to worry about him. He says that his close friend must believe Pope’s virtues and abilities. Pope describes himself as bold, and courageous who is not in fear of his detractors. He says that he never worried about wealth and fortune and thus he has never flattered anyone to gain their favor. He rather likes satirizing his enemies and critics. He claims that he was brought up well by his peace-loving parents, good citizens of England. They led a happy domestic life. Pope also wants to live a similar life. He concludes the poem by praying that Arbuthnot should lead a happy, peaceful, and prosperous life.

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.