Formalism | Literary Theory and Criticism | Literary Theory

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Formalism in literary studies emphasizes a text's intrinsic structure, style, and techniques rather than its historical context, authorial intent, or societal implications. It treats literature as an autonomous entity, focusing on how meaning is constructed through form.

Russian scholars like Viktor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson, and Boris Eikhenbaum developed the formalist theory. They sought to establish a scientific study of literature by analyzing its linguistic and structural devices.

The Two Types of Language in Formalism:

In Formalist literary theory, language is categorized into two distinct types: poetic language and practical language. This distinction, primarily developed by Russian Formalists like Roman Jakobson and Viktor Shklovsky, serves as the foundation for understanding how literature functions as an art form.

Practical language, also called ordinary or communicative language, is utilitarian in nature. Its primary purpose is to convey information efficiently, with clarity and directness. This type of language operates on automatic perception—it is functional, transparent, and governed by conventional grammar and syntax. For example, everyday speech, news reports, and instructions rely on practical language, where the focus is on the message rather than the form. The goal is to transmit meaning without drawing attention to the language itself, making it easily digestible and immediately understandable.

In contrast, poetic language is the language of literature, characterized by its deliberate deviation from everyday speech. Unlike practical language, which prioritizes communication, poetic language emphasizes form, rhythm, and stylistic innovation to disrupt habitual perception. Techniques such as metaphor, unusual syntax, repetition, and sound patterning (e.g., alliteration, assonance) force the reader to slow down and engage with the text in a deeper, more conscious way. The Formalists argued that poetic language "defamiliarizes" (ostranenie) the familiar, making ordinary objects or experiences appear strange and new. For instance, in poetry, a simple flower might be described unexpectedly—not just as "a yellow bloom" but as "a golden host dancing in the breeze"—transforming the mundane into something vivid and extraordinary.

The Russian Schools of Formalism:

The OPOJAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language), founded in St. Petersburg in 1916, was the radical core of Russian Formalism, revolutionizing literary theory through its scientific analysis of literary devices. Led by Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynyanov, and Boris Eikhenbaum, OPOJAZ introduced groundbreaking concepts like defamiliarization (ostranenie) and the fabula/syuzhet distinction, treating literature as an autonomous system of techniques rather than a reflection of reality. Their work focused intensely on how poetic language operates differently from everyday speech, emphasizing form over content. Though suppressed by Soviet authorities in the 1930s for being "bourgeois," OPOJAZ's ideas secretly influenced later structuralist and narratological approaches.

The Moscow Linguistic Society (1915-1924), while sharing OPOJAZ's Formalist orientation, took a more linguistic and empirical approach to literary study. Centered around figures like Roman Jakobson and Grigory Vinokur, this group investigated the material properties of language - phonetics, grammar, and syntax - particularly in avant-garde poetry and futurist experiments. Their meetings became laboratories for analyzing how sound patterns and grammatical structures create poetic effects. Though short-lived due to political pressures, the Society served as a crucial bridge between literary analysis and linguistics, with Jakobson carrying its methods first to Prague and later to international structuralism.

The Prague Linguistic Circle (1926-1948) transformed Russian Formalist ideas into a sophisticated structuralist system after many scholars fled Soviet repression. Under Jakobson's leadership alongside Czech theorists like Jan Mukařovský, the Circle developed key concepts of aesthetic function, foregrounding, and the dynamic nature of literary norms. While maintaining close textual analysis, they expanded formalism's scope to examine how literature interacts with cultural systems and reader perception. The Prague School's synthesis of linguistics and poetics directly influenced French structuralism and became foundational for semiotics, narratology, and modern literary theory, ensuring formalism's survival and evolution beyond its Russian origins.

New Criticism vs Formalism:

While New Criticism and Russian Formalism both revolutionized 20th-century literary theory by focusing on close textual analysis, they developed in different contexts with distinct theoretical priorities. The Russian Formalists (1910s-1930s), including figures like Shklovsky and Jakobson, approached literature with scientific rigor, developing radical concepts like defamiliarization (ostranenie) and the fabula/syuzhet distinction to analyze how literary devices transform ordinary language into art. Their work was deeply theoretical, examining literature as an evolving system of techniques with its own autonomous laws.

In contrast, New Criticism (1930s-1960s), led by American scholars like Cleanth Brooks and W.K. Wimsatt, took a more practical, text-centered approach focused on interpreting individual works. While sharing the Formalists' rejection of biographical and historical context, New Critics emphasized organic unity, paradox, and ambiguity within self-contained works rather than literature's systemic evolution. Their famous "intentional fallacy" and "affective fallacy" doctrines reinforced textual autonomy but lacked the Formalists' revolutionary linguistic theories.

The two movements differed significantly in methodology, where Formalism sought to uncover universal literary mechanisms through technical analysis, New Criticism practiced close reading to reveal each text's unique complexity and aesthetic harmony. Both rejected extrinsic approaches, but while Formalism influenced structuralism and narratology through its scientific framework, New Criticism's legacy lies primarily in its enduring close reading techniques that still shape literary pedagogy today.

Defamiliarization and the Fabula/Syuzhet Distinction:

The concept of defamiliarization (ostranenie) stands as one of Russian Formalism's most enduring contributions to literary theory. Developed primarily by Viktor Shklovsky, this principle argues that art's essential function is to disrupt our habitual perception of the world by making familiar things seem strange. Through deliberate stylistic techniques - unusual metaphors, disrupted syntax, or unexpected perspectives - literature forces readers to experience reality anew rather than recognizing it automatically. Shklovsky famously demonstrated this using Tolstoy's works, where simple objects or actions were described as if seen for the first time, breaking through what he called the "automatization" of everyday experience. Tolstoy’s Kholstomer describes a horse’s perspective to defamiliarize human society. This theoretical lens explains why poetic language differs fundamentally from practical communication, as it actively works against our routine ways of seeing and understanding. In Wordsworth’s Daffodils, the idea of defamiliarization works wonderfully. Wordsworth offers unexpected scale, daffodils are not just flowers—they’re a "crowd," a "host" (terms usually used for people), and they "dance" (a human action given to plants). The speaker is described as a "lonely cloud"—an odd, inverted perspective (we expect clouds to be passive, not lonely). Wordsworth makes a common flower newly vivid by framing it as a living, almost supernatural spectacle.

Equally important is the Fabula and Syuzhet distinction. The fabula refers to the raw chronological events of a story - the "what happened" in its simplest form - while the syuzhet represents how those events are artistically arranged and presented to the reader. This separation allowed Formalists to analyze how narrative techniques like flashbacks, fragmented timelines, or unreliable narration transform basic story material into literary art. For instance, a crime novel's fabula might be "the detective solves the murder," but its syuzhet could withhold key information to create suspense. This analytical framework shifted focus from what stories mean to how they are constructed, influencing later structuralist narratology and providing tools still used in contemporary narrative theory.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the literary theory and criticism. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards! 

Tulips by Sylvia Plath | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. “Tulips,” composed on March 18, 1961, is one of Sylvia Plath’s most celebrated and critically admired poems. It first appeared in The New Yorker in 1962 before being included in her posthumous collection, Ariel (1965). According to Ted Hughes, her husband, the poem was inspired by a bouquet of tulips Plath received while recuperating from an appendectomy in the hospital. The poem reflects Plath’s conflicted emotions about illness, identity, and the pressures of the outside world. The speaker, lying in a hospital bed, describes the sterile, white environment as peaceful, almost like a blank slate where she can escape life's demands. However, a bouquet of bright red tulips disrupts this tranquility, becoming an intrusive, almost violent presence. "Tulips" captures Plath’s struggle between the desire for oblivion and the inescapable pull of life. The hospital offers a temporary escape, but the tulips—vibrant and insistent—force her back into the painful reality of existence.

Structure of Tulips:

Sylvia Plath’s "Tulips" is structured into nine stanzas, each composed of seven lines, known as septets. This uniform division creates a sense of control, mirroring the sterile, ordered environment of the hospital where the poem is set. However, the poem’s free verse form—lacking a regular rhyme scheme or meter—introduces a tension between confinement and emotional turbulence. The absence of strict formal constraints allows Plath’s voice to shift between detachment and raw intensity, reflecting the speaker’s unstable mental state.

While the poem does not adhere to a traditional metrical pattern, Plath employs subtle rhythmic variations to enhance its emotional impact. The lines vary in length and stress, alternating between short, abrupt phrases ("I am nobody") and longer, flowing sentences ("The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea"). This irregularity mimics the speaker’s wavering between numbness and acute sensitivity. Additionally, Plath uses enjambment frequently, allowing thoughts to spill across lines, which reinforces the poem’s stream-of-consciousness quality.

Despite its free verse structure, "Tulips" is not without sonic cohesion. Plath employs assonance, consonance, and alliteration (e.g., "white walls," "winter light," "red smears") to create a musical undercurrent. The poem’s imagery and repetition—particularly of color (white vs. red)—serve as structural anchors, contrasting the speaker’s desire for blankness with the tulips’ violent vitality. Ultimately, the form mirrors the poem’s central conflict: the struggle between the quiet void of surrender and the insistent, painful return to life. In addition, Plath has used alliteration, asyndeton, juxtaposition, personification, metaphor & simile in the poem.

Summary of Tulips

Stanza 1 Lines 1-7

“The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.

Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.   

I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly

As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.   

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.   

I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses   

And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.”

The opening stanza of "Tulips" establishes the speaker’s desire for emptiness and detachment in a sterile hospital environment. The tulips, introduced immediately as "too excitable," disrupt the quiet winter scene, symbolizing the intrusion of life’s vibrancy into the speaker’s preferred state of numbness. The whiteness of the room—described as "how quiet, how snowed-in"—suggests a blank, almost death-like calm, where the speaker attempts to dissolve her identity ("I am nobody"). She relinquishes control, surrendering her name, clothes, history, and body to medical professionals, reinforcing her wish to escape the burdens of existence. The contrast between the passive, snow-like stillness and the aggressive vitality of the tulips sets up the poem’s central conflict: the tension between oblivion and the painful return to self-awareness.

Personification has been used; the tulips are given human-like energy ("too excitable"), making them seem invasive and almost threatening. This animates them as antagonists in the speaker’s quest for peace. The whiteness ("white everything," "white walls") symbolizes sterility, emptiness, and detachment, while the implied red of the tulips (later made explicit) represents life, pain, and emotional intensity. The repetition of "how" ("how white, how quiet, how snowed-in") emphasizes the speaker’s fixation on stillness, while the parallel structure in the final lines ("my name... my day-clothes... my history... my body") underscores her systematic surrender of identity. The speaker uses metaphor to compare herself to the light lying passively on surfaces, reinforcing her desire for weightless anonymity.

Stanza 2 Lines 8-14

“They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff   

Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.

Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.

The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,

They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,

Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,   

So it is impossible to tell how many there are.”

In this stanza, the speaker describes her immobilized, passive state in the hospital, comparing her head to an eye forced to stay open between the pillow and sheet-cuff. This unsettling image suggests helpless exposure—she is unable to shut out the world, compelled to observe everything like a "stupid pupil." The nurses move around her with mechanical efficiency, their repetitive motions blending into anonymity, much like indistinguishable seagulls. Their sameness makes them almost ghostly, reinforcing the speaker’s detachment and dehumanization in the clinical environment. The stanza underscores her powerlessness—she is an object being tended to, not an active participant in her own existence.

The comparison of her head (simile) to "an eye between two white lids that will not shut" evokes a sense of forced witness, as if she is trapped in perpetual awareness. The nurses are likened (metaphor) to "gulls pass[ing] inland in their white caps," emphasizing their uniformity, transience, and impersonal nature. The repeated use of "pass" mimics the nurses' monotonous, cyclical movements, reinforcing the tedium and depersonalization of hospital routine.

Lines 15-21

“My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water

Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.

They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.   

Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——

My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,   

My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;   

Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.”

This stanza delves deeper into the speaker’s dissociation from her own body and identity in the sterile, impersonal hospital environment. She describes her body as a pebble, smoothed by the indifferent, repetitive care of the nurses, who are likened to water—suggesting a natural but impersonal force that erodes individuality. The medical staff brings numbness and sleep, further detaching her from pain and consciousness.

Yet this detachment comes at a cost: she feels she has lost herself, rejecting the trappings of her former life ("sick of baggage"). The line "Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage" offers Paradox, suggesting that shedding identity leaves her burdened by the remnants of her past. The overnight case, a symbol of transient, superficial preparedness, seems as clinical and hollow as a "black pillbox," hinting at death or medication. Even the smiling faces of her husband and child—typically symbols of love and connection—become invasive, their smiles like "hooks" that painfully latch onto her. This reveals her conflicted emotions: she resents the obligations and attachments that pull her back into a self she no longer wants to inhabit. This stanza powerfully captures the dehumanization of medical care and the ambivalence toward personal connections, portraying the speaker as both smoothed away and painfully snagged by the world she tries to escape.

Lines 22-28

“I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat   

stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.

They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.   

Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley   

I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books   

Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.   

I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.”

In this stanza, the speaker reflects on the shedding of her former identity and material attachments, likening herself to an old cargo boat burdened by decades of personal history. Extended Metaphor is used to suggest that her body/life is a worn vessel weighed down by identity ("name and address") and memories.

The hospital’s sterile procedures have "swabbed [her] clear" of emotional ties, leaving her "scared and bare"—stripped down to mere existence. The image of watching her possessions (teaset, linen, books) sink out of sight evokes a symbolic drowning, as if her past life is being submerged, and she is left in a state of void-like purity.

The domestic (teaset, linen, books) vs. the clinical (trolley, swabbing) highlights the clash (Juxtaposition) between personal history and institutional erasure. By declaring, "I am a nun now, I have never been so pure," she embraces a paradoxical freedom in emptiness. The nun comparison suggests ascetic detachment, but also hints at forced renunciation—her purity comes not from spiritual devotion, but from erasure. The stanza captures the tension between liberation and loss, as the speaker surrenders to a blank, medicalized non-self.

Lines 29-35

“I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.

How free it is, you have no idea how free——

The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,

And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.

It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them   

Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.”

This stanza crystallizes the speaker’s yearning for absolute emptiness—a state of radical freedom she associates with death. She rejects the vibrancy of flowers (the tulips), desiring instead to lie motionless and blank, like a corpse with upturned hands. The "peacefulness" she craves is vast and undemanding, requiring no identity ("a name tag") or possessions ("a few trinkets").

The comparison to the dead "shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet" is striking. Allusion has been used, just as the Eucharist symbolizes spiritual union in Christianity, her imagined death is a sacrament of oblivion—a final, silent consumption of nothingness. The stanza underscores her conflict between longing for annihilation and the intrusive pull of life (embodied by the tulips). Her desire for freedom is paradoxically a desire for self-erasure, a theme central to Plath’s work. The irony is that the freedom she praises is the freedom of non-being, making her liberation inseparable from extinction.

Lines 36-42

“The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.

Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe   

Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.   

Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.

They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,   

Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,   

A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.”

In this climactic stanza, the tulips transform from mere flowers into aggressive, almost monstrous presences, exacerbating the speaker’s pain. Their "too red" hue is violently vivid against the sterile whiteness of the hospital, "hurt[ing]" her like a physical wound. The imagery becomes visceral—she hears them "breathe" through their wrappings, comparing them to "an awful baby," suggesting something alive, demanding, and unsettling.

The tulips "talk to [her] wound" (Personification), implying a sinister symbiosis; their redness mirrors her pain, as if they feed on her vulnerability. Though they appear to "float," they paradoxically "weigh [her] down," dragging her back into the world of sensation. The final simile—"a dozen red lead sinkers round my neck"—conveys drowning, as if the tulips are anchors pulling her under, away from her desired emptiness. The color red (redness) symbolizes blood, pain, life force; it "corresponds" to her wound, merging her internal agony with the external world.

The line "They seem to float, though they weigh me down" offers Paradox & Oxymoron. It captures their dual nature: ethereal yet crushing.

Lines 43-49

“Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.   

The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me

Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,   

And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow   

Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,   

And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.   

The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.”

In this stanza, the speaker feels exposed and consumed by the tulips' relentless gaze. Previously unnoticed in her sterile hospital cocoon, she now feels scrutinized by the flowers, the shifting light, and even her own fragmented reflection. The tulips "turn to [her]" with an almost predatory awareness, while the window's light frames her as a "cut-paper shadow," a flat, lifeless silhouette stripped of depth and identity.

The speaker's desire to "efface myself" clashes violently with the tulips' "vivid" presence, which metaphorically "eat[s] [her] oxygen." This suggests they are suffocating her, stealing the very air she needs to sustain her fragile existence. The stanza captures her crisis of selfhood: she is both observed and erased, caught between the tulips' invasive vitality and her own yearning for dissolution.

Lines 50-56

“Before they came the air was calm enough,

Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.   

Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.

Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river   

Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.   

They concentrate my attention, that was happy   

Playing and resting without committing itself.”

This stanza contrasts the tranquil emptiness the speaker once inhabited with the chaotic intrusion of the tulips. Before their arrival, the air was calm, moving gently with her breath "without any fuss"—a metaphor for her desired state of passive existence. But the tulips rupture this stillness, filling the air like "a loud noise," an auditory assault on her quietude.

Now, the air "snags and eddies" around the tulips, likened to a river disturbed by a "sunken rust-red engine"—a striking image of industrial decay. The tulips, like this submerged machine, are obtrusive, unnatural, and impossible to ignore. They force her attention, disrupting her previous contentment in drifting "without committing itself" (a phrase suggesting her reluctance to engage with life). The stanza underscores how the tulips hijack her consciousness, replacing her peaceful detachment with their garish, inescapable presence.

Lines 57-63

“The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;   

They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,   

And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes

Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.

The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,

And comes from a country far away as health.”

In this climactic stanza, the speaker’s psychological battle with the tulips escalates into a visceral, almost hallucinatory confrontation. The flowers are no longer mere plants—they become wild, predatory, and dangerously alive. The walls themselves seem to "warm" in response, as if the hospital room has been infected by their heat. The speaker’s plea for the tulips to be "behind bars" reveals her terror; they are untamed beasts, their petals compared to the "mouth of some great African cat"—an image evoking primal danger (lions, leopards) and exotic, uncontrollable vitality. Zoomorphism has been used here.

Meanwhile, her own body betrays her. Her heart, now conflated with the tulips, "opens and closes / Its bowl of red blooms", as if she is flowering against her will. This involuntary blooming mirrors the tulips' forced vitality, suggesting her body is complicit in her suffering. The "warm and salt" water she tastes recalls both tears and the sea, linking her pain to something vast, ancient, and inescapable. The final line—"a country far away as health"—hints at a lost, unreachable state of wholeness, emphasizing her exile from peace.

The last stanza marks the peak of the tulips' tyranny—they are no longer just observed; they reconfigure her world, turning her heart into their accomplice and her body into a battleground. The poem’s central tension crystallizes here: the more life asserts itself (tulips, heartbeat), the more she longs for the silence 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!

The Captive Ladie by Michael Madhusudan Dutt | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Captive Ladie is a poetic work by Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873), one of the most prominent Indian poets of the 19th century and a pioneer of Bengali literature. Though Dutt is best known for his epic Meghnad Badh Kavya (a revolutionary retelling of the Ramayana from Ravana's perspective) and for introducing the sonnet and blank verse into Bengali poetry, The Captive Ladie is one of his early English works.

Published in 1849, this long narrative poem was written in English during Dutt's early literary career before he fully embraced Bengali as his medium. The poem is inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s romantic historical narratives and reflects Dutt's fascination with medieval European themes. The poem retells the story of Prithviraj and Samyukta, the princess of Kannauj. It explores themes of love, war, and honor in a chivalric style. While not as celebrated as his later Bengali works, The Captive Ladie showcases Dutt's mastery of English verse and his early experimentation with epic storytelling. The poem reflects the cultural tensions of colonial India, where Indian writers often grappled with Western literary forms while trying to assert their own identity. After this phase, Dutt famously switched to writing in Bengali, declaring, "I shall write for my own people", leading to his groundbreaking contributions to Bengali literature. Though The Captive Ladie is less known today, it remains an important part of Dutt's journey—a bridge between his Western-influenced beginnings and his later, more revolutionary Bengali works.

The poem was published in a book form in two Cantos in 1849. It consists of over 1200 lines written in octosyllabic verse. Octosyllabic verse refers to poetic lines containing exactly eight syllables. It's a common verse form, particularly in languages like French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. In English, it's often seen in the form of iambic or trochaic tetrameter (four metrical feet, each with two syllables). Madhusudan preferred iambs for his poem.

The poem Captive Ladie has been composed based on the character of Prithviraj Chauhan. Despite the fact that the name of the poem has been changed, we see that Prithviraj is the active character of this poem Captive Ladie; the events of the poem revolve around him. So he can be considered as the central character. King Jayachandra confined the princess Samyukta to a hill fort in the middle of the island to keep her out of sight of Prithviraj. Prithviraj, disguised as Bhat, abducted the princess from there; and then when the Muslims besieged the capital of Prithviraj, Prithviraj was defeated by them and died. In a nutshell, this is the story told by Captive Ladie. While composing this poem, Madhusudan paid more attention to the narration of human love stories than to history.

Madhusudan writes in the introduction to the poem Captive Ladie: ÒI have slightly deviated from the above story in representing my heroine as sent to confinement before the celebration of the feast of victory.

Summary and Analysis of The Captive Ladie:

The Captive Ladie is a historical poem, as its theme is drawn from history. The poet himself narrates the background of the poem in prose before the verse begins. According to this historical context, the "Captive Lady" refers to the daughter of the king of Kanuj, a small kingdom near Delhi ruled by Hindu kings. She was a beautiful princess whose hand in marriage was sought by the king of Delhi, but her father refused the proposal. The king of Kanuj considered himself the supreme ruler of the land and once held a grand Feast of Victory. As per tradition, all subordinate kings and princes were expected to attend, and most complied, unable to resist his authority. However, the king of Delhi defiantly refused, deeply insulting the king of Kanuj. In retaliation, the king of Kanuj had a Golden effigy of the king of Delhi made and displayed mockingly in his court.

Enraged by this humiliation, the king of Delhi, disguised with a few loyal followers, infiltrated the palace during the feast. Upon seeing his own effigy, he seized it and eloped with the royal princesses—the very one whose hand he had once sought. Though she was initially rescued by her father, the king of Delhi later managed to spirit her away disguised as a Bhat (a bard) and married her. The king of Kanuj never forgave this insult. Years later, when Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Delhi, the king of Kanuj refused to aid the king of Delhi in retaliation. As a result, Mahmud first crushed the king of Delhi and then turned his forces against Kanuj. The king of Delhi was slaughtered, and his queen immolated herself on his funeral pyre.

This historical backdrop sets the stage for the poem, which focuses on the dreams of the queen of Delhi before Mahmud’s invasion. These dreams foreshadow the impending disaster. The queen dreams first of a terrifying female warrior, blood-stained and wielding a bare sword. Her dark, cloud-like form is adorned with a gruesome belt of severed hands and a garland of bloody heads. Her eyes blaze with deathly fury, and she tells the queen that what she sees will soon become reality.

In her second dream, the queen encounters a spectral male warrior—gaunt yet fearsome—who stands like a monstrous figure shrouded in horror. Overwhelmed by dread, the queen cries out, but the vision vanishes. She wonders if her father, the king of Kanuj, might yet set aside his anger and come to their aid against their enemies.

The poem ends here, leaving the tragic fulfillment of these omens to history: Mahmud’s invasion, the king’s death, and the queen’s self-immolation. Through this narrative, the poem depicts the political discord among 11th-century Indian rulers, which left them vulnerable to foreign conquest. It also highlights the queen’s unwavering devotion to her husband.

The queen’s horrific visions evoke the eerie prophecies of Shakespeare’s Macbeth or the grim atmosphere of John Webster’s The White Devil. While the language of the poem is simple, its imagery is striking, blending romance and horror. One particularly vivid simile describes the warrior’s dark form:

"Dark was her hue, as darkest cloud,
Which comes the Moon’s fair face to shroud."

This line captures the poem’s haunting beauty, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

Madhusudan was deeply inspired by Romantic literature and he followed the Scott-Moore-Byronic style in his poem which is evident from the given passage-

“The star of Eve is in the sky,

But pale it shines and tremblingly,

As if the solitude around

So vast-so wild-without a bound,

Hath in its softly throbbing breast

Awaken’d some maiden fear-unrest;

But soon-soon will its radiant peers

Peep forth from their deep-blue spheres

And soon the ladie Moon will rise

To bathe in silver Earth and Skies

The soft-pale silver of her pensive eyes.”

This lyrical passage describes the evening sky, focusing on the appearance of the first star (likely Venus, the "star of Eve") and the anticipation of nightfall. The imagery evokes a sense of quiet solitude, fleeting fear, and the coming beauty of the moonlit night. Madhusudan used Personification, the star is given human emotions ("maiden fear-unrest"), and the moon is depicted as a gentle, thoughtful woman ("ladie Moon," "pensive eyes"). Simile and Imagery is magnificent. The trembling star is implicitly compared to a nervous maiden, while the moon’s light is described as "soft-pale silver." Alliteration and Enjambment has been used, the lines flow continuously without heavy pauses, mirroring the gradual unfolding of night. The passage blends beauty ("radiant peers," "silver Earth") with subtle unease ("wild—without a bound," "maiden fear"), reflecting the poem’s themes of foreboding and destiny with a Romantic and Gothic tone. Dutt’s verse here is rich in Romantic-era aesthetics, blending vivid nature imagery with emotional depth. The delicate personification and shimmering descriptions create a hauntingly beautiful prelude to the queen’s tragic fate.

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!

Michael Madhusudan Dutt | The First Indian English Poet | Biography, Important Works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873) was a pioneering Bengali poet, playwright, and literary figure, often regarded as one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature. He is best known for revolutionizing Bengali poetry by introducing Western literary forms, such as the sonnet and blank verse, and blending them with Indian themes. Born on 25 January 1824 in Sagardari, Bengal Presidency (now in Bangladesh), he was educated at  Hindu College, Kolkata, where he was influenced by Western literature and converted to Christianity in 1843, taking the name Michael. Later, he studied law in England and lived in Europe for several years.

He introduced blank verse in Bengali poetry with his epic "Meghnad Badh Kavya" (1861), a tragic retelling of the Ramayana from Ravana's perspective. He wrote the first Bengali sonnet sequence, "Chaturdaspadi Kavita" (1866), and composed plays like "Sharmistha" (1859), the first original Bengali play in the Western style. He is known for his linguistic brilliance, blending Sanskrit, Bengali, and European influences. He is considered a bridge between Indian and Western literary traditions, who inspired future Bengali writers like Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt at Hindu College:

Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s time at Hindu College (now Presidency University, Kolkata) was a defining period, shaping his literary genius, Westernized worldview, and eventual rebellion against tradition. His years there (1837–1842) marked the beginning of his transformation from a young Bengali Brahmin to a radical thinker and poet. Hindu College was founded in 1817 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and David Hare. Hindu College was a center of Western education and rationalist thought in colonial Bengal. The college promoted English literature, European philosophy, and scientific thought, attracting Bengal’s brightest minds. Teachers like Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (poet and radical thinker) influenced students with free-thinking ideas, leading to the Young Bengal Movement.

Madhusudan joined Hindu College in 1837 at age 13, excelling in English, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. He became deeply influenced by Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and Homer (Western classics) and Derozio’s radical ideas (criticism of superstition, advocacy for social reform). Immersed in the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and Homer under the guidance of firebrand teachers like Henry Derozio, Madhusudan developed what he called his "hyper-Byronic" persona - adopting Western manners, questioning Hindu orthodoxy, and dreaming of literary fame in English. The college's intellectually charged atmosphere, particularly Derozio's Young Bengal movement, nurtured Madhusudan's rebellious streak, ultimately leading to his dramatic conversion to Christianity in 1843.

This period of intellectual fermentation at Hindu College produced contradictory impulses in Madhusudan that would define his literary trajectory. While he initially rejected his native culture, attempting to establish himself as an English poet with works like The Captive Ladie (1849), his Western education paradoxically equipped him to later revolutionize Bengali literature. The classical epic traditions he studied at Hindu College resurfaced in his Bengali masterpiece Meghnad Badh Kavya, where he employed blank verse - a form he mastered through his study of Milton. His college exposure to Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama informed the dramatic intensity of his Bengali sonnets and plays. Thus, what began as wholesale Westernization at Hindu College ultimately transformed into a creative synthesis that reshaped Indian literature.

Madhusudan's relationship with Hindu College represents the complex cultural negotiations of colonial Bengal's intellectual elite. Though the institution initially alienated him from his roots, making him, in his own words, "a veritable sahib in mind and manners," it ultimately provided the tools for his literary renaissance. His journey from anglicized college rebel to pioneer of modern Bengali poetry mirrors Bengal's own intellectual awakening - a painful but productive collision of Eastern and Western thought. The same college that fostered his rejection of tradition ultimately enabled his return to it on transformed terms, as he recognized when he advised aspiring writers to "devote themselves to their mother-tongue." Hindu College thus stands as the paradoxical birthplace of both Madhusudan's rebellion and his creative redemption.

Why Did Michael Madhusudan Dutt Abandon English Poetry?

Michael Madhusudan Dutt's abandonment of English poetry marked a pivotal turning point in his literary career, reflecting both personal disillusionment and a profound cultural awakening. Initially convinced that literary greatness could only be achieved through English, his early works like The Captive Ladie (1849) were steeped in Western Romantic traditions but failed to garner the recognition he craved. The lukewarm reception of his English poems, combined with financial struggles and a growing sense of cultural alienation in Europe, forced him to reconsider his artistic path. As he confessed in his letters, he realized that writing in a borrowed language made him "a stranger in his own land," unable to truly connect with either English or Indian audiences. This crisis of identity ultimately led to his epiphany that authentic literary expression must emerge from one's cultural roots.

The shift back to Bengali was not merely practical but represented a deeper philosophical transformation for Madhusudan. While living in Versailles in 1856, he experienced what he described as a sudden "awakening" to the richness of his mother tongue, recognizing Bengali's untapped potential for literary innovation. His famous declaration - "If there be anyone among us anxious to leave a name behind him, let him devote himself to his mother-tongue" - signaled this artistic rebirth. Rather than rejecting his Western education, he began synthesizing it with Indian traditions, using European forms like the sonnet and blank verse to revolutionize Bengali poetry. This creative fusion produced his masterpiece Meghnad Badh Kavya (1861), which established him as a literary pioneer while finally achieving the fame that had eluded his English works.

Madhusudan's journey from English to Bengali poetry encapsulates the complex cultural negotiations of colonial intellectuals. His initial rejection and subsequent embrace of Bengali reflect both the seductive power of colonial education and its ultimate limitations. While Western learning gave him technical mastery, he discovered true poetic voice only by returning to his cultural heritage. This transition mirrored Bengal's broader literary renaissance, where the synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions birthed a new modernity. As Madhusudan himself recognized, his abandonment of English poetry wasn't a retreat but an advancement - a conscious choice to create rather than imitate, to innovate rather than conform, ensuring his legacy as the father of modern Bengali literature.

His important works include Meghnad Badh Kavya (The Slaying of Meghnad), Tilottama Sambhav Kavya, Brajangana (sonnets), and Hector Badh (a play based on the Iliad).

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!

Epilogue | Literary Terms and Devices | Literary Terms

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. In literature, an epilogue is a concluding section of a work that provides additional information or reflection after the main narrative has ended. It often serves to wrap up loose ends, offer a glimpse into the future of the characters, or provide commentary on the story’s events.

An epilogue may be used as a Closure to reveal the ultimate fate of characters or the long-term consequences of the story’s events. Sometimes, an epilogue is used to suggest a Shift in Perspective and it is told from a different point of view or at a later time. Epilogue can be used to offer Reflection. It can offer philosophical or thematic insights beyond the main narrative. In some cases, an epilogue works as a Sequel Hook. It sets up a future story or leaves room for interpretation.

Epilogue and Afterword

While both an epilogue and an afterword appear at the end of a book, they serve distinct purposes. 

Written in the same style as the rest of the work, an epilogue remains part of the story's fictional world, serving to enhance closure or reflection. For example, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the epilogue fast-forwards 19 years to show the protagonists as adults, delivering emotional resolution. Epilogues can also shift perspectives, add thematic depth, or leave readers with a final, resonant image. Their purpose is narrative—completing the story’s arc rather than stepping outside it.

An afterword, by contrast, is a non-fiction component typically written by the author, editor, or another contributor to discuss the book’s creation, context, or significance. Unlike an epilogue, it breaks the fourth wall, addressing the reader directly about real-world aspects of the work—such as research, inspiration, or historical background. Often found in memoirs, academic texts, or reissued editions, an afterword might reflect on the book’s reception, include updates, or analyze its themes. For instance, George Orwell’s 1984 sometimes features an afterword examining its political warnings. The afterword’s role is analytical or explanatory, separate from the narrative itself, and appeals to readers’ curiosity about the work’s origins or impact.

Prologue and Epilogue:

A prologue is an introductory section of a literary work that provides background information, sets the tone, or frames the narrative. It can establish context, introduce key themes, or even address the reader directly. In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the Chorus delivers a sonnet as a prologue, summarizing the play’s tragic plot: "Two households, both alike in dignity… A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life." This foreshadows the fate of the protagonists and creates dramatic irony. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the novel opens with Old Major’s speech, which serves as a prologue by outlining the principles of Animalism and inspiring the rebellion. This sets up the central conflict and themes of revolution and corruption. In Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, the "Etymology" and "Extracts" sections act as a prologue, offering scholarly notes on whales, which foreshadow the novel’s obsessive, encyclopedic nature.

An epilogue, on the other hand, is a concluding section that wraps up the story, reveals the characters’ fates, or reflects on the narrative’s themes. It can provide closure, add irony, or extend the story beyond the main events.

Epilogues in Literary Works:

Here are some examples of epilogues from notable works:

In Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, the epilogue (delivered by the Chorus) serves as a moral warning. After Faustus’s damnation, the Chorus admonishes the audience to avoid his pride and hubris, stating, "Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough." This reinforces the play’s cautionary message about the dangers of unchecked ambition.

George Orwell’s 1984 features a chilling epilogue in the form of an appendix, "The Principles of Newspeak." Though not part of the main narrative, it provides a historical perspective on the Party’s linguistic control, suggesting that the regime eventually fell. This creates an ironic contrast with Winston’s tragic fate, implying that even oppressive systems are temporary.

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick concludes with an epilogue where Ishmael, the sole survivor of the Pequod, is rescued by another ship. His survival allows him to narrate the story, emphasizing themes of fate and storytelling itself: "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." This echoes biblical allusions and reinforces the novel’s meditative tone on obsession and mortality.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby ends with Nick Carraway’s reflective passage, which acts as an epilogue. He muses on the American Dream and Gatsby’s futile pursuit of it, symbolized by the green light: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." This lyrical conclusion underscores the novel’s themes of idealism and disillusionment.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the epilogue reveals the pigs fully assimilated into human behavior, blurring the line between oppressor and oppressed. The final scene, where the animals cannot distinguish pig from man, drives home the novel’s critique of cyclical corruption: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Each of these epilogues enhances the work’s themes, offering resolution, irony, or a final meditation on the narrative’s deeper meaning.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss literary terms and devices often used in English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!