Shakespeare's Sonnets

 About the Author:

William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

Sonnet 33 begins a new phase in the poet and youth's estrangement from each other. In any case, faith between the two men is broken during the poet's absence.

Shifts in the poet's attitudes toward the youth and about his own involvement in the relationship are evident in the sonnet. Whereas in Sonnet 25 the poet boasts that his faith is permanent, here he reverses himself. References to "basest clouds," "ugly rack," "stealing," "disgrace," and "stain" indicate that the friend has committed a serious moral offense. Whereas in earlier sonnets the poet worried that his verse was not good enough to convey his intense love for the young man, now he worries about whether the young man is as good as his verse conveyed. Metaphorically, the young man is like the sun, which "with golden face" warms and brightens the earth. However, the sun allows "the basest clouds" to block its rays, and the young man permits loyalties to other people to interfere with his relationship with the poet. The poet accepts that the friend has betrayed him — "But, out alack, he was but one hour mine" — but he also realizes that the burden of blame must be his own for having assumed that outward beauty corresponds to inner virtue. This last realization, that outward beauty does not correspond to inner virtue, is expressed in the sonnet's last line: "Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth." In other words, "Suns of the world may stain" — perhaps a pun on "sons" or humankind — represents the young man's moral transgression although his external, physical appearance remains unchanged. Nevertheless, the poet's love for the young man remains unchanged.

 

Sonnet 73: The poet indicates his feeling that he has not long to live through the imagery of the wintry bough, twilight's afterglow, and a fire's dying embers. All the images in this sonnet suggest impending death. In the first quatrain, the poet compares himself to autumn leaves, but he is unable to pinpoint their exact number, just as he cannot determine how close he is to death: "When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang / Upon those boughs which shake against the cold." In the second quatrain, he talks of "twilight" as "after the sun fadeth in the west," — a traditional metaphor for death. Death is close to the poet in this second quatrain, for he imagines death twice more, first as "black night" and then as sleep, "Death's second self." The third quatrain recalls Sonnet 45, in which the poet likened his desire for the young man to "purging fire." Now, however, his fire is but dying embers, a "deathbed" fueled by his love for the youth, "Consumed with that which it was nourished by."

Note the pause indicated by the period after each quatrain in the sonnet, the longest pause coming appropriately after the third quatrain, before the concluding couplet. The pauses after the first two quatrains are due to their beginning "In me thou seest. . . ." This phrase indicates that the poet is drawing an allusion between an external image and an internal state of mind, an association that in turn forces a slower reading of the lines, enabling some reflection on the emotional tone that each image evokes.

Now follows the couplet addressed to the youth that makes clear the conclusion to be drawn from the preceding lines: "This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well, which thou must leave ere long." Believing that he will soon die and never see the young man again, the poet's love for the youth intensifies.

Sonnet 116: Despite the confessional tone in this sonnet, there is no direct reference to the youth. The general context, however, makes it clear that the poet's temporary alienation refers to the youth's inconstancy and betrayal, not the poet's, although coming as it does on the heels of the previous sonnet, the poet may be trying to convince himself again that "Now" he loves the youth "best." Sonnet 116, then, seems a meditative attempt to define love, independent of reciprocity, fidelity, and eternal beauty: "Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle's compass come." After all his uncertainties and apologies, Sonnet 116 leaves little doubt that the poet is in love with love.

The essence of love and friendship for the poet, apparently, is reciprocity, or mutuality. In Sonnet 116, for example, the ideal relationship is referred to as "the marriage of true minds," a union that can be realized by the dedicated and faithful: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments." The marriage service in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer — "If any of you know cause or just impediment" — provides the model for the sonnet's opening lines. In them, we see the poet's attitude toward love, which he proceeds to define first negatively. He explains what love is not, and then he positively defines what it is. The "ever-fixed mark" is the traditional sea mark and guide for mariners — the North Star — whose value is inestimable although its altitude — its "height" — has been determined. Unlike physical beauty, the star is not subject to the ravages of time; nor is true love, which is not "Time's fool."

The poet then introduces the concepts of space and time, applying them to his ideal of true love: "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom." Note that the verb "alters" is lifted directly from line 3, in which the poet describes what love is not. "Bears it out" means survive; "edge of doom," Judgment Day. Finally, with absolute conviction, the poet challenges others to find him wrong in his definition: "If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved." Just how secure the poet is in his standards of friendship and love, which he hopes that he and the youth can achieve, is evident in this concluding couplet; he stakes his own poetry as his wager that love is all he has described it to be.

Sonnet 129: The mistress is not mentioned in this sonnet. Instead, the poet pens a violent diatribe against the sin of lust. The sonnet's angry attack on sexual pleasure stands between two rather innocuous sonnets addressed to the woman at the keyboard, and serves as a commentary on the morning following a night of pleasurable indulgences. The poet suffers a kind of panic in realizing how vulnerable he is to losing self-control to lascivious impulses. It is the paradox of having to fully let go in order to enjoy emotional release yet regretting the inescapable loss of control, the same control he was jealous of the mistress having over the "dead wood."

Although Sonnet 129 never directly refers to any character, it does indirectly express the poet's character in strongly marked antithesis, the excited impatience of lust contrasted with the revulsion that follows gratification: — "A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; / Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream." The poet often reverses the order of words to give greater impact to his antithesis and to deepen the impression of conflict, as in line 2: "Is lust in action; and till action, lust." Line 14 — "To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell" — completes the antagonistic imagery.

Sonnet 129 reveals a fundamental weakness in the poet's moral being. He asks why his heart should be moved by what he knows to be worthless, and yet, obviously bound by passion, he cannot escape his lust despite his better self. He endeavors to convince himself that the Dark Lady is better than he knows her to be.

 

Sonnet 130 is a parody of the Dark Lady, who falls too obviously short of fashionable beauty to be extolled in print. The poet, openly contemptuous of his weakness for the woman, expresses his infatuation for her in negative comparisons. For example, comparing her to natural objects, he notes that her eyes are "nothing like the sun," and the colors of her lips and breasts dull when compared to the red of coral and the whiteness of snow.

Whereas conventional love sonnets by other poets make their women into goddesses, in Sonnet 130 the poet is merely amused by his own attempt to deify his dark mistress. Cynically he states, "I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground." We learn that her hair is black, but note the derogatory way the poet describes it: "black wires grow on her head." Also, his comment "And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks" borders on crassness, no matter how satirical he is trying to be. The poet must be very secure in his love for his mistress — and hers for him — for him to be as disparaging as he is, even in jest — a security he did not enjoy with the young man. Although the turn "And yet" in the concluding couplet signals the negation of all the disparaging comments the poet has made about the Dark Lady, the sonnet's last two lines arguably do not erase the horrendous comparisons in the three quatrains.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (John Donne)

 

About the Author:

John Donne (22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He is also known for his sermons.

Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorised. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.

 

The poet begins by comparing the love between his beloved and himself with the passing away of virtuous men. Such men expire so peacefully that their friends cannot determine when they are truly dead. Likewise, his beloved should let the two of them depart in peace, not revealing their love to “the laity.”

Earthquakes bring harm and fear about the meaning of the rupture, but such fears should not affect his beloved because of the firm nature of their love. Other lovers become fearful when distance separates them—a much greater distance than the cracks in the earth after a quake—since for them, love is based on the physical presence or attractiveness of each other. Yet for the poet and his beloved, such a split is “innocent,” like the movements of the heavenly spheres, because their love transcends mere physicality.

Indeed, the separation merely adds to the distance covered by their love, like a sheet of gold, hammered so thin that it covers a huge area and gilds so much more than a love concentrated in one place ever could.

He finishes the poem with a longer comparison of himself and his wife to the two legs of a compass. They are joined at the top, and she is perfectly grounded at the center point. As he travels farther from the center, she leans toward him, and as he travels in his circles, she remains firm in the center, making his circles perfect.

Analysis

The first two of the nine abab stanzas of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” make up a single sentence, developing the simile of the passing of a virtuous man as compared to the love between the poet and his beloved. It is thought that Donne was in fact leaving for a long journey and wished to console and encourage his beloved wife by identifying the true strength of their bond. The point is that they are spiritually bound together regardless of the earthly distance between them.

He begins by stating that the virtuous man leaves life behind so delicately that even his friends cannot clearly tell the difference. Likewise, Donne forbids his wife from openly mourning the separation. For one thing, it is no real separation, like the difference between a breath and the absence of a breath. For another thing, mourning openly would be a profanation of their love, as the spiritual mystery of a sacrament can be diminished by revealing the details to “the laity” (line 8). Their love is sacred, so the depth of meaning in his wife’s tears would not be understood by those outside their marriage bond, who do not love so deeply. When Donne departs, observers should see no sign from Donne’s wife to suggest whether Donne is near or far because she will be so steadfast in her love for him and will go about her business all the same.

The third stanza suggests that the separation is like the innocent movement of the heavenly spheres, many of which revolve around the center. These huge movements, as the planets come nearer to and go farther from one another, are innocent and do not portend evil. How much less, then, would Donne’s absence portend. All of this is unlike the worldly fear that people have after an earthquake, trying to determine what the motions and cleavages mean.

In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Donne also compares their love to that of “sublunary” (earth-bound) lovers and finds the latter wanting. The love of others originates from physical proximity, where they can see each other’s attractiveness. When distance intervenes, their love wanes, but this is not so for Donne and his beloved, whose spiritual love, assured in each one’s “mind,” cannot be reduced by physical distance like the love of those who focus on “lips, and hands.”

The use of “refined” in the fifth stanza gives Donne a chance to use a metaphor involving gold, a precious metal that is refined through fire. In the sixth stanza, the separation is portrayed as actually a bonus because it extends the territory of their love, like gold being hammered into “aery thinness” without breaking (line 24). It thus can gild that much more territory.

The final three stanzas use an extended metaphor in which Donne compares the two individuals in the marriage to the two legs of a compass: though they each have their own purpose, they are inextricably linked at the joint or pivot at the top—that is, in their spiritual unity in God. Down on the paper—the earthly realm—one leg stays firm, just as Donne’s wife will remain steadfast in her love at home. Meanwhile the other leg describes a perfect circle around this unmoving centre, so long as the centre leg stays firmly grounded and does not stray. She will always lean in his direction, just like the centre leg of the compass. So long as she does not stray, “Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun,” back at home (lines 35-36). They are a team, and so long as she is true to him, he will be able to return to exactly the point where they left off before his journey.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (John Dryden)

 “A Song for St. Cecilia's Day” composed in 1687, is the first of two great odes written by poet laureate John Dryden and set to music for the annual St. Cecilia’s Day celebration held every November 22 from 1683 to 1703 and sponsored by the London Musical Society. The poem consisting of seven stanzas and a grand chorus, describes the involvement of music in both the makings of the universe and the subtleties of human emotion and piety.

 

In Stanza 1, an unnamed speaker opens the poem by describing how the world was created according to a certain kind of “heavenly harmony” or divine order. From a chaotic state, nature was summoned to existence by Music. The creation of the universe, initiated by the command of Music, then culminated in the creation of Man. In Stanza 2, the speaker goes on to describe music's capacity to inspire passion, giving as an example the story of Jubal and the power of his instrument to move the hearts of his listeners.

From Stanza 3 to Stanza 6, the speaker describes different musical instruments and their abilities to incite different kinds of emotions: Stanza 3 describes the trumpet and drum and their power to inspire militant anger; Stanza 4 the ability of the flute and lute to inspire melancholy; Stanza 5 the diversity of strong emotions such as jealousy, fury, anger, pain, and passion that the violin can incite; Stanza 6 the organ’s capability to inspire piety. Stanza 7 continues the previous stanza’s description of the organ, elaborating upon its appearance in the story of St. Cecilia. Alluding to Roman mythology, the speaker argues that St. Cecilia’s organ possesses a power superior to that of Orpheus’s lyre, in that the former even caused an angel to mistake Earth for Heaven.

The Grand Chorus closes the poem with the description of the “dreadful hour,” in which the spheres of the world are reordered, the reign of the great Creator, the Christian God is celebrated, the existing laws of the world are reversed, and the universe is rebuilt and restructured with the force of music.

Themes:

Music

"A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687” seems to be not so much a poem about St. Cecilia’s Day as an ode to music itself. The poem celebrates several different properties of music. In Stanza 1, the concept of musical harmony helps us to understand the makings of the universe  and interpret and comply with the wishes of the divine. In Stanzas 2 through 6, music allows us to enjoy our emotions to the fullest, and causes us to be energized, passionate, and festive. In Stanza 7 and the Grand Chorus, music connects the earthly to the heavenly, allowing for spiritual experiences like that St. Cecilia had through her organ performance. Meanwhile, the poem also warns of certain hazards of music, and furthermore, the dangers of art itself.

Religion

Though “A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687” celebrates a Catholic holiday, the poem contains references to more than one belief system. Alongside the Biblical references to Jubal, Heaven, and angels, and the Catholic narrative of St. Cecilia, the speaker incorporates the Greek myth of Orpheus. Greek philosophy also makes multiple appearances: Pythagorean cosmology, Aristotelian atomic theory, and Epicurean atomic theory are all featured in this poem. Thus the poem prompts us to think about the synthesis of competing belief systems and how one mode of thought can be appropriated, embraced, or challenged by another.

Cosmology

One attribute of this poem that makes it so unique is its scale: Anchored by an extremely specific event  the poem expands to the broader theme of music itself, then even goes on to make claims about the universe and its makings. Cosmology is an important element of “A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687” because it is what connects the festivities of a specific holiday to broader claims about art, life, and the universe. According to the poem's cosmology, there is also a Heaven and an Earth, the dichotomy of which can be bridged, again, through the performance and audition of music. Heaven and Earth become relative concepts when the speaker claims that St. Cecilia's organ made an angel mistake Earth for Heaven.

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (John Milton)

 

About the Author:

 

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’ also known as Nativity Ode was written in 1629 when Milton was only twenty-one. It was published in his collection Poems of Mr. John Milton. He wrote this poem in celebration of his twenty-first birthday and in commemoration of the Nativity of Jesus.  The poem speaks on themes of coming of age and religion. Scholars often associate the composition of this work with Milton’s age and the birth of Christ. He is celebrating the nativity but also his own entry into the adult world. This piece is commonly recognized as Milton’s first great poem.

 

The poem takes the reader through a series of natural images at the beginning of the poem. The poet speaks on what the sun, stars, moon, and nature are doing. Their reactions are similar and express for the reader the power of the child’s birth. The poem then moves into a prediction of what the future is going to be like. Peace is going to cover all the lands and no one is going to war. But that can’t happen yet. First Christ has to die. Darkness comes over the poem briefly but is quickly lifted to make way for a series of pagan images. These old gods are described as leaving their abodes and traveling hastily to Hell. That is where they must stay for the rest time. In the last stanza, the poet returns to the image of the manger. 

In the introduction, the poem is seen as a nativity offering to the infant Christ. Milton uses the conceit of running before the three wise men in order to deliver his gift first. The poem is both gift and prophetic word, joining with the angelic choir. In the main section of the poem, Milton describes first the time and place of the nativity. He is determined to move away from traditional depictions, which center on mother and child, the stable, and Joseph in an intimate, enclosed scene. Instead, his imagination soars, moving into the cosmic and universal realms, and reaching into heavenly glory.

Then Milton returns briefly to the immediate locale, to describe the shepherds and the angelic choir they hear. This is the harmony made audible. Normally the sign of creation’s harmony, the music of the spheres, is inaudible to human ears; on this night, that music blends with the angelic harmony in a transforming power, which gives a promise of a restored golden age. Before this could happen, the poet realizes, Christ must die and be raised to glory, to judge the conquered Satan and his evil agents. Already their power is broken, however; the religions of Greece and Rome, which previously may have contained shadows of the truth, lose their prophetic and priestly power. Other pagan religions, such as those condemned in the Old Testament, also lose their evil hold: Their strongholds are overthrown. Milton catalogs those pagan gods in detail, from Peor and Baalim to Moloch and Typhon. Like ghosts, the false gods must return to the underworld at the dawn of the new Sun of righteousness. In the final stanza, the poem returns to the Nativity scene; the final image is not of the Christ child and Mary, but of “Bright-harnessed Angels”—that is, angels wearing armor—sitting about the stable in battle formation.

Forms and Devices:

The poem is difficult to classify generically. Although the main section is entitled “The Hymn,” it is clearly not a hymn in any traditional sense: It is not addressed to God, nor has it any explicit exhortation to fellow believers. It has features of an ode; although the Nativity is never addressed as such, it does have the elevated language associated with that genre. It also contains pastoral elements. It is best seen, perhaps, as a meditation on the transfiguring power that Christ’s birth had over the created world.

“The Hymn” consists of twenty-seven eight-line stanzas, rhyming aabccbdd, although the last two lines never work as a couplet. The stanzas are basically one-sentence units, and they already prefigure the long sentence structures of Milton’s later verse. The meter is basically iambic, but not rigidly so. The introduction consists of four stanzas of seven lines of iambic pentameter, apart from the final line, which is hexameter; it rhymes ababbcc. The complete poem thus consists of 244 lines.

There are two predominant trains of imagery. The first is of light and darkness; from the glory of “that Light unsufferable/ And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty” (lines 8-9) to the “greater Sun” (Christ) outshining the “bright Throne, or burning Axletree” of the sun (lines 83-84). Similarly, darkness depicts first the human condition—“a darksome House of mortal Clay” (line 14)—then the underworld, where “Th’old Dragon Swinges the scaly Horror of his folded tail” (lines 168, 172), and the sites of pagan religion: “twilight shade of tangled thickets” (line 188); “left in shadows dread/ His burning Idol all of blackest hue” (lines 206-207).

The second train of imagery is of music, especially of harmony: The music of the spheres and the angelic choir both suggest triumph; the weeping and lament suggest old powers broken and passing away. The poem itself becomes its own image of integrated music. Other images are pastoral and rustic, and even sexual—nature is a fallen woman, needing snow for a covering to restore the appearance of innocence (stanza II).

 

Portrait of the Poet as Landscape (A.M. Klein)

 

About the Author:

Abraham Moses Klein (A.M. Klein) (14 February 1909 – 20 August 1972) was a Canadian poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer and lawyer. He has been called "one of Canada's greatest poets and a leading figure in Jewish-Canadian culture." Best known for his poetry, Klein also published one novella entitled The Second Scroll in 1951, along with numerous essays, reviews, and short stories. Many of his lesser-known works, including several unfinished novels, were published posthumously in a series of collections from the University of Toronto Press.

 

In Portrait of the Poet as Landscape, A.M. Klein engages with the identity of the poet and the role of his art. The poem is a künstlerroman, which sees the maturity of an artist against the decaying modern society around him. The insignificance and irrelevance of the poet in the modern age is stressed. It is not clear if the poet is living or dead—it does not matter for “We are sure only that from our real society / he has disappeared; he simply does not count”. Klein places the poet in juxtaposition with the public and the reader by using the plural person pronoun: “we” and “our” against the disappeared poet. The public does not care about the poet, nor does the poet appear to care about himself: he is “incognito, lost, lacunal”.

Hence, it would appear the poet has no identity in “our real society.” The simile “like the mirroring lenses forgotten on a brow / that shine with the guilt of their unnoticed world” suggests the blame is partially the poet’s. Klein indicates the poet functions as a reflection of his society, so if society is apathetic, that is partially because the poet is apathetic.

Klein personifies poetry as a female body that provides the poet with love and knowledge. For Klein, this is the purpose of art: to defeat ignorance and bring “the shock of belated seeing”. While the language is sincere, “a first love it was,” there is a sense of self-indulgence that becomes increasingly obvious and is responsible for the lethargy of artists.

Klein prescribes a social responsibility to the artist. The modern artist, however, seems to be completely self-absorbed by their art, at the expense of the public. The image of the artists who “curl themselves in a comma” suggests a synthesis resulting in art for art’s sake with no clear role.

From here, it is not surprising that the artist’s identity begins to unravel. He does not have a place in society, and as a result, his art is purposeless. This is particularly in contrast to “the local tycoon who for a hobby / plays poet”. The businessman is valued by modern society and as thus, is able to inform society on a superficial level, “playing” poet. The poet begins to think of himself as an imposter, crucially, not just as an imposter poet, but as an imposter human being, with all “his personal biography, / his gestures, his moods”. Klein powerfully links the poetic identity with the human experience.

The main copula “to be” is repeated here to emphasize the poet’s search for identity and meaning. Klein suggests fame determines identity in the modern society, but is irrelevant to the poet. It is this understanding that allows the poet to fully embrace his art even though he is ostracized. The poet is able to accept the irreconcilability of modern society, himself and his art. The poet understands that art is the creation of his own landscape and reality, one that allows “new forms to life, anonymously, new creeds” that compete and complement with modern society. He becomes the landscape by accepting his own invisible omnipresence, “until they map, / not the world’s, but his own body’s chart!”

The poem ends on a powerful image of guarded optimism. The poet has embraced his obscurity, and has not given up his art, “in his secret shines / like phosphorus. At the bottom of the sea” .  The artist has discovered his identity: as his own reality and landscape, at once connected to and separate from modern society.

The Diviners is a Kunstlerroman Novel (Margaret Laurence)

 

The Diviners is a 1974 kunstlerroman, or novel about the writing of a novel, by Canadian author Margaret Laurence. The semi-autobiographical narrative follows the life and memories of Morag Gunn, a writer and single mother who grew up in Manawaka, Manitoba, and her struggle to understand and accept her identity. Laurence is considered one of Canada’s greatest writers. The Diviners is the fifth book in her “Manawaka” series of books set in or around the fictional town, including The Stone Angel and A Jest of God. In 1972, Laurence was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. She died of lung cancer in 1987.

The novel opens with a section titled “River of Now and Then.” Morag, 47, wakes up in her Ontario log cabin to discover her 18-year-old daughter, Pique, is gone. She has left a note behind asking her mother not to worry or “get uptight.” Pique, who is Metis, of mixed First Nations ancestry, has headed West in search of her roots. The note unlocks Morag’s own memories of when she was Pique’s age and headed East from her Manitoba hometown, looking for her own identity. Morag searches her house for photographs from her childhood, ones she has treated carelessly over the years but has never been able to throw away.

In the next section, “The Nuisance Grounds,” the narrative flashes back to Morag’s early years. Both her parents died of polio when she was young, and she was taken from her comfortable upper-middle-class home to a poor foster family in Manawaka. Her foster parents, Christie and Prin Logan, loved and raised her, but she treated them with contempt, looking down on their lack of education and impoverished circumstances. Christie was the town “scavenger,” or trash collector, taking the town’s refuse to the dump, which the town referred to as ‘The Nuisance Grounds’. Christie proves a natural storyteller, and furnishes Morag with made-up stories about her ancestors. He tells her tales of a Scottish hero named Piper Gunn, claiming that he is Morag’s ancestor several generations back. Piper’s exploits are actually based on the real history of Archie MacDonald, but Morag will not learn the truth until much later. Piper’s wife is also named Morag, and this ancestor helps give Christie’s untethered foster daughter a sense of identity and belonging. She believes her past and her people were rich and respectable—that they, not the Logans, represent who she is and where she comes from.

The next section, “Halls of Sion,” sees Morag escaping Manawaka as soon as she can for university in Winnipeg. She marries a professor 15 years her senior, Brooke Skelton, and moves to Toronto. The marriage is not a happy one. Brooke is pessimistic and controlling. Morag wants children, but Brooke tells her the world is too harsh to bring a child into. He ridicules her attempts to write. He confines and restricts her. One night, Morag encounters a childhood friend, Jules “Skinner” Tonnerre, who is Metis, on the street. She invites him in for dinner only for Brooke to insult him. In response, Morag leaves the house with Jules and has a three-week affair with him without protection, hoping she will become pregnant. She does, and it ends her marriage.

The final section, “Rites of Passage,” shows Morag as a writer and single mother. She moves first to Vancouver, where she writes her first novel, “Spear of Innocence”, and gives birth to her daughter, Pique. Jules is rarely present in their lives, though he stays with Morag for two months when Pique is five. Jules and Morag are drawn to each other through their shared sense of alienation from their hometown and their ongoing search for acceptance and belonging. As a “half-breed,” Jules has always been looked down upon, considered inferior for his racial heritage. He tells stories of his Metis ancestors that rewrite history, just as Christie did with his stories of Morag’s fictionalized ancestors.

Jules leaves and Morag moves to England with Pique, hoping she will find a community of like-minded writers to thrive in. But reality does not match her imagination, and she is as lonely as ever in her new home.

Eventually she returns to Canada, to the log cabin home at where the novel begins. She goes on a journey to Scotland as well, in search of her ancestors, but does not actually travel to Sutherland, where her people came from. She realizes that Manawaka is her true home, and returns there to find that Christie is dying. She tells him that he has been a father to her. More than that, her true heritage is not Scottish but Canadian. Pique returns home after her own search for identity. Her relationship with Morag is sometimes uneasy, but they reconcile. Morag returns to her log cabin home and finishes her novel.

The Diviners was a controversial book when it was first published. It continues to be challenged and banned from school districts for perceived coarse language and blasphemy. Despite this, it is widely considered a classic of Canadian literature. In 1993, it was adapted into a popular made-for-TV movie starring Sonja Smits and Tom Jackson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)

 

About the Author:

Jean Margaret Laurence CC (née Wemyss; 1926–1987) was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, and is one of the major figures in Canadian literature. She was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community. One of Canada's most esteemed and beloved authors by the end of her literary career, Laurence began writing short stories in her teenage years while in Neepawa. Her first published piece "The Land of Our Father" was submitted to a competition held by the Winnipeg Free Press. This story contains the first appearance of the name "Manawaka" (a fictional Canadian town used in many of her later works). Shortly after her marriage, Margaret began to write more prolifically, as did her husband. Each published fiction in literary periodicals while living in Africa, but Margaret continued to write and expand her range. Her early novels were influenced by her experience as a minority in Africa. They show a strong sense of Christian symbolism and ethical concern for being a white person in a colonial state.

It was after her return to Canada that she wrote The Stone Angel (1964), the novel for which she is best known. Laurence went on to write four more works of fiction set in Manawaka. Novels which she wrote are: This Side Jordan (1960), The Stone Angel (1964), A Jest of God (1966), The Fire-Dwellers (1969), The Diviners (1974), The Loons; and the short story collections are The Tomorrow-Tamer (1963), and A Bird in the House (1970).  She has also written children’s books namely Jason's Quest (1970), Six Darn Cows (1979), The Olden Days Coat (1980), and The Christmas Birthday Story (1982).

Critical Analysis:

The Diviners, Margaret Laurence’s last novel in the series of Manawaka fiction has been applauded by many critics as the most exceptional accomplishment in her profession. The novel is about Morag Gunn, who is born in small-town Manitoba and lost her parents at a young age. The novel is divided into five sections – “River of Now and Then,” “The Nuisance Grounds,” “Halls of Sion,” “Rites of Passage,” and “The Diviners”. The “River Now and Then” and “The Diviners” surrounds the three leading sections of the book. “The Nuisance Grounds” examines Morag’s present that comes to peak in two phone calls. In “Halls of Sion,” Morag apparently escapes from Manawaka and from her parents only to search for her own roots. In “Rites of Passage,” Morag has exposed her life down to the bare prerequisites and sets out on in search for “vital truth”.

Morag was brought up by the town scavenger and his dim wife. She goes to University in Winnipeg to escape the life she was brought up into. In the University she marries her Professor and also she becomes a writer. Morag leaves her husband who refuses to let her become a mother and writer. After her separation Morag meets her childhood friend/lover, lives with him and has a baby. She raises the baby on her own in Vancouver, London, and McConnell’s landing. When her child leaves, she feels lonesome and starts searching for her own roots – where she has come from. Finally, she finds out the reality that her ancestry is nowhere but in the same place where she was brought up.

 

As the novel moves more into her life, it’s obvious that she had concealed her identity for a very long period in her life. This is seen in her marriage with Brooke and then their separation. Morag has a feeling that Brooke was the one who made her what she required to be and she used him to defend her from the reminiscences of her past. However, when she finds that she can’t just be a camouflage and that people in her past are significant she feels relaxing with Jules and comprehends that she has been a protection in herself from herself. After they have relationship she understands that she doesn’t belong to reconcile down with a man who needs her and she wants her own self to be something that she is responsible for. Morag is presented as a character who often feels herself a stranger in Manawaka. Her poverty always makes her feel ashamed and she is embarrassed by Christie and Prin. She acquainted with a silent friend in Jules Tonnerre, a youth in her school. They walk and talk and, ultimately, she has her first physical relationship with him. Jules is never permanent in her life, he moves in and out of her life, never staying for long. Jules tells Morag the tales that he had heard from his drunken father Lazarus which are entirely different from that of the stories told by Christie. Morag realizes that the truth has different version and the stories of Christie no longer impress her even though Heroism exists in those stories. Morag wanders from place to place in search of a home, which she at last realizes she must make for herself in Canada. She also searches for her identity as a woman, mother and writer and as an individual in a community. She swears never to return to Manawaka but Morag understands that she must come back to the place she never considered and she had left behind: The land Christie has created for her. When she finds out that he is dying she returns home and she admits to Christie, that he has been a real father to her. In this novel, Morag is trying to find out who she is; she uses photographs to help demonstrate who she is.

Yet another significant idea to consider in the book is the past vs. present. The novel opens up with the words “the river flowed both ways” this is important because it essentially sets up the whole novel by conversing how the past and present are important but it’s also vital when considering Morag’s identity, she lives her entire life by trying to return to the past challenging to figure in which her true self is being found. One of the important and relevant themes of The Diviners is that of stories told by Christie and Prin and how these echo the human life. Morag connects very strongly with the stories of her ancestors in Scotland, the stories that comprise her own life, and the stories she writes for and about herself. Morag is also intently interested in the inaccuracy of experience and stories to reflect what really happened. Morag is an established writer, but her dedication is not easier than before. She is also a single parent with a growing daughter whose own characteristics must be respected. She used to think words could do anything. This sense of lack of a significant identity makes her agree to a voyage of journeying across time and space towards acquiring an adequate self-perception and that represents the novel. It is the past that shows the present and its own face. An assessment of the past is not an easy matter of recovering for Morag. She has problematized the genuineness of her past by a frequent invention of her lived past and modified it to her needs. It is Morag’s relation with her inherited past, responsible for her inability to come to terms with her present. She can determine her present crisis only when she begins to accept and value her legacy in its true outlook. Margaret Laurence deliberately and clearly intertwines in a well-built nationalist objective through Christie’s tales of Piper Gunn and Jules’s tales. The Diviners is not just a story of a person’s journey towards self-discovery; but it is also a story of many people of  Canada. Both Christie and Jules are marginalized and treated as substandard human beings, and are insulted and kept away by the society. The present fails to provide them with any sense of a typical identity. Morag’s acceptance and re-evaluation of her inherited past finally releases her from conflict with her past. The image of the river flowing both ways at the beginning of the novel again appears at the end of the novel symbolise both past and present. Morag, sees the necessity of achieving such a total presence as that of the river is necessary for an integrated and whole identity. Like the river Morag too achieves a self-realisation by incorporating the past into the present.

Ode on Solitude (Alexander Pope)

 

About the Author:

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) is seen as one of the greatest English poets and the foremost poet of the early 18th century. He is best known for satirical and discursive poetry, including “The Rape of the Lock”, “The Dunciad”, and “An Essay on Criticism”, and for his translation of Homer. After Shakespeare, Pope is the second-most quoted writer in English, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having become popular in common parlance (e. g., damning with faint praise). He is considered a master of the heroic couplet.

With the poem having a title “Ode on Solitude”,  the reader is typically given a pretty good idea of what the poem is about. Of course, it would be far too simple an analysis to say that Alexander Pope’s oldest surviving poem, Ode on Solitude, is simply “about solitude.” Clearly, when Pope wrote his work, he had the idea of solitude in mind, as do a great many poets who express themselves best through the written word, and perhaps less so in the company of others. Solitude itself is an important thing to attain from time to time, and perhaps it makes sense to think that solitude is a very basic human desire. Many critics have the opinion that at the age of twelve writing such a thoughtful poem could be accomplished only by Pope like great thinkers.

This first verse of Ode on Solitude begins the analogy that will carry through the poem, seen through the life of an anonymous man who is described as being an ideal for happiness. His deepest desires, the narrator notes, extends a few acres of his own land, where he is content to live and work. The inclusion of the word “parental” suggests that the land belongs to this man by inheritance, and therefore belongs solely to him. “Content to breathe his native air” could also be a commentary on being happy with what a person has, rather than constantly wishing for more.

The verse structure and rhyming pattern is established here; three lines of eight syllables each, followed by one line of four syllables, rhyming in an ABAB pattern. This persists up until the final two stanzas, at which point the final line lengthens to five syllables.

This verse simply means that the man is self-sufficient. His land, now shown to be a farm, provides for all of his needs — his herds provide him with milk, he is able to bake his own bread. In the summer, his trees provide ample shade, and in the winter the wood from those same trees can be lit to keep him warm. He has no need of anything beyond his own land.

While this verse reads strangely, as “bread” and “shade” do not rhyme, it is important to remember that “Ode on Solitude”  was written over three hundred years ago. During this period in Britain, “bread” was pronounced with a longer vowel sound. While word pronunciation is a difficult thing to estimate and predict throughout different eras of history, it makes sense to believe that at one point, “bread” and “shade” could be used as rhymes for one another.

The narrator considered this farmer blessed! Time almost doesn’t have meaning for this man; his world provides for all of his needs. Hours go by, days go by, years go by, and everything remains the same. The health the man is same all the time whether at his early years or in his old age. Peace of mind is normal for him — what is there to trouble him? It seems as though, in a world of peace and quiet, there is absolutely nothing that could disrupt the life of this farmer, and the narrator sees that it is high blessing.

This verse sees the start of the final lines being five syllables long and continues the sentiment of the verse before it. The idea of innocence is introduced here, and is a fair way to describe a man who lives his life in isolation; he is innocent, which means he himself probably doesn’t appreciate the kind of life he leads in the same way the narrator, author, or reader does. It’s a strange idea and casts the character of the farmer in a different light. He could, in fact, be viewed as an ignorant individual, one who simply doesn’t know enough about the world, or he could be viewed as living the ideal life.

The narrator of the poem clearly agrees with the latter of the above sentiments — here he wishes for escapism and begs for an unseen life, one where he may live in solitude until his dying days, which will come and go, unnoticed, unremarked, and unadorned, perfect life of solitude and peace.

 

Because of the very mature concepts expressed by “Ode on Solitude”, particularly the bit about wishing to die alone, many might be surprised to learn that Alexander Pope wrote “Ode on Solitude” in 1700, at the age of twelve. It was also at this time that Pope’s formal education ended, another unfortunate result of being Catholic at the time. However, instead of giving up on learning altogether, Pope attempted to educate himself, drawing on classical literature, paying particular attention to well-known poets of the era.  This is explicit in the poem when he says “study and ease” which a real recreation of a man in solitude. With all of this background, it is altogether unsurprising that one of Pope’s earliest works would be a very mature poem about solitude. 

Mac Flecknoe (John Dryden)

 

About the Author:

John Dryden  (19 August, 1631 – 12 May 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was appointed England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romanticist writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet—Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style”—that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies written about him. Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century. Alexander Pope was heavily influenced by Dryden and often borrowed from him; other writers were equally influenced by Dryden and Pope. 

The poem identifies itself as a satire of which the subject is “the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.” referring to the poet Thomas Shadwell. The first line of the poem creates the illusion of its being an epic poem about a historical hero. The next lines talk about Mac Flecknoe, a monarch who instead of ruling an empire, rules over the realm of Nonsense. The king is old and thus must choose a successor to his throne. Dryden wonders whether the king will chose a poet who has talent and wit or if he will choose someone like him, a man with no literary talent.

Flecknoe decides upon his son Shadwell, a man with no talent and who is tedious, stupid, and always at war with wit. Shadwell is also described as a very corpulent man. Through Flecknoe’s words, the poet continues to insult Shadwell in a mock-heroic tone, calling him a dunce, the “last great prophet of tautology,” and “for anointed dullness he was made.” Shadwell arrives in London, outfitted like a king and lauded by the people.

 

Flecknoe chooses for his son’s throne a neighborhood of brothels and theatres birthing bad actors. Inside those places, real drama does not exist; only simple plays are welcome. Dryden also alludes to some of the historical Shadwell’s plays, like Epsom Wells and Psyche, and mocks another contemporary writer, Singleton, who is envious that he wasn’t chosen as successor to the throne. It is clear that in this environment, Shadwell will rule over those who have no literary talent. The descriptions Dryden offers only to serve the purpose of highlighting the incompetency of Shadwell and create the image of a fool ruling over peasants.

When the coronation begins, as described by Dryden the streets are filled with the limbs of other poets and this suggests that Shadwell managed to get a hold on his position at the expense of talented writers. Once more, the poet mentions human waste and links it with Shadwell’s writing and compares him with a historical figure, Hannibal, to suggest that Shadwell’s purpose is to destroy wit and replace it with dullness.

 

During his coronation, the oil used to anoint a new king is replaced by ale, signifying the poet’s dullness. After the crown is placed on his head, Shadwell sits on the throne and the former king prepares to give the cheering crowd a speech. The former king begins by presenting the land over which the new king will rule, a territory where no one lives. Flecknoe urges his son to remain true to his writing and not to let anyone make any changes in his work. Flecknoe praises Shadwell’s abilities and then ends his speech by telling Shadwell to continue to remain dull and to avoid trying to be like Jonson.

Flecknoe concludes by exhorting his son not to focus on real plays but rather to work on acrostics or anagrams. His last words are cut off and he sinks below the stage. His mantle falls on Shadwell, which is appropriate because he has twice as much “talent” as his father in dullness.

Mac Flecknoe Themes

Wit versus Humour

Dryden is a proponent of wit while he sees Shadwell as someone caught up in extolling the "humors" in poetry. Characters who embodied the humors were one dimensional, inclined to predictability and indicative of a deterministic worldview. They were ruled by their passions and could never change; they were consistent and, according to Dryden, only duplicated "the follies and extravagances of Bedlam." Dryden cared about wit and repartee in comedy and saw humors as akin to farce. They were outdated and did not make for good and meaningful comedy.

Debasing of Poetry and Art

In the original version of the poem, Shadwell is spelled as "Sh--" (it is often spelled out fully for modern readers), which is an effective way to suggest that Shadwell's writings are, for lack of a more decorous term, "shit." Dryden indirectly accuses Shadwell for his debasing poetry and art. Shadwell's dullness, lack of sense, ignorance, impudence, and reliance upon appealing to audience's baser proclivities contribute to the overall debasement of contemporary poetry. Dryden emphasizes his stance through the gross surroundings in which the coronation takes place.

Nature

In the final section of the poem, Flecknoe exhorts his son not "labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and in each line, Sir Formal’s  oratory will be thine" (lines 166-168). This is important because it shows that Shadwell is not adopting dullness of his own accord, and he doesn't even need to try to do so; rather, he is inherently dull. This is what he was born with, and this is what he will always be. He is a poetaster from birth.

Creator versus Created

Shadwell's artistic life exists in the context of his characters' lives. This is not a compliment, for what Dryden is doing is indicating that Shadwell has no real creativity, intelligence, or originality. He writes characters who are essentially self-portraits: fatuous, overblown, self-important, and essentially empty creations. The evocation of psyche, Sir Formal, and other characters from The Virtuosos hammer home the idea that Shadwell is a hacker and possesses no real artistic merit.

The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality (Aijaz Ahmad)

 Introduction:

In “The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality” Aijaz Ahmad states the ‘postcoloniality’ is the off-shoot of postmodernism and the word does not have any historical sense of postcolonialism. As the terms ‘postcolonial’ and ‘postcolonialism’ resurfaced during the 1980s, in literary and cultural theories in deconstructive forms of history-writing, these terms have been used along with ‘postcoloniality’. He criticizes the theories or theoretical terms used by Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Ranajit Guha and Veena Das to explain his notion of postcoloniality. To arrive to the meaning of ‘postcoloniality’ he traces the political, social, cultural, economic and religious histories of not only the nations which were once colonized but also the western nations like UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

 Discussion:

Aijaz accepts that the discussion on postcolonialism in the domain of literary theory produce a degree of fatigue. In fact, in the political theory, the term ‘postcolonialism’ has much debate since 1970s while it refers to the countries in Asia and Africa after the postwar decolonizations. But in the present period ‘postcoloniality’ has a different notion. It is postmodernism’s wedge to colonise literatures outside Europe and its North American offshoots, which is otherwise known as “Third World Literature” . But in the contemporary period, Third World Literature is termed as “Postcolonial Literature” when the governing theoretical framework shifts from Third World nationalism to postmodernism.

 Aijaz says that ‘postcoloniality’ is the late-coming twin of that earlier term ‘colonial discourse’ which is in English language. He says that the colonial residue is the English language which is used as official language by many nations such as India and Africa after their freedom from the colonizers. English is the language of many Islamic state which were not colonized by the British. Then why Rushdie’s “Satanic Verse” was banned in India while India posits itself a secular state. Then why the Islamic nation banned Rushdie’s work saying “postcolonial writers compose under the shadow of death.” But Aijaz claims that this statement is a preposterous.

 Aijaz, then criticizes Gayatri Spivak’s “Outside in the Teaching Machine” for the terms, “marginality’ and “culture studies” used by her. Here Aijaz compares Said’s essay, “Third World Intellectuals and metropolitan culture” to Spivak’s idea on postcoloniality. According to Said, colonial intellectual was the one who spoke from positions imbibed from metropolitan culture; while the postcolonial intellectual spoke from outside the positions. But Spivak says that postcoloniality itself equals the ‘heritage of imperialism’ which the postcolonial critic inhabits deconstrucively – or as Bhabha would say ambivalently.

 Spivak says ‘the legacy of imperialism in the rest of the globe’ instead of directly saying ‘postcoloniality’ to mean the people of India and Africa who were once colonized by the British. Aijaz is against to Spivak’s view because he believes that in UK, USA, France, Australia, the postcolonial intellectuals actually live and do their theorizing. Moreover ‘legacy of imperialism’ consists almost entirely of political concepts and practices such as nationhood, constitutionality, citizenship, democracy, and socialism for which not no historical referent is used by Spivak. Hence, Aijaz from the ‘postcolonial space’ explains the political historiography of postcoloniality.

 In fact, Britain bestowed nationhood on India and so India’s nationhood is certainly ‘legacy of imperialism’ according to Spivak. But Aijaz questions that how could Indian democracy can be said as the legacy of imperialism since India became secular, democratic, republic state immediately after independence. It has adult franchise invariably to all who is above 18 irrespective of their caste, class and gender which is still absent in Europe and America. The same can be applied to citizenship also. In India those who born in India are given Indian citizenship but it is not so in UK and USA. Like this in the social domain also we do not bequeath the legacy of imperialism. The secular condition of India including the converted Christians and Muslims and Marxism which originated in Europe has been existing in India even before the colonization. Hence, according to Aijaz, Spivak’s “legacy of imperialism’ has no connection with the ‘postcoloniality’.

 Postcolonialism took place not during the past few years but some years earlier and that not in cultural theory but in political theory with the question on ‘postcolonial state’. The terms precoloanial, colonial and postcolonial refer only for periodization. Because in India, it is very difficult to treat social and cultural consequences of colonialism as discrete, in histories of gender and caste and class, all the three, postcolonial, colonial and postcolonial are intertwined. The countries like Turkey, Iran and Egypt which were not colonized, which now contribute to the world’s capitalist system have social and cultural configuration like India.  Hence we should not talk so much about colonialism and postcolonialism but of capitalist modernity which takes the colonial form in particular places and at particular time, because even United States and Canada were once colonized.

 Aijaz criticizes French Poststructuralist, Robert Young who suddenly emerged and called himself postcolonial critic, in “White Mythologies” devoted the last three chapters to Said, Bhabha and Spivak who have already punctured the term ‘postcoloniality’. Like this,  Gyan Prakash who called Spivak, a subalternist and Bhabha called Jameson a postcolonial critic surprise Aijaz. But within the field of literature along with postcolonial criticism, we have postcolonial writings of non-white minorities living in Britain and North America. But efforts have now been taken to include literatures produced by writers belonging to India and Africa as ‘postcolonial literature’. But the metropolitan criticism terms this as ‘minority literature. This is evident as some British universities term this as ‘new literatures’, ‘emergent literatures’, and ‘postcolonial literatures’. Hence in some ways, this specific sense of ‘postcolonial literature’ converges partly with the category of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘minority literature’ or even “Third World Literature”. Hence ‘postcolonial’ is simply a polite way of saying non-white or  not-Europe but-inside-Europe which gives way to “Europe and its Others”.

 If one considers the book, “The Empire Writes Back”, it can be stated that the terms ‘colonial’ and ‘postcolonial’ are applied not just to what is generally called the ‘Third World’ but also to the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia itself, because these were the countries once colonized. But the working of ‘postcoloniality’ is different in these countries. Hence ‘colonialism’ becomes a transhistorical thing, and always gets shattered and recreated at different parts of the world in different period.

 Though ‘postcolonial’ condition is prevailing in the former colonies such as India, yet the same term is made available in global condition of relation between the West and Rest. The critics who not only believe that colonialism has ended but also subscribe to the idea of end of Marxism , nationalism, collective historical subjects and revolutionary possibility of true postcolonial are true postcolonialists and other who do not believe in anti-Marxism are not postcolonialists at all. Postcoloniality is the condition as practised by critics like Homi K Bhabha.

 One should understand that we all live in the postcolonial period. Hence in a postcolonial world neither all intellectuals nor all discourses of this period and world are postcolonial because, in order to be a properly ‘postcolonial discourse’ the discourse must be postmodern, mainly of the deconstructive kind. Hence only those who can be truly postcolonial are also postmodern. In this situation three important themes such as (i) the theme of hybridity, ambivalence and contingency; (ii) the theme of collapse of the nation-state as a horizon of politics and (iii) the theme of globalized, postmodern electronic culture are more important to understand the existence of postcolonialism in postmodernism. Aijaz deals with the theme of decline of nation-state and globalization of electronic media to explain postcoloniality and postmodernism as one as same.

 The nation-state is shattered in many of the European state with the surrender of nations to exercise financial power by its national banks. Except USA and Japan the other countries especially the countries in Asia and Africa have witnessed the decline of nation-state due to the mechanism for regulating markets and revenues through national bourgeoisies in local and regional wars. Imperialism has penetrated far more deeply into national economies than was the case in earlier decades. The national bourgeoisies have achieved a far greater level of capital accumulation baiting the interest of nation-state. In other words, the new national bourgeoises, like imperialist capitalist itself want to weak nation-state in relation to capital and in relation to labour. It is in this framework nation-state remains globally the horizon for any form of politics that adopts the life processes of the working classes as its point of departure, and which seeks to address the issue of the exploitation of poorer women , the destruction of the natural environment by national as well as transnational capitalists or the rightward drift of ideological superstructures.

 Above all the penetration of available global space makes a contradictory effects on culture and ideology of nations. The Arab and Irani mullah chase petrodollars across the globe, the saffron yuppies opened the Bombay Stock Exchange and computer industry in Bangaluru for foreign capital, organize their own lives around in the name of Ialamism and Hinduism  bating nationalism . The transnational capital also gave way for cultural hybridity. It is the claim of IBM, CNN, etc., that they are indeed the harbingers of a culture of global productivities. Knowledges, and  pleasures. But globally dispersed households by uniform structures of imperialists ideology was broken and that now have the technological means to bypass the national education and informational grids, so that the national and metropolitan sections of capital can be integrated ideologically via CNN as much as they are integrated economically.

 In the postcolonial condition, the nations are talking about ‘cultural hybridity’ which is the result of two conditions. Cultural hybridity is said to be (i) specific to the migrants, more pointedly the migrant intellectual, living and working in western metropolis; and at the same time (ii) a generalized condition of postmodernity into which all contemporary cultures are no irretrievably ushered – so that the figure of the postcolonial intellectual residing in the metropolis signify universal condition of hybridity and is sadi to the Subject of a Truth which the individuals living in the nation do not possess. Edward Said term these Truth-Subject as “Cultural amphibians”. Sulman Rushdie states that these subjects have superior understanding of both cultures than what more sedentary individuals might understand of their own cultures.

 Homi K. Bhabha also celebrate this cultural hybridity. In Bhabha’s writing, the postcolonial who has access to such monumental and global pleasures is remarkably free of gender, class and identifiable political location. But Gramsci, yet another philosophical critic discussed on “national culture” or “Organic intellectual” which is endangered by cultural hybridity. But Bhabha opines that migrant intellectual which is posited as the negation of the ‘organic intellectual’ is conjoined with a philosophical hybridity. Hence Bhabha says that ‘contemporary postcolonial discourses are rooted in specific histories of cultural displacement.’ The elaboration of hybrid, displaced, contingent (counter-hegemonic strategies) forms of politics is accomplished with the aid of a great many writers including Ranajit  Guha and Vena Das.

 Bhabha welcomes Das’s analysis of the historicity of subalternity in India. What she denies radically is that caste mentalities may indeed have historical depth and enduring features prior to their eruption in the form of a particular conflict. What she tries to say is that case is a structural and not merely a contingent feature in the distribution of powers and privileges in Indian society. When the theories of Bhabha and Das or any other deny the structural endurance of histories and calls upon us to think only of the contingent moment, we in effect being called upon to overlook the position of class and caste privileges. Hence Aijaz thinks that organized groups of the exploited castes fighting for their rights against upper caste people calls upon communicative rationality as well as the possibility of rational actions which are formed not in flux and displacement but in given historical location.

 Aijaz says that postcoloniality is like most things , a matter of class since many migrants who are intellectuals enjoy the privileges in the host counties but many others experience torment. Hence he says, “Imperialist capital” involves both (i) more profound penentration of all available global spaces and (ii) greater proliferation of the nation-state form, with contradictory effects in the fields of culture and ideology. This results in rapid realignment of political hegemony on the global scale are producing among the professional intelligentsia a characteristic loss of historical depth and perspective.  The tendency in cultural criticism is to waver constantly between the opposing polarities of cultural differentialism and cultural hybridity. Hence cultural hybridity replaces all historicity with mere contingency and also to lose all sense of specificity in favour of the hyper-reality or an eternal and globalized present. It is also true that the contemporary phase of capital involves unprecedented scales of movement to only of capital and commodities but also personnel.

 It is the case, that the entire logic of the kind of cultural ‘hybridity’ that Bhabha celebrates presumes the intermingling of Europe and non-Europe in a context already determined by advanced capital, in the aftermath of colonialism. It is felt that all cultures are encountered  in commodification forms  and it is possible to claim that none commands more power than any other or that the consumer alone is the sovereign of all hybridization. Cultural commodification does not produce a universal equality fo all cultures ut the unified culture of a Late Imperial marketplace that subordinates cultures, consumers and critics alike to form of untethering and moral loneliness that wallows in the depthlessness and whimsicality of postmodernism.

 Conclusion:

 Cross-fertilization of cultures has been endemic to all movements of people and all such movements in history have involved the travel, contact, transmutation, hybridization of ideas, values and behavioural norms. Thus it is not only Hinduism but also Islam has led myriad different cultural lives, at different times and locations. One is free to invent oneself and one’s community, over and over again is usually an illusion induced by availability of surpluses of money-capital or cultural capital or both. The constant refashioning of the ‘Self” through which one merely consumes onerself under the illusion of consuming the world, is a specific mode of postmodern alienation which Bhabha mistakenly calls ‘hybridity’ ‘contingency’, ‘postcolonilaity’.