Paper no 7 = Topic : Queer Theory

Topic : Queer Theory

Definition of Queer Theory :
A definition of Queer is something odd or unusual, or is an offensive and derogatory term used to describe a homosexual....
Queer theory focuses on mismatches between Sex, Gender and Desire...
Queer is something that is, not normal or abnormal, worthless, strange, feared, questionable, odd, unconventional..

Meaning of Queer :Queer:- A broad level to define sexual and gender minorities who do not prescribe to binary normative or heterosexuality.
Homosexual :- An individual attracted to another individual of the same sex..
An approach that challenges dominant, social behavior and sexual identity based on heteronormative, binary opposites; Gay/Straight, Male/Female, Masculine/Feminine...
It is an interdisciplinary critical theory, that emerged in 1990 as a response to feminist theory and Gay and Lesbian studies..
It breaks from the binary heterosexual  normative and explores the fluid nature of sexual and gender identity. It was conceivable because the Gay rights movement in "Outed" diverse sexual and gender identities...
Queer theory is often used to designate the combined area of gay and lesbian studies together with the theoretical and Cultural writing..... --------- M.H.ABRAHAM
     Queer Theory critically examines the way power works to institutionalize and legitimate certain forms and expressions of sexuality and gender while stigmatizing others. Queer Theory followed the emergence and popularity of Gay and Lesbian Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex(now, LGBTI or Queer) Studies in the academy. Whereas LGBTI Studies seeks to analyze LGBTI people as stable identities, Queer Theory problematizes and challenges rigid identity categories, norms of sexuality and gender and the oppression and violence that such hegemonic norms justify. Often considered the "deconstruction" of LGBTI studies, Queer Theory destabilizes sexual and gender identities allowing and encouraging multiple, unfettered interpretations of cultural phenomena. It predicates that all sexual behaviors and gender expressions, all concepts linking such to prescribed, associated identities, and their categorization into “normal” or “deviant” sexualities or gender, are constructed socially and generate modes of social meaning. Queer theory follows and expands upon feminist theory by refusing the belief that sexuality and gender identity are essentialist categories determined by biology that can thus be empirically judged by fixed standards of morality and “truth.”

     We will begin the course by developing a critical understanding of Queer Theory through reading foundational texts by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Gayle Rubin and Leo Bersani. We will then examine the relationships between Queer Theory and other social and cultural theories that probe and critique power, privilege, and normativity, including critical race theory, transgender studies, feminist theory, and disability studies.

Queer theory :
     Queer theory is a field of post-structure critical theory. “Queer” is often used as an umbrella term by and for persons who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, and transgender, or by and for individuals who use the term as an alternative to LGBTI labels. Some find the term derogatory depending upon their race, class, personal experience, and also their generation. Recently, heterosexuals whose gender or sexuality does not conform to popular expectations have used the term “queer” to define themselves.
     Nearly one in every 2,000 people is born with variations in reproductive or sexual anatomy, or has a chromosome pattern that doesn’t fit with what is typically considered male or female. Such individuals are “intersex” — the “I” in LGBTI — and can identify as male, female or neither. Along with this people are struggling in many places for recognition, equality and their human rights. The intersex people are born with unique biological characteristics, they are different from transgender people, who do not identify with their assigned gender identity. Ironically, many intersex people receive unwanted surgeries and hormone treatments that transgender people have to fight for.

Queer theory as a part of study :
     Queer studies whose roots can be found in women’s studies, feminist theory, and gay and lesbian studies, as well as postmodern and poststructuralist theories. In 1991, Teresa de Lauretis used the words “queer theory” to describe a way of thinking that did not use heterosexuality or binary gender constructs as its starting point, but instead argued for a more fluid concept of identity.
     The works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler are often considered the founding texts of queer theory. Lauren Berlant, Michael Warner, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick are also major early writers in defining queer theory. Queer theory argue that it prompts the acceptance and understanding of a more complex reality in which we live. Queer theory provides scholars, activists, and others ways of thinking and talking about identity beyond simple binaries especially in fighting homophobia and transphobia, which are unreasoned fear and hatred towards homosexuals and homosexuality, and transsexuals, transsexuality, and transgender people, respectively.

Writers of Queer Theory :
Michel Foucault :
Judith Butler :
Eve Kofosky Sedgwick :
Gayle Rubin  :
Leo Bersani :
Lauren Berlant :
Lee Edelman :
Jack Halberstam :

The rise of new gay and lesbians stereotypes :
     Recently, the rise of two new types of gay man - what I call the 'girl's best friend' and the 'lifestyle gay' - has been conspicuous. Gay men as girl's best friends have appeared in movies, to name just a few, such as Julia Roberts' and Rupert Everett's My Best Friend's Wedding, Madonna's and Rupert Everett's The Next Best Thing and Jennifer Anniston's and Paul Rudd's The Object of My Affection and, perhaps with the most impact, in the TV series Will and Grace - which offers best friend relationships not just between Will and Grace but also between Karen and Jack.
      In these cultural products, gay men are overwhelmingly associated with fashion, style and consumption - characteristics which render them of interest to women and whose best friends they become. The gay men in these media rehearse both what we already 'know' about gay men while simultaneously reinforcing received notions about what it is to be 'a homosexual' - that is, particular looks, movements, patterns of voice, manner of dressing, lifestyle choices and consumption patterns which are coded as homosexual are offered up as evidence of a character's homosexuality.
      For instance, you may remember how Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde solves the murder mystery. She realizes that the wife could not have been in a sexual relationship with the Latino pool boy as alleged by the stepdaughter since the pool boy is, in fact, gay. She deduces this from the fact that he recognizes the label of her designer shoes - something which a heterosexual man would be, apparently, incapable of doing.


The problem with stereotypes :
       In the case of the movies and sitcoms discussed earlier, the homosexual characters are scripted by writers who need to create clearly recognizable and digestible 'types' but the same is no doubt true of Warren and Gavin, a 'real' gay couple. Take their performance of 'the gay couple' on The Block - we must ask why precisely this couple was chosen - they clearly had the required 'look'; also, to what extent did their awareness of being on camera affect their performance of gayness and to what extent was that performance scripted by the show's producers and created by judicious editing to replicate the stereotype - what we already 'know' about gay men? How does a stereotype function?
       Cover suggests that a stereotype, 'whether harmful and negative or harmless and positive, will reduce a set of ideas into an easily communicated and culturally intelligible image, stemming the flow of signification and constraining the possibilities for diverse subjective performances'. Sara Schulman’s anxiety about the circulation of 'fake' homosexual images suggests that these images depict or connote narrowly commoditized notions of homosexual life and of an openly gay identity.
Queer theory and the problem of 'identity' :
       Queer theory is not about advocacy - it does not argue that the portrayal of a more diverse range of gay men and lesbians in public culture would somehow solve the problem of representation - the image of the 'fake' homosexual is not challenged by the production of more 'real' ones. Nor is queer theory related to psychoanalysis, it does not look for 'causes' of homosexuality in either the individual or collective psyche and does not seek to liberate an individual's 'true' sexuality. Queer theory instead offers, to borrow a term from Foucault, a genealogical critique which refuses to search for an origin of an individual's sexual orientation, a genuine or authentic sexual identity that repression has kept from view; rather a genealogical critique investigates the political stakes in designating as an origin and cause those identity categories that are in fact the effects of institutions, practices and discourses operative within the wider society. Queer theory concerns itself with the effects which arise from modern societies' preoccupation with consigning individuals into two opposite and mutually opposed camps on the basis of the gender of their preferred sexual partners. As Eve Sedgwick comments:
       It is a rather amazing fact that, of the very many dimensions along which the genital activity of one person can be differentiated from that of another precisely one, the gender of object choice, emerged from the turn of the century, and has remained as the dimension denoted by the now ubiquitous category of 'sexual orientation'.

Indian view of Queer theory :
Hinduism has taken various positions, ranging from homosexual characters and themes in its texts to being neutral or antagonistic towards it.
Rigveda, one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism says Vikriti Evam Prakriti (Sanskrit: विकृतिः एवम्‌ प्रकृतिः, meaning what seems unnatural is also natural).
 which some scholars believe recognises homosexual/transsexual dimensions of human life, like all forms of universal diversities.
Famous movie of Queer theory :
An example  of the fluidity of gender/sexuality can be seen in the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie...
 In  this film the main character Jack uses an ironic and 'over -the-top' performance of a pirate.
Includes wearing an over- elaborate costume and eye makeup, using feminine and camp gestures and avoiding anything that could be interpreted as machismo...

Examples of Movie :
Fire, Dostana, Margarita with a straw, Un-freedom..., Kapoor and Sons, Heroin, I am Michel and other movies

Examples of TV shows :
Shakti-Astitva ke Ehesas ki... , I love us, Aatma Parichy, and other…..

Conclusion :
        This paper has given a very brief outline of some applications that can be made of queer theory to popular culture. Rather than a mode of analysis, like psychoanalysis, which attempts to discern a hidden 'reality' behind media representations – that 'everyone is really gay', for instance, queer theory is a heuristic approach which enables questions to be asked about why we choose to emphasize some and not other aspects of an individual's life when trying to give an account of who they are. As John Phillips (this volume) shows, queer theory is not interested in investigating the largely anachronistic question of which composers are 'really gay', or of elucidating how their same-sex desire can be decoded from their compositions. Just as feminism has problematized the notion of gender, looking at how society is fractured along the lines of perceived gender difference, queer theory takes the notion of sexuality, and inquires what the consequences are of placing a person on one side or the other of the hetero-homo binary. Rather than searching for the meaning in sexual orientation, queer theory encourages us to consider how sexual orientation is made to signify a range of meanings about the self. 

Paper no 8 = Topic : Two characters in Hamlet marginalization with a vengeance

Topic : Two characters in ‘Hamlet’ marginalization with a vengeance.
Preface :~
In several instances earlier in this play ‘Hamlet’ in we can see that culture and new historical emphases on power relationships.  Let us now cultural in practice to hamlet in two minor characters to who does to Shakespeare’s hamlet in marginalization with a vengeance. And also context to power, political indeed on all matters that deeply affect people’s ideas and it may that to people power to society marginalized people. The most influential w<riter in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. So now shortly after the play ‘Hamlet’ within the play and Claudius is taking privately with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, hamlet’s fellow students from Wittenberg. In response to Claudius’s plan to hamlet to England so now see to this context in two characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in cultural context and practice to hamlet.

Cultural approach and practice to culture in ‘Hamlet’ :~
      Shakespeare’s most of the work in human studies and also he observes  were motivated by an educational and political ideal called (in Latin) humanity the idea that all of the capabilities and virtues peculiar to human beings should be studied and developed to their furthest extent. In several instances earlier in this chapter we noted the cultural and new historical emphases on power relationships. Now, let us approach Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a view to seeing power in its cultural context.
Two marginalized characters in Hamlet: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern :~
        In several instances earlier in this chapter we noted the cultural and new historical emphases on power relationships. Now, let us approach Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a view to seeing power in its cultural context. To say that the mighty struggle between powerful antagonists is the stuff of this play is hardly original. But our emphasis in the present reading is that one can gain a further insight into the play. In the 20th century the dead, or never-living, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were resuscitated by Tom Stoppard in a fascinating re-seeing of their existence, or its lack.
       In this play in hamlet we see that to two characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in also the king Claudius use to power in this persons and it may be that to political and culture ideas in  this text. We know that true reality to hamlet in his life his friend also his favor but in power position king Claudius in between to sent England and his ambitions to kill hamlet into his friend.  In response to Claudius ‘s plan to send hamlet to England , Rosencrantz delivers a speech that if read out of context is both an excellent set of metaphors and a summations of the Elizabethan concepts of role and  power of kingship:
The singular and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armor of the mind
To keep itself from noyance but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many .the cease of majesty
Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it? It is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spoken ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequences,
Attends the boisterous ruin: never alone
Did the king sign but with a general groan.
In this passage we can see that thoughtful and imagistically successful passage worthy ofa wise and accomplished statesman. It wants us to have a lance at once marginalized characters we are not given enough important and those who should have been given recognitions in their lives. In that culture I ‘Hamlet’ political. In other word, Power and indeed on all matter to hand of the king. But how many readers and viewers  are of the play would rank this passage among the best-known lines of the play and also with Hamlet’s soliloquies  for instance or with the kings effort to prays, or even with the aphorisms addressed by Polonius to his son leartes? We know that venture to say that the passage intrinsically good if one looks at it alone, is simply not well known.
In spite of having access of excellent they have been marginalized and hamlet being a hero. From a wealthy and royal family has been put into category of a moral hero. Who has a few lacks also? The questions arises about the people will be notice it? The agreement is only a reaffirmation of what they had told the king when he first received them court. The two are distinctly plot-driven: empty of personality, sycophantic in a sniveling way eager to curry favors with power even if it means spying on their erstwhile friend. They admit without mush skill at denial that they ‘’were sent for’’. So that meaning of there are less successful and also they try to play on hamlet’s metaphorical ‘’pipe’’ to know his ‘’stops’’ when they are forced to admit that they could not even handle the literal musical instrument that Hamlet shows them. still later these nonentities  meet their destine ‘non-boringness’ as it were when   hamlet  who, can play the pipe so much more efficiently  substituted  their names in the death warrant intended for him.
So that in this Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report back to King Claudius after their conversation with Hamlet They have very little to tell the King, who opens the scene by asking. The only good news they have for the King is that Hamlet was greatly cheered to hear about the arrival of the traveling players and that he ordered them to put on a performance. Claudius is very pleased to hear about this show of interest on the part of his melancholy stepson. And also we see to Claudius power to this two people and hamlet also remembered to these ideas in his mind. And also see that conversion to Claudius and Rosencrantz like that:
"And can you, by no drift of conference,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?"
Rosencrantz says,
"He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak."
And Guildenstern adds,
"Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state."

The King's interview with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Nothing much is accomplished except to establish that the King and Queen will be attending the play Hamlet has ordered the players to perform. In play these nonentities meet their destined “non-beingness” as it were, when hamlet who can play the pipe so much more efficiently substitutes their names in the death warrant intended for him. In say something Rosencrantz and Guildenstern also to struggle and to say that the mighty struggle between powerful antagonists is the stuff of this play is hardly original. But our emphasis in the present reading is that one can gain a further insight into the play. In last of the play into inform to hamlet his friend are death. Both are distinctly plot-driven: empty of personality, sycophantic in a sniveling way, eager to curry favor with power even if it means spying on their erstwhile friend. In a moment of trickery on his own part, Hamlet blithely substitutes a forged document bearing their names rather than his as the ones to be “put to sudden death, not shriving time allowed” when horatio responds laconically with so Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to hamlet is unmoved, and last as well as Shakespeare mind to ‘hamlet’ is done with these two characters “they are not rear, conscience”. And last this two are death between to power and it may be that marginalized are not social support and both are death in end the play.
Death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern :~
In this play in cultural studies to practice into cultural approach and such some example and also wrote to Tom Stoppard play in protagonist to this two characters Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. It is instructive to note that the reality of power refractive a Shakespeare time might in another and culture reflect a radically different worldview. Let us enrich our response to hamlet by looking at related culture and philosophical manifestation from the 20th century. In 20th century the dead or never living Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were resuscrited by Tom Stoppard in a fascinating re-seeing of their existence it lack. In Stoppard’s version they are even more obviously two ineffectual pawns, seeking constantly to know who they are here and where are going. Whether they “are” at all may be the ultimate question of this modern play.
In “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”, he has given the contemporary audience a play that examines existential questions in the context of a whole world that may have no meaning at all. Although it is not our intentions to examine that play in great detail. And also marginalized two person view and it may be that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are archetypal human beings caught up on a ship and also should been spaceship earth for the 20th or 21th century that

Paper no 6 assignment : Topic : Life and works of “Alfred Lord Tennyson”.

Topic : Life and works of “Alfred Lord Tennyson”.

Introduction :

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of ‘Queen Victoria’ reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus". During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Early life :

Tennyson was born in Somersby. He derived from a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was rector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a large family and "was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry. He was comfortably well off for a country clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness, on the eastern coast of England". Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth Fytche (1781–1865), was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of St. James Church, Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children." 

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three were published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the other was Frederick Tennyson. Another of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum, where he was deemed dead. 

Education and first publication :

Tennyson was first a student of Louth Grammar School for four years (1816–1820)[4] and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he joined a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles.

 At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his closest friend. His first publication was a collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Two Brothers published in 1827. In 1829 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuctoo". Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal".

He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

His second publication In 1833 Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included his well-known poem, "The Lady of Shalott". The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for ten years, although he did continue to write. That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage while on vacation in Vienna. Hallam's death had a profound impact on Tennyson, and inspired several masterpieces, including "In the Valley of Cauteretz" and In Memoriam A.H.H., a long poem detailing the "Way of the Soul".

Third publication was in 1842 while living modestly in London, Tennyson published two volumes of Poems, of which the first included works already published and the second was made up almost entirely of new poems. They met with immediate success. Poems from this collection, such as Locksley Hall, "Tithonus", and "Ulysses" have met enduring fame. The Princess: A Medley, a satire on women's education, which came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics. W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

Poet Laureate :

After William Wordsworth's death in 1850, and Samuel Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Leigh Hunt had also been considered. He held the position until his own death in 1892, by far the longest tenure of any laureate before or since. Tennyson fulfilled the requirements of this position by turning out appropriate but often uninspired verse, such as a poem of greeting to Princess Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known works, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War. Other esteemed works written in the post of Poet Laureate include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.

Tennyson initially declined a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 (when tendered by Disraeli), finally accepting a peerage in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. In 1884 Victoria created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 11 March 1884. 

Tennyson also wrote a substantial quantity of non-official political verse, from the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis of 1859, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Home Rule Bill.

Virginia Woolf wrote a play called Freshwater, showing Tennyson as host to his friends Julia Margaret Cameron and G.F.Watts.

Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British peerage for his writing. A passionate man with some peculiarities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer, and it is widely held that he took the peerage in order to secure a future for his son Hallam.

Thomas Edison made sound recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, late in his life. They include recordings of The Charge of the Light Brigade, and excerpts from "The splendour falls", "Come into the garden", "Ask me no more", "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington", "Charge of the Light Brigade", and "Lancelot and Elaine"; the sound quality is as poor as wax cylinder recordings usually are.

Tennyson and the Queen :

Though Prince Albert was largely responsible for Tennyson's appointment as Laureate, Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, writing in her diary that she was "much soothed &pleased" by reading In Memoriam A.H.H. after Albert's death. Thetwo met twice, first in April 1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, "very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with a fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, — oddly dressed, but there is no affectation about him." Tennyson met her a second time nearly two decades later, and the Queen told him what a comfort In Memoriam A.H.H. had been.

The art of Tennyson's poetry :

In writing Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing.[citation needed] He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless sadness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. Thelanguage of "I come from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the brook in the poem and the last two lines of "Come down O maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate his telling combination of onomatopoeia, alliteration, and assonance:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Homoerotic imagery :

The poem In Memoriam about a man’s love for another man includes sexual imagery; for example, the poet compares his sorrow to the sorrow of a loving widower who misses his late wife in bed. This is not a unique example and material that can be interpreted as homoerotic is widespread in Tennyson’s work. There has been speculation that Tennyson may have experienced homosexual feelings for his friend, though there is no question that he was strongly attracted to women. If Tennyson had bisexual feelings there is no firm evidence that he acted on them.

Partial list of works :

• From Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830):

• The Dying Swan

• The Kraken

• Mariana

• Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

• From Poems (1833)

• The Lotos-Eaters

• The Lady of Shalott (1832, 1842) 

• St. Simeon Stylites (1833)

• From Poems (1842):

• Locksley Hall

• Tithonus

• Vision of Sin [24]

• The Two Voices (1834)

• "Ulysses" (1833)

• From The Princess; A Medley (1847)

• "The Princess"

• 'Godiva'

• Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal 

• "Tears, Idle Tears"

• In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849)

• Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850)

• The Eagle (1851)

• The Sister's Shame[25]

• From Maud; A Monodrama (1855/1856)

• Maud

• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)

• From Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864)

• Enoch Arden

• The Brook

• Flower in the crannied wall (1869)

• The Window (1871)

• Harold (1876) 

• Idylls of the King (composed 1833–1874)

• "Becket" (1884) 

• Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)

• Crossing the Bar (1889)

• The Foresters (1891)

• Kapiolani (published after his death by Hallam Tennyson)

Paper no 5. Assignment = Topic : History and Poets of Romantic era…

Topic : History and Poets of Romantic era…

Introduction of Romantic period :~

The Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, musical, cultural and intellectual movement originating in Europe, toward the end of the 18th century. In most areas it was at its peak approximately 1800–1850.

Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotional and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical.

It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature—all components of modernity.

It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing liberalism, radicalism, conservatism and nationalism.

The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic  experience, placing new emphasis on emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially experienced when confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.

It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble; also, spontaneity as a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu). In contrast to the Rationalism  and Classicism of the Enlightenment, Romanticism revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived as authentically medieval in an attempt to escape population growth, early urban sprawl, and industrialism.

Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which preferred intuition and emotion to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also proximate factors. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of "heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed freedom from classical notions of form in art.

There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century, Realism was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism.[8]

The decline of Romanticism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes and the spread of nationalism.

REVOLUTIONS :~

The American Revolution (last half of the 18th century) :

        The American Revolution was a colonial revolt that took place between 1765 and 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies  won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America. They defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War in alliance with France and others. Members of American colonial society argued the position of "no taxation without representation", starting with the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. They rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them because they lacked members in that governing body. Protests steadily escalated to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island in 1772, followed by the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, during which Patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea. The British responded by closing Boston Harbor, then followed with a series of legislative acts  which effectively rescinded Massachusetts Bay Colony's rights of self-government and caused the other colonies to rally behind Massachusetts. In late 1774, the Patriots set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Great Britain; other colonists preferred to remain aligned to the Crown and were known as Loyalists or Tories.

      Tensions erupted into battle between Patriot militia and British regulars when the king's army attempted to capture and destroy Colonial military supplies at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The conflict then developed into a global war, during which the Patriots (and later their French, Spanish, and Dutch allies) fought the British and Loyalists in what became known as the American Revolutionary War (1775–83). Each of the thirteen colonies formed a Provincial Congress that assumed power from the old colonial governments and suppressed Loyalism, and from there they built a Continental Army under the leadership of General George Washington. The Continental Congress determined King George's rule to be tyrannical and infringing the colonists' rights as Englishmen, and they declared the colonies free and independent states on July 2, 1776. The Patriot leadership professed the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism  to reject monarchy and aristocracy, and they proclaimed that all men are created equal.

The French Revolution (1789-99): the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Woman) :
     The French Revolution was a revolution in France from 1789 to 1799. It led to the end of the monarchy, and to many wars. King Louis XVI was executed in 1793. The revolution ended when Napoleon Bonaparte took power in November 1799. In 1804, he became Emperor.
      Before 1789, France was ruled by the nobles  and the Catholic Church. The ideas of the Enlightenment were beginning to make the ordinary people want more power. They could see that the American Revolution had created a country in which the people had power, instead of a king. The government before the revolution was called the "Ancien Regime"
1792: The French First Republic (waging war upon England) : In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 22 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, although the form of the government changed several times. This period was characterized by the fall of the monarchy, the establishment of the National Convention and the Reign of Terror, the Thermidorian Reaction and the founding of the Directory, and, finally, the creation of the Consulate and Napoleon's rise to power.

1793: King Louis XVI executed : The execution of Louis XVI, by means of the guillotine, a major event of the French Revolution, took place on 21 January 1793 at the Place de la Revolution ("Revolution Square", formerly Place Louis XV, and renamed Place de la Concorde in 1795) in Paris. The National Convention had convicted the king (17 January 1792) in a near-unanimous vote (while no one voted "not guilty", several deputies abstained) and condemned him to death by a simple majority.

1793-94: The Reign of Terror (under the Jacobin Club) : The Society of the Friends of the Constitution, after 1792 renamed Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and, commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins, was the most influential political club during the French Revolution. Initially founded in 1789 by anti-Royalist deputies from Brittany, the club grew into a nationwide republican movement, with a membership estimated at a half million or more.[1] The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s, the Mountain and the Girondins.

1804: Napoléon Bonaparte crowned Emperor of the First French : Emperor of the French (French) was the title used by the House of Bonaparte starting when Napoleon Bonaparte  was given the title of Emperor on 14 May 1804 by the French Senate and was crowned emperor of the French on 2 December 1804 at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, in Paris, with the Crown of Napoleon.

Empire :~

1815: Napoléon defeated at Waterloo :
      Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, he escaped to France in early 1815 and set up a new regime. As allied troops mustered on the French frontiers, he raised a new Grand Army and marched into Belgium. He intended to defeat the allied armies one by one before they could launch a united attack.
      On June 16, 1815, he defeated the Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher at Ligny, and sent 33,000 men, or about one-third of his total force, in pursuit of the retreating Prussians. On June 18, Napoleon led his remaining 72,000 troops against the Duke of Wellington’s 68,000-man allied army, which had taken up a strong position 12 miles south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo. In a fatal blunder, Napoleon waited until mid-day to give the command to attack in order to let the ground dry. The delay in fighting gave Blucher’s troops, who had eluded their pursuers, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle by the late afternoon.

The Industrial Revolution (the mid-18th and 19th centuries) :
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production  processes, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system.
Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested. The textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were of British origin. By the mid-18th century Britain was the world's leading commercial nation, controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and Africa, and with some political influence on the Indian subcontinent, through the activities of the East India Company. The development of trade and the rise of business were major causes of the Industrial Revolution.

The country vs. the city :
Coming from the Welsh border, a village in the Black Mountains, Raymond Williams found that the images of rural life taught at the University of Cambridge did not match what he had seen. As an academic at Cambridge, he studied and examined the contradiction, along with the contrasting idea of the city, which in the United Kingdom has never been separate from the countryside. Rural life without cities had existed in other parts of the world, but not for a very long time in Britain.
A Problem of Perspective, examines the idea that an ancient continuous rural life has recently ended. Authors generally remember this timeless order existing in their own childhood. But look at writers from the time of their childhood, and they consider that the timeless order has already vanished, having still existed in the older writer's childhood. He gives a chain of examples, going back as far as Thomas More in 1516. Urban life is also examined - see in particular chapter 19, Cities of Darkness and of Light.
The poor vs. the rich (or capital vs. labour) :
Capital income may be thought of as a return on investment. When there's a large discrepancy between the rich and the poor in return on investment, it means some combination of the following: That the rich have access to far more efficient ways to use their money, and that the rich have far more money and assets "deployed" and earning them passive income. Labor income equality has to do with direct earnings for work.
       So you can think of an economy with high capital income inequality and low labor income inequality as an economy where there's not a huge discrepancy in the available work in the marketplace, i.e. banking CEOs vs. janitors, but there's a huge divide in accumulated wealth. The wealthy don't work -- they have estates where other people work!
      Conversely, an economy with high labor income inequality but low capital income inequality might represent a young and emerging economy, where some people have found ways to earn far faster than others, but the rich haven't yet built a huge wealth base. Or it might represent an economy where investment and equity are legally and practically very difficult. For example, in a hardline communist society, formal investment and ownership may be illegal and counter-revolutionary (which doesn't mean they don't happen, but it does mean they aren't measured). So you would see low capital income inequality, because at least on paper, capital income is illegal. On the other hand, there's typically a clear lifestyle divide between the ruling party and the proletariat, which can be characterized entirely as labor income inequality, even if the lifestyle is delivered "in kind" instead of in cash. Most likely, that isn't measured either. The society officially represents perfect equality, and anyone with evidence to the contrary is counter-revolutionary.

THE BIG SIX ROMANTIC POETS :~

The first generation :~

William Blake (1757-1827) :
      William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones  to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life (except for three years spent in Felpham), he produced a diverse and symbolically rich, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself".
      Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic". Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions. Though later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amiable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti  characterised him as a "glorious luminary",  and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors".

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) :
       William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature  with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads  (1798).
     Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.
~Major works :
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
"Simon Lee", "We are Seven", "Lines Written in Early Spring", "Expostulation and Reply", "The Tables Turned", "The Thorn", "Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"
PLyrical Ballads, with Other Poems  (1800)
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, "Strange fits of passion have I known", "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways", "Three years she grew", "A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal", "I travelled among unknown men", "Lucy Gray", "The Two April Mornings", "The Solitary Reaper", "Nutting", "The Ruined Cottage", "Michael", "The Kitten At Play"
Poems, in Two Volumes (1807) :
"Resolution and Independence", "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" Also known as "Daffodils", "My Heart Leaps Up", "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Ode to Duty", "The Solitary Reaper", "Elegiac Stanzas", "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802", "London, 1802", "The World Is Too Much with Us", Guide to the Lakes (1810), " To the Cuckoo ", The Excursion (1814), Laodamia (1815, 1845), The White Doe of Rylstone (1815), Peter Bell (1819), The Prelude (1850)

S. T. Coleridge (1772-1834): the Lake School :
      Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and on American transcendentalism.
      Throughout his adult life Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his lifetime. He was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium  addiction. A current standard edition is The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Kathleen Coburn and many others from 1969 to 2002. This collection appeared across 16 volumes as Bollingen Series 75, published variously by Princeton University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul.
The set is broken down as follows into further parts, resulting in a total of 34 separate printed volumes :
Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion  (1971), The Watchman (1970), Essays on his Times in the Morning Post and the Courier (1978) in 3 vols, The Friend (1969) in 2 vols ,Lectures, 1808–1819, on Literature (1987) in 2 vols, Lay Sermons (1972), Biographia Literaria (1983) in 2 vols, Lectures 1818–1819 on the History of Philosophy (2000) in 2 vols, Aids to Reflection (1993), On the Constitution of the Church and State (1976), Shorter Works and Fragments (1995) in 2 vols, Marginalia (1980 and following) in 6 vols, Logic (1981), Table Talk (1990) in 2 vols, Opus Maximum (2002), Poetical Works (2001) in 6 vols (part 1 - Reading Edition in 2 vols; part 2 - Variorum Text in 2 vols; part 3 - Plays in 2 vols).


The second generation :~

Lord Byron (1788-1824):~
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS  (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known as Lord Byron, was an English nobleman, poet, peer, politician, and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as well as the short lyric poem "She Walks in Beauty".
He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted in Missolonghi.
Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was both celebrated and castigated in his life for his aristocratic excesses, which included huge debts, numerous love affairs with both men and women, as well as rumors of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister. His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as the first computer programmer  based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Byron's illegitimate children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh.

Percy Shelley (1792-1822):~
Percy Shelley was a poet, literary theorist, translator, political thinker, pamphleteer, and social activist. An extensive reader and bold experimenter, he was a major English Romantic poet. His foremost works, including The Revolt of Islam (1818), Prometheus Unbound (1820), Adonais (1821), and The Triumph of Life (1824), are recognized as leading expressions of radical thought written during the Romantic age, while his odes and shorter lyrics are often considered among the greatest in the English language. In addition, his essay A Defence of Poetry (1840) is highly valued as a statement of the role of the poet in society.The Elder Son of a Noble Family Born on August 4, 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley was the son of Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley. As the eldest son, Percy stood in line not only to inherit his grandfather's considerable estate but also to sit in Parliament one day.
While in school at Eton, Shelley began two pursuits that he would continue with intense fervor throughout his life: writing and love, the two often blending together so that the love became the subject matter for the writing. Although Shelley began writing poems while at Eton, some of which were published in 1810 in Original Poetry; by Victor and Cazire and some of which were not published until the 1960s as The Esdaile Notebook, his first publication was the gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810).
~MAJOR WORKS:
The Revolt of Islam (1818), The Cenci (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), Adonais (1821), A Defence of Poetry (1840)

John Keats (1795-1821):~
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic  poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death at age 25 in the year 1821.
      Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats's work was the most significant literary experience of his life.
     He poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through the emphasis of natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature. Some of the most acclaimed works of Keats are "I Stood Tip-toe Upon a Little Hill", "Sleep and Poetry", and the famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".