POWER/KNOWLEDGE-Michel Foucault
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CULTURAL STUDIES
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POWER/KNOWLEDGE: Selected Interviews and Other Writings [1972-1977] by Michel
Foucault
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POWER/KNOWLEDGE:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings [1972-1977] by Michel Foucault
Ø
Preface:
Foucault was interested in the way power and structures
depended upon structure of knowledge and how, once they acquire knowledge, create
subjects to be controlled. Foucault’s methodology seeks to understand how some
sections of the population have been classified as criminals or insane. That
is, he is interested in understanding processes of classification that helped
exclude some people from society. Foucault argues that certain authorities who
possess power in society produce knowledge about those who lack power. Such a
system of knowledge is called “discourse”. The arts, religion, science and the
law are discourse that ‘produce’ particular subjects.
Ø Illustrations from some of his
important interviews:
Interviewer: Network of forms of control (quadrillage) is set in
place. Is the liberation possible without the quadrillage? (Foucault)
Foucault: As always with relations of power, one is faced with complex
phenomena which don't obey the Hegelian form of the dialectic. Mastery and
awareness of one's own body can be acquired only through the effect of an
investment of power in the body: gymnastics, exercises, muscle-building,
nudism, glorification of the body beautiful. All of this belongs to the pathway
leading to the desire of one's own body, by way of the insistent, persistent,
meticulous work of power on the bodies of children or soldiers, the healthy bodies.
But once power produces this effect, there inevitably emerge the responding
claims and affirmations, those of one's own body against power, of health
against the economic system, of pleasure against the moral norms of sexuality,
marriage, and decency. Suddenly, what had made power strong becomes used to
attack it. Power, after investing itself in the body, finds itself exposed to a
counterattack in that same body. Do you recall the panic of the institutions of
the social body, the doctors and politicians, at the idea of non-legalised
cohabitation (l'union fibre) or free abortion? But the impression that power
weakens and vacillates here is in fact mistaken; power can retreat here,
re-organise its forces, invest itself elsewhere . . . and so the battle continues. (Foucault)
Interviewer: Your study is concentrated on all those micro-powers
that are exercised at the level of daily life. Aren't you neglecting the State
apparatus here? (Foucault)
Foucault: It's true that since the late nineteenth century Marxist and
'Marxised' revolutionary movements have given special importance to the State
apparatus as the stake of their struggle. What were the ultimate consequences
of this? In order to be able to fight a State which is more than just a
government, the revolutionary movement must possess equivalent
politico-military forces and hence must constitute itself as a party, organised
internally in the same way as a State apparatus with the same mechanisms of
hierarchies and organisation of powers. This consequence is heavy with
significance. Secondly, there is the question, much discussed within Marxism
itself, of the capture of the State apparatus: should this be considered as a
straightforward take-over, accompanied by appropriate modifications, or should
it be the opportunity for the destruction of that apparatus? You know how the
issue was finally settled. The State apparatus must be undermined, but not
completely undermined, since the class struggle will not be brought to an
immediate end with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Hence the State apparatus must be kept sufficiently intact for it to be
employed against the class enemy. So we reach a second consequence: during the period
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the State apparatus must to some extent
at least be maintained. Finally then, as a third consequence, in order to
operate these State apparatuses which have been taken over but not destroyed,
it will be necessary to have recourse to technicians and specialists. And in
order to do this one has to call upon the old class which is acquainted with
the apparatus, namely the bourgeoisie. This clearly is what happened in the
USSR. I don't claim at all that the State apparatus is unimportant, but it
seems to me that among all the conditions for avoiding a repetition of the
Soviet experience and preventing the revolutionary process from running into
the ground, one of the first things that has to be understood is that power
isn't localised in the State apparatus and that nothing in society will be
changed if the mechanisms of power that function outside, below and alongside
the State apparatuses, on a much more minute and everyday level, are not also
changed. (Foucault)
·
His Lecture
Lecture on: 7 January 1976
I have sketched a genealogical history of the origins of a
theory and knowledge of anomaly and of the various techniques that relate to
it. I would say, then, that what has emerged in the Course of the last ten or
fifteen years is a sense of the increasing vulnerability to criticism of
things, institutions, practices, and discourses. (Foucault)
In Archaeology of Knowledge Foucault discusses the concept of
discourse. In his view, “the great theme of the history of ideas is the genesis
of idea, their continuity over time, as well as tantalizations such as the
spirit of an age. He looks at the ideas of a period both in their continuity
and discontinuity. He prefers detailed analyses of statements of ideas to
global generalizations about totalities. He rejects totalizing of ideas quite
like his later postmodernists,” In this context, Foucault articulates four
principles that distinguish the archaeology of knowledge from the history of
ideas. (Foucault, POWER AND KNOWLEDGE:
MICHEL FOUCAULT)
·
A
concept-map of designations of deviance and their remedies in history as
produced by specific ‘authorities’.
|
CATEGORY
|
DISCOURSE
|
AUTHORITY
|
CORRECTIVE
|
|
Immorality
|
Religion
|
Priest
|
Penitence
|
|
Vagrancy
|
Economics
|
Economist/
Social commentator
|
Forced
employment
|
|
Criminal
|
law
|
Police/Jury/Judge
|
Imprisonment
|
|
Insane
|
Psychiatry
|
Psychiatrist/Psychoanalyst
|
Asylum
|
|
Sick
|
Medicine
|
Physician
|
Hospital
|
The last column, ‘corrective’ marks the actual enforcement of
power or process/act, where the ‘authorities’ ensure that the deviance is
rectified according to what they think is right-
Discourse and knowledge produce certain categories of ‘subjects’
who are then treated in particular ways: the immoral are ‘remedied’ by priests,
criminals are jailed by the law, the sick are treated by doctors, and the insane
shut away in asylums by psychiatrists. What happens, therefore, is that the
production of knowledge about those who lack power leads to very effective
practice of power on the part of the authorities. Knowledge and classification
system such as medicine, the law, or religion are therefore modes of social
control. (nayar)
Foucault indeed focuses on the concept of power. He remarked that he
produced the analysis of power relations rather than the genealogies. Foucault
began talking about power as soon as he began to do genealogy in The Order of
Discourse. In Discipline and Punish he develops a notion of “power-knowledge”.
It recombines the analysis of the epistemic with analysis of the political.
Knowledge for Foucault is unfathomable apart from power, although Foucault
continues to insist on the relative autonomy of discourse. (Foucault,
POWER AND KNOWLEDGE: MICHEL FOUCAULT)
Power and knowledge identify and classify individual subject
as mad or ill. The task is to analyse the working of power and knowledge within
a social set-up. These can be at the level of the family unit or at the level
of the nation-state. There is, therefore, no such thing as neutral or objective
knowledge because knowledge is always used to serve the interests of the
dominant groups.
After Foucault we know that discourses produce particular
subjects, who are subject to control. People who lack the power to determine
their lives and future are said to lack agency. They are called ‘subalterns’.
Every social formation has its own subalterns. The dominant groups in social
structures that construct subalterns also use particular modes to ensure that
the subaltern remains powerless. One such means of keeping the power relation
in favour of the dominant category is ideology. Ideology is system of beliefs
and ideas that permeates social formations. Ideology justifies oppression and
social inequalities by suggesting that the lower classes have always been
inferior and persuades them of the validity of this belief. That is, ideology
circulates as a system of representation and images that ‘naturalizes’
oppression and creates the illusion that oppression is natural. (nayar)
Bibliography
Foucault, Michel.
"POWER AND KNOWLEDGE: MICHEL FOUCAULT." Shodhganga. 4 April
2018 <http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/97461/8/08_chapter%2003.pdf>.
Foucault, Michel. "Power/Knowledge Selected Interviews
and Other Writings-1972_1977." Gordon, Colin. New york: Pantheon Books,
June-1975. 56-62.
nayar, Pramod k. An introduction to cultural studies.
Viva Books, 2008.
Literary Criticism-2, Western poetics = Term "DIASPORA"
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Ø Paper – 7 : LITERARY THEORY& CRITICISM-2
Ø TOPIC: DIASPORA- special reference with
Indian female Diaspora literature.
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DIASPORA:
special reference with Indian female Diaspora literature.
Ø Preface:
The term
Diaspora is derived from Greek; it means “I SCATTER” or “I SPREAD ABOUT”. A
Diaspora is a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic
locale. It is a group of people who are living away from their original
homeland and share common experiences. Immigrants, the people who come to live permanently in a
foreign land play a significant role in this process of nation. The sense of
yearning for the motherland is the most overwhelming sentiment of the Indian
Diaspora, wherever it
exists. When travel was hazardous and unusual, the yearning was intense, as
they knew well that they would never return home. Though the age of
technological advancement has made travelling easier and the distance shorter,
their imagination continued to nurse the feeling of inadequacy in being away in
a distant land. (Sreenivasan)
Inspired by
the vast spread of migration, immigration or emigration, diasporic literature
gained prominence in universal literature in a backdrop of post-colonial
context, simultaneously developing with post-colonial literature. Diasporic
literatures focuses mainly on themes like discrimination, cultural shock and
reverse cultural shock, problems in adjustment and assimilation, orientalism,
identity crisis, alienation and displacement, dilemma, depression, hybridity
and generational gap. (Hirimuthugoda)
The new
diaspora, unlike the earlier immigrants who are taken for the purpose of labour
by the colonies; scattered example of east-west encounters have occurred in
Indian fiction in English earlier novels like G.V. Desani’s –All about H.Hatter
which published in 1948 and Ved Mehta’s – Delinquent Chacha, which published in
1969 but these novels really don’t touch upon the pains of displacement and
dislocation. India’s first novels in English which actually concerns with the
frustration and loneliness of life of immigrants in unfamiliar, unknown,
inhospitable environment, name of the book is Bharati Mukherjee’s –WIFE 1975;
and also Kamala Markandaya’s – The Nowhere Man which published in 1972 both created
epic development in Indian Diaspora literature though the establishment of
diasporic Indian English literature became new genre from 1980s. (Hirimuthugoda)
Writers of
diasporic Indian English literature can be divided into two categories: first
generation immigrants and second generation immigrants. First generation
immigrant writers become representatives of immigrants who have lived a
considerable period of time in their motherland and now are trying to adapt
into new contexts after immigration whereas second generation immigrant writers
represent the descendants of first generation immigrants. Amitav Ghosh, Salman
Rushdie, Kamala Markandaya, Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni,
Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Vikram Seth, Meena Alexander, Sunetra Gupta, Aravind
Aditya, Vikram Chandra, Neel Mukherjee, Hari Kunzru, Thrity Umrigar,Sameena
Ali, Kalyan Rai, Raja Rao, Anurag Mathur are some of the prominent writers of
diasporic Indian English literature. It is considered that the portrayal of Indian immigrants in
fiction written by diasporic female Indian writers has more subtlety and sensibility.
As mentioned by Ashalata Kulakarani, Latha Rengachari in her article Debating
Expatriate woman’s Writing has said,
“In their
aim at self-definition and the expression of their expatriate experiences,
women from 1970s onwards chose to use literature. Literature became a means of
establishing autonomous selfhood. Third world women sought to find words and
forms to fit their experiences and have chosen narrative strategies like the
autobiography and the quest novel to do so. They use the auto-biography to give
shape to an identity grounded in these diverse experiences of expatriation and
self-definition.” (Hirimuthugoda)
Thus it is evident that there is a significant
role of female writers in diasporic Indian English fiction which is enriched
with experiences and mentalities of Indian diaspora. (Hirimuthugoda)
Ø Female writers:
1] KAMALA MARKANDAYA-
She is considered among the first few female diasporic Indian
writers, she herself born in Maisoor and in 1924 she migrated to England, in
her first and most important novel named -The Nowhere Man, she perfectly
depicted dilemma or melancholy in his mind because he neither accepted by India
nor accepted by England as his own homeland and by these novel she represented
her own situation and discrimination of her own life.
2] ANITA DESAI:
She is another powerful diasporic writer of the period, who
was born in Dehradun in 1937 and migrated to England and then America
respectively. Her novel –BYE BYE BLACK BIRD-1971, reflects conflict between the
search of identity in another land, which is not her; it also carries new view
point about young immigrants, aspects of discrimination, cultural conflict,
disappointment and isolation.
3] BHARATI MUKHERJEE:
Another famous diasporic female writer who was born in 1940
in Kolkata and then migrated to America. Her novel WIFE, which published in
1975 reflects transformation in behaviour and identity from conventional Indian
wife to murderer of her husband, her fantasies about high standard in American
society and American life, she became victim of mental trauma, which leads her
to commit the murder. In contrast to her novel Wife, the naive, dependent
female protagonist of her novel Jasmin wisely uplifts herself to be an
independent.
4] JHUMPA
LAHIRI:
She is a second generation Indian American who was born in
London, 1967. Her parents were immigrants from the state of West Bengal, India.
Her award-winning novel The Namesake (2004) is considered to be one of the best
fictions written about immigrant life. In this novel, Lahiri has successfully
engaged aspects like the generational gap between first and second generation
immigrants, conflict of east-west beliefs, cultural displacement, nostalgia,
loss of identity, alienation and despair. The movie which was adopted by this
novel too gained much attention worldwide. (Hirimuthugoda)
5] CHITRA
BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI:
Born in Kolkata in 1956, she immigrated to America and came
into spotlight as a female writer in diasporic Indian English literature. Her
award-winning novel The Mistress of Spices (1997) portrays an Indian girl who
works in a spice shop in Oakland, America and helps other immigrants to resolve
their problems with the magic of her spices. Thus Divakaruni has flourished her novel with the
elements of magic realism. It was also adopted into a movie of the same name. (Hirimuthugoda)
6] KIRAN
DESAI:
she is daughter of
Anita Desai is also a famous writer in diasporic Indian English literature. She
was born in Chandigarh on 3rd September, 1971. She immigrated to England and
then to America with her mother, who inspired her towards literature. Kiran
Desai in her second novel -The Inheritance of Loss (2006), subtly portrays the
life struggles of Indian diaspora as well as the aspects of globalization,
racial intolerance, terrorism and multi-cultural societies. This novel brought
her much credit through awards like ‘National Book Critics Circle Award’ and
‘Booker Prize’, making her the youngest female recipient of ‘Booker Prize’ so
far. (Hirimuthugoda)
7] MEENA
ALEXENDER:
She was born in 1951 in Illahabad and later she immigrated to
Sudan and then to America. Her novel Manhattan Music (1997) is set on Manhattan
as well as on India. There she has portrayed the immigrant life, identity
crisis, racial intolerance, international affairs and marriages in a sensitive
style of writing. (Hirimuthugoda)
8] SUNETRA GUPTA:
The female protagonist of her novel Memories of Rain (1992) immigrates to
England after falling in love with a British man but she soon realises the true
nature of her husband. Disappointed by his rude, mean behaviour, she returns
India with her children. Gupta’s novel A Sin of Colour (1998) too portrays the
dilemma and isolation faced by Indian immigrants amidst the complexities of a
new context. Sunetra Gupta is an Indian immigrant herself who was born in 1965
in Kolkata and later immigrated to England. (Hirimuthugoda)
Ø Conclusion:
To sum up, this topic we can say that Indian female writer
played very vital role in Diasporic Indian English literature, the reflectively
represents situations, circumstances, mindset of people and psychological as
well as economical condition of Indian diasporic. But that is not conclusion we
have to think further. What is condition of natives of any countries, what they
have to face because of these immigrants? How they feel? What is their mental
situation or what is their psychological condition?
Bibliography
CHAPTER II -- INDIAN
DIASPORIC LITERATURE IN ENGLISH . 4 april 2018 <http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/85357/8/08_chapter2.pdf>.
Hirimuthugoda, Hasara Dasuni. "Diasporic Female Indian
Writers in Diasporic." Prabha 2015: 134-148.
Sreenivasan, TP. "INDIAN DIASPORA AND ITS LITERARY
EXPRESSION ." 1 April 2017. ONMANORAMA. 4 April 2018
<https://english.manoramaonline.com/news/columns/global-indian/2017/04/01/india-diaspora-literary-expressions-t-p-sreenivasan.html>.
THREE CLASS OF SOCIETY BY MATTHEW ARNOLD= Paper no-6
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ARNOLD
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THREE CLASS OF SOCIETY BY MATTHEW ARNOLD
Ø MATTHEW
ARNOLD:
Matthew Arnold (1822–88) was one of 19th-century England’s
most prominent poets and social commentators. He was for many years an
inspector of schools, later becoming professor of poetry at Oxford University.
Amongst his books, perhaps the best known is Culture and Anarchy (1869), in
which he argues for the role of reading ‘the best that has been thought and
said’ as an antidote to the anarchy of materialism, industrialism and
individualistic self-interest. Arnold mounts a case in support of building and
teaching a canonical body of knowledge.
Ø Brief
look on Culture and Anarchy:
Culture and Anarchy is a
series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill
Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in
1875. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High
Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s
until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, "Culture is a
study of perfection". He further wrote that: "[Culture] seeks to do
away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the
world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness
and light. (contributors)
§ What
is culture according to Arnold?
The whole scope of the essay
is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties;
culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on
all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said
in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free
thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but
mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them
staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. (contributors)
According to him culture is
a way of life of a group of people. Culture is a collective programming of the
mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from
another. Matthew Arnold is really a great fighter for prevailing real culture
in the society of London. He finds the kingdom of materialism that trying to
strangle real culture. In this chapter, Arnold divides the society of England
into three classes- The Aristocrat Class, The Philistines, and The Populace. He
finds Anarchy very common in this class of his time as The Barbarians, The
Philistines as The Middle class and The Populace as The Working class. His
scrutiny of three classes of his time proves him a good experienced critic.
Ø Three
class of English society:
Arnold’s most cogent
observations about society come in three chapters of his 1869 book Culture and
Anarchy—Chapter 1: “Sweetness and Light,” Chapter 3: “Barbarians, Philistines,
Populace,” and Chapter 4: “Hellenism and Hebraism.” Of these, Chapter 3 seems
the most relevant to our times. In it, Arnold renames the social classes of
English society. He calls the aristocracy, the Barbarians; the middle class,
the Philistines; and the working class, the Populace. Arnold’s nomenclature
emphasizes the tendency of social classes to reduce themselves to stereotypical
interests. He maligns all three of them for embracing what he calls
“bathos”—sentiment undiluted by facts, judgment, or taste. (Cohen)
1] The Barbarians or the
Aristocrats:
The aristocratic class
Arnold calls them Barbarians. They are champion of personal liberty and often
anarchical in their tendencies. Yet they have their own individualism, field
sports and manly exercises are the fashion among them. All these outward qualities
such as politeness and grace in manners come directly inculcated by the
Aristocrats from Barbarians. Even the culture of the aristocrats is skin-deep,
external, lacking in inward virtues. The sense of chivalry of the Barbarians
makes the aristocrats practice politeness in action and manners.
2] The Philistines or the
Middle class:
The Philistines are the
middle class, according to Arnold. By philistine it is original German sense,
is meant the uncultured person like most of the shopkeepers. The Philistines
are worldly-wise men, captains of the industry busy in trade and commerce. As a
nation of shopkeepers, Philistines have brought all economic prosperity and
progress in the country. They have built cities, they have made railroads, and
lastly they have produced the greatest mercantile navy the world has ever seen.
Thus they are the empire builders in long as the working class would join
forces with them, they would bring to the land all material prosperity.
3] The Populace or the
working class:
The Populace are The Working
class who help the empire builders in Arnold’s parlance. Poverty has
dogged the footsteps of the Populace whenever they are engaged in running the
wheels of industry. They are raw and half-developed. They are being exploited
by the Philistines and the Barbarians so long. Now there is a stir and an
awakening among the Populace. Democratic awakening has dawned upon their
poverty. The people of this class are becoming politically conscious and are
coming out from the obscurities to asserts, the idea of personal freedom
is brought up by Englishman. And with it they have the concept of anarchy
inherently. “Everyman for himself in
business and everyman for himself in religion.”
Thus Arnold finds a sort of
caste-system in England consisting of the barbarians, the philistines and the
populace. Yet there is something of common value in all three classes ‘A common
basis of human nature.’ From that above the basis of human culture
must be founded – a sweetness and a light. Arnold considers that, Culture is
also connected with the idea of Sweetness and Light the Greek word ‘aphuia’
means well grown or graceful. He connects the idea of culture with sweetness
and light. He explains the idea with the help of Greek words ‘aphuia’ and
‘euphuia’. Here the man ‘euphyes’ is going towards ‘sweetness and light.’
Arnold also says that all these three classes are honest, they have got the
‘sweetness’ essential for ‘culture’ but what they lack in different proportions
is ‘ light’. Despite of such class system, Arnold finds a common basis of
nature in all. So, the spirit of sweetness and light can be founded. Arnold
himself belongs to the Philistines; He is rising above his own surroundings of
birth and social status in his pursuit of perfection, of sweetness and of light
and culture.
Now Barbarians like honours
and consideration, field sports and pleasure. Philistines like money marketing
and comforts and tea-meetings. The Populace like bombing, hustling and smashing
and beer.
So, Arnold’s way of
attainment of culture is initially to believe in paramount authority of right
reason, to recognise the best self and to rise above the nation of “An ordinary
self”.
Ø Conclusion:
Finally, to conclude that we
can summaries that from every walk of life some people must dedicate themselves
to the pursuit of perfection. The doors of perfection and culture are wide open
to any really dedicated soul from any three great divisions which Arnold finds
proper to sort out the people of England.
But then it is essential
that man must strive to seek human perfection to establish his best self, and
culture would in the end, can find its public recognition.
Bibliography
Cohen, Paula Marantz. The American Scholar. 3
January 2013. 4 april 2018 <https://theamericanscholar.org/returning-to-matthew-arnold/#>.
contributors,
wikipedia. "Culture and Anarchy." Wikipedia. 23 january
2018. 4 april 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_Anarchy>.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ANALYSIS OF HIS SELECTED POEMS - Paper-5
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Ø Paper –5 : THE ROMANTIC LITERATURE
Ø TOPIC: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ANALYSIS OF
HIS SELECTED POEMS
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WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH AND ANALYSIS OF HIS SELECTED POEMS
Ø LIFE OF WORDSWORTH:
The second
of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth
was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland,part of
the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District. His
sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his
life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had
three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born
after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in 1805 when the ship of which he was
captain, the Earl of Abergavenny, was wrecked off the south coast of England;
and Christopher, the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge. (W. contributors)
Wordsworth
was taught to read by his mother and attended, first, a tiny school of low
quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of
upper-class families, where he was taught by Ann Birkett, who insisted on
instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and
local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove
Tuesday. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little
else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including
Mary, who later became his wife. (W. contributors)
Wordsworth
made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European
Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge. He received
his BA degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of
his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours,
visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a
walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and
visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy.
In 1791,
Wordsworth visited France and during that time he fall in love with one French
woman, Annette Vallon; who gave birth to their daughter in 1792.Britain’s
stretched relation with France led him to return England alone and he could not
meet his daughter and Vallon for some years but after some year with the peace
of Amiens he allowed to visit France. When he first time met his daughter she
was 9 years old. He and his sister Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline to
prepare Annette for the fact of words worth’s forthcoming marriage with Mary
Hutchinson.
In 1798, his
Lyrical Ballad was published; it is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth
and S.T. Coleridge. Lyrical Ballad played a vital role in the English Romantic
Movement; according to some historians the publication of Lyrical Ballad is
starting point of Romanticism which runs till 1832, till the essence of Queen
Victoria. They published 3 volumes of Lyrical Ballads first in 1798, second in
1800 and third in 1802 but neither of them helped Wordsworth as well as
Coleridge to get reorganization as author. In all three volumes both decided to
deal with different subject matter and therefore Wordsworth deals with reality
and beauty of nature whereas Coleridge deals with super natural elements and
many other things, Wordsworth tries to reflect country side and Coleridge tries
to reflect urban side. In this book both have given their own definitions of
poetry as well as what is poet?, both tries to give their own opinion but at
some extent wordsworth failed to get publicity among readers and other writers
that’s why he must have to give prefaces to Lyrical Ballads and his style of
writing because his writing is very simple one; thus common people can
understand easily and it became problematic for classical writers. After that
they published fourth edition of Lyrical Ballad in 1805.Coleridge and Wordsworth
worked together for many years but after some year they started living and
working separately and then wordsworth return to Lack district because he
wanted to live in his home town because he feels homesickness because of long
travelling with Dorothy and Coleridge.
Wordsworth
was very religious man and he remarked in his of the poem that he was ready to
shed bold for his Church, this religious thought of him reflected in The
Excursion, a long poem which published in 1814.In the later part of his life he
faces many difficult situations in front of his eyes he saw death of his sister
Dorothy as well as his close friend Coleridge and many more contemporaries like
Charles lamb, James Hogg etc.
Ø His important works
· Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other
Poems (1798)
· "Simon Lee"
· "We are Seven"
· "Lines Written in Early
Spring"
· "Strange fits of passion have I
known"
· "She Dwelt among the Untrodden
Ways"
· "Three years she grew"
· "Expostulation and Reply"
· "The Tables Turned"
· "The Thorn"
· "A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal”
· "Lines Composed A Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey"
· Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems
(1800)
· Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
· "I travelled among unknown
men""Nutting"
· "The Ruined Cottage"
· "Michael"
· "The Kitten At Play"
· "Lucy Gray"
· "The Two April Mornings"
· "The Solitary Reaper"
· 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)
William Wordsworth
dies on April 23rd in 1850, and after his death his widow Mary
published words worth’s autobiographical work – “poem to Coleridge” as The
Prelude but it failed to get much reorganization.
Ø A Brief Analysis of his some
important poems
Here I am going to analyse his 2 poems which I like most.
1] THE SOLITARY REAPER
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound. (The solitary
Reaper)
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides. (The solitary Reaper)
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again? (The solitary Reaper)
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more. (The solitary
Reaper)
v Analysis:
The Solitary Reaper is ballad by Wordsworth and known as one
of the best work by him. The poem divided into 4 stanzas each stanza reflects
wonderful melody. Poem begins with speakers question to reader to behold a
young girl ‘Reaping and singing’ in a beautiful field, her song was very sad,
people as passing by and poet has noted that some stop for listening her but
other gently pass by intension of not disturbing her; poet struck by her sad
beauty of song and listen her song for many hours. Poet was unable to
understand her language or what she actually singing but poet compares her
singing with Nightingale and also with singing of cuckoo bird. Poet uses
metaphors and tries to convince readers that her song is more thrilling to hear
then the cuckoo bird during spring.
In third stanza speaker tries to understand what she is
singing and he imagines that the tone of her song is sad therefore she might be
singing about some past sorrow, pain or loss of someone or something. Speaker
also guess that she might be sing a song of war or battles fought long ago, or
it might be a simple song of present sorrows, pains etc. Speaker found that she
is singing like her song will never end. Speaker watched peacefully, enraptured
and he was not moving anywhere but at the end he quietly walks away, by keeping
her song in his mind and her music in his heart for a long time.
2] LUCY GRAY OR SOLITUDE:
OFT I had
heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I
crossed the wild,
I chanced to
see at break of day
The solitary
child. (Wordsworth)
No mate, no
comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on
a wide moor,
--The
sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a
human door! (Wordsworth)
You yet may
spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon
the green;
But the sweet
face of Lucy Gray
Will never
more be seen. (Wordsworth)
"To-night will be a stormy night--
You to the
town must go;
And take a
lantern, Child, to light
Your mother
through the snow." (Wordsworth)
"That,
Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely
afternoon--
The
minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is
the moon!" (Wordsworth)
At this the
Father raised his hook,
And snapped a
faggot-band;
He plied his
work;--and Lucy took
The lantern
in her hand. (Wordsworth)
Not blither
is the mountain roe:
With many a
wanton stroke
Her feet
disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke. (Wordsworth)
The storm
came on before its time:
She wandered
up and down;
And many a
hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached
the town. (Wordsworth)
The wretched
parents all that night
Went shouting
far and wide;
But there was
neither sound nor sight
To serve them
for a guide. (Wordsworth)
At day-break
on a hill they stood
That
overlooked the moor;
And thence
they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong
from their door. (Wordsworth)
They
wept--and, turning homeward, cried,
"In
heaven we all shall meet;"
--When in the
snow the mother spied
The print of
Lucy's feet. (Wordsworth)
Then
downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked
the footmarks small;
And through
the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the
long stone-wall; (Wordsworth)
And then an
open field they crossed:
The marks
were still the same;
They tracked
them on, nor ever lost;
And to the
bridge they came. (Wordsworth)
They followed
from the snowy bank
Those
footmarks, one by one,
Into the
middle of the plank;
And further
there were none! (Wordsworth)
--Yet some
maintain that to this day
She is a
living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the
lonesome wild. (Wordsworth)
O'er rough
and smooth she trips along,
And never
looks behind;
And sings a solitary
song
That whistles
in the wind. (Wordsworth)
v
Analysis:
Lucy Gray is a beautiful ballad written by Wordsworth in 1799
but he published it, in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads during 1800. Poem
is about a little innocent girl who is living in a town near by valley and most
of her time she pending alone because she has not many friends and her family
is also small. As a solitary child she has no one with whom she can share or
talk or play. This poem is based on famous story of Lucy Gray, which heard by
him from her sister Dorothy. It is mysterious story of a girl whose father many
times sends her to fetch her mother when she was out of the town.
At one day when storm comes before expected time and Lucy was
going to fetch her mother at that time she lost her path and mysteriously died.
People though believes that she was not dies but she is still alive and singing
songs of her solitude and tries to tell everyone that how lonely she is? In the
end of the poem by the use of supernatural elements Wordsworth keeps Lucy alive
in hearts. Supernatural theory shows that how she was attached with town or the
people of town. This ballad is written very lyrically and the tragic end of the
poem leaves everlasting impact on the mind of readers.
Ø Conclusion:
In above paragraphs, we have seen that how simplicity and
nature is used by William Wordsworth as his main objects, scholars of the age
were unsatisfied with his work and some remarks his poems as childish one but
as per Coleridge’s view, If Wordsworth’s poems are childish one then it should
be drawn in the passage of time but that was not happened; it means there is
something in his poems which made him remarkable poet of the age.
Bibliography
contributors, Wikipedia. "Early
life of William Wordsworth." Wikipedia. 3 march 2018. 4 april 2018
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_William_Wordsworth>.
contributors, WIkipedia. "William Wordsworth."
Wikipedia. 28 Mar. 2018. 4 April 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth>.
"The solitary Reaper." Poetry foundation .
4 April 2018
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45554/the-solitary-reaper>.
Wordsworth. The complete poetical works. 1770-1850.
4 April 2018 <http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww158.html>.
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