English Excellence

               Lake Isle of Innisfree              W.B.Yeats in his poem , ' The Lake Isle of Innisfree ' takes us to a remote, langurous,dreamy atmosphere of the earthly fairy land . Having resided in city life for a prolonged time, the poetic persona wants to take refuge in  lap of Nature. The dull and deary life of the city has suffocated the spirit of the creation so he desires for the solitary and peaceful pastoral life . The poem opens with the Biblical allusion " I will arise and go.." to create a spiritual affinity with mother nature. He wants to stay in  close contact with Nature so he wishes to build and stay in a little room made with clay and twigs. He also desires to plant nine  rows of beans and wishes to get honey from the hives. The humming sound of the bees resonates the ambience. Like Wordsworth,  Yeats also wants to 'live alone' in pastoral settings to experience the spiritual experience.       In the second stanza,  poet wants t

               The Harp of India          Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was the pioneer of the Young Bengal Movement and was a son of Portuguese father and Indian mother. From is father's side, he inherited rationality and  liberty of thoughts, and from his mother's side ,he received the profound love for the country. In his sonnet,  'The Harp of India ' he expresses profound love for India.           The sonnet opens with a rhetorical question to the harp hanging on the withered branch and asks the reason of sterility or unproductive condition of the harp. The harp has become unproductive and unstrung just like the withered branch. The poet becomes nostalgic as well as mournful because the sweet tunes once mesmerized the listeners but now becomes dead, silent and no more produces the sweet melodies . Harp is erected like a ' neglected, mute and desolate ' cenotaph on a deserted, erid land. The immortal hands which played the harp and sang the symphony

 Rabindranath Tagore's poem ' Upagupta '        Rabindranath Tagore is a myriad minded man and a relentless spokesperson of humanity. His poetic genius surpasses the barriers of space and time. He has given Indo Anglican poetry a new dimension- 'prose-poem' making a solid technical achievement in his powerful manipulation of free verse form and poetic prose.           Rabindranath Tagore's poem, ' Upagupta ' is the translated work of his bengali poem named 'Avisara' ( অভিসার )  . Upagupta leads ascetic life renouncing the luxury and hedonistic pleasure and travels from one town to another. He is one of the disciples of Lord Buddha. The poem opens with the description of a day of August with ' murky sky ' which made the people to stay indoors , turning out the lamps. In this rainy night, Upagupta sleeps in the dust near the city wall of Mathura. Suddenly his sleep is disturbed by the feet of a lustrous city woman . He does not

    ' I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings '                Being a poet and civil right activist, Maya Angelou was a well known spokesman for black people and her works are regarded as a defence of black culture . Her poem, ' I Know  Why The Caged Bird Sings ' is a satellite poem that revolves round the first book of the same name of her series of seven Autobiographies. There are celebration of black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition.                        ᴍᴀʏᴀ ᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏᴜ           The bird in the cage symbolises the Afro-American   and the song of the bird represents the the voice of their freedom. A free bird can enjoy its freedom flying in the air or dipping its wings in the orange ray of the Sun and can claim its supremacy over the whole world or sky. The pathetic condition of the Caged Bird is described in the second stanza.  Its freedom is taken away, is chained,

Joseph Addison's essay on Sir Roger de    Coverley                       The age of Queen Anne is marked by the development of what may be called " social prose " . This is usually in the form of the short story or essay, and subject is usually some of the aspects of contemporary life. This form and its beginning  are to be found in the Tatler and Spectator of Addison and Steele. Addison's prose is simply and intelligible and although he undoubtedly took great pains to make it finished and was about the first to regard prose writing as an art,  it always appears natural and unaffected.                     (Joseph Addison)          In his essay readers find some glimpses of a country gentleman named Sir Roger.  His unique personality and household affairs have been described. He has been represented as a very good man from the bottom of his heart. He treated even his servants with cordiality and love.  Joseph Addison has presented Sir Roger as a living char

James Joyce Novel 'Ulysses'          In 20th century novels went through a sea change. Plot and character went behind the stage and mind of the character received more importance. Novels became a medium to express their inner feelings,  thoughts . The incessant atoms of thoughts cross and recross the mind of the characters. Novels become not an escape from emotion but letting loose of emotion. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf became the pioneer of the genre - stream of conscious novels.             James Joyce's novel ' Ulysses ' deals with the event of one day. Stephen Dedalus , the hero from Joyce's another novel ' Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man ' and Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertisement canvasser and his wife, Molly are the principal characters. The various chapters correspond to Homer's classic ' Odyssey ' - Stephen representing Telemachus, Bloom as Odysseus and Molly as Penelope.          Buck Mulligan,  a me