Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Month: February 2015 (page 4 of 5)

Review: Jagdish Keshav’s The President Vanishes and Other Stories

February 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Jagdish Keshav’s The President Vanishes and other Stories is a Chinese box collection with four dimensions that outline the pseudo modern existence – myth, instinct, reification and organised crime.A born story teller, he keeps our eyes glued onto the narratives verging on suspense. In “Circa”, in the search for the missing jewels, the quest for answers lies within, and readers also find themselves in a hunt for the missing link, a metaphor for some answer that has always evaded us and lingered onto the mind, as in the end of the story. It symbolizes the irrational fear that is a heavy baggage whose bits and pieces we find strewn on our path.”The March of Asuras” caricaturizes war that is often romanticized in myth and legends, and utilizes a powerful myth to subvert the same. ”The Story of a Lecher: Nayan Lal!” is a pointer to the patriarchal existence that promotes the reification and commodification of women. The inquisitiveness of the men-folk is a peep into their own psyche where the woman is objectified.”The President Vanishes” presents terrorism as the intentionally distorted simulacrum of religion.

I comprehend that “Circa” is in the form of a quest to complete oneself through God. Though instead of completing ourselves, we end up completing God binding him to a construct.…

Poetry Analysis: Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen”

February 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Edgar Allan Poe epitomized his ‘Helen’ as “the first ideal love of my soul.” Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen” is a tribute to the mother of his school friend, Mrs.Jane Stannard. She is a young matron of Richmond, who had profound affection and motherly love for him. By summoning her as ‘Helen’ he has crowned her with the highest virtues of a woman that is quite often put on a pedestal in classical mythology. The beauty of Helen has always been the highest paradigm, whether extolled by Homer in “The Illiad”, “The Trojan Women” by Euripedes, or by Marlowe in his Dr.Faustus. The poem was first published in 1831 collection Poems of Edgar Allan.

Beauty always lies in the eyes of the beholder. Helen, to him, radiated an inner beauty that he likens to the boats of Nice that transported wanderers over the scented sea long ago. He was able to sail smoothly through life owing to her unconditional love. Jane Stannard’s moral support steered him through the rough weathers of life. The word “Nicean” functions as an adjective for Nice, a city in France, situated on the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the most significant towns on the French “Riviera” and is a fashionable winter resort of the English.…

Poetry Analysis: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee “

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned a series of 44 sonnets pronouncing her profound love for her fiancé Robert Browning. The poetess employs the Petrarchan form in the series and penned Sonnet 43 in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of “Sonnet 43” is :ABBA, ABBA–CD, CD, CD as opposed to the Petrarchan form that has the rhyme scheme of the sestet as (1) CDE, CDE; (2) CDC, CDC; or (3) CDE, DCE.

There is the use of the figure of speech called Anaphora. Anaphora  is the repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other. There is also persistent use of alliteration.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and heigh

t My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

The poetess professes that her love that knows no bounds. She seeks to enumerate the way since they are innumerable. She states that she loves him “to the depth and breadth and height.” She covers all aspects, and claims that her loves traces all dimensions.…

Poetry Analysis: Christina Rosetti’s “Remember”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Christina Rosetti’s “Remember” was published  in Goblin Market and other Poems. The central concept of the poem is the abstract phenomenon of remembrance. The poem is addressed to a loved one. It is a universal fact that one is remembered and regarded more when he/she is at a distance. The remembrance of the one lost forever is indeed poignant. The poetess does not mention explicitly that she may enter the realm of death. She euphemistically states that she passes into a ’silent land’ as Emily Dickinson does in her poem “Because I could Not Stop for Death” where she states that the horses’ heads had turned towards eternity. The poetess redefines the stance of death in different ways. She claims:

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay

which implies the person in question is divorced from her with regard to all the major sensory perceptions. When there is no time for resolution or irresolution. She also reiterates that in such a circumstance there will be no second-thoughts or afterthoughts. The above lines also echo the cyclical process of history-of separation and reconciliation. The position of the two lovers reflect the hands of a clock in their position, and gives one the impression that the clock is standing still at the defining moment.…

Poetry Analysis: Thomas Hardy’s “Plena Timoris”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

In Thomas Hardy’s “Plena Timoris,”  the title is a phrase from Latin that signifies “a woman full of panic and dread”. The poem mirrors the diffidence of a woman who has hitherto lived in a roseate world characterized only  by positive vibes. Premchand in his novel Godan gives a description on the changes that love undergoes over time and space: “Early married life throbs with love and desire; like the dawn the span of life is suffused with a roseate glow. The afternoon of life dissolves illusion into its stinging rays, but brings face to face with reality.” An incident in the woman’s life changes her outlook towards life and her beloved. Thomas Hardy’s novels are characterized by a pervading sense of pessimism. Thomas Hardy once wrote:” “There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn’t there.”This becomes the lady’s predicament towards the end of the poem. However, Thomas Hardy also mentions that “Fear is the mother of foresight.”

The lovers looked over the parapet-stone:
The moon in its southing directly blent
Its silver with their environment.
Her ear-rings twinkled; her teeth, too, shone
As, his arm around her, they laughed and leant.

The beginning of the poem portrays the lovers as comfortable in each other’s company as they explore the world with their joint insight.…

Poetry Analysis: Pablo Neruda’s “I do not love You”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, was endowed with the Nobel; Prize for Literature in 1971. The writer’s original name being Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, he assumed the pseudonym Pablo Neruda for about 20 years before legalizing the same in 1946. Neruda is said to be the most popular amongst the Spanish American poets His writings exhibit a preoccupation with the 1940s political struggle of the left. His works also reflect the socio-historical developments in South America. He also penned numerous love poems.

The poet puts across all the set standards for measuring love. He starts with ‘salt’ that has been a benchmark in many legends. Especially in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Cordelia’s reply to Lear was that he is to her as important as salt. The poet uses ‘salt’as a hyperbole here,and in the process may also regard to it as an essential element of life-forms. “Rose” was generally used in the 17th century poems with the ‘carpe diem’ motif. The image of rose stood for the brevity of Life, and to love as long as life lasted. The poet means to say here that he does not love her because Life is short ,but for the sake of love itself.…

Poetry Analysis: Kishwar Naheed’s “I am not that Woman”

February 5, 2015 / / 5 Comments

The poem”I am not that woman” exemplifies the stereotyping of women in a patriarchal society .As she is limited to the domestic domain and household chores, she iterates that her reputation is not limited to selling socks and shoes, for she too possess an intellect .The speaker asserts that she possesses an individuality that the man tries to conceal in walls of stone, while he wandered around free as the breeze. The speaker claims that he can only imprison her physical being and not her spiritual self for her voice could be heard. It could not be smothered or stifled by stone. The phrase ‘that woman’ in the title of the poem mocks at the general conception of women in a male- chauvinistic society.

Selling you socks and shoes!

Remember me, I am the one you hid

In your walls of stone, while you roamed

Free as the breeze, not knowing

That my voice cannot be smothered by stones,

She is rather, the woman who has been crushed by the rigid constraints of custom and irrational barriers of tradition. Nevertheless, light cannot be hidden in darkness and manifest itself. A woman is the epitome of light (knowledge) As the saying goes: “If a man is educated, an individual is educated but if a woman is educated, the whole family is educated.” She is the lap that ensures security, caring and sharing.…

Poetry Analysis: Elizabeth Daryush’s “Children of Wealth in your Warm Nursery”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Elizabeth Daryush, the English poetess, was the daughter of British poet laureate   Robert Bridges. She was a product of the sophisticated Victorian and Edwardian England. She employs the traditional verse style, and her themes pertain to the refined and elite classes, and the injustice they caused to other classes. She is best known for her experiments with syllabic meter. Finlay noted, “For her. . .poetry always dealt with the `stubborn fact’ of life as it is, and the only consolations it offered were those of understanding and a kind of half- Christian, half-stoical acceptance of the inevitable.” However, he also argued that Daryush’s best poems transcend such fatalism, “dealing with the moral resources found in one’s own being. . .and a recognition of the beauties in the immediate, ordinary world around us.”

The phrase “children of wealth” signifies two meanings. The word ‘wealth’ may qualify the word ‘children’ as an adjective. Further, it may also imply that they were the children of their parents. The word ‘wealth’ is substituted for parents here. Therefore, it suggests their artificial upbringing with all amenities that wealth could buy. It is far from human touch. The poetess emphasizes in this aspect yt gain with the phrase that they are guided by the warmth of their nursery, and not by maternal warmth.…

Poetry Analysis: Phyllis McCormack’s Crabbit Old Woman

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

 

“Crabbit Old Woman”, is also entitled  ”Look Closer Look Closer Nurse, Kate, Open Your Eyes or What Do You See?” The authorship of the prescribed poem is uncertain.  It has been pointed out by critics that the author is Phyllis McCormack. The tone of the poem is persuasive; the speaker of the poem is an infirm woman in the geriatric ward of a Dundee nursing home. The poem was  first published in the  poetry anthology Elders (Reality Press, 1973) edited by Chris Searle. Searle is uncertain about the authorship of the piece, but voices it as the genuine writing of an old woman. “Crabbit Old Woman” had later featured in the Christmas edition of “Beacon House News” .It was a magazine of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Association.

This was the Lady’s gift to generations to come. The poem has been oft quoted in works meant for caring for the elderly and underlines the need to enable them to lead a life of self-esteem. It comes across as a poniter to humane treatment where man is caught in the rat race of survival of the fittest.

As per  the Daily Mail ( 12 March 1998), “Phyllis McCormack’s son claims that his mother wrote it while working at the Sunnyside Hospital in Montrose in the 1960s, where she submitted it anonymously to a small magazine intended just for Sunnyside with the title “Look Closer Nurse.”

The term ‘crabbit’ is Scottish slang for ‘grumpy’ or ‘miserable’.…

Poetry Analysis: Margaret Atwood’s “The City Planners”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian author, poet, critic, essayist, feminist and social campaigner. Best known as a novelist, she is also an award-winning poetess.”The City-Planners” is an indictment on the superficiality of progress, and the attribution of incorrigible rationality to the same.

The word “cruising” implies to move along, in an unhurried or unconcerned fashion. As the poet moves about in a residential area, she is offended by the “sanities” of the area. The word ‘sanities’ may possess a double meaning here. Firstly, it may allude to the unnatural ‘sanitariness’ of the place. Secondly, it may denote the saneness of minds, or soundness that render them sophisticated, uniform and therefore boring. The “dry August sunlight” alludes to the province from which the speaker hails: Canada. The houses in rows appear too pedantic to be real. The trees have the appearance of being planted to render the scene picture-perfect. The levelness of surface further provokes the poetess as it appears to be a rebuke to the dent in their car door. There is no shouting there, no shatter of glass. No instinctive action takes place here: everything is after-thought and preplanned. There are no shouts here, no loud wants as people are economically well-off and complacent.…

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