Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Introduction of Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840, Stinsford, United Kingdom.Thomas Hardy OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He died on11 January 1928, Dorchester, United Kingdom.

About Jude the Obscure Novel 

Jude the Obscure is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. It is Hardy's last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man; he is a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. 

Character of  Richard Phillotson

Phillotson is eminently the respectable man. Though he fails to achieve the same goals Jude pursues, his bearing and view of things do not change much. Even when Arabella encounters him on the road to Alfredston, now down on his luck and teaching at Marygreen because it's the only place that will have him, this air of respectability remains. It must be this which Sue can't stand about him, the respectability plus the legal right to make love to her.

Sue's opinion of him does not make him any less decent. He is like Jude in many ways: he is goodhearted and honorable-, he allows instinct to overrule reason; he is too accommodating for his own good; he is intelligent. Like Jude he is ill-equipped to get what he wants in life and soon resigns himself to mediocrity. However, unlike Jude he no longer is dazzled by ideals, perhaps because he is older. Maybe too late he learns to act on the basis of calculation, estimating that Sue's return will be worth the benefits it may bring.

Phillotson, in short, is a man whom it is easy neither to like nor to dislike; he goes largely unnoticed.

Character of Jude

The novel’s protagonist, a poor orphan who is raised by his great-aunt after his parents divorced and died. Jude dreams of attending the university at Christminister, but he fails to be accepted because of his working class background. He is a skilled stonemason and a kindly soul who cannot hurt any living thing. Jude’s “fatal flaw” is his weakness regarding alcohol and women, and he allows his marriage to Arabella, even though it is unhappy, to distract himself from his dream. He shares a deep connection with his cousin Sue, but their relationship is doomed by their earlier marriages, society’s disapproval, and bad luck. Jude starts out pious and religious, but by the end of his life he has grown agnostic and bitter.

In Memoriam by Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson 

Alfred Tennyson was born on 6 August 1809, Somersby,United Kingdom .Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson FRS was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". Alfred Tennyson was awards Chancellor's Gold Medal. He died on 6 October 1892, Lurgashall,United Kingdom .

In Memoriam

Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

• Introduction of WilIiam Wordsworth

 

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770, Cockermouth, United Kingdom. William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. He died on 23 April 1850, Rydal Mount & Gardens, Rydal, United Kingdom. 

William Wordsworth was one of the founders of English Romanticism and one its most central figures and important intellects.  Wordsworth is best known for Lyrical Ballads, co-written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and The Prelude, a Romantic epic poem chronicling the “growth of a poet's mind.”

The Age of Romanticism 

Romanticism was a literary movement that began in the late 18th century, ending around the middle of the 19th century—although its influence continues to this day. Marked by a focus on the individual (and the unique perspective of a person, often guided by irrational, emotional impulses), a respect for nature and the primitive, and a celebration of the common man, Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the huge changes in society that occurred during this period, including the revolutions that burned through countries like France and the United States, ushering in grand experiments in democracy.

Romanticism is a literary movement spanning roughly 1800–1850.

The movement was characterized by a celebration of nature and the common man, a focus on individual experience, an idealization of women, and an embrace of isolation and melancholy.

Prominent Romantic writers include John Keats, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley.

• Features of Wordsworth’s Poetry

• Emotions At A Priority

Apart from showing us the role of Nature in the growth of the individual, he related his experiences to bring out the change in perceptions based on emotions.

• Nature 

Nature was his guide, friend, philosopher, nurse, playmate, mother and what not! She was both beautiful and stern, fearful and sublime, inspirational and also intimidating.

• Optimism in Poems

There is also a sense of hope in the form of philosophical optimism that the poems of Wordsworth offer.

• Romanticism

Innocence and simplicity are suggested by the Romantic idea of going back to one's childhood and by arriving at an essential attribute viz. The "Vital Soul".

• Pantheism

It is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes god.

Expansion of Tintern Abbey 

The poem Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey is generally known as Tintern Abbey written in 1798 by the father of Romanticism William Wordsworth. Tintern Abbey is one of the triumphs of Wordsworth's genius. It may be called a condensed spiritual autobiography of the poet. It deals with the subjective experiences of the poet, and traces the growth of his mind through different periods of his life. Nature and its influence on the poet in various stages forms the main theme of the poem. The poem deals with the influence of Nature on the boy, the growing youth, and the man. The poet has expressed his tender feeling towards nature.

He has specially recollected his poetic idea of Tintern Abbey where he had gone first time in 1793. This is his second visit to this place. Wordsworth has expressed his intense faith in nature.

There is Wordsworth’s realization of God in nature. He got sensuous delight in it and it is all in all to him. Tintern Abbey impressed him most when he had first visited this place. He has again come to the same place where there are lofty cliffs, the plots of cottage ground, orchards, groves and crops. He is glad to see hedgerows, sportive wood, pastoral farms and green doors. This lonely place, the banks of the river and rolling waters from the mountain springs present a beautiful panoramic light. The solitary place reminds the poet of vagrant dwellers and hermits’ cave.

The poem is in five sections. The first section establishes the setting for the meditation. But it emphasizes the passage of time: five years have passed, five summers, five long winters… But when the poet is back to this place of natural beauty and serenity, it is still essentially the same. 

The poem opens with a slow, dragging rhythm and the repetition of the word ‘five’ all designed to emphasize the weight of time which has separated the poet from this scene. The following lines develop a clear, visual picture of the scent. The view presented is a blend of wildness and order. He can see the entirely natural cliffs and waterfalls; he can see the hedges around the fields of the people; and he can see wreaths of smoke probably coming from some hermits making fire in their cave hermitages. These images evoke not only a pure nature as one might expect, they evoke a life of the common people in harmony with nature.

The poet studies nature with open eyes and an imaginative mind. He has been the lover of nature from the core of his heart, and with a purer mind. He feels a sensation of love for nature in his blood. He feels high pleasure and deep power of joy in natural objects. The beatings of his heart are full of the fire of nature’s love. He concentrates attention on Sylvan Wye – a majestic and worth seeing river. He is reminded of the pictures of the past visit and ponders over his future years.

On his first visit to this place he bounded over the mountains by the sides of the deep rivers and the lovely streams. In the past the soundings haunted him like a passion. The tall rock, the mountain and the deep and gloomy wood were then to him like an appetite. But that time is gone now. In nature he finds the sad music of humanity

The third section contains a kind of doubt; the poet is probably reflecting the reader’s possible doubts so that he can go on to justify how he is right and what he means. He doubts, for just a moment, whether this thought about the influence of nature is in vain, but he can’t go on.

 He exclaims: “Yet, oh! How often, amid the joyless daylight, fretful and unprofitable fever of the world have I turned to thee (nature)” for inspiration and peace of mind. He thanks the ‘Sylvan Wye’ for the everlasting influence it has imprinted on his mind; his spirit has very often turned to this river for inspiration when he was losing the peace of mind or the path and meaning of life. The river here becomes the symbol of spirituality.

Though the poet has become serious and perplexed in the fourth section, nature gives him courage and spirit enough to stand there with a sense of delight and pleasure. This is so typical of Wordsworth that it seems he can’t write poetry without recounting his personal experiences, especially those of his childhood. Here he also begins from the earliest of his days! It was first the coarse pleasures in his ‘boyish days’, which have all gone by now.

 “That time is past and all its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures”. But the poet does not mourn for them; he doesn’t even grumble about their loss. Clearly, he has gained something in return: “other gifts have followed; for such loss… for I have learnt to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity”. 

The fifth and last section continues with the same meditation from where the poet addresses his younger sister Dorothy, whom he blesses and gives advice about what he has learnt. He says that he can hear the voice of his own youth when he hears her speak, the language of his former heart; he can also “read my former pleasure in the soothing lights of thy wild eyes’.

 He is excited to look at his own youthful image in her. He says that nature has never betrayed his heart and that is why they have been living from joy to joy. Nature can impress the mind with quietness and beauty, and feed it lofty thoughts, that no evil tongues of the human society can corrupt their hearts with any amount of contact with it.

The poet then begins to address the moon in his reverie, and to ask nature to bestow his sister with their blessings. Let the moon shine on her solitary walk, and let the mountain winds blow their breeze on her. When the present youthful ecstasies are over, as they did with him, let her mind become the palace of the lovely forms and thoughts about nature, so that she can enjoy and understand life and overcome the vexations of living in a harsh human society. The conclusion to the poem takes us almost cyclically, back to a physical view of the ‘steep woods’, ‘lofty cliffs’ and ‘green pastoral landscape’ in which the meditation of the poem is happening.

The poet has expressed his honest and natural feelings to Nature’s Superiority. The language is so simple and lucid that one is not tired of reading it again and again. The sweetness of style touches the heart of a reader. The medium of this poem is neither ballad nor lyric but an elevated blank verse. 

The blank verse that is used in it is low-toned, familiar, and moves with sureness, sereneness and inevitable ease. It has the quiet pulse, suggestive of 'central peace', which is felt in all his great poetry. This is the beauty of Wordsworth’s language.

Reference 

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/how-was-the-writing-style-of-wordsworth-different-from-coleridge

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth

Characters of Hard Times

Hard Times by Charles Dickens 

• Introduction of Charles Dickens 

Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, Landport, Portsmouth, United Kingdom. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

• About Novel Hard Times 

Hard Times is an 1854 novel by English author Charles Dickens. Taking place in three parts named after a Biblical verse, “Sowing,” “Reaping,” and “Garnering,” it satirizes English society by picking apart the social and economic ironies of its contemporary life. The novel takes place in a fictional industrial town in Northern England called Coketown, modeled partially on Manchester. The novel is best known for its pessimism regarding the state of trade unions and the exploitation of the working class by capitalist elites.

• Characters of Hard Times 

• Thomas Gradgrind

Mr. Gradgrind is a school superintendent who promotes an education based on facts alone (no talk of imagination or emotions, please) and later becomes a Member of Parliament. His two eldest children, Louisa and Tom, suffer greatly from being brought up under this philosophy, and Gradgrind eventually comes to learn the error of his ways and dedicate his life to fostering faith, hope, and charity.

• Josiah Bounderby

He  is a friend and a business partner to Mr. Gradrind, and marries Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, who is much younger. Dickens's description of Bounderby is worth quoting: 'A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start.'

• Louisa Gradgrind

Louisa, Mr. Gradgrind's eldest daughter, could be said to be the protagonist of the book. From a young age she resents the education of facts, which she finds thoroughly unenjoyable and which represses her imagination and emotions, deforming her heart. Led by her education, she marries a man she doesn't love, and then nearly runs away with another man, James Harthouse, who finally makes her feel as if she is understood. With the help of her gentle friend, Sissy, her heart and her humanity are gradually resuscitated.

• Tom Gradgrind

Tom is also referred to as "the whelp." He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind and an employee of Mr. Bounderby. He is resentful towards his sister, Louisa, though she is only kind towards him. His ultimate misdeed comes when he steals money from his safe in the bank and then announces the loss as a true theft. In the end, Tom is forced to flee the country to escape punishment. He dies overseas and full of regret.

• Cecilia "Sissy" Jupe

Sissy is abandoned by her father who is a well-meaning circus performer. He feels that she will have a better life if he is not able to hinder her progress in society. Sissy lives with the Gradgrind family but she is a poor pupil at their school. In contrast to Mr. Gradgrind, Sissy lives by the philosophy of emotion, fancy, hope and benevolence. In the end, her kindhearted nature softens the rough edges of the Gradgrind family and they come to be grateful for what she has done for them. At the end of the novel, Dickens writes that Sissy grows ever more happy and she eventually has children of her own to care for.

• Stephen Blackpool   

Stephen Blackpool is a worker at one of Bounderby's mills. He has a drunken wife who no longer lives with him but who appears from time to time. He forms a close bond with Rachael, a co-worker, whom he wishes to marry. After a dispute with Bounderby, he is dismissed from his work at the Coketown mills and, shunned by his former fellow workers, is forced to look for work elsewhere. While absent from Coketown, he is wrongly accused of robbing Bounderby's bank. On his way back to vindicate himself, he falls down a mine-shaft. He is rescued but dies of his injuries.

Minor characters 

• Bitzer

Bitzer is a classmate of Tom, Louisa and Sissy. As a young adult he works as a clerk in Bounderby's bank and he unsuccessfully apprehends Tom as the thief.

• Mrs. Gradgrind

Mrs. Gradgrind is the ignorant wife of Thomas Gradgrind and the mother of Louisa, Tom and the other Gradgrind children. She dies in the middle of the novel.

• Rachael

The unmarried companion of Stephen Blackpool. She keeps his spirits up while he is suffering and after he has left Coketown, she takes it as her responsibility to defend his honor.

The dishonorable and deceitful leader of the labor movement: The United Aggregate Tribunal. Slackbridge takes the legitimate concerns of the laborers and exploits them for his own power.

• Mr. Sleary

Is the manager of a traveling circus. After providing for Sissy at the beginning of the novel he assists Tom's escape at the novel's end.

• Mrs. Sparsit

Mrs. Sparsit is a widow who has fallen on hard times. She is retained in Mr. Bounderby's service until her snooping gets her fired.

• Mrs. Pegler 

Mrs old woman who makes a yearly pilgrimage to Coketown. At the end of the novel, she is discovered to be the mother of Mr. Josiah Bounderby.

Reference 

https://www.gradesaver.com/hard-times/study-guide/character-list

https://study.com/academy/lesson/hard-times-characters.html

https://www.supersummary.com/hard-times/summary/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Times_(novel)

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/hard-times/summary

The Ancient Rime Mariner

• Biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born 21 October 1772, Ottery Saint Mary, United Kingdom. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 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 also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd.

He is also known for his well-known works such as Kubla Khans, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and critical work Biographia Literaria. 

He wrote highly influential work, particularly his works on William Shakespeare. He also attempted to introduce the philosophy of the German Idealist to English culture.

 

He coined terms and phrases in his English language; for example, the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief.” He had been an influential figure in American transcendentalism and inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson.

• Features of Coleridge's Poetry 

• Treatment of the Supernatural: He treats the supernatural in such a manner that it becomes convincing and at the same time, in some sense, a criticism of life.

• Suspension of Disbelief: The way in which Coleridge has achieved the willing suspension of disbelief has been even explained beautifully in the book The Romantic Imagination by Bowra.

• Satisfying Writing Style: The poems of his are not phantasmagoria of unconnected events but a coherent whole by exploiting our acquaintance with dreams and has in its own right as something intelligible and satisfying.

• Realism: He exercises imaginative realism.

• Medievalism present: Medievalism is present everywhere in Coleridge's poetry. The whole Rime of Ancient Mariner is wrought with the color and glamor of the Middle Ages.

Summary of The Ancient Rime Mariner 

• In the beginning of the poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, is about an ancient mariner who stops a wedding guest. The wedding guest was the groom’s best man. The mariner started telling him a strange tale. At this point in the poem, the wedding was about to begin. A group of guests from the wedding was on their way to the feast. One of them, who was the groom’s best man, stopped. He was running late. He was hurrying to the wedding hall. He could hear the music from the hall; he knew that the bride had entered. He was not interested in listening to the sailor but the mariner held his hand and forced him to sit and listen to him. 

• The mariner started saying that when the ship left the harbor, everything was very joyful and cheerful. They sailed leaving behind the church, the hill and the lighthouse. The sun shone very brightly and they were sailing very happily. But their happiness did not last for long because they were hit by a tyrannous storm and the wind changed the course of the ship towards the south direction. Nevertheless, the ship kept on advancing. In the meanwhile, the guest could hear the ritual of the wedding had started but he could not leave the sailor. 

• The old sailor continued saying that, as they kept moving ahead in the storm, they met with huge icebergs all around.  The ship got stuck in those icebergs and they were making loud noises when cracking. Then they saw an albatross come from nowhere and perched on the ship.

• The bird was considered to be a messenger of God. They thought that there could be land nearby. The albatross hovered on the icebergs that blocked their journey. The huge mass of ice broke into two, making way for the ship. The sailors on board thought that the bird was a good omen because they were able to commence their voyage once again. After escaping the storm, the ship had to face severe cold and mist. Visibility became very poor and it was getting difficult to navigate. The bird accompanied along with the ship and they could surpass the mist. The crew members were happy because they thought that the bird brought the favourable conditions and fed the bird. The sailors played with the bird. The bird stuck around for nine days with the ship. One day, the old mariner in the spur of the moment shot the bird with a bow and an arrow. The other sailors became very angry with the mariner and cursed him for his deeds. After the death of the bird, the sunshine returned and the weather became better. All the sailors felt that it was the right decision to kill the bird because it brought the storm and the mist.

• After a few days of the comfortable voyage, the wind stopped blowing and the ship came to a halt. The sun was getting hotter and hotter. They could not find a single drop of drinking water. Only they could see seawater all around. The sea became very quiet and seemed like it was burning in flames. Soon, the sailors realized that killing the bird caused misery to them. They got very angry with the old mariner and cursed him for what he did. They replaced the cross from his neck with the dead bird. The old sailor then started feeling guilty for killing it, so he shared his tale with the strangers. 

The Ancient Rime Mariner Characters 

• Ancient Mariner

The poem's protagonist. He is unnaturally old, with skinny, deeply-tanned limbs and a "glittering eye." He sets sail from his native country with two hundred other men who are all saved from a strange, icy patch of ocean when they are kind to an Albatross that lives there. Impulsively and inexplicably, he shoots the Albatross with his crossbow and is punished for his crime by a spirit who loved the Albatross. He is cursed to be haunted indefinitely by his dead shipmates, and to be compelled to tell the tale of his downfall at random times. Each time he is compelled to share his story with someone, he feels a physical agony that is abated only temporarily once he finishes telling the tale.

• Wedding Guest

One of three people on their way to a wedding reception; he is next of kin to the bridegroom. The Ancient Mariner stops him, and despite his protests compels him to sit and listen to the entirety of his story. He is afraid of the Ancient Mariner and yearns to join the merriment of the wedding celebration, but after he hears the Ancient Mariner's story, he becomes both "sadder and...wiser."

• The Sailors

Two hundred seamen who set sail with the Ancient Mariner one clear, sunny day and find themselves in the icy world of the "rime" after a storm, from which the Albatross frees them. They feed and play with the Albatross until the Ancient Mariner inexplicably kills it. They begin to suffer from debilitating heat and thirst. They hang the Albatross's corpse around the Ancient Mariner's neck to punish him. When Life-in-Death wins the Ancient Mariner's soul, the sailors' souls are left to Death and they curse the Ancient Mariner with their eyes before dying suddenly. Even though their souls fly out, their bodies refuse to rot and lie open-eyed on the deck, continuously cursing the Ancient Mariner. After the rain returns, the sailors come alive and silently man the ship, singing beautiful melodies. When the ship reaches the harbor, they once again curse the Ancient Mariner with their eyes and then disappear, leaving only their corpses behind. The Ancient Mariner is destined to suffer the curse of a living death and continually be haunted by their cursing eyes.

• Albatross

A great, white sea bird that presumably saves the sailors from the icy world of the "rime" by allowing them to steer through the ice and sending them a good, strong wind. The Albatross, however, also makes a strange mist follow the ship. It flies alongside the ship, plays with the sailors, and eats their food, until the Ancient Mariner shoots it with his crossbow. Its corpse is hung around the Ancient Mariner's neck as a reminder of his crime and falls off only when he is able to appreciate the beauty of nature and pray once more. The Albatross is loved by a powerful spirit who wreaks havoc on and kills the sailors while leaving the Ancient Mariner to the special agony of Life-in-Death.

• Life-in-Death

This haunting figure is found, along with Death, on the ghost ship that approaches the Mariner and the Sailors when their own ship is becalmed after the Mariner’s killing of the albatross. Life-in-Death is described as having red lips, yellow hair, and white skin. She throws dice with Death and wins the Mariner’s soul, and given the Mariner’s subsequent inability to pray until he has completed his penance, there is the suggestion that he truly experiences a kind of life-in-death, not in the sense of being a zombie, but in the sense of being cut off from both the natural and spiritual worlds even as he continues to exist, until he completes his penance.

• First Voice and Second Voice

These two voices, the First Voice and Second Voice, are introduced at the end of Part Six in the poem, and continue into the beginning of Part Seven. The voices are supernatural spirits that discuss the penance the Mariner has done and the continued penance that will be required of him.

• Reference 

https://www.vedantu.com/english/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-summary

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1696/brief-review-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner

https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/character-list

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/characters

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope

'A Rape of the Lock' characters

• Introduction of Alexander Pope 

Alexander Pope was born on  21 May 1688, London, United Kingdom.Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents.He died on 30 May 1744, Radnor House Independent School, Twickenham, United Kingdom.

• Analysis of 'A Rape of the Lock' 

The Rape of the Lock was written by Alexander Pope and first published in 1712, then reworked and published again in 1714. There are five cantos. The poem is a mock-epic that satirizes the upper-class in London at the time. The story focuses on the central character, Belinda, whose lock of hair is cut off at a social gathering.

Belinda arises to prepare for the day’s social activities after sleeping late. Her guardian sylph, Ariel, warned her in a dream that some disaster will befall her, and promises to protect her to the best of his abilities. Belinda takes little notice of this oracle, however. 

After an elaborate ritual of dressing and primping, she travels on the Thames River to Hampton Court Palace, an ancient royal residence outside of London, where a group of wealthy young socialites are gathering for a party. Among them is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to steal a lock of Belinda’s hair. He has risen early to perform and elaborate set of prayers and sacrifices to promote success in this enterprise. When the partygoers arrive at the palace, they enjoy a tense game of cards, which Pope describes in mock-heroic terms as a battle. 

This is followed by a round of coffee. Then the Baron takes up a pair of scissors and manages, on the third try, to cut off the coveted lock of Belinda’s hair. Belinda is furious. Umbriel, a mischievous gnome. Clarissa, who had aided the Baron in his crime, now urges Belinda to give up her anger in favor of good humor and good sense, moral qualities which will outlast her vanities. But Clarissa’s moralizing falls on deaf ears, and Belinda initiates a fight between the ladies and the gentlemen, in which she attempts to recover the severed curl. 

The lock is lost in the confusion of this mock battle, however; the poet consoles the bereft Belinda with the suggestion that it has been taken up into the heavens and immortalized as a constellation.

Characters of 'A Rape of the Lock'

• Belinda

The character of Belinda is the heroine of The Rape of the Lock. Pope bases her character on the historical Arabella Fermor, the daughter of an aristocratic Catholic family. Robert, Lord Petre, a family friend, snipped a lock of her hair without permission, thereby causing a rift between their two families. The Pope depicts this incident in the poem.

• The Baron

The Baron is an admirer of Belinda’s, and he enacts the “rape of the lock” by cutting off one of the curls of hair that hung down her neck. He is based on the historical Robert, Lord Petre.

• Caryll

John Caryll, a friend of Pope’s who witnessed the incident between Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre.Who inspired Pope for writing on poem on this incident. 

• Clarissa

Clarissa is one of the women in attendance at the Hampton Court party. She is complicit in the severing of Belinda’s hair, lending her sewing scissors to the Baron. She later delivers a moralizing speech lasted for very long time, women need to be nice because their beauty will fade.

• Ariel

Ariel takes his job very seriously. He helps Belinda get ready and does a much better job than her maid, Betty, ever could do. He and the other sylphs flutter around, trying to protect Belinda when she plays cards. Ariel is also a master delegator, rather like the commander of an army. He assigns all the other sylphs jobs of protecting Belinda.

• Thalestris

Thalestris isn't a great friend to Belinda, even though she calls herself one. When Belinda is upset, she makes the situation worst , reminding Belinda how hard she worked to get her hair just right. She also tells Belinda her reputation will suffer if her hair is displayed—and that as a result, Thalestris's own reputation will suffer if she tries to defend her.

• Sir Plume

Thalestris’s boyfriend and Belinda’s brother.  He makes an ineffectual challenge to the Baron. He represents the historical Sir George Browne, a member of Pope’s social circle.

Reference 

Wikipedia. Com

Gradesaver.com

https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Rape-of-the-Lock/character-map/ 

Characters of Macbeth

Introduction of WilIiam Shakespeare 

William Shakespeare was born on April 26 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom. William Shakespeare, often called England's national poet an" Bard of Avon", is considered the greatest dramatist of all time. His works are loved throughout the world. William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom.

Brief Summary of Macbeth 

This drama is one of the great tragedy themed plays by William Shakespeare. The themes illustrated in the play include ambition, fate, deception and treachery. Three witches  decide to confront the great Scottish general Macbeth on his victorious return from a war between Scotland and Norway. The Scottish king, Duncan, decides that he will confer the title of the traitorous Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth. Macbeth, and another General called Banquo, happen upon the three witches. The witches predict that he will one day become king. He decides that he will murder Duncan. Macbeth's wife agrees to his plan. He then murders Duncan assisted by his wife who smears the blood of Duncan on the daggers of the sleeping guards. A nobleman called Macduff discovers the body. Macbeth kills the guards insisting that their daggers smeared with Duncan's blood are proof that they committed the murder. The crown passes to Macbeth. More murders ensue and the bloodied ghost of Banquo appears to Macbeth. Lady Macbeth's conscience now begins to torture her and she imagines that she can see her hands covered with blood. She commits suicide. Macduff kills Macbeth and becomes king.

Main Characters of Macbeth 

Macbeth

Macbeth, is a brave Scottish general in King Duncan’s army. However, upon hearing the three witches’ prophecy that he would become King of Scotland, he becomes tyrannical. With his wife’s help and encouragement he kills King Duncan, but this fills him with deep regret and guilt. Plagued by insecurities and the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s descendants would be kings, he keeps spies on all the noblemen and arranges for Banquo and his son to be murdered, although he hides this from his wife. Banquo's ghost haunts him and he suffers from insanity and insomnia. He seeks out the witches again, who still affirm the prophecy, and he goes on a murderous rampage. He mourns his wife’s death and contemplates killing himself too as Malcolm’s army approaches him. However, Macduff challenges him and he decides to die fighting.

Lady Macbeth

Even more ambitious and ruthless than her husband Macbeth, Lady Macbeth plots to murder King Duncan upon hearing of the witches’ prophecy. She goads Macbeth into the evil deed despite his hesitance, gives the guards drugged wine, and lays out the bloody daggers. She comforts her husband in his guilt afterwards. When Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost, Lady Macbeth nervously tries to calm him down and dismisses their guests. However, her guilt soon turns her mad as well and, tormented by nightmares, she sleepwalks as she tries to wash out the invisible bloodstains on her hands. She dies offstage in the final act, a supposed suicide.

Macduff

Macduff is loyal to King Duncan. He is the first to discover Duncan’s dead body and never believes it was the servants who killed him. Macduff flees to England, trying to find King Duncan’s son Malcolm and restore him as rightful king but meanwhile, Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children murdered. Full of grief and revenge, he persuades Malcolm to lead an army against Macbeth, challenges Macbeth one-to-one and slays him. A child of a cesarean birth, he thus fulfills the witches’ prophecy that no man of woman born would harm Macbeth.

Three Witches

Macbeth to his tyrannical desire for power. When the witches first meet Macbeth and Banquo, they prophesy that Macbeth will become King of Scotland and that Banquo’s descendants will be kings. When Macbeth seeks them out again, they produce apparitions of his downfall while delivering three more prophecies to him: beware Macduff, none of the women born will harm him, and he will be safe until a local wood, Birnam Wood, marches into battle against him. They leave the audience questioning whether they are agents of fate or independent agents manipulating humans’ lives.

Malcolm

Malcolm is one of King Duncan’s sons and proclaimed heir to his throne. Suspected of his own father’s murder, he flees to England. When Macduff comes to find him in England, Malcolm initially tests his loyalty. Ultimately, Malcolm is convinced that they need to enact vengeance and fight Macbeth. He mobilizes an army in England and leads them to Scotland with Macduff’s help. He and his forces march on Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth has retreated, camouflaging themselves with branches from Birnam Wood and thereby fulfilling the witches’ prophecy. He takes over as king and restores order.

Banquo

Banquo, is a Scottish general known for his bravery like his friend Macbeth. They meet the witches together upon returning from battle, and Banquo is also eager to know what their prophecy is for him. They tell him that he will not be king, but that his descendants will inherit the throne. Banquo is skeptical of the prophecy and resists the temptation of power that Macbeth gives into. When Macbeth takes the throne, Banquo pledges loyalty to him despite his suspicions, but Macbeth has him murdered, seeking to secure his position as king. Banquo's ghost appears and haunts Macbeth at the banquet that night, as well as later in a vision from the witches.

King Duncan

The good King of Scotland whom Macbeth, in his ambition for the crown, murders. Duncan is the model of a virtuous, benevolent, and farsighted ruler. His death symbolizes the destruction of an order in Scotland that can be restored only when Duncan’s line, in the person of Malcolm, once more occupies the throne.

Fleance

Banquo’s son, who survives Macbeth’s attempt to murder him. At the end of the play, Fleance’s whereabouts are unknown. Presumably, he may come to rule Scotland, fulfilling the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s sons will sit on the Scottish throne.

Lady Macduff

Macduff’s wife. The scene in her castle provides our only glimpse of a domestic realm other than that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. She and her home serve as contrasts to Lady Macbeth and the hellish world of Inverness.

Reference 

Wikipedia. Com

 Poetry Fountain 

Gradesaver.com 

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/about-us/

The Rover

                          The Rover 

                            Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors.

              The Rover Summary 

The Rover or The Banish'd Cavaliers is a play in two parts that is written by the English author Aphra Behn. It is a revision of Thomas Killigrew's play Thomaso, or The Wanderer (1664), and features multiple plot lines, dealing with the amorous adventures of a group of Englishmen and women in Naples at Carnival time.

Character of Angelica

Women in seventeenth century Europe had few options in terms of marriage and courtship. They could not initiate relations with men, often their father and/ or their brother would decide whom they would marry. Once a rich and respectable suitor was found a dowry payment was invested in the hope of an advantageous marriage. The youngest of daughters were often sent to convents in an attempt to reduce expenses, while at the same time remaining religious and contributing to the church. Yet, in poorer families, prostitution was an inevitable choice of life for some young women. Although, we do not know the background of our courtesan we can almost assume she has come from a poor background. It is with this thought in mind that we must analyze Angelica; yet not with a biased view.

Angellica is not a common whore though, in the play she is a very beautiful and famous courtesan:

‘How wondrous fair she is’

Being of this position she can therefore exercise her ability to seduce men and gain financial benefit. One such example of her underlying power over the men in this play is when Willmore and Antonio start a fight and it is her who breaks them up by ‘commanding them to stop’. This is particularly important to the play as a whole as she is the only female in this play who has any power in a seemingly evident patriarchal society further emphasizing its unusualness. Yet it is here that her real power stops. She has beauty, men adore her sexuality and she can command them like dogs but as the play progresses we get to see more and more of how she is a victim and how she is only a body for men to conquer.

The men straight away see her as a product they could buy and depersonalize. Belvile shows great concern to her ‘price’, blunt refers to her as a ‘commodity’ and Willmore speaks of his need to ‘purchase’ her beauty. Although Angellica makes clear the workings of the marketplace for her body; curiosity feeds her credit and price. Her credit is balanced upon the continued titillation of the men’s desire, through the displaying of her pictures. This shows her dependence on this financial system and her clever manipulation of it. She is wanton of men who have power and wealth; she clearly thinks Pedro will adjust her status for the better and remarks.

In today's world also before marrying a guy his wealth(money) is the first priority. An  Angelica is  courtesan in the novel The Rover her priority is also money. How much high money is Paid she sleeps with that man. The same in today’s financial condition is firstly seen before marrying( him/her) daughter. That in future she doesn't get in a financial crisis or problems regarding wealth (money).