English Literature

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/26/biography The Human Factor by Lucasta Miller Copied from the newspaper The Guardian In 1995, in the early days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the literary scholar and cultural theorist, Stephen Greenblatt, had a momentary encounter with Bill Clinton at a White House reception. Clinton recalled being made to learn Macbeth at

                     �I find earth not grey but rosy/ Heaven not grim but fair of hue.� Robert Browning, a cherished poet of the Victorian era, has many of his poems filled with unbridled optimism. � Browning is emphatically the poet-militant, and the prophet of struggling manhood. His words are like trumpet-calls sounded in the van of man�s struggle, wafted back by winds, and heard through the din of conflict by his meaner brethren, who are obscurely fighting for good in the throng and crush of life�, very aptly remarks  a critic.   When Browning started writing, the attitude of the milieu was scientific and materialistic. And this means, people had lost faith in religion, morality and spirituality. He was optimistic about the existence of God and the notion of a perfect heaven. His poetry is a reflection of this, deviating from the scientific temperament typical of his age. Robert Browning is an optimist, and as an optim...

A dramatic monologue is dramatic discourse usually employing the following elements: a fiction speaker, an implied audience, a symbolic setting, dramatic gestures, and emphasis on speaker�s subjectivity.  Dramatic monologues provide interesting snapshots of the speakers and their personalities. Robert Browning is often considered the master of the form of the dramatic monologue � if not the first to �inaugurate [the first] to perfect this poetic form.� In Browning�s dramatic monologues the speakers lay bare his inner thoughts and feelings �that is why they are regarded as the soul studies. Browning admits: �the soul is the stage; moods and thoughts are characters.� He emphasizes: �My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study.� Well-known for his expertise of dram atic monologue, Browning made a special feature of it in his work. The dramatic monologue verse form allowed Browning to explore and probe the minds of specific characters. Thi...

Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences Homi K. Bhabha The revision of the history of critical theory rests � on the notion of cultural difference, not cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is an epistemological object�culture as an object of empirical knowledge�whereas cultural difference is the process of the enunciation of culture as �knowledgeable,� authoritative, adequate to the

In JNU, New Delhi, India, on Feb 6, 2016, Makarand Paranjape gave a stunning and eye opener lecture in an open class. have a look at this speech: Lecture Title: "India's Uncivil Wars? ... Tagore, Gandhi- JNU and What is "Left" of Postcolonial Nationalism" Link of lecture:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmhhvJjQ1Y Link of the lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmhhvJjQ1Y