English Literature

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN The period from 1798 to 1824 is termed as �The Romantic Age� of English Literature. In this period the writing was mostly poetry. A revolution was taking place in poetic language and its themes. Previously the head controlled the heart, now the heart controlled the head; for the previous poets feelings and imagination were dangerous, but for the Romantics reason and the intellect were dangerous. The romantic period is the most fruitful period in the history of English literature. The revolt against the classical school which had been started by writers like Chatterton, Collins, Gray, Burne, Cowper etc. reached its climax during this period and some of the greatest and most popular English poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats belong to this period. To have knowledge of the trends and characteristics of this age we are to discuss some of its prominent and representative figures. T...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN �The Prelude�, a kind of �semi-autobiography� is only a record of the meaningful experiences of Wordsworth�s life. He tells the story of his inner life from earliest childhood up to 1798, the year of the �Lyrical Ballads�. It is not a self-portrait. In it, Wordsworth makes no attempt to bring his personality before the reader. It actually offers us a record of his mental and spiritual growth which starts from his very infant days. As it is concerned with the development of the poet�s sensibilities, only those aspects and events of his life which affected them are included. He selects only those of his actions and experiences which are significant for the evolution of his soul. It is the Nature inspired life which he lived through his childhood and youth that he tries to recapture and record. The introduction to �The Prelude� ends with a brief account of the paradisiacal state of childhood described ...

1. �Let not ambition mock�lead but to the grave.� (ll. 29�36) Ans. In these lines from the poem, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, the poet Thomas Gray, standing in a country churchyard, reflects upon the generalised past lives of the villagers and admonishes ambitious rich persons not to laugh at the poor persons underground and persons living in grandeur not to listen to their stories. Then he sardonically adds, as a note of caution, that whatever human beings possess or achieve in this world, their ultimate destination is the grave. As the poet watches the ordinary graves of ordinary villagers, he recalls some snapshots of their generalised lives. He finds that they led their lives, of course, in poverty, but they lived in happiness. They did their day-to-day activities and enjoyed their domestic joys in their own ways. They remained outside the great political or military fields and remained quite unknown to the world. In fact, the circle of their existence was very limited, a...