Paradise lost Book 9 simplified explanation

Paradise lost Book 9 simplified explanation

         An epic poem is a lengthy narrative poem involving a time beyond living memory in which occurred extraordinary doings of extraordinary men, dealing with Gods or other superhuman forces

10 characteristics

1.  Begins in media res

2.  Setting is vast covering nations and universe

3.  Invocation to Muse

4.  Begins with statement of theme

5.  Includes use of epithets

6.  Epic catalogue

7.  Long and formal speeches

8.  Divine intervention in human affairs

9.  features heroes that embody the value of civilization

10.               Often features hero’s tragic descent into the underworld.

Hero

Participates in cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries and returns home transformed by his journey. Hero performs deeds and exemplifies morals.

Epic conventions

1.  Proposition: Stating theme or cause of the epic. “Justify the ways of God to men”

2.  Invocation: poet invokes a muse (one of the nine daughters of Zeus)

3.  In Media res: in the middle of things

4.  Enumeratio: Catalogues and genealogies are given

5.  Epithet: repetition f stock phrases

Short summary of Book 9

         Milton places his epic within the tradition of tragedy; it involves the fall of great mean through some special flaw. Milton reaffirms has ability and speaks with Christian humility mentioning hi old age and asking the holy spirit to finish the poem through him

ADAM AND EVE’S DISOBEDIENCE AND THE FALL OF MAN

·      Milton asks Muse to keep him from being distracted by vain descriptions of long and tedious havoc (as Homer and Virgil) did in their epics. The scene turns to Satan, who has been hiding in the dark side of the Earth for 7 days after being banished by Gabriel. On the 8^th day Satan returns to Eden disguised as a mist following the Tigris river and rising up in the fountain next to the tree of life

SATAN’S PLAN

·      Satan studies all the creatures of Eden and finally settles on snake for its wit and native subtlety. Before continuing with his plan Satan hesitates grieving what might have been. He decides that the Earth was more beautiful than heaven

·      Adam and Eve’s happiness causes him grater anguish

·      Satan reaffirms his purpose to bring evil out of God’s creation

·      Satan laments how far he has fallen from the position of Archangel to the mazy folds and bestial slime f the serpent. He poses like a sleeping snake which is curled up upon itself like a labyrinth

EVE ‘S IDEA OF WORKING SEPARATELY

·      The next morning Adam and Eve wake up and do their usual praise to God. Eve proposes that she and Adam work separately to get more work done. Adam does not approve of the idea, he worries that the two might be more susceptible to Stan if they are separated. And in times of danger a woman’s place is with her husband.

·      Eve responds that she has overheard Raphael’s warning. Adam tries to dissuade her because he is wiser than her. Eve says they will have “double honour” if they defend themselves alone angst Satan. Adam reminds her of her free will. Eve replies that the proud Satan will seek Adam first. She parts Adam asks her to be back by noon. Milton comments that they will never have sweet repast in paradise again.

SATAN CONVINCING EVE

·      Satan is delighted t find her alone. Satan is momentarily stunned by her beauty but he is reminded of his hatred. Satan coils himself and seems to stand upright in a “surging maze” lifting his head  to get Eve’s attention

·      Serpent calls Eve “goddess among Gods” she is amazed that serpent could talk, Satan explains that he found a tree with beautiful apples and at the fruit and he go the ability to talk and expanded intellect , he is able to perceive heavenly and earthly knowledge

·      Eve asks him where the tree grows. Satan offers to show her. Eve sees the tree of  knowledge and says she has been forbidden by God from eating the fruit. Stan asks about the commandment, Eve reaffirms that she and Adam can eat any fruit except that of tree of knowledge

·      Satan says that the Tree of knowledge has revealed to him that god actually wants Even an Adam to disobey him as this will prove her independence and dauntless virtue in braving death. Satan says that he himself has proved that the fruit does not bring death. He persuades Eve telling that God will not punish for such small thing

·      Satan says that God has forbidden the fruit to keep Adam and Eve “low and ignorant instead of assuming their proper places as Gods” if servant can achieve speech, then Eve will surely become a goddess. Satan suggest that there is no sin in desiring virtue and knowledge

EVE EATING THE FRUIT FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

·      Eve looks at the fruit which seems perfect and delicious. She thinks that the fruit might be very powerful since the God has forbidden it. It seems very wrong that such magical fruit is denied to humans if beasts can have it. In the evil hour, she takes a bite, “Earth felt the wound and ll was lost”

·      Eve praises the tree of knowledge and thiks if she should let Adam eat it. Then resolves to give him. If she dies, he would be wedded to another Eve

ADAM EATS THE FRUIT

·      Adam has been weaving a bouquet of flowers to give Eve. Adam sees the forbidden fruit in her hand and Eve explains that the serpent ate it and learnt to speak. She has eaten it an her eyes have been open. she is “growing up to Godhead” she wants Adam to try “equal joy as equal love”

·      Adam drops the garland, he stands there speechless and pale. He is horrified that Eve has succumbed to temptation. Adam’s sin is placing his love for Eve above his love for God.

·      Adam is curious and is attracted to Eve’s beauty; Eve is distracted by appearance and wanting to prove herself. Milton shows how these flaws lead to fully fledged sins

FALL OF MAN

·      NATURE GROANS AGAIN AND SKY WEEPS. Adam feels invigorated and godlike, he is filled with lust. They runoff to a shady bank to have sex and they sleep. After waking up they realized that instead of gaining knowledge of divine, they have gained knowledge of “good lost and evil got”

·      The two are suddenly aware off their nakedness an cover themselves with fig leaves

·      They stat o weep and emotions f sin com to them , they are filled with anger, hate mistrust suspicion and discord

MILTON’S MESSAGE

·      Knowledge is important but not all knowledge leads to good when it involves being disobedient and breaking order.

ANALYSIS

Milton’s 4^th invocation differs from the earlier ones. He doesnot invoke Urania

Christian epic with tragic core

Adam – “patience and heroic matryrdom”

Felix culpa- happy fault

Satan – “incarnate and brute/ That to the height f deity aspired”

Prilapsarian serpent “circular base of riing folds that towed/ Fold above fold, a surging maze”

Epic poem in blank verse

Ist verson 1667- 10 books-10,000 verse

2^nd version- 1674-12 books

Epics purpose is stated in Book 1

Charcters

1.  Satan

2.  Adam

3.  Eve

4.  Son of God

5.  God, the Father

6.  Raphael

7.  Michael

MOTIFS

·      Marriage

·      Idolatory

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS

1.  "Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost." ~ John Milton

2.  "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse" ~ John Milton

3.  "Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death?" ~ John Milton

4.  "Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself." ~ John Milton

5.  "So glistered the dire Snake , and into fraud Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the Tree Of Prohibition, root of all our woe." ~ John Milton

6.  "Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." ~ John Milton

7.  "The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,

Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,

Who guards her, or with her the worst endures." ~ John Milton

8."Should God create another Eve, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe." ~ John Milton

9."Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils." ~ John Milton

10."All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield." ~ John Milton

11. "O fairest of creation, last and best Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflow'red, and now to death devote? Paradise Lost" ~ John Milton

Trance of Waiting by Sri Aurobindo critical analysis

 

Trance of Waiting

Sri Aurobindo

*         Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) was an Indian, yogi, guru poet and naturalist

*         During his stay in jail, he had mystical and spiritual experineces after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work.

*         Sri Aurobindo developed a spiritual practice, he called Internal Yoga

*         The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into divine life

*          at the center of Aurobindo’s metaphysical system is the supermind, which means an intermediary power between the  unmanifested Brahman and the manifested mind

*         Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer writing some of the most detailed  and comprehensive discourse on spiritual evolution. He said that his inspiration to write came from his inner pilot, from  a higher score

Works

*         Synthesis of Yoga : Practical guidance of internal yoga

*         Savitri : A legend and a symbol, an epic poem

POEM

 

Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,

Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,

Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for ever,

Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.

Distant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges

Pales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy bird.

Thought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the nerve-beat of living

Stills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release.

Wisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot measure;

Light that no vision can render garments the silence with splendour.

Filled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being

Tremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of repose.

Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for vesture.

Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate.

Time waits, vacant, the lightning that kindles, the Word that transfigures:

Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode.

All waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal;

Passion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.

 

EXPLANATION

*         Trance of Waiting is a mystic poem

*         The poet has shown himself to be in a state of waiting to have a communication with the divine spirit.

*         To have a communication with God (Divine soul) he has kept himself away from the din and bustle of human society and goes to the contact of nature and in  the silence of nature.

*         He broods over the objects of nature and feels like the object of nature also waits for the command from God.

 

The Coromandel Fishers by Sarojini Naidu analysis and line by line explanation

 

The Coromandel Fishers

by Sarojini Naidu

 

SAROJINI NAIDU

*      Indian political activist and poet

*      A proponent of civil rights, woman’s emancipation and anti imperialistic ideas

*      Important figure in India’s struggle for independence

*      Sobriquet “ Nightingale of India” by Mahatma Gandhi

*      First Indian president of Indian National Congress

Works

*      The Golden Threshold (1905)

*      The Bird of Time (1912)

*      The Broken Wing

*      Muhammad Jinnah : An Ambassador of Unity

*      The Sceptered Flute (1928)

*      The Feather of the Dawn (1961)

*      The Indian Weavers

POEM

Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light,
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night.
Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free,
To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea!

No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea gull's call,
The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives?
He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives.

Sweet is the shade of the coconut glade, and the scent of the mango grove,
And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love;
But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee;
Row, brothers, row to the edge of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.

EXPLANATION

*      The poet describes the lives of fishermen

*      The leader of the fishermen is giving a call to his comrades to start their work early in the morning

*      Coromandel fishes refers to the fishermen on the coromandel coast of South indie

*      The early morning sky is compared to someone  waking up from sleep . The leader awakens other fishermen that the sun has risen

*      The wind is not blowing, it is like a tired child who had cried all night, sleeping peacefully in it s mother’s arms

*      It is right time to start their journey

*       they should gather their nets and set the boats free

*      They are the sons of the sea therefore they have right to capture the leaping wealth of the ocean, which means fishes

*      The fishermen call themselves as the king of the sea

*       the narrator hurries his colleagues because they should follow the sea gull’s call.

*      The seagull knows where the fishes are

*      The sea, the cloud, the waves are also close to the fishermen like mother brothers and friends.

*      The sea God is thee protector of the sea and he will protect them

*      The fishermen love the land. The shade of coconut grove, the smell of mango grove and sounds of the  nature but the foam , the waves and the sea is more appealing to them

*      The sun is setting and it is time to go back to the land, so brothers row the boat to thee edge of thee sea

*      It metaphorically reflects the poet’s desire for free India and thus she encourages the people of the nation to hasten their struggle.

Figures of Speech

*      Simile : like a child that has cried all night

*      Personification : Sea Gull’s call

Low sky mates with the sky

*      Sarojini Naidu uses poetry as a veritable portrait gallery of Indian folk characters luring the lives and carrying on their different vocations against a rural background which is faithful representation of the Indian rural landscape.

*      With its vividly realized flora and fauna, the picture of India and the life of her masses thus evoked in  a beautiful romantic way

*      The coromandel fishers not only represent the fishermen’s identity with the sea and with the community but also the folk sense of order and discipline.

*      It evokes a folk vocation which is yet untouched by modern technology and sophistication.

 

 

 

 

Poem in October by Dylan Thomas critical analysis

 

POEM IN OCTOBER

Dylan Marlais Thomas

Ñ Welsh poet and writer

Ñ Noted for his original rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery

Ñ Also noted for verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme.

Ñ Some of the famous poems are “Do not gentle into that goodnight”, “Death shall have no domain” and “ the play of voices ”

Works

Ñ 18 poems (Poet’s corner book prize)

Ñ In the Country sleep and other poems

Ñ Me and my Bike

Ñ Rebecca’s daughter

Ñ Death and Entrances

Ñ The Map of love

Ñ The World I Breathe

Ñ Twenty five poems

PROSE

Ñ The beach at falsea

Ñ Letters to Vernon Watkins

Ñ A Prospect of the Sea

Ñ The Doctor and the devils

Ñ The Portrait of artist as a young Dog

DRAMA

Under  Milk wood

Ñ Poem in October 7 stanza poem

Ñ Separated into 10 lines

Ñ Found in the volume “Death and Entrance”

Ñ Vision of childhood vs. momentous frustrated urban help

Ñ Comparing and contrasting pictures of village life and town life, which shows backward and forward movement

Ñ A S Collins says “A passionate love of nature likened to childhood memories produced a beauty that touches the heart and stirs the sense”

POEM

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbor and neighbor wood
   And the mussel pooled and the heron
           Priested shore
       The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
       Myself to set foot
           That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
   Above the farms and the white horses
           And I rose
       In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
       Over the border
           And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
   Blackbirds and the sun of October
           Summery
       On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
       To the rain wringing
           Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
   With its horns through mist and the castle
           Brown as owls
       But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
       There could I marvel
           My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
   Streamed again a wonder of summer
           With apples
       Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
       Through the parables
           Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
   These were the woods the river and sea
           Where a boy
       In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
       And the mystery
           Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
   Joy of the long dead child sang burning
           In the sun.
       It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
       O may my heart's truth
           Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

EXPLANATION

Ñ Summary Speaker’s journey in an autumn, up to a hill to reclaim childhood joy, the summer season and his spirituality

Ñ The poem begins with the speaker stating that he was 30 yrs. old when he wrote this poem.

Ñ It was his birthday and he chose to walk

Ñ He left his home, travelled alongside the water’s edge, listened to the seabirds and the woods

Ñ He started climbing the hills. At the same time seasons  began to change

Ñ Autumn and its cool air faded away and the summer returned

Ñ The rain continued as he climbed as did the presence of birds

Ñ These two images are crucial for the poet’s understanding of happiness and childhood

Ñ When he finally got to the top of the hill, it was like he got heaven

Ñ The speaker recalls visiting the place along with his mother and what it meant to him then.

Ñ He hoped while on the hill that joy he experienced will last throughout the year

Ñ He would return to reclaim it when he turns thirty one

Critical analysis

Ñ Village: Swansea

Ñ Hill: Fern hill

Ñ The age is described in years of progress towards heaven

Ñ He describes the shores as being priested by herons

Ñ Morning is praying

Ñ The waves dip and rise as if kneeling in prayer

Ñ He speaks about the gates he has to open and borders he has to cross

Ñ Dylan Thomas’ sacramental view of nature and the theme of remembered childhood October is between summer and winter similarly the age of thirty is between childhood and maturity

Ñ The poise between childish glory and the sadness of maturity, summer and winter, past and future is maintained to the end.