Arms and the Man as an Anti-romantic and anti war play

Md. Al Amin

George Bernard Shaw a Fabian socialist, occupies a significant position in the history of English literature as an unconventional dramatist. Being influenced by Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright he took his pen to write dramas to satirize the rotten attitudes, convention and manners of the society. Bernard Shaw created a new kind of play. The new drama giving up all traditional conventions of dramatic technique. Shaw wrote fifty three plays and all his plays are comedies. Arms and the Man is the most popular and successful staged drama of Shaw. It is also an anti- romantic comedy because it exposes the folly cowardice of soldier’s shatters the romantic illusions about war and attacks severely romantic and sentimental love.

The English Romantic Movement “as return to Nature. Or, The main features of Romanticism

Md. Al Amin

Nature stands as a source of inspiration for the poets but poets have taken it differently when they have written poetry in different Eras of history. For romantics, nature constituted in poetry differently but for 18^th century poets, nature’s role was different. Romanticism was a reaction against 18^th century poets’ outlook. Nature was admired by Romantics as it existed even wild and they considered Nature as their teacher, their guide, their source of inspiration and their mother while Nature for 18^th century poets stood for normal reality of universal law. Dr. Johnson said, “Nothing can please many, and please long but just representations of general nature”.

Impact of Renaissance on Elizabethan Literature. Or, Elizabethan age is the golden age of English Literature.

Md. Al Amin

The Renaissance is a French word which means re-birth, revival or re-awakening. The Renaissance was both a revival of ancient classical mythology, literature and culture as well as a re-awakening of the human mind, after the long sleep of the dark Middle Ages, to the wonder, the glory and the beauty of the human body and the world of nature. “It was a re-discovery by mankind of himself and of the world.” In the words of the M.H. Abrahams Renaissance is “the birth of the modern world out of the ashes of the dark ages.” Renaissance began with the fall of the Constantinople in 1453. Mohamad-II, the sultan of the Ottoman Turks and a crusader defeated the Christians in 1453 and occupied Constantinople. It was the capital of Byzantine Empire and the center of classical learning. The scholars of ancient learning fled away to Italy and different other countries with their books and knowledge. They tried to spread their knowledge there. This revival of the classical knowledge is called Renaissance. Its salient features are– curiosity about more knowledge, desire for unlimited wealth and power, love of adventures, own country, beauty, humanism and the past.

How does Sophocles uses the Chorus in Antigone

Md. Al Amin

The main function of the Chorus in Greek tragedy was to provide the lyrical or musical element which Aristotle mentions as one of the essential ingredients of a tragedy. The Chorus consisted of twelve or fifteen Elders of the city, representing the citizens. The choral odes are not merely an excuse for providing the element of music in the play. Each song has a substantial content which is also a kind of commentary by the chorus on the various developments in the plot and on some of the actions of the characters. This running commentary by the Chorus may be regarded partly as the reaction of the citizens to the various happenings and the various deeds of the characters; but it also represents the reactions of the audience or the spectators, though not always.

Salient feature of the Restoration comedy of Manners.

Md. Al Amin

The Restoration period (1660-1700) had a great influence on the life and literature of contemporary age. This period is called the Restoration period because in this period, with the restoration of monarchy, the English literary tradition was restored. In the Commonwealth period Charles-II, the son of Charles-I, was escaped from England to France. After the fall of Commonwealth, the people of England brought him back and made him king of England (on May 29,1660). He remained in power till his death in 1685 when James-II, another son of Charles-I, ascended the throne. He was a catholic and most of the people who were protestants wanted to dethrone him. In 1688 there was the Glorious Revolution (Bloodless Revolution) against him. He fled to France. William-III of France and his wife Mary, the son-in-law and daughter of James-II, came to the power.