The Great Gatsby.

This blog is in response to a thinking activity given by our professor Dilip Barad https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2021/06/great-gatsby.html this is the link you can go there and see more detail about this task. In this Blog I am going to write about my understanding of "The Great Gatsby".

*THE GREAT GATSBY*

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.

Me and my two classmates gave introductory video based on this novel.

The Great Gatsby.pptx from DrashtiJoshi21

#With reference to the screening of film, I write My response to following points:

1) How did the film capture the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, the Flappers & the Prohibition Act of the America in 1920s?

-Jazz and the “Roaring Twenties”:-

Jazz music became wildly popular in the “Roaring Twenties,” a decade that witnessed unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in the United States. Consumer culture flourished, with ever greater numbers of Americans purchasing automobiles, electrical appliances, and other widely available consumer products.  The achievement of material affluence became a goal for many US citizens as well as an object of satire and ridicule for the writers and intellectuals of the Lost Generation.

Technological innovations like the telephone and radio irrevocably altered the social lives of Americans while transforming the entertainment industry. Suddenly, musicians could create phonograph recordings of their compositions. For jazz music, which was improvisational, the development of phonograph technology was transformative. Whereas previously, music-lovers would actually have to attend a nightclub or concert venue to hear jazz, now they could listen on the radio or even purchase their favorite recordings for at-home listening.

In Movies it shows very clearly when Jay Gatsby throws big parties it shows Jazz age and elements of Roaring Twenties.

These both images show the jazz age and also it shows the flapper culture. 

Flapper Culture:

 

-One of the ways that flappers rebelled against convention during the 1920s was by frequenting speakeasies and other private clubs where they could drink illegally. Previously, bars and saloons were considered an all-male space and respectable women did not drink in public. Even after Prohibition was over, Connecticut law made it illegal to serve a woman alcohol at or within three feet of a bar.

Prohibition of alcohol:

-During Prohibition (1919-1933), alcohol was still readily available in Connecticut. The coastline in Fairfield and Bridgeport provided direct access to international waters and ships that carried liquor from Europe, the Bahamas, and Canada. "Rum runners" used speedboats to deliver the liquor to networks along the Connecticut shoreline. Inland, bootleggers kept a steady supply of liquor flowing from New York and along the Post Road, and people distilled alcohol in homes, farms, and shops. Loopholes in the law enabled people to buy alcohol at a drugstore with a doctor's prescription, to make their own wine for family consumption, or to drink at a "speakeasy" that qualified as a private club.

In this video you can see the environment of the party in Film The Great Gatsby.

  

2) Watch PPT on the difference between the film and the novel and write in brief about it.

The Great Gatsby | Novel and Film Adaptation from Dilip Barad

-There are so many differences between the film and novel.

1.The Frame story.

2.Relationship of Jordan baker and Nick carraway.

3.Lunch with Wolfsheim.

4.Racism

5.Gatsby's Death and Funeral.

6.The Apartment Party.

In this PPT you can see some points which are given in an article by Davide Haglund. Name of that article is "How Faithful is a Great Gatsby"

3) How did the film help in understanding the symbolic significance of 'The Valley of Ashes', 'The Eyes of Dr. T J Eckleburg' and 'The Green Light'?

In The Great Gatsby, between the glittering excitement of Manhattan and the stately mansions of East and West Egg, there is a horrible stretch of road that goes through an area covered in dust and ash from the nearby factories. The valley of ashes is the depressing industrial area of Queens that is in between West Egg and Manhattan. It isn't actually made out of ashes, but seems that way because of how gray and smoke-choked it is.

This grayness and dust are directly related to the factories that are nearby-their smokestacks deposit a layer of soot and ash over everything. The valley is next to both the train tracks and the road that runs from West Egg to Manhattan—Nick and other characters travel through it via both modes of transportation.

Green Light suggests that Gatsby believes in Green light and it means a lot to him or we can say Green Light is very important for his life It means that if that Green light is not there on Dock on Daisy's Mention. 

In the world of The Great Gatsby, there is no moral center. Every character is shown to be selfish, delusional, or violent. Even Nick, who, as our narrator, is ostensibly meant to reflect on who is good and who is bad, turns out to be kind of a misogynist bigot. It's not surprising that none of these characters is shown to have faith of any kind. The closest any of them come to being led by an outside force, or voice of authority, is when Tom seems swayed by the super racist arguments of a book about how minorities are about to overwhelm whites. So it makes sense that Nick, whose job it is to watch everyone else and describe their actions, pays attention to something else that seems to also be watching—the billboard with the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg.

The billboard watches the site of the novel's biggest moral failures. On a more local level, the garage is the place where Daisy kills Myrtle. But on a bigger scale, the "ash heaps" of Queens show what happens to those who cannot succeed in the ambitious, self-serving, predatory world of the Roaring 20's that Fitzgerald finds so objectionable. The problem, of course, is that this billboard, this completely inanimate object, cannot stand in for a civilizing and moral influence, however much the characters who notice it cower under its gaze. Gatsby, who is also compared to "the advertisement of the man", the billboard is a sham representation of a deeper idea.

4) How did the film capture the theme of racism and sexism?

The racism in the book is largely expressed by characters we’re clearly supposed to disapprove of (like Tom). If a repulsive character says racist things, it’s hard to argue that they represent the author’s own views. This racism and sexism theme is used for Tom Buchannan.

In this video you can see how Tom was behaving with every person around him.

5)Watch the video on Nick Carraway and discuss him as a narrator.

Nick Carraway is the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. He is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. He lives in West Egg, next door to the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As the novel progresses, Nick becomes increasingly involved with Gatsby's life and the lives of those around him. Nick is a reliable narrator who is able to look at the events of the novel objectively. He is also an unbiased narrator, allowing the reader to form their own opinions about the characters.

Nick is also an outsider who can observe the events of the novel without being personally involved. He is able to provide an objective view on the events that are taking place, which allows the reader to form their own opinion on the characters. His relationship with Gatsby is also important in the novel, as it provides an insight into the true nature of Gatsby's character and motivations. Nick's narration is an important part of the novel and allows the reader to understand the events that are taking place.

In the end, Nick Carraway's perch on the outside of these lofty social circles gives him a good view of what goes on inside; he has a particularly sharp and sometimes quite judgmental eye for character, and isn't afraid to use it.

*What Is Nick’s Final Message to the Reader?:

Ultimately, the last line of The Great Gatsby can be seen as a metaphor for the elusive American dream. Remember that Fitzgerald wrote the novel during the “Roaring 20s,” a time of great financial success and booming expansion in the United States, but also when many old values were seemingly left behind.

Nick’s observation in the final line is a reflection on how, no matter how much wealth or success we may accumulate, we’ll always chase after more in our futile efforts to “have it all.”

However, there is an infinite number of ways to interpret any one work of literature, as a single passage can mean something different to different people.

The analysis presented above is merely a reflection of my own point of view, but by using a similar approach (analyzing key literary elements and techniques), you can draw your own conclusions.

-So, that's it for today's blog.

-Thank You so much for visiting. 

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Blowing in the Wind by Bob Dylan:-

This blog is not supposed to be a blog but here I put my video recoding which I record about Bob Dylan's song "Blowing in the Wind"

"Blowin' in the Wind"
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan
Performed by Joan Baez

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, n how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before its washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, n how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, n how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

This is a lyrics of that song:-

Here, is My Video Recording:

Bridge course:- T.S.Eliot : Tradition and The Individual Talent.

This blog is in response to the understanding of https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2014/12/t-s-eliot-tradition-and-individual.html. In this blog I am sharing my understanding about T.S.Eliot Essay on Tradition and Individual Talent.

ESSAY ON POETIC THEORY

Tradition and the Individual Talent

BY T. S. ELIOT:

-Who published it?

The essay was published across two issues of The Egoist, a magazine for which Eliot had become the assistant editor in 1917. The first section was published in volume six number four in September. The second and third were published in volume six number five, in December.

Between 1914 and its closure in 1919, The Egoist became a key site for innovation in the cultural movement which would become known as modernism. Besides Eliot’s work, and poetry and criticism by his friend Ezra Pound, The Egoist printed James Joyce's first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), and parts of Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). These last two books were ‘serialized’, in other words chapters were printed in separate editions of the magazine. But The Egoist also printed Eliot’s Prufrock and other Observations (1917) as a stand-alone book.

The essay Tradition and the Individual Talent is an attack on certain critical views in Romanticism particularly up on the idea that a poem is primarily an expression of the personality of the poet. Eliot argues that a great poem always asserts and that the poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past. There is great importance of tradition in the present poem. Tradition should not be inherited but should be obtained by great labor. Past should be altered by present as much as the present is directed by past.

The meaning of the poem is not possible in isolation. Not poet, no any artist has his complete meaning unless we link him/ her to a chain of all poets. Impotence and value of any poet can’t be judged in isolation. So there must be the tradition to compare are with another.

Eliot’s Notion of Tradition Eliot begins the essay by pointing out that the word tradition is not acceptable to the English because it may not carry the idea of being original. The English praise poets for works that are individual and original. The true mark of a poet lies in his originality. This importance on individuality shows that the English praise poets for the wrong reasons. Eliot does not agree with the English because he feels that the best and the most individual part of a poet’s work would reflect the influence of the writers of the past. In Eliot’s own words: “If we approach a poet without his prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously”.

There are some questions and I am going to answers according to my own understanding or it is based on my interpretations.

1).How would you like to explain Eliot's concept of Tradition? Do you agree with it?

- Yes, I agree. 

T.S. Eliot belongs to the tradition of Dryden, John, Coleridge, and Matthew Arnold in being the poet and the critic at the same time. He was greatly interested in literature and tried to bring criticism and creation in closer contact. He strongly believed that criticism and creation were complementary activities and therefore a good poet could only be a good critic. He exercised a very wide and deep influence on the literary criticism in the present century. He has rendered a great service to literature by reforming taste and by revitalizing literature. The most distinguishing quality of Eliot's criticism is its sincerity and freedom from any preconceived standards of judgment. He places before the artist as well as the critic the goal of attaining nothing less than excellence and insists that the critic in order to see the object as it is must take unremitting pains and discipline his powers. 

He also points out that mature art is created only in a society which is prepared to receive and grasp fresh ideas. He knows that though perfection is rather unattainable, he would, in poetry and criticism, be content with nothing less than that. In literature he was a classicist and supported order and discipline, authority and tradition, and organization and pattern.

The theme of tradition is central both to Eliot's criticism and to his creative work. His instance on the value and importance of tradition for the individual talent is essentially anti-romantic. The romantic theory, which regarded poetry as the expression of the personality of the poet, laid emphasis on inspection and intuition. The romantics believed that the poet should follow his "inner voice" in writing poetry. But inspiration is fitful and unreliable; it is only a matter of chance and accident. In the hands of lesser poets the unrestrained and unlimited freedom is likely to degenerate into chaos and confusion. The romantic theory did not attach any significance to tradition. On the contrary, freedom from all tradition was considered to be very essential for artistic creation.

2). What do you understand by Historical Sense? (Use these quotes to explain your understanding)

-"The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence"

-This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He expresses his notion of 'historical sense' in his revolutionary essay," Tradition and Individual Talent". He thinks that tradition depends on the complete realization of historical sense. Tradition involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive the importance of past and present. The historical sense enables him to realism that the past is not something isolated from the present. It is a perception of the pastness of the past and its presentences too. It implies the presence of a collective mind. A man of historical sense feels that the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day including the literature of his own country forms one continuous literary tradition. According to T.S. Eliot, tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of previous generation or generations.

The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence. Eliot realizes that the past exists in the present. So the past and the present form.one simultaneous order. This historical sense is the sense of the timeless and of the temporal together. It is this historical sense which makes a writer traditional. A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscious of his own generation. He is completely aware of his place in the present. But he is also acutely conscious of his relationship with the writers of the past. In brief, sense of tradition implies recognition of the continuity of literature. It implies a critical judgement as to which of the writers of the past continue to signify in the present.

3).What is the relationship between “tradition” and “the individual talent,” according to the poet T. S. Eliot?

-The concept of “tradition” according to Eliot is the sense of continuity from the past. It is a continuity where a writer or a poet should write in tradition and it is readily unacceptable to the Whites as it is like a “censure”. The Western world seems to be occupied more on the creative forces but Eliot stresses on the elements of critical thoughts while obtaining a “tradition’. According to Eliot, a poet has to write in “tradition” and there exist the elements of past in the work of poet’s art when it is examined or explored from a critical lens rather than a creative force. The very “individual parts” will show the impressions of the continuity of the past or the elements of past which the poet has taken from which has been already existed before. He states that “the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors ,assert their immortality vigorously”.

According to Eliot , if a poet or a writer imbues the element of the past, there is an imitation of the past but he justifies that the imitation is “not the slavish imitation” of the past or the existed work of art before. He argues that the strict blinding of imitation of the past is not tradition and hence “Novelty is better than repetition”. He tries to suggest that a poet do not slavishly imitate the past but there is something new which is born out of that imitation. Hence, there will be a new novelty in the piece of work of art which he implies the “individual talent”. He says that a passive imitation of the past is to be discouraged and ignored.

Lastly, Eliot also points out the judgement of the new piece of work in the present. He states that the judgement of the new piece of work is done by comparison and contrast between the past and the present that has altered the past. It is not merely done through a comparison and contrast but it is to see the manners in which the present has modified or altered the past and the present has done to the past. It is to observe the range of changes in the new work of art in the present and to the past as well as to undermine the values of the past and present to be equally balanced without undermining the past as well as the present. Hence, Eliot says that this is the real sense of “tradition’.

4).Explain: 

"Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum".

-It means that only those who do not have sense of understanding must literary read, other can learn by absorbing from experience and observation and a little reading. Eliot demand from his poet as well as from his reader a wide reading. For better understanding he gives example of luminaries like Shakespeare who was not highly educated in the conventional sense but what it is still that Shakespeare array of entire age because he seems to lived his age and absorbed knowledge. We can say here Eliot actually borrowing idea from Matthew Arnold, his essay on function of criticism but in the essay of Function of criticism at the present time mentioned that great epochs of creativity doesn't come often

5).Explain: 

"Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry"

New Critics took a hint from Eliot in regard to his "'classical' ideals and his religious thought; his attention to the poetry and drama of the early seventeenth century; his deprecation of the Romantics, especially Shelley; his proposition that good poems constitute 'not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion'; and his insistence that 'poets... at present must be difficult'." He had argued that a poet must write "programmatic criticism", that is, a poet should write to advance his own interests rather than to advance "historical scholarship". Unwittingly, Eliot inspired and informed the movement of New Criticism. This is somewhat ironic, since he later criticized their intensely detailed analysis of texts as unnecessarily tedious. Yet, he does share with them the same focus on the aesthetic and stylistic qualities of poetry, rather than on its ideological content. The New Critics resemble Eliot in their close analysis of particular passages and Poem.

6).How would you like to explain Eliot's theory of depersonalization? You can explain with the help of chemical reaction in presence of catalyst agent, Platinum.

7). Explain: 

" Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

This is more or less a direct riposte to William Wordsworth’s statement (in the ‘Preface’ to Lyrical Ballads in 1800) that ‘poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’. But Eliot the modernist had no time for the idea that poetry was a turning loose or release of emotion. He was what T. E. Hulme had earlier categorised as a ‘classicist’, holding to a classical rather than romantic view of poetry. This is in keeping with his earlier argument about the importance of tradition: the poet’s personality does not matter, only how their work responds to, and fits into, the poetic tradition. In Eliot’s work – and we can see this as soon as we realise just how much of his most famous poem, The Waste Land, is about a shoring up or preserving of literary tradition, even civilisation itself, on the brink of ruin – the tradition is everything and the individual poet is merely one part of a much larger whole. 

But Eliot’s argument is a little more complicated than it first appears. It’s often assumed that Eliot is saying that, because poetic personality doesn’t matter, the poet’s self doesn’t matter either: poetry is impersonal in that it could come from anyone, if only they read the right books and set to work. But as the critic C. K. Stead argued in his brilliant The New Poetic: Yeats to Eliot (Continuum Impacts), Eliot’s talk of escape from personality is not actually a call to escape from the self but a call to escape further into the self.

Poetry may not be a ‘turning loose of emotion’, but it is only the poet’s own raw emotion that they are escaping. And the poet seeks to escape their own undiluted emotions in order that they may better recreate authentic emotions in their work.

8).Write two points on which one can write critique on 'T.S. Eliot as a critic'.

T.S Eliot is one of the greatest literary critics of England from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings. His five hundred and odd essays occasionally published as reviews and articles had a far-reaching influence on literary criticism in the country. His criticism was revolutionary which inverted the critical tradition of the whole English speaking work. John Hayward says:

"I cannot think of a critic who has been more widely read and discussed in his own life-time; and not only in English, but in almost every language, except Russian."

Such critics are rare, for they must possess, besides ability for judgment, powerful liberty of mind to identify and interpret its own values and category of admiration for their generation. John Hayward says:

Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden before him; and such, in our own day, is Eliot himself.

Eliot’s criticism offers both reassessment and reaction to earlier writers. He called himself “a classicist in literature”. His vital contribution is the reaction against romanticism and humanism which brought a classical revival in art and criticism. He rejected the romantic view of the individual’s perfectibility, stressed the doctrine of the original sin and exposed the futility of the romantic faith in the “Inner Voice”. Instead of following his ‘inner voice’, a critic must follow objective standards and must conform to tradition. A sense of tradition, respect for order and authority is central to Eliot’s classicism. He sought to correct the excesses of “the abstract and intellectual” school of criticism represented by Arnold. He sought to raise criticism to the level of science. In his objectivity and logical attitude, Eliot most closely resembles Aristotle. A. G. George says:

Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry is the greatest theory on the nature of the process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.

To conclude, Eliot’s influence as a critic has been wide, constant, fruitful and inspiring. He has corrected and educated the taste of his readers and brought about a rethinking regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poet process. He gave a new direction and new tools of criticism. It is in the re-consideration and revival of English poetry of the past. George Watson writes:

Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense. He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical processes, and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant institutions.

Here are some videos you can refer for more understanding.

I Know this Blog is lengthy but Here I have written about my understanding. all the above answers are my interpretations. Thank you so much reading this blog.

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Trends and Movements.

This Blog is based on classroom tasks. Which is given by Yesha ma'am. In this Blog I am going to write about My Own Work based on these movements.

Movements like: 1.Surrealism

                             2.Dadaism

                              3.Expressionism                        

1.Surrealism:

Surrealism, movement in visual art and literature, flourishing in Europe between World Wars I and II. Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism’s emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression. The movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the “rationalism” that had guided European culture and politics in the past and that had culminated in the horrors of World War I. According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surrealist.” Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as the wellspring of the imagination. He defined genius in terms of accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, he believed, could be attained by poets and painters alike.

Characteristics:

In the poetry of Breton, Paul Éluard, Pierre Reverdy, and others, Surrealism manifested itself in a juxtaposition of words that was startling because it was determined not by logic but by psychological-that is, unconscious—thought processes. Surrealism’s major achievements, however, were in the field of painting. Surrealist painting was influenced not only by Dadaism but also by the fantastic and grotesque images of such earlier painters as Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya and of closer contemporaries such as Odilon Redon, Giorgio de Chirico, and Marc Chagall. The practice of Surrealist art strongly emphasized methodological research and experimentation, stressing the work of art as a means for prompting personal psychic investigation and revelation. Breton, however, demanded firm doctrinal allegiance. Thus, although the Surrealists held a group show in Paris in 1925, the history of the movement is full of expulsions, defections, and personal attacks.

Here, is my work of Surrealism:

* So, This is what I painted as a surrealistic painting. 

1. First image is where I draw one small Plant which has eyes as a leaf and as we know that plants do not have eyes as a leaf.

2. Second image is where I draw one figure and it has a cattle head, so it became a surrealistic image.

3. Third image is where I drew a book and it has Umbrella's handle. It became the Umbrella of knowledge.

4. Fourth one is very important and my personal favorite picture from this drawing. It has an Eyeball and in that Eyeball one candle is lit. As we all know that Eyeball does not have a lit candle in it so it creates a surrealistic image.

2.Dadaism:

Dada, nihilistic and antiesthetic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zürich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century.

Several explanations have been given by various members of the movement as to how it received its name. According to the most widely accepted account, the name was adopted at Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, during one of the meetings held in 1916 by a group of young artists and war resisters that included Jean Arp, Richard Hülsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, and Emmy Henning's. When a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the French word dada (“hobby-horse”), it was seized upon by the group as appropriate for their anti-aesthetic creations and protest activities, which were engendered by disgust for bourgeois values and despair over World War I. Dada did not constitute an actual artistic style, but its proponents favored group collaboration, spontaneity, and chance. In the desire to reject traditional modes of artistic creation, many Dadaists worked in college, photomontage, and found-object construction, rather than in painting and sculpture.

Here, is My work of Dadaism:

I decided to make one poem based on dadaism art.

 

I prepared one YouTube video for recording all process.

3.Expressionism:

The German Expressionists soon developed a style notable for its harshness, boldness, and visual intensity. They used jagged, distorted lines; rough, rapid brushwork; and jarring colors to depict urban street scenes and other contemporary subjects in crowded, agitated compositions notable for their instability and their emotionally charged atmosphere. Many of their works express frustration, anxiety, disgust, discontent, violence, and generally a sort of frenetic intensity of feeling in response to the ugliness, the crude banality, and the possibilities and contradictions that they discerned in modern life. Woodcuts, with their thick jagged lined and harsh tonal contrasts, were one of the favorite media of the German Expressionists.

Expressionism was a dominant style in Germany in the years immediately following World War I, where it suited the postwar atmosphere of cynicism, alienation, and disillusionment. Some of the movement’s later practitioners, such as George Grosz and Otto Dix, developed a more pointed, socially critical blend of Expressionism and realism known as the Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”). As can be seen from such labels as Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Expressionism, the spontaneous, instinctive, and highly emotional qualities of Expressionism have been shared by several subsequent art movements in the 20th century.

Here, is My Work of Expressionism:

So, I draw this Picture based on expressionism. This drawing is based on Boo Sigh.

BOO: A sound you make to frighten or surprise somebody.

And in this picture you can see the happy face of a ghost and I drew it with Crown.

In the second picture I draw small happy cute puzzle pieces.

This is a small video which was shoot while I was drawing this picture.

(This is a image of all classmates painting based on expressionism)

That's it for today's blog. I hope you all enjoy reading or watching these images or videos.

Thank you so much for visiting.

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T.S. Eliot's: 'The Waste Land'

This blog is in response to the task given by Dilip barad sir https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2014/10/presentations-on-ts-eliots-waste-land.html. In this blog I am going to write about my understanding on the modern epic poem "The Waste Land" by T.S.Eliot.

1)Write about allusions to the Indian thoughts in 'The Waste Land'. (Where, How and Why are the Indian thoughts referred?)

One among the many western scholars, who were influenced by Indian philosophy, T.S. Eliot let his understanding become a key factor in his magnum opus, The Waste Land . The dominant poetic voice of the 1920s, Eliot used an essential, allusive and elliptical technique to put across the view that modern western urban civilization was sterile and unsatisfying. He avoided personal emotion in contrast to the more romantic effusions of the Georgian poets. His distaste for romanticism, a desire to treat the poem in isolation from the poet and the cult of traditional classical values went hand in hand with a dislike of the modern world.

The Waste Land appeared in 1922. The poem, which won Eliot the Nobel Prize in 1948, follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. He employs literary and cultural allusions from the western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, time and conjuring a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

Five sections:

The Waste Land is divided into five sections. The “Burial of the Dead” introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second is “A Game of Chess” and the third, “The Fire Sermon,” shows the influence of Augustine and Eastern religions. The fourth is “Death by Water” and the fifth and final section is “What the Thunder said,” which features the influence of Indian thought on the Poet Laureate.

Eliot became a prominent poet in the aftermath of the chaos and convulsions of the First World War. Europe was home to existential philosophy owing its origin to Kierkegaard. This was a reaction against German idealism and the complacency of established Christianity. 

Dr. Radhakrishnan records how T.S. Eliot, when asked about the future of our Civilization said, “Internecine fighting, people killing one another in the streets.” Civilization to him appeared a crumbling edifice destined to perish in the flames of war. The tragedy of the human condition imposes an obligation on us to give meaning and significance to life. Eliot’s prescription for a new dawn is given in Part V — “What the Thunder Said.”

“Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant.

The jungle crouched, humped in silence.

Then spoke the thunder

DA

Datta: what have we given?

My friend, blood shaking my heart

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract

By this, and this only, we have existed

Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

In our empty rooms

DA

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Only at nightfall, aethereal rumors

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

DA

Damyata: The boat responded

Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar

The sea was calm, your heart would have responded

Gaily, when invited, beating obedient

To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina

Quando fiam uti chelidon — O swallow swallow

Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih”

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad alludes to Prajapathi, the Creator, talking to his three offspring — Devatas, Demons and Men. In the first Brahmana Chapter V, all the virtues are brought together under the three Da’s which are heard in the voice of the thunder namely Dama or self-restraint for the Devas, Danas or self-sacrifice for the humans and Daya or compassion for the Demons. Eliot was greatly influenced by the Bhagavad Gita. See Chapter XVI, Verse 21.

Part V of The Waste Land indicates a turning point. ‘The Word of the Thunder’ offers a ray of hope penetrating the despair that hangs over the rest of the poem. In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Eliot described it as “not only the best part but the part that justifies the whole.” Eliot uses concepts from Sanskrit texts as a framework to give shape to and support the many ideas that constitute the human psyche on a spiritual journey.

What sparked his interest in Vedic thought is not recorded but it is known that he was occupied with Sanskrit, Pali and the metaphysics of Patanjali. The Waste Land reiterates the three cardinal virtues of Damyatha (Restraint), Datta (Charity) and Dayadhvam (Compassion) and the state of mind that follows obedience to the commands as indicated by the blessing Shanti, Shanti, Shanti — the peace that passes understanding.

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, an important landmark in the history of English poetry, first appeared in ‘the Dial’ and after winning that Magazine’s Poetry Award, was finally published in book form in 1922. After its publication, it found a resounding and reverberating success in the world literature because of its universal theme and thought content. Eliot’s universalism is the result of his cosmopolitan intellectualism and poetic sensibility which transcends all sorts of barriers ranging from caste, creed, religion and spatial variance. In the Preface to Four Lancelot Andrews (1928), he proclaimed himself to be “‘classist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion.’” This proclamation is circuitous conscientiously, religiously encompassing the essence of the wisdom of the globe emerging from West and East respectively and making something new out of the alchemical process of poetic creation. Hence, it is plausible to determine abundance of influences on Eliot’s mind and his writings: Indian, Christian, Bradleyean: “‘Eliot presented the credentials of a wide-ranging poetic sensibility by incorporating in his writings not only the ‘best’ of European culture but also of Indian thought’” 

The poet’s mind is a complex mechanism to absorb and to recreate ‘something new and strange.

As regards T.S. Eliot, he was an avid believer in constant study throughout his life, hence the range and variety of his interest was quite amazing. The exploration of different sources and influences on the works of Eliot because of their multifarious layers of suggestions and implications has emerged as a well established and settled routine because his works are thereplica of his ardent and erudite scholarship. The Waste Land, the most influential and deemed over poem of Eliot is not an exception rather bears the impressions of his scholarship. This poem within the space of its four hundred and thirty three lines has quotations, imitations and allusions derived from more than thirty writers ranging from Vigil, Ovid, Dante to Shakespeare, Milton and Spenser etc. Moreover, this is organized round the mythical material drawn from Jessie Weston’s and James Frazer’s books of anthropology: “Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance . . To another work of anthropology I am indebted . .  I mean The Golden Bough ”  

Apart from these books, the Indian thoughts especially Hinduism and Buddhism exercised a conspicuous and impressionable influence on Eliot’s mind when he was working upon The Waste Land cannot be overlooked. The ancient wisdom of India had attracted attention of many intellectuals of western countries. In the mid-nineteenth century Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman were greatly influenced by Indian scriptures and they were composing poetry tinted with Indian aura. Hence “[t]here was a deep desire to have first hand acquaintance with Indian thoughts”. In 1884 Lanman was the first to bring forth his Sanskrit Reader and thus he initiated Harward Oriental Series. Thus, he scattered the seeds of Indian thoughts in the soil of Europe: Already enough pioneering work in this direction had been done by European scholars; and then enlightened students of Culture did not close their minds to the winds blowing from India. This was the currents of ideas in which at the turn of the century many Americans found themselves. Possibly the activities of Swami Vivekananda too had a powerful influence in molding this atmosphere.

It is part of both ritual as well as religious activity in Vedic way of living. The words are not automatic, but Eliot wants the universe to be at peace, including peace for the waste landers, those who live in acute atmosphere of awe, fear, doubts and frustration”. To conclude, The Waste Land bears the mark of Indian wisdom to a considerable extent. However, to confine it to sheer Indianness will not be a true justification to this poem which bears universal outlook and Hindu, Vedic and Buddhist religious undertones constitute a part of the poet’s universal attitude.

2) What are your views on the following image after reading 'The Waste Land'? Do you think that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzsche's views? or Has Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answer to the contemporary malaise?

-T.S.Eliot and Friedrich Nietzsche are quite different in their thinking Nietzsche had proclaimed “God is Dead”; he doesn’t believe in any power like God. He believed in “Superhuman”, who believes in his own self and has great will power; While T.S.Eliot believes in spirituality and religion. In compared to Nietzsche's thought, yes Eliot is regressive but it doesn't mean that he only rises question on his contemporary society, he also tries to give way of solution rather than the answers.

Cycle of time always moving and when History start repeating one must have to look back and try to learn that what are mistakes our ancestor did and now when time comes to us how we will deal with it? It is certain and right that new question's answer we couldn't find in Upanishad, Buddhism and Christianity but the way of living, understanding towards any situation one can develop. So we can conclude that it is also right that problems of contemporary crisis' solution is in faith and self but, the level of faith and understanding of self must be necessary. It comes from reading of mytho-historical and religious thought. Eliot achieved that universality of thought.

3) Prior to the speech, Gustaf Hellström of the Swedish Academy made these remarks:

What are your views regarding these comments? Is it true that giving free vent to the repressed 'primitive instinct' lead us to happy and satisfied life? or do you agree with Eliot's view that 'salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition'?

I am disagree with Eliot. By suppressing the desires or by controlling it the desire get more strong and it also affect at psychological level. It is better to give free vent to primitive instincts as Freud suggest to do. Here I want to give example of movie “Murder 2” in which the villain of movie Dheeraj, have sex addiction and he is also straight man but to control his sex addiction he castrated him self and become eunuch. As now he cant satisfy his hunger he started killing girls and become serial killer. So we can see how suppression leads to the harsh endings. Though Dheeraj has inappropriate addiction which suppose to be controlled but he himself willingly and with understanding should do the needful but he is doing it with the wrong ideas in brain it turns out rude. So the desires which all normal human beings naturally have should not be suppressed. It is better to give free vent to the desires which leads to the happy and satisfactory life. There are other movies based on this kind of concept of desire.

Thank You so much for reading this blog.

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