Engliterarium

Aristotle devotes great attention to the nature, structure and basic elements of the ideal tragic plot. Tragedy is the depiction of action consisting of incidents and events. Plot is the arrangement of these incident and events. It contains the kernel of the action. Aristotle says that plot is the first principle, the soul of tragedy. He lists six formative elements of a tragedy – Plot, character, thought, melody, diction, spectacle and gives the first place to plot.

The Greek word for ‘poet’ means a ‘maker’, and the poet is a ‘maker’, not because he makes verses but he makes plots. Aristotle differentiates between ‘story’ and ‘plot’. The poet need not make his story. Stories from history, mythology, or legend are to be preferred, for they are familiar and understandable. Having chosen or invented the story, it must be put to artistic selection and order. The incidents chosen must be ‘serious’, and not ‘trivial’, as tragedy is an imitation of a serious action that arouse pity and fear.

Aristotle says that the tragic plot must be a complete whole. It must have a beginning, a middle and an end. It must have a beginning, i.e. it must not flow out of some prior situation. The beginning must be clear and intelligible. It must not provoke to ask ‘why’ and ‘how’. A middle is consequent upon a situation gone before. The middle is followed logically by the end. And end is consequent upon a given situation, but is not followed by any further incident. Thus artistic wholeness implies logical link-up of the various incidents, events and situations that form the plot.

The plot must have a certain magnitude or ‘length’. ‘Magnitude’ here means ‘size’. It should be neither too small nor too large. It should be long enough to allow the process of change from happiness to misery but not too long to be forgotten before the end. If it is too small, its different parts will not be clearly distinguishable from each other. Magnitude also implies order and proportion and they depend upon the magnitude. The different parts must be properly related to each other and to the whole. Thus magnitude implies that the plot must have order, logic symmetry and perspicuity.

Aristotle considers the tragic plot to be an organic whole, and also having organic unity in its action. An action is a change from happiness to misery or vice versa and tragedy must depict one such action. The incidents impart variety and unity results by arranging the incidents so that they all tend to the same catastrophe. There might be episodes for they impart variety and lengthen the plot but they must be properly combined with the main action following each other inevitably. It must not be possible to remove or to invert them without injuring the plot. Otherwise, episodic plots are the worst of all.

'Organic unity' cannot be provided only by the presence of the tragic hero, for many incidents in hero’s life cannot be brought into relation with the rest. So there should be proper shifting and ordering of material.

Aristotle joins organic unity of plot with probability and necessity. The plot is not tied to what has actually happened but it deals with what may probably or necessarily happen. Probability and necessity imply that there should be no unrelated events and incidents. Words and actions must be in character. Thus probability and necessity imply unity and order and are vital for artistic unity and wholeness.

'Probability' implies that the tragic action must be convincing. If the poet deals with something improbable, he must make it convincing and credible. He dramatist must procure, “willing suspension of disbelief”. Thus a convincing impossibility is to be preferred to an unconvincing possibility.

Aristotle rules out plurality of action. He emphasizes the Unity of Action but has little to say about the Unity of Time and the Unity of Place. About the Unity of Time he merely says that tragedy should confine itself to a single revolution of the sun. As regards the Unity of Place, Aristotle said that epic can narrate a number of actions going on all together in different parts, while in a drama simultaneous actions cannot be represented, for the stage is one part and not several parts or places.

Tragedy is an imitation of a ‘serious action’ which arouses pity and fear. ‘Serious’ means important, weighty. The plot of a tragedy essentially deals with great moral issues. Tragedy is a tale of suffering with an unhappy ending. This means that the plot of a tragedy must be a fatal one. Aristotle rules out fortunate plots for tragedy, for such plot does not arouse tragic emotions. A tragic plot must show the hero passing from happiness to misery and not from misery to happiness. The suffering of the hero may be caused by an enemy or a stranger but it would be most piteous when it is by chance caused by friends and relatives who are his well-wishers.

According to Aristotle, Tragic plots may be of three kinds, (a) Simple, (b) Complex and (c) Plots based on or depicting incidents of suffering. A Simple plot is without any Peripety and Anagnorisis but the action moves forward uniformly without any violent or sudden change. Aristotle prefers Complex plots. It must have Peripeteia, i.e. “reversal of intention” and Anagnorisis, i.e. “recognition of truth”. While Peripeteia is ignorance of truth, Anagnorisis is the insight of truth forced upon the hero by some signs or chance or by the logic events. In ideal plot Anagnorisis follows or coincides with Peripeteia.

'Recognition' in the sense is closely akin to reversal. Recognition and reversal can be caused by separate incidents. Often it is difficult to separate the two. Complex plots are the best, for recognition and reversal add the element of surprise and “the pitiable and fearful incidents are made more so by the shock of surprise”.

As regards the third kind of plot, Aristotle rates it very low. It derives its effect from the depiction of torture, murder, maiming, death etc. and tragic effect must be created naturally and not with artificial and theatrical aids. Such plots indicate a deficiency in the art of the poet.

In making plots, the poets should make their denouements, effective and successful. Unraveling of the plot should be done naturally and logically, and not by arbitrary devices, like chance or supernatural devices. Aristotle does not consider Poetic Justice necessary for Tragedy. He rules out plots with a double end i.e. plots in which there is happiness for one, and misery for others. Such plots weaken the tragic effect. It is more proper to Comedy. Thus Aristotle is against Tragi-comedy.

I said, “All line will take us hours may be;

Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”

No phrase in the language has acquired such wide and universe popularity, and has had such a profound impact on subsequent literary theory as Coleridge's phrase, “Willing suspension of disbelief”, which he used to indicate the nature of poetic dramatic illusion. All through the Neo-classics era the question of dramatic illusion and credibility had exercised the mind of critics, and the observance of the unities was considered essential for, their violation puts too severe a strain on the credibility of the audience and thus dramatic illusion is violated. The topic was hotly debated and both Dryden and Dr. Johnson have expressed their views on it, views which are in advance of those of their contemporaries. However, it was Coleridge who said the last word on the subject, and finally put the controversy at rest.

Coleridge uses the phrase in connection with his account in Chapter XIV of the Biographia Literaria of the origin and genesis of the Lyrical Ballads. He writes:

In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical ballads; in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith.

Thus he was to treat of characters supernatural, which are incredible and improbable and which under normal circumstances we would not believe in but the treatment was to be such that as long as we were reading his poems, there would be, “a willing suspension of disbelief”, and we would believe for the moment in what is essentially incredible and improbable. In other words, the treatment should be such as would send the judgment of readers to sleep, so that they would pursue the poem with delight.

In Chapter XXIII of the Biographia Literaria he explains himself further and writes:

The poet does not require us to be awake and believe; he solicits us only to yield ourselves to a dream; and this, too, with our eyes open, and with our judgment pursue behind the curtain, really to awaken us at the first motion of our will, and meantime, only, not to disbelieve.

The poet sends our judgment to sleep, for as long as we are reading his word or seeing his play. He does not ask us to believe in what is presented to our mind; he only requires that we should not disbelieve. Only a momentary suspension of disbelief is required for an enjoyment of imaginative literature. We are not under any illusion that it is reality; only, for the moment, there is a voluntary remission of judgment, we enjoy what we dream of. Similarly, the poet, if he is sufficiently skilful, sends our judgments to sleep so that we neither believe nor disbelieve, it to be reality, but merely enjoy what is presented to the mind’s eye. Our reason, or rational judgment, our consciousness, is in voluntarily suspension and this suspension of judgment enables us to enjoy what is in our waking moments when the spell is broken, we would condemn as incredible. Distancing in time and place, humanizing of the marvelous and the supernatural, etc., are some of the devices used to procure such, “willing suspension of disbelief”.

Further light on Coleridge's views in this connection is thrown through a comparison with the view of Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson was of the view that the reader or the spectator deludes himself into believing a play to be a reality, as long as he is witnessing it. The spectator knows, “from the first to the last that the stage is only a stage and that the players are only players”. But knowingly he deludes himself and regards it as the reality. Not unlike Johnson, Coleridge is of the view that it is not in this state that a tale or play is enjoyed, or that the reader or the spectator allows himself to be deluded even temporarily, to be able to enjoy it. On the contrary, he just takes leave of his judgment for the time being. ‘The true stage-illusion consists not in the mind’s judging it to be a forest, but in its remission of the judgment that it is not a forest’. While Dr. Johnson believed that the spectator is in full exercise of his judgment and knows that what is being presented to him is not reality, Coleridge believes that the spectator does not voluntarily exercise his judgment for the time being. His critical faculty is asleep so to say. Thus Coleridge’s position is a middle one: the spectator or the reader does neither actively believe nor disbelieve. His judgment is in a state of suspension for the time being. Voluntarily he is persuaded not to exercise it as long as he is reading a poem or witnessing a play. Imaginative literature owes its appeal to such suspension of disbelief.

Keats is a mystic of the senses and not of thoughts as he sought to apprehend the ultimate truth of the universe through aesthetic sensations and not through philosophical thoughts.

Sensuousness is a quality in poetry which affects the senses i.e. hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting. Sensuous poetry does not present ideas and philosophical thoughts. It gives delight to senses, appeals to our eyes by presenting beautiful and coulourful word pictures to our ears by its metrical music and musical sounds, to our nose by arousing the sense of smell and so on.

Keats is the worshiper of beauty and peruses beauty everywhere; and it is his senses that first reveal to him the beauty of things. He writes poetry only out of what he feels upon his pulses. Thus, it is his sense impressions that kindled his imagination which makes him realize the great principle that:

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’

Keats loves nature for its own sake. He has a straightforward passion fro nature by giving his whole soul to the unalloyed enjoyment of its sensuous beauty.

Poetry originates from sense impressions and all poets are more or less sensuous. Sense impressions are the starting point of poetic process. It is what the poet sees and hears that excites his emotions and imagination. The emotional and imaginative reaction to sense impressions generate poetry.

The poets give the impressions receive by their eyes only. Wordsworth’s imagination is stirred by what he sees and hears in nature. Milton is no less sensitive to the beauty of nature, of the flowers in “Paradise Lost” in a sensuous manner. But Keats’ poetry appeals to our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch and sense of hot and cold. He exclaims in one of his letters:

O for a life of sensation than of thoughts

He is a pure poet in sense of seeking not sensual but sensuous delight.

SENSE OF SIGHT: Keats is a painter of words. In a few words he presents a concrete and solid picture of sensuous beauty.

Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.

And in “Ode on Grecian Urn” again the sense of sight is active.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;

SENSE OF HEARING: The music of nightingale produces pangs of pain in poet’s heart.

The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days, by emperor and clown:

In “Ode on Grecian Urn” he says:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

SENSE OF TOUCH: The opening lines of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” describe extreme cold:

The sedge is withered from the lake
And no birds sing.

SENSE OF TASTE: In “Ode to Nightingale”, Keats describes different kinds of wine and the idea of their tastes in intoxication.

O for a beaker full of the warm South
Full of the true the blushful Hippocrene,

SENSE OF SMELL: In “Ode to Nightingale”, the poet can’t see the flowers in darkness. There is mingled perfume of many flowers.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.

Perhaps the best example of Keats sensuousness is “Ode to Autumn”. In this ode the season of autumn is described in sensuous terms in which all senses are called forth.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

For Keats Autumn is the season of apples on mossed cottage tree, of fruits which are ripe to the core and of later flowers for bees. Thus autumn to Keats is full of pictures of delights of sense. There is the ripe fruit and ripe grains and also there is music that appeals to the ear.

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft.

Keats is a poet of sensations. His thought is enclosed in sensuousness. In the epithets he uses are rich in sensuous quality – delicious face, melodious plot, sunburnt mirth, embalmed darkness and anguish moist. Not only are the sense perceptions of Keats are quick and alert but he has the rare gift of communicating these perceptions by concrete and sound imagery.

As time passes Keats mind matured and he expresses an intellectual and spiritual passion. He begins to see not only their beauty but also in their truth which makes Keats the “inheritor of unfulfill’d renown”.

Keats is more poet of sensuousness than a poet of contemplation. Sometimes he passes from sensuousness to sentiments. In his mature works like Odes or the Hyperion, the poet mixes sensuousness with sentiments, voluptuousness with vitality, aestheticism with intellectualism. However the nucleus of Keats’ poetry is sensuousness. It is his senses which revealed him the beauty of things, the beauty of universe from the stars of the sky to the flowers of the wood.

Keats’ pictorial senses are not vague or suggestive but made definite with a wealth of artistic detail. Every stanza, every line is replete with sensuous beauty. No other poet except Shakespeare could show such a mastery of language and felicity of sensuousness.

“Ode on Indolence” is the weakest of all his poems because it lacks negative capability. There is no logical sequence in its stanzas. There is repetition of the ideas of Keats’ previous odes i.e. “Ode on Grecian Urn”, “Ode to Nightingale” and “Ode to Autumn”.

Keats wrote this poem in his weakest moments of life. One of his brothers died, other left him. Besides, he was also suffering from inherited disease and on top of all his love Fanny Browne deserted him. He was disappointed in his ambition to be famous, disappointed in love and disappointed in his art of writing poetry and finally disappointed with life. He seems to be crying in helplessness. Instead of self-control, he depicted self-pity.

The poet is in a mood of perfect indolence. Three figures happened to pass from his sight – Love, Ambition and Poesy. At the third time, the poet is tempted by them and longs for them but he thinks it his folly. At the fourth time, the three figures once again tempted him but now the reality has dawned upon him. Therefore, he bid them adieu.

The poet is feeling asleep. He has lost all his faculties. Pain has ceased to be unpleasant and pleasure has ceased to be pleasant to him. He has become very indifferent to these feelings.

Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower;

The very sleepy moment of falling asleep has captured him. His mind is sleeping but not his senses. He is neither receptive nor productive. The only feelings he wants to have are no feelings.

The poem is very much subjective and reflects the poet’s extreme hopelessness and disappointment. He reaches the climax of emotions and wants to withdraw from Love, Ambition and Poetry.

O folly! What is love? and where it is?
And for that poor Ambition! it springs
From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;
For Poesy! -- no -- she has not a joy.

When he wants to withdraw from emotions, he wants to withdraw from the world. When he wants to withdraw from love, he wants to give up both lover and beloved. When he wants to withdraw from poetry, he wants to give up all imagination. Now he is contended with his “horrid indolence”.

In rest of his odes, there is element of negative capability. In Keats’ own words “Poetry should be the outcome of the negative capability”. As in “Ode to Nightingale”, he negates himself and wants to fly with the nightingale.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Similarly in “Ode on Grecian Urn” he escapes into the world of art and says:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Whereas in “Ode on Indolence”, he is wailing for his personal emotions and unable to practice his own theory of negative capability.

This poem has repetition of earlier poems. When one’s creative faculties fail, one starts repeating oneself. Same is true to Keats in this ode. He borrows ideas from earlier poems as his genius has been exhausted.

Apart from this, the poem is not only weak with regard to content but also in the form. There is not logical sequence in the stanzas. The poem is divided into three distinct parts: narrative, descriptive and reflective. As in the first stanza, there is narrative quality.

One morn before me were three figures seen,
With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;

Then in the middle of the poem, there is descriptive quality.

The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;
The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
-----------------------------------------------
The last, whom o love more, the more of blame
-----------------------------------------------
I know to be my demon Poesy.

The last part of the poem has a reflective quality:

Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
Into the clouds, and never more return!

The word ‘never’ reflects the determination that these three passions – Love, Ambition and Poetry.

Keats’ odes have been changed with that they do not have any logical end as in “Ode on Grecian Urn” and “Ode on Indolence”. But if we critically observe, to Keats the understanding through intellect is partial understanding. He rejects all palpable designs. He rejects all understanding and all logics and long for sensation.

“O! for a life of sensation rather than of thought”

On another occasion, he says:

“We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.”

But this poem has aesthetic continuity from first to last.

Above premises leads us to the conclusion that though poem has repetition earlier poems, it lacks negative capability and logical sequences of stanzas yet it has a definite of aesthetic feelings.

So, the ode on the whole is not a weak ode. It has its aesthetic merits.

With the publication of “A Boy’s Will” (1913) and “North to Boston” (1914) Frost became the first American poet to be widely read.

Frost has been regarded as a “regional poet”. His region was New England of two best states in U.S.A. He never felt the slightest desire to include all America within the scope of his poetry. His regionalism resembles from Emily Dickinson’s. The New England provides him with the stories, attitudes, characters, which are appropriate to his needs. He falls in love with the New England tradition and it gives him strength. His work seems to capture the vanished joys of apple picking, hay-making, the sleep of an old man alone in an old farmhouse, the cleaning of the pasture spring. No American writer knows the subjects, people and places as thoroughly as Frost does. Frost is certainly a realist. He never says too much. In stories, he uses suggestion and understatement.

Frost is chiefly lyrical. The poems are a spontaneous expression of the youthful heart. Frost shows emotion, imagery and song. As regards imagery, they are full of beauties of the darkness of late autumn, still depths of winter, and intensity of the swift summer. He has written lyrics light-hearted and humorous and philosophical. Often the two extremes are combines. He has written a few love lyrics too.

The form employed by Frost is dramatic. But in some of his most successful pieces he has subordinated both drama and character to straightforward poetic narrative. In “The Code” a farm hand tells how he killed the employer by burying him under a load of hay violating an unwritten law of the fields because of made some trivial sign on his work. Here Frost has sketched out, half-humorously a story showing peculiar local customs, the odd expressions of personal pride which develop in a remote rural community. In the “Witch of Coos” a humorously gruesome story of violence, brooding and hallucination appears what is probably the most unusual ghost in American literature. At once realistic and fantastic, cynically coarse and delicately beautiful, “Paul’s Wife” is an amazingly successful fusion of the most disparate qualities.

Frost showed a philosophical bent of mind from the very beginning. He does not have any philosophical system or set of beliefs. He inclines to the inquiring manner. Often he expresses himself in a humorous or satirical vein and shows an epigrammatic gift.

Sometimes we have a blend of the familiar essays and the parable in Frost’s philosophical poems with illustrative anecdotes. “Mending Walls” is a humorous portrayal through rural anecdote of the liberal, inquiring man confronted with the man of inertia. Then there are two poems of a different kind. “A Masque of Reason” and “A Masque of Mercy”, in which the poet undertakes, if not Milton’s task of justifying God’s ways to men at least the more modest task of speculating about them.

Many of Frost’s poems are capable of a symbolic interpretation. The surface meaning of “Mending Wall” is ‘Good fences make good neighbours’ but symbolically the poem states the serious problem of our times. Should national boundaries be made stronger for our protection or should they be removed since they restrict our progress towards international brotherhood? “The Mountain” symbolizes the un-inquisitive, the unadventurous and the un-ambitious spirit. “The Road Not Taken” symbolically deals with the choice problem.

Frost is not a Nature poet in the tradition of Wordsworth. He insists upon the boundaries between man and the forces of Nature. He sees no pervading spirit in the natural world and regards it as impersonal and unfeeling. He treats nature both as comfort and menace.

Frost shows a strong disinclination towards city life. He has written no poems on friendship. He has written love poems, but misunderstanding is a constant theme in them. His poetry has curious anti-social quality. Almost every poem in “North of Boston” deals with the theme of alienation. “Desert Places” describes a similar mood and situation. Many of his poems are about the sense and the feeling of loneliness not a peculiarly American dilemma but as a universal situation. Sometimes he approaches this problem in an optimistic manner as in “Our Hold on the Planet”.

A critic has listed the typical qualities of Frost’s poetry like Frost’s tenderness, sadness and humour; his seriousness and honesty; his sorrowful acceptance of things as they are without exaggeration or explanation; his many poems with real people, real speech, real thoughts and real emotions; subtlety and exactness and a classical under-statement and restraint.

In conclusion it may be pointed out that Frost has been described as a symbolist, a spiritual drifter, a home-spun philosopher, a lyricist, a moralist, a preacher and a farmer who writes verse.

Shakespeare’s greatness and pre-eminence as a dramatist is universally recognized. It is said that “he was not of an age but of all times”. Shakespeare's characters reveal themselves by what they say and do on the stage. They tell us more by their speeches then by their actions.

Hamlet, the play and the man, seem to be presented as a puzzle. Dower Wilson regards this puzzle as greater even the puzzle of Hamlet’s procrastination in taking his revenge. There are many things in Hamlet which are capable of a large number of interpretations and Hamlet-Ophelia relationship is one of them. In fact, Hamlet is a play which imitates reality so closely, that the play retains the mystery of life and hints at its mysterious depth.

Hamlet loves Ophelia truly and sincerely. He probably fell in love with her when he was staying at Ellsinore before his father’s death. In his love letter he addressed her in the most idealized form. He writes:

Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

Ophelia too tells Polonius that Hamlet had importuned her with love in honorable fashion and ‘had given countenance to his speech with almost all the vows of heaven’. Dowden has rightly observed:

Laertes’ sister Ophelia is loved by Lord Hamlet.

Ophelia never declares her love in so many words, yet we know Ophelia's heart is entirely given to Hamlet for she has sucked the honey of love musicked vows and that his loss of reason has made her of ladies most deject and wretched. Mrs. Jameson describing her character in her book “Characteristics of women” has observed:

The love of Ophelia which she never once confesses is like a secret which we have stolen from her and which ought to die upon our hearts as upon her own.

While both loved each other truly and sincerely then what is the cause of failure of their love? To a certain extent circumstances play an important role. Hamlet’s father dies suddenly and Hamlet returns to Denmark to mourn his father’s death. While he is still a mourner, his mother marries his uncle and it hurts him. Ghost’s revelation of truth makes him disgusted. Now he is no longer interested in man or woman. A clue to his change can be seen in the first soliloquy:

O that this too too sullied flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew.

This shows that Hamlet is now unhappy with the world.

Ophelia is another woman who does not have moral firmness. At this juncture when Hamlet needs moral strengths Ophelia’s brother and father warn her of the danger in her amorous contact with Hamlet. They accuse Hamlet roundly of weakness of character and tell that he might betray her. Polonius gives positive orders to repulse Hamlet’s advances. He not only stops her from meeting Hamlet but also advise her to return his letters. Polonius and Laertes are worldly minded men and Hamlet is out of favor with fortune and it is fatal to have any relation with him. Ophelia carries out these orders and Hamlet receives another shock. He goes into Ophelia’s closet and tries to find out id she is also as faithless and unreliable as his mother. He feels betrayed and is hurt.

In the nunnery scene, Ophelia begins by accusing him of infidelity. He asks her if she is honest. Hamlet and Ophelia live on two different lands and there is no communication and understating between them. Ophelia does not understand him and thinks that he is mad and helps her father and Claudius in the hope that Hamlet would regain his reason. Hamlet never shares his secret with Ophelia despite loving her and this he again admits in the last act.

I loved Ophelia, 40000 brothers,
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.

But for the fulfillment of love and marriage it is now tragically too late.

Ophelia is a meek and frail person. She is too tender to cope with the volcanic world of Hamlet. She is caught in the vortex of circumstances which Hamlet is unable to control. She loses mental balance and dies. Had the circumstances been different she might have been the bride of Hamlet as Gertrude says:

I hop’d that shouldst been my Hamlet’s wife.

But in the tragic world of Hamlet there are many casualties caused by the corruption of evil and Ophelia is one of them. Life has its own way of destroying things and we can only feel sorry for them