Epic Poetry

  Epic Poetry  (Types of Poetry Lecture 2)

https://youtu.be/U-5ld7Y8rIo

What is an Epic? 

An epic is a long narrative poem recounting heroic deeds on a serious subject, written in a formal and elevated style, centering on a heroic or quasi-divine figure whose action determines the fate of a tribe, a nation or the human race. 

Epic Conventions

• An epic is inaugurated with an argument or the proposition of the subject matter, followed by the invocation of a heavenly Muse for poetic inspiration. 
• An epic begins in medias res that is in the middle of things or at a critical point in the action. Iliad began in the midst of the Trojan war; Paradise Lost opens with the Fallen Angels in hell, determined to avenge. 
• A catalogue of warring sides are given in detail as to be seen in Iliad and Paradise Lost. 

Features of Epic poetry 

• Setting: The setting of an epic is of ample scale, creating a cosmic spectacle including heaven, earth, hell and the space between. 
• Action : The action involves extraordinary deeds in battle as to be seen in Trojan war by Achilles, or that of a long, perilous journey, as undertaken by Odysseus, or the rebellion of Satan and his followers against God. 
• Hero: An epic hero is a magnificent figure of national or cosmic importance. Often they are endowed with a semi divine parentage, as Achilles was the son of the sea nymph Thetis and Peleus, a Greek king; Virgil's Aeneas was the son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite; in The Mahabharata, the Pandavas are the sons of the demi God's like Indra, Surya etc. 
• Machinery : In the cosmic actions of the epic the supernatural, especially the Gods are seen to take keen interest or active part as we see the Olympian Gods in Homer’s epic world, Christ in Paradise Lost, Krushna(as an incarnation of Vishnu) in The Mahabharata. 
• Style : The ceremonial performance of epic is narrated in an elevated and grand style, which is, deliberately distanced from the ordinary speech, to add to the grandeur and formality of the heroic subject and magnitude. 

Primary epic and secondary epic

• C.S. Lewis has made a useful distinction between primary Or folk epics or traditional epics and secondary epics or literary epics. 
• Primary epics, such as Beowulf and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, are those which had been originally oral poems about a tribe or national hero in warlike ages. Secondary epics have a structure similar to primary epics, and have a definite author, but have been composed for a society that is substantially distant, particularly chronologically, from the world described in the epic, for example, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. 

Mock - Epic Poetry

• Mock -epic / mock- heroic poetry is a type of parody that mimics the elaborate structure, cosmic tone, and ceremonious style of classical epics to narrate a trivial subject matter for ludicrous effect.
• Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the post-Restoration and Augustan periods in Great Britain.
• The purpose was to satirize an individual, a stylistic form or often a society, standing on the verge of loosing its morality.
• The earliest example of the form is the Batrachomyomachia ascribed to Homer by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, John Dryden's MacFlecknoe are generally considered to be one of the best examples of this genre that targetted the moral frivolity and the artificial poetic pomp of the contemporary age. 

Epic Simile 

• Epic Similes or Homeric Similes are formal, detailed, extended and elaborative similes that go far beyond its points of close parallel to the primary subjects to intensify the heroic stature of a subject, create vivid imagery, and connect with the readers on an emotional level. 
• Unlike brief similes, epic similes use extended narratives, frequently drawn from nature or daily life, to parallel an event or action in the story, enriching the reader's understanding of the characters, setting, and themes. 
• Examples : Milton in his Paradise Lost has compared Pandemonium with the swarming of bees; In Homer's Iliad, the ranks of soldiers are compared to the "shudder of the west wind suddenly rising scatters across the water", or Homer's comparison of Achilles' rage to a lion attacking a flock of sheep in The Iliad.

https://youtu.be/U-5ld7Y8rIo

Types of Poetry - Lecture 1

 Types of Poetry 

Lecture -1

Video link: 

https://youtu.be/HxAg-V2VozQ 

I. Lyrical poetry :   A lyric is a fairly short poem, uttered by a single speaker, to express the personal thoughts, feelings, perceptions and emotions. The term "lyric" comes from the Greek word "lyre," a stringed instrument used in ancient Greece to accompany the recitation of these poems which were originally designed to be sung. Therefore, lyrical poetry was endowed with musicality to express the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". 

Examples of Lyrical poetry :

• Ode 
• Elegy 
• Sonnet 

II. Narrative Poetry:  Narrative poetry is a form of verse that narrates a story by incorporating poetic techniques such as rhyme, meter, similes, and metaphors. This type of poetry features elements like characters, a plot, a setting, and a conflict, similar to a novel but written in the form of poetry. 

Examples of Narrative poetry :

• Epic 
• Ballad 

III. Dramatic Poetry:  Written to be performed on stage or recited aloud, Dramatic poetry is written in verse form to convey a story or situation through dialogue, monologues, or soliloquies rather than a narrative description. Dramatic poetry incorporates theatrical elements to entertain and engage the audience through distinct, well-developed characters with unique voices, personalities, and conflicts, which helps reveal their thoughts and feelings.

Examples of Dramatic poetry :

• Dramatic Monologue 
• Soliloquy 
• Verse drama

A. Ode :  Traditionally Ode denotes a long, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. 

Pindaric Ode: The prototype was established by the Greek poet Pindar who modelled his odes on the Chorus in Greek drama. 

• Pindaric odes/regular odes were encomiastic, that celebrated athletic victories and were usually set to music. 
• Structurally the complex stanzas were divided between - Strophe, Antistrophe and Epode. 
• Strophe, Antistrophe and Epode: The strophe and antistrophe are matched stanzas where the chorus moves in opposite directions, in strophe from right to left, and in Antistrophe from left to right. The epode is the final section, chanted by the chorus while standing still, and typically has a distinct meter from the strophe and antistrophe, often summarizing the ode's themes.
• Pindaric ode was introduced into English by Ben Jonson through his ode “To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison”.English odes written in the Pindaric tradition include Thomas Gray’s “The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode”.

Horatian Ode:  

• Horatian Ode, after the Latin poet Horace were written in quatrains in a more philosophical, contemplative manner and were homostrophic, that is, written in a single repeated stanza form. 
• In contrast to the passion, visionary boldness and formal language, Horatian Odes were calm, meditative, and colloquial. Andrew Marvell’s “Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” and John Keats’ “To Autumn” are the examples of Horatian ode. 

The Cowleyan ode:  

• Cowleyan ode, also called the irregular ode, was introduced in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who imitated the Pindaric style and matter but disregarded the recurrent stanzaic pattern in each strophic triad, instead, he allowed each stanza to establish its own pattern of varying line numbers, lengths and rhyming scheme. Example: William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Reflections of Early Childhood.”

Examples:  Early English odes, like Pindaric odes, often choose to eulogize or celebrate something or a someone as Dryden’s “Anne Killigrew”, the arts of music or poetry as Dryden's Alexander’s Feast, or a time of Day as in Collins’ Ode to Evening or abstract concepts as in Wordsworth's Ode to Duty. 

But the odes written by the Romantic poets are more of a passionate meditation, like Horatian ode, as Coleridge’s Dejection Ode, Shelley's Ode to the West Wind.

B. Elegy:  Elegy is a form of poetry in which the poet or speaker expresses grief, sadness, or loss.

In Greco-Roman literature, elegy denoted any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter) to express change, loss, or complaints about love. In the 17th century the term denoted specifically to a poem that within a formal structure laments for the dead and ends in consolation.

Three stages of an Elegy

The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and finally consolation and solace. These three stages can be seen in W. H. Auden’s classic “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”, Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”, Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.

Pastoral Elegy:

• A subtype of elegy that introduces the mourner as a shepherd (latin -pastor), in an idealized, peaceful rural landscape, often depicting idyllic country scenes. 
• Begins with an invocation to the Muse and referencing other figures from classical mythology.
• Use of pathetic fallacy that, is, Nature itself is often depicted as participating in the grief, with elements like flowers, rivers, and birds. 
• The poem may feature a procession of mourners, including other shepherds and sometimes classical figures. 
• Beyond personal grief, pastoral elegies often explore philosophical topics such as fate, the cyclical nature of life and death, and the hope for immortality or spiritual resurrection
• The poem ends in consolation as the soul finds eternal peace into the higher realm, being away from the mortal world depicted as “corrupt”.
• Examples of pastoral Elegy includes Milton's Lycidas, Shelley's Adonais and Matthew Arnold’s Thyrsis.

C. Sonnet:  Sonnet is 14-lines poem, literally a “little song”, generally written in Iambic pentameter, with a variable rhyme scheme originated in Italy and popularized by Petrarach. This form was brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, earl of Surrey in the 16th century. Traditionally the sonnet reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines.

Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet

• Petrarchan sonnets were structurally divided between Octave and Sestet where the former introduces a problem like time and love, human mortality, unrequited love for a deified beloved and the later finds its resolution, sometimes in “ars longa Vita brevis”, (through immortality of art) generally with a rhyming scheme of abba abba cde cde. 

The Spenserian sonnet

• A 14-line poem developed by Edmund Spenser in his Amoretti, that varies the English form by interlocking the three quatrains (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE).
• Thematically, Spenserian sonnets dealt with the theme of a successful courtship and its fruition in marriage.

Shakespearean or English Sonnets:

• Shakespearean sonnets structurally, did rely upon three quartrains and a concluding couplet, based on the model of Henry Howard.
•  Thematically Shakespeare marked his “novelty” in introducing the theme of friendship (often regarded as homoerotic) along with Time and Love.
• Shakespearean sonnets’ rhyming scheme is —- abab cdcd efef gg. 

This innovation and a celebratory note of love in Spenser and that of Friendship in Shakespeare perhaps can be seen as a mark of the Renaissance humanism.In terms of the rhyming scheme both Shakespearean and Spenserian  sonnets also did differ a little. 

Curtailed Sonnet

• The curtal sonnet, a shortened version devised by Gerard Manley Hopkins maintains the proportions of the Italian form, substituting two tercets for two quatrains in the octave (rhyming ABC ABC), and four and a half lines for the sestet (rhyming DEBDE).
• It is a shortened form of a Petrarchan sonnet 
• It's divided into a 6-line first stanza and a 4.5-line second stanza
• Examples: Hopkins used the curtal sonnet in some of his poems, including "Pied Beauty" and "Peace". 

Submerged Sonnet:

• A submerged sonnet is a sonnet, or a 14-lines structure and form that are partially hidden or "submerged" within the larger context of the poem rather than being presented as a standalone poem.
• Including a sonnet within a larger work can create a specific effect, perhaps to highlight a particular theme or a shift in tone.    
• Example: lines 235-248 of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. 

Caudate Sonnet: 

• A caudate sonnet is a 14-line sonnet with six additional lines appended as a coda or extension. 
• The first 14 lines typically follow the structure of a traditional sonnet, and the added lines provide a further extension or heightening of the poetic effect.  
• Example: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire.” and John Milton's "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament" 

Video link: 

https://youtu.be/HxAg-V2VozQ

WBSLST English Interview

Steps to Follow

• Collect text books of class 9-10/11-12
• Go through the entire syllabus 
• Figure out the literary types (poetry, short story, essay, biography, autobiography, drama)
• Select any text from class 9/11 
• Select any text from class 10/12
• Select any text from your slst 9-10/11-12 syllabus 
• Try to maintain a variety while selecting the texts (if possible)
• For 11-12 (PGT section) aspirants need to have a clear perception of the core concepts of your Special papers in your Master Degree.
• Remember that whatever topic you choose for demo the Experts are likely to ask you questions from that particular genre, text , author and time. 

How to prepare your selected text 

• Identify the literary type (poetry, short story, drama, essay) 
• Study the literary type thoroughly (for example, if you have selected poetry then you need to have a complete idea about the type like the different types of poetry, characteristics and examples)
• Identify the literary age of the text & read that particular literary age from any of your History of Literature books (for example if you choose Upon Westminster Bridge by Wordsworth or The Autumn by John Clare then thoroughly read Romantic period, its chief characteristics, predominant literary genre, major authors and works)

How to prepare your text ?

• Context : Background of the text, literary age 
• Form : Structural aspects like is it an ode or elegy or dramatic Monologue or mock-epic poem, number of lines, rhyming scheme, meter./ Short story , narrative technique, characters-round/flat/stock
• Content : Introduce the theme/themes at first then start the text. 

How to Teach ? /Areas to focus while teaching 

• Focus on language/ diction 
• Vocabulary (synonyms and antonyms of certain uncommon words)
• Grammatical aspects: Articles, parts of speech, tense
• Figures of speech (for 11-12 only)

LSRW

• Present the very brief summary of your selected text like a story and mention the genre, lines etc ( to stimulate listening)
• Ask 1/2 questions like “who wrote Father's Help?”, “What is the Bengali meaning of Autumn”?/ “Westminster Bridge is situated in..” (to stimulate speaking)
• Write and uncommon words and spell it and ask them to read aloud by spelling and pronunciation (to stimulate reading)
• Ask them to write down the meaning and make sentences or you give examples of sentence making. (To stimulate writing)

Dress code & appearance 

• Formal dress - Formal Shirt and pant / Saree/ Salwar 
• Formal Shoes 
• Well brushed/ clipped hair
• Neat and clean appearance 
• Be confident
• Have a Clear voice and clarity in your Demo and answers
• If confused ask for a few minutes or if you don't know the answer humbly tell them that you don't know