UGC NET/SET Exam Notes

Evaluation of Sri Aurobindo as a Poet Sri Aurobindo is an outstanding figure in Indo-Anglian literature. He represents a new poetic consciousness which seeks to create a more refined instrument to express the new version and experience. So his noetry has a distinction of its own in its rhythm and language. Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. His Wner,Krishnadhan Ghose, was a popular civil surgeon, while his mother, Swarnalata Devi, was a daughter of Rishi Rajnarain Bose, one of the great men of the Indian renaissance in the nineteenth century who embodied the new composite culture of the country that was at once Vedantic, Islamic and European. On the other hand, Krishnadhan had a pronounced partiality for the Western way of life. Having himself had his medical education at Aberdeen, he desired that his children should, if possible, go one better even and be wholly insulated from the contamination of Indian ways. If Krishnadhan had sent his son, not to the Lor...

'Revelations' by Sri Aurobindo: Summary and Analysis Revelations by Sri Aurobindo is ‘a lovely, mystical lyric of great transparency’, that has a visionary power. The poet passes through a spiritual illuminationas it were. For Aurobindo, Nature becomes very often the abode of heavenly spirit. Here also the poet gleans amidst Nature the flash of a spiritual creature. A check of frightened rose is a transfered image that connotes a spiritual existence. Heavenly rout indexes Aurobindo’s realization of the spiritual world. Revelation is a mystic experience of the poet (some understanding with universal vision). He feels as if the presence of God, Vision of God leaps behind the rocks and passes him like a blow of wind. By the time he tries to guess what it would be, it vanishes. He feels it like a bright light which is visible to his mortal eyes. It is like a frightened rose glows with a sudden beauty. He feels as if someone is passing him with a footstep like the...

An analysis of Michael K in Coetzee’s 'Life and time of Michael K'  As the title indicates, Michael K is the protagonist of the short novel. This is the story of a heroic anonymity. The story is set in the 1960’s South Africa , at a time when the country was totally ripped apart by a civil war emanating from political hegemony of the Whites.  Therefore, the readers of this book are allowed to have an access to the inner self of Michael K, at the same time they can have a glimpse of the social and political condition of the then South Africa. As the story of the novel unfolds, we are gradually made aware that the protagonist is a “dull” person. He is “not quick”. Even nature is not merciful to him: he was born fatherless, and with a physical disability which prevented him from growing up as a normal child. So, from the start, he was doomed to bear an ill fate. The portrait of Michael K is a naïve one. He is a simpleton and the obscurest of the obscure. He seems to ...

The Picture of the Apartheid Era in J. M Coetzee's 'Life and Time of Michael K' J. M Coetzee, a white South African writer, invents a sort of history that creates a catharsis in people about issues of Apartheid and South African oppression. His intentions are not to entertain his readers with fictional story of life in South Africa. Instead, he has the intention of giving to his readers a new perspective on the life if certain figures who struggle to overcome the chains that tie them to colonization and the governmental power of the European minority in South Africa. Coetzee’s,  Life and Time of Michael K ,   which fetched a Booker Prize in 1983, tells of a bare-lipped simple gardener, Michael K, trying to run away from the South African war during the apartheid era. His journey started from Cape Town with his ailing mother, who wanted to go back to the more rulal Prince Albert, her girlhood home. The main setting of the story takes place in apartheid era South Afric...

Michael K’s Journey for survival in J. M. Coetzee’s novel 'Life and Time of Michael K'  J. M. Coetzee’s booker prize winning short novel  Life and Time of Michael K  is a story of a man caught up in a war beyond his understanding, but determined to live his life minimally on his own terms. It is a story of survival and isolation, the individual struggling against a society gone awry -- and struggling to survive in nature. This novel focuses on the central character of this novel Michael K and his experiences in South Africa during a time of civil unrest. Coetzee depicts Michael K, a hairliped unattractive simpleton who embodies the power of the human spirit and need for freedom, despite tremendous setbacks. Coetzee here shows how Michael K strives to insulate himself from the despair of the war that rages around him in South Africa that is ravaged by apartheid. In the apartheid system of governance that supports a legalized racial segregation policy dismantles the ...

The Emergence of English as an Unrivalled Global Lingua Franca English is a global language and as a language its prominence in our day to day life has been unquestionably proven. Occupying the third world by number of native speakers and first place as a second language, English reigns in business, culture, communication and the Internet. Political power and the successive waves of colonization of the British Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, replaced by political influence, military and economic U.S. since the late nineteenth to the present day are some of the leading factors that have caused the quick dissemination of English language all over the world.English is spoken by over 400 million users worldwide. 200 million of them live in North America and 60 million in the British Isles. Mother tongue of 15 million people in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, English is the second language of millions of people in India, Pa...

“My Grandmother's House' by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis The Poetess’s Recollection of Her Childhood in Her Grandmother’s House   The poetess recalls the house where she once used to live with her grandmother who was quite fond of her and from whom she used to receive a lot of love. The grandmother had died; and the house had then ceased to be inhabited by anybody. The poetess was in those days a little girl and did not even know how to read the books which lay in the house. The death of her grandmother had robbed the little girl of her capacity to feel. It had seemed to her that the blood in her veins was no longer warm but had turned cold, as cold as the moon. The Deserted House After the Grandmother’s Death  The poetess now often thinks of going to that house in order to look at the things inside it through the windows; but the windows being closed she would not be able to see anything lying inside, and would be able only to experience a feeling of utter...

“A Hot Noon in Malabar' by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis The poetess recalls some of her experiences in her home in Malabar. She thinks of the hot noon-time when all sorts of persons used to pass her home and to pause and to stop there in order to sell the wares which they carried from place to place. She first thinks of the beggars who used to come to her house to beg alms in their characteristic voices expressive of their discontent with life and their need for charity.  Then she thinks of the men who came from the hills with parrots in a cage and fortune-cards, all stained because of the long time during which those cards had been used again and again. She thinks of the brown-complexioned girls who belonged to the class of basket-makers and manufacturers of bird-catching traps. These girls were palm-readers who offered, in their monotonous voices, to read the palms of those who wanted their fortunes told on the basis of the lines on their palms.  The poetess then...

“The Sunshine Cat' by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis The Persona’s Feeling of Complete Disillusionment   The persona in this poem describes her sexual experiences with her husband and with other men, and expresses her feeling of complete disillusionment with all her sexual partners. The persona is most probably Kamala Das herself; and she tells us that, though she had originally loved her husband in the hope that he would love her too, she no longer loves him because he proved to be a selfish man and a coward. Her husband did not love her at all and did not even make use of her as a sexual partner in the right manner. Her husband showed himself to be a keen and relentless observer when, in sheer desperation, she acquired other lovers and went to bed with them. The Persona’s Failure to Win the “Love” of Any of Her Sexual Partners   It was her disgust with her husband which drove the poetess to have extra-marital love –affairs. But even these other men, with wh...

“The Invitation "by Kamala Das: Summary and Analysis The Persona’s Bitter-Sweet Memory of a Sexual Experience The persona in the poem recalls her experience of the sexual act with a lover. (The persona is most probably the poetess herself). On a certain day, she felt as if a man’s fist was alternately tightening itself and then loosening its muscles. It seemed to her that the man were forming some firm resolve and then becoming somewhat uncertain. In other words, the poetess was feeling tortured by her memory of her experience of love-making with a lover of hers. The lover had gone away after making love to her, and had not returned. The woman (who, as we have already indicated, could be the poetess herself) knew that her lover would not come back, but she could not forget her experience of love-making with that man because the experience had been a most delicious one. The bitter-sweet of the memory of her sexual experience continued to haunt her. The Sea’s Suggestion...

Plot Summary of Quartet by Rabindranath Tagore Quartet   by Rabindranath Tagore  is set in Colonial Bengal during the twilight of the 19 th  century and the early years of   the 20 th  century. It was the time when western education and western ideas was taking grip over the young minds. Many were trying to accept west without rejecting the east or without condemning everything that was Indian. In the process the old customs, beliefs, ideas, practices, notions and institutions came in to scrutiny and question. The initial chapter of  Quartet  portrays, in a more matured form, the conflict between the reformist liberal attitudes and orthodoxy; and between modernity and the old world of traditions of the Bengali society. Quartet  is mainly the story of Sachish an English-educated bright and a very handsome young man; his reactions to the varied influences exerted on him; his strife to break free of all influences and attachments,...

The Features of Early American Literature (Colonial American Literature) Early American Literature writing that emerged from the original U.S colonies during the period from 1607 to the late 1700. It was largely influenced by British writers and was created to inform people about colonial life, religious disputes and settlement issues. Many of characteristics of early American literature can be found in the poems, journals, letters, narratives, histories and teaching material written by settlers, religious figures and historical icons of the period. American Literature includes the writings of Marry Rowlandson, William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop. American Literature had been affected from many ways; each way makes a different in America’s literature. The three characteristics of American Literature include – plot of decline, indifferent of nature, 3rd person omniscient reaction to romanticism and surrealism.  Firstly, American Literature reflects belief...

The Act of Settlement The Act of Settlement of 1701 was designed to secure the Protestant succession to the throne, and to strengthen the guarantees for ensuring parliamentary system of government. The constitutional provisions of this act was: (a) It provided that after the death of William and his sister-in-law, Anne, without heirs the English crown was to pass to Electress Sophia  was the grand-daughter of James I of England. There are other nearer heirs but they were all passed over as Catholics. (b) All future kings must belong to the Church of England. (c) England must not be involved in any foreign war without the consent of Parliament. (d) Judges were to receive fixed salaries and were not to be removed from their office except on petition by parliament to the king. This secured the independence of the judges for they were to hold office not at the king’s pleasure but as long as they behaved themselves well. (e) No royal pardon could be produced as an answer t...

Bill of Rights James II fled from England in 1688 during events described as the ‘Glorious Revolution’. James’s Roman Catholic sympathies and belief in the divine right of the Crown resulted in disgruntled parliamentarians offering the throne to his eldest Protestant daughter, Mary. She accepted it on condition that she could reign jointly with her Dutch husband, William of Orange, who became William III. The convention Parliament of 1689 while offering the crown jointly to William and Marry, took several steps to ensure the supremacy of parliament and to safeguard the liberties of the people. Its first work was to turn the Declaration of Rights which it had drawn up into the Bill of Rights. This document formed the third great character of English liberties and completed the work which the Magna Carta had begun. It declared the illegality of (1) the suspending and dispensing powers as exercised by James II, (2) of maintaining a standing army, and (3) of levying money without t...

How to use poetry in a language classroom. What are the benefits of using a poem in the language classroom? Poetry, like the other literary genres, can be fruitfully used as a model of language for teaching the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The reading and writing of poetry, classified as a literary activity, has helped to keep this form of linguistic expression out of the typical EFL classroom while many teachers agree that poetry promotes language acquisition. While this might be true of poetry as a reading activity, however the use of poetry in the writing class can provide an effective and collaborative means of language learning and of personal expression. In an EFL classroom, picture poems, pattern poems and haiku can offer ways of making English a means of personal expression, creativity and development, serving to reduce affective barriers in a nonthreatening learning environment. Popular song scripts can also facilitate awareness of pronunciation...

'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar: Summary and Analysis Summary:   'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar is the opening poem of the thirty-one section of his collection of poems 'Jejuri.' It describes the bumpy journey from the starting point to its destination which is the temple of Khandoba. It is a State Transfort bus the windows of which are screened by the tarpaulin with which the bus has been covred to keep the possible rainfall , and also to keep off the cold wind which keeps blowing throughout the journey. It is a night journey which the bus has undertaken ; and after several hours of the arduous journey the passengers start waiting eagerly for daybreak.  The bus is full of the pilgrims who are bound for the temple of Khandoba where they want to offer worship; and the passengers might have included a few tourists who merely want to satisfy their curiosity about what kind of a temple it is and in what surroundings the temple stands. One of the passengers sits op...

Criteria for Selecting Literary Texts for a Language Classroom Selecting a literary text for a language classroom requires a number of considerations. Many things, for example, students’ age , their emotion ,intellectual maturity and their interests and hobbies should be taken into consideration before selecting a literary text. Obviously, when selecting materials for language classroom, one should try to find texts that are suitable for the majority of students in the class. The following criteria can be considered for selecting a literary text for language classroom: 1.    When selecting a literary text, one should think about how far the student’s cultural background and their social and political expectations will help or hinder their understanding of a text. It would be difficult, for example, for most readers to make sense of Jane Austen’s novels without having some knowledge of the class system and values of the society they describe. One should consider h...