Common homophones

 Common homophones:

tail – tale

sort – sought

missed – mist

curb – herb

wart – wort

pole – poll

him – hymn

eery – eyrie

watt – what

poof – pouffe

him – hymn

ewe – yew – you

yaw – yore – your – you’re

thyme – time

oh – owe

bare – bear

wait – weight

pi – pie

hear – here

board – bored

aye – eye – I

were – whirr

raw – roar

jewel – joule

fie – phi

sauce – source

liar – lyre

gilt – guilt

cast – caste

rough – ruff

lay – ley

furs – furze

bur – burr

shoe – shoo

mall – maul

hay – hey

clack – claque

straight – strait

Sole – Soul

meat – meet – mete

coo – coup

whirled – world

review – revue

knob – nob

flea – flee

Stile – Style

Soar – Sore

mean – mien

complement – compliment

talk – torque

spa – spar

Facst and Information for Literary Students

Miscellaneous Facst/Information for Literary Students

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1.Geoffrey Chaucer = The Father of English Literature

2.Geoffrey Chaucer = The Father of English Poetry

3.Geoffrey Chaucer = The Father of English Language

4.Geoffrey Chaucer = The Morning Star of the Renaissance

5.Geoffrey Chaucer = The First National Poet

6.Venerable Bede = The Father of English Learning.

7.Venerable Bede = The Father of English History

8.King Alfred the Great = The Father of English Prose

9.Aeschylus = The Father of Tragedy

10.Nicholas Udall = The First English Comedy Writer

11.Edmund Spenser = The Poet’s poet (by Charles Lamb)

12.Edmund Spenser = The Child of Renaissance

13.Edmund Spenser = The Bridge between Renaissance and Reformation

14.Gutenberg = The Father of Printing

15.William Caxton = Father of English Press

16.Francis Bacon = The Father of English Essay

17.John Wycliffe = The Morning Star of the Reformation

18.Christopher Marlowe = The Father of English Tragedy

19.William Shakespeare = Bard of Avon

20.William Shakespeare = The Father of English Drama

21.William Shakespeare = Sweet Swan of Avon

22.William Shakespeare = The Bard

23.Robert Burns = The Bard of Ayrshire (Scotland)

24.Robert Burns = The National Poet of Scotland

25.Robert Burns = Rabbie

26.Robert Burns = The Ploughman Poet

27.William Dunber = The Chaucer of Scotland

28.John Dryden = Father of English criticism

29.William of Newbury = Father of Historical Criticism

30.John Donne = Poet of love

31.John Donne = Metaphysical poet

32.John Milton = Epic poet

33.John Milton = The great master of verse

34.John Milton = Lady of the Christ College

35.John Milton = Poet of the Devil’s Party

36.John Milton = Master of the Grand style

38.John Milton = The Blind Poet of England

39.Alexander Pope = Mock heroic poet

40.William Wordsworth = The Worshipper of Nature

41.William Wordsworth = The High Priest of Nature

42.William Wordsworth = The Poet of Nature

43.William Wordsworth = The Lake Poet

44.William Wordsworth = Poet of Childhood

45.William Wordsworth = Egotistical Sublime

46.Samuel Taylor Coleridge = The Poet of Supernaturalism

47.Samuel Taylor Coleridge = Opium Eater

48.Coleridge & Wordsworth = The Father of Romanticism

49.Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey = Lake Poets

50.Lord Byron = The Rebel Poet

51.Percy Bysshe Shelley = The Revolutionary Poet

52.Percy Bysshe Shelley = Poet of hope and

regeneration

53.John Keats = Poet of Beauty

54.William Blake = The Mystic Poet

55.John Keats = Chameleon Poet

56.Lord Alfred Tennyson = The Representative of the Victorian Era

57.George Bernard Shaw = The greatest modern dramatist

58.George Bernard Shaw = The Iconoclast

59.Jane Austen = Anti-romantic in Romantic age

60.Lindley Murray = Father of English Grammar

61.James Joyce = Father of English Stream of Conscious Novel

62.Edgar Allen Poe = Father of English Mystery play

63.Edgar Allen Poe = The Father of English Short Story

64.Henry Fielding = The Father of English Novel

65.Samuel Johnson = Father of English one Act Play

66.Sigmund Freud = A great Psycho-analyst

67.Robert Frost = The Poet of Terror

68.Francesco Petrarch = The Father of Sonnet (Italian)

69.Francesco Petrarch = The Father of Humanism

70.Sir Thomas Wyatt = The Father of English Sonnet

71.Henry Louis Vivian Derozio = The Father of Indian-Anglican Sonnet

72.William Hazlitt = Critic’s Critic

73.Charles Lamb = The Essay of Elia

74.Arthur Miller = Mulk Raj Anand of America

75.Addison = The voice of humanist Puritanism

76.Emerson = The Seneca of America

77.Mother Teresa = The Boon of Heaven

78.Thomas Nash = Young Juvenile

79.Thomas Decker = Fore-runner of Humorist

80.Homer = The Father of Epic Poetry

81.Homer = The Blind Poet

82.Henrick Ibsen = Father of Modern theatre

83.Rabindranath Tagore = Indian National Poet

84.Nissim Ezekiel = The Father of Indian English Poetry

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Culture and Anarchy, an essay in social criticism by Matthew Arnold

 Culture and Anarchy

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

Culture and Anarchy, an essay in social criticism by Matthew Arnold, first published in 1869. Its purpose is to define true culture and to show how it may overcome the unintelligent and anti-social tendencies of English life of the author’s day. Culture he defines as a study of perfection, that is the harmonious expansion of all the powers of human nature. It is attained by a knowledge of the best that has been said and thought in the world, by the free play of the mind over the facts of life, and by a sympathetic attitude towards all that is beautiful. For a further definition of culture Arnold borrows a phrase from Swift, “Sweetness and light,” the first word indicating the sense of beauty and the second the active intelligence. Against this ideal are arrayed all the undisciplined forces of the age—prejudice, narrowness, the worship of liberty for liberty’s sake, faith in machinery whether governmental, economic, or religious—in short an unthinking individualism that leads to anarchy. English society may be divided into three classes—Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace. The Barbarians or aristocracy have a superficial sweetness and light but are too much concerned with the maintenance and enjoyment of their privileges to attain a true sense of beauty and a free mental activity. The Philistines or middle classes are devoted to money-making and a narrow form of religion and are indifferent or hostile to beauty. The Populace are violent in their prejudices and brutal in their pleasures. All are agreed that “doing as one likes” is the chief end of man and all are self-satisfied. In a further analysis of this English preference of doing to thinking Arnold distinguishes two forces which he names Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism is concerned with resolute action and strict obedience to conscience; Hellenism with clear thinking and spontaneity of consciousness. Harmoniously combined they lead to that perfect balance of our nature which is the end of culture. The excessive development of one of them results in imperfection. Hebraism with its insistence on conduct is the more essential and it triumphed in the form of Christianity; but the reaction from the pagan revival of the sixteenth century led to its over-development into Puritanism, a discipline intolerant of beauty and free intelligence. The English middle class is still dominated by Puritanism, despising art and mental cultivation as an end in itself and adhering to a narrow and unenlightened religious and ethical standard as “the one thing needful.” By a revival of the best in Hellenism Arnold would bring sweetness and light into the English middle classes; and he would overcome the unthinking individualism of all classes by developing the idea of right reason embodied in the State. By its power of telling phraseology and its pleasing expository method the book stimulated English society to thought and self-criticism. The evils it attacks and the remedies it proposes are by no means out of date.

General knowledge

• 7 days ➡️ 1 week 

• 14 days ➡️ 1 fortnight 

• 30 or 31 days ➡️ 1 month 

• 365 days ➡️ 1 year

• 366 days ➡️ 1 leap year 

• 12 months ➡️ 1 year 

• 1 year ➡️ Anniversary 

• 10 years ➡️ 1 decade 

• 25 years ➡️ Silver jubilee 

• 50 years ➡️ Golden jubilee 

• 60 years ➡️ Dimond jubilee 

• 75 years ➡️ Platinum jubilee 

• 100 years ➡️ 1 century

  History of English Literature Notes

Contents

Introduction

Characteristics

Forms

Themes

Style

#Introduction

The first great age of the English language was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) in England. Named after the monarch, the Elizabethan age, produced some of the biggest marvels of English Literature in history.

The influence of Italy, France, and Spain on English literature continued in this age. Drama, novels, and poetry all enjoyed a golden age of literature along with fine arts, science and philosophy.

However, Poetry, together Drama, emerged as the most popular form. William Shakespeare, Edmund Spencer, Philip Sydney, Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, etc are some of the poetic luminaries of the age.

Characteristics

Forms

The sonnet form, which became the dominant form of poetry and was the preferred style of Shakespeare himself (168 sonnets). Lyric, descriptive and narrative poetry also came into popular usage.

Shakespeare created a new kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet (English sonnet). This was different than the more widespread form, the Petrarchan sonnet (brought from Italy by Thomas Wyatt, etc.).

Elizabethan sonnets have an iambic pentameter and consist of 14 lines with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. These are called three quatrains and a couplet.

In Petrarchan form, there are 14 lines of iambic pentameter divided into the “octet” or the first 8 lines and the “sestet” (the next six). There is a turn or “volta,” between the octet and sestet.

Here the poet gives a different perspective or argument and it occurs between the octet and the sestet. Sometimes the turn is reserved for the final couplet like William Shakespeare’s sonnet 130.

Edmund Spenser also called the father of poetic diction (English), wrote the famous poems The Fairie Queen which introduced the Spenserian stanza consisting of 8 iambic pentameter lines followed by an alexandrine (iambic hexameter) with ABABBCBCC rhyme scheme.

Themes

The socio-political life of the time was revitalized by the exploits of Renaissance and poetry also reflected that. The classical texts were heavily relied on for inspiration and themes.

Ideas of patriotism, nationalism, freedom, free speech, humanism, dominated the literary space. In stark contrast to Chaucer’s age, this age was embellished with the notions of grand romances, exorbitant metaphors, experimentation, and innovation.

The aggrandizement of love was the most visible notion that captivated the poets of the age like Ben Jonson’s To Cecilia etc. The age also witnessed an amalgamation of classical myth like Greek etc and English tales of elves and fairies.

This gave a boost to popular fictional elements as well. Other topics exploited by poets were political life, war, and conflict, the nature of life, the duality of man, etc.

Style

Blank verse was the meter of choice for adding more drama to the text. It freed the poets from the clutches of making everything rhyme.

It was used profusely in drama as well by the likes of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe and survived far beyond the Elizabethan era with the works like John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and William Wordsworth’s “Prelude.”

The language was rich with grand narratives and heroic tales. The writing was evocative, palliative and flowery. Clever wordplay, alliteration, and metaphors were commonly deployed.

The age is renowned for its bewitching lyrics like Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella or Shakespeare’s poems like Venus and Adonis. Double Entendres was the most adored device of the Elizabethan poets.

It comprises words or phrases with dual meanings, a benign explicit meaning and an implicit secondary one which was more sensual. The use of grandiose affectations like ‘conceit’ was also popular to add more intrigue and suspense to the narrative.

Summary of Novel Tom jones

 

Summary of Novel Tom jones

Fielding’s novel begins with the discovery of an infant boy—later named Tom Jones—in the bed of a country gentleman. The aim of the story is twofold: first, to discover the truth about Tom’s origins and, second, to trace his moral development. Although Tom is good-natured, he lacks prudence. As he journeys through the English countryside and into London, he succumbs to many temptations. By the end, Tom has realized his mistakes and won the heart of the beautiful and virtuous Sophia Western. He has also been identified as the nephew of the gentleman in whose bed he was first discovered.

what is Epic?

 Epic is a long verse narrative on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or (in the instance of John Milton's Paradise Lost) the human race.