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William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Shakespeare is for all cosmos, for all times: above image is of 2013 Hollywood movie adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet starring Douglas Booth & Hailee Steinfeld; below [Home Page Slide Show] images are of 2013 Bollywood movie adaptation titled Ramleela starring Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone.
Let noble thoughts come to us
from every side.Rigveda 1-89-I [1] “There are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy:Hamlet,Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare “She had always wanted words, she
loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.
Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water.”―Michael Ondaatje,The English Patient
POEM If yet I have not all thy love, Dear, I shall never have it all; I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move, Nor can entreat one other tear to fall; All my treasure, which should purchase thee- Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters- I have spent, Yet no more can be due to me, Than at the bargain made was meant; If then thy gift of love were partial, That some to me, some should to others fall, Dear, I shall never have thee all.
INTERPRETATION: The poet says that he does not have all of his beloved’s love though he has tried to buy it using his “treasure” or fund of sighs, tears, oaths and letters.
He speaks as though he and his lady had entered a bargain by which he has already got his “due”. But he thinks that she has more love left in her heart which is now being given to someone else. So sadly, he will not be able to possess her completely.
I need more of you by Bellamy Brothers:
I need more of you, changin my rain into sun More of you, put on my blues on the run I need more of you, darling, I need more of you More, anything less wouldn't do
The poet says that he does not have all of his beloved’s love
I need
more of you, changin my rain into
sun
Master Nobody: Tell me, doesn’t the song sing the same plea that
the poet let flow? Don’t they seem to sing from the same sheet of hymns?
Student Zaka: It seems to sing of
the same, sir.
Master Nobody: Then, why do you say, irrelevant content are
brought into the discussion?
Student Zaka: In this case, poem and
song seems to sing of the same theme. But when you bring in
Mahabaratha into a lesson, we find it hard to follow. We guess it is not
relevant.
Master Nobody: Now, if you find a quote from Mahabharata is irrelevant,
if you see an episode from Mahabharata isn’t of any value in a discussion in
literature, you have failed to see that literature
is all about us: how we must live. See, Zaka, as the street story teller
told Scheherazade, the narrator of 1001 Arabian nights, the stories tell
us how to live.
As such,let
noble thoughts come to us from every side.
Mahabharata, though called a Hindu Epic Poem, in terms of its literary value, is timeless and universal as the dramas of
Shakespeare. On 3rd October
2014 Mariyam Asif Siddiqui, a 12-year-old Muslim girl at Cosmopolitan High
School in Mumbai, won sixth grade category inter-school 'Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Champion League' competition organized by
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON). The Bhagavad Gita consists of 700 verses of Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit,
which form part of the Mahabharata. Why
shouldn’t Zaka, a Muslim student, three years older than Mariyam, listen to an
episode in Mahabaratha with little more patience? [http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/04/10/bhagavad-gita_n_7022500.html]
Have I, myself, begun to be tormented in the same way that Krishna, the protagonist of Cambridge OL prescribed work of literature, “The English Teacher”, had been?
Krishna was against
the Anglicized culture being
fostered by Mr. Brown and his other teachers in college. Mr. Brown and his teachers
accept forceful appreciation ofBritish
culture. Krishna has a pro-Hindu
perspective from the beginning of the text. Am I becoming Krishna when I
find overwhelming delight in quoting Mahabarata?
When I read the tome of a book in Sinhala, from cover to cover, now weeping,
now smiling from ear to ear, I was only 10 years old. A decade later I went on
to read it again, this time the English translation.
Yudhistra: ………………… Grandfather, tell us how to kill you.
Bhishma placed a hand on Yudhisthira’s shoulder: “O son of Pandu, as you say, I am
invincible. When I take my weapons and my large bow in hand, I am incapable in
being defeated in battle by the very gods with Indra at their head.
“Draupada’s valiant and wrathful
son, who is known in your army as Shikandi-it
is he who will cause my fall. Formerly he was a woman, as everyone knows.
Therefore, I will not strike him, even if he attacks me. Place him in forefront
of the fight and let Arjuna stand
behind him. Only Arjuna or the
illustrious Krishna can bring me down in battle. If Shikandi faces me I will
not fight. Then it will be possible for Arjuna
to slay me. Do this, O Yudhistara,
and gain victory.
Mahabharata,
The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time.
"In the realm of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha, (ethics, economic development, pleasure, and liberation), whatever is found in this epic may be found elsewhere, but what is not found here will be impossible to find" (Mahabharata, Adi Parva 56.33)
The Mahabharata, the world's
greatest and longest known epic poem
[with 100,000 verses exceeds the Bible
and all of Shakespeare's plays put together] in any language is one of the two majorSanskritepicsofancient
India. The Sanskrit epic written by Maharishi Vyasa narrating the Kurukshetra Warand fates of theKauravaand thePandava
princes is ten times the length of the
Iliadand theOdyssey sung by Homercombined, or about four times the length of the Ramayana written by Maharishi
Valmiki.
Mahabharata also presents philosophicaland devotional material, such as a
discussion of the four "goals of
life" orpurusharthas.
Among the principal works and stories in theMahabharatais theBhagavad
Gita, During the time of
Raj, the veteran colonial administrators
would advise newcomers to the civil service to read one book if they wanted to
grasp the essence of the ancient continent and its peoples: Mahabharata
The Mahabharata
is more deeply woven into the fabric of Indian culture than any other story: it
has cut into the Indian psyche to the very core. It's influence in subcontinent-wide.
It has brought about an array of divine beings to the forefront of the Hindu
pantheon, led by Krishna or Vishnu. Indians in all strata of society,
in their numerous languages, tosses about the sayings of millenniums old Mahabharata
as if picked from the newspaper of the day; Bollywood drops names, bring in
characters and imitates the heroism and courage. As they go on, it seems, the
Indian languages find Mahabharata plays no second fiddle, when it comes to the
idiomatic use of phrases from the King James Version of Bible in English. Beloved heroes of the Mahabharata are an unending
source for the expectant Indian mothers hunting for Sanskrit names. Seemingly endless numbers of Indian children are
named after the heroes, not to forget Sri
Lanka’s indomitable Captain Cool who brought cricketing glory to the island in Lahore in 1996: Arjuna.There goes the spread of Mahabarata. If Mahabharata is of no relevance to the
humanity, no work of literature would ever be.
"I have
never seen a nation supporting another nation like that,"
Sunil
Wettimuny recalled Pakistani supporters cheering the Sri Lankan side.
Pakistanis also protested
against the injustice meted out to Sri Lankans In Australia by the Australians
with a banner:
‘There was an umpire named Hair
Who has a body of an overgrown bear
With a brain as small as a Hare
Who treated Sri Lankans unfair’
Can you pen
such a banner?
Mahabharata also has a
soothing effect on the Indian psyche: unlike Ramayana in which ten-head King
Ravana of Lanka was killed by India’s Prince Rama, Mahabharata, owing to its complexity and range make no
concessions to the extremists. Radical elements of India find no slogans to
inflame million mutinies: it hasn't
been co-opted by the nationalist, fascist, aryan-supremacy crowd that is
ascendant in India at the moment.
There are many ways to read the Mahabharata: we can
have several interpretations. You may argue on your own view.
[a] The Kurus and the Pandavas are sometimes said to
represent forces that exist in each society and individual.
[b] Mahabharata is an allegory for a inner war between right and wrong.
[c] The story is a history of the Aryan conquest of much of Eurasia.
[d] Mahabharata is a vehicle to both educate
and entertain the masses in camps and villages through the ages, invented by thinkers of great
imagination and polished over the centuries. [e] Mahabharata demonstrates how the good can be taken advantage of by the
devious.
[f] Mahabharata makes a compelling case for immersing oneself into the world as opposed
to asceticism
[g] Most of all, as I see Mahabhatha as a testimony to the inevitability
of karma or destiny: we all are pre-programmed, said Krishna, one of the nine avatars of Lord Vishnu:”]:”O Arjuna, I am time itself, grown mature, capable of destroying the
world, and now engaged in subduing it. Even without your effort, all the
opposing warrirors shall cease to exist. Therefore arise and win great glory,
conquer your enemies, and enjoy a prosperous kingdom. They are already slain by
me. You, O Arjuna, are merely the occasion. Kill Drona, Bhisma, Jayadratha,
Karana, and all the other great warriors whom I have already doomed. Do not
fear, but fight and conquer your enemies in battle.”
All kinsmen, all friends take sides, torn asunder over their conflicting
loyalties and duties. Arjuna and Krishna discuss duty at length; he could
hardly find his heart to wage war against his uncles and cousins and former
teachers, but he must. As the destiny would have it, all the enemies of Five
Pandavas would be killed. The five Pandavas led by righteous Yudishtara, who were deprived of their kingdom, would become
victorious over their cousins Kauravas led by Duryodhana in the epic war. Destiny.
DestinyParis was the son of Priam,
King of Troy. Though he was born in a royal family, he had been brought up in
obscurity because an oracle had prophesied that he would one day bring ruin to
the city. He did Before Achilles was born, the Fates told his mother that he would die
young. After his birth she bathed him in the river Styx, whose magic waters
gave protection from all woulds and diseases. However the waers did not touch
the heel b which Thetis had held hm. So, when Paris shot a poisoned arrow at
Achilles, the gods guided Paris’ arrow to his heel which was the only
vulnerable part of his body. Achilles dies from the wound."The Trojan War" Communicate in English, Literature Reader 8 [Used for grade 7- Int'l] by
Ratna Sagar
Now,
coming back from Krishna of Mahabharata
to our Krishna, the protagonist of “The English Teacher”, we see Krishna realizes
the futility of an education such as he was engaged in serves to effectively
keep his countrymen in subjugation not only physically, but also in their
approach to life and mind-set, being discontent
with their lot and hankering after another culture which will not sustain
them.
However
Krishna reflects no contemptuous and spiteful account of the hatred of the
British ruler that fires lesser persons [such as..mm..] up, on and off.
In reality he is enthralled with the dramas
of the Master, William Shakespeare:
“As I read on, I myself was moved
by the force and fury of the storm compressed in these lines. The sheer poetry
of it carried me on…. At the thought of
helpless humanity I nearly broke down.” Such is the force of Shakespeare’s
words, having realized the helpless condition of the man battered by the weather
gods, unable to defend, being reminded of the pathetic condition of the
humanity, Krishna was nearly in tears. I
am not far.
Words of Shakespeare
In
our words
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the
cocks!
You sulfurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking
thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!
Blow, winds! Blow until your
cheeks crack! Rage on, blow!
Let tornadoes spew water
until the steeples of our churches and the weather vanes are all drowned.
Let quick sulfurous lightning, strong enough to split enormous trees,
singe the white hair on my head.
Let thunder flatten the spherical world,
crack open all the molds from which nature forms human beings,
and spill all the seeds from which ungrateful humans grow!
In
the south- western coastal belt of mine [I am from Moratuwa - hometown and schooltown], where my roots are, not so long ago,
when assaulted by the South-Western Monsoon, unable to eke out a living by
going fishing in the Indian Ocean, the fishing populace could go starving
unless fish was preserved and stored. [Jadi]
My father, Baminahennadige Donald B. Peiris of Lakshapaiya, Moratuwa used to say that's how his mother would say during the monsoon rain
“It rains, oh! It pours with unfathomable fury and ferocity, Those Ants may dine Those who have suffered the sea and saved fish for the monsoon months Those Grasshoppers may whine
Those who have been idle and failed to save in the unruffled months
Study hard today while you are nourished
For tomorrow without your own oar
you would be drowned
The Ant and the
Grasshopper
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about,
chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along
with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.
"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper,
"instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the
Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."
"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have
got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and
continued its toil.
When the winter came the Grasshopper found itself dying of hunger,
while it saw the ants distributing, every day, corn and grain from the stores
they had collected in the summer.
Then the Grasshopper knew... It is best to prepare for the days of
necessity.
Dilum: Sir, who made Shakespeare
into Cambridge OL syllabus?
Master Nobody: Why, the Cambridge
International Examination Board itself, indeed.
I know, since Merchant of Venice is written in four centuries ago, you find it
hard to grapple with the language. But in the British education system, the
1990 National Curriculum in English lists Shakespeare
as the only author that all British school children, over the age 13, must
study (Curtis, 2008)
Furthermore, when in
1983 the Secretary of State in UK required the nine GCE boards to devise a common core for A level the English
working party could agree only one thing that is not vague and general: that at least one play by Shakespeare must
be studied.
Dilum: what is the logic
behind such a resolution, sir?
Master
Nobody: Shakespeare has no
rivals. He is the master story teller. He
knows us better than we do. Shakespeare was, through his dramatic characters,
the inventor of human personality as
we have come to understand it. In short, Shakespeare invented our understanding
of ourselves. He put words into my mouth, when I have no words to express my grief.
No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all?
King Lear: William
Shakespeare
‘Shakespeare’s plays
remain the outward limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in
certain ways morally, even spiritually. They abide beyond the end of the mind’s
reach; we cannot catch up to them. Shakespeare will go on explaining us in part
because he invented us… ’ Harold Bloom, the doyen of American
literary critics and author of “Shakespeare,
the Invention of Human” and “The
Western Canon”.
Now, Cambridge OL poems. Some of the poems can be interpreted as love
between man and a woman as well as the Divine
Love. Now Divine Love, the concept of love between man and the God inherent
in Christianity is alien to majority of our nation, and of source to the
students, the biblical references wouldn’t
be picked up; no bells would ring reminding the quotations from the Bible. Herein again, is a situation
where I found myself falling into the thinking of our Krishna. The master, not
the lord. Let me quote a couple of lines from two poems from the current
Cambridge OL syllabus and previous syllabus.
Love III by
George Herbert
Poem
Poet is a lost
soul that God [Love] is courting and trying to reassure
Interpretation
Love bade me
welcome. Yet my soul drew back Guilty of dust and sin
Solomon 5:6. "I opened to my
beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself" (Authorized Version,
1611). God
is accepting of the poet’s faults even as the poet draws back and feels,
“guilty of dust and sin”
‘Dust’ has a special meaning from the bible.
Dust means human or flesh. This meaning comes from the famous saying in the
bible: ‘Dust thou art, and to dust thou shall return’. Herbert, the guest,
feels embarrassed because he is human.
What does the guest mean by ‘sin’? The guest feels guilty of original sin in
the first stanza. Christians like Herbert believe this sin is in a person’s
soul since birth.
But quick-eyed
Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in,
The poet shows how he is troubled in spirit because he
feels sinful:
Drew nearer to
me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
If I lacked any thing. echoes a version of Psalm 23, which
begins: "The Lord is my shepherd: therefore can I lack nothing"
(Psalms in the Version of the Great Bible, 1539)
The Demon and the Damozel — 2008
Dynamics of Desire in the Works of Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti
By Suzanne Waldman
A
birthday by Christina Rossetti [Not in your syllabus now]
Poem
Regular Interpretation
Interpretation in the
perspective of Divine Love
My
heart is like a singing bird
Whose
nest is in a water’d shoot;
[Singing
bird symbolizes change of season from winter to Spring/re-birth of nature.]
The poet has come out of an uneventful life to joyous days. Water’d shoot a
growing sprout of a plant that symbolizes growth of love, lushness &
fertility
She
celebrates her state of bliss on finding the love of her life-God.
The
Lord will guide you always: he will satisfy your needs. You will be like well-trodden garden, like a spring whose
waters never fail [Isaiah 58:11]
My
heart is like an apple-tree
Whose
boughs are bent with thickest fruit.
[Apple
tree symbolizes nourishment to the human race.]
In
spite of my enrichment, I am humbled
Old
Testament says that those who ‘lay hold’ of this tree ‘will be blessed’
[Proverbs 3:18]
In an attempt to bring all those
love poems closer to our students, I thought of translating a Sinhala song into
English so that they could pick a cue in enjoying poems.
However all isn’t lost. Haven’t Cambridge International Examinations already
chosen R. K. Narayan’s “The English Teacher”? Well, would Cambridge go further? In his
Bengali novel titled “Chokher Bali” [1902], Tagore (1861-1941) [“The God of Poems” was
awarded the Noble Prize for literature for the poem Gitanjali, in 1913]
pillories the custom of perpetual
mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were
consigned to seclusion and loneliness.
It was made into a movie, [a box
office hit in 2003] with Aishawarya Rai playing the lead role of Binodini. Unlike Jane Eyre, Binodini
isn’t destined to see the fulfillment of
life.
Our company is reliable because we consider solving issues while writing papers, for example copy pasting. It is prohibited, because it might cause consequences to students. Have a look at writing essay services to find more information!
And when in 1983 the Secretary of State required the nine GCE boards to devise a common core for A level, the English working party could agree only one thing that is not vague and general: that at least one play by Shakespeare must be studied.(4) (See note 10 for an explanation of the British examination. system.) english.illinoisstate.edu/strickland/rsvtxt/sinfield.htm
Of Shakespeare
In the British education system, the 1990 National Curriculum in English lists Shakespeare as the only author that all British schoolchildren, over the age of 13, must study(Curtis, 2008).
In Education
“Our education, in the English-speaking world, but in many other nations as well, has been Shakespearean. Even now, when our education has faltered, and Shakespeare is battered and truncated by our fashionable ideologues, the ideologues themselves are caricatures of Shakespearean energies.” Surprisingly as it may seem, researchers have concluded that almost 20,000 musical compositions were influenced by Shakespeare (Gross, 2003). The character of Hamlet enabled Freud to, in part, develop his theories of human nature and so emphasizes Bloom’s point (Paraisz, 2006). Shakespeare’s influence, as evidenced from the examples above, is far-reaching. Where, in Shakespeare, are these seeds of education theory sown? .newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Shakespeare.html
I have just begun to roll on this blog: Soon there will be blue blistering barnacles & thundering typhoons. bunpeiris
Universities are turning out highly skilled barbarians because we don’t provide a framework of values to young people, who more and more are searching for it. Steven Muller, President, John Hopkins University
Poetry
Poetry, the elemental speech, is the like the elements. Its primary function is not to convey thought, but to reflect life. It shows man his soul, as a looking glass does his face. There hangs the mirror on the wall, a definite object, the same for all. Yet whoever looks into it sees not the mirror but himself. We all live in the same world, but what different worlds we see in it and make out of it: Caesar's, Jesus', Machiavelli's, Mozart's--yours and mine. Harold C. Goddard
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Shahrazad
"Shahrazad (Scheherazade) had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."
"Stories are indispensable to the life, they tell you how to live & why. " Street story teller to Princess Shahrzad (Scheherazade), the narrator of 1001 Arabian nights In The Thousand and One Arabian Nights, written in Persia between the 9th and 13th centuries,Adam's Peak Sri Pada of Serendib (Sri Lanka) is one of the strange places that Sinbad visited. "I made, by way of devotion, a pilgrimage to the place where Adam was confined after his banishment from Paradise, and had curiosity to go to the top of the mountain" narrated Sinbad
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