Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot

There were two tramps named Vladimir and Estragon. They meet near a tree. They converse on different things and at the end of their conversation they both reveal to each other that they are waiting for a man named Godot whom they had never met before. They do many things to pass their time and other two men named Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo is the master and Lucky is the servant her. Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for a while to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave.

After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs. After his departure Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move.

The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo comes again, but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men earlier. They leave and Vladimir and Estragon again continue to wait for Godot.

The boy comes and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming today. When Vladimir asks the boy that whether they met yesterday or not, than the boy says that he did not speak to Vladimir yesterday and it was his brother who came yesterday not he. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but then also they do not move and keeps on waiting.

Valediction Forbidding Mourning

Valediction Forbidding Mourning

The speaker reveals that he is forced to spend time away from his lover but before leaving he says that their farewell is not the occasion for sorrow and mourning. In the same virtuous men die mildly and without complaint, he says they should leave without “tear- floods” and “sigh- tempests”, for to publicly announce their feelings in such a way would profane their love.  The speaker says when the earth moves, it brings ‘harms and fears’ but when the spheres experience ‘trepidation’ though the impact is greater, but at the same time it’s innocent also.  The love of dull sublunary lovers cannot survive separation but it removes the love which constitutes itself, but the love he shares with his beloved is so refined and inter-assured of the mind that they need not worry about missing “eyes, lips and hands”.

 As he has to go their souls would be one and they are not enduring a discontinuity though they are experiencing an “expansion”, the soul they share will simply stretch in all the spaces between them. If their souls are separate he says they are like the feet of compass that is- his lover soul is the fixed foot in the center and his is the foot that moves around it. The firmness of the center foot makes the circle that the outer foot draws perfect: “Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun.”

The Last Ride together

The Last Ride Together

The Last Ride Together is a poem by English poet Robert Browning, first published in his 1855 collection Men and Women. His major works got published after his marriage with Elizabeth Barrett, which consisted of fifty one poems. The Last Ride Together is a ten-stanza poem primarily focused on themes of love and loss. The title represents the last time the former couple takes a carriage ride together.

   The poem begins with the narrator blaming his fate that his romance has come to an end. He bemoans that everything he has tried has failed and his love affair has come to an end. But in midst of all his desolations he cherishes the moment spent with his lady and praises her. He wishes to go for a ride with her before they depart. After much struggle the couple manage to go on a ride before they depart. The narrator speaks about the wonderful feelings when they go on a ride. He says about how time flied, about the passion and the ecstatic feelings when she touched him.

    The narrator leaves the past hopes that what was and starts enjoying what are with him now. He feels relaxed when he leaves the past behind. He stops thinking how things would get better or worse and starts enjoying the time with his lady. He compares himself with others who strive for many things but don’t get everything and fails. He does so to hide his grief of his ending love affair in front of his eyes.  He hopes for a better future.

      At the end the narrator surrenders himself in front of the situations and thinks that it has to end here. He becomes sad and thinks that life with his lover is far from him as Heaven is far from him.

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers this novel was written by D. H. Lawrence in the year 1913. Lawrence started writing this novel in the period of mother’s illness and often expresses his mother’s wasted life through his female protagonist Gertrude Morel.

The first part of the novel focuses on Mrs. Morel’s life as she is leading an unhappy married life with a drinking miner. She undergoes lots of arguments with her husband, some of which resulted into painful arguments. Sometimes she was locked outside house or hit by drawer on her head. After being alienated from her husband Mrs. Morel takes comfort in her four children, especially her sons. Her favourite son William gets a job and had to move to London which makes her sad. William dies after few years which leave Mrs. Morel heart-broken. She didn’t give heed to her other children in William’s grief, and she was also going to lose her second son Paul as well. But Paul almost changes Mrs. Morel’s life and she focuses on him, they both started to live for each other.

Paul falls in love with Miriam Leivers , who lives nearby. Mrs. Morel didn’t approve their relationship for which Paul didn’t marry Miriam but had feelings for her. Then Paul meets Clara Dawes through Miriam. Clara is being separated from her husband. Paul and Clara come close to each other, Paul starts to discuss of his relationship with Miriam with Clara. Clara suggests him to conclude his relationship with Miriam and so Paul returns to Miriam to hear what she has left with to say.

Paul and Miriam sleep together and find each other happy but afterwards Paul makes a decision that he doesn’t want to marry Miriam so he finally breaks off with her. Miriam respects Paul’s decision and without saying a word accepts his decision but she thinks that his soul still belongs to her.

After breaking with Miriam Paul starts to spend more time with Clara and they start with an affectionate affair. Clara at the end is unwilling to give divorce to her husband Baxter and so they can never be married. Paul’s mother falls sick and Paul started devoting most of his time to his mother. But after few days his mother dies. Paul then goes back to Miriam he tried to persuade her in every way he could but everything went in vain. At the end of the novel Paul is left all alone.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Ode on a Grecian Urn

The poem begins with the speaker standing before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the “still unravish’d bride of quietness,” the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” He also describes the urn as a “historian” that can tell a story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be.

In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that though he cannot kiss his beloved as he is frozen in time he shouldn’t grieve, because her beauty will never fade.

In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because his songs will be “forever new,” and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into “breathing human passion” and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.” In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will “for evermore” be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.” The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.

King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. Here we can see the gradual madness of Lear, the aging king of Britain. He had three daughters named as- Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, whom he puts in a test before giving his kingdom in their hands. He asked them to say how much did they love him, the elder two daughters Goneril and Regan gave flattering answers to impress their father. On the other hand, the youngest and favourite daughter Cordelia of Lear remained silent and only said that she doesn’t knows how much she loves her father. On hearing her reply Lear becomes furious and disowns her. The King of France was still ready to marry Cordelia though she had nothing with her and they both went to France.

Lear soon realises that he had made a mistake in judging his daughters. He was being undermined by his elder daughters and he goes insane. He leaves his daughter’s house somehow and he was being accompanied by his Fool and Kent. Gloucester another loyal nobleman of Lear decides to help him after he had learnt about Lear’s grief. Regan and her husband Cornwall discover him helping Lear, accuse him of treason, blind him, and turn him out to wander the countryside.

In Dover, a French army lands as part of an invasion led by Cordelia in an effort to save her father. The English troops reach Dover led by Edmund, defeats Cordelia-led French. Lear and Cordelia are imprisoned.

At the end Goneril kills Regan for Edmund and commits suicide when her treachery got revealed infront of Albany, Edmund’s betrayal for Cordelia ends her upto needless execution in prison. And Lear dies in the grief of Cordelia’s death after he understood that how wrong was he in judging his three daughters. Albany, Edgar, and the elderly Kent are left to take care of the country under a cloud of sorrow and remorse.

The Poem Journey of the Magi

Journey of the Magi

Journey of the Magi begins with the journey which is cold and a difficult one. This journey is about the journey of the Three Kings (Three wise men or Magi) to the birthplace of Jesus. As the poem starts preceding it enumerates about the difficulties faced during travelling, including the grumpy camels, longing for home, unfriendly and expensive towns and lack of places to halt and rest for some time. The speaker says that for these reasons the Magi selected to travel all day and night long and through their travelling a voice kept suggesting that maybe this whole thing was nothing.

 The speaker says about the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem a place known as “temperate valley”. They didn’t get any such hint from the villagers where to go exactly but then also they manage to reach the stable on time to witness the birth of baby Jesus.

The last part of the poem blatantly the Magus reminiscing about the story and he also in doubt thinks whether the birth is good or bad thing, as it would replace old religion and beliefs. In fact, at the end of the poem he seems to say the birth of Jesus as a bad thing indeed, with the Magus wishing for his own death alongside with the death of people’s old religion and ways.