What is Literature

. What is the Literature?
Literature is nothing but the reflection of human characters. It is the criticism and interpretation of life through verbosity and ornamental languages which evokes deep feelings. Literature mirrors the true/realistic picture of the society and is designed especially for pleasure of mind.
Q. Importance of literature
Literature mainly means for giving pleasure. Pleasure and profit are the two motives of reading of English literature. Reading of literature may be profitable only when it is done properly. We can get immense pleasure from reading literature. For all this reason we are very much interested reading literature.
Q. What is poetry?
Poetry is a metrical composition that conveys a certain meaning or meanings. It is also called verse. William Wordsworth called – “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility”. Matthew Arnold called ---“poetry is a criticism of life”.
Q. What is Romanticism?
The term romanticism is a movement and new flavour in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It celebrates Nature rather than civilization, subjectivity, worship of beauty, deep feelings and imagination, escapism to the ivory tower from the harsh reality are the main subject matters of Romanticism. It does not follow any hard and fast rules like classicism.
Or
The feelings, beliefs and concepts that contain freshness of mind, seed of sagacity prudence and trends of reformation and trait protest against the traditional approach and wish to do good to the humanity are known as Romanticism.
Q. Characteristics of Romanticism.
1. High imagination
2. Subjectivity
3. Revolt
4. Interest in the past
5. Love of Nature
6. Mysticism, Spiritualism, Pantheism
7. Freedom
8. Supernaturalism
9. Deep feelings
10. Escapism

Q. What is Modernism?

The term Modernism is divided into two sections--- (1) White and (2) Black. Modern literature mainly reflects ills and evils of modern times, frustration, and lack of feelings, emotion and capitalism. Indomitable thirsts for knowledge adventurous voyages, astheism are also the vital traits of Modernism.
Q. What is Classicism?

Classicism is a movement in literature and art during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe that favored rationality, restraint and strict form. Actually the term classicism is derived from the Ancient Greek and Romance. Generally by this term we refer to the styles, rules, models, conventions, themes and sensibilities of classical authors and their influence on and presence in the works of later authors. The major English poets and writers who followed classical rules and modes were Ben Jonson, Pop, Swift, Dryden and Addison.
Q. What is Pantheism?

Pantheism is a new philosophy or ideology developed in the Romantic Era by William Wordsworth. Pantheism indicates the existence of God in every part of Nature. Pantheism is an intuitive, transcendental belief in the unity of all. Through pantheism Wordsworth tries to preach this doctrine that every living thing in the world is the part of Almighty God. Actually we can say, God is all and all is God this is pantheism He mentions in Tintern Abbey.

“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.”
Q. What is the Victorian spirit or age?
After coming in power of the dynamic queen Victoria, the Victorian spirit got its radical changes in all sections of the society. Industrialization, urbanization, Victorian literature, emancipation of women, renaissance spirit, scientific progress etc. are the outstanding progresses in the Victorian Era. In short, the indomitable thirst for knowledge and remarkable developments are the Victorian spirit.
Anglo- Saxon: -The term Anglo- Saxon is defined from the names of three tribal groups– Angles, Jutes and Saxons. Angles and the Jutes originate from the Jutland peninsula and the Saxons from the area later called lower Saxony. It is also worth nothing that the Anglo Saxons knew themselves as the English. Their language was Old English and Modern English. Anglo Saxon is the collective term usually used to describe ethnically and linguistically related peoples living in the South and east of the island of Great Britain from around the early 5th century A.D to the Norman Conquest of 1066. They spoke closely related Germanic dialects and they are indentified by Bede as the descendants of three Germanic tribes Angles, Jutes and Saxons. “Anglo” comes from “Angle” which means spear many used to believe that they are called angle. On the other hand, “Saxon” comes from “Sax” which means sword historians to believe that they were stronger as sword.

. Write the elaborated forms of the writers’ name.
1. T.S Eliot – Thomas Sterns Eliot.
2. W.B Yeats – William Butler Yeats.
3. G.B Shaw – George Bernard Shaw.
4. S.T Coleridge – Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
5. P.B Shelley – Percy Bysshe Shelley.
6. H.G Wells – Herbert George Wells.
7. D.H Lawrence – David Herbert Lawrence.
8. F.R Leavis – Frank Raymond Leavis.
9. R.K Narayan – Rashipuram Krishnaswami Narayan.
Q. Name of American writers and works.
American Novel: - Poet name Work
Herman Melville Moby-Dick
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
Saul Bellow Seize the Day
American Poetry: -
Walt Whitman Song of Myself
Robert Frost Stopping by Woods in the Snowy Evening
Emily Dickinson I felt funeral in my brain
American Drama:-
Arthur Miller The Death of a sales Man
O’Neill The Long Day’s Journey into Night
Earnest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises
American Prose:-
Emerson The American Scholars
Thomas Paine The Crisis
Washington Irving Rip Van Winkle
Q. Escapism of Keats.
John Keats (1795-1821) is the greatest escapist in the Romantic Era. He wants to flee from all rigidities and conformities and harsh realities to the ivory tower. Keats’s escapism is based on not only his fear for the hard realities of life but his longing for the dreamy world of permanent happiness of the joyous world.
“Away! Away! For I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of poesy.” (Ode to a Nightingale)
Q. Characteristic of Keats.
(1) Impersonal poetry. (2) Negative capability. (3) Sensuousness. (4) Love for beauty. (5) Great Ode writer. (6) Pessimism. (7) Art is long but life is short.
Q. Short note on Shakespeare.

Shakespeare means a virtuoso writer, legend dramatist, a consummate poet and a good performer on the stage who remains as a glittering star in the sky not only in English literature but also in the world literature. He was born about the 23rd April in 1564, at Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire. In his 19th year he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years senior. As You Like It, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Julius Ceaser, and The Tempest are well-known creations of Shakespeare. His famous remark-“All’s well that End’s well.” He is famous for the objective presentation of his deep knowledge about human psychology. He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets, 3 narrative poems. He died in 1616, 23rd April.
Q. Short note on William Wordsworth.
William Wordsworth was born on 7th April, 1770 at Ceckermouth, Cumberland. He lost his parents when he was child. He began his career as a poet. He is a Romantic poet of all Romantic poets of Nature. He was worshiper of Nature. He enjoyed Nature felt Nature and found divinity in Nature. He is a spokes man of pantheism. He believes that there is a divine spirit pervading all the objects of Nature. So his view “God is all and all is God.” This belief finds a complete expression in Tintern Abbey.
“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her”
The first fruits of his genius were given out in the Lyrical Ballads (1798). Romanticism begins through publishing this book. The Solitary Reaper, Tintern Abby, and Michael are his remarkable creation. He also wrote about five hundred sonnets. He died in 1850.
Q. Short note on Tennyson.
Tennyson was born in 1809. He was educated at Cambridge University. He died in 1892. He was the symbol of Victorian’s spirit, desire and hope. His poetry is the philosophy of faith and hope. He gives expression to the scientific spirit of the age. There is something universal in his poetry that has an appeal to all hearts-ancient or modern. The Lotos-eaters, King Arthur are the document of it. He is the mouthpiece of the Victorians. His poetry reflects the Victorian age-social, political, religious and literary. That is why, he is truly representative of that age.
. The criticism of life according to Matthew Arnold.
The people are divided in their aims. They flow with the tide without judging anything. They are going to their destination of unknown horizon, as they have no definite aim. The poet divided the people into two groups (1). Scholar Group. (2). Aimless Group.
Q. Short note on Dover Beach: - Dover Beach is one of the short poems written by Matthew Arnold. This poem reflects the lost hope, faith and devotion to God. He rightly mentions ---
“Oh, the sea of faith
Was once at the full.”
Here the poet laments over the loss of faith on God as well as human beings.

Q. Short note on My Last Duchess: -

I gave commands
Then all smiles stopped together.
This quotation has been quoted from the poem My Last Duchess written by Robert Browning. These lines refer to the killing of a Duchess by a 1600 century Italian Duke of Ferrara. The Duke talks to the envoy of the portrait of his wife. The Duchess was innocent pleasant, good, nature and simple. She was not in the proud and treated all equally. Even she used to make no difference between her husbands the Duke and other men. On the other hand, the Duke was proud of his position as well as of his nine hundred years aristocracy. The Duke did not like the Duchess behaviour. But he thought it to beyond his prestige to ask his wife to give up this habit. The Duke was crud and dictatorial by nature. So he gave commands to his people to kill her and thus all her smiles stopped at once.
Q. Discuss the four causes/reason of Second World War.

In September 1939, Europe was drawn into a general war. This war is called the Second World War. The causes of the Second World War are given below---
(1). Defects of the peace treaties: the causes of the Second World War related to the failure of the peace terms of 1919-1920. Those terms, while understandable in view of the passions and hatreds engendered by the First World War, created almost as many problems as they solved.
(2). Power Polities: Power Polities were a second cause of the Second World War. Altho