Name :-Niyatiben A. Pathak
Batch :- 2017-2019
Enrollement no. . 2069108420180042
Paper : post –colonial literature
Guide : Dilip Barad
Submitted to : Department Of English MKBU
Words .....2822Here is my assignment on
Literary terms
Read ,give suggestions , which can help me for forther information .....
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Allegory in Literature
In an allegory, the authors prepare characters, plot and setting as well as they include a lesson or a moral on the big concepts. However, allegory is a comparison or extended metaphor between two things. It usually compared between two things which are unlike. Allegories are not obvious. Here, the ordinary things become symbolic. For instance, space aliens symbolize immigrants. The word ‘Allegory’ comes from the Latin word ‘allegoria’. In allegory, the people and things all have symbolic meaning.
Allegory is a figure of speech and in that, principles and ideas are described by figures, characters and events. It is mostly used in the prose and poetry while describing an idea or principle. It is used in the stories to teach some moral lessons.
However, Allegory is an archaic term and it is used in the literary work. ‘Animal Farm’ written by George Orwell is a great example of Allegory in literature. Here, the animals symbolize the different sections of Russian society, where pigs represent the people who came to power after the time of the revolution. On the other hand, the horse represents the laborer class and the owner of the farm symbolizes the overthrown Tsar Nicholas II.
However, Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queen” is a remarkable piece of writing that represents a religious allegory. Here, the bad characters represent the vices and good characters symbolize several virtues. Here, the holiness is represented by the ‘The Red-Cross Knight’ and ‘Lady Una’ portrays the truth. In this poem, ‘The Red-Cross Knight’ epitomizes the reformed church of England that is fighting against the ‘Dragon’ which represents the papacy. Another spiritual allegory is ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ written by John Bunyan. It represents that the road that goes to Heaven is not easy, rather it is full of obstacles and to reach the place, the person should have faith.
Definition of Allegory
An allegory is a work of art, such as a story or painting, in which the characters, images, and/or events act as symbols. The symbolism in an allegory can be interpreted to have a deeper meaning. An author may use allegory to illustrate a moral or spiritual truth, or political or historical situation.
Common Examples of Allegory
There are many common stories that we tell which have allegorical meanings. These are especially popular in stories for children, as allegories often mean to teach some lesson or help the audience understand complex ideas and concepts. Stories such as Aesop’s Fables often have morals, and thus are examples of allegory. We also use real events that have happened to teach lessons.
Significance of Allegory in Literature
Allegories have been used for centuries in many different cultures. They are used to teach lessons, explain moral concepts, and show the author’s views on a certain situation. An allegory is a very specific type of story, as it must stay true to the message for the entirety of the story. Allegories thus can be difficult to master, as they can be pedantic when done poorly. However, some works of literature that can be read allegorically gain much strength from their deeper meanings.
Functions of Allegory:
The authors usually use allegory to include different layers of meaning in their work. Allegory is a literal device that makes each character multidimensional and more meaningful than what it refers literally. Allegory allows the authors to represent a moral through their writing. An allegorical writing also represents the writer’s mind as how he thinks and views the world.
Example..
.George Orwell’s Animal Farm is one of literature’s most famous allegories. The surface story is about a group of farm animals who rise up, kick out the humans, and try to run the farm themselves. The hidden story, however, is about the Russian Revolution, and each of the characters represents some figure from that revolution. The pigs represent Communist leaders like Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky, the dogs represent the KGB, the humans represent capitalists, the horses represent the working class, etc.
No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
(Animal Farm by George Orwell)
Perhaps the most famous recent allegory example is George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Orwell’s story of a farm in which the animals kick out the humans to become equal workers, and the rise of the pig Comrade Napoleon to quash any possibility of equality, mirrors the Russian Revolution of 1917 very closely. Comrade Napoleon is a symbol for Stalin, while other prominent pigs in the story represent Lenin and Trotsky. This work was Orwell’s first conscious attempt to “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.”
The Importance of Allegory
Allegories deliver difficult messages in easy-to-read stories. That makes them extremely useful and expressive tools. So for centuries, human beings have used allegories to say things they couldn’t say any other way. Some scholars believe that myths and religious stories originated as allegories for the deep secrets of the universe and the human mind — secrets that humans cannot comprehend without the help of an allegorical story. On this interpretation, the allegory is the oldest form of story in the world.
People often use allegories in order to understand the world around them — whether it’s the world of politics, new technology, or the many ethical problems that challenge us today.
Comman wealth literature......
The Functions of Commonwealth Literature
One of the functions of literature is that “it nourishes our emotional lives” (Michael Meyer .Michael Meyer emphasises: An effective literary work may seem to speak directly to us, especially if we are ripefor it. The inner life that good writers reveal in their characters often gives us glimpses of some portion of ourselves... We can be moved to laugh, cry, tremble, dream, ponder, shriek, or rage with a character by simply turning a page instead of turning our lives upside down. Although the experience itself is imagined, the emotion is real. From the experiences of the characters, we sometimes identify with the flow of emotions. That is why sometimes while reading a play, poem, story or watching a bard recites a story we weep, we laugh, we shriek etc. For example, the rape of Martine in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory. The experience and dialogue of Makak in Dream on Monkey Mountain act as a satirical comic. Each work of art in Africa does not exist for art’s sake but always caries some kind of message, protest or commitment. This makes it functional. Moreover, one of the functions ofliterature is to assert the very rich diversified culture and history of a writer’s text and context. Early African writers were committed to asserting the African past which colonialism had destroyed or misrepresented. They took upon themselves the responsibility to rewrite the image of Africa that had been presented as derogatory in every aspect e.g. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This is very evident in the works of Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. They sought to demonstrate that the African had a culture and a personality he should be proud of. In Morning Yet on Creation Day, Chinua Achebe writes: “Here then is an adequate revolution for me to espouse – to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self abasement. And it is essentially a question of education, in the best sense of the word” Things Fall Apart demonstrated a society that was orderly, stable, peaceful and civilized before the white man came. The goal of this was to assert the culture of the African.
Differences between Commonwealth Literature and Postcolonial Literature…..
It is observed that students sometimes use the two terms, Commonwealth Literature and Postcolonial Literature synonymously. Postcolonial Literature is a broader term. Many critics such as Chattejee (1979), Darby (1997), Castellino(2000), have adopted the term post-colonial to characterize concerns in fields ranging from politics and sociology ton anthropology and economic theory. Anne McClintock has suggested that: Metaphorically, the term post-colonial marks history as a series of stages along an epochal road from the“pre-colonial”, to “the colonial”, to the “post-
colonial” – an unbidden, if disavowed commitment to linear time and the idea of development”.(1995:10-11) (qtd in The Empire Writes Back 195-96).Consequently, we find that even the term ‘postcolonial’ refersto a lot more than what is “post” colonial given that the various phases of Commonwealth Literature include pre-colonial ,colonial and post colonial works. In the general introduction toAshcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin’s Post-Colonial Studies Reader, the term post-colonial is used to address all aspects of thecolonial process from the beginning to the end of colonialcontact” The definitions share a similar view of the termpost-colonial as they all refer to the term from the perspectiveof the periods before, during and after colonisation.
It is observed that students sometimes use the two terms, Commonwealth Literature and Postcolonial Literature synonymously. Postcolonial Literature is a broader term. Many critics such as Chattejee (1979), Darby (1997), Castellino(2000), have adopted the term post-colonial to characterize concerns in fields ranging from politics and sociology ton anthropology and economic theory. Anne McClintock has suggested that: Metaphorically, the term post-colonial marks history as a series of stages along an epochal road from the“pre-colonial”, to “the colonial”, to the “post-
colonial” – an unbidden, if disavowed commitment to linear time and the idea of development”.(1995:10-11) (qtd in The Empire Writes Back 195-96).Consequently, we find that even the term ‘postcolonial’ refersto a lot more than what is “post” colonial given that the various phases of Commonwealth Literature include pre-colonial ,colonial and post colonial works. In the general introduction toAshcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin’s Post-Colonial Studies Reader, the term post-colonial is used to address all aspects of thecolonial process from the beginning to the end of colonialcontact” The definitions share a similar view of the termpost-colonial as they all refer to the term from the perspectiveof the periods before, during and after colonisation.
Famous names among commonwealth writers include:
1) Salman Rushdie
2) R.K Narayan
3) Nayantara Sehgal
4) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
5) Japanese Nobel Kazuo Ishiguro.
Magic Realism ....
Definition of magic realism. 1 : painting in a meticulously realistic style of imaginary or fantastic scenes or images. 2 : a literary genre or style associated especially with Latin America that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction. — called also magical realism.
Characteristics of magical realism include five primary traits: An "irreducible" magic which cannot be explained by typical notions of natural law. A realist description that stresses normal, common, every-day phenomena, which is then revised or "refelt" by the marvelous.
The existence of fantasy elements in the real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds but reveal the magical in this world, as was done by Gabriel García Márquez who wrote the seminal work of the style, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Hybridity ....
The term ‘hybridity’ has been most recently associated with the work of Homi K. Bhabha, whose analysis of colonizer/colonized relations stresses their interdependence and the mutual construction of their subjectivities (see mimicry and ambivalence). Bhabha contends that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in a space that he calls the ‘Third Space of enunciation’ (1994:37). Cultural identity always emerges in this contradictory and ambivalent space,which for Bhabha makes the claim to a hierarchical ‘purity’of cultures untenable. For him, the recognition of this ambivalent space of cultural identity may help us to overcome the exoticism of cultural diversity in favour of the recognition of an empowering hybridity within which cultural difference may operate.
It is significant that the productive capacities of this Third Space have a colonial or postcolonial provenance. For a willingness to descend into that alien territory . . . may open the way to conceptualizing an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures,but on the inscription and articulation of culture’s hybridity. (Bhabha 1994: 38)
It is the ‘in-between’ space that carries the burden and meaning of culture, and this is what makes the notion of hybridity so important. Hybridity has frequently been used in post-colonial discourse to mean simply cross-cultural ‘exchange’. This use of the term has been widely criticized, since it usually implies negating and neglecting the imbalance and inequality of the power relations it references. By stressing the transformative cultural, linguistic and political impacts on both the colonized and the colonizer, it has been regarded as replicating assimilationist policies by masking or ‘whitewashing’ cultural differences.
The idea of hybridity also underlies other attempts to stress the mutuality of cultures in the colonial and post-colonial process in expressions of syncreticity, cultural synergy and transculturation. The criticism of the term referred to above stems from the perception that theories that stress mutuality necessarily downplay oppositionality, and increase continuing post-colonial dependence.There is,however,nothing in the idea of hybridity as such that suggests that mutuality negates the hierarchical nature of the imperial process or that it involves the idea of an equal exchange. This is,however,the way in which some proponents of decolonization and anti-colonialism have interpreted its current usage in colonial discourse theory. It has also been subject to critique as part of a general dissatisfaction with colonial discourse theory on the part of critics such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Benita Parry and Aijaz Ahmad. These critiques stress the textualist and idealist basis of such analysis and point to the fact that they neglect specific local differences. (Agency)
Modernism and post modernism..
Modernism in the arts refers to the rejection of the Victorian era’s traditions and the exploration of industrial-age, real-life issues, and combines a rejection of the past with experimentation, sometimes for political purposes. Stretching from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, Modernism reached its peak in the 1960s; Post-modernism describes the period that followed during the 1960s and 1970s. Post-modernism is a dismissal of the rigidity of Modernism in favor of an “anything goes” approach to subject matter, processes and material.
MODERNISM IN ART
The shift to modernism can be partly credited to new freedoms enjoyed by artists in the late 1800s. Traditionally, a painter was commissioned by a patron to create a specific work. The late 19th century witnessed many artists capable of seizing more time to pursue subjects in their personal interest.
With shifts in technology creating new materials and techniques in art-making, experimentation became more possible and also gave the resulting work a wider reach. Printing advances in the late 1800s meant posters of artwork widened the public’s awareness of art and design and ferried experimental ideas into the popular culture.
Officially debuting in 1874, Impressionism is considered the first Modernist art movement. With leaders like Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the Impressionists use of brief, fierce brush strokes and the altering effect of light separated their work from what came before it. The Impressionists’ focus on modern scenes was a direct rejection of classical subject matter.
Subsequent movements such as Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Constructivism, and De Stijl were just a sampling of those following the experimental path started by Impressionism.
Dada movement
The Dada movement took experimentation further by rejecting traditional skill and launching an all-out art rebellion that embraced nonsense and absurdity. Dadaist ideas first appeared in 1915, and the movement was made official in 1918 with its Berlin Manifesto.
French artist Marcel Duchamp exemplified the haughty playfulness of the Dadaists. His 1917 piece Fountain, a signed porcelain urinal, and his 1919 L.H.O.O.Q., a print of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa with a mustache penciled over it, both turn their back on the very idea of creating art. In doing so, Duchamp predicted Post-Modernism.
NEO DADA AND POP ART
The transition period between Modernism and Post-Modernism happened throughout the 1960s. Pop Art served as a bridge between them. Pop Art was obsessed with the fruits of capitalism and popular culture, like pulp fiction, celebrities and consumer goods.
Begun in England in the late 1950s but popularized in America, the movement was informed by former Abstract Expressionists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, who had metamorphosed into the Neo-Dada movement of the late 1950s.
Rauschenberg’s 1960 sculpture of Ballantine Ale cans pre-dated Pop artist Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup cans. Warhol gained further fame from his haunting silk screen portraits, most famously of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, while Pop Art compatriot Roy Lichtenstein plundered comic book panels for his paintings.
POST-MODERNISM
Post-modernism, as it appeared in the 1970s, is often linked with the philosophical movement Post structuralism, in which philosophers such as Jacques Derrida proposed that structures within a culture were artificial and could be deconstructed in order to be analyzed.
As a result, there was little to unite Post-Modern art other than the idea that “anything goes” and the preponderance of unusual materials and mechanical processes for expression that feel impersonal, though often employ humor.
Post-modern art has since become less defined by the form the art takes and more determined by the artist creating the work. American artist Jenny Holzer, who came to prominence in the 1970s with her conceptual art made from language, embodies this model.
Holzer’s “Truisms” are deceptively simple sentences that communicate complicated, often contradictory, ideas, such as “Protect me from what I want.” She has also produced a body of work from the American government’s use of torture during the Iraq War. Holzer’s curation of text, rather than any visual motif, is the consistent aspect uniting her work.Some art historians believe the Post-Modern era ended at the beginning of the 21st Centuryand refer to the following period as Post Post-Modern.
(contributors)
Works Cited
Agency, Examining. "Introduction: Hybridity in Contemporary Postcolonial Theory." sunypress.edu. <https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61414.pdf>.
contributors, Wikipedia. Postmodernism. 18 oct 2018. 18 oct 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism>.
m.h.abrams. "a glossary of litrary terms ." n.d.
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