WILLIAM BLAKE & HIS POETRY

 

MEG-1 Block-6 Unit 28 -  WILLIAM BLAKE & HIS POETRY

https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22192/1/Unit-28.pdf

Blake saw visions even when he was a small boy of four. As a child he started I was screaming when God pressed his face to the window. At eight, Ezekiel appeared to I him, and at nine, he saw angels on a tree.

The sensory organ of sight which is called the "Corporeal or Vegetative Eye" stimulates "the Divine Arts I of Imagination-Imagination, the real and eternal World.

BLAKE'S REVOLUTIONARY VIEWS

He could not accept the prevailing culture of the eighteenth century. He opposed the mechanistic view of the universe of his time. He despised the tendency to analyze rather than synthesize.

Blake as an Anarchist

Blake was attracted by revolutions. He was eighteen when the Declaration of Independence by the American Colonies inspired idealists all over Europe. He was an eye-witness to the burning of Newgate Prison (1780) as an expression of the hatred of authority. He sympathized with the French Revolution. He hated all political systems and favoured complete personal freedom.

Blake's Views on Christianity

Blake hated traditional Christianity. Blake believed that all churches are a kind of prison. He attacked the lack of individual freedom in the Church in his poems.

Blake's Anti-classicism

Blake hated the classics and in this be foreshadowed a common romantic tendency.

The established cultural tradition was shattered in the Romantic period.

Another reason for Blake's detestation of the classics is that they, in his opinion, are

related to the adult world of experience, and represented intellect. He favoured an

intuitive and imaginative view of the world.

BLAKE'S INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY

He did not have any formal education; his reading was perhaps uneven. literature. He

identified three stages in history which corresponded to three stages in the life of an

individual. 

1. The first stage corresponds to that of the Garden of Eden, or of primal innocence. 

2. The second stage was the eating of the hit of the forbidden tree or the Fall. 

3. The third stage was that of achieving a higher state of innocence or redemption.

Blake also divided history into a number of periods corresponding to the historical

divisions in the Bible.

Blake's Triadic Division of Poetry

Blake extended his scheme of the triadic division to poetry also. He thought that the The function of poetry was to regain a kind of oneness with life which had been lost. The The eighteenth century represented the Fall. The Age of Reason which emphasized the intellect, in his view, was equivalent to the eating of the hit of knowledge of good and evil. Works - Jerusalem, in Auguries of Innocence, Songs of Innocence.

APPROACHES TO BLAKE'S POETRY

Blake's poem are simple and direct; there is no sentimentality which makes poetry distasteful. One may approach Blake as a child or as a scholar.

Blake's poems can be read in several ways : as direct statements, as indirect statements, or as clusters of images.

Four Levels of Meaning of Blake's Poems

Again, Blake's poems can be read on four levels, the levels which Dante had

suggested for the interpretation of his Divine Comedy. These are:

• 1. Literal : On this level, the poem can be read simply as a sequence of actions, situations, descriptions, and so on.

• 2. Moral: On this level, the poem may be read as a series of moral commands, both positive and negative. A system of rewards for right actions and punishments for wrong deeds is given in Dante's poern.

• 3. Allegorical: On this level, all actions are interpreted in terms of some dogma.

• 4. Anagogical: On this highest level, a poem can be given a mystical reading.

Eg. way. 'Jerusalem may stand for different things depending on the choice of the level of interpretation. On the literal level it is a city in Palestine, allegorically it may mean the Church; morally it may mean the believing soul; anagogically it means the city of God.

THE NEW PROCESS OF PRINTING

Blake used an entirely original process for printing his poems, starting with Songs of, Innocence. He engraved the text and the related illustration on a copper plate in varnish. The letters and designs were then made to stand out after an acid had lowered the surface of the copper plate. Impressions of these were taken from the raised etchings and then painted in water colours by hand. Thus he could give his visions substance through all the arts at his command.

SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

Songs of innocence published in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794. Although these are epoch-making in more ways than one, they hardly made an impact then.

Blake reverses the roles of the poet and the child and makes the child teach the poet. Broadly, in Songs of innocence, the child narrates the joys of life & hature; in Songs of Experience, the child is trapped in prisons of state and Church.

Note on Songs of Innocence

It is a statement of the reaffirmation of the New Testament doctrine, "Lest ye become again as a little child ye cannot hope to enter the kingdom of heaven". This is underscored by Blake's use of pastoral Christian symbols (the Christ child, the lamb, the shepherd, etc,) As Russell Noyes observes: "The poet has left out all art, all moralizing, all pretending. The theme of loss and finding runs through the songs and the gaiety and laughter of children fills them."

Note on Songs of Experience

Having experienced the hypocrisy and cruelty of the world personally, Blake was indignant in Songs of Experience. The children's laughter is silenced by adults; the children are exploited  an insensitive world (The Chimney-Sweeper), The Church and the State, two pillars of society, are indifferent. Sometimes they even connive, to cause suffering to children.

Comments on Both the Collections

The world of innocence is the world of childhood, and childhood coveys suggestions of the Christ child. The world of experience is the adult world. It is urban and it is opposed to the natural world of childhood. The pure simple love innocence becomes lust and depraved sexuality in the world of experience. In Blake's poetry there is generally a dominant symbolic pattern based on these two

worlds. The child is good, and he represents the world of innocence. The father, who represents the adult world of experience is evil.

Songs of Innocence: Study of Some Poems

1.The Lamb

If the first stanza stresses the beauty, gentleness and tenderness of the innocent lamb, the second stanza attributes similar qualities to the creator. And the creator calls himself lamb or child. This short poem describes innocence and refers to the mystery of creation. The speaker in the poem is an innocent child who asks the lamb a series of rhetorical questions concerning its birth and upbringing. The first stanza of ten lines mirrors the child-like quality of innocence. There is an air of gaiety which is expressed in words like 'delight', 'bright', 'rejoice'. The lamb's own "gentle" nature is indicated by words

like 'softest', 'wooly', 'tender'. The speaker who is himself tender, young and gentle is delighted by the sight of the lamb. There is a parallel in that the lamb and the child share the same qualities. The second stanza of ten lines attempts to answer the questions posed to the innocent lamb. Without naming Christ, the speaker says that the maker (or creator) calls himself a lamb. He shares the qualities of meekness and mildness with the lamb and becomes a child. The lamb, the child and Christ are one.

There is the same divinity that hedges a child and a lamb as it does Christ.

2. The Chimney Sweeper

The pathetic condition of a child who was sold to be used as a chimney sweeper even before he could learn to speak the word 'sweep' ('weep' in line 3 is child's lisping for 'sweep') correctly is heart-rending. The pathos is reinforced when the speaker says that he sleeps in the soot. Children are innocent and meek like lambs. The children who worked as chimney sweepers were shaved. The implicit comparison is with the lamb shorn of its wool. The lamb cannot protest; it has to accept what is done to it. So also the child has to meekly accept. There is biting irony in line 8 when the The speaker says that the soot of the chimneys cannot spoil a tonsured head. The spirit of acceptance may be noted in Tom's dream in the third, fourth and fifth stanzas. A A chimney sweeper is like a body in a coffin. As the child is innocent, an Angel sets him free so he can wash himself clean and enjoy himself in the green plains in the Sun. In Tom's dream, the Angel tells him that he could enjoy endlessly if he is a good boy. God would be his father, his protector. But this is only a dream. When Tom woke up, it was business as usual; they had to get back to sweeping chimneys. In spite of the cold and discomfort, Tom was happy because he had learnt that doing his duty was its own reward.

3. The Divine Image

This poem presents the four virtues of mercy, pity, peace and love in direct terms. The simplicity of its statement and its ballad metre remind us of the hymns of Isaac Watts and other hymn writers who influenced Blake. These qualities are identified with God and his child, man. God dwells in man. Hence the human form is divine. Loving men is loving God.

Songs of Experience : Study of Some Poems

1. The Sick Rose

The rose which stands for purity or innocence is perhaps ruined by (the worm) . experience; the rose which is a symbol of love is perhaps destroyed by selfishness; The rose, which is a thing of beauty, is wrecked by jealousy.

The rose is employed by the poet as a personal symbol which is capable of different interpretations. The poem makes one thing clear. A crimson rose has been entered and sickened and destroyed by a worm secretly. This destruction may symbolize the destruction caused by secrecy, deceit, hypocrisy and pain.

2. London

It is a social and economical protest on level 1 but must be approached on other levels. Reason, which has an important place in the lath century, exercises tyranny and hence "mind-forged manacles". Reason, nature and society which are highly valued in that age has forged their own tyrannies. These are the ''triple goddess of destruction Everyone and everything, the streets and the river, are chartered", that is, used commercially. The word "ban" may refer to Pitt's ban on people's liberties. The

the nation is sick of weakness, woe and fear "bight" it. The child chimney - sweeper, the adult soldier, the young prostitute are living testimony to the neglect of Christian ideals and humane personal relationships, Blake saw madage as an institution invented by a fallen man. Like any other institution, it also limits freedom. Hence Marriage is a 'hearse'.

3. The Tyger

Spelling of the word, "Tyger".

Although Dr. Samuel Johnson mentioned it as an alternative form of the more common spelling, "Tiger. Blake's spelling conveys a unique feeling. In this context, it is important to remember that for Blake a poem is not a group of words presented in a linear fashion on a page, but a poem is a visual object. His engraving and paintings are integral parts of his verbal art. Thus a poem by Blake is meant to be seen and read. Only then is its full impact felt. So the unconventional spelling reinforces our sense of wonder at the beauty, fierceness and strength of the tiger.

Our astonishment is expressed through a series of fourteen questions in a span of twenty-four short lines. Eleven of these questions are fired rapidly in the first sixteen lines. In the first four stanzas, the poet attempts to augment the reader's sense of wonder progressively by asking a series of rhetorical questions on the extraordinary perverse required for creating an animal like the tiger. The creator must possess the same qualities to be able to produce such a creature. The nature of the Tiger, as Lionel Trilling says, is defined by the nature of God. In the last two stanzas, there is a reversal of this procedure. God is defined by the nature of the Tiger. God who created a meek and mild creature like the lamb dared to create the ferocious Tiger. Earlier we saw that the lamb, the child, and Jesus are one and the same. That such a God created the tiger is not comprehensible to the stars who are the agents of divine law. As Blake himself suggests, it is the "contrary state of the soul". The Lamb and the Tiger represents two aspects of God and two states of man.

BLAKE'S CONTRIBUTION

He had stated: "I copy Imagination; I write when commanded by the spirits". During his sixties, Blake devoted himself entirely to engraving and painting. He produced hundreds of paintings and engravings. These include illustrations for Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, for the Book of Job (see Appendix) and for Dante's Divine Comedy.

 

MEG-1 Block 6 - Romanticism and the Romantics (Poets, Salient features of Romanticism and definition)

MEG-1 Block 6: The Romantic Poets: Blake, Wordsworth & Coleridge

Unit 27 - Introduction to Romantic Poets-

https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22190/1/Unit-27.pdf

This unit introduces you to the Romantic Movement in England. It deals with the political, social, literary and other factors which brought about this movement;

1798 to 1832 as the Romantic period.

The Reform Bill which extended the right to vote to the middle class and labourers was passed by Parliament in 1832. During this period, England moved from a primarily agricultural to a modem industrialized society. Thus the balance of power passed on from the land-owning aristocracy to the owners of industrial units which employed large numbers of people.

Impact of French revolution

The Reform Bill which extended the right to vote to the middle class and labourers was passed by Parliament in 1832. During this period, England moved from a primarily agricultural to a modem industrialized society. Thus the balance of power passed on from the land-owning aristocracy to the owners of industrial units which employed large numbers of people. With the introduction of more machinery into industry, there was more unemployment. The soldiers demobilised after the French wars aggravated the labour market. There was an economic depression in 18 15 caused by the fall in 'wartime demand for manufactured goods,

Capt. James Cook circumnavigated the globe (1768-71) and discovered Australia and the Sandwich Islands.

The pamphlet became a powerful means for debating controversial issues. For instance,

The debate on the French Revolution was conducted through pamphlets.

The idea of revolution informed the Romantic Movement from the beginning. Many major writers of this period were aware that great changes were taking place around thein and that these changes would inevitably find their way into literature also.

Definition of Romantic 

The term, 'Romanticism', is controversial. F.L. Lucas, in his book, The Decline and

Fall of the Romantic Ideal (1948), counted as many as 11,396 definitions. The term

comes from the name, 'Rome'. In the seventh and eighth centuries there were three

main languages in Europe;

• (l) lingua Latina which was the language of the scholars,
• (2) lingua barbara which was the language of Germanic tribes, and 
• (3) lingua romana rustica which was a group of vulgar Latin dialects from which the Romance languages, namely, French, Italian, 'Spanish, Portuguese and Rumanian are derived, The term, 'Romantic', is related to the Romance languages, the peripheral tradition, rather than Latin, the main tradition.

The term, 'romantic', was first used in the late seventeenth century to describe paintings with certain bizarre qualities. When Le Tourneur referred to Shakespeare as a romantic writer, he meant that the English playwright was not a neo-classic writer. What is meant by a romantic writer is one who insists, implicitly or otherwise, on his own uniqueness. In the Age of Reason, many writers said that they

represented their age. This was not so with the Romantics. Wordsworth and Coleridge who worked together for sometime never applied the term, "romantic", to themselves. Goethe defined "classic" as good health and "romantic" as sickness.

The term implies a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual at the very center of all life and all experience. The individual is placed at the center of art. Literature is therefore an expression of his unique feelings and particular attitudes.

As Thrall and his associates say, romanticism, "places a high premium upon the creative function of the imagination seeing art as a formulation of intuitive imaginative perceptions that tend to speak a nobler tilth than that of fact, logic, or the here and now." Romanticism spread through most of Western Europe in the and the nineteenth centuries. It affected literature, art, music, philosophy, religion and politics.

SALIENT FEATURES OF ROMANTICISM

Romanticism is opposed to the artificial conventions, the reigning literary tradition

and the poetic establishment.

The function of poetry, according to this view, is to instruct and to please. Art is a mirror in which we find a reflection of life. For the Romantics, the source of poetry is the poet himself. As Wordsworth puts it, poetry is a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". It is an inborn gift and not something acquired. Poetry is the expression of emotion. The poet's imagination creates poetry. The traditional view that poetry is a painstaking endeavour is discarded by the Romantics. Blake thought that poetry comes from inspiration, vision and prophecy. Keats said that poetry should come "as naturally as the leaves of a tree".

Supernatural themes are used by Coleridge (The Ancient Mariner) and Keats (The Eve of St. Agnes). Romantic poetry often deals with the "far away and long ago", exotic places and forgotten events

figure in Romantic Poetry.

Yet another innovation is the use of

symbolist techniques, notably, by Blake and Shelley. The latter poet's "West Wind"

and "Skylark" are good examples.

The Romantic poets displaced humanity by external nature as poetic subject-matter.

The Romantic poets also had a fascination for solitary figures, social non-conformists, outcasts and rebels such as Prometheus, Cain, Don Juan and Satan.

Another significant innovation is the use of everyday speech of ordinary people

instead of lofty poetic diction.

Rural life is idealized in Romantic poetry. The wild, the

irregular and the grotesque in Nature and art fascinated the Romantic poets. Taboo

themes like incest are used without any inhibition. Conformity to tradition and

decorum as observed by the earlier generation are no longer respected.

Classicism and Romanticism are generally considered somewhat antithetical.

Classicism is concerned with the social, the formal, the intellectual and the static

whereas Romanticism is concerned with the individual, the inforillal, the emotional

and the dynamic.

EARLY ROMANTIC POETS

James Thomsoll (1700-1748)

Mark Akenside (1721-1770)’

Joseph Warton's (1722-1800)

William Collins (1721-1759)

Thomas Gray's (1716-71)

William Cowper (1731-1800)

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)

There are tw0 tendencies in Burns's life:

I. the cultivated tradition of polite poetry in the eighteenth century.

2. peasant poetry about peasants among whom he lived.

Themes, forms, vocabulary, rhyme scheme and works = RFB

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

He was hardly known in his lifetime, but now he has a respectable place among English poets and artists.

WILLIAM WOWSWORTW (1770-1850)

As the title suggests the Prelude is the first of a three-part poem The Recluse. The second part. 

He believed that the emotions of the rural people are simpler, purer and perhaps better than those of the city-dweller. He also thought that people living in the midst of nature have a better moral attitude, and they become part of the sense of divinity present in nature.

The second innovation is the use of "a selection of language really used by men".

According to Wordsworth metre is a kind of restraining influence. By its regularity, metre holds passion in check. Also, metre seems to give poetry a kind of unreality.

Wordsworth's Partnership with Coleridge

Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge met in 1795. Coleridge spotted talent in Wordsworth

and praised him as "the best poet of the age".

However, serious differences developed between the two on important questions.

Coleridge did not agree with many parts of the "Preface". He objected to the ones he

considered them "erroneous". the difference between the

language of poetry and that of prose. Wordsworth thought that there was no essential

difference between the two. Coleridge thought they were different. He argued that

metre is essential for poetry which implies passion.

S. T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834)

Biogrnphia Literaria (1817), Coleridge tries to differentiate between the two key terms, 'fancy' and 'imagination' in the same book. He called imagination the "shaping and modifying" power, fancy, the "aggregative and associative" power. The former "struggles to idealize and to unify", while the latter is only "a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and

Space". Imagination itself is of two kinds, 

Primary and secondary. Primary imagination, in Coleridge's view, is the organ of common

perception through the senses, secondary imagination is poetic vision. The latter one

is the faculty that the poet ideally exercises. Fancy seems to correspond with the

eighteenth century notion of wit in poetry the faculty that enables the poet to put

together metaphors and similes.

Work - The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Christabel.

THE SECOND GENERATION OF ROMANTIC POETS

They I wae all "rebellious geniuses" who were not recognized or understood in their country

and time. All of them died young before they could realize their full potential. They are the “inheritors of the unfulfilled renown”

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

The 'Byronic hero" has become a critical term to describe a youthful, daring, passionate, cynical, moody and rebellious figure. This type appeared first in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Work - Satire- Beppo and The Vision of Judgment. Dramas - Manfred and Cain.

P.B. Shelley (1792-1822)

Shelley had very radical ideas; he was an idealist. He believed that mankind can be

made perfect; tyranny can be abolished, freedom can flourish in all walks of life.

Work - Prometheus Unbound (1 8 18- 19), Adonais (1821) is a pastoral elegy.

John Keats (1795-1821)

Work - important poems in a period of nine months, January to September 181 9. These are: The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, all the six great odes, and Lamia.

Keats published fifty-four poems in his life-time, another ninety-six works were published posthumously; his letters number about 300. This is an unmatched achievement within a short period of three years.

IGNOU MEG-16 Indian Folk Literature Question Paper 2019 to 2024 June

 

IGNOU Meg- 16 Block-7 Folk Theatre Notes

Meg- 16 Block-7 Folk Theatre

FOLK THEATRE 

LINK FOR IGNOU BOOK - http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/48603/1/MEG-16B7E.pdf

UNIT 27 Appropriation of Folk in Indian Theatre: Jatra, Kathakali, Tamasha, Nautanki and Pala 

The generous use of the following in order to cater to the entertainment choices of the masses:

1. • music 

2. • dance 

3. • different types of drums and other popular musical instruments 

4. • extravagant and theatrical make-up 

5. • masks 

6. • singers 

7. • chorus 

8. • clown 

The themes in folk theatre are along the lines of the folk literature involving stories retold and enacted from: 

1. • mythological texts like the Mahabharata and Ramayana 

2. • romances, tales and legends of folklore 

3. • social and political events and incidents of a given time

Folk theatre is not merely a production watched from a distance by the audience rather it involves a synergism of: 

1. • customs 

2. • beliefs 

3. • observances and rituals undertaken by performers as well as the audience 

4. • celebrations 

5. • festivals 

6. • special occasions like child-birth, marriage, coronation of an heir, victory in battle field, elections, sports etc. 

7. • martial arts 

8. • charity 

9. • collective prayers, congregations

Folk theatre is traditionally performed in the open on makeshift stages like round, square, rectangular, multiple-set which are almost always facilitated through the support of the audience, village people, community or panchayats.

Jatra

It began in Bengal in the 15th century under the influence of the Bhakti movement. The devotees of Krishna and disciples of Sri Chaitanya would go on walking in small trains displaying their devotion through highly energetic singing and dancing, sometimes performing episodes from the life of Krishna.  jatra – which means to travel or to embark on a journey. Towards the 19th century the jatra underwent changes and its repertoire got enriched with love sagas, and with social and political issues. Jatra was primarily operatic theatre, but by the beginning of the 20th century spoken dialogues were introduced in jatra along with the singing. Originally, it used to be a night-long performance, but was, over time, cut down to a few hours. The musicians sit on both sides of the stage playing the pakhawaj, harmonium, tabla, flute, trumpets, violin, dholak, cymbals and clarinet. Music and singing is mostly based on folk tunes.

Kathakali

It is an interesting amalgam of dance, drama, classicism, music, folk, costumes, make-up and storytelling.The state of Kerala and the adjoining south-western Indian region are the homeland to Kathakali. Kathakali performances are based on the stories from Mahabharata, Ramayana and Shaiva literature. Kathakali is a mimed dance, where the narration and dialogues are rendered by the singers/chorus sitting on one side of the stage, and is characterized by drumbeats and intense singing

The description of the dance is further given as follows: 

Most kathakali characters (except those of women, Brahmans, and sages) wear towering headgear and billowing skirts and have their fingers fitted with long silver nails to accentuate hand gestures. 

The principal characters are classified into seven types. 

• (1) Pachcha (“green”) is the noble hero whose face is painted bright green and framed in a white bow-shaped sweep from ears to chin. Heroes such as Rama, Lakshmana, Krishna, Arjuna, and Yudhishthira fall into this category. 

• (2) Katti (“knife”), haughty and arrogant but learned and of exalted character, has a fiery upcurled moustache with silver piping and a white mushroom knob at the tip of his nose. Two walrus tusks protrude from the corners of his mouth, his headgear is opulent, and his skirt is full. Duryodhana, Ravana, and Kichaka belong to this type. 

• (3) Chokannatadi (“red beard”), power-drunk and vicious, is painted jet black from the nostrils upward. On both cheeks, semicircular strips of white paper run from the upper lip to the eyes. He has black lips, white warts on nose and forehead, two long curved teeth, spiky silver claws, and a blood-red beard. 

• (4) Velupputadi (“white beard”) represents Hanuman, son of the wind god. The upper half of his face is black and the lower red, marked by a tracery of curling white lines. The lips are black, the nose is green, black squares frame the eyes, and two red spots decorate the forehead. A feathery gray beard, a large furry coat, and bell-shaped headgear give the illusion of a monkey. 

• (5) Karupputadi (“black beard”) is a hunter or forest dweller. His face is coal black with crisscross lines drawn around the eyes. A white flower sits on his nose, and peacock feathers closely woven into a cylinder rise above his head. He carries a bow, quiver, and sword. 

• (6) Kari (“black”) is intended to be disgusting and gruesome. Witches and ogresses, who fall into this category, have black faces marked with queer patterns in white and huge, bulging breasts. 

• (7) Minnukku (“softly shaded”) represents sages, Brahmans, and women. The men wear white or orange dhotis (loincloths). Women have their faces painted light yellow and sprinkled with mica, and their heads are covered by saris.

Tamasha 

Tamasha originated in the early 18th century in Maharashtra as an option to entertain the Mughal armies that would camp while on their war-expeditions in the Deccan region. In 18th and 19th centuries, tamasha flourished in the courts of the Maratha rulers and had its heyday in the Peshwa period (1796–1818). Tamasha is a Persian word which means a spectacle, or display. Tamasha, like most folk theatre forms, is a highly energetic performance with powerful drumming and loud gestures, sometimes with suggestive lyrics. In the traditional tamasha form, the dancers comprise dancing-boys called as nachya, who also performed the role of female characters, and a poet-composer known as Shahir who played the traditional role of a sutradhar or sometimes the role of a jester, called Songadya, who would conduct the performance.

Nautanki

Nautanki is a night-long performance in which a narrative is performed through singing and occasional dancing tweaked with few acts of humour. Most of the performers in a nautanki are singers too. Sometimes the use of chorus is also there. The musicians sit on the stage and are visible to the audience. During the heightened moments, while the emotive energy peaks in the performance, an interesting repartee between the performers and the musicians can be evidenced. A nautanki performance begins with invocation to gods. The costumes worn in 12 Folk Theatre nautanki are usually traditional. They may have variations depending on the characters. The dresses and makeup are not very complex and so it is not a difficult task for the artist to get ready for the stage.

Pala

Pala is a popular folk theatre tradition of Odisha and is related with a composite

culture of the community of Satyapir. Pala originates in the Mughal period when

the “Satyanarayan” of Hindus intermingled with the “Pir” of Muslims. This amalgam

resulted in the formation of Satyapir.The Muslim fakir had Hindu disciples who worshipped him like a Hindu deity and Muslim disciples too believed in him like a religious leader. The devotional singing and dancing performed in honour of Satyapir is referred as to as pala. Fakir is considered to be an incarnation of Satyapir. He is greatly revered by Muslims as well as Hindus.

A pala performance begins with an invocation to Satyapir. This is followed by a musical rendition of stories from Puranas, the epics or folklore, along with the devotional compositions of various poets. Firstly the gayak narrates the mythological episode and the co-performers join the gayak in accordance with the sequential moments in a chorus similar to dialogue. In a pala, the gayak is the core to the whole performance as he strikes a rapport with the audience, leads the musical rendition of the narrative and improvises to entertain and enthral the devotional attention of the audience. Through his spirited singing he has to create a make belief for power along with softness in the performance.

On the basis of the mode of performing, pala can be of three varieties:

1. baithaki (sitting), 

2. thia (standing), and 

3. badi pala in which the two groups of pala playfully compete to excel in the performance

UNIT 28 Folk, Popular and Film  

Generally, a film can accommodate the elements of folk in two ways. 

• /One is through iconic adaptation of a folk literature with its specifications and another is to adapt a literature, adding several folk elements which ultimately attach a new dimension in the film. The same rule can be applied in the case of adapting ‘popular’. On one hand, a film can adapt a popular literature which is intended for the entertainment of mass; and 

• on the other, it can incorporate a number of popular features in high/ serious literature also. But, if a film based on high/serious literature becomes popular among the masses, it can also be termed as a popular film.

IDENTIFYING ‘FOLK’ AND ‘POPULAR’ IN SATYAJIT RAY’S PATHER PANCHALI: A CASE STUDY

About the film and the author & Element of folk - RFB

 IDENTIFYING ‘FOLK’ AND ‘POPULAR’ IN RIDLEY SCOTT’S ROBIN HOOD : A CASE STUDY

About the film and the author & Element of folk - RFB

UNIT 29 Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala 

Girish Karnad: An Indian playwright of repute, recipient of Padma Bhushan and Jnanpith Award, Girish Raghunath Karnad is not only known to people associated with drama and theatre studies, but also to the cinema goers as an actor and director. Born in 1938 in Matheran, near Mumbai and educated at Sirsi and Dharwad in Karnataka, Mumbai and Oxford

Works -  Yayati (1961), Tughlaq (1964),  Hayavadana or Horse-Head (1971), Anjumallige, literally ‘Frightened Jasmine’ (1977), Hittina Hunja, literally ‘The Dough Rooster’ or ‘Dough-Cock’ is written in 1980, Bali: The Sacrifice in 2002. In 1988, with Naga-Mandala, Tale-Danda (1990), literally ‘Death by Decapitation’, Agni Mattu Male (The Fire and the Rain, 1994), Odakalu Bimba (2004) in Kannada translated as Bikhre Bimb in Hindi and A Heap of Broken Images in English, Maduve Album (2006) translated in English as Wedding Album appeared in 2009, Flowers (2012), Benda Kaalu on Toast in Kannada appeared in 2012, and was published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in English as Boiled Beans on Toast, in 2014.

HAYAVADANA - RFB

In 1972, it won both the annual Sangeet Natak Akademi award and the Kamaladevi Award of the Bharatiya Natya Sangh, for best Indian play.

NAGA-MANDALA Sources and Plot - RFB

Naga-Mandala (1988), which came seventeen years after Hayavadana, can be considered a companion play because it creates variations on many of the same themes.

UNIT 30 Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor

Born in Raipur, Madhya Pradesh on September 1, 1923; graduated from Morris College, Nagpur in 1944; then started his career in Mumbai at an ammunition factory; wrote for films in Mumbai; joined Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) and became an integral part of Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) as an actor in 1945

‘The breakthrough came in 1973, during a month-long nacha10 workshop that Tanvir conducted in Raipur. More than a hundred folk artists of the region participated, along with several observers including university students and professors from Raipur and folklorists and anthropologists from Delhi and Calcutta…The production which was thus created was called Gaon ka Naam Sasural, Mor Naam Damaad, an almost wholly improvised stage play.’

Tanvir, using detailed and intense improvisations, enabled the rural performers to freely perform in their own language and style, rather than imposing the methods used by trained urban actors, directors and theatre-makers.

Charandas Chor is based on a Rajasthani folktale by very eminent writer-folklorist Vijaydan Detha and he had documented it from the oral cultural tradition of Rajasthan. 

. A man who makes you laugh. Endears himself to you, and whom you do not wish to die, dies and you (suddenly) see why. And the meaning emerges, an anti-establishment meaning. I think people like that kind of catharsis. They are intrigued. I do not think I would have gained that kind of popularity without this end. Had the protagonist survived, the play wouldn’t have survived.’

Our hero, Charandas, the chor is an honest and truthful individual, who will put his life at risk but not break the vows he made. Unlike the so-called thief in the modern context, our Charandas amassed rice from the penny-pinching landlord and give it to the ravenous peasants. A man of principles, he is an ardent believer of social justice and supports the downtrodden.