Journal Literary Aesthetics

Archives Volume-4, Issue-1 (January-June)

Paper Title:: Shakespeare’s Incandescent Luminosity of words – A Study of Bard of Avon’s Vocabulary
Author Name:: Ritu Kumar
Country:: India
Page No.:: 1-5

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Shakespeare’s Incandescent Luminosity of words – A Study of Bard of Avon’s Vocabulary

Author: Ritu Kumar

Considering that Shakespeare did not even go to college, the magnitude of his intellect baffles our imagination. He is considered the greatest genius ever born because of his insight into every aspect of human behaviour and emotion. The last quarter of the eighteenth and nineteenth century saw an enormous consolidation of almost all the aspects of Shakespeare’s genius. His position as “a classic and contemporary with all ages” (Griffith 249) is firmly established; new editions and commentaries appeared in 1778, 1780, 1783, 1785, 1790, and 1793; dozens of books of criticism or literary history have substantial discussions of his work, and incidental references abound in books, magazines, newspapers, lectures, novels, letters, theatre reviews, and poetry. His prestige is so great that he is seen not only as England’s greatest writer but as the world’s greatest genius mankind has ever known. To Horace Walpole, writing in 1778 he is “Superior to all mankind” (qtd. in Lewis 415). The Critical Review began one of its many Shakespeare articles with a panegyric which typifies the general tone of admiration:

Paper Title:: Indian Diaspora: An Instrument of ‘Soft Power’ in Global Politics
Author Name:: Ashoo Toor
Country:: India
Page No.:: 6-9

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Indian Diaspora: An Instrument of ‘Soft Power’ in Global Politics

Author: Ashoo Toor

India’s emergence as a major actor in the global arena has begun to garner more and more interest in the recent decade. While on one hand, scholars and analysts have attributed this growth to the material indices of ‘hard power’ such as its economic growth, military expansion, or demographic evolution; others have regarded its ‘soft power’ as a tremendous potential – its large diaspora, popular films, music, art, and historic and cultural links around the world – as a significant contributor to its present advantageous position vis-à-vis other emerging Asian powers.
The concept of ‘soft power’ is an artefact of the post cold-war world. The term, coined by Harvard University Professor, Joseph Nye, in 1990 refers to “dominant values, internal practices and policies, and the manner of conducting international relations of . . . the state” (Purushothaman 1). India’s soft power and the Indian diaspora have grown in prominence at around the same period and observers have increasingly drawn a link between the two. The soft power credentials of the Indian diaspora have done more for the Indian influence abroad than the bureaucratic efforts of the government of India. Indian foreign policy analyst, C. Raja Mohan writes,

Paper Title:: Nazneen as an ‘Emerging Woman’: A Womanist Reading of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
Author Name:: Harpreet Kaur
Country:: India
Page No.:: 10-15

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Nazneen as an ‘Emerging Woman’: A Womanist Reading of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Author: Harpreet Kaur

The intersectionality of race and gender has made it necessary for the colored woman to constantly interrogate feminism which is silent about the problems of racism. Minority voices are forced into silence due to a lack of just representation. According to women of color, the mainstream feminist movement addresses, in the main, concerns of white, middle class women, and dismisses the experiences of these minority groups as insignificant and irrelevant. Being non-white and female, the diasporic woman finds herself in no man’s land. She is unable to identify herself either with her own community where patriarchy does not let her live a fulfilled life, or feminism that is markedly ‘white’ and caters to the problems faced by the white woman, ignoring racism which is a major source of oppression for the colored woman along with sexism.
Many women, sharing marginalized positions, generate alternate platforms to counter the inadvertently narrow world view of feminism. Alice Walker’s concern for the black woman’s rights has made her a strong advocate of black feminism leading her to propound the term ‘womanism’ to describe an appreciation for all aspects of womanhood while embodying the largely uncared-for standpoint of black and other minority feminists. As a stance for black woman to voice her differences from the white woman, the word “womanism” first appeared in her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983). Womanism seeks to fill the voids left by feminism. Walker gives an extensive four-point definition of womanism, lending it openness of meaning, providing a platform to all women regardless of their ethnicity or class.

Paper Title:: History as a Catalyst for Memory in Patrick Modiano's The Search Warrant
Author Name:: Jaspreet Kaur
Country:: India
Page No.:: 16-19

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History as a Catalyst for Memory in Patrick Modiano's The Search Warrant

Author: Jaspreet Kaur

Memory as defined by oxford dictionary is a person’s “ability to remember things” and it also refers to “the period of time that somebody is able to remember events.” Memory, apart from being personal, is also a storehouse or depository for the knowledge of one’s culture and forms a type of a reference book which can be used at anytime in future to look back and elicit any information related to it. Memory is a phenomenon which is “historically conditioned” (Whitehead 4). Thus, it has a history of its own which is temporally and culturally conditioned. Due to different periods and continually changing communities, the definition of memory has become so fluid that its meaning keeps changing. Susannah Radstone talks of “memories” rather than ‘memory,’ as according to her, the memory changes its meaning at different times which evokes Mieke Bal’s notion of memory as a “travelling concept” (Whitehead 3). Modiano in his novel, The Search Warrant (2000) has skillfully used memory as a travelling tool which helps him in slipping into past and present smoothly. This movement wipes out the boundary between the present and the past, and the narrator, by merging the two moments, freely drifts in both time periods.

Paper Title:: Dickens' Position in Hard Times
Author Name:: Gagneet Pal Kaur
Country:: India
Page No.:: 20-24

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Dickens' Position in Hard Times

Author: Gagneet Pal Kaur

To locate Dickens’ position in the right perspective is not an easy job. In Hard Times, his position is very ambiguous and, at places, even controversial. The fact is that he came to acquire a multi-facet personality “He has been described as theatrical, poetic, analytic, journalistic, symbolist, explicit, realist, surrealist, Marxist, Christian and Existentialist” (Hardy, “The Complexity” 29). It is because of Dickens’ multi-faceted personality that one tends to fail in identifying the "real" Dickens – the creative artist and the man who lived the life he wrote about.
The main controversy regarding Hard Times exists between two schools of critics . The school of Conservative Victorian critics holds that “Dickens wilfully exaggerated the evils of industrialism and 'practical' education,” and that he misunderstood the principle of laissez faire economy. On the contrary, the other School of modern Social and Marxist critics expect of Dickens much more than he says in Hard Times.

Paper Title:: Ecology and Human Concerns in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss
Author Name:: Ankdeep Kaur Attwal
Country:: India
Page No.:: 25-33

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Ecology and Human Concerns in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Author: Ankdeep Kaur Attwal

Kiran Desai belongs to a new breed of writers who set a new trend in English Literature and lent a gust of freshness through their multiethnic, multicultural, and multiracial approach. She is a writer of global village who is born in one country, raised in another, and lives in another. More than being the daughter of a celebrated writer Anita Desai, Kiran Desai is a writer who has carved a niche for herself in the literary world with her two novels – The Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998) and The Inheritance of Loss (2006). This paper proposes to suggest that in The Inheritance of Loss, Desai gives ample evidence of entwinement of human concerns and ecology, something that emanates from her own concerns towards environment.
The key term here is ‘Ecology’ which according to Richard Kerridge “is the scientific study of natural interdependencies: of life forms as they relate to each other” (535). Ecology is derived from ‘Oikos,’ which means home. The term ranges wide as it also deals with the whole group of living organisms interacting with each other. Thus, the domain of ecology as a discipline includes the study of the whole inhabited earth.

Paper Title:: Mulk Raj Anand’s The Road: A Study in Linguistic Experimentation
Author Name:: Avinash Chander
Country:: India
Page No.:: 34-39

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Mulk Raj Anand’s The Road: A Study in Linguistic Experimentation

Author: Avinash Chander

Expression has always been a matter of concern for those Indians who choose English as the medium of their creative expression. They are faced with the challenge to use this foreign language in such a way that it carries the flavor of India and still remains English. Their task is “to encompass the whole gamut of feeling from the beautiful to the ugly, the sublime to the ridiculous, the serious to the comic . . .” (Sinha 120). For this purpose, they are required to forge a language which is essentially English and at the same time appropriate to the Indian socio-cultural contexts. To achieve their objective they have tried to evolve a rich orchestration of thought and expression and have given birth to a language which is now popularly called the ‘Indian English.’

Paper Title:: Spirit of Atheism in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
Author Name:: Parkash Verma
Country:: India
Page No.:: 40-43

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Spirit of Atheism in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

Author: Parkash Verma

Of all the dramas Christopher Marlowe produced, Doctor Faustus seems to be the spiritual history of Marlowe himself. In this play, we get an expression of Marlowe's innermost thoughts, feelings, and experiences and his attitude towards God and religion in general. That is why a note of Atheism is vivid and quite explicit in the play. Hence, people often treat it as the work of a confirmed atheist.
It is a known fact that Marlowe lived a boisterous and bohemian life before it was cut short by the cruel dagger of an assassin. He also earned notoriety for his frivolity and skepticism, as he held rationalistic and iconoclastic views, and was skeptical about many a doctrine and dogma of medieval Christianity. This bold, young man bubbling over with unlimited zeal and self-assurance was never afraid of expressing his skeptical thoughts and ideas to his friends and acquaintances. In 1593, when Thomas Kyd's room was searched, some atheistical documents were found among his papers.

Paper Title:: Diasporas: The Human Face of Globalisation
Author Name:: Prabhleen Toor
Country:: India
Page No.:: 44-47

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Diasporas: The Human Face of Globalisation

Author: Prabhleen Toor

The interplay of migration, culture, technology, and economics is shaping a world that is defined by integration, interconnectedness, and interdependence which further offers the potential to create value, globally. Along with this comes the growing concept of universal kinship, powered, in large measure, by diaspora communities whose hyphenated identities enable them to contribute to their country of origin and the country in which they live, through entrepreneurship, volunteerism, mentorship, philanthropy, and diplomacy. By tapping into the experiences, the energy, the expertise of diaspora communities, the so-called brain-drain can be reversed. The concept of the loss of intellectual capital in areas of the world from where people migrate can be converted to that of brain-gain.

Paper Title:: Reading Madame Bovary through Ranciere
Author Name:: Manpreet Singh
Country:: India
Page No.:: 48-52

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Reading Madame Bovary through Ranciere

Author: Manpreet Singh

Madame Bovary (1856) a masterpiece by Gustave Flaubert has always been a cause of conflicting interpretations and various controversies. The novel is widely recognized for its aesthetic beauty in depicting realistically the epoch in which it was written and is hailed for the writer's most accurate use of language. The style of the novel dominated its theme which was perhaps Flaubert's intention too. The beauty of this work of art has been its never-ending interpretations that have a lot to give to its readers even though at an apparent level it claims nothing.
As the title of this paper is 'Reading of Madame Bovary through Ranciere,’ it is important to discuss how Ranciere’s theory developed by going through his short biographical sketch, his linking of politics and literature, and development of certain concepts that would further help in reading and interpreting Madame Bovary.

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