Nikola Benin. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE(1564-1616)

Nikola Benin, PhD

The greatest of all Elizabethan dramatists was Shakespeare in whose hands the Romantic drama reached its climax. As we do not know much about his life, and it is certain that he did not have proper training and education as other dramatists of the period had, his stupendous achievements are an enigma to all scholars up to the present day. It is still a mystery how a country boy, poor and uneducated, who came to London in search of odd jobs to scrape a living, could reach such heights in dramatic literature. Endowed with a marvellous imaginative and creative mind, he could put new life into old familiar stories and make them glow with deepest thoughts and tenderest feelings.

There is no doubt that Shakespeare was a highly gifted person, but without proper training he could not have scaled such heights. In spite of the meagre material we have got about his life, we can surmise that he must have undergone proper training first as an actor, second as a reviser of old plays, and the last as an independent dramatist. He worked with other dramatists and learned the secrets of their trade. He must have studied deeply and observed minutely the people he came in contact with. His dramatic output must, therefore, have been the result of his natural genius as well as of hard work and industry.

Besides non—dramatic poetry consisting of two narrative poems, Venice and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and 154 sonnets, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays. His work as a dramatist extended over some 24 years, beginning about 1588 and ending about 1612. This work is generally divided into four periods.

(i) 1577-93

This was the period of early experimental work. To this period belong the revision of old plays as the three parts of Henry VI and Titus Andronicus; his first comedies—Love’s Labour Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; his first chronicle play—Richard III; a youthful tragedy—Romeo and Juliet.

(ii) 1594-1600

To the second period belong Shakespeare’s great comedies and chronicle plays – Richard II, King John, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Part I and II, Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. These plays reveal Shakespeare’s great development as a thinker and technician. They show the maturity of his mind and art.

(iii) 1601-1608

To the third period belong Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies and sombre or bitter comedies. This is his peak period characterised by the highest development of his thought and expression. He is more concerned with the darker side of human experience and its destructive passions. Even in comedies, the tone is grave and there is a greater emphasis on evil. The plays of this period are—Julius Caesar, Hamlet, All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure; Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens.

(iv) 1608-1612

To the fourth period belong the later comedies or dramatic romances. Here the clouds seem to have been lifted and Shakespeare is in a changed mood. Though the tragic passions still play their part as in the third period, the evil is now controlled and conquered by good. The tone of the plays is gracious and tender, and there is a decline in the power of expression and thought. The plays written during this period are—Cymbeline, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale,which were completely written in collaboration with some other dramatist.

The plays of Shakespeare are so full of contradictory thoughts expressed so convincingly in different contexts, that it is not possible to formulate a system of philosophy out of them. Each of his characters—from the king to the clown, from the most highly intellectual to the simpleton—judges life from his own angle, and utters something which is so profound and appropriate, that one is astonished at the playwrigt’s versatility of genius. His style and versification are of the highest order. He was not only the greatest dramatist of the age, but also the first poet of the day, and one of the greatest of all times. His plays are full of a large number of exquisite songs, and his sonnets glowing with passion and sensitiveness to beauty reach the high water mark of poetic excellence in English literature. In his plays there is a fine commingling of dramatic and lyric elements. Words and images seem to flow from his brain spontaneously and they are clothed in a style which can be called perfect.

Though Shakespeare belonged to the Elizabethan Age, on account of his universality he belongs to all times. Even after the lapse of three centuries his importance, instead of decreasing, has considerably increased. Every time we read him, we become more conscious of his greatness, like the charm of Cleopatra,

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety.

the appeal of Shakespeare is perennial. His plays and poetry are like a great river of life and beauty.

PARADISE LOST BY JOHN MILTON

Publication: Nikola Benin, PhD

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND:

Paradise lost is a great literary work of Milton. It is an epic. It is written in grand style. Milton had been planning to write it for years. During the years of political change he had been looking for a suitable subject and for a little while he even considered the idea of writing on a Authoritian legend.
But eventually, he choosed a wide subject to write on_the fall of Adam and Eve and fall of human race through them.
Paradise lost is a rich mixture of knowledge. The Bible, The Talmud and church fathers contributed to the story of Paradise Lost.
The structure and tragic tone of poem resembles Homer and Virgil. But Milton's individuality is reflected in this poetry.
The poet uses his knowledge and produces a masterpiece. He creates a universe which is past ,present and future at the same time.
He creates a world that is timeless and place less.

SUMMARY:

The poem opens with an invocation to heavenly Muse (without the use of classical Greek mythology ). The poet seeks the help of heavenly Muse and describes the subject of poem: man's first disobedience to God in eating the forbidden fruit. And consequently the fall of man. He seeks the support of Muse from the mount of Sinai. He calls upon Muse and says that he is going to write a poem on a very noble subject as compared to ancient poets. He prays for illumination of his vision. His purpose is to justify the ways of God to men.
Milton's story begin with asking the reason why Adam and Eve our parents first fell from heaven and who reduced them to their revolt . They lived happily in heaven with only one restriction on them.
The infernal serpent was cause of their fall. In his envy and revenge he beguiled the mother of mankind Eve. Because of his pride and ambition to rise above God , Satan waged an impious war in heaven. In result God expelled him from heaven. Others rebel angels also fell down into the deepest pits of hell where they were to suffer everlasting punishment.
Although he was immortal, Satan suffered . He was confused and stunned from the fall from heaven. He now lay outstretched upon a fiery lake . Milton gives us the picture of hell partly through our own eyes and partly through Satan's eyes. The place has utter hopelessness. It is full of visions of sorrow and despair. The fallen angels are facing torment. In this condition lie the fallen angels ,three times as far from the light of heavens as the earth is from the utmost poles of universe.
Satan speaks to his closest associate Beelzebub. He tells him that he feels high disdain against the maker of heaven . He will never seek forgiveness and will fight against God. Milton reminds us that his speech is only a noisy boost to arouse the fallen angels but actually he is in the depths of despair.
Beelzebub replies Satan in apprehensive manner . He says to be weak is to be miserable. He says that glory of fallen angels is diminishing and their happiness consumed. They are in total destruction.
Satan replies promptly to vanish Beelzebub's fear. He says that to do anything good is now out of question for them. To do evil should only be delight and this will nullify God's will.
Satan then draws attention of Beelzebub to that cosmic hail has stopped. They must not miss the opportunity and discuss how to come out of this dire calamity.
Milton then describes the huge dimensions of Satan. He compares Satan with Titans like Briareos and to giants like Typhon. Satan is also compared to sea beast Leviathan. God leaves Satan to follow his "dark designs". So that he might bring damnation upon him and he might see that evil always lead to infinite disgrace. The dry land is described as imagery of earthquake and volcanic eruption.
But in moving from lake to land Satan only
exchanges liquid fire for solid fire. Beelzebub also follows Satan in coming out .
Then, Satan makes his famous first speech. He is in shock but accepts the conditions of hell. Finding himself in total misery ,he says that " mind is its own place,in itself can make a heaven of hell and hell of heaven". This is a powerful statement. This speech of Satan is most important part of epic. Satan motivates the fallen angel by his encouraging speech. He says " Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven ". Beelzebub support Satan and rebel angels resume their power.
In next lines Satan's shield and spear are described,also the large multitude of fallen angels. Satan's shield is compared to moon size large when viewed by telescope. And the fallen angels are like fallen autumn leaves on the bank of river .
Then Satan addresses the fallen angels for the second time. He call them princes ,warriors, potentate, the flowers of heaven and boost them. He gives them ultimatum to rise orbe fallen forever.
The followers leap up like men who have been caught asleep on duty. They are awake and they are in hovering multitude. They rise like locusts.
The leaders of various regiments now step forward . They are powerful angels who were once having princely dignities in heaven.
Then Milton gives us a catalogue of fallen angels. They include the false gods against whom Jehovah of old testament protects his chosen people. First i s Moloch ,the destructive sun God. Then Chemos ,Baalim,Ashtarohah,Thammuz,Dagon etc. These false gods and their destructive effect on mankind is elucidated in detail. After that dejected state of fallen angels is described. They are in bad condition. Their looks are downcast and damp. But they have a hint of joy in them. A new plan of action is devised and Satan is somehow successful in raising their spirit.
Then Satan and fallen angels assemble as an army. The flags rise and they show their shields. The music is played and there is an impressive array of forces. They gather together and arrange themselves.
Then Satan again addresses the angel. He tries to address the angels . His first three tries are stopped by tears of frustration and despair but at last he gathers courage and gives his speech.
This third speech is also filled with zeal and enthusiasm. He determines to continue the war Against God and His creatures. The fallen angels reply with waving swords,crashing shields and shouts of anger against God.
Then a band of angels rush on command of Mammon to nearby hill and dig gold .
They construct a magnificent building and name it "Pandemonium".
Then in next lines more details about Mammon are given. At the end, all the fallen angels except the chiefs reduce their size to flies.

FORM AND METER:

Paradise lost is written in grand style. It is written in blank verse . It has overall non rhyming structure. The poem is composed of iambic pentameters. Each line has five long syllables.
Milton uses epic similes . Also the use of alliterations produces musical effect .
His similies go far beyond the limits of comparison and are expanded to draw complete pictures. Many simple and Homeric similies are used.
The nature of Milton's blank verse in "paradise lost" is the unrhymed meter of five accents and ten syllables.
He stiffened and strengthened the texture of blank verse. He introduced a a variety in blank verse so that it is never monotonous. The epic contains verse like paragraphs which have overflow of ideas.
Milton has gained perfect mastery over blank verse without diminishing dignity and grandeur.

THEMES:

Sin and punishment:

The main background theme in the epic is the sin and it's punishment . The fallen angels along with Satan are burning in the miseries of hell because of their sin . They have shown proud to God. They disobeyed their creator and in result they got punishment to be in fiery hell forever. They are stunned and immersed in depths of despair . They are in pain because of their own pain and following the cursed Satan. So sin and it's results in the form of divine wrath and punishment is shown in paradise lost one.

Power and Majesty :

The second theme of paradise lost is power and Majesty. Their is display of power throughout the poem. We see that power of Muse is called in the beginning of the poem. Then there is power of Almighty God and we see it's effects on the rebel angels. After that power and will power of Satan greater than other angels. After that different rebel angels and their descriptions along with their evil power and destruction caused by them in world is shown. So all these parts of poem give an overall theme of power and superiority to the poem.

Fall of mankind:

Overall theme of the epic is fall of mankind. How mankind is misled by the evil spirits and how they are entangled in sin through the dark motives of Satan. The poem has theme how mankind stray from the path of their creator God and come in the net spread by Satan and it's companions. The mission of fallen angels is to drag humankind in hell with them. They are envious of man's rise and they want to take revenge from them that's why they use every possible ways to dwindle them from the path devised by God.

SPEAKER,SETTING AND SYMBOLISM:

The speaker is poet himself . In opening he invokes the heavenly Muse and seeks help . He tells that he is rising voice on a very important subject. Then the setting is hell and poet describes the fallen angels in hell after they were abandoned by God and thrown in the miseries of hell. This is the setting in rest of the poem . The imagery is used to give us a picture of conditions in the hell. All the fallen angels are scattered on different sides and they are aroused by Satan's speech. Satan gives three speeches and starts revolt in hell. He forms an army against God. This army is then organized and we get a full picture of hell. Vast imagery ,similes and metaphors are used to give a clear image of hell.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

Literary position and scholarship:

Shakespeare and Milton are two poets of England who are above the rest of poets of their age. Shakespeare was dramatic and poet of universal humanity. And Milton was epic poet and poet of Puritan England. So this epic is unique and gives us an epitome of Milton's Nobel style. As we progress through it we are highly impressed by Milton's scholarship and the paradise lost is a masterpiece. He was acquainted with the learning of ancient Greece and Rome . He combines this knowledge with his learning of Bible. This gives us a beautiful classical epic.

Milton's imagination and love of beauty:

Milton's poetry revealed his quality of imagination and it ranges equally apt on heaven and hell. His imagination can create invisible and concrete the visible ideas. He possessed the keen sense of beauty. He was very sensitive to external beauties. The poem has freshness and charm . It testifies his love of nature.
We find both classicism and modernism in his poems. He was a great hater of tyranny but had all ornamental qualities of a royalist. His poetry is rich with simplicity and romantic richness of modern art. As we observe the characters Adam ,Eve and Satan we find that there characters are simple and majestic but they have splendor ,complexity and subtility in dress,style and illustrations.

Milton's grand style:

Milton's style is called grand style because it has always an unmistakable stamp of Majesty in it. It has not the voice of sea as Wordsworth say but it has an elevating effect on the reader.
The subject is always lofty even if Milton speaks of common things. He uses the best words in best order. He is admirable as Virgil or Dante. His style is unique and it has perfection and flawlessness. Milton wrote majestic blank verse. The style is in conformity with theme. The poet's imagination, suggestiveness, compact words ,use of epic similes and allusiveness are all in a grand style. This epic has all essentials of Miltonic style and it is an example of artistic perfection.

EFFECT OF ERA ON THE POEM:

Milton lived in transitional age. Political, religious and social ideas were undergoing change at that time. Milton's imagination and intelligence was also influenced by these conflicting principals. The two phenomena which had greatest effect on Milton's work are Renaissance and the spirit of Reformation .
Renaissance bought with it an increased interest in Greek and Latin Literature. People were interested in form of arts and beauty and the bright and joyous in life.
But at the same time logical and rational matters of church and institutions were also fluctuating.
The Puritans stood for the purest form of Protestantism.
The believers of Puritanism were austere and high principled men who recognized the supremacy of Christ alone without any temporal or mortal intermediates. Milton too was a Puritan. That's why he was also prosecuted in Elizabethan period.
This Puritanism is also reflected in his Paradise Lost. Satan's revolt is the revolt of Puritan against the established authority.
Had there not been controversies , Miton may have wrote more books like this but some critics said that these conflicts of his time enriched his poetic genius.
Milton's poems bear traces of his time. He gave his opinion in his poems.
Perhaps the epic should have gained more appeal if Milton had paid more attention to aesthetics and depicting colours of heaven instead of emphasizing the moral intention of story. Milton is more a politician and Puritan in paradise lost than an artist due to influence of his era.

O, Henry! by Georgi Gospodinov, О, Хенри! от Георги Господинов

Publikatiоn: Nikola Benin, PhD

O, Henry! by Georgi Gospodinov

Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel.
This is part of our special feature on Contemporary Bulgarian Literature.

I don’t believe in Christmas. That was the cold answer from the first of several friends I had called in the secret hope that at least one of them would turn into my Auggie Wren, that they would smile and say: take me to lunch and I’ll give you a real live Christmas story. Who even believes in Christmas anyway, the friend in question fumed, except for a few million scam-happy retailers? It’s the biggest money maker of the year, it’s… an industry holiday, the world’s most powerful ad campaign. You do know who came up with Santa Claus, don’t you? Coca-Cola made him up. Your jolly old St. Nick is nothing but a brand ambassador, hello… hello….

I told him the line was breaking up, that I’d call some other time and hung up. God damn it, all I wanted was a Christmas story.

My attempts with the other two didn’t go much better. One, a person who had recently starting using Orthodox Christianity, told me practically in a whisper that Christmas was mass adoration of idols, of the very golden calf itself, by children. The other, a sound cynic, simply called the jolly old man a kindly pedophile, while that whole business with presents was just a legitimate excuse to bounce some little boy or girl on his knee. Something, which, by the way, has already been outlawed for Santa Clauses in several Protestant countries. Sexual harassment, he concluded, as if he were wishing me a Merry Christmas.

They were right, of course. I slowly walked up Count Ignatiev, one of Sofia’s main shopping streets, past the rosy-cheeked idols doing their belly dances in front of the stores and the shawarma stands near the statue of the Priest, past the stalls full of tinsel and little plastic assembly-required Christmas trees. The light industry that is Christmas was going full steam and if it had suddenly started snowing miraculously at that moment, I would have sworn that it was no miracle whatsoever, but sea foam, a special last-minute sale on artificial snowflakes or the like. Even if Paul Auster himself was in this situation, he’d be hard-pressed to write a true Christmas story. It was clear that we were facing a huge shortage of Christmas stories. The newspapers wanted them, but the writers couldn’t provide – a truly revolutionary situation. And the market needed the fill that niche ASAP. (…)

There was nothing left for me to do but try an old technique for luring stories, which I had used other times as well in hopeless situations.

I walked a little further, bought a newspaper about beekeeping and ducked into the perfect café for hunting stories. I’ll keep the details of the place to myself, so it doesn’t get overrun with hunters and scare off the prey. The important thing is that the tables are relatively close together, the music is very quiet and you can sit there for hours, which is what I would do, as invisible as the sugar bowl and the ashtray. Just an ear, left behind like an old hat. The most important rule of luring stories was not to look like a hunter at all. That’s why I bought that benign newspaper “Bees and Hives,” good-natured in its geezerish way – incidentally, I buy it every season, from what I can tell that’s about as frequently as it comes out. I sat down at the table in the corner, with my back to the whole café, blissfully stretched out my legs, buried my nose in the newspaper and waited. The wintery afternoon sun crawled across the window like a warmed-over fly. I ordered my usual herbal tea. One piece of advice. The inexperienced hunter would order himself a black rum or bourbon, and this very bit of writerly pretention would be his undoing: no scent of a writer whatsoever, the stories immediately get wind of the trap. That’s it for advice. (…)

At that moment right behind my back – the table behind me, I know it well – I heard a line that drowned out the background buzz and make me prick up my ears. Nothing special at first glance, the most usual of expressions, even if it was said in English: Oh, Henry, I’m so happy we’re together…

I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed when that couple came in, I must have been somewhere amidst the hives. The strange thing (besides the English, which wasn’t a standard language for this particular café) was that I didn’t hear Henry’s answer, his reciprocal joy at the meeting. Then the female voice said that even though it had been less than a month, she had gotten so used to these meetings that she couldn’t… Precisely here the waitress somewhat testily unloaded my second tea on the table and I missed the end of the sentence. After that, however, yet another anguished silence followed. This was not a normal conversation. Why wasn’t Henry answering, for Christ’s sake? Perhaps he was angry and silent, or he was whispering quietly? Then it occurred to me that he could be deaf-mute, he could be reading her lips and replying with signs. Yes, yes, the female voice said. Pause. Again: yes – drawn-out and with a hint of melancholy. And then: So we can say “cheers” now, right? I didn’t hear the clink of glasses.

The conversation – if it could be called a conversation at all, carried on as it was solely by her voice – continued with her regret that they wouldn’t be together for Christmas, that it had to be this way and there was nothing to be done, this Christmas was especially important for her mother and she had to stay, but they would talk every day and after that they would never, and I mean never, be apart for more than a few hours.

But when she started describing the café we were sitting in to him, and saying how it was really close to her house, this finally seemed like too much, even for me. Poor Henry, is it not enough that he’s deaf and dumb, now he has to be blind on top of everything? I’ll admit I couldn’t help myself and for the first time I violated my own principle. I slowly turned my head – dark hair in a bob, a splendid neck, pretty shoulder, this Henry is a lucky guy, even though he can’t see his own good luck. I turned just a bit further, trampling all of my hunterly dignity so as to catch a glimpse of her silent interlocutor, but there was no one there. Henry had disappeared into thin air, if he had ever even been there. The woman was sitting by herself at the table behind me, chattering away. She asked what he saw through the window of his bistro, laughed softly, then carelessly pushed her hair back and it was only then that I saw the earphones, the miniature microphone. I mentally apologized to Henry for having chalked him up as deaf, dumb and blind. The phone conversation went on for another two or three minutes. I found out that in New York, where Henry must have been talking from, it was now morning and that this was some ritual of theirs, a romantic date in two places at the same time, in two time zones. The morning and the afternoon came together for twenty minutes. Henry was drinking his first coffee of the day here with her in this smoky café, and at the same time, she was sitting there with him, somewhere in Brooklyn, in front of her last martini of the day (that’s what she was drinking, with two cherries). For a moment I wondered whether in that bistro some Brooklyn-based story hunter hadn’t tuned his ear on a man talking with some invisible silent woman. And whether the ocean, which divided this couple, hadn’t receded and shrunk down to a few drops of water on the table top, spilled by the careless waitress, here or there, it doesn’t matter. And I got a warm fuzzy feeling, Christmassy and sentimental, with a foretaste of miracles, as Gaustin would say. I knew that for a hunter it was unacceptable to be touched and that that was exactly what the story was waiting for so as to bolt off like a doe into the underbrush, lost forever. But in this case I had forgotten that I was a hunter, and the story did something that had happened to me only rarely – it came over to me and gently licked my ear.

Several minutes after the conversation had ended and the woman was likely finishing her martini, I heard her voice again – this time all business, Bulgarian and decisive. She was calling a travel agency and what do you know? A true miracle (as she herself exclaimed) – a ticket through London had opened up at the last minute. And I’ll land in New York on Christmas Eve itself! Reserve the ticket, no matter the cost, I’ll withdraw the money and come straight there – that was the last thing she said. She got up, pulled on her coat on her way out, left money on the bar and sank into the early December dusk.

The thought flashed through my mind – I needed to jump up right away, run after her, catch up with her and tell her to forget about that ticket, because I already knew the end of the story, I knew what the gifts of the Magi could be.

Now this is how things unfold from here: The woman manages to withdraw the money, buys a ticket and takes off the day after next. Before that she explains to her mother why she won’t be with her on Christmas. But not a word to Henry.

He, for his part, when he hangs up the phone, stays in that bistro for a few minutes more and it becomes ever clearer to him that he’ll make a reckless decision for the first time in his life. This very moment he’ll call the airport, then his boss, but first the airport, he’ll work everything out and on Christmas he’ll land in that obscure Balkan capital. And that will be his Christmas present, a complete surprise. Your very first manly step, Henry, he’ll congratulate himself mentally and order a double bourbon. It’s barely nine in the morning, which makes the waitress give him a disapproving glance. But she, too, will part ways with this story, because Henry really seems to have fallen head over heels in love. With an invisible woman on the other side of the earth.

I can see her clearly now, wandering through the New York dusk on Christmas Eve, she finally grabs a cab, gives the address and in less than an hour she is already standing in front of an entryway in Brooklyn.

I can see him perfectly clearly, wandering through the Sofia dusk on Christmas Eve, passing by noisy groups of young people, looking at the slip of paper with an address in his hand and at the strange letters the street signs are written in, he stops someone and asks. Then he sees the café that was described to him a few days earlier, where he had been a few days earlier, it seems. And he decides to sit down, to call her from there and to tell her that he is waiting in the café across the street. She won’t believe it, of course, but…

But now there are still three days until Christmas. The only thing I know for sure is that on Christmas Eve I will wait here. And if after the second cup of tea a happy and flustered young man sits down on the table behind me, dials a number and says: This is Henry, my love… And with completely feigned nonchalance announces that he is waiting for her at the café across from her place, she will only have the strength to say: Oh, Henry… that means that Christmas stories really do come true after all. Even if they are stories about missed connections. In this missed connection there is more love than in all the meetings in the world, if that doesn’t sound too sentimental for you. But that’s allowed on Christmas. Isn’t it, O. Henry?

Georgi Gospodinov (1968) is Bulgarian poet, writer and playwright. His debut novel, Natural Novel, was published in more than 20 languages. The next one, The Physics of Sorrow,won the international Jan Michalski Prize 2016 and was shortlisted for the American PEN Translation Prize, Best Translated Book Award, Premio Strega Europeo, etc. The novel has received praise from The New Yorker, World Literature Today, etc. He is author of scripts, an opera libretto and two theater plays. Blind Vaysha, a short animation based on his short story (dir. Teo Ushev), was among the Oscar nominees, 2017. Gospodinov is in NYC as a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library, 2017/18.

Angela Rodel is a literary translator. In 1996 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study Bulgarian at Sofia University. She returned to Bulgaria on a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship in 2004 and now lives in Sofia. In 2010, she received a translation grant from the American PEN for Holy Light, a collection of stories by Georgi Tenev.

Link: http://www.europenowjournal.org/2017/12/05/o-henry-by-georgi-gospodinov/