The Hero As Poet: Shakespeare by Thomas Carlyle summary, British Literature - III, 2nd Year 3rd Semester, B.A English Literature

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B.A English Literature

[2nd Year, 3rd Semester]

British Literature -III

UNIT 2: Prose

2.2. “On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History”

Lecture III - Shakespeare - By Thomas Carlyle

THE HERO AS POET: SHAKSPEARE

About Author:

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher. He was born on December 4, 1795, in Ecclefechan, in the Galloway region of Scotland.

He was a contemporary of the Romantic poets, translator of Goethe and historian of the French Revolution. He wrote political essays, historiography, philosophical satires and fiction in which he often blurred the boundaries between literary genres.

Carlyle died on February 5, 1881, in London, England. Upon Carlyle's death in London interment, in Westminster Abbey was offered but rejected due to his explicit wish to be buried beside his parents. His final words were, "So, this is death. Well!"

He presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One of those conferences resulted in his famous work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History where he explains that the key role in history lies in the actions of the "Great Man", claiming that "History is nothing but the biography of the Great Man".

About Prose:

On Heroes and Hero worship comprises six lectures, delivered by Carlyle in 1840, and it was published in 1841.

In this series of lectures, Carlyle’s theme is the history of man, particularly of the great man in different capacities. The great man, in his conception, is the hero of the world, and he may function in any sphere of activities, religious, literary, social, or political. In his lectures, Carlyle treats the six different capacities of the hero-the hero as divinity, the hero as prophet, the hero as poet, the hero as priest, the hero as man of letters and the hero as king.

He deals with Odin and paganism (of Scandinavian mythology) as ‘divinity’, the Islam preceptor Mahomet, as ‘prophet’, Dante and Shakespeare, as ‘poet’, Luther and Knox, as ‘priest’, Johnson, Rousseau and Burns as ‘man of letters’ and Cromwell and Napolean, as ‘king’.

Shakespeare as Hero-Poet:

On May 12, 1840, Thomas Carlyle gave his third lecture in his series on Heroes. Titled "The Hero as Poet," it looked into the lives of Dante and Shakespeare. His previous lectures, he said, dealt with the production of older ages, "not be be repeated in the new." Divinity as hero and prophet as hero would never happen again, he said. Mankind had advanced to the point where he no longer stooped to such low intellectual things. Or, "if we do not now reckon a Great Man literally divine, it is that our notions of God, of the supreme unattainable Fountain of Splendor, Wisdom, and Heroism, are ever rising higher...."

Ah, but the poet! He believed we would always have poet-heroes. "...the hero...can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will according to the kind of world he finds himself born into."

Speaking about Shakespeare in his lecture, Thomas Carlyle opines that what Homer was to Greece, and Dante to the Middle Ages, likewise Shakespeare was to the Modern Age.

Shakespeare, Carlyle says, "has given us the Practice of body" whereas Dante "has given us the Faith or soul."

Shakespeare may well be placed on a pedestal at par with Homer and Dante. Carlyle claims that the “sovereign” poet, Shakespeare, “with his seeing eye, with his perennial singing voice, was sent to take note” of the changing times in Europe.

Shakespeare worked as the  Renaissance was unfolding, which gave him advantages Dante didn't have.

Carlyle is in all praise for Shakespeare. He calls him priceless; calmness of depth; placid of joyous strength; great soul, true and clear; like a tranquil unfathomable sea.

Shakespeare is further on compared to an immaculately built house which makes us forget the rude disorderly raw material with which it was built.

Carlyle believes Shakespeare could have done so much more than he did, in terms of politics or public leadership. In the same manner, his finished plays are just as perfect as he is, and we can no longer discern the raw materials used to make the plays. The insight with which Shakespeare arranged the plot in his plays is in itself an art and shows the true intelligence of the man.

Carlyle asserts that even the scientific works of intellect of Sir Francis Bacon is earthly and secondary in comparison to Shakespeare.

What he implies is that Shakespeare’s work is divine. If anyone in the modern times can be compared to Shakespeare, Carlyle believes that only the German poet, Goethe is somewhat comparable to the English bard.

Carlyle further draws attention to Shakespeare’s skill at fusing the intellectual and moral nature of man. He does this so perfectly in his works that there is always continuity in nature. He calls Shakespeare the greatest intellect that the world has ever seen. Carlyle terms this as the, ‘Unconscious Intellect’ and also claims that there is more virtue in Shakespeare than he is even aware off.       

Carlyle believes Shakespeare’s art is not artifice but something that grows from the depths of nature. Despite knowing the poet so well, we don’t know much about his own life’s sorrows or struggles. It bewilders Carlyle how a man can delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth and so many suffering heroic hearts, if his own heroic heart had never suffered.

In the end he says, "Yet I call Shakespeare greater than Dante, in that he fought truly, and did conquer."

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An Apology for Idlers by Robert Louis Stevenson, British Literature - III, 2nd Year 3rd Semester, B.A English Literature

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UNIT 2: Prose

2.1. An Apology for Idlers - Robert Louis Stevenson

About Author:

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a 19th-century great traveller and Scottish writer. His  notable for such novels as 'Treasure Island', 'Black Arrow', 'Kidnapped' and 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'

Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. Stevenson’s first published work, The Pentland Rising (1866), was on a religious theme

His first volume of works, An Inland Voyage (1878) and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879). Stevenson's first book of short fiction was New Arabian Nights (1882).

Stevenson died of a stroke on December 3, 1894.

Summary:

"An Apology for Idlers," by Robert Louis Stevenson, first appeared in the July 1877 issue of the Cornhill Magazine and was later published in Stevenson's essay collection Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers (1881).

An Apology for Idlers is a thought-provoking essay. It is full of humour, wit and irony. 

In his essay An Apology for Idlers, R.L. Stevenson, the famous English writer argues that idleness is as good as diligence in life.

The prose starts with the conversation between Boswell and Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English essayist, poet and lexicographer, occurred on October 26, 1769 at the Mitre Tavern in London. Stevenson misquotes Boswell. Johnson’s response should read: “but if we are all idle, there would be no growing weary; we should all entertain one another.”

An industrious man is not happy if his hard work and achievements are not approved by people around him.  But on the other hand, an idle man is not worried about such things because he is not working hard and he enjoys life wandering along the street, hills and valleys and meadows.

” Stevenson continues to say, “Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.”

This essay is a fine example of Stevenson’s scheme of values opposed to modern ideas such as working hard, reading books, education in schools and colleges. He says that education of the streets is even better than education in the class rooms. Stevenson does not believe that books are indispensable. He argues that books can never be substitute for life.  Most of the great men including Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and Balzac learned lessons from the streets. They enjoyed Nature, the flow of the rivers, the waves of the sea, the blue sky, the meadows and hills and valleys give man more wisdom than what he gets in the class rooms.

Parents and elders usually advise young men to study books with diligence to obtain knowledge. But R.L Stevenson visualises a Worldly Wiseman angry with a young truant because he runs away from class-room to enjoy Nature. The young man tells the Wiseman that he wants peace and contentment. The Wiseman is again angry with him and asks him to go back to school. But R.L.Stevenson supports the truant.

The author says that knowledge can be obtained from the streets and Nature too. This knowledge is better than that of school or college. A truant is wandering along open places, because Nature is an open book. It is full of knowledge and wisdom. One can obtain wisdom by enjoying the beauty of Nature. The sweet songs of birds, the rustle of leaves and the murmuring sound of the flowing river and the breeze can give you food for thought.

Saint Beuve the great French writer said that experience of life is a single great book. R.L. Stevenson himself was a voracious reader and he loved books. But books are not proper substitute for life. If a young man completely depends on books for knowledge, he is as fool as Lady of Shallot. In Lord Tennyson’s famous poem Lady of Shallot, the beautiful lady is under a curse, weaving a web day and night looking at a mirror. She can see only shadows. She cannot see the real life. Similarly a bookworm is also like the Lady of Shallot, and he can never enjoy life which if full of experience and beauty of Nature.

R.L. Stevenson says that busy people are not efficient in vitality.  Idleness helps a man to develop a strong individuality and he is very sociable and takes interest in mankind. He is a man of great experience in life and he knows how to make others happy. He has practical wisdom and can solve problems of life with a smiling face.  On the other hand a man of industry is selfish and narrow-minded. He has no curiosity and he is very dull.  In school or college, these people had set their eyes on medals and after leaving college, they think of only themselves. After a long period of hard work, they are very tired. On the other hand, the idler is energetic and happy. So he can make others happy .Stevenson says that this is not success in life.

R.L. Stevenson says that many people complain that idlers don’t do any work and it is a national waste. But it is not true. Society if full of young men and women and they can do every work. Even if a man dies, another man does his work. In the fifteenth century when some people told Joan of Arc, the great French heroine that she should work at home washing and spinning. She told them that there are plenty of women at home who can do such work. Joan of Arc was very young when she became a soldier and fought wars and won victories for France. She is the great patriot of France.

R.L. Stevenson says that an idler can give more pleasure than a busy industrious man because the mind of the busy man is full of many plans and works to be done. Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because pleasure is natural, but duty comes from force or responsibility. Secondly pleasures give happiness to both the giver and the receiver. So the author says that an idler is wiser than a book-worm (man of industry). Stevenson says that an idler makes others happy with his smiling face and kind words. The presence of such people at a dinner or at a meeting in the streets makes everyone happy. Falstaff is preferable to Barabbas. Falstaff is not very honest and a drunkard. Yet all people love this Shakespearean character because he makes audience laugh and they enjoy his presence on the stage. We can forget our sorrow and pain when we see Falstaff on the stage merry making. On the other hand Barabbas is a character in Marlowe’s play “The Jew of Malta” The Jew was greedy for money and did not help anyone even with a smile. So no one liked him.

Finally Stevenson points out that Nature does not care for the life of a single individual. No one is so important in the society. Even if Shakespeare had never lived, the world would not have been different.

Conclusion:

        An Apology for Idlers is an eye-opener for those who define idleness as just what it sounds: something along the lines of insolence, laziness, sloth, etc. Stevenson’s definition and perception of this concept changes our own views of idleness, and is successful in making us rethink our condemnation of idleness. His discussion of busyness and its negative aspects also changes our views on busyness as well.

Stevenson writes as though he is celebrating only the tiny things in life, offering witty observations and upbeat theories on subjects that vary from books to falling in love. Idleness, as Stevenson sees it, is accepting the here and now and learning to focus one’s mind on the aesthetic value of our environment. This, he claims, is the source of far greater wisdom that that taught in the school room.