English in India and Indian Literature in English : The Early History, 1579-1834 | Vinay Dharwadker | Summary

In this essay the author is trying to trace the roots of the English language in India and the beginnings of Indian writing in the English language. The author focuses on the factors which influenced the literate bilingual Indians to adopt the language and start writing in English. He identifies the social zones of interracial contact which were the catalysts in the process of acculturation of Indians to the British and their language.

The history of English in India begins two decades before the initiation of the East India Company. Father Thomas Stephens, a Roman Catholic escapee, studied Indian languages. He wrote the Christian Purana, a mixed Marathi-Konkani version of the Gospel. It was published posthumously in Goa in 1640. Stephens however did not produce any English text with the intention of publication. A letter written by Father Estavam (as Stephens came to be known locally) was found by Richard Hakluyt and published in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) which is the first representation of an Englishman’s actual experience in India. Ralph Fitch was a British merchant whose collection of letters and journals were also published in Hakluyt’s extended version The principal navigations: voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation (1599-1600) and this is the first account of an Englishman’s personal experience which was produced for a reading public. Stephens and Fitch represent the two important classes of historical agents- the missionary and the merchant, whose influence continues throughout the period of development of English in India. Between 1580’s and 1780s, a substantial amount of literature containing the Englishman’s experience in the Indian subcontinent was recorded in manuscript or in print. These were written predominantly in three genres – the personal letter, the epistolary eyewitness account and the formal travel narrative.

Around the year 1660, the East India Company began to prosper and a large number of British people came to live and work in India. The resultant interaction between the British and Indians gave rise to four primary zones of interracial contact and acculturation. These are – the zone of employment, the zone of marriage and family, the zone of religious conversion, and the zone of friendship and social relations. These zones facilitated the flow of English language from its native speakers to a group of potential Indian users whom the author refers to as the literate Indian multi-linguals.

Starting in the 1660s hundreds of Indians sought employment in the British factories as record keepers, translators etc. There was a section of literate multilingual Indians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries known as dubhashis. They were learned in Portuguese, Dutch, French and English as a result of interactions with the European traders. The East India Company employed these dubhashis as intermediaries between company officials and local markets. By the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the dubhashis occupied two types of position- first, as multilingual interpreters between the Englishmen and common Indians as well as Mughal bureaucrats, and second, as personal agents and managers to individual company officials. The personal agents were called baniyas. Moreover the dubhashis trained as scholars were hired as assistants and native informants for colonial administrators – scholars and Orientalist scholars. Historically, the dubhashis can be considered as the first Indians to be literate in English. From the early eighteenth century, Indians found employment as domestic servants for British households and soldiers in the company’s army. However after 1835 the dubhashis gave way to modern Indian middle class professionals who were formally educated in English. The earliest Indian writers in English – Din Muhammad, C.V. Boriah, and Raja Ram Mohan Roy were products of the zone of employment.

Although English women started travelling to the Indian subcontinent as early as 1617, the number of English men exceeded that of the women. Due to the church’s prohibition against Englishmen marrying non Christians, they sought alternative means. They married the daughters or widows of men of Portuguese or other nationalities, Indian women converted to Christianity etc., and, a few took Indian mistresses. The children of these marriages were brought up as Christians and they experienced a mix of both European and Indian cultures. Therefore they learned English as well as native Indian languages. The zone of marriage and family is responsible for the production of a number of significant Indian writers in English including Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Anita Desai, Dom Moraes etc.

The influence of Christian missionaries in the Indian society and the conversion of Indians to Christianity is defined by the zone of religious conversion. This zone appeared in the early sixteenth century with Catholic missions in Portuguese India and Protestant missions in other parts of the subcontinent. However the east India Company prohibited missionary activities in its territory until 1813 due to the disturbances it caused in the Indian society. However after its removal British missionaries flourished in colonial India. The Indians who converted to Christianity acquired literacy in European languages and became accultured to western lifestyles. The zone of religious conversion combined with the zone of marriage and family produced the major Indian writers of the nineteenth century including Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Govin Chunder Dutt, and his brother Girish, his daughters Toru and Aru, and Pandita Ramabai Saraswati.

In the second quarter of the eighteenth century, there emerged the zone of friendship and social relations where British and Indian men developed closed relations based on mutual dependence and indebtedness. These relations include the close ties between young company officials and their dubhashis and the European scholars and their Indian assistants and collaborators. This zone was helpful for the Indian writers in achieving a deeper acculturation to European ways which influenced their writing and is reflected in their works. However it is important to note that these four zones of acculturation benefitted only those sections of Indians who were already learned in multiple Indian languages which helped them to acquire European languages including English at a faster pace.

Din Muhammad, C.V. Boriah and Ram Mohun Roy are considered to be the first Indian writers in English. The lives of these writers were greatly affected by the four zones of acculturation. Din Muhammad belonged to a family with diverse religious and cultural history which served the Mughal rulers before the British. Din Muhammad himself became a camp follower to Godfrey Evan Baker at the age of eleven. With this kind of close association he was able to learn to speak, read and write in English. This level of acculturation also helped him when he moved to Ireland and published his book The Travels of Dean Mahomet in 1794 which is the first text written in English by a man of Indian origin. Similarly, Boriah and Roy’s lives were also influenced by close relations with the British. Boriah was a dubhashi and later became a field assistant to Colonel Colin Mackenzie. Ram Mohan Roy was born in a Bengali Brahmin family. In 1804 he joined the company’s Revenue department. He acquired most of his knowledge about the English language and European culture while working with the company.

The multi-lingual efficiency that these writers possessed allowed the interaction of several pre colonial as well as non colonial elements within the zones of contact. This phenomenon is reflected in their writings as well as in all other Indian writing in English, and this is what differentiates this genre from British literature about India. After analyzing these various socio cultural factors the author comes to the conclusion that Indian writing is not a homogeneous entity and that colonialism cannot be asserted as the only origin of Indian writing in English. 

Of Truth | Francis Bacon | Summary

Bacon begins this essay by quoting Pilate who questions what is truth. Bacon says that truth is a belief that affixes the mind and hinders free will in thinking and acting. The Greek philosophers who questioned the possibilities of human knowledge are no longer there, but there are still some people who question the same. Men undergo various difficulties to learn the truth but once he does so it imposes a restriction on his thought and he wants to revert to lies. Bacon says that the love is a corrupt yet natural tendency in human beings. Like the Greek philosopher Lucian, Bacon wonders what makes a man love lies for it does not give delight as it does in poetry or does not allow profit as in business.

Truth is like daylight but it throws only as much light on the fallacies of the world as a candle light. Truth is like a pearl which shows best in daylight but it cannot be like a diamond or carbuncle that can shine in the dark. That means truth is unable to show itself in the face of a lie just as a pearl cannot be seen in the dark.

A mixture of lie with truth adds pleasure. Here Bacon speaks about imagination. If a man hangs on to the absolute truth and does not allow fancy, hopes or even doubt, he will be a melancholy person. Poetry has often been accused of being false as it is filled with imagination. But it is only a shadow of a lie, a reflection of reality which in itself is a reflection of the ideal. But it is not the lie that passes over the mind but the lie that deeply sinks into the mind that hurts.

In spite of man’s efforts and judgements it is only truth that can truly define itself. The quest for truth, the love of truth and the belief in truth is the only free will of human nature. Bacon compares truth to light and brings in the biblical example of the god’s creation of light. On the first day God created light and on the sixth day he created man whom he gifted the “light of reason”. Bacon quotes a poet who said “no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth, and to see the errors and wanderings ….in the vale below.” Bacon adds that such a man would looks upon the “errors and wanderings” with pity and not with pride. If a man’s mind can “move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth” he will certainly find heaven on earth.

Truth is of utmost importance in civil life and in business. A bit of lie mixed with the truth is like making an alloy of copper and gold or silver. It makes it easier to work with these metals but at the same time makes it impure. Bacon compares falsehood to a snake crawling on its belly rather than walking on its feet. There is no activity more shameful than being false and treacherous. In this context Bacon quotes Montaigne who said that a liar is a man who is brave towards God and a coward towards men. Bacon emphasizes on the wickedness of falsehood and treachery by saying that these are the qualities that will be the cause of calling upon the judgement of God upon mankind.

Of Marriage and Single Life | Francis Bacon | Summary

In this essay Bacon speaks about the differences that mark a married man from a single one and the advantages and disadvantages of a married or single life. A man who is married and has wife and children is unable to risk his money for noble purposes. They are obstacles to any endeavour either good or bad. The best works which are the best for the public have often come from unmarried men. These are the men who have “married” the public, that is, devoted their lives entirely to a public cause. Men who have children care a great deal about the future and make various important pledges and promises regarding the future. However there are also some single men who think only about themselves and they too account for the future. Some people consider wives and children as items of expense. Some foolish and greedy men take pride in having no children. They believe that they will remain richer if they do not have any children because they might have heard people say that so and so is a great, rich man but he has the burden of children suggesting that children are a hindrance on the growth of fortunes. However, most men choose to remain single for the sake of liberty that a single life allows. These people think of marriage as imprisonment.

Bacon enlists the positive and negative qualities of a single man. Unmarried men make the best friends, the best masters, and the best servants. But they do not make the best citizens as they have so great a sense of freedom that they tend to run away from responsibilities. The single life is better suited for a clergyman because he can be more charitable as he does not have any needs to satisfy. For judges and magistrates the situation is indifferent because if they are corrupt it makes them servants who are worse than wives. For soldier it is often an emotional support to think of wives and children before going into battle. That is why Bacon says that the dislike of marriage among the Turks makes the vulgar soldiers even more so. Single men are often more charitable because they have less expenses. But at the same time they also tend to be cruel and hard hearted as they do not have a wife or children to invoke the tenderness within them.

A grave man with traditional beliefs is often a loving husband. Women are often proud of their chastity and a wife will always remain chaste and obedient if she thinks that her husband is wise and not jealous. For a young man a wife serves the purpose of a mistress, in the middle age she is a companion and to the old man she is a nurse. Therefore a man can reasonably decide when he would like to get married. Bacon here quotes a philosopher and mathematician who answered the question of when a man should marry and said – “a young man not yet, an elder man not at all”.

Bacon observes that bad husbands often have good wives. He says that this may be because it makes the husband’s kindness more valuable or because the wife takes pride in her patience in dealing with him. Bacon however says that given the chance these bad husbands would make sure to correct their own mistake. 

Why The Novel Matters| D.H. Lawrence | Summary and Analysis

D. H. Lawrence’s critical essay ‘Why the novel matters’ was published in the collection titled Phoenix in the year 1936. In this essay Lawrence speaks about the importance of the novel and tries to establish the superiority of the novelist above other professions.

In an attempt to illustrate the importance of the novel Lawrence explains the importance of life and the living man. He says that the whole living man, the man alive, is more important than his thoughts, ideas, his mind, or his stomach or liver or kidney or any other parts of his body. Lawrence says that this is what scientists and philosophers fail to understand. According to Lawrence a novel shows life and its characters are nothing but man alive. The novelist understands the importance of life and the man alive. Therefore the novelist is better than the scientist or the philosopher.

Lawrence begins the essay by commenting upon the saying ‘a sound mind in a sound body’. He calls it a funny superstition that people think of themselves as a body with a soul in it. He questions why one thinks of one’s hand as something subordinate to the mind that operates it. The hand has a life of its own. It has knowledge and can think and act for itself. The hand is as much a part of the living man as the mind. The pen held by the hand however is not alive. A man alive extends only to his fingertips. Lawrence says that whatever in a man is alive constitutes the man alive. The hand, skin, freckles, blood and bones are very much alive and part of the man alive. The living body therefore must not be compared to inanimate objects like tin cans or clay vessels.

Lawrence in this essay tries to explain why the novelist is better than the philosopher or the scientist and in order to do so he explains the importance of the man alive. According to Lawrence the novelist possesses an intricate understanding of the man alive more fully than a parson, a philosopher, or a scientist. The parson speaks about souls in heaven and the afterlife. But for the novelist heaven is in the palm of his hand and the tip of his nose which are alive. The novelist is not concerned about life after death. He is wholly concerned about life at present and with the man alive. The philosopher speaks about infinite knowledge possessed by the pure spirit.  But for the novelist there is no knowledge beyond what the living body can perceive. For philosophers nothing but thoughts is important. These thoughts Lawrence says are nothing but ‘tremulations on the ether’. They are not alive. They are like radio signals floating in the air which are meaningless until they reach the receiver – a radio device that decodes the signals into a meaningful message. Similarly when thoughts are received by a man alive they become meaningful and can alter the man’s life. But the thoughts nevertheless are not alive. It is only because the man alive receives them that they become alive. Only a man alive can be stimulated by thoughts. Thus the living body is more important than the message conveyed by thoughts.

According to Lawrence nothing is more important than life. Living things are more valuable than dead objects. A living dog is better than a dead lion but a living lion is better than a living dog. Lawrence says that scientists and philosophers find it difficult to accept the value of the living. For the philosopher nothing but thoughts matter. For the scientist a living man is of no use. He only wants a dead man whom he dissects and observes under the microscope. For a scientist a man is a heart, a liver, a kidney, a gland or a tissue. But for the novelist the only thing that matters is a whole living man. Lawrence refuses to believe that he is a body or a soul or a brain or a nervous system. He considers himself to be a complete whole made up of all these parts, a whole that is greater and more significant than the individual parts. And for this reason he is a novelist and he considers himself superior to the saint, the scientist or the philosopher.   

Having established the importance of the man alive and the novelist Lawrence proceeds to explain the significance of the novel. Lawrence calls the novel a book of life. According to him books are like thoughts - nothing but ‘tremulations on the ether’. They are meaningful only when a man alive receives them. But he says that the tremulations of a novel are more powerful than any other book and it can make a whole man alive tremble. This means that the novel has the capacity to influence a man more effectively than any other book.  For example the ideals of Plato makes the ideal being in a man tremble. Similarly the sermons or the Ten Commandments affect only a part of a man alive. But a novel is capable of shaking the whole of a man alive. This is because a novel deals in nothing else but man alive. In this regard Lawrence calls the Bible a ‘great confused novel’.  All its characters – Adam, Eve, Sarai, Abraham, Isaac – including God are nothing but man alive. For Lawrence, the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare are all great novels because they communicate to the reader. Their wholeness affects the whole of man alive. They do not stimulate growth in a particular direction but shake the whole man alive into new life.

According to Lawrence the strength and appeal of a novel lies in the dynamic nature of its characters which reflects the importance of constant change in the life of a man alive. Nothing is constant and if something is forced to remain constant it loses its value and power along with the passing of time. There are no absolutes. There is only a constant flow and change and even change is not absolute. A man today is different from what he was yesterday and tomorrow he will be different from what he is today. A man loves a woman because of the constant change in her. It is the change that startles and defies and keeps a man and woman in love with each other. Loving an unchanging person is like loving an inanimate object like a pepper pot. But even amidst change one needs to maintain one’s integrity. However Lawrence says that putting a finger on one individual trait makes one as fixed as a lamp post. It seems as if a man has made up an idea about himself and is trying to trim himself down to fit into it. Lawrence says that one can learn about the importance of change from a novel. In a novel the characters do nothing but live. But if they begin to act according to a fixed pattern – always remaining good or bad – the novel loses its life force. Similarly a man in his life must live and not try to follow a pattern or else he becomes a dead man in life. Lawrence however says that it is difficult to define what is living. Different men have different ideas about what they mean by living in life. Some go to seek God while others seek money, wine, and women, yet others seek votes and political reforms. In this Lawrence says that the novel is a guide which helps to differentiate between a man alive and a man who is dead in life. A man may eat his dinner like a man alive or merely chew his dinner as a dead man in life. A man alive shoots his enemy but a dead man in life throws bombs at people who are neither his friends nor foes.

Finally Lawrence says that the most important thing is to be a whole man alive and the novel provides guidance in this matter. A novel helps a man to see when a man is alive and when he is dead in life. The novel helps to develop an instinct for life. This is because the novel does not advocate a right path or a wrong path. The concept of right and wrong vary according to circumstances. A novel portrays this unpredictable and varying nature of life making the reader realize that life itself is the reason for living. The end result of the novel is the whole man alive.  Thus Lawrence asserts that the novel is a book that can touch the life of a whole man alive and that is why the novel matters.   

The Lake Isle of Innisfree | W.B. Yeats | Summary and Analysis

The Lake Isle of Innisfree is a poem by W.B. Yeats. The poem depicts the longing of the poet to escape his life in the city and find peace and solace in the lap of nature. The poet wants to go to Innisfree which is an uninhibited island in Ireland where the poet spent his childhood. He wants to build a small cabin for himself in the island and grow beans and raise honeybees. He wants a quiet and tranquil life which is contrary to the busy life of the cities. The poem is set in the countryside. The poet makes use of imagery to express his feelings and emotions. The images in the poem are both visual and auditory.

In the first stanza, the poet states his resolution that he would go to Innisfree and lead a solitary life in the island. He would make a small cabin for himself and plant beans and raise honeybees. He wants an escape from the busy life in the city. In the second stanza, the poet describes the natural beauty of Innisfree. He describes the morning mist or fog to be a veil where peace would come dropping like dew drops. The veil of the morning also presents an image of the unspoiled beauty of a bride. The poet describes the midnights of Innisfree as glimmering, which implies a golden glowing starlit sky. The noon is described by the poet to have a purple glow. These images present a contrast of colours which aptly describe the unspoiled natural beauty of Innisfree. In the third stanza the poet repeats his resolution to go to Innisfree. He seems to have woken up from a daydream and suddenly realizes the reality of his surroundings. The poet says that he can hear the sounds of the lapping waters of the lake against the shore of Innisfree even while standing on the grey pavements of the city. The memories of the free life that he lived in Ireland are deeply ingrained in his heart. Therefore the poet desires to leave behind the restrictive life of the city and go back to Innisfree and life his life in peace.

The themes that we come across in the poem include a longing for an ideal pastoral island, escape from city life, trying to go back to the past and the idea of individuality and independence. The rhyme scheme of the poem is abab. The poet also makes use of alliteration and assonance in the poem. The tone of the poem is serene, thoughtful and reflective. The poem depicts the balance and harmony of nature.

The Chimney Sweeper | Songs of experience | Summary and Analysis

This poem titled 'The Chimney Sweeper' appears in the collection Songs of Experience by William Blake and is often read as a counterpart of 'The Chimney Sweeper' in Songs of Innocence. Through this poem Blake criticizes the institutions of the society which exploit small children. The tone of the poem is sarcastic. The poem presents the picture of a ‘little black thing’ standing in the midst of snow. This immediately brings to mind the contrast presented by a dirty black thing in the pristine snow. But this ‘little black thing’ is in fact a child, a chimney sweeper who is covered in snow. Blake refers to the child as a ‘thing’ to show the society’s indifference towards these little children. The child is crying ‘weep’ ‘weep’. This is a reference to the cry of chimney sweepers who are often so young that they pronounce ‘weep’ instead of ‘sweep’. Blake days that the child is crying ‘weep’ ‘weep’ in ‘notes of woe’ which means that the child is actually in pain and therefore weeping. Then the voice of a concerned adult asks the child where his parents were. The child replies that they had gone to the church to pray.

The child then speaks about the miseries of his life. He says that since he was happy and played on the heath and ‘smiled amongst the winter’s snow’, his parents sold him as a chimney sweeper. Winter in England is very harsh and is often referred to as a symbol of suffering and death. Blake says that the child smiled even in the winter’s snow which shows the capacity of children to remain happy irrespective of the circumstances. But it does not mean that they cannot feel pain and this is what adults fail to see. So the child says that his parents clothed him in the ‘clothes of death’. This refers to his dress which is black with soot and also to the hazardous occupation of the chimney sweepers which leads to the death of many children. The child says that they taught him to sing the ‘notes of woe’ again referring to the cry of the chimney sweepers which for the child is equivalent to weeping.

Now the child says that since he is happy and sings and dances his parents the adults think that they have done no injury to him. This again goes back to the child’s capacity to remain happy at all circumstances. Although he is now a chimney sweeper and is suffering he does not express it outwardly and all the adults see is a happy child singing and dancing. Blake here points out the unfeeling attitude of the adults towards children and their inability to understand the psychology of a small child. Finally the child says that his parents have gone to the church to ‘praise God and His Priest and King’ who make a heaven out of the misery of the children. In the last two lines Blake attacks the institutions of the Church and the Monarchy. These institutions of society exploit innocent children and enjoy the benefits of their toil. But in turn the children are left uncared for and they live a life of misery.  

The Chimney Sweeper | Songs of Innocence | Summary and Analysis

The poem “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake appears in his collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence. It is written in the form of a story which is narrated by a small child who works as a chimney sweeper. During Blake’s time the English society employed little, almost infant children as chimney sweepers. Their small size made them the perfect tools to go down the narrow chimneys and clean them while the children themselves remained covered in black soot. Many of these children also faced premature death owing to injuries and constant inhalation of the chimney fumes. They were not cared for and lived in hunger and poverty. The poem depicts the innocence of a small child who can still dream about angels in spite of a cruel society which imposes a life of misery upon him.

The narrator begins by telling the story of his own life. His mother died when he was very young and his father sold him as a chimney sweeper when he could barely utter the word ‘sweep’ and cried ‘weep’ ‘weep’ instead. This refers to the cry of chimney sweepers who go down the street crying ‘sweep’ ‘sweep’, offering their services. But they are often so young that they can only pronounce the word as ‘weep’ ‘weep’. Ironically, the word ‘weep’ here also indicates that the child is actually crying out of pain and hunger. The child says that he sweeps chimneys and goes to bed covered in soot.

The child goes on and narrates the story of Tom Dacre, a young boy who is new to the world of chimney sweepers. His curly white hair is compared to the fleece of a lamb reinforcing the idea of innocence as the motifs of a lamb and a child often represent. He cried when his head was shaved. But the narrator, who already has some experience, comforts his new comrade saying that if he does not have any hair on his head the soot cannot spoil his white hair. This again indicates a child’s innocent logic that he uses to look at misery with a positive attitude.

Then the narrator says that on that very night Tom Dacre had a nightmare. He saw thousands of chimney sweepers along with his fellows- Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack, locked in black coffins. This nightmare may be interpreted as a result of a claustrophobic experience that Tom Dacre may have faced the very first time he went down a chimney. A black coffin also symbolizes death. This again shows the near death experience that the children undergo while they sweep the chimneys.

However, a child’s imaginative capacity is powerful enough to surpass a nightmare and thus Tom Dacre dreams that an angel comes with a key and liberates them from their coffins. They find themselves upon a green plain and run through it down to the river where they wash off their soot and emerge clean and naked, leaving behind their bags and tools. Nakedness is again a symbol of an innocent and pure state of being. Then the children rise upon the clouds and play with the wind, suggesting an image where the children themselves can be viewed as angels. Then the angel tells Tom that if he is a good boy God will always remain by his side.

Thus Tom Dacre and the other children wake up to a dark and cold morning and collect their bags and brushes to go to work. This brings back the image of the harsh reality that the children live in. But Tom feels happy and warm as he now believes that if he does his duty he need not fear harm. The last line brings the tale to a conclusion by providing a moral as is common in children’s stories. But Blake also uses this line to criticize the hypocrisy if the society. It teaches poor and miserable children to do their duty while it reaps the benefit of their labour and then ignores their plight.