Thank you for posing the question, as it has helped me arrange a few thoughts about both the writers. When you read the works of Tolstoy you get a feeling that you are listening to the words of a saint. Tolstoy's work can be compared to a mighty ocean or a pinnacle of glory beckoning…
Gogol writes with fantastic clarity and energy. His realism is no artificial endeavor. He sees everything exactly as it is. His hero-villain of the novel Pavel-Ivanovich Chichikov is by all means a rogue. But the novelist at no place goes to excesses either to vilify or to redeem his character. He sees him as he…
Reading ‘The Cloak’ by Gogol, I felt the sights and smells of St Peters burg swimming in my head. The poor nameless clerk, loses his cloak and in his effort to retrieve it, he loses his life. Gogol’s effort is not to evoke our pity for the Lilliputian hero (protagonist), but level his subtle sarcasm…
Who is happy in Vanity Fair? Who has not a desire in Vanity Fair? This is a world of charades. The subtitle of the novel “A novel without a hero” appears to be apt as all the characters appear to be flawed to a greater or lesser degree. Among all of them Rebecca Sharp is…
Perhaps not. Chronological record may show John Milton nearer to the likes of Dryden, Pope and Congreve but the spirit of the epic is certainly Renaissance in spirit and the tone certainly classical not neo classical. The story is not ordinary satirical stuff about common things but about justifying the ways of God to man.
Fathers and sons is a sad novel. The wasting of a life; of an existence gone awry, all great ideas strewn to dust in the case of Bazarov, the compromise, the decisiveness in love and marriage, the reflective, unperturbed existence in the case of Kirsanov. These are the major themes of the novel. The novel…
A reflection on Pearl S. Buck’s China, Wang Lung’s devotion to the land, O-lan’s stoicism, and the changing values of a society in transition.
William Wordsworth’s poetry is characterized by the poet’s visionary sympathy with the countryside of his birth, which was more powerful for him than any conventional religion. His association with Nature has given him his true education. His poetry provides an affirmation of the relationship between the natural world and the inner self of man. Nature…
How time passes; I went to Chennai on Friday to attend a meeting. We were put up at the State Guest house Chepauk. I could find some time to adjust some visits into the itinerary. We worshiped Lord Shiva at the Kabaleeswaran Koil Mylapore, the center of Brahmin power in Chennai. I had visited this temple some good 40 years ago.
Wordsworth’s poetry is characterized by the poet’s visionary sympathy with the countryside of his birth, which was more powerful for him than conventional religion. His association with Nature had supplied him his true education.This is followed by his eager political enthusiasm for establishing a just society and his passion for liberty. When these hopes are…