string(202) ‘ already written by the present specialist and published in the Research Spectrum \(August-2012 Issue\) includes some tips of the Eco-criticism in Shakespeare’s plays as seen by simply Rabindranath Tagore\. ‘
A Midsummer Night’s Wish: An Ecocritical Interpretation Lieutenant Asit Biswas Bio-Notes: Lieut. Asit Biswas is a great Assistant Teacher, Dept. of English, and Associate NCC Officer, Acharya B.
D. Seal (Govt. ) College or university, Cooch Behar, W. M. ABSTRACT: Shakespeare studies in India started out as early as inside the early decades of the nineteenth century when the Indians almost never engaged in William shakespeare interpretation and so the term ‘ecocriticism’ was unprecedented.
What we imply by the phrase ‘Critical studies of Shakespeare’ started in India in 1917 when Indio College (later on Obama administration College and today Presidency University) was founded. Then simply Shakespeare were now being evaluated coming from an oriental point of view. Some of the people interpretations can be considered ecocriticism. The same thing was done by Purna Chandra Basu (in his article “Sahitye Khoon, G. L. Roy (in his book, Kalidas O Bhababhuti) etc . Eco-criticism as a fictional movement, since Yogesh T.
Tiwari and N. Deb. R. Chandra say, commenced in the 1990s. But ecocritical evaluation of Shakespeare’s plays from American indian point of view can be yet to flourish well. In A Midsummer Night’s Desire one can find variety of elements relevant not only for the scholars of literary works but of environmental research also. The aim of the present enjoy is to reinterpret Shakespeare’ play A Midsummer Night’s Dream from ecocritical point of view and thereby rationalize the contemporaneity of the Bard.
Now-a-days various in many universities in India the students need to read The english language and Environmental Studies as compulsory subjects, Shakespeare like a part of the past. As the students of literature they would always be keen in order to out the cosmetic aspects of the dramas of Shakespeare when belonging to various disciplines they can naturally look for the relevance of William shakespeare in the present framework. So the paper is an attempt to bring out Shakespeare’s anticipations of the environmental problems and thereby demonstrate Shakespeare as a topic of both literary works and environmental studies.
Modern day environmentalism commenced with ‘A Fable intended for Tomorrow’, in Rachel Carson’s Silent Planting season (1962). Mrs. Frederick Boas edited the Cambridge assortment of Tempest Documents, Richard Kerridge N. Shammells published Writing the Environment, Eco-criticism and Books (Zed Books-1998), J. Invinge & M. Coupe posted The Green Studies Reader via Romanticism to Eco-Criticism (by New York, Routeledge-2000), but the many outstanding publication in this discipline is Green Shakespeare by simply Gabriel Egan who says, Crossing he boundaries of literary and cultural studies to draw in governmental policies, philosophy and ecology, this kind of volume not only introduces probably the most lively areas of contemporary Shakespeare studies, nevertheless alsoputs forwarda convincing case for Shakespeare’s continuing relevance to contemporary theory. There is a significant school called as the Association to get the study of Literature and Environment which was were only available in America now has its branches in Japan and UK. It truly is mainly a connection of the eco-critics. The Role of Books in Placing a Value around the Environment: While Daniel B.
Botkin and Edward A. Keller state in their book Environmental Science (5th copy, Page No . 11) the importance of the environment is based on the following justifications: aesthetic, creative, recreational, educational, moral, ethnical and practical (materialistic). Aesthetic justification is due to our appreciation of splendor of characteristics. Many persons prefer surviving in the world of wilderness to one with out it. Rabindranath Tagore produced an instance by leaving the clutter of Calcutta settling down inside the lap of Nature in Santiniketan.
In Shakespeare the Forest of Arden minimizes the bereavement of the Fight it out in Because you Like It. But also in the Duke’s bemoaning to get the corrélation of the forest we notice the tone of voice of an ecologist. It would not really be a digression to say that Tagore’s ecocentrism is once again found in Siksha: Tapoban in his comment on Shakespeare’s plays. Whilst ecology can be described as mother branch of science, ecocriticism is fairly a new department which efforts to establish a relationship between literature and the physical environment.
As Greg Garrard quotes in his book Eco-criticism from Glotfelty’s publication The Eco-criticism Reader: Milestone in Literary Ecology: In other words, eco-criticism is a study of the relationship among literature and physical environment. Just as feminist criticism looks at language and literature by a male or female conscious point of view, and Marxist criticism gives an awareness of modes of production and economic category to their reading of texts, eco-criticism takes an earth-centred method to literary analyze.
Garrard also adds that eco-criticism can be closely associated with environmentally oriented developments in philosophy and political theory. So eco-criticism may be viewed as the analysis of the literary text message from the point of view associated with an ecologist. Another epoch making writing which includes relevance inside our interpretation of A Midsummer Evening of Dream is definitely Simon C. Estok’s research paper named Shakespeare and Ecocriticism: An Analysis of “Home and “Power in King Lear in which the writer explains the main element terms “Anthropocentrism, “Biocentrism/ Ecocentrism and “Ecophobia.
Agreeing with Greg Garrard, Estok says that ecocriticism is not simply the study of characteristics or organic things in literature, somewhat it is virtually any theory that is certainly committed to altering change by simply analysing the function ” thematic, artistic, social, historic, ideological, assumptive, or otherwise” the natural environment, or aspects of it, signifies in paperwork that bring about material procedures in materials world. The explanation of the term ‘ecophobia’ is also very much important in our revaluation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Estok believes that “ecophobia is the fear of loss of firm and control to Nature.
This ecophobia, found in equally Oberon and Titania in A Midsummer Nights Dream, provides birth to several conflicts, the two inner and outer, or perhaps, to say even more explicitly, mental and social (which comes with ecological elements also) which sociological aspects of the perform justify the contemporaneity in the bard. Some minor research functions have been done on this particular topic upon national and international amounts. Some study papers have been published upon eco-criticism in Shakespeare’s series in some magazines, mention can be made of the main one written by Dr .
Subh Brat Sarkar, Rishi Bankim Chandra College, Naihati, W. N. The daily news already written by the present investigator and published in the Study Spectrum (August-2012 Issue) consists of some hints of the Eco-criticism in Shakespeare’s plays because seen simply by Rabindranath Tagore.
In accordance to Nirmal Selvamony, the humans have got introduced a hierarchy in nature. For the reason that the human beings have put the domesticated animals above the wildlife. “Even animals were ranged in hierarchic order, the domestic and the wild (Selvamony 4). But in A Midsummer Night’s Dream the function of the taking over power can be taken by the fairies plus the inferior competition is the individuals. The fairies have entertained the best position inside the hierarchy of Nature plus they subordinate guy and they quarrel in order to make a decision who will ‘domesticate’ the Indian boy who may be the representative of the colonized people.
This type of colonialism present in Nature might be termed ‘Ecocolonialism’ or ‘Eco-imperialism’. In a supernatural drama just like the present one the imperialists are the tooth faries but in reality they are the mighty people and the colonized types may be the flora and fauna or even linguistically, culturally, racially, socially, critical, religiously or perhaps financially less strong section of the folks. In A Midsummer Night’s Fantasy an ecologist easily finds plenty of materials relevant not only to the students of literature although of technology, especially ecology also.
Your beings inside the person of the Indian youngster or the Western lovers are only playthings to the mighty tooth faries. The fairy godmothers play with the humans for his or her own satisfaction and exhibiting their may well and not intended for the enjoyment of the human beings and they take action from anthropocentric point of view. In his Master’s Level dissertation conventional paper, (University of South Florida) Roy Patricia points out the environmental issues in MND simply by referring to “Folk Medicine and the Four Fairies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, simply by Lou Agnes Reynolds and Paul Sawyer who have restored the fairy godmothers from evil associations simply by casting all of them as plant based doctors.
The article points to the strong early on modern desire for the healing use of vegetation and finds that, by the use of this imagery, Shakespeare imbues his fairy characters and the natural remedies with beneficial, therapeutic properties. Reynolds and Sawyer’s points are well taken, but we can develop them even more. Not only do the four worker fairies ” Cobweb, Mustardseed, Peascod and Mote ” represent fairy medicine yet all the actions in the forest also action therapeutically after the lovers. The cambio of love-roles and the dreams of the addicts depend upon Oberon’s extensive understanding of the organic lore of his globe.
As Oberon himself says: “Fare the well, nymph [Helena]. Ere this individual do leave this grove / Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love. (2. 1 . 245-6). In Act-1I, scene-i of from the presentation of Puck we come to be aware that the ruler, Oberon is angry together with the queen, Titania as this lady has seized away a boy from India and made him her servant. “For Oberon can be passing fell and difficulty, / Mainly because she while her attendant hath as well as A lovely boy, stolen via an American indian king. However the king wants to roam regarding the jungles (Nature), together with the boy. Consequently whenever they meet up with, they close.
Titania likewise alleges him of draining of the venom of jealousy. She says that whenever they meet up with they quarrel and as a result wind cannot sing the track of tranquility and is slurping the haze from the surface of the seas and the water level of the seas has been elevated up, the natural system has been interrupted, resulting in unforeseen flood and thereby destruction of huge area of plants and vanished of a range of species. The ever cheerful spring, the scorching summer season, the frowning autumn and the cruel winter months have improved their predicament and so people cannot determine them.
Titania confesses that they can be responsible for this kind of unholy variety of the circuit of conditions. The people simply cannot endure the change of the cycle of seasons, have problems with untimely winter months and also different kinds of diseases due to the change and endangered bio-diversity. In answer the allegation of the queen, the ruler urges her to correct the ecological disproportion as this lady has the power to remedy. The reason of their quarrel is usually clear towards the readers”possession of the boy abducted from India.
Here the quarrel is between a power that has deprived the creature of his all-natural habitat and made him her servant plus the eco-friendly electricity is willing to wander about the forests, along with the innocent creature. But non-e is ready to supply the boy with absolute flexibility and so their particular quarrel will not come to an end right here. The ruler requests the queen to hand the son over to him but the girl with too obstinate to nod. She to be truthful declares that she are not able to lose her control over the boy regardless if she is offered the whole fairy land. Therefore Oberon chooses to use methods.
He recommends Puck to extract the juice of a specific flower which will would behave like black magic and keep its bad influence on Titania’s eye, if implemented properly. It would also be in a position to invert the most common behaviour and natural instinct of a person as in the modern age we come across the wicked influence of narcotics especially in the third world countries. The hazardous effect of the application of drugs upon eco system is mainly felt in the developing countries. Again Titania, admits that their quarrel has ruined the usual course of the organic phenomena and nature features undergone vast changes, creating ocean of troubles to get human beings.
In Act-1, Scene-ii (Lines 81-117) Titania, the Queen with the fairies claims that their very own quarrel features destroyed the usual habits from the natural phenomena and Character has undergone vast changes, creating sea of troubles for people. It may be regarded Shakespeare’s expectation of what McKibben says in his book The End of Nature (1990): We have changed the atmosphere, and thus our company is changing the weather. By changing the weather we make every single spot on the planet man-made or perhaps artificial. We now have deprived mother nature of the independence, and that is fatal to its which means. Nature’s independence is its meaning, ithout it there may be nothing but us. (McKibben 1990: 54) From this connection it may be recalled that India was a favourite business place to the Western countries form the moments of ancient history. And for the only possession of India several battles were to get between the English language and the France and others. The Indian young man in the play is figuratively, metaphorically a colony, an ideal place for business. Now-a-day it may be a normal Indian grow for in whose patent the economic colonialists are at any time fighting among themselves and to supersede one another destroying the eco system in the whole earth.
Recently we all witnessed the war between Iraq and U. H. A. Various reasons could possibly be found out nevertheless the naked simple truth is that the single reason of the notorious battle is only the shameless effort of control over the petroleum mines of the Arabian countries. When the two “do square, that their elves for fear/ Creep in acorn glasses and conceal them there. The peaceful people whenever get terrified, seek refuge in mother nature and it could be kept in mind the best treatment of various pollutions including noise pollution is plantation.
Nature may be the man’s greatest refuge since nature can offer the human beings with everlasting pleasure, both physical and mental. Puck also confesses that he, in order to make an enjoyable and to show his expertise, perturbs the natural habits of an object both animate and inanimate. In modern age the modern Pucks very often ruin the Nature and subordinate the creatures of Nature very often out of fun. Good examples may be presented of the tortured animals inside the circus displays, poachers’ actions etc, moreover, we self applied the animals in the tiergarten.
Keeping chicken cages is actually a favourite yet cruel hobby of a kind of people even after the passage of rules against it. It is not only inhuman and unlawful yet harmful to bio-diversity also. Just lately a television channel telecast a live show of beating thousands of blameless seals to death in Antarctica by a community as it is the gross annual festival in the community. The pain with the poor finalizes, especially the fifty percent dead ones, the fear in the eco system to become disturbed, the melting with the glaciers and thereby upheaval of the marine level cannot render all of them anxious of the future of the the planet.
In this post-Modern age MND is quite relevant and significant since all of us witness the ecological disproportion, extinction of a giant number of kinds, climatic change, global warming, uprising of the ocean level, earth quake, tsunami, El Nino etc . The reason behind such difficulties may be, together with the others, the wars (Gulf war, the long war between Iran and War and of course both World Wars), nuclear explosive device testing and above all severe deforestation. Within the presentation of Titania we appear to hear the voice of your environment man of science or of an ecologist.
It could be noted which the more mighty the power, a lot more strong a destroyer is usually he with this post-Modern Age group. Probably Shakespeare anticipated the natural problems created by the super-human power. The Titanias now-a-days would be the war-mongers carried away of overall power, who have seldom consider the future of the globe. So in this age of technology and technology the revaluation of the performs of William shakespeare is very much significant. In the same Act and scene the speech of Oberon (L-176, 185) is additionally significant.
He speaks from the juice of a flower that is able to hypnotize any man or woman and generate him/her get excited about any animal seen 1st. But the treatment is known to Oberon only. Therefore it may be expected that he wants to dispense the crafty trick only to destroy the natural behavior of a monster and to apply his solution and thus to show his electrical power. In the post-Modern age of economic colonialism this kind of cunning theory is experienced to have return, but with a new dimension. For example the parthenium flower has apparently come from U. S. A. As found in an e-article (http://www. streetdirectory. om) It appears that Parthenium is not native to India, but it came with the brought in wheat like a mixture, when the US sent wheat to India below PL 480 (Public Regulation 480 exceeded in 1954 to give meals grains to developing countries) in 1956. However idea was contradicted by a lot of as not really the real story because Parthenium was within India also in 51 itself. Some people allege that this plant causes asthma in whose medicine would be made in USA and so to be able to sell the medication and to dominate over the subcontinent, the People in the usa sent the parthenium seeds as adulteration with wheat seeds.
Therefore the purpose should be to make the Indians asthma patients and then to trade to them asthma treatments. But we ought to not employ ourselves through this controversy, seeing that we are not talking of worldwide politics although of literary criticism. Here, in the theatre the part of Oberon is like that of a modern capitalist who uses his cunning method to be able to prove his supremacy and thereby rule over the relatively weaker sections and he could be doing this away of ecophobia. Ultimately Oberon, the full realizes the harmful effect of his sporting activities and then he feels remorseful and will take the responsibility so urges his assistant to take care of the errors.
He likewise pacifies his quarrel with Titania, again with the help of similar narcotics. In this article we see the constructive usage of the herbal products. Thus the play ends with a good note and indirectly upholds the banner of Characteristics which is the very best remedy for the revival with the impaired ecosystem. It also opines that man cannot continue to be happy simply by subordinating nature. Now in the age of around the world the takes on of William shakespeare deserve a re-reading. You can recall the peaceful ambiance in the Forest of Arden (As You Like It) and realize that subordination of character cannot bring us mental peace as Tagore realized.
He establishes his opinion by citing examples from As You Like It, Sakuntala etc . In the concluding song Puck desires the audience to consider the play to become dream. We might do but it would not become an overstatement to ponder over it to be a dream of an ecologist because in the play we see what an ecologist will think of the vast modify taken place in environment as a result of modern leaders of the planet. Reference point 1 . Arumugam, E. (2008) Principles of Environmental Ethics, Sarup Many in the publishing industry Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi-2, India. installment payments on your Bookchin, Murray, Anthropocentrism vs biocentrism ” a false dichotomy http://climateandcapitalism. om. 3. Botkin, Daniel M., Keller, Edward cullen A., (2005), Environmental Scientific research, John Wiley, Sons, Incorporation, U. H. A. 5. Estok, Claire C., Shakespeare and Ecocriticism: An Research of “Home and “Power in King Lear, http://simonestok. com. your five. Garrard, G. (2007) Ecocriticism, Routledge, London, uk and Ny. 6. Gifford, Terry: (1999) Pastoral, Routeledge, London and New York. 7. Glotfelty, C. and Fromm, H. (ed) (1996) The Eco-criticism Visitor: Landmark in Literary Ecology, University of Georgia Press, London. almost 8. McKibben, W. (1990), The finish of Mother nature, Penguin, Greater london, 9.
Patricia, Roy, (2004), “Shakespeare’s Midsummer Fairies: Dark areas and Shamen of the Forest, http://scholarcommons. usf. edu/etd/1226 10. Purohit, T. S., Ranjan, Rajiv (2003), Ecology, Environment and Pollution, Agrobios (India), Jodhpur, India. 11. Sarkar, Subh Brat, (2005), “Ecological Theatre: Performance and Ecological Issues (in Prakashkal) Exclusive, Panshila, Sodepur, W. W., India. 12. Selvamony, Nirmal, (2001): “Persons for Option Social Order, Chennai, India. 13. William shakespeare, William, A Midsummer Evening of Dream, Fresh Delhi: Oxford, IBH Submitting Co.
Pvt Ltd., 1980. 14. Tagore, R., (1932) The Faith of Guy, George Allen and Unwin, London. 12-15. Thompson, Jr., E., (1926), Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist, Examine, p. 12, http://en. wikipedia. org. ACCEPTANCE 1 . Doctor Amit Bhattacharya, Associate Teacher, Head, Dept. of British, University of Gour Volas, Malda, W. B., India. 2 . UGC (India) to get MRP (No: F. PHW-131/09-10 (ERO) Time: Sept. ’07, 2009) a few. The Essay was posted in the Intercontinental Journal of Innovative Research and Development (ISSN 2278-0211), Vol-1, Issue-6 September, 2012. www. ijird. com.
